The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Saturday, January 10, 2009

10 Jan 2009 06:20 pm

Mental Health Break

Bob Dylan's "License to Kill" from the Letterman Show in 1984:

10 Jan 2009 05:40 pm

The Pietà Of The Arab World

Fallows' 2003 article on the case of killed Palestinian child Mohammed al-Dura seems all the more timely this week:

The truth about Mohammed al-Dura is important in its own right, because this episode is so raw and vivid in the Arab world and so hazy, if not invisible, in the West. Whatever the course of the occupation of Iraq, the United States has guaranteed an ample future supply of images of Arab suffering. The two explosions in Baghdad markets in the first weeks of the war, killing scores of civilians, offered an initial taste. Even as U.S. officials cautioned that it would take more time and study to determine whether U.S. or Iraqi ordnance had caused the blasts, the Arab media denounced the brutality that created these new martyrs. More of this lies ahead. The saga of Mohammed al-Dura illustrates the way the battles of wartime imagery may play themselves out.

10 Jan 2009 04:37 pm

Elements Of Limerance

What marriage can give you if you're really, really lucky:

A team from Stony Brook University in New York scanned the brains of couples who had been together for 20 years and compared them with those of new lovers. They found that about one in 10 of the mature couples exhibited the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as people commonly do in the early stages of a relationship.

Continue reading "Elements Of Limerance" »

10 Jan 2009 03:57 pm

Picture taken on February 10, 2006 shows wild boars near Allersberg, Bavaria. The number of wild boars in Germany has grown in the last years due to a milder climate. They come closer to cities and private houses, devastate gardens, dig in the rubbish and scare people. By Timm Schamberger/AFP/Getty.

10 Jan 2009 03:28 pm

Neuhaus And Gays

A full accounting of the man's crusade against any recognition in law or even public culture of the dignity and equality of homosexuals has yet to appear in the various obits. But Neuhaus was central to redefining Republicanism as Christianism, to seeing religion as indistinguishable from politics, and to cementing the marginalization and disdain of gay people as a pillar of the Christianist movement.

It was therefore unsurprising that it was Neuhaus to whom president Bush turned when deciding whether to back amending the federal constitution to ensure that gay people were for ever defined as inferior to straight people under the law; and it was Neuhaus' influence that allowed Bush to pursue this agenda without ever even acknowledging the existence of the human beings whose families he was seeking to penalize and stigmatize in the founding document. The homophobia of the Bush administration cannot be understood without understanding how Neuhaus personally pioneered and shaped it.

With Neuhaus as with Ratzinger, the gay issue was central and passionate and personal. This needs stating for the record.

10 Jan 2009 02:45 pm

Meet The Samounis

In contemplating the continuing Gaza offensive, statistics of the civilian dead never quite sink in as a human event. That is why this piece on one single clan caught in the crossfire is useful, if brutal and sobering. One wonders what Washington's opinion would be if thirty members of a single Jewish family were killed - even unintentionally - in the Middle Eastern conflict. No wonder talk of war crimes is surfacing, even in the Wall Street Journal. And Arab opinion seems increasingly moving toward Hamas. The chance of the PA establishing some post-war stability in Gaza certainly seems more remote. And the emergence of a poetntial terrorist training and recruiting ground in a failed and radicalized society in Gaza all the likelier. Friends and supporters of Israel should worry about this.

10 Jan 2009 02:40 pm

On The Palin Express

I haven't commented on the latest circus routine, but it is worth noting David Foster Wallace's Atlantic profile of the circus-master, John Ziegler:

KFI's John Ziegler is not a journalist—he is an entertainer. Or maybe it's better to say that he is part of a peculiar, modern, and very popular type of news industry, one that manages to enjoy the authority and influence of journalism without the stodgy constraints of fairness, objectivity, and responsibility that make trying to tell the truth such a drag for everyone involved. It is a frightening industry, though not for any of the simple reasons most critics give.

