Saturday, November 10, 2007

10 Nov 2007 08:00 pm

Romney On Adam And Eve

They looked "promiscuous." Put a leaf on!

10 Nov 2007 06:55 pm

Face Of The Day

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) smiles at US President George W. Bush (R) during a joint press conference outside Bush's office on his ranch in Crawford, Texas, 10 November 2007. By Jim Watson/AFP/Getty.

10 Nov 2007 05:44 pm

The Week That Was

It was a really crammed week on the Dish. Here are some of the more substantive posts you might have missed: on the strange notion of an "LGBT community"; the dysfunctional Clinton and Clinton team; the Republican war on Ron Paul; the torture link between Pat Robertson and Rudy Giuliani; and whether the decline in violence in Iraq these past two months means that the Bush administration is vindicated. I'm delighted by the first pieces of good news out of Iraq in a long time, but not at all convinced we have turned a corner, or that the surge somehow erases the fatal errors before it. Oh, and Ron Jeremy's Britney Spears impression.

10 Nov 2007 05:07 pm

Quote For The Day

"The policeman isn't frightened by dissidents. Why should he be? Policemen love dissidents, like the Inquisition loved heretics. Heretics give meaning to the defenders of the faith. Nobody cares more than a heretic. … It means they're playing on the same board. So [Gustav] Husak [the Communist Czech president] can relax; he's made the rules, it's his game. The population plays the other way, by agreeing to be bribed by places at university or an easy ride at work. They care enough to keep their thoughts to themselves; their haircuts give nothing away. But the Plastics don't care at all. They're unbribable. They're coming from somewhere else, from where the Muses come from. They're not heretics. They're pagans," - "Jan" in Tom Stoppard's "Rock 'N Roll", as cited by Fred Kaplan in an engaging piece in Slate.

The relationship between freedom and the unbribability of pagans is not so well understood by today's Christianists.

10 Nov 2007 03:22 pm

"Contempt"

A reader writes:

You write that your

"primary feeling with respect to the Democratic party remains contempt."

Me too.

What single word would you use to denote your primary feeling with respect to the Republican party? On the general principle that evil itself is worse than the failure to resist evil, it seems to me that this word should be stronger than "contempt." But what is it? Loathing? Detestation? Revulsion? None of these seem quite right to me.

Something that combines enormous frustration, disappointment, and shock. Rage?

10 Nov 2007 02:14 pm

Classic Clinton Spin

Yes, she plants questions in the audience. But no, she can't actually admit it, can she? Here's the classic Clinton response to a classic Clinton gambit:

But the Clinton campaign also denied the practice of planting. "It's not a practice of our campaign to ask people to ask specific questions," said Mark Daley, Clinton's Iowa Communications Director. Daley said that when an event is focusing on a specific topic, such as health care or Iraq, "people are encouraged to ask questions in these regards," but denied that they are given specific questions.

But when directly asked if his statements meant that planting does not occur in the Hillary campaign, Daley could only say, "to the best of my knowledge."

"[Planting] is not something that is encouraged in our campaign," he said.

They don't do it, but they didn't do it "to the best of my knowledge." Get used to it.

10 Nov 2007 12:25 pm

A Classic Clinton Lie?

Remember that tip story? It seemed funny to me at first. The story was on NPR, that obvious tool of the VRWC, and detailed how Clinton did not tip any of the waitresses at a diner she visited to highlight the plight of working women. Drudge ran with the story and the blogosphere understandably gobbled it up. Immediately, the Clinton campaign played hardball and called around news organizations to confirm that, in fact, a $100 tip had indeed been left:

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer wrote to NPR in an e-mail: "The campaign spent $157 and left a $100 tip at the Maid-Rite Restaurant. Wish you had checked in with us beforehand."

