Month: May 2006

Mary Cheney’s new book makes it clear where she stands on the attempt to write anti-gay discrimination into the federal constitution. Money quotes from the GMA interview:

"My father has made it very clear … That freedom means freedom for everyone. He’s stated … his opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment, which I think is a very big deal … Today, same-sex couples can get married in Massachusetts and Canada and Great Britain. Can anyone honestly say 10 years ago they thought we’d be having this debate today?"

Well, over ten years ago, some of us helped kick-start the debate and I’m delighted to have had Mary as an ally in the past and present. I agree with Elizabeth Birch and Hillary Rosen in the WaPo this morning. Mary’s relationship with her spouse, Heather, is testimony to the endurance and dignity of gay relationships – and their presence in Republican families as well as Democratic ones. Here’s a thought: maybe Mary can build on her opposition to the "Marriage Protection Amendment" by agreeing to testify against it when the Senate holds hearings next month. We need you, Mary. Help reclaim the Republican party as the party of freedom, not intolerance. You could make a real difference in humanizing this issue for your own party.

In the past, legal immigration to the United States was not exactly a tough process. In fact, almost anyone who showed up across the border or on a boat were welcome. Money quote:

Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, wrote about her Irish forebears in a Wall Street Journal column: "They waited in line. They passed the tests. They had to get permission to come … They had to get through Ellis Island … get questioned and eyeballed by a bureaucrat with a badge."
But these accounts are flawed, historians say. Until 1918, the United States did not require passports; the term "illegal immigrant" had no meaning. New arrivals were required only to prove their identity and find a relative or friend who could vouch for them.
Customs agents kept an eye out for lunatics and the infirm (and after 1905, for anarchists). Ninety-eight percent of the immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island were admitted to the United States, and 78 percent spent less than eight hours on the island. (The Mexico-United States border then was unguarded and freely crossed in either direction.)

I think Lou Dobbs needs to read a little history, don’t you?

A new study suggests that the hotter and easier professors are, the better their student ratings. You don’t say. (Hat tip: Tax Prof.)

It grows. The NYT says today that Rove’s strategy will be to emphasize the horror of Speaker Pelosi as a reason for Republicans to show up in November. We’ll get the usual gay-baiting, nicely timed to be rolled out in the Senate on 6/6/6. So what else? Greg Djerejian is not going to fall for the national security line one more time:

Look, I was talking to a partner at a leading private equity firm a few days back about the state of play in DC. He leans strongly Republican. The ‘Decider’ line came up. He said: "I mean, what the eff is this, a banana republic"? Indeed. We’ve had it. The government appears increasingly cretinized and dysfunctional. At this point, despite the bubble-headed idiocy of the Pelosi-wing, I can’t help feeling thinking Republicans should be rooting for the Democrats to take control of the House in November, subpoena power and all. I mean, what are the arguments for Republicans keeping control? $100 oil rebates and other Fristian crapola? Or something else? Seriously, let’s discuss the pros and cons of having the Democrats take the House in November. But let’s do better than the war on terruh will be imperiled, OK?

Amen. I fear the real message will be along the lines of one of the commenters at Balloon Juice:

1) The Mexicans are responsible for you having a lousy job.
2) Democrats hate Jesus and Christians.
3) The Gay agenda is being aggressively sold to your children in public schools.
4) If you don’t support the president’s war on terror you are a Saddam lover.
5) Hillary Clinton is evil personified. (Check out the lunacy on PJ Media lately?)

Persuaded? Me neither.

(Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP.)

"At some point, we have got to stop this madness here in Washington D.C. … The American people are as mad at us about driving this country economically off the edge as any one thing … What we‚Äôre doing to this country is almost criminal," – Republican senator, Chuck Hagel, on the GOP’s fiscal insanity.

With the Democrats’ now pledging to restore the pay-as-you-go principle in Congressional appropriations – i.e. every new spending increase has to be balanced by a tax increase – it’s clear which party formally represents fiscal conservatism. Whether the Democrats deliver is another matter. But one thing we know: the GOP hasn’t delivered. They have spent and borrowed at rates that fully merit the "criminal" rhetoric now lobbed by their own side. They deserve to be punished. Kick them out.

The weekend saw some of the worst violence against coalition troops for a while. The scenes of Shiite mobs, attacking British soldiers, in what was seen as one of the calmer regions is no cause for optimism. Riverbend blog sees a slow but sure Iranian take-over of parts of Iraq:

Looking back at it now, it is properly ironic that our first glimpses of the ‘fall of Baghdad’ and the occupation of Iraq came to us via Iran – through that Iranian channel.
We immediately began hearing about the Iranian revolutionary guard, and how they had formed a militia of Iraqis who had defected to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. We heard how they were already inside of the country and were helping to loot and burn everything from governmental facilities to museums. The Hakims and Badr made their debut, followed by several other clerics with their personal guard and militias, all seeping in from Iran.
Today they rule the country. Over the duration of three years, and through the use of vicious militias, assassinations and abductions, they‚Äôve managed to install themselves firmly in the Green Zone. We constantly hear our new puppets rant and rave against Syria, against Saudi Arabia, against Turkey, even against the country they have to thank for their rise to power – America. … But no one dares to talk about the role Iran is planning in the country …
The big question is – what will the US do about Iran? There are the hints of the possibility of bombings, etc. While I hate the Iranian government, the people don’t deserve the chaos and damage of air strikes and war. I don‚Äôt really worry about that though, because if you live in Iraq – you know America’s hands are tied. Just as soon as Washington makes a move against Tehran, American troops inside Iraq will come under attack. It’s that simple – Washington has big guns and planes. But Iran has 150,000 American hostages.