10 Jan 2009 01:52 pm

If YouTube Comments Were Live

Or how you can ruin Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5:

10 Jan 2009 01:44 pm

The Cult Of Reagan

Massie opines:

...it is an iron truth of politics that prolonged success sows the seeds of future downfall. Revolutions run out of steam. They cannot be permanent. More damagingly still, what begins as an unorthodox and surprisingly successful approach calcifies into a stubborn orthodoxy that brooks no dissent, even as times and circumstances change.

Continue reading "The Cult Of Reagan" »

10 Jan 2009 01:43 pm

The View From Your Window

Gloucester, Virginia, 5.10 pm.

10 Jan 2009 12:15 pm

Purple Hearts And Marriage Equality

William Saletan joins the PTSD debate.

10 Jan 2009 10:50 am

What Equality Looks Like

When I came to America from Britain, the gay rights movement was way ahead here of the old country. No longer. Here is a list of the most powerful openly gay people in Britain. The whole list is a staggering contrast with the US. At the top:

1. Spencer Livermore, 32, Director of Political Strategy, 10 Downing Street
2. Nick Brown, 57, Deputy Chief Whip, MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend
3. Peter Mandelson, 54, EU Trade Commissioner. He's back in the cabinet as Business secretary and Brown's main spin doctor.
4. Angela Eagle, 46, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, MP for Wallasey
5. Ben Bradshaw, 47, Minister of State for Health Services, MP for Exeter
6. Andrew Pierce, 46, Assistant Editor, Daily Telegraph. Julian Glover, Matthew Parris partner, is opinion editor al The Guardian.

The bigotry that infects the Republican party and the cynicism and cowardice that dominates the Democrats on this issue prevent such success and integration in America. And yet many of the causes that have prevailed in Britain - marriage equality and military service, for example - were pioneered on this side of the Atlantic.

10 Jan 2009 09:48 am

The Smoke-Free Market

Jacob Grier looks at Arlington, Virginia and sees the benefits of a light touch in anti-smoking regimes:

Arlington makes an interesting test case. It’s one of the wealthiest, most liberal cities in the country, and residents would surely approve a smoking ban if they were allowed to. Fortunately they’re restrained by Virginia law that forbids local anti-smoking ordinances to exceed the state’s own rules. Every year a statewide ban is introduced in the senate and immediately shot down by the tobacco-friendly house.

The fact that popular bars and established restaurants are voluntarily choosing to restrict smoking shows that ban opponents have been right all along: given demand for smokefree environments, profit-seeking business owners will eventually provide them, if not as immediately as a legislative ban would. And as someone who generally prefers bars with clean air, I think that’s fantastic — as long as dive bars like Jay’s or the backroom cigar lounge at EatBar remain free to set their own policies too.

On a related note, Steve Verdon doesn't take kindly to the idea of "third hand smoke."

10 Jan 2009 09:08 am

When Will The Recession End?

It depends who you ask. Financial journalists in aggregate:

It should be noted that the journalists are now very bearish. Asked when the recession would end, 31% said early 2010, 26% said mid-2010, 22% said January 2011, and 21% said even later. The survey also asked where the DJIA would close on June 30, 2009. The average of the responses was 8639.12, or about 100 points lower than today. Since journalists screwed up so badly last time and are reliably contrary indicators, this might be a signal that we’re in for a quick recovery.

The official line:

The consensus (and the Fed forecast) is that the economy will bottom in Q2 2009 with a sluggish recovery in the 2nd half of this year.

Nouriel Roubini aka "Dr. Doom":

The U.S. recession will last two full years, with gross domestic product falling a cumulative 5%, said Nouriel Roubini, ... For 2009, Roubini predicts GDP will fall 3.4%, with declines in every quarter of the year. The unemployment rate should peak at about 9% in early 2010.

Friday, January 9, 2009

09 Jan 2009 09:04 pm

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

The "shrinking map of Palestine" to which you link is incomplete and inaccurate. I offer only three examples.

