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Saturday, October 20, 2007
Spotted In Melbourne
20 Oct 2007 09:04 pm
Part of a continuing series devoted to Doug Coupland and other Lego nutters.
Now In Paperback
20 Oct 2007 08:38 pm
"As engaging as it is provocative ... It is — unsurprisingly — on matters of religion that he's at his most persuasive. "The Conservative Soul" is grounded in Sullivan's 
tenacious Catholicism, and, as a staunch atheist, I'm impressed by his ability to write plainly, unmawkishly, even movingly, of the intermittent presence of Jesus Christ in his life. He reveres the antiquity of his church, loves the mystery and beauty of its rituals, cherishes the play of nuance and paradox in its theology, but is engaged in a running battle with the present occupant of the Episcopal Palace in Vatican City, Benedict XVI, over the issues of abortion, homosexuality, and, crucially, the role of individual conscience... Sullivan swashbuckles his way through these issues with what seems to me an enviable command of both the relevant science and the relevant theology...
What is so timely about Sullivan's book, and why it should be read closely by liberals as well as conservatives, is its embedded firsthand report on the widening ideological cracks in the house that Rove built — a building that Rove used to boast was permanent and impregnable, and that Sullivan now makes look like a tottering fixer-upper," - Jonathan Raban, New York Review Of Books.
You can buy the book, just out in paperback, here.
Same-Sex Mating In Nature
20 Oct 2007 07:59 pm
Shhhh. Don't tell the Thomists. But some mushrooms seem to exhibit same-sex reproduction. They join many other species of plants and animals where same-sex sex and bonding is common.
Live-Blogging Bennett and Giuliani
20 Oct 2007 07:32 pm
Dave Weigel listens. This on Rudy:
It's not excruciating, but it's close. Giuliani clearly has a few applause lines embedded in this thing, and when he hits one he looks up very fleeting for some audience member who's finally come around. He's met with some scowling granny or a guy with his arms crossed over a Target-bought suit and tie.
From Dave's excerpts, Bennett seems even more shameless than usual:
This is amazing: Bennett's entire speech is crediting Screwtape with the perfidy of liberals and libertarians. Screwtape "might advise" us to do the litany of crimes assigned to Alan Colmes: Abiding by the Geneva conventions, inviting Ahmedenijad to Columbia, so on down the line.
Yep: he also uses the flag pin issue unironically against Obama. They will demagogue anything, won't they?
A Huckabee Landslide
20 Oct 2007 07:04 pm
David Brody has a pretty important post on the FRC poll. It turns out that Ron Paul's strong showing, as often, is related to the Internet. The onsite straw poll shows something quite remarkable: a landslide for Huckabee:
Mike Huckabee 488 ... 51.26%
Mitt Romney 99 ... 10.40%
Fred Thompson 77 ... 8.09 %
Tom Tancredo 65 ... 6.83 %
Romney is the man the Christianist elites thinks has the best shot; but the rank and file like Huckabee, a man who does not believe that human beings evolved from apes. Brody:
Huckabee is poised now to really take off. Why? Two words: Sam Brownback. With Brownback out of the race, many of the votes may go to Huckabee. That could translate into some marginally better poll numbers. Plus, Huckabee can claim victory here and go around the country saying that social conservatives have spoken and that he’s the guy. Romney will make that same claim but don't tell me for a second that the onsite margin differential doesn't have some in the campaign concerned. Maybe because Huckabee is financially challenged, they're not too worried.
Meanwhile, Lowry swoons for a protectionist:
Wow. Let me repeat: Wow. What an incredible communicator. His message has gotten stronger with the accent on Buchanesque nationalist/protectionist notes, and he speaks the language of these kind of voters better than anyone. I found myself getting goose-bumps near the end of his speech when he invoked a long series of Biblical underdogs, beginning with David and his five smooth stones. He made as strong a case as possible for putting all pragmatic considerations aside and going with him. And no one could mistake the shots at Romney, including a reference to candidates who have as many positions as Elvis had sizes to his waist-band. Watch out in Iowa.
(Photo: Stephanie Kuykendal/Getty.)
Ron Paul Trounces Giuliani and McCain
20 Oct 2007 06:48 pm
Yeah, I know the headline is Huckabee's near-victory in the Christianist straw-poll. It's also pretty amazing how poorly Giuliani did. But it's staggering to me that Ron Paul did so well:
1. Mitt Romney ... 27.62 %
2. Mike Huckabee ... 27.10 %
3. Ron Paul ... 14.98%
4. Fred Thompson ... 9.77 %
5. Sam Brownback ... 5.14 %
6. Duncan Hunter ... 2.42 %
7. Tom Tancredo ... 2.30 %
8. Rudy Giuliani ... 1.85 %
9. John McCain ... 1.40 %
I'd say that these results show that the Christianists are far less concerned about the war on terror than the culture war. If Thompson can't beat Huckabee, the entire point of his candidacy is moot. You need a Southern Christianist? You've already got one, guys. Oh, and: They really hate McCain, don't they?
FRC Wrap-Up
20 Oct 2007 06:42 pm
The news tomorrow is going to be that social conservatives are split. When the social conservative leaders meet tomorrow for their post-mortem, they will not be able to push people into supporting Romney.
The split continues. And Rudy is less unacceptable than people thought.
Correction Of The Day
20 Oct 2007 05:53 pm
"The obituary of Doolittle Raider Nolan A. Herndon in Monday's California section gave his nickname as Sue. In fact, he was known only as Nolan Anderson Herndon. In addition, his sons were listed as Nolan A. "Sue" Herndon Jr. and James M. "Debbie" Herndon. Neither son goes by those nicknames; Sue and Debbie are the names of their wives," - Los Angeles Times, October 18.
