The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Friday, January 18, 2008

18 Jan 2008 02:50 pm

The Latest Gerson Screed

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We find the ancient liberal smear that limited government conservatism means un-Christian cruelty. There have been arguments over the social Gospel throughout human history. I side with Thompson against the notion of government as a force for spiritual reformation and mandatory charity. What's objectionable about Gerson's piece is the notion that Thompson's version of Christian politics is not a genuine disagreement but a function of "shallow" theology. Different theology, not shallower. Poulos agrees:

Gerson would seem to have us think that a Christian is defective unless he or she supports the use of every tool at the federal government's disposal to minimize the risk of new terrorists being created.

Larison is tarter:

It is now "isolationist" to oppose foreign aid for disease prevention on a continent where the United States has negligible interests, because apparently our resources are as infinite as the ever-multiplying "interests" that the Gersons of the world discover for us in every problem around the world. More than that, Gerson tells us, Fred has revealed his lack of "moral seriousness." For Gerson, governing isn't a matter of making choices and setting priorities in the American interest, but of unburdening his conscience about suffering on the other side of the world with someone else's money. I can understand why Gerson is annoyed–this kind of foreign aid was one of his favourite administration policies–but the reasoning here is beyond laughable.

18 Jan 2008 02:49 pm

Obama, Farrakhan, Double Standards

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Now, there's a new bar for Obama to meet: Abraham Foxman now demands that Obama leave his own church because his preacher has all sorts of crazy views that relate to politics. Examining Jeremiah Wright's theology as it has influenced Obama's thinking seems to me to be interesting and even important. And Obama will have to take some lumps for it. But demanding someone leave their own church because of some political views espoused by their pastor seems a bit over-the-top to me. David Bernstein doesn't go that far but he argues it is not enough for Obama to condemn Farrakhan, as he has, nor to condemn Wright for things he has said directly related to the campaign, as he has, but to condemn Wright for his church-sponsored magazine's kind words for Farrakhan. I don't think this kind of pressure has any logical end - except for where Foxman wants to go. And Obama should resist being pushed around.

I should add, contra Bernstein, that I think it's fair to criticize candidates when they are endorsed by a religious figure on the campaign trail, when they have a religious figure hold a campaign fundraiser for them, or when, as in Giuliani's case, they employ a priest credibly charged with child molestation. But holding a candidate answerable for everything a magazine sponsored by his church says unrelated to the campaign is a step designed purely to sling the smear of anti-Semitism onto someone whose life and career has been transcending racial and religious barriers, not deepening them.

18 Jan 2008 02:27 pm

McCain Derangement Syndrome

Gerard Baker nails it:

I sense that the syndrome says something about what has gone so badly wrong with the conservative movement in the past ten years. It has become so intolerant and exclusive that once orthodox views are now regarded as heresy; while views once merely narrow and eccentric are now prerequisites for membership.

18 Jan 2008 02:05 pm

The Ron Paul Treatment

John Edwards gets dropped from polling questions.

18 Jan 2008 02:01 pm

That Bird

As several million bird-loving readers have told me, it was not a Herring Gull but a Ring-Billed Gull. Awesome photo whatever kind of gull it is. Thanks for the emails! Love you. Mean it.

18 Jan 2008 02:01 pm

The View From Your Window

Winnipeg, Canada, 5.04 pm.

18 Jan 2008 01:44 pm

Sony Playstation Saves Lives

The wonderful world of unintended technological consequences.

18 Jan 2008 01:37 pm

Torture Tape Update

A helpful official time-line from Scott Horton. Money quote:

The Bush Administration plan is simple: let’s think of this as a movie – Abu Ghraib, The Sequel. Instead of offering up a group of young grunts for the sacrifice, this time it will be a retired senior management figure at the CIA and some of his subordinates. And this sacrifice will, in the White House’s view, divert attention from the real source of both scandals, which is high in the upper reaches of the Executive Branch. Inside the White House, in fact.

18 Jan 2008 01:19 pm

That Amazing Military Photo

I posted it here. It's verified here.

18 Jan 2008 01:06 pm

Meanwhile, Back On Planet Earth

One antidote to campaign insanity is a brief purview of what on earth has just happened to the Middle East and what that might mean for the future. If that sounds worthy, you're wrong. Jeffrey Goldberg's new essay is one of those big, blue-sky think-pieces whose black humor actually made me laugh out loud at several points. Here's a flavor from a Kurdish prison in Iraq:

The interrogator asked me if I had any questions for Omar. Yes, I said: Have you been tortured in this prison?