End of story, one supposes. The Clinton rapid-response site, The Fact Hub, gloated. The manager, Brad Crawford, initially backed the Clintons up:

The manager of the of the restaurant tells First Read the Clinton campaign did, in fact, tip. "They paid their bill, and they left a tip," said Brad Crawford, manager of the Maid Rite restaurant in Toledo, Iowa. "Everybody was satisfied. No question about it."

But guess what? The waitress is sticking by her story that she got no tip. Yep - back to NPR:

"Why would I lie about not getting a tip?" she told NPR. She also maintained that her co-workers at the restaurant had not received tips.

Crawford, meanwhile, has clarified his story:

"Where Hillary was sitting, there was no tip left," Crawford said.

Then this:

A Clinton campaign staffer called on Esterday at the restaurant Thursday after the story aired. The staff member apologized to her and gave her a $20 bill, according to Esterday. The Clinton campaign confirmed that visit. The campaign also produced photocopies of receipts showing $157.46 was paid to Maid-Rite on a VISA card on Oct. 8 for meals consumed by the candidate's entourage. The tip was supposed to have been paid in cash, and the campaign insisted such a payment was made but has declined to make available a staff member who was present at Maid-Rite and left tip money.

Why not? And what's with this weird $20 pay-off to Esterday? If they'd left $100, and knew it had been shared by the wait-staff, why would they need to add $20? Esterday says it was completely improbable that her fellow servers would have received a $100 tip and not shared it with her. I don't know what to believe. I hope someone interviews the fellow servers and gets to the real bottom of this. Yes: it matters. We need to get the name of the staffer who allegedly left the $100 in cash. We need a name of the person who accepted that $100. It wasn't Crawford, because surely he would have immediately told reporters that he had gotten $100 in cash for the wait-staff. It's not something you forget. So who gave it and who received it? Let's find out, shall we?

Why? It's an absolutely trivial story - but its triviality is what's telling.

Continue reading "A Classic Clinton Lie?" »

10 Nov 2007 12:04 pm

John DiIulio's Picks

He's always worth listening to, because, even when I disagree with him, I don't doubt his integrity. It's why he quit the Bush administration. This year, he's backing Huckabee and Clinton - on explicitly Christianist grounds. Hat tip: Clive.

10 Nov 2007 11:55 am

Bill O'Reilly On Gay Teens

He really is deeply hostile to gay people's dignity and right to be who they are.

10 Nov 2007 11:34 am

Email From Iowa

A reader writes:

I just returned from a few days volunteering with the Obama campaign in Iowa.  To hear Dean Barnett characterize it as inept and ineffective shows you how skewed armchair analysis can really be.  The people on whose doors I knocked on universally described the candidate as thrilling, and the campaign as overpoweringly energized and effective. (I actually got one woman who admitted she felt like the last one on the bus since all her neighbors were now leaning Obama). While Obama may have been a hot topic among the political literati for a couple of years, he was to all purposes a complete unknown to the average Iowa voter until announcing his Presidential run in February. For him to now be tied in polls with a former first lady (a woman who has a fifteen year head-start in name recognition and is perhaps the most well-known senator in the country) and leading the former VP candidate who has campaigned basically nonstop in Iowa since 2004, is nothing short of phenomenal.

What really shines through in Barnett's piece is the poverty of his worldview. For him and the rest of the knuckle-draggers over at Townhall.com, the concept of quiet strength is an oxymoron.  Strange, given the prevalence of swaggering cowboy iconography from George "Dead or Alive" Bush and his posse, that they have forgotten all the lessons of manly restraint that I remember being repeated endlessly by Western "alpha dogs" like Marshal Dillon and the Rifleman. Speak quietly but carry a big stick.

Continue reading "Email From Iowa" »

10 Nov 2007 10:15 am

The View From Your Window

Rosso, Mauritania, 6.30 am.

10 Nov 2007 09:57 am

Clinton and the Polls

It behooves me to point out that the poll I cited yesterday is an outlier.