Polarization and Foreign Policy
20 Oct 2007 03:47 pm
Do the fruits of Rove include the death of bipartisan internationalism in American foreign policy? Charles Kupchan and Peter Trubowitz fear so:
The Bush administration’s brand of international engagement, far from being an aberration, represents a turning point in the historical trajectory of U.S. foreign policy. It is a symptom, as much as a cause, of the unraveling of the liberal internationalist compact that guided the United States for much of the second half of the twentieth century.
The polarization of the United States has dealt a severe blow to the bipartisan compact between power and cooperation. Instead of adhering to the vital center, the country’s elected officials, along with the public, are backing away from the liberal internationalist compact, supporting either U.S. power or international cooperation, but rarely both. … Prominent voices from across the political spectrum have called for the restoration of a robust bipartisan center that can put U.S. grand strategy back on track. … These exhortations are in vain. The halcyon era of liberal internationalism is over; the bipartisan compact between power and partnership has been effectively dismantled.
In retrospect, this may have been a goal of some of the more hard-core neoconservatives all along: to destroy the bipartisan consensus of using force for internationalist ends in the world, and to replace it with raw power, one-party rule at home, and American militarist unipolarity abroad. Today's Republicans have palpable disdain for sharing power with another party - and almost as much discomfort for allies abroad. The Rove project was an attempt not just to defeat but to destroy the Democratic party at home, by cultural polarization, gerry-mandering, a K-Street monopoly and even abuse of the Justice Department. And the neoconservative project is close to degenerating into a program of constant war-making abroad that can be used in turn to polarize the country still further.
(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty.)
Face Of The Day
20 Oct 2007 03:19 pm
Members of the right-wing National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) protest against the construction of a mosque on October 20, 2007 in Frankfurt, Germany. Their posters closely resemble the posters used by the Swiss party SVP in their campaign for the Swiss national elections this Sunday. By Ralph Orlowski/Getty.
The Beauty Of Serendipity
20 Oct 2007 02:29 pm
It's what Oakeshott called "the pursuit of intimations" or what others call dumb luck. Human progress often comes about by accident, improvisation, random confluences, and unintended consequences. Science is often just as prone to this serendipity as other fields of inquiry. Which is good news for America, at least the America that has so far resisted governmental attempts to regulate and control and rationalize it:
It is not just that hypertension drugs led to Viagra or that angiogenesis drugs led to the treatment of macular degeneration, but that even discoveries we claim come from research are themselves highly accidental. They are the result of undirected tinkering narrated after the fact, when it is dressed up as controlled research. The high rate of failure in scientific research should be sufficient to convince us of the lack of effectiveness in its design. … America's primary export, it appears, is trial and error, and the innovative knowledge attained in such a way. Trial and error has error in it; and most top-down traditional rational and academic environments do not like the fallibility of "error" and the embarrassment of not quite knowing where they're going. The U.S. fosters entrepreneurs and creators, not exam-takers, bureaucrats or, worse, deluded economists. So the perceived weakness of the American pupil in conventional studies is where his or her very strength may lie.
Dumbledore!
20 Oct 2007 12:59 pm
Let's run the gay-check, shall we? No known female companion ever. Brilliant in school. Befriends a despised classmate. Childhood crush on another boy. Morally unsparing. Extremely attuned to and horrified by cruelty. Then this:
Characters in the books often remark that his greatest weakness is his willingness to trust those who may otherwise be considered untrustworthy. This trust is often criticised by those around him but is rarely questioned. He is frequently shown to have a great sense of humour, and often has a whimsical sense about him, especially during conflict, which can often infuriate those who are at odds with him. He is hardly ever impatient, and makes a point of politeness, even to those whom one would consider his enemies. He is a great lover of music, calling it "A magic beyond all we do [at Hogwarts]."
Oh: and he "did things with a wand [the examiner had] never seen before". Ahem.
Dissent Of The Day
20 Oct 2007 12:10 pm
A reader writes:
It seems to me that your chief purpose in life is to quarrel with the rest of the conservative community - not to end torture. If that latter was your aim (and a much more worthy aim it is) then you wouldn't cherry-pick quotations the way you did with Jonah Goldberg. Why not show your readers the whole thing:
Sullivan might look to his absolutism on torture for guidance. He takes the principled stand that anything that smacks of torture must be absolutely taboo, even though his assertions on what is and isn't torture ultimately boil down to his own subjective judgments. In fact, with some caveats, I've basically moved to that basic position myself
Jonah is agreeing with you, you jackass. If you were the least bit charitable, you might acknowledge this fact. He is merely noting that different people have different points at which they would personally draw the line and classify something as torture - so he wants to ban any interrogation method that "smacks of torture". Don't you realize that a united front of conservatives who expressed this opinion forcefully - say in an open letter to the President - might actually make a difference. This is why conservatives like me have been so incensed by your approach to this issue. So far, you have used it for the purpose of moral preening, as a wedge issue to divide conservatives.
I don't actually think the issue is that complicated. Whether or not you think X is torture or not and whether you think it may yield useful intelligence or not is irrelevant. The use of torture or even the apparent use of torture is hurting the image and honour of the United States and thus hurting the war effort on the diplomatic and ideological fronts. It just isn't worth it. If you would concentrate on getting this message across, I don't think you would find too many people who would disagree with it.
