Month: November 2009

In advance of Obama's big speech tomorrow, Andrew took stock of the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also excoriated Rick Warren's silence on Ugandan gays, called out Seth Lipsky's blind praise of Palin's blind praise of Israel, mulled over Scottish independence, and, with the help of Frum, analyzed the latest polling of Republicans on fiscal values.

The debate over Swiss minarets continued here and here. The exposure of Palin's deceit also continued; Joe McGinnis revealed that she hasn't been on the bus much, Geoffrey Dunn showed that she can't even keep her quotes straight, and Craig Medred found much, much more. While many laugh off her absurdity, Yglesias and Andrew fret.

— C.B.

And it's a most embarrassing one. I completely misread the date on one of Charles Krauthammer's columns on climate change and he rightly excoriates me for the error. I'm not sure how it happened, but I assumed, I think, that a piece sent to me in response to the climategate issue was current and didn't check the date. It makes the post largely moot. Krauthammer does omit the gas tax idea in that column, as I noted, but he explains the small discrepancy thus:

The gas tax wasn't mentioned because it's not particularly relevant to the subject I was addressing — the ideological rigidity of climate-change activism. And because my views on the gas tax had been repeated so many times, writing about it again would have been superfluous.

I was wrong in inferring any shift of Krauthammer's position under Obama; and I apologize to Krauthammer and my readers for both the mistake and the unfair inference.

Fred Kaplan has mixed feelings about the war:

Which road is less unappetizing? I don't know. That's why I'm ambivalent.

My guess is that President Obama held so many meetings with his national-security advisers on this topic—nine, plus a 10^th on Sunday night to get their orders and talking points straight—because he wanted to break through his own ambivalences; because he needed to come up with a reason (not just a rationalization) for doing whatever it is that he's decided to do, some assurance that it really does make sense, that it has a chance of working, so he can defend it to Congress, the nation, and the world with conviction. Let's hope he found something. A columnist can be ambivalent; a president can't be.

Joe Klein adds his two cents.

(Image: David Furst/Getty)

Alex Massie assembles a theory:

Other countries, not merely in western europe, have relied upon US protection so heavily that they are now largely incapable of making large-scale interventions themselves. They need the Americans. One consequence of this is that when the Americans actually ask for help there is not much their allies can usefully offer. This strengthens the American view that the US is having to shoulder too much of the burden itself. There's something to this. But if that's the case then it's partly also because America's allies appreciate that the US will do what it must in order to safeguard its interests and so, even when our own self-interest might be aligned with theirs, the less risky option is to let them go ahead on their own since they're going to do it anyway. Without the Soviet Bear, Washington's ability to leverage support is actually more limited even as its own power has increased.

David Frum parses the latest poll on the GOP:

[H]ow much of the anger felt by Republicans is explained by things Obama has actually done – and how much by the generally miserable situation of the country. Republicans have 401Ks too. Only 1% of Republicans name George W. Bush as the person who epitomizes Republican values, and 24% blame him greatly or somewhat for the problems of the country today.

For all the anger felt by Republicans, they are not a very radical group of people. They divide 50-50 on whether they wish to see religion exercise more influence in American life than it does today. Only one-fifth of Republicans think abortion should be illegal in all cases. The party still holds a substantial pro-choice minority: 35% think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Half of the Republicans and Republican leaners surveyed said they “never” listen to Rush Limbaugh – more than say they never listen to MSNBC.

The AP reports:

The mistaken belief that albino body parts have magical powers has driven thousands of Africa's albinos into hiding, fearful of losing their lives and limbs to unscrupulous dealers who can make up to $75,000 selling a complete dismembered set. […] Since 2007, 44 albinos have been killed in Tanzania and 14 others have been slain in Burundi, sparking widespread fear among albinos in East Africa. At least 10,000 have been displaced or gone into hiding since the killings began, according to a report released this week by the International Federation for the Red Cross and Crescent societies.

(Image by Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images)

Yglesias opines:

I know some liberals who are excited about the prospect of a joke candidate like Sarah Palin or Dick Cheney getting the GOP nomination in 2012. Not me. The basic fact of the matter is that power tends to alternate between the two political parties. Ultimately, the nation’s interests require both parties to nominate the best people possible. So I hope the Republicans find someone who’s very smart and compelling and does an excellent job of identifying and explaining the flaws in Barack Obama’s approach. Cheney couldn’t possibly win a presidential election…unless somehow he could, in which case the country would be set for a world of pain.

Palin, as Sam Tanenhaus ably demonstrates in his review of "Going Rogue," is not a joke candidate. Neither is Cheney.