First, its initial map of Palestine ignores at least two relevant points. (A) Under the Ottoman Empire, "Palestine" did not exist as a political entity. (B) In 1917, the British conquered the land on both sides of the Jordan River. Initially, the Palestine Mandate included both territories. This is why, before its annexation of the West Bank, the country now known as Jordan was called "Transjordan." Please see this Wikipedia map. In 1922 (others say 1923), Britain unilaterally partitioned the land into "Palestine," comprising what today are Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and "Transjordan." Some extreme Jewish nationalists and messianists claim that that partition either provided the Arabs of Palestine with a homeland ("Jordan is Palestine") or wrongfully deprived Jews of a part of our rightful patrimony -- "the Jordan has two banks, and both are ours."

Second, the author omits a map of the partition proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937, which the Jewish Agency for Palestine, under David Ben Gurion, accepted, but the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee (under the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini) rejected. You can see how much land that rejection cost them.

Continue reading "Dissent Of The Day" »

09 Jan 2009 08:15 pm

Mental Wounds II

Michael Cohen is disappointed:

This failure to recognize PTSD has real consequences. Not only will those who are suffering not receive the added -- and much-needed -- medical benefits that come to Purple Heart recipients, but the stigma around mental illness in the military is only perpetuated by this action. One can only imagine the chilling effect that this decision will have on soldiers already uncomfortable about facing mental illness.

09 Jan 2009 07:33 pm

Face Of The Day

An injured policemen walks away during clashes with demonstrators from reaching the Egyptian embassy in Algiers on January 09, 2009. Several thousand protestors rallied in Algiers after Friday prayers, burning Israeli flags and denouncing Tel Aviv and its key ally Washington. 'The army and the people are with you Gaza,' they shouted, adding: 'Take us to Gaza.' By Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty.

09 Jan 2009 07:29 pm

Blindly In Support Of Israel

Yglesias makes a few good points:

Most Americans with strong feelings about Israel don't actually have strong feelings about the details of Israeli policy. Had the Israeli government chosen to talk rather than start bombing back in December, Americans would have supported them. Had the Israeli government bombed for a few days and then agreed to a cease-fire, Americans would have supported that. But instead the bombing was followed up by a land invasion, so they supported that instead. And politicians follow a similar lead. As France and Egypt were working on a cease-fire proposal Wednesday, Rep. Steny Hoyer was "scrambling to push out" a nonbinding resolution in support of Israeli policy, hoping to avoid being "out hawked" by House Republicans.

While this sort of politically motivated deference is understandable, it's also incredibly counterproductive.

Continue reading "Blindly In Support Of Israel" »

09 Jan 2009 06:30 pm

The Iran-Hamas Axis

Alex Knapp questions the assumption that Hamas is an Iranian proxy:

...as far as I can determine from researching online, no such collaboration appears to exist. The best I could come up with is that Iran does provide some funding for Hamas, but that funding level is at a paltry $3 million per year. Saudi Arabia and Syria are much bigger funders of Hamas, and some Hamas leaders operate out of Syria. Even at that, though, it’s pretty clear that Hamas is pretty much a home-grown Palestinian organization. They may accept funding and support from other countries, but there’s not much evidence that they act as a “proxy” for any of them.

Alex dukes it out in the comments with readers who aren't buying it.

09 Jan 2009 05:59 pm

A Beard Martyr

The tale of Joseph Palmer, from Fashions in Hair by Richard Corson (1965). More vital beard coverage here. Meanwhile, a step back in bear-parent relations:

09 Jan 2009 05:33 pm

Quote For The Day

"This end of History would be most exhilarating but for the fact, that according to Kojeve, it is the participation in bloody political struggles as well as in real work or generally expressed, the negating action, which raises man above the brutes. The state through which man is said to become reasonably satisfied is, then, the state in which the basis of man’s humanity withers away or in which man loses his humanity. It is the state of Nietzsche’s ‘last man,’" – Leo Strauss, On Tyranny.

09 Jan 2009 05:21 pm

Passive-Aggressive Notes

Why doesn't this get a blog award? I'm particularly struck by this entry. (You can still vote, by the way.)

09 Jan 2009 05:14 pm

Fisking Rove

Why is anyone printing the views of the most disastrous political strategist of recent times? A take-down of the latest Palin-level delusions.

