One reason I find some of the grand-standing over WMDs increasingly preposterous is that it comes from people who really want to avoid the obvious: more and more it’s clear that the liberation of Iraq was a moral obligation under any circumstances. People say to this argument that if we depose one dictator for these kinds of abuses, where will we stop? But the truth is: very few dictators have resorted to imprisonment or mass killing of children. Saddam’s evil was on a world-historical scale. Ending it was one of the most prgressive things the United States and Britain and their allies have ever done.
THE END OF INFANTICIDE II: I can certainly respect those who do not believe that a first trimester fetus is essentially a human person. But I cannot respect those who are morally untroubled by the hideous procedure of partial birth abortion. In fact I’d go further: one measure of how some pro-choice activists have lost their way is their refusal to see that some restrictions on abortion are indistinguishable from a total restriction on all abortion; and that there is a moral issue here. By the third trimester on, there is an unmistakable human being at stake – visually, intuitively, morally. The awful way in which that human being has its life extinguished in very late term abortions simply shouldn’t be a part of any civilized society. Yes, I know my own abortion position – that it should be legal in the first trimester only – lacks complete moral and political coherence. But it’s a result of trying to balance in my own mind my personal view that all abortion is wrong and my understanding that in a liberal democracy, others sincerely disagree; and in many cases, such disagreement also involves such an intimate decision on the part of a woman that I feel the state is unqualified to intervene. That’s where I am – and where I suspect a lot of people are: uncomfortable, anguished, conflicted. But I see no reason to feel such conflicts about partial birth procedures. If the pro-choice movement eagerly agreed to outlaw these more horrific operations, they would surely have more credibility in arguing for retaining legal abortion in earlier stages. But they won’t, because ideology is trumping reason here. It shouldn’t. The passage of this law represents a huge step forward for humane medicine, whatever your ultimate position on the abortion matter in more general terms.
TICK, TOCK, ARTHUR: Mickey has the odds of Howell Raines’ departure at 70 percent. The arrival of the Howell-o-meter itself pushes the odds to 75 percent.
The Dish 