Well, I have used this argument repeatedly. And I have used others. I think in retrospect that I should have acknowledged Jonah's concession with a lot more grace than I did. If my work has served to alienate people I need to persuade, then I need an attitude adjustment. I can only offer in defense that no issue has, in my view, hurt the US or the ability to maintain both an international and national consensus on the core morality of the war against Islamist terrorism than America's embrace of torture. And the ways in which conservatives have sought to deny, obscure or even defend this have appalled and, yes, angered me.
Perhaps if I didn't believe in conservatism's core decency I would not be as angered by its slide into indecency. That's where the bad attitude comes from. But it shouldn't cloud the effort to stop this evil, with as many allies as we can muster.
Quote for the Day II
20 Oct 2007 11:57 am
"We've got to find a way to be more inclusive. Christianity is all about inclusiveness. It's built around the most profound act of love in human history, isn’t it" - Rudy Giuliani, among the Christianists this morning.
The View From Your Window
20 Oct 2007 11:24 am
Chicago, Illinois, 5.48 pm.
Genetics And "Race"
20 Oct 2007 11:22 am
I hesitate to re-enter an area of discussion which, given my own intrepid experience of trying to foment a sane discussion of The Bell Curve over a decade ago, you'd think I'd know to avoid by now. But I find it fascinating, and one of the areas in which science is, I believe, going to challenge many assumptions of right-thinking liberalism. The comments of Richard Watson have revived discussion of the subject and you can find the conventional left-liberal view here, echoed by Crooked Timber. In general, when I read scientific accounts that include passages like the following, my eyes roll when they don't glaze over:
While acknowledging that science is often used for positive purposes, including ones that benefit communities of color, social justice advocates must remain vigilant. All technologies, including new genetic technologies, develop in a political, economic and social context, says Patricia Berne of the Center for Genetics and Society, a public affairs nonprofit based in Oakland, California. "The broader political left has not really grappled with the ways these technologies affect our claim to resources, our claim to rights, and the well-being of our communities," she notes.
Vigilance? Against science? Who knew? Left-liberals, of course, like the use of DNA to exonerate innocent suspects but they're not so happy when this kind of thing happens:
DNA led to the 2004 conviction of an African American suspected of multiple serial murders in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Initially, police sought a white suspect, based on eyewitness testimony and the assumption that most serial killers are Caucasian. But the case took a turn when a technology firm, DNA Print Genomics, offered to analyze the sample from the crime scene. Their test concluded that the suspect was "85 percent sub-Saharan African and 15 percent Native American" and therefore medium- to dark-skinned black, not white.
Hold on a minute. If race is entirely a social construct, how can DNA reveal it? The answer, of course, is that it isn't just a social construct all the way down. Our DNA is inherited; and that inheritance has complex patterns. You can, of course, define these patterns any way you like. And crude racial categories are not in any way supported by the data. But sophisticated, subtle DNA differences that can indeed reflect a constellation of factors in a human being can be seen in some respects as a racial category. And we can tell someone's genealogy from their DNA. The best layman's guide to this I've read recently is in a NYT piece two years ago. Check it out. The critical bottom line:
A 2002 study by scientists at the University of Southern California and Stanford showed that if a sample of people from around the world are sorted by computer into five groups on the basis of genetic similarity, the groups that emerge are native to Europe, East Asia, Africa, America and Australasia - more or less the major races of traditional anthropology... The billion or so of the world's people of largely European descent have a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else; they are a race. At a smaller scale, three million Basques do as well; so they are a race as well. Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences.
As I've noted, the variations within some of these groups are larger than many of the variations between them. But that race does in some way exist as an essential fact of human nature - that these differences render the assumption of an utterly homogeneous human race bogus - seems to me indisputable. The social and political ramifications of this deserve a different and deeper treatment - as does the IQ discussion as it relates to this. But that race exists in nature seems to me to be as obvious as the fact that genealogy exists in nature. We need vigilance against abuse of the truth, not against the truth itself.
Is A Recession Looming?
20 Oct 2007 10:44 am
Clive Crook provides some sobering analysis:
The dollar's gradual decline -- welcome in itself, as part of a needed adjustment of international economic imbalances -- creates a background of steady inflationary pressure. The currency's slide threatens at any moment to become a sudden plunge, and if that happens the Fed's duty to guard against inflation will conflict with its desire to stabilize output and employment. An oil price that now stands at nearly $90 a barrel does nothing to ease the Fed's inflation worries. And another big complication is the risk that what may start as a mild recession will reinforce itself -- again through the housing market. Distressed debtors and foreclosures are already on the rise and the economy is still strong. What would a downturn do to those housing market numbers, and how would they then feed back on the broader economy?
If the economy slides, the prospects for the Republicans next November seem to me to come close to dire.
Quote for The Day
20 Oct 2007 09:40 am
"When the story of humankind and its intellect has gone to its end, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no additional mission which would lead it beyond human life. Rather, it is human, and only its possessor and begetter takes it seriously–as though the world’s axis turned in its midst. But if we could communicate with the gnat, we would learn that he likewise flies through the air with the same solemnity, that he feels the flying center of the universe within himself. There is nothing so reprehensible and unimportant in nature that it would not immediately swell up like a balloon at the slightest puff of this power of knowing. And just as every porter wants to have an admirer, so even the proudest of men, the philosopher, supposes that he sees on all sides the eyes of the universe telescopically focused upon his action and thought," - Friedrich Nietzsche.
An Inconvenient Truth
20 Oct 2007 08:36 am
A liberal quandary: do I like my craft beers cheap or do I want to increase production of ethanol?