09 Jan 2009 05:02 pm

The Ethanol Black Hole

Ronald Bailey summarizes a new study:

The Environmental Working Group has just issued a report that finds that 75 percent of all renewable fuels tax subsidies in 2007 went to environmentally damaging corn-ethanol production. In addition, the corn ethanol industry, teetering on the edge of collapse despite billions already wasted in subsidies on it, now wants additional billions for a bailout.

09 Jan 2009 04:45 pm

Mental Wounds

James Joyner agrees with the Pentagon that the Purple Heart should not be awarded for PTSD:

While I take PTSD more seriously than Stacy McCain, who asks “What next? Medals for dysentery?” I share his credulity that this was even under serious consideration. To award the Purple Heart for psychological scars would be a slap in the face to the long line of combat wounded who have earned the medal the hard way, instantly cheapening it.

I find both judgments devoid of a real understanding of trauma and its profound mental effects. The mind can be wounded too in the line of duty. In the twenty-first century we should have some way of acknowledging that, even if the Purple Heart may not be the right way to go.

09 Jan 2009 04:20 pm

Mental Health Break

How to make a fruit salad using a deck of cards:

09 Jan 2009 03:44 pm

Expel The Heretics!

Erick Erickson hates, hates, hates Mitch McConnell:

The idea that Mitch McConnell is protecting us from the Democrats is bullcrap. We should collectively rip off his jaw and shovel the crap back down his throat that he’s been serving us.

09 Jan 2009 03:15 pm

A Geographical Struggle

For those who don't know the area, looking at a map of Palestine's shifting borders helps explain the conflict in Gaza. So does the Economist's latest:

...a conflict that has lasted 100 years is not susceptible to easy solutions or glib judgments. Those who choose to reduce it to the “terrorism” of one side or the “colonialism” of the other are just stroking their own prejudices. At heart, this is a struggle of two peoples for the same patch of land. It is not the sort of dispute in which enemies push back and forth over a line until they grow tired. It is much less tractable than that, because it is also about the periodic claim of each side that the other is not a people at all—at least not a people deserving sovereign statehood in the Middle East.

09 Jan 2009 03:11 pm

Relax And Lift

It's Friday. Time to be mesmerized by camp:

09 Jan 2009 03:00 pm

What Did The Five Fingers Say To The Face?

Slap. A bitchy blog about people who deserve the Rick James treatment. A few offerings: Inaccurate Wikipedia Contributor, Office Food Thief, and Passive Agressive Emoticon User. Expect the author to go the way of LOL Cats and Stuff White People Like and have a book deal soon.

09 Jan 2009 02:52 pm

Another 524,000 Jobs Lost

David Leonhardt studies the unemployment numbers that came out today.

09 Jan 2009 02:28 pm

With Apologies To Strunk And White

The Elements Of Spam.

(Hat tip: Kottke)

09 Jan 2009 02:18 pm

A Post-Ideological Administration?

Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge, is going to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Ezra Klein explains why that's significant:

OIRA is quiet, but important. It's the chokepoint of the entire federal regulatory apparatus. If used wisely, it facilitates the flow, provides welcome analysis and judgment, and aids in implementation. If used as an anti-government weapon, it can do a lot of damage. Sunstein can do real good there. But why would he want it? He's shown a taste for celebrity, and OIRA very much does not provide that.

It's worth remembering that Sunstein has recently achieved great fame for Nudge, a book which basically argues that we need to apply the insights of behavioral economics to the construction of regulation. And Director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is the ultimate staging ground for those ideas. Reagan understood that OIRA was the central clearinghouse where you could affect the whole of the regulatory state all at once. He wanted to virtually shut it down. Sunstein wants to "nudge" it.

09 Jan 2009 01:58 pm

The Dish In Play

The Daily Dish, after a large number of votes, is now neck and neck for lead in the Best Blog category. Thanks so much for the support. As I've said, none of this means very much in the grand scheme of things - and the main benefit of the awards is to surf around and find new blogs worth reading. All the finalists are well worth reading and that includes our chief competitor, Hot Air. But this is your blog as much as ours, and this is one way of helping us (and our ad department) keep the whole show on the road. You can vote for any number of blogs here, and the Dish here. If you already voted more than 24 hours ago, you can vote again. Please do. Yes we can!

