Month: February 2007

Neoconservatives have often failed to disguise their disdain for gay people. Think of the last time an openly gay person wrote for the Weekly Standard. I wasn’t aware of this quote from Irving Kristol, from twenty years ago, arguing that mere advocacy of gay rights need not be subject to First Amendment protections:

"I don’t think the advocacy of homosexuality really falls under the First Amendment any more than the advocacy or publication of pornography does."

I wonder if he feels the same way today. And if he doesn’t, I wonder why he has changed his mind.

According to an Australian detained at Gitmo, the intimidation did not end in the interrogation cells:

Hicks was said to be stunned to see the large photographic display on a wall facing the exercise cells. He asked another detainee to translate the Arabic message on the posters and was told it said: "Because Saddam chose not to co-operate and not tell the truth, because he thought by lying he would get released, for that reason he was executed."

Subtle, huh?

A movement finds its artform. (The artist is Jorge Terrones.)

(Yes, I know Zell Miller is not a Republican. He’s a Dixiecrat with a passion for shooting things and a blind eye for torture. Which, in 2006, means he’s a Republican.)

A reader writes:

I think you’re still missing the point on the regulation of Catholic adoption agencies in the UK.

The question isn’t, "Where do they get their funding?" – it’s "Where did they get the babies?" Presumably the stork didn’t drop them off at the convent. (And if that’s what the nuns are claiming, then the matter needs to be investigated further.) None of these kids was born under the legal guardianship of the Church or its agencies. That guardianship is presumably assigned by British law on the theory that Catholic charities (among others) will do a good job of looking after the children’s best interests. But if the charities turn down potential adoptive parents on spurious grounds, they aren’t doing that.

The issue is how spurious the grounds are. They are spurious by any objective measure of parenting skills; but the Church has a right to uphold bigotry as part of its theology. In fact, it’s almost obsessed with doing so – at the expense of its deeper, moral obligations. The state can and should withdraw support for such bigotry, but the Church still has a right, in my view, to maintain its stance of stigmatization and discrimination against homosexuals.

The Mahdi Army is not surrendering in terror, as Instapundit ludicrously implies. They’re calculating and waiting. From the Washington Post today:

Sadr’s followers say publicly that they embrace the new Baghdad security plan and are willing to support the Iraqi government’s efforts to impose the rule of law in this chaotic city. But some Iraqi and U.S. officials said they are concerned that the stance is a pose and that Shiite militias intend to lie low only until U.S. forces withdraw.

"There’s absolutely no reason to believe that these groups have changed their tune in any significant way" since the 2004 battles, said a U.S. official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity. "You could make an argument that there’s just a level of exhaustion that’s set in, but I find that not believable."

A more likely scenario is that the militia leaders believe they can "win the whole thing" if they are not too damaged by the time the United States withdraws, the official said …

Maliki is aware of concerns that the militias may be biding their time rather than sincerely taking peaceful steps, his aide said. "This is a classic insurgency tactic, to hide when the troops are around and then reappear when the troops are gone," the aide said. "This is very much understood by the government and by the prime minister, and measures are being taken to make it a failure."

Those measures are not, however, specified. Hmmm.

Here is the text delivered by Zbigniew Brzezinski to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning:

It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:

1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.

2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying regional tensions.

If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

A reader says it’s really simple:

He is just an ordinary man of average, intelligence, not there’s anything wrong with that. He doesn’t have a lot of interests. He’s not very deep. He doesn’t worry or ponder too much about life. He is sort of a simple guy, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Now, he is at the center of high pressure, high stakes, power politics. He controls trillions of dollars; he is waging a complicated war that is not going well, which was planned and orchestrated on lies, which he must justify and explain. Now, it is all coming undone. The spotlight is on him. He must speak. He must think. He must lead. It is very difficult for him. Sometimes, I feel pangs of hate for him, for what he is doing for our country. Other times, I think, "poor guy." That’s what’s wrong with him.

Mexico City, Mexico, 6.10 pm.

The contrast between his linguistic bumbling today and his verbal facility and acumen ten years’ ago is somewhat mystifying. I don’t buy the "pre-senile dementia" theory. Is he exhausted? Have five years of war worn him down? Or has he decided that obfuscation is a better strategy than clarity? Anyway, here are some clips. They contrast the earlier best with the current worst. But the contrast is a little too great to be dismissed as a function of clever editing.

Some readers have objected to my post yesterday. They argue that the Catholic adoption agencies in Britain receive government money, and if they do, it is not a denial of religious liberty for the government to attach conditions to that money. I’m not completely clear on the precise financing of Catholic adoption charities in Britain, but if that’s the case, it does indeed change the dynamic. It’s the same issue as the Boy Scouts. I’m all for their right as a private association to discriminate against gays, but not if they are the recipient of government aid and privilege. The always-insightful Arthur Silber had a very good treatment of this issue on his blog a couple of years back which a reader pointed me toward. Enjoy.