Month: May 2006

I missed it. We were watching the new Woody Allen movie, "Match-Point." It’s not available on the Daily Show site yet, but I’ll make sure to watch when it is. I saw Ramesh on "Real Time" and, in a debate about abortion, he never actually stated his position. Odd. A reader comments:

The first word that came to my mind after watching him last night was "evisceration". Besides his extremely offputting voice and deer-in-the-headlights manner, Ramesh didn’t make any statement that approached coherence. Stewart’s question asking Ramesh to justify killing innocent people in the war was the highlight. Ramesh’s only response was that he was opposed to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Gulp!

Oh, be nice. That whole just war argument is so pre-Benedict. Opposing war is not part of the Party of Life. Neither is opposing torture. Puhlease. Besides, in Ponnuru’s mind, more full-fledged human beings die in a womb in an average fertile woman’s lifetime than have perished in many wars. Priorities, priorities.

Update: I just saw it. I’d say Stewart did an extremely good job of flushing out the absolutism of Ramesh’s position. And the title of the book is obviously a huge impediment to constructing the kind of debate we need. I wonder if Ponnuru regrets it now. I should say I will read this book as soon as I get a chance. It isn’t fair to keep commenting on it without reading it. Today, I finish the copy-edits on my own. So time will open up, I hope.

This one’s a doozy – from someone who voted for Bush twice in 2000 and is no fan of the Democratic Party. Money quote:

I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don’t believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we’re on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and its rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.

So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesn’t generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldn’t be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point who’s buying the act?            

Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while he’s down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.

You were right, I was wrong.

I take some comfort from this fiscal conservative revolt in Pennsylvania. But I think the entire Bush-Rove edifice has to be destroyed for a conservative renaissance to begin.

A town in Missouri starts evicting households who do not conform with the family standards its majority finds morally acceptable. An unmarried couple with three children has just been denied the right to live there. I’m not making this up. More here. The couple in question have been together for thirteen years.

It’s all the rage at National Review. It’s defended as "human nature."

Shiite militias, following strict Islamic theology, continue to terrorize Baghdad. Although Sistani may have revoked his murderous fatwa against all gay people, the pogroms continue. Money quote:

The death threat was delivered to Karazan’s father early in the morning by a masked man wearing a police uniform. The scribbled note was brief. Karazan had to die because he was gay. In the new Baghdad, his sexuality warranted execution by the religious militias. The father was told that if he did not hand his son over, other family members would be killed.
What scares the city’s residents is how the fanatics’ list of enemies is growing. It includes girls who refuse to cover their hair, boys who wear theirs too long, booksellers, liberal professors and prostitutes. Three shops known to sell alcohol were bombed yesterday in the Karrada shopping district.

Rumsfeld’s policy of just enough troops to lose has resulted in a new Taliban in Iraq. It pains me beyond measure to see the following quote from a gay activist in Iraq:

"We could never envisage this happening when Saddam was overthrown. I had no love for the former President, but his regime never persecuted the gay community."

God help them.

I just sat through an entire segment on the O’Reilly Factor dedicated to discussing the president’s position on the proposed federal marriage amendment. Should the president take it on more aggressively? Or not? Fair debate. The only guests are both paid-up members of the movement to pass the amendment, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Maggie Gallagher. Even if the debate were entirely an intra-Republican affair, wouldn’t it have been appropriate to have a Republican like LCR head, Patrick Guerrerio, to debate this; or Jim Kolbe? Or Mary Cheney? Or someone who might actually put the opposing point of view? Or are my expectations for Fox insane?

A publicly-financed hotline to report on others’ "hate-speech" is unveiled in Colorado. Grrrrr. Free speech for bigots is not a great rallying cry; but if they don’t have it, no one does. Provincetown, I believe, also has a police call-line for "hate incidents." What on earth is a "hate-incident"? And what right does a cop have to police or monitor anyone’s bigotry? It’s worth remembering that freedom isn’t only threatened by big government snoopers on the right; it’s also beleaguered by the sensitivity police on the left.

They’re sticking to their guns:

Here’s what we now know: I spoke personally yesterday with both Rove’s spokesman Mark Corallo and Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin. Both men categorically denied all key points of our recent reporting on this issue. Both said, "Rove is not a target," "Rove did not inform the White House late last week that he would be indicted," and "Rove has not been indicted." Further, both Corallo and Luskin denied Leopold’s account of events at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm that represents Karl Rove. They specifically stated again that no such meeting ever occurred, that Fitzgerald was not there, that Rove was not there, and that a major meeting did not take place. Both men were unequivocal on that point.

We can now report, however, that we have additional, independent sources that refute those denials by Corallo and Luskin. While we had only our own sources to work with in the beginning, additional sources have now come forward and offered corroboration to us.

We have been contacted by at least three reporters from mainstream media – network level organizations – who shared with us off-the-record confirmation and moral support. When we asked why they were not going public with this information, in each case they expressed frustration with superiors who would not allow it.

Leopold also emailed me to offer a factual supplement to my link to Howie Kurtz’s 2005 story of Leopold’s checkered past. Here it is:

My book, News Junkie, has been published. And his characterization of it came from a proposal not the finished book.

I don’t know what to believe about Rove. But we’ll soon find out. And Leopold will either be vindicated or humiliated.

There’s a fascinating email exchange posted at a blog run by Colonel W. Patrick Lang, a retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces. It’s between veteran military reporter, Joe Galloway, and Larry Di Rita, Rumsfeld’s spokesman at the Pentagon. For an insight into the cocoon within which Rummy operates, the Di Rita emails are hard to surpass. A more accessible summary can be found here.

(Photo: John Bazemore/AP.)