Let’s hope she’s wrong. The Sadrite thugs who attacked the British troops clearly want to control the government. I have no idea whether Maliki is strong enough to resist.

"There are certain principles on which there can be no compromise. Fair trial is one of those – which is the reason we in the UK were unable to accept that the US military tribunals proposed for those detained at Guant√°namo Bay offered sufficient guarantees of a fair trial in accordance with international standards," – Britain’s attorney-general, Lord Goldsmith, in a leaked passage from a speech he is due to give this week. In the war on terror, the Bush administration’s abhorrent detainee policies have lost the United States even its most loyal ally. To torture-proponent Mark Levin’s dismay, even the president seems to agree now. But his statement is a telling one:

"Of course Guantanamo is a delicate issue for people. I would like to close the camp and put the prisoners on trial. Our top court must still rule on whether they should go before a civil or military court. They will get their day in court. One can’t say that of the people that they killed. They didn’t give these people the opportunity for a fair trial."

So the president has already said that all these prisoners, dozens of whom are detained on the sole evidence of one tortured, broken man, and not even charged with murder, are murderers. Bush’s contempt for the rights of accused individuals, so evident from his years in Texas, marches on.

Two months ago, I posted an item about the death of one of the most promising young journalists in Iraq, Atwar Bahjat. Money quote from a great profile in the L.A. Times:

She was a poet, a journalist and a feminist. She had written a book tracing her adventures as a war reporter and had begun work on a second book, examining the role of women in Iraq. She didn’t fit into either side of the mounting religious clash ‚Äî her mother was Shiite, her father Sunni.

It turns out her murder was particularly brutal and disgusting. It is described here. If we have failed to protect people like Bahjat in a country where we are responsible for security, then we have failed to do our job. It’s also worth remembering Bahjat whenever we hear of a journalist’s "courage." She had courage. Most of us journalists in the West don’t know what the meaning of the word courage is.

My column on the private warmth and openness to immigrants (even illegal ones) and gay and transgendered people by Bush and Cheney can be read here. Here’s another example: Condi Rice. Like her boss, the president, Rice has demonstrated in private great acceptance of transgendered people. Money quote from a NYT Magazine interview with Joan Roughgarden, a formidable biologist:

Deborah Solomon: Your name used to be Jonathan, and you were a male professor until about six years ago.

Joan Roughgarden: When you first come out as a transgendered person, you spend your first year in absolute euphoria. Then reality sets in, and you have to make a life and deal with the stigma.

DS: At that time, Condoleezza Rice was the provost at Stanford. Did you have a chance to meet her?

JR: Yes. She was wonderful. In 1998, I went to see her and brought a letter saying that I was transgendered and about to transition. I requested the opportunity to remain on the faculty. As she read through the letter, she looked up at me and said decisively, "Yes, you may remain at Stanford."
She was so sweet. I had enclosed with the letter some photographs of how I would be appearing in several weeks. She looked at them and said, "Oh, you’re a beautiful woman." I think Condoleezza Rice is a person of incredible depth, intelligence and humanity.

I second that on Condi. I think she’s a great human being and an increasingly effective secretary of state. If you haven’t read Roughgarden’s astonishing book on widespread homosexuality in the animal kingdom, "Evolution’s Rainbow," you should.

Please read this important piece of reporting by Johann Hari. In London, when Johann told me about what he had recently seen and witnessed in the Congo, I found it hard to believe. Here’s his report. It makes Darfur seem peaceful. And it has been shockingly under-reported. Money quote:

The Rwandan troops did not head for the areas where the genocidaires were hiding out. They headed straight for the mines like this one in Kalehe, and they swiftly enslaved the populations to dig for them. They did not clear out the genocidaires ‚Äì they teamed up with them to rape Congo. Jean-Pierre Ondekane, the Chief of the Rwandan forces in Goma, urged his units to maintain good relations "with our Interhamwe [genocidaire] brothers." They set up a Congo Desk that whisked billions out of the country and into Rwandan bank accounts ‚Äì and they fought to stay and pillage some more. The UN found that a Who’s Who of British, American and Belgian companies collaborated with this crime…
Oh, and the reason why this invasion was so profitable? Global demand for coltan was soaring throughout the war because of the massive popularity of coltan-filled Sony Playstations. As Oona King, one of the few British politicians to notice Congo, explains as we travel together for a few days, "Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms."

Read how cheap playstations have led to gang rapes, enslavement and massacres.