Friday, October 19, 2007
Contra Goldberg
19 Oct 2007 11:27 pm
This statement is about as misleading and as false as Jonah's distortions of the arguments in The Conservative Soul:
[Sullivan's] assertions on what is and isn't torture ultimately boil down to his own subjective judgments.
What to say about this, except that it is either a function of complete ignorance of my work on the subject or deliberate misrepresentation? My view of what torture is is grounded in the plain language of US law, in the plain English of what torture has always meant, and in the clear precedents of American legal and military judgment. It is based on the Geneva Conventions, American law, American history and the consensus of the entire civilized world for a very long time. And it is grounded in what conservatives themselves used to say about the subject - when waterboarding was used by the Khmer Rouge, when hypothermia, sleep deprivation and stress positions were used by the KGB and when the exact techniques used by Bush were deployed by the frigging Gestapo.
In fact, my own objective view of this matter was utterly conventional wisdom among conservatives and neoconservatives for my entire lifetime ... until the Bush administration. The idea that this is somehow now a purely subjective judgment - an assertion Goldberg makes without ever addressing the many historical and legal arguments I have made - is simply a smear, not an argument.
Romney and the Christianists
19 Oct 2007 09:50 pm
He aims to please - and Ambinder thinks he is making real progress:
When doctrinally sensitive Southern Baptist leaders start to support Romney (over former Southern Baptist ministers), Fred Thompson has, at most, a few weeks to prevent his cup from runnething over.
Torture In History
19 Oct 2007 08:37 pm
The notion that "torture" has never meant forms of coercive interrogation short of electrocuting someone's balls or tearing their fingernails out (this seems to be Bush's and Bret Stephens' comic book position) is simply disproved by history. I've proved beyond any doubt or rebuttal that the United States itself treated Bush's torture techniques as torture and prosecuted them as war crimes during the Second World War. But the understanding that torture is indeed the precise term for hypothermia, stress positions, confinement, extreme isolation and the like goes back a long, long way. A reader writes:
I've been doing some research on Elizabethan torture warrants lately (don't ask). Elizabeth I was the most prolific user of royal torture warrants in English history, issuing (or having issued) 53 of the 81 warrants that have survived. (There were almost certainly more, though not that many, but the details of that story don't affect the point. If you want to check it out, Torture and the Law of Proof by John H. Langbein has all you need to know.)
Among the things John Yoo would not have considered torture but the Elizabethan torture commissioners at the tower did include confinement in a dungeon with rats (Thomas Sherwood, 17 Nov. 1577, during an investigation of one of the plots against Elizabeth); manacles -- essentially a stress position, as the manacled prisoner is lifted to the point where his feet do not support his weight, all of which pulls on the suspended wrists of the victim (several times through Elizabeth's reign); whipping (Humfrey "a boy" for burglary in 1580 -- note that Jesus too would have had some knowledge of Humfrey's suffering) and "Little Ease" -- confinement in a cell so small that the inhabitant could not sit, nor stand, nor move. This was used on several occasions including the case of George Beesley, a priest in violation of the Anglican acts in 1591.
Continue reading "Torture In History" »
Rudy Or Hillary?
19 Oct 2007 07:18 pm
A reader writes:
You seem very very angry about both Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani-as well you should be. But the truth of the matter is that the two of them are going to survive the primaries and run against each other for President. What then? Which one will you pick? Will you go for the lesser of two evils or will you abstain? This isn't a theoretical question. It's going to happen, and your venom at the two is heightening daily.
The reality is: it may not happen. And I'll do whatever I can to describe what I think are the drawbacks of Clinton's and Giuliani's candidacies while we still have a chance to stop them. As to what I'll do if they become the nominees, and we all have the grim task of deciding between two evils, let's just say I'll jump off that bridge when I get to it.
The Core Bullshit Issues
19 Oct 2007 06:17 pm
The Onion homes in on what the voters really care about. I love this quote about Clinton "not just talking bullshit but living it":
Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
Safe For Work After All
19 Oct 2007 05:33 pm
Swearing in the office can make sense sometimes:
Banning swear words and reprimanding staff might represent strong leadership, but could remove key links between staff and impact on morale and motivation, he said.
"We hope that this study will serve not only to acknowledge the part that swearing plays in our work and our lives, but also to indicate that leaders sometimes need to 'think differently' and be open to intriguing ideas.
The Debate Over Israel
19 Oct 2007 05:09 pm
I haven't written much about the Walt-Mearesheimer book because it's long and I haven't had time to read it. (There's a concept: a blogger not posting about something he knows nothing about.) But it is interesting, it seems to me, that the debate about the Middle East does indeed feel freer in Israel than in the US, where some American Jews have a defensiveness and anger that makes calm debate very difficult. (I guess I should add that my impression of the Walt-Mearesheimer book - I did read the original article - is that it's shoddy enough to merit Jewish defensiveness and anger. Sigh.) Here's an interesting piece on the press debate in Israel and the US. Matt comments here. Megan offers her suggested reasons for the discrepancy between the much better-informed and more diverse debate in Israel. Money quote:
1) No one in Israel is worried about being called anti-semitic.
2) Ethnic groups in safe exile tend to be more committed to territorial possession than the people back home who actually have to get shot at in order to obtain or retain the land. This is certainly true of the Irish.
3) Being correct about Israel/Palestine matters a lot more in Israel than it does in America. People expressing views here (or in Europe) are more often staking out ethnic or political solidarity with a cause. People in Israel have a certain level of solidarity assumed, and are in a high-stakes battle for the lowest cost solution, which permits and even demands a wider breadth of views.
