Month: June 2007

Matt has a go:

In essence, [Fred] Hiatt is under assault from straw men of his own devising. Having mischaracterized the opponents of the Bush foreign policy, he’s now confronted with what such opponents actually think and concluded that they don’t oppose Bush’s policy at all. But there’s obviously a huge difference between the Bush/Romney approach of defining the United States as locked in endless combat with an amorphous and endlessly-growing set of frightening Muslims and saying you’re going to dedicate serious energy to focusing on and targeting al-Qaeda. These aren’t just different things, they’re opposing sentiments.

I don’t know anyone else who can write a sincere sentence like this one:

It’s easy to imagine (and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this) how we can use IP reform to revive free trade and what Lawrence Lessig calls "free culture" in a manner that is congenial to recognizably conservative ends, and that can build a coalition with new liberals interested in participatory culture and global development.

Too statist, though.

Another one, with extra flecks.

Fareed Zakaria explains the disconnect between the GOP candidates and the world they would inherit:

More troubling than any of Bush’s rhetoric is that of the Republicans who wish to succeed him. "They hate you!" says Rudy Giuliani in his new role as fearmonger in chief, relentlessly reminding audiences of all the nasty people out there. "They don’t want you to be in this college!" he recently warned an audience at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. "Or you, or you, or you," he said, reportedly jabbing his finger at students. In the first Republican debate he warned, "We are facing an enemy that is planning all over this world, and it turns out planning inside our country, to come here and kill us." On the campaign trail, Giuliani plays a man exasperated by the inability of Americans to see the danger staring them in the face. "This is reality, ma’am," he told a startled woman at Oglethorpe. "You’ve got to clear your head."

The notion that the United States today is in grave danger of sitting back and going on the defensive is bizarre. In the last five and a half years, with bipartisan support, Washington has invaded two countries and sent troops around the world from Somalia to the Philippines to fight Islamic militants. It has ramped up defense spending by $187 billion—more than the combined military budgets of China, Russia, India and Britain. It has created a Department of Homeland Security that now spends more than $40 billion a year. It has set up secret prisons in Europe and a legal black hole in Guantánamo, to hold, interrogate and—by some definitions—torture prisoners. How would Giuliani really go on the offensive? Invade a couple of more countries?

Double Gitmo! Just kidding.

I have some reservations about the latest Human Rights Campaign report-card on the Democratic candidates. But this much must also be said: it’s a real achievement to get all the Democratic candidates to commit to repealing that part of the Clinton 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that prevents the federal government from recognizing civil marriages and civil unions enacted by several states for gay couples. It seems to me that if you’re a federalist, and if you believe that the states should decide the issue of marriage rights, then the role of the federal government should merely be to recognize the state laws by providing complete federal recognition of those laws. The word "spouse" should mean in federal law whatever it means in state law. The federal government managed to last over two centuries without dictating to the states what was and what wasn’t a civil marriage. It can do so again. A federal civil unions bill that merely backs up benefits and rights for those citizens who reside in states that grant them equality at a state level is a great idea. It’s conservative federalism at its best.

But the obvious next move must be to ask the Republicans where they stand on this as well. Do they support the federal government deferring to the states on marriage rights? If not, why not? Why should the federal government recognize most civil marriages in Massachusetts but not all?

Boulder, Colorado, 8.28 pm.

For an interactive gallery of Dish readers’ window views across the world, click here.

How does this comment by a sole lefty commenter support the following massive generalization:

Imagine if the people actually SUPPORTED the troops

Instapundit linked. Depressing.

"Britain is not physically capable of fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time. The question is: which do we give up? The Government and the defence chiefs have decided that we should give up Iraq. There is an agreed timetable, a glide path, which will see a complete unilateral withdrawal in 12 months," – a "senior military official" in Britain, to The Sunday Telegraph.

Was the "faggot" slur so necessary? Money quote:

Perhaps it should be noted that the bouncer is black. Very few smart writers, directors, producers or actors would come anywhere close to a scene where an angry, rich white lady called a bouncer a "nigger doorman," but calling him a "faggot doorman" is just fine, and doesn’t do irreparable harm to the character’s likability. This is hardly Apatow’s fault, but he might have thought twice before reinforcing that rule.