10 Nov 2007 09:49 am

McCain On Kerik

Good for him:

"I don't know Mr. Kerik. I do know that I went to Baghdad shortly after the initial victory and met in Baghdad with (Ambassador Paul) Bremer and (Lt. Gen. Ricardo) Sanchez. And Kerik was there. Kerik was supposed to be there to help train the police force. He stayed two months and one day left, just up and left. That's why I never would've supported him to be the head of homeland security because of his irresponsible act when he was over in Baghdad to try and help train the police. One of the reasons why we had so much trouble with the initial training of the police was because he came, didn't do anything and then went out to the airport and left."

10 Nov 2007 08:23 am

Name Five!

A reader writes:

The next person that tells me that the American people will not elect a black person to the Presidency will be asked to name five specific people - family, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, co-workers, you name it -  who will not vote for Obama because he is black. I will then volunteer to contact those people to give them an opportunity to defend themselves against this tired, old, self-aggrandizing libel.

I seem to have more faith in the American people than some Democrats.

10 Nov 2007 06:10 am

Not Adlai

Eugene! A blogger on Obama's real historical parallel.

Friday, November 9, 2007

09 Nov 2007 08:39 pm

Darth Abdullah

Heh:

09 Nov 2007 08:00 pm

Entering The U.S.

A tourist's guide to the welcome you're likely to receive.

09 Nov 2007 06:59 pm

LGBTQRSTZ Dissents

A reader writes:

Re: your post on the LGBTQRSTZ community. Well, you don't live in San Francisco. I do business and socialize with lesbians, gay guys and trans people of both persuasions on a regular basis, and we do, indeed have a community. Just because you don't live in one doesn't mean that none exists. Don't opine about things which you know nothing about.

Another explains:

What T's have in common with LGB's is that primary opposition to all of you comes from your subversion of proper, binary, complementary gender roles.  You may be quite different from the inside, but from the outside you look similar.  I heard my southern baptist grandfather give a sermon in which one of the ills of the modern world was "men not wanting to be men."  I'm pretty sure he had gays in mind.

Surely you know this.

If we are defined by those who hate us, LGBT makes some sense, although it could also include straight women who don't conform to traditional roles, straight men in the same position, and so on, which would mean LGBTSFSMQ or something. My point is that the respective experiences of being gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender are very distinct and different. And I do not define myself primarily by shared victimhood. Indeed, as many angry LGBTQWhatever readers have insisted, I am not a victim. I am a privileged, white sexist patriarchal rich HIV-positive-with-meds guy. So why, then, pray, am I still regarded (in your acronym at least) as a part of your "community"?

09 Nov 2007 05:52 pm

Against The Dolchstoss Right

Burke urges us:

Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other's principles, nor experienced in each other's talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy...When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

In this election, among the central questions, it seems to me, should be: who will restore the rule of law in America? Who will restore constitutional balance? Who will restore habeas corpus? Who will end torture? And who is the wisest in tackling the extremely difficult task of isolating moderate Muslims from Jihadist terrorists across the globe, using measured force to defeat terrorism where necessary, but winning arguments where essential? Who will best secure our departure from Iraq? And who can actually unite decent, patriotic Americans around these goals again?

09 Nov 2007 05:20 pm

Waterboarding: A Briefing

A very useful summary by The Week. No reputable or knowledgeable source says it isn't torture. and there is simply no question that it is illegal  - which is why the Bush administration went to such lengths to get war criminals like AEI's John Yoo to argue that the president is bound by no laws and no treaties in the war on terror. But its impact in poisoning and distorting vital intelligence is also crucial to understand. Money quote:

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, was waterboarded, he revealed valuable details about the operations of al Qaida, the Bush administration says. But CIA agents say Mohammed also “confessed’’ that al Qaida was plotting to kill former presidents Clinton and Carter and Pope John Paul II, making them realize that he was inventing sensational information to satisfy his interrogators. Another al Qaida operative who was waterboarded, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libbi, blurted out details about the connection between al Qaida and Saddam Hussein, saying that Iraq had trained terrorists in the use of chemical and biological weapons. But al-Libbi later recanted, and the CIA concluded that he “had no knowledge of such training or weapons, and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment.”