4) Newspapers in Israel are just better than newspapers here.
I'll take the first three.
The Clintons And Executive Power
19 Oct 2007 04:29 pm
Radley Balko struggles to find much daylight between the Clintons and Bush-Cheney in critical respects:
It's difficult to see Hillary Clinton voluntarily handing back all of those extra-constitutional executive powers claimed by President Bush. Her husband's administration, for example, copiously invoked dubious "executive privilege" claims to keep from complying with congressional subpoenas and open records requests—claims the left now (correctly, in my view) regularly criticizes the Bush administration for invoking.
Hillary Clinton herself went to court to keep meetings of her Health Care Task Force secret from the public, something conservatives were quick to point out when leftists criticize Vice President Cheney's similar efforts to keep meetings of his Energy Task Force secret.
"I'm a strong believer in executive authority," Clinton said in a 2003 speech, recently quoted in The New Republic. "I wish that, when my husband was president, people in Congress had been more willing to recognize presidential authority."
That jibes with a February 2007 New York Times article on Clinton explaining her refusal to back down from her vote for the Iraq war: "Mrs. Clinton's belief in executive power and authority is another factor weighing against an apology, advisers said... she believes that a president usually deserves the benefit of the doubt from Congress on matters of executive authority."
Such is why President Bush has recently had some nice things to say about Hillary Clinton, leading some to speculate that Bush sees her as the Eisenhower to his Truman—a candidate from the opposing party who criticizes his foreign policy during the campaign, but will likely pursue a very similar policy should she be elected.
You want a change from the Bush era? Only pure partisans think a third term for a Clinton co-presidency would do it. Yes, it would give every partisan Democrat a thrill. But if you care about the damage done by this president to the constitutional order, don't believe for a minute that the Clintons would reverse it. They love their power.
The Greenest States
19 Oct 2007 03:13 pm
Even Forbes is getting more enviro-friendly. But the greenest states are still mainly blue:
On top: Vermont, Oregon and Washington. All have low carbon dioxide emissions per capita (or "carbon footprints"), strong policies to promote energy efficiency and high air quality, as indicated by their major metro areas that are low in smog and ozone pollution. They're also among the states with the most buildings (on a per capita basis) that have received the U.S. Green Building Council's benchmark certification, known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).
A clutch of Eastern states round out the top 10.
Christianist-majority states tend to care less about God's creation.
How Gay Is The Vatican?
19 Oct 2007 02:46 pm
Even gayer than the GOP? We may finally be about to find out.
The Unchecked Executive
19 Oct 2007 02:44 pm
A reader writes:
It's not just Bush-Cheney. The Clinton Administration argued in court (1) that the president is exempt from regular legal process while serving in office, and (2) that Secret Service officers are prohibited from testifying about any crimes they may witness in the White House. I have yet to hear the Democratic front-runner asked whether she agrees with her husband's views on this.
Fortunately neither argument prevailed in court. The argument on the first point was that the constitutional provision for impeachment is the sole method by which legal process may touch a sitting president, who otherwise is cloaked with immunity for any actions he may take, whether personal or professional. The argument on the second point was that because the president is the personification of the law, protecting the person of the president outweighed any other obligation that law enforcement officers would have, such as enforcing the law.
But, of course, the president is not above the law, nor is the president the personification of the law -- except in Bill Clinton's and Dick Cheney's dreams. And Hillary Clinton's? I'd like to know.
One small point. The total secrecy of Dick Cheney's meetings over energy policy in his first term did have one obvious precedent: Hillary Clinton's secret meetings about healthcare policy in her first term as co-president. If you are concerned about the abuse of executive power - as in, say, I don't know, pardons? - then it's hard to see, given their records, how returning the Clintons to the White House will solve our problems.
Face of the Day
19 Oct 2007 01:56 pm
Kurdish villagers watch the Turkish army commandos in the village of Senoba near the southeastern Turkish city of Sirnak, October 19, 2007. Perched on a hillside overlooking the mountainous northern Iraqi border, Kurds in the southeastern Turkish city of Sirnak are nervously monitoring preparations for a possible cross-border military operation. Iraq anticipates only limited Turkish air strikes on Kurdish separatists in the north of the country and wants the guerrillas to leave as soon as possible, Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Thursday. By Burak Kara/Getty Images.
Dolchstoss Watch
19 Oct 2007 01:39 pm
Buried beneath the blather, Scott Johnson is clearly accusing Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership of raising the Armenian genocide resolution at this time to sabotage the war effort in the Middle East. Charles Krauthammer aired the "stab-in-the-back" meme only to dismiss it - an act of Insta-level passive aggression. But Powerline goes there:
I doubt that stupidity is a sufficient explanation in this case.
Which leaves treason, right?
Comment Of The Day
19 Oct 2007 01:13 pm
"In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown." Clinton has enlisted the aid of Chinese neighborhood associations, especially those representing recent immigrants from Fujian province. The organizations, at least one of which is a descendant of Chinatown criminal enterprises that engaged in gambling and human trafficking, exert enormous influence over immigrants. The associations help them with everything from protection against crime to obtaining green cards. Many of Clinton's Chinatown donors said they had contributed because leaders in neighborhood associations told them to. In some cases, donors said they felt pressure to give," - a commenter on Ben Smith's blog. For some reason, Smith wants to downplay what will doubtless be one of a series of sleazy stories to come out of the Clinton machine. Does no one remember the 1990s?
