Month: May 2005

Here’s a taut response to Jonah Goldberg’s post about my brief discussion of some common themes between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism. Money quote from my defender:

This is what Christian and Islamic fundamentalism have most in common: an open hostility to pluralism, to the idea that government should operate as if the ways and beliefs of others were as legitimate as their own. In this sense, Sullivan is right that hatred of homosexuality is intrinsic to Christian and Islamic fundamentalism. The struggle against Islamic fundamentalism may not be “about” homosexuality, just as the struggle against Christian fundamentalism is not “about” abortion. These just happen to be two issues upon which democratic pluralists and religious fundamentalists cannot and very likely will not agree, and where the war between the partisans of government by consent and the partisans of government by divine diktat will continue to be fought.

Just to clarify: I wrote “Christian fundamentalism” not Christianity; and I wrote “open and proud homosexuality”, not just homosexuality. I completely agree that the murderous threat of Islamist fundamentalism is far graver than the threat of Christian fundamentalism. (Although it’s worth noting that America’s recent domestic terrorism has come from the extreme right, and that Erik Rudolph, a Christian fundamentalist terrorist, specifically targeted gays for murder.) But I also believe that the war against Islamic fundamentalism is indeed linked to the struggle against similar extremists within Christianity. We are in a global war for secular society, in which the search for religious truth is and must be protected but religious truth is not and must not be the basis of a political order. The external enemies of such secularism are far worse than the internal ones. But their ultimate mindset remains the same. It has always struck me as odd that some of those most opposed to Islamist fundamentalism are completely untroubled by the Christian variety. Or maybe Hitch and I are the only ones to see a connection.

That’s one view of the Brit election tomorrow:

Assuming Labour wins, it will be the seventh victory in a row for Margaret Thatcher. It will deliver her a round 30 years of supremacy over British government, equalling the epoch of Attlee’s welfare socialism after 1945. Labour’s manifesto is a Thatcherite classic: adventurism abroad and progressive privatisation at home, moral partiality bolted on to an ever-expanding nanny State. The consensus is well illustrated in the near-identical proposals for public services from Labour and Conservatives. Both have pandered to middle-class insecurity. They have used fear, crime, discipline and control as leitmotifs and promised to curb civil liberty and make the welfare state increasingly optional. Baroness Thatcher may have disappeared to Venice for the duration, but she can look back on this campaign with pride. She destroyed the Social Democrats, she destroyed old Labour and, in stimulating the creation of new Labour, she has all but destroyed the Tories.

The key test of political longevity is whether your political opponents eventually adopt your new consensus. The only flaw in this reasoning is that Simon Jenkins misses the premiership of John Major. If the Tories had not won their post-Thatcher victory, Blair would never have emerged to save Labour. It was Major who reconciled the country to Thatcherism – by winning an election as a Tory who was not Thatcher. For what it’s worth: I’d vote Tory this time. Blair will win anyway. But his creeping expansion of the welfare state must be resisted and reversed. Another Labour victory might just convince the Tories to go back to advocating much lower taxation, a smaller state and far more decentralization. Here’s hoping.

Item One: I’d say it’s pretty obvious that Michael Jackson will be found ‘not guilty’ at this point, which is not, of course, the same as innocent. Making a jury decision on this horrendously prosecuted case doesn’t strike me as that hard. But when I ask myself what I think he may actually have done, I just don’t know. I’m horrified by any sexual exploitation – even of a minimal kind – of a child. But every time I try and think of the minutiae of the Jackson case, I just feel nauseated and mentally change the subject. One thing is obvious: Jackson is psychologically damaged in ways I cannot even begin to understand. Item Two: Paula Abdul did something very dumb and unethical. She should quit the show. Item Three: the boyfriend and I rented “Meet The Fockers” the other night. About as bad a movie as I have seen in years. We saw “The Interpreter” last night. Highly recommended, grown-up cinema. You know: what used to be the norm.

Another explanation for the red-blue divide.

GOD, MAN AND JONAH: The conservatism-of-doubt debate continues here.

THE DUTCH CONFLICT: A good friend of mine dares to walk hand in hand with his boyfriend in Amsterdam. Yes, Amsterdam. A “Moroccan-looking” guy with a heavy accent spits at him in the face, mutters something about “fucking fags”, and then a small gang beats him up. His story is here, including a picture of his bloodied face. Hatred of open and proud homosexuals is intrinsic to Islamist fundamentalism, as it is to Christian fundamentalism. The struggle against both is the same one – at home and abroad.