We traded our soul for bad intelligence. The perpetrators need to be brought to justice.

09 Nov 2007 05:05 pm

Democrats, Torture, and My Mom

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"My primary feeling with respect to the Democratic party remains contempt."

I know. I feel the same way, and I'm a full-speed-ahead liberal.

But both of us have to realize what they're up against: a nation of voters just like...my mom. She's a lovely woman, Andrew. I love her to death. Sweet, kind, generous--she's got it all. But whenever I try to talk to her about torture, warrantless wiretapping, the Military Commissions Act, and the rest she just tunes out. Not only has she never heard of any of this stuff, but when I bring it to her attention it's as if she simply cannot believe any of it. She doesn't get angry or anything--she's not a "my country right or wrong" type. It's more of a "these go to eleven" sort of thing: she just can't get it into her head that these awful things are happening.

There are millions and millions and millions of voters just like her in this respect.

Continue reading "Democrats, Torture, and My Mom" »

09 Nov 2007 04:48 pm

Race, Sex and Marriage

Could it be true that women are more concerned about the race of their spouse than men are? One study suggests so, with some intriguing wrinkles:

We found no evidence of the stereotype of a white male preference for East Asian women. However, we also found that East Asian women did not discriminate against white men (only against black and Hispanic men). As a result, the white man-Asian woman pairing was the most common form of interracial dating—but because of the women's neutrality, not the men's pronounced preference. We also found that regional differences mattered. Daters of both sexes from south of the Mason-Dixon Line revealed much stronger same-race preferences than Northern daters.

09 Nov 2007 04:37 pm

"Not Gonna Happen"

A reader writes:

Your reference to polls that show a slight win for Obama over Guiliani, while HRC would lose are meaningless. I don't know whether HRC can win the presidency, but I do know that this country is not going to elect a black president at this time.  It is just not going to happen. I was born and raised in the South and I have lived in the Midwest (Iowa) and the West (Utah) and I just don't see it happening. That is unfortunate, but it is the truth.

I suspect this is a very powerful source of Clinton's strength. It is also yet another sign of the Democratic party's problem. They don't trust Americans to agree with them. And so they never say what they believe. They always say what they think they can get away with. The Mukasey collapse is another sign. They do not even trust the American people to reject torture. If they cannot stand up against that, what can they stand up against? And in a world full of cowards, the bullies smell their opportunity. Cheney, Hannity, Giuliani, Limbaugh: they are all in some respects a function of the Democratic Party's deep, deep failure of nerve.

09 Nov 2007 04:34 pm

Bush's Economic Legacy

The proud irresponsibility is the most striking thing - the obliviousness to the future, to the debt the next generation will carry, to the huge increase in the power of government over people's lives that Bush has engineered. Joe Stiglitz is surely right:

The economic effects of Bush's presidency are more insidious than those of Hoover, harder to reverse, and likely to be longer-lasting. There is no threat of America's being displaced from its position as the world's richest economy. But our grandchildren will still be living with, and struggling with, the economic consequences of Mr. Bush.

09 Nov 2007 04:03 pm

Neoconservatism and Torture

A reader writes:

Lately, you have noted that some who are generally labeled neocons (JPod, among others) have either refused to condemn torture or have made statements in support of its use, at least by American forces. Your reaction to this seems to be, "Look, the neocons are actually pro-torture." Let me suggest to you that a "neocon" who supports torture is as much a traitor to the cause as a "conservative" who allows the country to run up huge debts and/or who wishes to inject his own religious beliefs into people's private lives.

Support for human rights is at the very heart of neoconservatism, properly understood.

Continue reading "Neoconservatism and Torture" »

09 Nov 2007 03:29 pm

Face Of The Day

A Pakistan People's Party (PPP) supporter sits in the back of a police truck after his arrest near former Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto's home on November 9, 2007 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Bhutto was placed under house arrest to prevent her from participating in a planned rally by her political party, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Bhutto broke through police lines outside her home to address the media and condemn the move by President Musharraf and urge him to stick to his commitments of removing his uniform and holding elections. The president declared emergency rule on Saturday, just days before the Supreme Court was to decide on the legitimacy of Musharraf's presidency. By Warrick Page/Getty.

09 Nov 2007 03:15 pm

Goldwater's True Heirs

I'd say: Ron Paul's volunteers. Daniel McCarthy writes a nuanced and graceful essay on similar lines:

If the Republican Party is full of pretenders, where does one look for Goldwater's true heirs?

To answer that question, one has to look to the sharpest division that split the Goldwater movement of the '60s. It wasn't the division between libertarians and traditionalists, it was the division that separated idealistic libertarians and traditionalists alike, the campaign amateurs, from the campaign professionals. The conservative movement still pays lip service to economic liberty, social order, and military strength‹but on all three points, Republicans have become hollow men who have preserved the rites of Goldwaterism but who long ago lost its spirit. That was an amateur spirit - in both the best and worst senses of the word - and it drew together in common cause traditionalists and libertarians as different as Brent Bozell and Goldwater speechwriter Karl Hess.

...Today, nation-building and empire, together with K-Street politics, is about all that animates the Republicans who claim to be following in Goldwater's footsteps. They've lost what the 1960 and 1964 Goldwater movements were really all about, and they won't rediscover what they've lost by furrowing their brows wondering if Goldwaterism was really purely libertarian or fusionist. Goldwater himself was a man of the American West, and his legacy can be claimed by either libertarians or traditionalists - if they can put the principled spirit of the old movement before the emoluments of politics.

09 Nov 2007 02:54 pm

$oft Landing

Gonzales rakes in $40,000 for his first post-Justice speech.

09 Nov 2007 02:33 pm

Why The Hannity Right Wants Clinton

Time magazine:

A late-October Quinnipiac University survey underscored this point. Nationally, it showed Clinton being edged out by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 45% to 43%, within the margin of error. In red states, however, she ran behind him, 49% to 40%, and she trailed, 47% to 41%, in the purple ones. By comparison, Illinois Senator Barack Obama beat Giuliani by a single percentage point (43% to 42%) nationally but held that same margin in the purple states and came within 6 points (45% to 39%) in the red ones.

Hat tip: Isaac.

09 Nov 2007 02:05 pm

Quote For The Day II

"Simply put, voters tell us clearly that Senator Clinton is perceived to have least what they say they want most: honesty. As such, these findings pose a significant hurdle for Senator Clinton to overcome in a general election and are telling to the issue of 'electability,'" - Hari Sevugan, Communications Director, Chris Dodd for President.

09 Nov 2007 01:31 pm

What Happened To The Filibuster?

Greenwald asks an obvious question:

At least 44 Senators claimed to oppose Mukasey's confirmation -- more than enough to prevent it via filibuster. So why didn't they filibuster, the way Senate Republicans have on virtually every measure this year which they wanted to defeat?

And he offers the obvious answer:

The so-called "60-vote requirement" applies only when it is time to do something to limit the Bush administration. It is merely the excuse Senate Democrats use to explain away their chronic failure/unwillingness to limit the President, and it is what the media uses to depict the GOP filibuster as something normal and benign. There obviously is no "60-vote requirement" when it comes to having the Senate comply with the President's demands, as the 53-vote confirmation of Michael Mukasey amply demonstrates. But as Mukasey is sworn in as the highest law enforcement officer in America, the Democrats want you to know that they most certainly did stand firm and "registered their displeasure."

My primary feeling with respect to the Democratic party remains contempt.

09 Nov 2007 01:20 pm

Rudy's Guy

Kerik is indicted. Next up: Rudy's favorite priest? Somehow, Giuliani always attracts the sleaziest, doesn't he?

09 Nov 2007 01:07 pm

Abortion and Christianity

A Christianist takes on Garry Wills:

Stating "Aquinas said" is not the same as saying "Christendom said" or even "the Catholic Church said." The church did not accept his arguments wholesale. For instance, the church ultimately rejected Aquinas' arguments against the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin Mary. Indeed, Wills' own championing of Aquinas would be a touch more credible if he were equally enthusiastic of Aquinas' arguments that both contraception and homosexual sex are gravely sinful and that only men can be ordained to the priesthood.

Will's op-ed can be read here. With typical MSM cluelessness, the LA Times does not provide a link to the article being rebutted on the same page. Money quote:

John Henry Newman, a 19th century Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, once wrote that "the pope, who comes of revelation, has no jurisdiction over nature." The matter must be decided by individual conscience, not by religious fiat. As Newman said: "I shall drink to the pope, if you please -- still, to conscience first, and to the pope afterward."

I think this is what Jonah Goldberg, in dissecting my book, called the "divinization of conscience." No. Just the primacy of conscience. Ponnuru's take is here. Not Garry Wills' finest hour, I'd say.

09 Nov 2007 12:45 pm

Religion News

From India: an alleged Hindu-vs-Christian murder - to slake a "blood-thirsty Goddess". Take it away, Sam.

09 Nov 2007 12:32 pm

Quote For The Day

"I have a lot of trouble growing a beard, and he lives in a cave," - Barack Obama, helping Mitt Romney understand he's not Osama. Somehow, I think Romney will forget again.

09 Nov 2007 12:17 pm

Clinton In New Hampshire

Sinking fast:

One of the polls shows the gap between Clinton and Barack Obama narrowed by more than 10 points. Her biggest decline was seen among older voters. The other shows Clinton's lead down approximately 9 points.

09 Nov 2007 12:15 pm

And The Winner Is ...

The Best Blog of the Year ... PostSecret.com. Where you can read anonymous gems like this:

Not that I'm bitter or anything. Thanks to those who voted for the Dish.

09 Nov 2007 11:59 am

Catholic By Christmas?

The religious evolution of Tony Blair.

09 Nov 2007 11:31 am

Thatcher vs Clinton

A real feminist vs a phony one. Peggy Noonan explains:

The point is the big ones, the real ones, the Thatchers and Indira Gandhis and Golda Meirs and Angela Merkels, never play the boo-hoo game. They are what they are, but they don't use what they are. They don't hold up their sex as a feint: Why, he's not criticizing me, he's criticizing all women! Let us rise and fight the sexist cur.

Liz Mair echoes the argument. One reason I cannot stand Hillary Clinton is that I'm a feminist.

09 Nov 2007 11:28 am

The LGBTQRSTZ "Community"

Rex Wockner expresses something that the gay activist elite too often refuses to engage:

I've been sitting here sort of picking my own brain and asking myself if gay and trans people do in fact have some crucial thing in common. I've read tons of opinion pieces and blog posts on the ENDA war in recent weeks, but none of them really opened my eyes. What do I have in common with a guy who wants to remove his willy, grow breasts, become a woman and get married to a man? From where did this relatively new concept of "the LGBT community" come?

The Croatian-sounding acronym only makes sense from the perspective of the pomo-left, whose control of the major gay groups allows them to dictate what is and what is not kosher for gay people. I support enthusiastically the right of transgender people to live their lives as they wish and to be free from government discrimination. But that question is logically separate from gay rights, and always has been. Many transgender people are heterosexual; most gay people have no internal conflict with their own gender. It remains important to insist that, just because so many in the gay world have been browbeaten into repeating the concept of an "LGBT community", that doesn't mean it exists. I don't really believe there is even a "gay and lesbian community" as such. There are common interests in violating heterosexual norms, but the experience of being a gay man and being a lesbian are often experientially more different than the contrast between many straight women and lesbians or between many straight men and gay men. Gender is often a more powerful identifier than orientation.

