Thursday, July 3, 2008

03 Jul 2008 12:55 pm

Tories, Republicans, Obama

Maybe my roots are showing. One striking facet of many European conservatives and British Tories is their relative comfort with an Obama presidency, compared with American Republicans. Check out this little blog post by British Tory Daniel Hannan. Here's a classic foreign view worth airing:

Consider, more or less at random, some of [Obama]'s policy positions. He wants to cut corporation tax. He plans (disappointingly) to grant immunity to telephone companies that help the federal government to eavesdrop on its citizens. He seems to have dropped any notion of criminalising the private ownership of guns, and made no protest when the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's ban on pistols last week. Having made some protectionist noises in order to appeal to the know-nothing Pennsylvania Democrats in advance of their primary, he has returned to reaching the virtues of free trade with an enthusiasm matched by few Republicans.

A couple of days ago, he made a lengthy speech about patriotism, his lapel sporting the little flag that has become a permanent fixture. He is even - again, rather to my disappointment - watering down his commitment to remove the garrison from Iraq.

Like many Tories, Hannan regards the Iraq adventure as foolish utopianism - not a criterion for right-wing credentializing. He doesn't share American conservatism's culture-specific love of guns and gun culture. So what's not to like? Here's the first reader response from an American:

Continue reading "Tories, Republicans, Obama" »

03 Jul 2008 12:45 pm

Face Of The Day

US Republican presidential hopeful John McCain stands in front of an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, during a visit to the Guadalupe Basilica in Mexico City on July 3, 2008. McCain arrived in Mexico Wednesday on the second stop of his short Latin America tour seeking to score points with the large Latino voting block back home. By Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty.

03 Jul 2008 12:45 pm

Brokeback Mountain's Alternate Ending

In reality, that is:

Jeff Barr and William Wes Wilkinson, two cowboys from Elverta, were the first male couple married in Woodland on Monday. "We met at a Gay Rodeo Association barn dance eight years ago," said Wilkinson, 43. "We're both officers of the association. … I proposed to him and he immediately proposed to me, and we accepted at the same time while we were driving down the road in our truck."

The couple have 5 acres with three horses, three calves, nine chickens and two dogs. "That seems to be our family," Wilkinson said. But Barr's parents, Walter and Louise Barr of Moraga, were present to witness the ceremony. "We have to do that," Walter Barr said of supporting their son ...

That last moving sentiment is proof that in reality, rather than in the abstract, support for gay marriage is a deeply, deeply pro-family position.

03 Jul 2008 12:32 pm

Obama Indulgences

Victor Davis Hanson is flummoxed by elite support for Obama:

To sum up, Obama offers a reassuring sense of self-image: one can still maintain all the current mechanisms one is accustomed to in ensuring privilege, but visible support for Obama offers a sense of atonement and alleviation of guilt at rather modest cost...Somehow an Obama sticker, sign on the lawn, or a lapel button has become the equivalent of a crucifix around the neck of a prosperous 16th-century burgher: easy fides of inner good and a valuable totem in reconciling the apparent irreconcilable.

Hilzoy counters. It may be that, despite tax hikes, many simply think he'd be a better president - temperamentally, diplomatically, and in terms of overcoming some of the polarization that Bush and Rove fomented for their own purposes.
 

03 Jul 2008 12:19 pm

Tacking To The Middle

Christopher Beam lists Obama's de-calibrated positions. I've long suspected that Obama would disappoint many of his supporters and pleasantly surprise some of his opponents. I don't see anything more than prudent post-primary adjustment.

03 Jul 2008 11:56 am

Connerly On Proposition 8

A hero of the right - and a hero to me too - in opposing affirmative action, Ward Connerly, is one of those few anti-discrimination Republicans who sees gay people as real citizens. Along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Republican appointed justices on California's Supreme Court, he therefore opposes the November initiative to remove marriage licenses from thousands of California's gay couples:

“For anyone to say that this is an issue for people who are gay and that this isn’t about civil rights is sadly mistaken. If you really believe in freedom and limited government, to be intellectually consistent and honest you have to oppose efforts of the majority to impose their will on people.”