FUNDAMENTALIST WATCH I: Pat Robertson calls judges he disagrees with a greater threat than al Qaeda. We’re now told Robertson represents very few members of the religious right. So why haven’t they denounced him? The establishment fundamentalist, Bob Knight, meanwhile equates the movement for gay equality with the “criminalization of Christianity.” The voice of Republican reason.

FUNDAMENTALIST WATCH II: The evangelicals’ distrust of science deepens. They are especially opposed to successful vaccines for venereal diseases. Such vaccines might encourage … sex! New Scientist has the details on evangelical opposition to LPV vaccine research that could save countless lives, especially in the developing world.

POLLING ON MARRIAGE: There has, I think, been some turbulence in the national polling over the last year on marriage rights, as Maggie Gallagher points out. This is perhaps understandable. Opposition to equal rights (or any rights) for gay couples in this respect is now a key plank of one political party, and has been amplified by a coordinated campaign against them (including the presidential bully pulpit), using churches, pastors and all sorts of venues to push the message. That’s democracy. Those of us who believe gay couples should be supported in their responsibility; who believe that greater social stability among gays will help heterosexual marriage; who believe that families should include all their members in the same rites and responsibilities; who believe that this country is big enough to allow diversity on this issue among the states rather than a single imposition of a minority view; we need to keep up the debate. Nevertheless, it’s striking that a clear majority of the country in all polls supports some legal protection for gay couples via civil unions or civil marriage – exactly the position that would be made impossible by the federal marriage amendment. Still, even then, Maggie is cherry-picking. She writes:

The ABC News/Washington Post poll (“Do you think it should be legal or illegal for homosexual couples to get married?”) found that in September 2003, Americans opposed gay marriage 55 percent to 37 percent. In the August 2004 poll opposition had climbed to 62 percent opposed to 32 percent in favor of SSM.

This is, er, misleading. Those numbers count supporters of civil unions as the same as those opposed to all legal protections. It’s also out of date. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll (April 2005) finds that 40 percent want to forbid any legal protections for gay couples, while 27 percent favor civil marriage rights and 29 percent favor civil unions (a combined 56 percent majority for some kind of civil union). In the same poll, the anti-gay-union Amendment gets between 39 and 44 percent support, depending on the phrasing, and between 53 and 56 percent opposition. In fact, this poll shows a decline in support for an amendment over the last year: support went from 44 percent to 39 percent. Support for the federalist solution went from 51 to 56 percent. I guess you now know why Maggie’s study omits the most recent data.

“You link to dalythoughts.com as a “persuasive” piece of evidence. Didn’t you notice something terribly misleading about the setup? Daly concedes that “it is clear that things have been on a downhill trend since the Carter Presidency,” yet his damning tables compare the first terms of the various presidencies. This masks the downward trend since 1992, of course, by skipping only Clinton’s second term. (G.H.W. Bush never had one, as you’ll recall.) It is instructive instead to compare G.W. Bush I with Clinton II, since those are consecutive terms. When you do, you find that Clinton had 64 nominations, Bush 66. Clinton had 35 confirmed, Bush 35. Clinton had two withdraw; Bush has had one withdraw. Clinton had 27 rejected by the Senate; Bush 31. Strikingly similar, no? There’s really no excuse besides a polemical one for only comparing first terms – a comparison of the whole presidencies would have shown that G. W. Bush is right in line with the modern trend. But Daly’s “persuasive evidence” has been parroted by other Righties from Professor Bainbridge to Rush Limbaugh (and you, I guess) and turned into even more misleading graphics in the Economist!
One final note: Daly’s data show that seven circuit court nominees were returned in the Kennedy/Johnson years, even when the Democrats had huge, filibuster-proof majorities throughout. I think this is a good reminder that it’s possible to doubt the worth of some nominations for non-partisan reasons. Some of Bush’s current nominees, to wit, just plain suck.” Another emailer makes a different point, pointing out that in 2004, 41.6 million Americans cast votes for Democratic Senate candidates, while just 38.1 million voted for Republicans. The 44 Democratic Senators represent 148,026,027 Americans; the 55 Republican senators represent 144,765,157. (Not including Vermont with a socialist or DC, where you might as well be a Mongolian in terms of Senate politics). Alas, this won’t wash. The Senate is undemocratic. Always has been. That’s partly its point. But when one party controls presidency, Senate and House, is the Senate judicial filibuster more defensible? On the basis of tradition, I’d say no. On the basis of accountability and resistance to one-party government, maybe.

