Month: June 2010

Today on the Dish, Kagan yucked it up with Senators, punted on the Twilight question, and went back on her word. The British government moved on torture, a new study proved that the NYT rarely used the term with the US, and the first hurricane seemed to do some good in the Gulf. Andrew challenged Breitbart on his offer to pay $100K for Journolist.

Prop 8 update here. Drug War coverage here and here, and police state watch here. A reader didn't buy the Palin clone's shtick. More on Palin here and here. More Trig talk here, here, and here. The Stranger and Jim Burroway looked at efforts to change sexuality in utero.

Frum addressed his apostasy, Bob Bennett scrutinized his own side, and Continetti criticized Beck. Noah Millman went another round on Afghanistan, McArdle countered Dylan Matthews on Social Security, Dana Goldstein put the conflict mineral trade under the microscope, and Gene Demby noted the end of rubber rooms. A reader demanded evidence showing that porn is detrimental and another critiqued the MSM. Cup coverage here and here. MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.

— C.B.

DiA sums up one of the dullest confirmation hearings in recent memory (as evidenced by Al Franken's "note taking"):

The public knew little about Ms Kagan prior to this week's hearings, and they've learned little new about her during her three days of testimony, at least when it comes to how she might act as a justice. The hearings have proceeded in what has become a predictable fashion. Ms Kagan, a former law professor, has proved to be quick-witted, delivering the most fluid performance by a nominee since John Roberts's display five years ago. She seems able to speak at length about any legal subject, but has artfully dodged queries about how she might rule about most controversial issues, such as abortion and gay marriage.

The Bulwer-Lytton award is given annually for the worst first sentence of a novel. Contestants craft deliberately bad opening lines. Molly Ringle took the 2010 prize with this gem:

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss — a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil.

A reader writes:

Regarding your post about porn and whether or not it's destroying sexuality, I'm calling bullshit. This entire argument seems ridiculously tired to me. First, these books describing the crisis of sexuality in America often rely on one-on-one interviews with very little qualitative data. I've yet to see any serious studies showing that men or women are enjoying sex less, are less satisfied with their partners, etc. The interview with Gail Dines is one anecdote after another. The only thing this woman convinced me of is that she's got shoddy methodology and her kids must spend an inordinate amount of time rolling their eyes.

The sexual data points we do have suggest positive sexual trends: that younger women may be delaying vaginal sex with safer forms of sex (oral) and that women are delaying childbearing (suggesting greater reproductive power), among others. And I'd be willing to bet that women have greater agency in their sexual lives today than ever before. Who do you think was/is more likely to speak up about sex they don't like: your grandmother or your sister? (Sorry to bring your theoretical grandma and sister into this.)

Gail Dines, in the NSFW video above, makes her case against pornography in graphic detail but without the data this Dish reader requests. Amanda Hess has more clips of anti-porn activists speaking at a recent conference in DC.

Gene Demby marks the closing of NYC's holding pens for unfireable teachers unfit to teach. Suspended teachers will now be "reassigned to the city's department of education offices, where they'll work until their cases are resolved":

Designating teachers as unfireable means any serious conversation about good and bad teachers — of what they look like — is essentially tabled. The end result is that the nation's largest public school system essentially grades all of its teachers "competent," leaving the difficult work of fixing schools undone in the face of maintaining polite fictions.

A reader writes:

I am a physician and absolutely do not believe the Palin account of Trig's delivery story. But I am also a woman, and your shock that if she would lie about this is simply a man's perspective. Women lie about pregnancy/birth/parentage all the time. Women withhold the truth when they get abortions and don't tell the potential father. Women have babies and lie about who the father really is even when they know. So what seems like a terrible lie to you doesn't even come close to lies women tell on this subject. This is why I think you overstep on the Trig issue.

The lie about Trig likely came about to feed her ego that she is a hero; she is a martyr for even having him. But I, and I suspect other women, see this as an intrusion. So even if you prove what is likely true – that she is lying – it is neither unique nor crazy.

"The problem with COIN is not that it can be done better or worse. Of course their are methods and strategies that are sometimes successful. The problem is that the very idea of COIN inclines policy makers to get involved in stretched versions of the national interest that require astronomical levels of resources to even have a CHANCE at succeeding," – a commenter at Exum's joint.

Bernstein pushes back:

Is the Sage of Wasilla winning?  Is she "getting away with it"? Well, that's where it gets interesting.  For her troubles, Palin is massively unpopular.  Pollster.com has her at favorable/unfavorable averages at 35/52…that's pretty awful.   For a comparison, Romney is at 32/33; Obama is currently at 52/40.  What Sarah Palin has done is to retain the extremely strong support of a fairly small number of Americans.  But that's probably something she would have even if she was giving interviews!  Meanwhile, her media strategy is obviously doing an absolutely terrible job of selling her to anyone outside that small group.  Granted, in my view the product is at least as much of the problem as is the sales campaign, but then again all anyone is asking here is whether she's liked (as opposed to the much tougher sell of whether one would want her as president), and she's failing on that one, too.  It doesn't mean that she could never reach the presidency, if that's what she wants, but it's hard for me at least to see that the press strategy is helping her get there.

A reader writes:

I find it pretty ironic that in your post on pan-Africanism you have a photo of Kevin-Prince Boateng, born and raised in Berlin.

Another writes:

Using Kevin-Prince Boateng's picture is actually a very interesting choice. He has both German and Ghanaian citizenship. His half-brother Jerome is also German/Ghanaian and also an international soccer player – but with Germany instead of Ghana. They've already played against each other in this World Cup. It's the first time brothers ever did so.

Germany beat Ghana 1-0, but the two teams could face each other again.