Month: November 2006

Now former Russian PM Gaidar, another Putin foe, is sick – possibly from some kind of poison. Polonium again? Has Putin launched a micro-nuclear war against his opposition?

A useful, if scary, primer.

My preference is for a draw-down of troops in Shiite and Sunni Arab areas of Iraq, a redeployment to Kurdistan where they like us and whence we can keep an eye on any egregious terrorist activities in Anbar, and a much bigger force presence in Baghdad to prevent the capital from imploding. If the Shiite militias want to fight it out for control of Southern Iraq, fine. At least then we may have a victor we can actually talk to, instead the mellifluous Maliki. But – surprise! – the Bush administration is likely to do what it has long done: pick the worst of both worlds. We won’t get the advantage of a clean or decisive break from the past, and we won’t send enough troops to Baghdad:

While the White House reviews its strategy options, Pentagon planners are also looking beyond the immediate reinforcements for Baghdad to the question of whether they will need to draw more on reserve units to meet troop requirements in the Iraqi capital, military officials said. In particular, the Army is considering sending about 3,000 combat engineers from reserve units.

The proposal would not increase the overall number of troops in Baghdad, but it is controversial because it would require sending units that had already been deployed to Iraq in recent years, a step National Guard officials have been trying to avoid.

So no real attempt to gain control of Baghdad. Have we even found the captured US soldier yet? Or has he been abandoned for good? Meanwhile, we’ll keep talking pointlessly to the "right guy," Maliki. Why? To save this president’s face. I don’t believe any American soldier’s life is worth sacrificing for one deluded man’s self-esteem, do you?

(Photo: Brooks Kraft/Corbis for Time.)

Here’s a quote worth pondering:

Someone with access to fresh Polonium 210 (read: less than a year old, hot from the reactor) decided to use it to bump off an enemy. And the terrorism alert status hasn’t risen a notch? Pull the other one.

If Putin ordered the hit, it means we have a head-of-state prepared to use nuclear material to kill enemies, and spread it globally. If someone in the Russian nuclear network did it without Putin’s permission, we have an even bigger problem on our hands. Here we were worried that Saddam could hand off nuclear material to rogue actors. And we didn’t think of Putin.

Professor Bainbridge adjudicates a blog-war; and one blogger gets parodied. This is what free speech looks like.

Here’s a quote for K-Lo:

"[As] we seek to establish full equality for American gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than [Ted Kennedy]."

Barney Frank? Nah. That’s Mitt Romney, running for governor US senator in Massachusetts, in a 1994 letter to the Massachusetts Log Cabin Republicans. The Bay Windows op-ed that brought up that quote also contained the following facts that attendees at the Republican Governors’ Association might want to take note of:

During the same campaign, when he was accused of having once described gay people as ‘perverse’ during a religious meeting of Mormons, Romney‚Äôs campaign issued a forceful statement decrying the accusation as false and reiterating that Romney respected "all people regardless of their race, creed, or sexual orientation."

During his 2001 run for governor, his campaign distributed bright pink flyers at the June Pride parade declaring "Mitt and Kerry wish you a great Pride weekend!" During his inaugural speech, he said it was important to defend civil rights "regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or race." He appointed eight openly gay and lesbian people to high profile positions in his administration. And before he decided to run for president ‚Äî that is to say, before he needed to establish some strong anti-gay bonafides ‚Äî Romney doubled the budget line item for the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.

Here’s a simple test: can a Republican candidate in 2008 repeat Romney’s words of 1994: that he respects "all people regardless of their race, creed, or sexual orientation." Bush has never been able to say those two words: "sexual orientation". Romney has. Will he ever say them again? Let’s keep an open mind, shall we?

(Photo: Associated Press.)

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 9.45 am. Santa had a rough night.

A reader writes:

In the last couple of days you have given valuable space to an Australian atheist, a British/Kazakh observant jew, a stylish Catholic pontiff, an evangelical Democrat possibly running for President, a messianic Christian (that would be our President) and countless Mormons.

I truly like your spirit of inclusiveness.

It looks as if the Conservative Jewish Movement is about to sanction gay rabbis and same-sex unions, following the Reform Jewish Movement’s lead. Money quote:

Rabbi Kula, author of "Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life," said the move toward liberalisation among Conservatives "is not something that came down from the top. It came from Jews in the pews … Jews who had homosexual children and wanted them to be rabbis."

Rabbi Gerald Zelizer of Neve Shalom, a Conservative congregation in Metuchen, New Jersey, a former president of the Rabbinical Assembly who is a contributing columnist for USA Today, said in an essay in that newspaper this year that he backed the 1992 position but now had a different view.

"Conservative Judaism has always taught that we must upgrade our biblical understanding with new scientific knowledge. Contrary to the biblical assumption that gayness is a sinful choice, our best knowledge today indicates that it is as determined and irrevocable as blue or brown eyes …" he wrote.

As so often, American Jews lead the fight for civil rights. I, for one, am grateful.