09 Jan 2009 01:24 pm

Stu Taylor's Argument

My National Journal colleague argues that one source in the Senate Armed Services report on the Bush-Cheney torture program was misquoted. Since he's referring to classified portions of the report that I have no access to, I can't say whether the alleged quip from CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman - "if the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong" - was said exactly as phrased or not. But the defense Stu offers is telling enough:

This is not to suggest that Fredman denies making all of the controversial statements attributed to him in the committee's report. The report (and the "minutes") may well be accurate in stating that he had described the vaguely written criminal law against torture as banning only physical pain so severe as to cause permanent damage to major organs or body parts and mental pain so severe as to lead to permanent, profound damage to the senses or personality.

So the substance of the claim remains undisputed. And this is what it is: Fredman absurdly narrowed the description of torture to the loss or permanent damage to major body organs (a Gestapo standard the US nonetheless failed to reach), and anything less than this as "enhanced interrogation". Since many prisoners did actually die at American interrogators' hands, and many more were brutalized into insanity, Fredman was accurately describing the line that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld had ordered the CIA and military to dance on. His alleged quip suggests to me that he understood the intent of John Yoo all too well. Is Levin's report discredited because a quip might - and I emphasize might - have been slightly garbled? Please. As Taykor concedes, the substance of the charges is in no doubt.

The lameness of this defense is replicated in Taylor's attempt to defend Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the other war criminals on the Potomac. Consider this paragraph:

The report dismisses with scorn the Bush team's view that terrorists were unprotected by the Geneva Conventions, while ignoring the fact that this view had deep historical roots and was defended by highly respected scholars.(The Supreme Court rejected this position in 2006.)

There may be arguments as to what level of Geneva protection prisoners had and have (I don't favor full POW protections, for example, and never have), but there really is no serious debate about the baseline standards of Article 3 for all prisoners of any kind, standards the Bush administration knowingly violated. Then this argument:

Take the report's conclusion that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's December 2, 2002, authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo, on the recommendation of then-Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II, "influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques, including military working dogs, forced nudity, and stress positions, in Afghanistan and Iraq."

This is true to a point. And some criticism of Rumsfeld and Haynes is warranted. But the report's language might also foster an impression, unsupported by the evidence, that Rumsfeld, Haynes, and other top officials intended to encourage the widespread, wanton abuse of prisoners that Abu Ghraib came to symbolize.

I can appreciate Stu's attempt to be fair-minded here. Seeing people one knows and likes and has covered as war criminals is wrenching.

Continue reading "Stu Taylor's Argument" »

09 Jan 2009 01:09 pm

Why Not Let The Jett Travolta Story Go?

Owen Thomas rounds-up the inconsistencies.

09 Jan 2009 12:47 pm

Touchy Touchy

Richard Perle:

[A]bout the many mistakes made in Iraq, one thing is certain: they had nothing to do with ideology. They did not draw inspiration from or reflect neoconservative ideas and they were not the product of philosophical or ideological influences outside the government.

09 Jan 2009 12:38 pm

A New Day

The Panetta pick essentially shows that the long, tough struggle to get Obama elected was worth it in a fundamental, vital way. For me, as my endorsement indicated, a return to decency and the rule of law was the overwhelming priority in the last election. In that critical respect, we just won. In Spencer's words:

Second, and more important from a human-rights perspective, was what [Obama] said about torture and interrogations: "We must adhere to our values diligently and with no exceptions." No exceptions. None of this ticking-bomb crap that doesn't exist in the real world, none of these Jack Bauer distortions.

America is back. Know hope.

09 Jan 2009 12:20 pm

Getting Your Internet Money

Simon Dumenco questions whether Huffington Post is worth $200 million, notwithstanding the recently committed $25 million in venture capital money. This stopped me a little short:

Consider, for starters, HuffPo's revenue. As Nat reported, from January through August of last year -- the site's most-trafficked year -- "the site collected just $302,000 in ad revenue, according to an estimate from TNS Media Intelligence."

