Month: July 2006

Given the difficulties of the military task, the lack of any sustainable basis for security under these tactics, and the need for the European powers for a potential buffer zone, the Israeli hope for a quick Hezbollah-destroying offensive looks increasingly bogged down. U.S. interests in the Middle East are equally not served by alienating every Arab or Muslim ally, including Maliki, in a war of attrition that will not accomplish the only worthwhile purpose: serious stability and border security. Greg Djerejian has more here:

My point? We must remain very focused on reducing the winds in the sails of radical Islamist groups like al-Qaeda, but our basic carte blanche to Israel these past weeks, and our total conflation of Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and seemingly every other group under the sun that we don’t care for in the Middle East – is not only leading to far too simplistic foreign policy analyses among too many in the Beltway – but also, more important, serving as recruiting sergeant for more radicalized Islamists to proliferate, not only in the region, but in Europe and perhaps even the United States itself.

There will come a time when the destruction of Southern Lebanon and the inability to remove Hezbollah by force will demand either re-occupation of Southern Lebanon by Israel, or an international force. Time is running out for the former option. Given our other urgent task in the Middle East – finding a way to prevent Iraq descending into all-out civil war – involving allies in the fight against Hezbollah is increasingly vital. A cease-fire is needed, sooner rather than later.

Pathetic, craven Bush-base pandering. More conservative outrage on Bush’s attempt to unilaterally reorder the constitutional balance here.

"The plaintiffs in this case represent the ever-growing diversity of the openly gay community in Washington. They are teachers, attorneys, ministers, and foster parents. In their everyday lives they are bosses, coworkers, neighbors, clients, parents, friends, and volunteers. It is in these seemingly mundane, everyday roles that the discrimination imposed by the DOMA is deeply felt, but it is nowhere more wounding than in their very homes. Unless the concept of equal rights has meaning there, it has little meaning anywhere," – Justice Bobbe J. Bridge, in the Washington State court 5 – 4 ruling against equality in civil marriage. Many of the decisions in the majority relied entirely on deference to the legislature.

It was a close decision, with the more powerful and impassioned arguments in the dissents; and may well generate a legislative approach to granting more benefits to gay couples that inch closer and closer to marriage rights. Dale Carpenter has an excellent legal analysis here. Money quote:

To the state legislature, the message seems to be this: “Get moving on addressing the hardships faced by gay couples and their children, some of which we’ve listed for you. You don’t have to give them marriage and maybe not even all of the rights of marriage, but something needs to be done. If you don’t act, we might.”

To gay-marriage litigants, the message seems to be this: “Go to the legislature and see what can be done about the sorts of problems you’ve identified and that we agree exist. If the legislature is unresponsive, come back to us not with a claim for the status of marriage, but with a remedial claim for the benefits and protections of marriage for your families.”

My guess is that this dual message was necessary to get the five votes needed to uphold the state’s marriage laws.

California and New Jersey are the next battlegrounds. California has already passed marriage rights in both state houses, and the court is mulling. Will the court over-ride the legislature in that state? And if they do, will extreme judicial restrainters cry foul?

How the Jews did 9/11 – from an Egyptian music video.

This president is still determined to remove the United States from baseline protections of the Geneva protections. John Yoo is unrepentant:

"This draft shows that the executive branch doesn’t think the Supreme Court got the questions on the Geneva Conventions right in Hamdan."

What the administration thinks, of course, is irrelevant. The court has ruled that Article 3 applies. If it applies, the following would be impermissible:

The bill would also bar ‘statements obtained by the use of torture’ from being introduced as evidence, but evidence obtained during interrogations where coercion was used would be admissible unless a military judge found it ‘unreliable.’

So we’re back to Yoophemisms. ‘Torture" versus "coercive interrogation techniques." The standards of Article 3 clearly bar all of it. And so you see this president asking the Congress to withdraw from Geneva. That’s what this means. And we have to make sure the American public understands that.

How to steal a bike – in plain sight in daylight in crowded urban settings. Just bring equipment and act really, really suspicious. No one will ever stop you.

His detachment from his own responsibility is breathtaking. The glibness with which he describes tha mass slaughter of innocents in a country whose security he is responsible for is astonishing. Check this transcript out. Money quote:

Q:  Is the country closer to a civil war?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I don’t know. You know, I thought about that last night, and just musing over the words, the phrase, and what constitutes it. If you think of our Civil War, this is really very different. If you think of civil wars in other countries, this is really quite different. There is – there is a good deal of violence in Baghdad and two or three other provinces, and yet in 14 other provinces there’s very little violence or numbers of incidents. So it’s a – it’s a highly concentrated thing. It clearly is being stimulated by people who would like to have what could be characterized as a civil war and win it, but I’m not going to be the one to decide if, when or at all.

His relevance to allowing this to happen is as overwhelming as his irrelevance is today. He’s treating one of the biggest military fiascoes in recent history as something to debate at night, the way one would discuss the merits of an interesting movie. Greg Djerejian comments here. The man is a disgrace.

It’s the procreation argument again (PDF file). I need time to read the decision and I’m on a deadline. On a more positive front, Democratic gubernatorial front-runner in New York, Eliot Spitzer, said the following in a rambunctious debate last night:

"I think same sex marriage should be legal. I will propose a bill to permit that to be the case in the state of New York."

And so the courts begin to retreat and the legislative process gains ground. Recall that the most populous state in the country has already passed marriage equality in its legislature. In some ways, a court pause before a looming legislative triumph may be good news.

Nashville, Tennessee, 8 pm.