A defense of Janice Rogers Brown. In being luke-warm about the filibuster, I don’t mean to imply that the Democrats are all at fault. The way Republicans blocked Clinton nominees didn’t help. The increasing ideological polarization of the parties, the end of blue slips, the post-Bork poison in the nomination process: all these play a part.

This is from Scott Horton, a human rights activist deeply involved with the torture question:

Over the last ten years I have worked very extensively in Uzbekistan, on occasion spending up to a month at a time there on business for banking clients. During this time I became closely acquainted with a number of leading figures at the Uzbek bar and heard many gripping stories of abuse and mistreatment of ordinary citizens at the hands of President Karimov’s regime. Last year, a public commission which was looking into the situation there contacted me and I helped arrange a visit by commission members to Uzbekistan to look into freedom of conscience issues. I helped put them in touch with a Lutheran pastor who had been intimidated and mistreated, and several attorneys who represented Muslims who had been imprisoned and tortured. In Uzbekistan it is a grave offense to worship in any religious gathering which is not state-sponsored. As a result of US pressure, some room has opened up for Christians, but for Muslims, being caught worshipping other than at a state-sanctioned mosque is likely to be a life-altering experience. Severe beatings, lengthy “investigatory detention,” incarceration in TB-laden workcamps is the norm. A prisoner’s likelihood of survival at such camps is not much better than 50-50. And of course the famous cases of torture, such as boiling in water. All this reminds that the techniques of which Col Stoddart wrote so vividly in the 1840’s continue, with technological enhancements, under Islam Karimov. One of the commissioners apparently challenged President Bush about this when the commission had a meeting with the president. Couldn’t he issue an order prohibiting such renditions? Couldn’t he issue an unequivocal order against torture? The president, the commissioner said, reacted with near rage. He angrily snapped “Who said that? We do not practice torture!” The commissioner repeated that the president needed to send a clear message to the government that torture was a taboo. The president scowled and walked away in disgust.

The president, I’d say, is in an angry state of fraying denial. But why hasn’t the press corps been more aggressive than they have been? Open-ended questions about “rendition” don’t hack it. How about asking Bush directly how he can send terror suspects to Syria and Uzbekistan? How about asking him why he won’t allow a legislative ban on CIA torture? How about asking him directly whether he considers “water-boarding” to be torture? This is about as profound a moral issue as can be found in today’s politics. And yet the press lets the president off the hook. What gives? Are they really that afraid?

I’ll stick what’s left of my neck out and predict a very bumpy election night for Tony Blair. Iraq has emerged as an issue in the campaign exactly when Blair didn’t want it to; the latest polling suggests that 36 percent of the electorate may yet change its mind; and the Tory strategy of focusing on individual constituencies rather than a national polling advantage may bear fruit. Here’s the data that’s worrying for Blair. Alas, I’ll be on an airplane when the results come through (I’m going to L.A. to record the Bill Maher show for Friday). But I’ll blog the results and the spin when I get to California.

Cato has a new study of the transformation of the GOP into the big government, big spending party of Karl Rove and George Bush. Despite promises, things are not improving.

I have to say I’m underwhelmed by the arguments for the judicial filibuster as it is now deployed by the Democrats. The president and his party won the election; and the president should be able to nominate judges and have them brought to a vote in the Senate. Maybe an exceptional case could justify a filibuster; but I don’t see the broad decision to block so many nominees as a matter of precedent. This piece of evidence struck me as persuasive. On the other hand, Stuart Taylor makes a very good case for the constitutional extremism of one of the president’s favorite nominees, Janice Rogers Brown. Whatever else she is, she does not fit the description of a judge who simply applies the law. If she isn’t a “judicial activist,” I don’t know who would be. (I might add I’m not unsympathetic to her anti-statist views. But she should run for office, not the courts.)

WHAT THE BRITS THOUGHT: Kevin Drum is right, I think, to notice the leaked British memo about the preparations for the war to oust Saddam. It’s one person’s assessment of what was going on in Washington. It’s not the last word and it isn’t proof of anything but the British government’s own view of Bush’s foreign policy aims in 2002. Still, I’m struck by two assessments:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.… The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

In retrospect, doesn’t this sound quite insightful with regards to the weaknesses of the Iraq war policy? I still support the invasion on moral grounds and “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.” But the Bush administration’s faith-based treatment of intelligence and its failure to plan for the aftermath of war still stand out as pieces of reckless governance.