The far right’s attempt to do to Catholicism what has been done to American Fundamentalism – turn it into a political wing of one party – is exemplified by Opus Dei supporter, Robert Novak, in yesterday’s Washington Post, and echoed by the National Review and the Weekly Standard, who also want to see a universal faith coopted by one faction in one political party. My response at TNR is now posted.
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE I: Shiites begin to get serious about running their own affairs in the South. The news this past week has indeed been gloomy, the retreat in Fallujah dispiriting, the Abu Ghraib images gut-wrenchingly awful. But I don’t believe that all is lost. The bottom line is that the Kurds want a new pluralist Iraq to work and have shown how in ten years in the north. the Shi’a have every reason not to see their country decsend ito civil war, since for the first time in decades they have a chance at exercizing real power. The danger is that Arab-Islamic cultural pathologies will overwhelm all of this. That was always the risk and it’s why, as George Will points out today, what we are witnessing is something truly historic and a test between the hopes of neoconservatism and the sobriety of conservatism. But my bet is that the truth is somewhere in between, and that, with time and commitment, real improvement can and will come to Iraq. Unlike others, I’m not giving up yet. Far from it. It’s at times like this that we have to grit our teeth and see this through.
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE II: Remember when Rhea County, Tennessee, wanted to sexually cleanse their county of homosexual vermin? They’re now going to get a fully-fledged “Gay Day” this year. The spirit of the freedom rides continues.
The Dish 