Gulp. But Huff is expanding into many non-political areas and has great brand recognition, even if it doesn't actually, er, pay the vast majority of people who contribute to it. Dumenco proposes:

Maybe the Huffington Post could be worth more if it further cut its burn rate. For instance, rather than not pay its bloggers, it could charge them -- for the privilege of getting to help maintain the jetsetting lifestyle of the Great Arianna, of course. As for some of the people the site does pay, like its tech staff? Those jobs could be offshored to, I dunno, Third World child labor. If HuffPo takes such steps, I could see the site being worth maybe $4 mil.

The grim reality for online journalism is that we have yet to find a way to make money from it. We need advertizing. 2009 is not the best moment to seek it.

(Hat tip: Frank Wilson)

09 Jan 2009 12:14 pm

Capturing New York City

The New York Times gets creative with new media. This may be its future.

09 Jan 2009 12:08 pm

The View From Your Window

Concord, Massachusetts, 9 am.

09 Jan 2009 11:53 am

The Two Neuhauses

I met Richard John Neuhaus only a couple of times, but he took the second occasion to tell me to my face, with his clerical collar on, that I was "objectively disordered". I remember this rather well because we were in an elevator at the time and I didn't quite know where to look. I have no way to judge him as a person, but admired his candor in a way, and the many glowing personal obits are testament to a man who clearly made great friends and was a witty, funny, humane companion. I knew his work and read it closely and appreciated his influence, which is why I've done what I can to engage and counter it.

Neuhaus began on the very far left and ended up rather quickly on the very far right.

Continue reading "The Two Neuhauses" »

09 Jan 2009 11:26 am

Not Paying Their Fair Share?, Ctd.

Auguste plucks out another data set from this report:

After-tax income
Lowest quintile: 15,300
Second quintile: 33,700
Middle quintile: 50,200
Fourth quintile: 70,300
Percentiles 81-90: 96,100
Percentiles 91-95: 125,500
Percentiles 96-99: 200,500
Percentiles 99.0-99.5:413,300
Percentiles 99.5-99.9: 830,100
Percentiles 99.9-99.99: 3,191,600
Top 0.01 Percentile: 24,286,300

09 Jan 2009 11:10 am

Obama's Left Flank

Krugman is restless about the stimulus and Gupta (no Michael Moore critics are allowed in Obamaland). And John Conyers chimes in against "Sunjay" referring to Krugman's "Noble" Prize.

09 Jan 2009 10:42 am

Conservative Degeneracy Watch

Michael Weiss:

What would Allan Bloom think about Joe on the frontlines? Does it even matter anymore?

09 Jan 2009 10:37 am

Proportionality And Terror, Ctd.

A reader writes:

You mentioned in your first post on this that you thought you might be missing something from Just War, and I think I know what it is: the "supreme emergency exemption", a controversial part of the Just War story which posits, as you can probably guess, that in certain grave emergencies you basically do what you need to do to survive, even if it's morally untenable by standard jus in bello norms. As you can imagine, this is controversial stuff: you won't find anything about it in international law, but it does have its supporters, among them Rawls, Walzer, and most famously, Winston Churchill.

Continue reading "Proportionality And Terror, Ctd." »

09 Jan 2009 10:29 am

A Brand Whose Time Has Gone

But it remains true that HIV can help you stay slim, along with a balanced diet and exercise:

Get AYDS! is after the jump:

Continue reading "A Brand Whose Time Has Gone" »

09 Jan 2009 09:56 am

The Logic Of Cheney

It all makes sense in his head:

He also said he doesn't think anyone at the CIA did anything illegal during interrogations. He says they followed the administration's legal opinions.

And the administration lawyers were ordered to find torture legal.

09 Jan 2009 09:39 am

Will Gates Stay Indefinitely?

Some hints he doesn't see himself as a place-holder. Which is a good thing.

09 Jan 2009 09:25 am

Mum And Starbucks, Ctd.

A reader writes:

Just at about the same time you were writing that post, I was at a Starbucks sipping the exact same thing and said to two of my colleagues "this is the same thing that my Amma has been making for me since I was 8 years old and something that I drink every morning even today". Hilarious.

PS Amma is Tamil for mum, but you already figured that.

Another adds: