Well, we have a very quick new entry for the Prodi award, and it’s Howard Dean. Blaming the murder of 200 innocents on the Bush administration’s liberation of Iraq is a sign of serious moral derangement. “The president was the one who dragged our troops to Iraq, which apparently has been a factor in the death of 200 Spaniards over the weekend.” Dragged? As commander-in-chief, he ordered, and he did so with the overwhelming backing of the Congress and dozens of allies. But then you have the real Dean touch: he has the phenomenal capacity to assert something obscene and then refuse to take responsibility for it. Remember the “interesting theory” that the president knew about 9/11 in advance? Here we go again: “Let me be clear, there is no justification for terrorism. Today I was simply repeating what those who have claimed responsibility for the bombings in Spain said was the reason they carried out that despicable act.” So he’s just parroting Jihadist spin, not endorsing it. Looking back, I was simply wrong to entertain the idea that a Dean nomination would be refreshing for the country. If he were the nominee today, he would have just lost the election. And there would be no more debate.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MARRIAGE: Please, please read this piece in the New York Times. It reiterates something I have been banging on about for months. The social right just ignores it. But the important truth is: the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not apply to marriage. The looming civil marriages in Massachusetts will be restricted to Massachusetts because a) it’s accepted legal doctrine that all other states can refuse to recognize such marriages if they violate the public policy of those states; b) DOMA underlines this and puts several exclamation points after it; c) Massachusetts law itself voids any civil marriages contracted in that state for the purpose of evading marriage laws in another state; and d) 38 states have passed their own mini-DOMAs to declare their own public policy on such a matter with no ambiguity at all. The notion that this limited exercise in federalism poses such a terrible threat to the whole country that it has to be pre-empted by a federal constitutional amendment is simply hysterical nonsense. The Cheney position remains the smartest one: let the states decide. Let them come up with a variety of means to recognize gay couples; let’s see which ones make most sense; leave Massachusetts alone to resolve its own public policy without clumsy federal intervention. I thought that was what conservatism was supposed to be about.
The Dish 