I've long since seen opposition to affirmative action, support for a flat tax and marriage equality as lynchpins of limited government equal-rights conservatism. I still believe it's the future for the conservative movement - and far more compatible with Goldwater's legacy than the moralizing, Christianist authoritarianism of the current crew.

03 Jul 2008 11:48 am

The L-Word Watch

Obama ahead by five in Montana? The generational shift is remarkable:

Against McCain, Obama leads among voters under 50, including a twenty-seven point lead among voters under 30. McCain leads among those over 50.

(The L-Word refers to "landslide.")

03 Jul 2008 11:19 am

Anderson On The Advocate Cover

And the punchline is: they're talking about his hair. I guess I'll never get the cover-treatment, will I?

03 Jul 2008 10:59 am

Army v Navy

Fred Kaplan thinks that the Clark McCain conflict is rooted in an old military rivalry:  "Clark was an Army infantry commander during the Vietnam War while McCain was a Navy aviator. As a rule, the grunts hated the flyboys." I do think that there's something else going on with some military types not really liking McCain. If he were a little less crude in advertizing his own military experience - some things really do speak for themselves - he might reduce some of the crankiness.

03 Jul 2008 10:20 am

Goodbye Gitmo?

ABC reports that the president may shut down Guantanamo because of the recent Supreme Court ruling:

Bush has not decided whether he will announce that GTMO should be closed, sources say. But at the very least, sources say, he will soon announce a host of these legal and policy changes that will force Congress to come up with a solution--including where to imprison those detainees if GTMO does, in fact, shut its doors.

03 Jul 2008 10:18 am

The Money Lever

Timothy Noah notes that McCain is having a hard time getting money from conservative fat cats:

In the end, the great majority of Bush's Pioneers and Rangers will probably donate money to McCain because they have nowhere else to go. But the longer they make McCain wait, the more McCain will have to ingratiate them by dancing further and further to the right, which is exactly what he's been doing. In that sense, McCain isn't a maverick at all. By playing hard-to-get, the corporate ruling class has taken McCain hostage. The ransom won't be small.

I guess Tim is referring to potential clashes between a president McCain and some corporate leaders. Somehow, I don't think McCain can be bought off.

03 Jul 2008 09:49 am

Obama And FISA

Greenwald is not letting go and, as often, he has a point:

In the past, Obama has opposed the type of warrantless eavesdropping which those PAA orders authorize. He's repeatedly said that the FISA court works and there's no need to authorize eavesdropping without individual warrants. None of that can be reconciled with his current claim that he supports this FISA "compromise" because National Security requires that those PAA orders not expire and that there be massive changes to FISA. It's just as simple as that.

03 Jul 2008 09:17 am

Quote For The Day

“We are not talking about 50 years, 25 years or 10 years; we are negotiating about one or two years, so this is not going to be another colonization of Iraq,” - Hoshyar Zebari, Foreign Minister, Iraq.

03 Jul 2008 09:04 am

WALL-E And The Technology of Imperfection

A quote from director Andrew Stanton:

Life is nothing but imperfection and the computer likes perfection, so we spent probably 90% of our time putting in all of the imperfections, whether it's in the design of something or just the unconscious stuff. How the camera lens works in [a real] housing is never perfect, and we tried to put those imperfections [into the virtual camera] so that everything looks like you're in familiar [live-action] territory.

(Hat tip: Kottke)

03 Jul 2008 08:45 am

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Presidency

Breaking news about Mr. 23 percent:

03 Jul 2008 08:38 am

"Hey, Nutroots. You Lost."

Jamie Kirchick elevates the discourse.

03 Jul 2008 08:09 am

Living Dangerously

50 volunteers were given a free computer for answering all their spam for a month: 23,233 messages for the Americans. That's a lot of muscle relaxants.

03 Jul 2008 07:35 am

Music, Literature And The Web

Daniel Hall:

Our cultural consumption exists on a spectrum from "individual" to "collective". Technology has shifted the balance for both books and music. Digital distrbitution and the iPod have made music consumption much more individualistic, while the internet and global branding have made book consumption increasingly collective.

03 Jul 2008 12:48 am

Lieberman In Polling Free-Fall

A massive Obama lead in Connecticut bears not-so-great news for the former vice-presidential candidate:

Joe Lieberman's approval ratings have fallen to 45 percent. A rating that low is relatively unprecedented for a Senator who was just re-elected 20 months ago and has not had a major scandal befall him.

03 Jul 2008 12:43 am

The McCain Overhaul

Ambers' take:

In the year and a half since McCain and Schmidt first got to know each other, the two have grown close, almost like father and son; each very deferential to the other. Schmidt has taught McCain how to be John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate -- a different creature from just plain ol' John McCain. Schmidt is a partisan pugilist. He speaks in pre-fabricated, consumable, sharp morsels. McCain has learned from Schmidt that it's OK not to be a referre,, that it's OK not to play the judge, that it's OK to draw contrasts with your opponents. And McCain, for a variety of reasons, has come to trust Schmidt's judgment...

There was an acknowledgment, I am told, that the campaign had not sufficiently scaled up to fight against what is the best-run, best organized Democratic campaign in the history of the universe.

03 Jul 2008 12:14 am

Where Are The Adults At Fox News?

It's been a pretty embarrassing few months, but photo-shop doctoring of your critics' photos? It's not as if Jacques Steinberg is much of a looker to start with. But the extra-"Jewish" nose? They're beginning to nuke the fridge.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

02 Jul 2008 08:49 pm

Brian Beutler

Shot three times yesterday back in DC:

According to Van Slyke, Beutler was walking with a friend after leaving a bar in Washington's Adams Morgan section when the two were confronted by a man demanding their cell phones near 17th Street and Euclid Street.

It's unclear as yet what happened, but the man fired several shots at Beutler. One bullet hit him in the spleen and he was hit twice in the shoulder. A D.C. police official said he wasn't aware of any arrests made in connection with the shooting.

Just a brief note to wish him the speediest recovery and apologies from all of us at 17th and Euclid.

02 Jul 2008 07:32 pm

Bloggy Homophily

A new study of blog readers finds a depressing amount of polarization:

Left wingers read left wing blogs, right wingers read right wing blogs, and very few people read both left wing and right wing blogs. Those few people who read both left wing and right wing blogs are considerably more likely to be left wing themselves; interpret this as you like. Furthermore, blog readers are politically very polarized. They tend to clump around either the ‘strong liberal’ or the ‘strong conservative’ pole; there aren’t many blog readers in the center.

I take the ideological diversity of Dish readers as a source of pride. Maybe that's because, these days, I don't fit easily into either "right" or "left".

02 Jul 2008 06:59 pm

The Oil Crunch

Could it get worse? $200 a barrel could be closer than we think:
 

"I have been told by a reliable source that the IEA has been forbidden by the US administration from updating their absurdly cornucopian oil supply and demand scenarios until the report that comes out late this year (after the election); that report, which will publish the result of a "bottom-up" analysis (ie a summary of all existing oil fields, their production and/or prospects) is expected to show that oil production is unlikely to reach the levels that so many have blithely assumed."

02 Jul 2008 06:37 pm

Obama's Illusory Move

Ed Kilgore isn't buying the netroots' sell-out meme. Substantively, I don't see it either:

"First of all, a candidate doesn't really have to "move" at all to create the perception of a different message and strategy once the primary season is over. The general election issue landscape is inevitably going to be different, for the simple reason that the candidate and partisan debate will be different."

02 Jul 2008 06:08 pm

McCain vs Ellen

He was nice to her on her show. But he wants to revoke her civil right to marry one person, while he has legally married twice. But that isn't discrimination, is it? And he's still a good guy, right? Nothing personal: he just thinks we're inferior.

02 Jul 2008 05:45 pm

Face Of The Day

Don Brooks, owner of the Liberty Belle, one of the few remaining World War 2 B17 'Flying Fortresses', poses after his arrival at Prestwick Airport July 2, 2008 in Prestwick, Scotland. Liberty Belle followed the traditional flight path of U.S. World War 2 bombers from its home base in Georgia, USA, returning to the UK to honour all veterans of World War 2. By Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.

02 Jul 2008 05:16 pm

Fantasyland

Hilzoy responds to Jeffrey Lord's article:

Something about this election is bringing out all the right's fantasies about the left, no matter how implausible or inconsistent with one another. Obama is a scary foreigner and the sneering guy at the country club; a doctrinaire Marxist and an unprincipled flip-flopper; a Muslim with a hatemongering pastor; naive yet corrupt; reckless but wimpy. But even I hadn't expected the charge that he plans to install government-controlled FM receivers in our air conditioners.

02 Jul 2008 04:50 pm

One Day In The Next Ten Years

Jeffrey Goldberg comments on the diminishing, but still lethal, threat of al Qaeda:

...at yesterday's Aspen panel on nuclear non-proliferation, the general consensus was that there's a reasonably high likelihood that a nuclear device will be detonated in an American city, New York or Washington most likely, at some point in the next ten years. And the experts on the panel, John Holdren and Joe Cirincione among them, are not exactly attached to the Bush Administration worldview. After such an attack, we'll look back -- those of us still around, obviously -- on our efforts to combat al Qaeda and judge them inadequate to the task, just as we look back now on the Clinton Administration's pre-9/11 preparations (and the Bush Administration's, as well) as thoroughly inadequate. So I suppose I'm convinced of two things simultaneously: Al Qaeda is fairly weak, and not very popular at all, and that this might not matter as much as people think.

02 Jul 2008 04:29 pm

Laugh-ology

An article on the science of humor:

The real news is that the investigation of humour is belatedly becoming a science. After millennia of untested speculation by armchair thinkers, moves are afoot to bring the study of laughter into the mainstream of experimental psychology.

And kill every joke ever made.

02 Jul 2008 03:51 pm

McCain In Nicaragua

Vintage anecdote from Senator Thad Cochrane:

"McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerrilla group here at this end of the table and I don't know what attracted my attention. But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever ... I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, 'Good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission.' I don't know what had happened to provoke John, but he obviously got mad at the guy ... and he just reached over there and snatched ... him."

McCain says none of this happened. Why Cochrane would make it up is unclear.

02 Jul 2008 03:40 pm

50-Year Politics

Ross on David Brooks's talk at Aspen:

Brooks brought up President Bush, and remarked that in all of his conversations with the President he'd always been struck by the extent to which Bush seemed (unconsciously, in ways he'd never articulate if pressed) to think of decisions in terms of fifty-year time horizons - almost as if he couldn't conceive of political action except in long-run terms. I'm paraphrasing a bit here, and this might not be exactly what Brooks meant, but I think it's an interesting way to think about what's gone wrong - and occasionally right - in the Bush Presidency, and especially the extent to which Bush's actions have been influenced, unconsciously or consciously, by the long-running American narrative of What Makes Presidents Great, often to the detriment of his day-to-day execution of the job.

02 Jul 2008 03:20 pm

The Science Of Pickle Snapping

The holiday weekend approacheth, folks:

02 Jul 2008 03:04 pm

The Grim Truth

Andy Borowitz nails it:

The liberal blogosphere was aflame today with new accusations that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) is trying to win the 2008 presidential election.

02 Jul 2008 02:45 pm

Clark, Day Four

Weigel has a smart post on Clark and the Democratic reaction, while Jonathan Martin explains why the story refuses to die.

02 Jul 2008 02:40 pm

God's Medicine

The latest installment of the ground-breaking study on the effects of psilocybin, aka magic mushrooms, brings more interesting news:

The experiment was funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The results were published online Tuesday by the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Fourteen months after taking the drug, 64 percent of the volunteers said they still felt at least a moderate increase in well-being or life satisfaction, in terms of things like feeling more creative, self-confident, flexible and optimistic. And 61 percent reported at least a moderate behavior change in what they considered positive ways.

That second question didn't ask for details, but elsewhere the questionnaire answers indicated lasting gains in traits like being more sensitive, tolerant, loving and compassionate.

And yet this completely non-toxic naturally occurring substance is still illegal in the US. We don't know whether psilocybin could be integrated into existing mental health treatments, or simply become a recreational spiritual resource for responsible adults.

02 Jul 2008 02:31 pm

Obama, Christianist

Jonathan Zasloff defends Obama's faith-based maneuvering:

Progressives have been partnering with faith-based groups long before George Bush claimed to be born-again. The biggest difference with Bush was twofold: 1) he suggested that he would funnel money to faith-based groups for programs involving active proselytization, which is unconstitutional; and 2) he actually used the program to support groups in order to generate support for Republicans, which might have been illegal.

Obama made it very clear that he would do no such thing: he's no more a "Christianist" than any policy wonk who contracts with faith-based social services providers to provide social service. So what's new? The fact that he is saying it, that he is out front with it, that he is sending a cultural signal that he embraces it. In that sense, it is both good policy and good politics. And as the Beliefnet story makes clear, it puts McCain in a box because for him to do something similar would be transparently opportunistic.

Some on the right seem to be amused or shocked that I used the term "Christianist" to describe Obama's faith-based politics.

Continue reading "Obama, Christianist" »

02 Jul 2008 02:22 pm

Torture vs Intelligence

Now we have confirmation that the US has adopted torture techniques used by the Chinese Communists in the 1950s, it may be worth listening to Milt Bearden:

Operationally, the torture story has already had a chilling effect in keeping CIA officers off the streets and out of the back alleys of a dangerous world. There is a deep and realistic concern that they could be captured and tortured themselves.

Continue reading "Torture vs Intelligence" »

02 Jul 2008 01:54 pm

Hewitt Award Nominee

“So let's sum up what America would look like in an age of Obama.

To start there would be no more driving SUVs. No more Rush. For God's sake absolutely no driving your SUV while listening to Rush. No more eating whatever you want. Definitely no keeping your home as warm or as cool as you prefer. No capital gains cuts because they are unfair. Your guns will be banned. And if you have a different opinion on global warming? All those lofty supporters of rights for terrorists are going to strip every oil executive in America of theirs in a heartbeat, live and in living color. Is anyone paying attention here?

Continue reading "Hewitt Award Nominee" »

02 Jul 2008 01:26 pm

Another Clinton Canard Collapses

Obama's Hispanic support is remarkably strong in the latest Gallup poll:

Some political experts assumed Obama's struggle to attract widespread Hispanic support in the primaries would carry over into the general-election campaign against the Republican candidate. But Hispanics have become a reliable Democratic voting bloc, and have so far shown little difficulty in transferring their loyalties from Clinton to Obama. Obama continues to lead McCain by about a 2-to-1 margin among Hispanic voters, as he has since March. Hispanic voters could be crucial in key swing states such as New Mexico, Colorado, and Florida.

02 Jul 2008 12:58 pm

Another Bush Fist-Jab

They're all obviously terrorists:

02 Jul 2008 12:54 pm

Faith-Based Social Policy

Steve Waldman looks at the differences between Obama and Bush.

02 Jul 2008 12:31 pm

Bush, McCain, Torture

Is it not a rather fantastic historical irony that the torture techniques that the North Vietnamese used against McCain that forced him to offer a videotaped false confession ... are now the techniques the Bush administration is using to gain "intelligence" about terror networks.

How is it possible to know that everything John McCain once said on videotape for the enemy was false, because it was coerced, and yet assert that everything we torture out of terror suspects using exactly the same techniques, is true? In fact, McCain at least knew somewhere that his own government knew he existed, that there were procedures to eventually release him, that he was on someone's radar. The average prisoner at Gitmo or in the other parts of the detention program believes that no one will ever save him, that he could be disappeared for ever, that there are no procedures for his eventual release and no government to remember him. If McCain uttered lies on tape to stop the torture, why would an Islamist tell the truth?

Nothing more accurately exposes the classic moral error of the Bush administration and its enablers in war crimes. If the enemy tortures, it defines their moral evil and all intelligence gleaned from such coercion is self-evidently false propaganda. If we do it, it isn't wrong, and it leads to good intelligence.

Got that? And these people have the gall to describe their ideological opponents as moral relativists.

02 Jul 2008 12:17 pm

Obama On Christian Radio

David Brody comments:

I think the ad is EXTREMELY strong. It stays away from public policy and really focuses in his personal commitment to Christ. That is a type of message that Evangelicals will want to hear.

The flip side here is that another group may start running radio spots on Christian radio detailing Obama's liberal positions on issues which may conflict with some Evangelicals. But look, you have to give this group credit for believing that they have a faithful message with Obama and they are not shy about promoting it. Plus, you won't find any John McCain radio spots on Christian radio right now.

Man, how the tables have turned.

02 Jul 2008 12:13 pm

Arianna, Take Note

According to Hewitt, Obama's general election campaign has been filled with "lurches left." Heh.

02 Jul 2008 12:05 pm

The Allure Of Gates

Obama national security advisor Richard Danzig wants to keep Bob Gates as Secretary of Defense, an idea the Dish has long favored. 

02 Jul 2008 11:50 am

Waterboarding Hitchens

A video. It's torture. Always was. He now has nightmares. It last a few seconds. His account here. Money quote:

When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack. Can one say this of those who have been captured by the tormentors and murderers of (say) Daniel Pearl? On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint.

No-one is saying that George W. Bush is the moral equivalent of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. What we are saying is that torture is torture is torture. Hitchens' distinction between torture and "actual torture" is not one of kind but of degree, with degree being measured in levels of sadism. The point is that torture is always evil, whatever its motives, that it leads to false information, whoever implements it, that it is illegal, in America and by Americans, and no one in a constitutional republic has the right to violate the law indefinitely with impunity. There is nothing "diseased" or "lame" about this position.

02 Jul 2008 11:50 am

The Angry Left III

Kos has refused to donate to Obama's campaign because of Obama's recent actions:

...there is a line between "moving to the center" and stabbing your allies in the back out of fear of being criticized. And, of late, he's been doing a lot of unnecessary stabbing, betraying his claims of being a new kind of politician. Not that I ever bought it, but Obama is now clearly not looking much different than every other Democratic politician who has ever turned his or her back on the base in order to prove centrist bona fides. That's not an indictment, just an observation...Ultimately, he's currently saying that he doesn't need people like me to win this thing, and he's right. He doesn't. If they've got polling or whatnot that says that this is his best path to victory, so much the better. I want him to win big. But when the Obama campaign makes those calculations, they have to realize that they're going to necessarily lose some intensity of support. It's not all upside. And for me, that is reflected in a lack of interest in making that contribution.

Did Kos really want Obama to run as the MoveOn candidate? He never has been.

02 Jul 2008 11:32 am

The View From Your Window

Swift Creek Reservoir, Washington, 10.11 am.

02 Jul 2008 11:12 am

Marriage And Discrimination

Pete Wehner is offended that his view that his relationship should be worth more than mine under the law because he's heterosexual can be described as "discriminatory." How can it not be discriminatory? You may want to describe your view as merely wanting "to preserve the traditional meaning of marriage," but when that preservation is entirely limited to keeping gays out, and you want the law to enforce such a distinction, then it is simply a fact that discrimination is your policy. You think it's good discrimination, but it's still discrimination unrelated to any civil marital responsibility a gay couple is prepared to fulfill.

This remains true however such a policy is maintained or arrived at - by courts or legislatures or, as is usually the case in the US, some combination thereof. What neither Wehner nor Obama have fully grappled with is that there are really only two coherent positions: civil equality or civil discrimination. Obama wants to end discrimination but not embrace equality; Wehner wants discrimination but not the moral taint of being a bigot. These straddling positions are not unusual in the midst of social change. But we have reached a point at which the useful fictions on which they rest are crumbling.