They represent a real populist and authoritarian option for a declining power. In the face of a bewilderingly changing world, they stand for white America, the extension of its power across the globe, the elevation of torture as a core American value, the permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and American occupation of client states like Iraq and Afghanistan. They represent a contempt for addressing climate change, and an indifference to debt – both Palin and Cheney have records of appalling fiscal profligacy. They also represent religious fundamentalism as the core Republican political philosophy. Cheney supports a party that would strip his own daughter – and has stripped his own daughter – of basic civil rights. Palin would criminalize all abortion.

The appeal of populist simplicity in complicated, demoralizing times is real and eternal. Obama has not in office been able to muster a scintilla of popular energy the way this rump right has. In fact, his moderate conservative governance has defused the energy of his campaign in ways that remain quite stunning. In this emotional game, the far right has the advantage of "us" vs "them." There are no real solutions to deep problems – no actual spending cuts proposed, nothing but the use of force abroad, nothing in energy policy but more carbon exploration, no immigration policy that isn't obsessed with resisting any sort of amnesty, and on and on.

One imagines that the American people – when they have to decide on a president who will actually have to govern – will turn away from a Palin. But that such a farce remains the most powerful figure on the right should sober anyone with complacency.

We live in a fundamentalist age. And there is only one fundamentalist party. Unless it is beaten repeatedly at the polls, it will at some point govern again.

The NYT's Jan Hoffman fleshes out the debate over servicemembers surprising their kids upon returning from overseas deployment:

“Some people think it’s totally fine,” said Lillian Connolly, a mother of four who leads support groups for military families in Brockton, Mass. “But I recommend to families not to surprise children. The child has been without a parent for so long. The child can hold anger. You never know how they’re going to react.” Mrs. Connolly, whose husband is on his third deployment in Iraq for the Army Reserve, added: “And in front of the media? I don’t think it’s fair.”

On the other hand:

The adulation from classmates at these special moments can be reparative, parents say. Peers may finally empathize with the turmoil of a child whose parent is deployed. How bad could a little glory be?

“Nobody paid attention to me, it was all about Hannah,” said Master Sgt. Joseph Myers, of the video in June that vaulted onto national broadcasts showing the reaction of his 10-year-old — freeze-frame expressions ranging from incredulity to ecstatic relief — when he walked into her Randolph Elementary School class at Universal City, Tex. Hannah still Googles her name to read new posts, he said, “and to check what ranking she is on the viewings at YouTube.”

For viewers, these moments have a voyeuristic magnetism. They are mini-dramas, representing the anxiety of the ultimate parent-child separation, with a radiant resolution. Institutions that facilitate them can’t help but benefit from the emotional spillover.

Chief among them: the military. Jon Myatt, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Military Affairs, said those called up — doctors, butchers, accountants like Major Becar — live in communities where people may not understand military families’ ordeal. These reunions and their publicity give a window into their lives. “You don’t get that on the nightly news very much,” Mr. Myatt added.

Continued here.

James Carroll lists the many political gambits by the Catholic Church lately – threatening to withhold social services in DC if it allows gays to marry, threatening to scuttle the entire healthcare bill over abortion, etc. – and concludes:

[A]cross the 20th century, [the Church] was a force for progressive social change. That is over. For the first time in its history, the American Catholic hierarchy is solidly right wing. There is not one liberal voice among its members.

That Catholic bishops are genuinely conservative is beyond doubt, but one might also note how their unprecedented alliance with an already powerful political-religious movement nicely solves the bishops’ biggest problem–the bankruptcy of their moral authority and loss of social clout in the wake of the priest-pedophilia scandal. New Protestant allies are happy to let go of old anti-Catholic prejudices, even those confirmed by priestly child abuse, for the sake of advancing their narrow moral agenda. Meanwhile, an equally divided political culture puts bishops in the cat-bird seat when it comes to tipping the scales of close elections or contested legislation, and that unexpectedly pivotal role has rescued them.

They are Rovians: desperate for short-term political highs, all the while undermining their long-term coherence. I suspect that what we will see in the future is a church basing itself in the developing world, and adopting more African views on the subjugation of women, criminalization of homosexuality, and the evils of Western liberal capitalism. Europe will remain the enemy, Islam a useful ally and America's Republican Party Christianists a source of money and power as the Western flock shrinks to the rump that Benedict devoutly wishes for.

If I had been asked to predict the church's future ten years ago, I would have deemed this far too pessimistic a view. But Benedict's papacy has made all the difference. I no longer believe in any revival of a vibrant and truth-seeking Christianity under the Catholic hierarchy in my lifetime. But I can still hope. Because the truth of the Gospels is so much stronger than the politics of the papacy at any given moment in history.