“No,” he said.

“What would you do if you were to be released from prison right now?”

“I would get a knife and cut your head off,” he said.

At this, the interrogator smacked Omar across the face with the Koran.

Omar yelped in shock. The interrogator said: “Don’t talk that way to a guest!”

Reality is likely to make one no more pessimistic than optimistic. The region defies both responses, I think. There's a great NPod anecdote too.

18 Jan 2008 12:56 pm

Snip. Snip.

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Michael Lewis gets a vasectomy and spares us no detail:

The nurse returned, wearing the same blank expression but now waving a new disposable razor, which struck me as a cheap tool for a dear job. She worked quickly and joylessly, like a Marine barber. I wanted to be helpful but there wasn't much to do, except to hope she didn't flinch. In the vast silence, insane thoughts flitted across my disturbed mind.

Is it possible to shave something off by mistake?

Jesus Christ … What if I get an erection?

Would it be my last?

Maybe I should pop one off, just for old time's sake.

18 Jan 2008 12:43 pm

Sent To Siberia

A tradition revamped.

18 Jan 2008 12:30 pm

Obama's Reagan Analogy Ctd.

Kos defends Obama once, twice, thrice. I think he somehow has more cred on the left than me.

18 Jan 2008 12:21 pm

That Clinton MLK Gaffe

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This sums it up pretty succinctly:

The analogy Clinton was implying was obvious: I'm Lyndon Johnson, unlovely doer; he's Martin Luther King, charismatic dreamer. Vote for me if you want results.

Forty years ago, that arrangement -- white president enacting African-American dreams -- was necessary because discrimination denied blacks their own autonomous political options. Today, that arrangement -- white liberals acting as tribune for blacks in return for their political loyalty -- is a demeaning anachronism. That's what the fury at Hillary was all about, although no one was willing to say so explicitly.

18 Jan 2008 12:05 pm

The Bill Problem

It isn't going away and is likely to be a much bigger liability if Senator Clinton wins the presidency. A reader explains:

One of the issues which was decisive for me in deciding early on that I couldn't support Senator Clinton in 2008 was the fact that it meant Bill Clinton would be occupying the White House again - only this time with a lot more free time on his hands. I say this as someone who voted twice for him, thought the Starr investigation would have been better termed an inquisition, and thought the impeachment was a ridiculous political response to a personal indiscretion with no bearing on the country's well-being. Lying about sex is usually a good thing and especially in this case. My concern now is that Bill's possible new address in 2008 is not fully realized, imagined, or thought through by Democratic primary voters. Assuming Senator Clinton wins, the Republicans will (and should) make that distasteful image clear enough, and will thereby close the deal for many independents and help lower Democratic turn-out. Revisiting not only Lewinsky but Willey, et al. will be enough to sicken and disgust even many liberal voters, like me, who think it's time to turn the page on not just the Bush dynasty but the Clinton's as well.

Continue reading "The Bill Problem" »

18 Jan 2008 11:59 am

Romney And National Review

A reader notices this in a recent Ken Silverstein piece:

In seeking to woo conservatives, Romney has also used his personal PAC—the Commonwealth Political Action Committee—to contribute lavishly to several national pro-life groups, the Federalist Society, the National Review, and the Heritage Foundation, among others.

Is the National Review thing true? Now I don't believe for a second that NR endorsed Romney for anything other than the reasons they cited. It certainly makes sense for purely ideological and partisan reasons. But I do think it's a legitimate question to ask them to disclose how much money a leading Republican candidate has donated in the past few years. Full disclosure and all. If Barack Obama or Ron Paul had given me a large donation before I endorsed them, I'd feel obliged to disclose. Are the rules different for a magazine than for a blogger?

18 Jan 2008 11:51 am

Struggles In The Ron Paul Campaign

An update on the battle between the old and new guard.

18 Jan 2008 11:48 am

Endorsement Watch

Key Latina for Obama; key pro-lifer for McCain.

18 Jan 2008 11:42 am

Now This Is A Woman Politician

From County Kerry, naturally. And somehow I don't think she'd play the victim card on the campaign trail:

In her later years visiting foreign journalists mused about how the wild, tribal frontier, where women are in purdah and even goatherds carry Kalashnikovs, was an unlikely place to find an elderly Irish widow serving afternoon tea. The area has lately become a stronghold for the Taliban, and is generally out of bounds to foreigners.

Jennifer died on January 12. Her funeral procession was attended by thousands of burly, turbaned Pathans (many of them allied to the Taliban) who raised cheers of "Mummy Jennifer!" in her honour as the cortège passed through a shuttered Pishin.

She was buried at the Qazis' ancestral burial ground near the tomb of the family Sufi saint, Sheikh Farid Baba.

President Pervez Musharraf telephoned Jennifer's son, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, to offer his condolences for the death of a woman who, in one of her last interviews, said: "Mummy has had her innings."

18 Jan 2008 11:31 am

Play, Pause, And Explain

The hideous, slow distortion of our basic moral values by the Bush administration cannot be allowed to prevail:

When Mike McConnell says “You can do waterboarding lots of different ways…I assume you can get to the point that a person is actually drowning” he is asking us to look at the trees and not the forest. We know waterboarding is torture and we desperately want to believe that our leaders haven’t directed it. We approach our leaders predisposed to believe anything that will put the conscience at ease - we want to believe we’re the good guys. Therefore we are entirely willing to let our leaders play, pause and explain. (Play) waterboarding is really bad (pause) but it can be done lots of different ways and probably some of them aren’t torture and you can bet your bottom dollar that THOSE are the varieties of it we use. He invites us to mentally pause the tape over and over again while he explains the non-torturous nature of each drop.

A war crime is a war crime is a war crime. Prosecute them.

18 Jan 2008 11:28 am

Asking For It

So they did taunt the tiger.

18 Jan 2008 11:00 am

Pacifying Baghdad

It's hard to know what else we can expect Petraeus to do. Some of the violence has obviously been displaced to other areas, but that doesn't detract from the achievement. Increasingly, progress is now up to the Iraqis. Quite whether that's a good or a worrying sign we shall soon find out.

18 Jan 2008 10:26 am

Huckabee And Reconstructionism

Hugh Hewitt - who insists that amending the constitution to ban all abortion and strip gay couples of all legal protections are "mainstream conservative positions" - also claims, contra Bainbridge, that

Professor B's tortured string of cites never delivers anything remotely connecting Huck to "reconstructionism," and implying otherwise is just imagination.

Check out Brink Lindsey's post here. In December, Huckabee had a non-imaginary fundraiser in the Dallas home of one Dr. Steven Hotze, who was on the host committee. Hotze is a major reconstructionist. Here's a quote from a section of a manifesto signed by Hotze in 1986:

We affirm that the Bible is not only God’s statements to us regarding religion, salvation, eternity, and righteousness, but also the final measurement and depository of certain fundamental facts of reality and basic principles that God wants all mankind to know in the sphere of law, government, economics, business, education, arts and communication, medicine, psychology, and science. All theories and practices of these spheres of life are only true, right, and realistic to the degree that they agree with the Bible.

Reconstructionists want to amend the Constitution to bring it in line with Biblical precepts. Sound familiar? since Huckabee has used almost identical language, this isn't guilt by association. It is context for what Huckabee means - and the signals he is sending to the hard-core Christianists he is appealing to in South Carolina and elsewhere. Here's a clip from Rick Scarborough, another hist committee member at Hotze fundraiser, and a self-described "Christocrat:"

Scarborough fought Huckabee in the Baptist wars of the last decade. But their differences do not obscure their commonalities. Once you have dedicated your life to fundamentalist religion, once you have insisted that nothing - let alone politics - can be independent of absolute Biblical judgment, documents like the Constitution are indeed secondary. They have to be amended to be brought into line with the authoritative truth. Nothing can interfere with that authority - nothing.

I don't think people have really understood the logical consequences of the fundamentalist psyche. There is nothing more antithetical to the principles underlying traditional conservatism. Eventually, the complacent Republicans will realize the tiger they are riding. Huckabee is charming. The charming ones are often the most dangerous.

18 Jan 2008 09:28 am

"The Visionary Minimalist"

Cass Sunstein on Obama:

"'Visionary minimalist' may sound like an oxymoron, but in fact--and this is the key point--Obama's promise of change is credible in part because of his brand of minimalism. He is unifying, and therefore able to think ambitiously, because he insists that Americans are not different "types" who should see each other as adversaries engaged in some kind of culture war. Above all, Obama rejects identity politics. He participates in, and helps create, anti-identity politics. He does so by emphasizing that most people have diverse roles, loyalties, positions, and concerns, and that the familiar divisions are hopelessly inadequate ways of capturing people's self-understandings, or their hopes for their nation. Insisting that ordinary Americans "don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal," Obama asks politicians "to catch up with them." Many independents and Republicans have shown a keen interest in him precisely because he always sees, almost always respects, and not infrequently accepts their deepest commitments."

18 Jan 2008 08:51 am

Image Of The Day

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This was sent to me and I cannot confirm it independently but it's of a helicopter rescue mission in Afghanistan. Sometimes we forget what amazing people we have in the military - people with skills and balls most of us cannot even imagine. Whatever our differences about strategy and policy, I really don't see any evidence that the vast majority don't respect - even revere - the troops who are out there. I don't mean this as a typical look-at-me-I'm-a-patriot-Fox-News kind of gesture. But these kids are astonishing.

18 Jan 2008 08:44 am

So Farewell, Then, Mr Wham-O

Richard Knerr, RIP, inventer of hula-hoops,

Superball, so bouncy it seemed to defy gravity; Slip 'N Slide and its giggle-inducing cousin the Water Wiggle; and Silly String, which was much harder to get out of hair than advertised.

18 Jan 2008 08:37 am

Skeptical Of Obama

Leon Wieseltier:

Change: fine. A new generation: fine. A new politics: fine. It is all fine, and it is all contentless. Inspiration without content is a prelude to alienation. Newness is the oldest pitch in American politics. And I am a little sick of hope. ("I do not believe in miracles," says Herodias in Wilde's play. "I have seen too many.") Also I have a queasy recollection of 1975 and the electrifying emergence of Jimmy Carter out of nowhere, in all his progressive pristinity, in a country made torpid by a war and an era of low politics. Why not the best? Skepticism is bad form in a bandwagoning moment. Yet I have a few doubts.

This kind of skepticism is entirely a good thing, I'd say. The one unfair critique is that Obama lacks policy substance. His campaign is laden with policy substance. Oodles of it. More, I wager, than Leon's interest would ever bear.

18 Jan 2008 08:05 am

Bribes To See A Movie

In their defense: Ben Stein's in it.

18 Jan 2008 07:43 am

Romney On Gilligan's Island

Or the joys of film editing online.

18 Jan 2008 07:27 am

The Clintons And The Race Card

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An insightful glimpse into their Rovian calculations.

18 Jan 2008 07:03 am

Yglesias Award Nominee

"I should register here that I basically agree with this, in the sense that Huck's populism has seemed more like a rhetorical pose than anything of substance. I should note, though, that I read something earlier this week on The Hotline -- and I can't find the link this morning, so you'll just have to trust me -- saying that as Arkansas governor, Huckabee showed a penchant for distrusting centralized power. If true, that's something. But no, I don't think Huckabee is a populist in any sense that Larison and Caleb (Stegall) would recognize. His rhetoric to that extent is largely therapeutic, giving people the satisfaction of populist feeling (and believe me, I've enjoyed it) without the real thing," - Rod Dreher, Crunchy Con.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

17 Jan 2008 10:59 pm

Huckabee On Divorce

We clearly need a constitutional amendment to ban it:

Marriage has historically, as long as there’s been human history, meant a man and a woman in a relationship for life. Once we change that definition, then where does it go from there?

The Bible is clear. Jesus is actually explicit on this - and never mentioned homosexuality. Divorce is clearly forbidden. If we have strayed from such a core Biblical principle, and the Constitution is the place where we are supposed to resolve social policy, then Huckabee must support a constitutional amendment to ban divorce everywhere for everyone. So how about it, GOP? Are you serious about the Bible as the basis for politics or not?

17 Jan 2008 08:40 pm

Face Of The Day

A dusting of snow sits on the head and back of a Herring Gull during a heavy snowfall near the U.S. Capitol January 17, 2007 in Washington, DC. By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

17 Jan 2008 08:28 pm

Franken's Ads

He's running for Senate in Minnesota. The Shrummy message is lame. But the high-school teacher is cool.

17 Jan 2008 07:58 pm

Limerickapalooza

Some more:

Here is the candidate Fred
And these are the words that he said
"I want Law and Order
so I'm closing the border
If you want me, I'll be in my bed."

There once was the mayor called Rudy
Who went to Long Island for booty
The taxpayers paid
So that he could get laid
Did 9/11 come before Judy?

Others here.

17 Jan 2008 07:25 pm

Go, Nads!

Yes, that's what the supporters of Rhode Island School Of Design's hockey team shout. You should see their mascot.

17 Jan 2008 07:01 pm

Staph Hysteria

Some useful perspective from three editors in the gay press.

17 Jan 2008 06:24 pm

Wheels Against Warming

A competition winner:

The pedal-powered machine successfully transports and filters water without burning fossil fuels or wood, which contributes to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

YouTube here.

17 Jan 2008 06:22 pm

Huckabee and the Confederate Flag

More repulsive pandering. For what it's worth, I suspect he'll win South Carolina.

17 Jan 2008 05:55 pm

The Clintons Lose

Their proxies' lawsuit - an attempt to suppress the vote in Nevada - is dismissed.

17 Jan 2008 05:30 pm

Karl Rove's Soul

A scientific breakthrough.

17 Jan 2008 05:22 pm

Here They Come

Not bad for a start:

Mr. Huck believes God’s the solution
And claims that there’s no Evolution.
It could be he’s right
God said “Let there be light,”
But he didn’t write the damn Constitution.

There once was a man named Obama
Who avoided political drama.
But when Clintonites spoke
Claiming King was a joke,
Obama responded, "Yo mama!"

I'll keep 'em coming if you do.

17 Jan 2008 05:19 pm

Va-Jay-Jay Heaven

New Orleans gets some unexpected support:

April 11 and 12 will find the Louisiana Superdome interior turned into a pink and red vagina -- "with a big vagina entrance," Ensler said -- as a setting for performance events, parties, parades, workshops, wellness and education programs, speakers, even spa treatments, which will be free to residents of New Orleans and the Gulf South. (Men are excluded only from the spa.)

For those two days, New Orleans will be "the Vagina Capital of America," Ensler said. "We're coming here to say that we should celebrate New Orleans, cherish it, protect it, just as we do our vaginas, and make sure it goes on and on."

17 Jan 2008 05:16 pm

The Real Huckabee

Bainbridge is a little aghast. Yeah, according to Huckabee, my marriage to my husband is a gateway to legalized and protected relationships between humans and animals. Thanks, Mike! And then we're somehow going to round up and deport all 12 million illegal immigrants without a new form of police state. Meanwhile, he doesn't just have loose associations with far-right extremists, he has them hold fundraisers for him. In this campaign. Christian reconstructionists are genuinely Taliban-Christianists. And Huckabee has no problem with them.

I think of Huckabee as almost a comic vindication for those of us who have worried about the rise and rise of unopposed Christianism in the GOP. Except he's not a joke. He could actually win this thing.

17 Jan 2008 05:16 pm

Best Paper Airplane Ever

From outer space to earth?

17 Jan 2008 05:09 pm

Embrace Diversity

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And stop worrying about wedge issues - that's Kai Wright's message for the Democrats this fall:

America much prefers a principled stand to a weak-kneed dodge.

Amen. And that goes for gay equality in particular. If you think Hillary Clinton will campaign proudly on her defense of gay people, think again. She never has. She never will. She's too scared. Whenever the Clintons have been forced to pick between defensive calculation and aggressive conviction, calculation always wins.

17 Jan 2008 04:54 pm

Americans Are Reproducing

And that's a good thing, whatever environmentalists say, argues Alexander Tabarrock:

Once we realize the importance of ideas in the economy, people become brains--they innovate, creating more for everyone else.

Of course, Fox News' John Gibson is just thrilled to have more white kids around. Not that he's a racist or anything.

17 Jan 2008 04:44 pm

Risky Business

Fantastic Aussie TV interview with a sixteen year old after an awesome party he threw while his parents were on vacation. Plus: a nipple ring! Really, it's a classic:

Yeah, I'm a little punchy today.

17 Jan 2008 04:42 pm

The Military's Brain Drain?

Some worrying data.

17 Jan 2008 04:40 pm

The Press Wakes Up

A flare-up as AP reporter Glen Johnson calls Mitt Romney on a bald-faced lie. More, please. The endless untruths out of Romney's mouth need to be addressed.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Andrew Sullivan

Dish Prep