Thompson With The Christianists
19 Oct 2007 12:31 pm
He's opening his heart on abortion:
"My political record and my head were always there, always has been there, but I must say that it took life's experiences for me to absorb the real importance of it all. I had been blessed early in my life when I was young...and I have been blessed when I was not so young. I've had the the ultimate tragedy that a father can have and the ultimate blessing that a father can gave. With regard to Ms. Hayden, I can only say that after the first time in my life, seeing the sonogram of my own child. I will never think exactly the same again. I will never feel exactly the same again. Because my heart now is fully engaged with my head."
A standing ovation.
No To Mukasey
19 Oct 2007 12:02 pm
I understand Mukasey is supposed to be a reasonably good guy, by comparison with the run of Bush appointees. But if Mukasey won't say that waterboarding is torture and claims that the President has some undefined power to violate statute law — even criminal laws, such as the ban on torture and other war crimes — under his "Article II powers," then why should the Senate Judiciary Committee even bring his nomination to a vote? If he says he hasn't read the latest torture memos or decided whether waterboarding is torture, Sen. Leahy ought to tell him to read the memos and observe a waterboarding session and come back when he's done his homework.
Matt calls him "completely unacceptable." Having read the testimony, I'm afraid I have to abandon my early hopes and agree. An attorney general who believes a president has a permanent right to ignore the rule of law because peacetime is now wartime for ever, is an attorney-general defending the rule of one man over the rule of law. If I were a Senator, (heh, indeed) I'd vote no. This is the faultline of our time. If we are redefining war as a permanent state of being, and redefining presidential authority to give him/her extra-legal and extra-constitutional power to what s/he wants anywhere in the world, including the United States and to its citizenry, then American liberty is in extreme peril. To approve an attorney general who does not dissent from this position is a terrible precedent.
Don't people see that this is what Cheney is doing? He is setting precedent after precedent for totalist, secret executive power. And with each precedent for unchecked, uncontrollable executive power - including the power to detain and torture within the United States - the America we have known is being surrendered. This is the other war - a constitutional war at home against American liberty and the Constitution - as dangerous in a different way as Islamism. One attacks our freedom from the outside; the other hollows out our freedom from within. The fight against both is the calling of the time.
I think we're in denial about this. Following Mukasey's statements with confirmation would set a precedent we may well deeply regret. Think of another terrorist attack. Think of the Cheney precedents. Think of Giuliani in the White House. Now think of what would be left of democracy and the Constitution the day after.
(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty.)
Quote For The Day
19 Oct 2007 11:38 am
"Who, of all the powerful women in American politics right now, has inspired the unease, dismay and frank dislike that she has? Condi Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein? These are serious women who are making crucial decisions about our national life every day. They inspire agreement and disagreement; they fight and are fought with. But they do not inspire repugnance. Nobody hates Barbara Mikulski, Elizabeth Dole or Kay Bailey Hutchison; everyone respects Ms. Rice and Ms. Feinstein.
Hillary's problem is not that she's a woman; it's that unlike these women--all of whom have come under intense scrutiny, each of whom has real partisan foes--she has a history that lends itself to the kind of doubts that end in fearfulness. It is an unease and dismay based not on gender stereotypes but on personal history," - Peggy Noonan on She Who Is Inevitable.
The Weekly Standard vs Ron Paul
19 Oct 2007 11:21 am
They despise him more than the left because he represents a different kind of conservatism. And so Michael Goldfarb argues that I mislabeled the data on military support for Ron Paul in this post, where I touted military donations to Obama and Paul. It's all donors connected to the military, not active service military members. He's right. I mislabeled. But as Goldfarb also notes, the data from active service members is basically the same with a twist: Ron Paul comes first among Republicans, but Obama beats him over all. The point stands. It's staggering to me that military donors are supporting the two clearly anti-war candidates in the race. I know that's a message The Weekly Standard doesn't want to hear. For them, war is as much an end as a means. Soldiers don't always feel that way. Maybe because they see what it actually is.
Mark Penn's 24 Percent
19 Oct 2007 11:15 am
Are you sitting down? Because if we have a Clinton Restoration, this kind of explanation is going to be coming at us quite often:
I was looking recently at Republican women voters (core Republicans and Republican leaners), and their support for Hillary has doubled in the last few months to 13 percent, from less than 6 percent. Also quite interestingly, "Don't Knows" surged to 11 percent, so a total of 24 percent would either vote for her or consider voting for her.
How it takes me back ...
Syria and Nukes
19 Oct 2007 10:51 am
Another Cheney moment?
Allegations that a Syrian envoy admitted during a United Nations meeting Oct. 17 that an Israeli air strike hit a nuclear facility in September are inaccurate and have raised the ire of some in the US intelligence community, who see the Vice President’s hand as allegedly being behind the disinformation.
A United Nations press release discussing the General Assembly’s Disarmament Committee meeting mistranslated comments ascribed to an unnamed Syrian diplomat as saying that Israel had on various occasions “taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack in Syria.”
The UN has since gone through the tape recordings of the meeting and found that there was no mention of the word “nuclear” at all. According to the UN, the error was one of translation, involving several interpreters translating the same meeting.
Men and Balls
19 Oct 2007 10:32 am
Eye-tracking technology can reveal some interesting things about what men and women are really looking at at a baseball game. (Update: my husband, who is never wrong, reminds me I already posted about this sans graphic.)
Genes, Race And IQ
19 Oct 2007 08:17 am
A reader writes:
One thing Watson and others forget is that the brain is highly malleable based on environment. Although he is the father of DNA he knows very little about neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. Previously it was thought that the human brain was 'hardwired' after a certain age. This is not true. Not only is not true, but the human mind is capable of adaptation but actual neuron growth even late in life. Ten years ago this was thought impossible.
