Month: July 2006

"Can we agree that all terrorists have some degree of mental illness?"

Er, no. I’d say the vast majority are completely sane and deploying violence against innocents to make a point, seize political power, gain territory or, increasingly these days, to praise Allah. All perfectly sane. That’s the bottom line for understanding their evil. I take Hewitt’s main point about our wanting to ascribe other motives, and second his refusal to do so. But I think it’s important to remember that ethnic or, more often now, religious hatred is perfectly sane, if evil. The mass murder of Jews was carried about by completely coherent people on the whole. That also applies to an enraged Muslim gunman in Seattle. More biographical data here. A little eccentric, maybe. But sane.

Their own video was great. But when the local Fox News team tried to recreate the story, things went a little awry …

I sent the late terrorist’s mom a worried email. She was kind enough to reply.

Sarasota, Florida, 6.15 am.

An email from Jerusalem:

There are times when the truth needs to be shouted from the rooftops; when we need to declare that this is not a two-sided argument. There is a guilty party that has attacked innocent citizens in a sovereign country and has forced their own countrymen to become refugees; orphans and widows. They need to be taken to task for it and they must not be allowed to bring disaster upon the world. Hezbollah is a scourge, and they are being aided, encouraged and armed by Syria and Iran. We need to be sure of this – for the sake of the truth and the world’s future.

This is a war Iran started. I fear it has just begun. Its ultimate end is simple: the eradication of Israel and the murder of every Jew in the Middle East. Hezbollah and Ahmadinejad are very, very clear about this. And they are playing the p.r. game brilliantly. The president’s press conference with Blair today struck me as revealing – and not in a good way. Bush is right on the basic issue. He grasps the nature of the enemy. But he is so out of his depth – rhetorically, strategically, politically, intellectually – that it is hard to have much confidence in his leadership. This is one reason why I couldn’t endorse him for a second term. He is an incompetent. He is too incompetent to lead the West at this time. He is simply without the skills to navigate the very treacherous waters we are all now in. He is being outmaneuvered at every turn by wily enemies who are becoming more dangerous and emboldened by the day.

Bush, in a word, is overwhelmed. He has no idea what to do except return to the catechism of freedom versus terror, like an ideological security blanket. Of course that it what this is about. The trouble is: freedom is being defended by the incompetent and the clueless. In Bush’s blank, bewildered eyes, you see the image of someone who is finally beginning to see reality. And it’s something with which he simply cannot cope. Our enemies, moreover, see the weakness in the president and they are ruthlessly exploiting it. And we have more than two years left to survive.

Pasterelo, Andalusia, Spain, early evening.

The Bush administration is now desperately trying to protect itself from war crime prosecutions. I hope they fail.

I missed Markos Moulitsas’ explanation for avoiding any substantive discussion of the Israel-Hezbollah widening war. (Shouldn’t we call it what it is, by the way? This is a war between Iran and Israel, started by Iran.) For fairness’ sake, here it is, penned over ten days ago. It’s beneath pathetic. But judge for yourself.

"Are you now or have you ever been … involved in community theater?"

Apparently that was the question military investigators asked a decorated Arab linguist servicemember before outing him and firing him from service to his country. I’m glad the military has its priorities, er, straight.

(Update: the best revenge for getting kicked out of the army because you’re gay … is taking the male lead in a community theater production of "Bye Bye Birdie." I’m really not making this up.) 

Dahlia Lithwick explains the rationale to uphold the ban on same-sex marriage in Washington State succinctly:

Only if the ban was enacted by insane people can it fail constitutional review.

Burt prejudiced people? No problem. Lithwick adds this rhetorical zinger:

Even the most deferential review should grapple with whether banning gay marriage really encourages straight marriage; whether there is something about marriage that magically lures heterosexual parents into its grasp ‚Äî something that would evaporate if it were also extended to gay parents. Even deferential review that was also deaf, dumb, and blind would do more than just assert that gay marriage is illegal because kids "thrive" in straight homes. That claim is not just slightly over- or underinclusive, as the majority would have it. It’s nonresponsive. Or, as the dissenters put it, better than I have: "denying same-sex couples the right to marry has no prospect of furthering any of those interests."

There is no rational relationship between banning gay citizens from civil marriage and promoting heterosexual marriage and the interests of children. There is no reason why you can’t do both. At least I have yet to read a logical argument as to why you can’t.