Political coalitions are fine and necessary. But when they lead to complete distortion of reality - as in the absurd notion of an LGBT "community" -  they are misleading. Many professional "LGBT" activists are so marinated in far-left ideology they do not even see this. That's why I don't use the term LGBT. It's crude and dumb and as ideologically loaded as the previous attempts by the left to coopt language, like "queer."

09 Nov 2007 11:13 am

The Writers Get Smarter

From lame strike slogans to a new, sassy YouTube:

09 Nov 2007 09:52 am

The Clintons: A Continuing Mini-Series

Barack Obama put it gently, with respect to Bill Clinton's increasing role in trying to ensure that he gets his wife (and himself) back into the White House:

"My understanding is President Clinton’s not on the ballot."

The problem is: he is and he isn't. His wife wants to use him as a weapon in the campaign, but still insist that it is she who is running, and not him. She wants to appeal to a return to his policies, but still insists that she does not represent a third term for the 42d president. She wants him on her resume until it's not convenient. Then she pretends to be a feminist. She wants to include in her "experience" her attempt to get everybody's healthcare under her beatifically benign control in the early 1990s. But in turn he insists that her failure to achieve anything - because of her reflexive secrecy, paranoia and over-reach - was actually his fault, not hers. She wants credit for being a feminist, while still running in part on her husband's record - both claiming credit for the good parts and disowning the bad parts. They will keep playing this game - arguing every which way, passing the buck from one to the other, never accepting responsibility, for as long as it gets them past the latest news cycle.

If she is the nominee, it will be the two of them again. The real risk is that it will mean the same never-ending psycho-drama, the same petty sleaze, the same constant beat of marital-political intrigue that we endured in the 1990s. It's worth recalling: just because their enemies were often vile doesn't mean the Clintons didn't give them plenty to work with - often needlessly. Another term of the two of them could well lead to the same kind of sexual scandals that distracted and near-paralyzed affairs of state in the 1990s. If you don't believe that, then you simply haven't grasped the depth of Bill Clinton's needs and compulsions and Hillary Clinton's life-long enabling of them. Their act in power could in turn provoke the same response from the hard right - empowering the Christianists just as they are finally being marginalized, funding them, uniting re-energizing them, rebuilding the GOP around social conservatism and war. I am told by my Clinton-friendly readers that I am obsessed with this matter, seized with hatred, a mouthpiece for Republican talking points, a woman-hater, etc etc. Fine. Whatever. Have your say.

But if you think we would be electing a normal presidential candidate in Hillary Clinton, as opposed to a co-dependent, scandal-drawn power-couple with almost no accountability within their marriage, let alone outside it, then you're welcome to your delusions.

I just want this on the record, ok? If you want to pick them again, do so with your eyes open.

(Photo: Mario Tama/Getty.)

09 Nov 2007 09:15 am

The View From Your Window

Beijing, China, 4.30 pm.

09 Nov 2007 08:14 am

Murdock Clarifies

Yes: we are not water-boarding enough!

09 Nov 2007 06:54 am

Genital Mutilation Update

The Oregon court heard oral arguments yesterday on a ground-breaking circumcision case:

The case pits divorced parents named James and Lia Boldt against each other. The father, a lawyer, recently converted to Judaism and wants to circumcise his 12-year-old son, over whom he has full custody. The mother doesn’t want the circumcision to take place. It’s not clear what the kid wants. The lower court dismissed the wife’s challenge, and she’s appealing the decision.

Yesterday, the mother’s attorney Clay Patrick — a self described “lawyer’s lawyer” — told the court that the circumcision posed “an unreasonable and unnecessarily high risk to the child.” Patrick said that even though the father had full custody, the mother was entitled to a court hearing because the procedure amounts to “sex abuse or physical abuse.” He said to the judges: “If the custodial parent wanted to amputate some other body part, I think the court would step in and say you can’t do that.”