Neurogenesis and neuroplasticity proves that a nurturing social and family setting shifts IQ, perspective, and emotional IQ. The so-called bell curve isn't genetic. Oppressed Tibetans and Chinese ethnic minorities -whose test scores soar in the United States and Canada- are 20-30 points lower in their homeland. That 20-30 points deficit is in the same range of a lot of groups that are attacked or threatened (Muslims in France, Christians in Nigeria, Blacks in America). Conversely when oppressed groups are removed from their environment their IQ, emotional health returns to a normal rate, thus proving that is NOT genetic.
Continue reading "Genes, Race And IQ" »
"Reverent Agnosticism"
19 Oct 2007 07:41 am
A. J. Jacobs writes:
By the end of the year, I had moved from my old agnosticism to what a minister friend of mine calls "reverent agnosticism": Whether or not there is a God, I think there's something to the idea of sacredness. The Sabbath can be sacred, rituals can be sacred, and there's an importance to that. Do you think there's anything to the idea of being a "reverent agnostic"? Or is it just oxymoronic?
Matt Labash and Stephen Colbert think it is. And if you think faith is a one-off, moment-of-total-revelation from which everything else follows, then I can see their point. But this, of course, does not exhaust the varieties of religious experience, to echo James. And there are times when intelligent believers, in periods of doubt or just spiritual drought, pray without assurance the God is truly there; or attend Mass or other services and feel and see nothing. But they still show up; and they still pray: unsure but still aware that what is beyond us will not always be clear to us, and the the struggle to believe is as important as the achievement. If this is "reverent agosticism," then it is another phrase for thinking faith. J.K. Rowling speaks to it in the Harry Potter books. Here's a recent quote of hers, debunking the notion that somehow her work is anti-Christian. It isn't. It's just not fundamentalist. Money quote:
"The truth is that, like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes that my faith will return. It’s something I struggle with a lot. On any given moment if you asked me [if] I believe in life after death, I think if you polled me regularly through the week, I think I would come down on the side of yes — that I do believe in life after death. [But] it’s something that I wrestle with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that’s very obvious within the books."
Or as Montaigne put it:
"Some impose upon the world beliefs they do not hold; others, more in number, impose beliefs upon themselves, not being able to penetrate into what it really is to believe."
(Photo: Peter McDiarmid/Getty.)
Colbert and the GOP
19 Oct 2007 06:53 am
A reader writes:
I don’t know if you saw this in the NYT yesterday:
"Katon Dawson, the chairman of the state Republican Party, ... was far more dismissive of Mr. Colbert’s apparent intentions than his Democratic counterparts. "My advice," he said in an interview, “is that he could probably have more fun buying a sports car and getting a girlfriend."
Since Mr. Colbert is married, I think what Mr. Dawson is trying to say is, in order to fit into the Republican Presidential field properly; he needs to spend beyond his means and engage in an adulterous relationship. We have all seen that is what’s required to fit in with the modern Republican Party, but I am at a loss as to why he needed to spell it out so plainly.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Republican Women For Clinton?
18 Oct 2007 08:24 pm
What is Mark Penn smoking, apart from complacency? He claims a quarter of Republican women will vote for Clinton. Drudge blared it in his new role as Clinton's publicity arm. WaPo points out that if this were to happen, Clinton
would significantly outperform any Democratic candidate since 1972 among this group of voters. In exit polls from 1972 to 2004, an average of 9 percent of GOP women voted for Democratic candidates...
In the latest Post-ABC poll, 80 percent of Republican women said they definitely would not support Clinton if she were the Democratic nominee. Fewer said so of Obama or Edwards. Only 11 percent said they would vote for her in a general election match-up against Rudy Giuliani.
11 percent? 24 percent? Who's counting? Obama adviser Joel Benenson adds:
In a recent Cook/RT Strategies Poll, in a head-to-head match-up against Rudy Giuliani, Clinton won only 7% of Republican women voters. Indeed, more Democratic women crossover to the Republican side to vote against Clinton—9% - than Republican women crossover to vote for her.
The Clinton lies are already under way.
Quote For The Day II
18 Oct 2007 07:55 pm
"This is like a lighthouse going on, the light shining its beam on Mitt Romney," - Albert Mohler on Hugh Hewitt's radio show. Yes, an institution that untilo very recently banned inter-racial dating and engaged in brutal anti-Catholic bigotry is now a light shining on Mitt Romney, a man who belonged to a church which, in his lifetime, barred African-Americans from the priesthood and temple ceremonies. Ah, the GOP. They don't even pretend any more, do they?
Merit Pay For Hacks?
18 Oct 2007 07:25 pm
As Cartman would say, why the fuck not?
Questions For The GOP Candidates
18 Oct 2007 07:12 pm
John Cole has some:
1.) "Would you have sex with a man to stop a terrorist attack?"
2.) "If lowering taxes results in increased revenues then would lowering taxes to zero result in infinite revenues?"
3.) "If you had a time machine, would you travel back in time and abort Bin Laden?"
4.) "Would you torture and kill Jesus to ensure mankind’s salvation? And how does that work?"
Just beat Jesus repeatedly and put him in a stress-position for several hours. That's not torture, according to John Yoo. Oh, wait ...
Funding Homophobia In Africa
18 Oct 2007 06:28 pm
The Bush administration may not have meant this (yes, I know, the benefit of the doubt again) but it comes with the territory when you're funding abstinence-only programs in Uganda. Ed Brayton comments here.