There are some religious freedom arguments involved - if religious freedom means subjecting a twelve-year-old to permanent bodily mutilation. The father says he can do anything he wants to his son's body, barring something like tattooing "a swastika on his forehead." Here's the NYSun coverage. Weird sub-plot:

The anti-circumcision brief notes that during a prior court proceeding unrelated to the circumcision issue, the Boldts agreed that they had a dominant-submissive relationship — in which Mr. Boldt was "god" or "sovereign" — and that sometimes involved Mr. Boldt administering beatings to his wife, who assumed the role of "slave girl." The Boldts' son "must not be abandoned by the courts, to become embroiled in his father's need for a replacement slave … if that is what happened," the anti-circumcision group argued.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

08 Nov 2007 08:41 pm

No Blood No Foul?

A reader writes:

I'd like to add to your argument on the mental side of torture another note from the history of legal torture.

During the century or so of torture authorized by royal warrants in England, the administration of the technique came in two steps. First, the prisoner would be shown the implements of torture, to see if the horror of the thought of the pain his body would suffer on those devices would induce a confession.  If that psychological coercion failed, the next step was to begin the actual process of imposing physical pain on the prisoner. Both steps were included in the instructions within torture warrants. Thus, in 1642, when the apprentice glover John Archer was to be put to torture to gain information about a riot outside the Archbishop of Canterbury's palace at Lambeth, he was first given time to stare at the rack -- and only if he remained silent, according to the warrant, the last to be issued in England, was he to be bound onto the machine.

Such mental torture was genuinely coercive as well -- though it did not persuade the luckless Archer to betray any of his fellow rioters.

Continue reading "No Blood No Foul?" »

08 Nov 2007 07:54 pm

A Chopstick Bra

Green marketing goes for the boobs.

08 Nov 2007 07:33 pm

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

Andrew, I'm going to hurl if you don't get off this Ron Paul bandwagon.  Aside from the fact he's a whackjob on economic issues, and hopelessly naiive on foreign policy, he is surrounded by really serious hate groups. Visit David Dukes site or the Stormfront site and note the RP columns and endorsements. This isn't some innocent eccentric Congressman riding a popular wave, it is tapping into a very sinister side of the US electorate.

Try to engage the Paulistas on any subject and within 5 minutes they are talking about international bankers, the Trilateral Commission and the CFR.  And if you encourage them just a little they'll be talking about the Jews and their control of the US government, and before you know it they're off to the races.  Freemasons, Illuminati, the guy on the grassy knoll…..its all there.

I fear you are letting Paul's (ignorant and unreasoned) opposition to the war make you a cheerleader based on the "my enemy's enemy is my friend" theory.  He is not your friend, not a friend of this country.

08 Nov 2007 06:39 pm

Goodbye To all What?

A blogger dissents from my argument about Obama:

I think that is wishful thinking, a product of a desire on Sullivan's part to escape history, a classic Romantic, indeed "Transcendentalist" urge.

The truth about Obama is that he is a symbol of the victory of one side. Obama's candidacy is the Iwo Jima, if you will, for the side of the Boomer war that has, after more than three decades, "overcome some day": the hippies, the war protesters, the drop-outs, the integrationists, those hairy, messy, starry-eyed kids who moved to San Francisco with flowers in their hair (well, the ones that got past the drugs).

Read the whole thing. I think my response would be that an integration of the best of the 1960s (and a rejection of the worst) is exactly the post-boomer synthesis I'm talking about. And a former president of the Harvard Law Review, Senator and foreign policy realist does not strike me as a hairy, messy starry-eyed kid. Not that there's anything wrong with hairy, messy starry-eyed kids, of course.

08 Nov 2007 06:13 pm

Face of the Day

O.J. Simpson appears during his preliminary hearing at the Clark County Regional Justice Center 08 November, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Simpson is appearing in court on charges which include burglary, robbery and assault following an attempted robbery at a Las Vegas hotel in September. By John Locher/AFP/Getty.