Researchers Discover Altruism
18 Oct 2007 06:04 pm
And it took the "Bowling Alone" Internet, of course:
“This finding was both novel and unexpected,” says Denise Anthony, associate professor of sociology. “In traditional laboratory studies of collective goods, we don’t include Good Samaritans, those people who just happen to pass by and contribute, because those carefully designed studies don’t allow for outside actors. It took a real-life situation for us to recognize and appreciate the contributions of Good Samaritans to web content.”
"Islamophobofascism"
18 Oct 2007 05:25 pm
A new front in the semantic wars:
Not all Islamophobes are fanatics. Most, on the contrary, are decent people who just want to live in peace. Islamophobia forms only part of their identity. They grew up fearing Islam, and they still worry about it from time to time, especially during holidays and on certain anniversaries; but many would confess to doubt about just how Islamophobic they feel deep down inside. They may find themselves wondering, for example, if the Koran is really that much more bloodthirsty than the Jewish scriptures (Joshua 6 is plenty murderous) or the Christian (Matthew 10:34 is not exactly comforting).
Unfortunately a handful of troublemakers thrive among them, parasitically.
Continue reading ""Islamophobofascism"" »
The War In Africa
18 Oct 2007 05:03 pm
A reader writes:
I read your blurb on Africom this morning. I was in Mali (in the desert town of Timbuktu - lo, it exists!) last month, and saw a bunch of very clean-cut Army types riding around in SUVs and reading novels in the airport lounge. My Tuareg friend told me they were part of the new US counterterrorism initiative in the region, still in its embryonic stage. I think the Examiner piece was unfortunate in its wording about the Sahel situation, though, because it makes Tuaregs generally look like extremist Muslim militants. They are not and are very much a part of what is unique and intangible (to Westerners) about the Sahel's deep rooted and nomadic culture. They are loyal to no one.
There is a Tuareg faction in the north that is working w Al Qaeda and has always caused trouble, especially in Mali.
Continue reading "The War In Africa" »
A War On Christmas Defense Kit
18 Oct 2007 04:45 pm
The culture-war season starts earlier every year.
Reading Your DHS Files
18 Oct 2007 04:24 pm
The department of Fatherland Security already knows a huge amount you - and what your travel plans are. Here's an easy way to get access to the unclassified parts of the government's files on you.
Robot-Love
18 Oct 2007 04:02 pm
They're getting more and more sophisticated:
She looked at me with her motion detectors as I rubbed the piezoelectric sensor between her thighs. Then I spun the potentiometers that jutted out from her chest like nipples. But it wasn't until I stroked the piezosensor on the back of her neck that she began to moan, first quietly and then loudly, like a thousand women reaching orgasm together.
Kids and God Online
18 Oct 2007 03:55 pm
3.7 million viewings - and not on YouTube:
Mulling Mukasey
18 Oct 2007 03:41 pm
None of the statements that I’ve read today give me any real information or reassurance about what he will do as Attorney General. Not without a specific denunciation of the 2004 and 2005 OLC torture memos; or a willingness to say that specific techniques like waterboarding, hypothermia, and painful stress positions are banned; or a pledge to release the publicly release the legal justifications for “enhanced interrogation” & wireless surveillance instead of treating the administration’s constitutional law arguments as state secrets. The statements that “I categorically denounce torture,” “the United States doesn’t torture,” “torture is antithetical to our values”—they are meaningless from members of this administration. It’s past time for the press to learn this, and to stop writing credulous headlines about how the “Attorney General Nominee Rejects Torture.” But I doubt that’s going to happen when the Democrats abdicate and fail to ask hard questions.
Amen to all that. And: sigh.
Mental Health Break
18 Oct 2007 03:32 pm
My favorite Monty Python sketch ever:
Race and IQ
18 Oct 2007 03:20 pm
The debate explodes again with James Watson's public statements about differences between Africans and Europeans. Saletan comments here:
Never be afraid to consider testable claims about your sex or ethnicity.
No one disputes that the raw data overwhelmingly show clear bell-curve differences between racial groups on IQ. That applies just as much to bell-curve variations between Asians and Caucasians as between Africans and Caucasians. No one disputes either that the IQ variations within ethnic and racial groupings exceed any differences between them. What's disputed is the relative influence of genes and environment - and their interaction - on these results. One thing Watson undoubtedly gets right: before too long, we will know a great deal more. The advances in genetic understanding and neuroscience could begin to resolve this question as an empirical matter. Then, of course, there's this (PDF file):
The United States, which is home to just 4% of the global population aged 5 to 25 years, accounts for more than one-quarter of the global public education budget. It spends as much as all governments in six global regions combined: the Arab States, Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, South and West Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
The American government spends 28% of the world’s public expenditure on education, a proportion that exceeds its share of global wealth – which represents 21% of global GDP. Similar cases are seen in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, where their shares of education spending outweigh their individual proportions of the world’s school-age population and global wealth.
Whom The Troops Support
18 Oct 2007 03:19 pm
Just one indicator, of course: campaign donations from active service military members. And guess who's first? Ron Paul. Second? Barack Obama. Those tasked to actually fighting this war get it, don't they?
Face Of The Day
18 Oct 2007 02:53 pm
A dog models a rain coat and a rescue jacket, designed to be used in emergency situations, at a Security and Safety Trade Expo on October 18, 2007 in Tokyo, Japan. The jacket, designed by a Japanese company, Sidereal, enables dogs to carry their own emergency goods including water, biscuits and bandages. By Junko Kimura/Getty Images.
Obama Butches It Up
18 Oct 2007 02:27 pm
Finally gets a serious rapid responder.