Month: November 2008

The American Family Association puts out a DVD showing how homosexuals have a plan to infiltrate and take over every small town in America in order to construct a new Sodom to terrorize your children. Or something like that. Is it my imagination or has the far right, salivating over their three anti-gay victories in the last election, decided that fear and loathing of homosexuals is now the fundamental tenet of American conservatism?

Sean Oxendine previews the 2010 senate races.

Tocqueville understood the genius of American Christianity better than most Republicans today:

"I have no belief in the virtue or durability of official philosophies, and when it comes to state religions, I have always thought that, though they may perhaps sometimes momentarily serve the interests of political power, they are always sooner or later fatal for the church.

Nor am I one of those who think that to exalt religion in the eyes of the people and to do honor to the spirituality of religious teaching, it is good to give its ministers indirectly a political influence which the laws refuse.

I am so deeply convinced of the almost inevitable dangers which face beliefs when their interpreters take part in public affairs, and so firmly persuaded that at all costs Christianity must be maintained among the new democracies that I would rather shut priests up within their sanctuaries than allow them to leave them."

These people will kill Christianity before they get to enforce by law the fantasies of their own neuroses.

Joe Klein explains. It feels so good to finally be winning the p.r. war against these murderous theocrats.

Ross makes a prediction:

On an awful lot of issues, the Obama foreign policy will end cutting to the right of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy, which was already more center-left than left.

Even with the GOP brand in the toilet, Republicans are still trusted as much or more than Dems on foreign policy, mostly for somewhat nebulous "toughness" reasons. So why give the Right a chance to play what’s just about its only winning card, when you can satisfy your base with a phased withdrawal from Iraq that’s scheduled to happen anyway while waxing hawkish on Pakistan, Afghanistan … and who knows, maybe Iran as well? (I have a sneaking suspicion that a President Obama will be slightly more likely to authorize airstrikes against Iran than a President McCain would have been.) Meanwhile, on detainee policy, wiretapping, etc. you can earn plaudits from liberals for showily abandoning the worst excesses of the Bush era, while actually holding on to most of the post-9/11 powers that the Bushies claimed. Obama already made fans of Niall Ferguson and Eli Lake; by 2012, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s converted Max Boot as well.

Ross is not wrong, but the "left-right" rubric is dated, it seems to me, especially in foreign policy, where any return to realism after Bush means, on the old compass, a hefty shift to the right. And that toughness schtick? Too right it’s nebulous. What Obama offers is a soft-power-hard-power mix that is also more lethal against the enemies we still face every day. I think we can all hope for the best in that, without labeling it.

Goldfarb compares them:

Perhaps Lieberman was more committed to the fight than his counterpart on the Obama campaign, Chuck Hagel, but any sense of proportion has been lost by the hysterics leading the anti-Joe lynch mob. And there are no pitchfork wielding Republicans intent on burning Chuck Hagel at the stake. There was hardly a peep from the right over his heresy because nobody cared.

Hagel didn’t endorse Obama. And he has been anathematized by Goldfarb’s friends and fellow apparatichiks. Jason Zengerle has more considered thoughts.

Larison responds to my criticism.

The far right entertainer was classy as ever upon David Foster Wallace’s death.

They will hear the challenge to Prop 8. The best pragmatic summary of the possible consequences (I’m leery of this and would prefer to challenge the ban at the ballot box next time) came from a reader. While I don’t like this idea for philosophical reasons, he’s pretty persuasive:

What are the possible forms a backlash might take if the CA Supremes overturn Prop 8 on procedural grounds?  Opponents of gay marriage will be angry and have their own protests for awhile, but to what effect?  Honestly, what’s left for them to do to us? (1) An effort to get the ban through the CA state legislature will fail miserably. (2) An effort to defeat enough pro-SSM CA state legislators to pass the ban will also fail. (3) An effort to recall a few CA supreme court justices might succeed after a few years, but they would be replaced by Arnold’s or a future Democrat’s appointees who will not likely go back on the marriage decision.  And by then, people in CA will be used to gay marriage the way they are in MA.

(4) Around the country, the anti-SSM constitutional backlash in the states has basically played itself out.

They’ve succeeded in 30 states already.  I calculate that there are maybe 3-5 states left that might pass a ban.  The perception of judicial imperialism in CA will add marginally to that, but it’s hard to believe it would make much difference.  So they’ve shot their wad in the states.

(5) It won’t lead to a federal amendment.  Only a pro-SSM Supreme Court opinion could do that, and I’m not even sure of that now, since it would take only 13 states to block such an amendment.

The worst consequence of judicial re-imposition of gay marriage in CA would be to drain some energy from this burgeoning political movement for SSM. That could be a real cost.  On the other hand, I’m not yet persuaded that this movement will have real staying power and coalesce into something more organized and effective. And the advantage in cultural, legal, and political terms of having a state of 40 million people with full gay marriage now, as opposed to 10 years from now, might more than compensate for the short-term loss of energy to a nascent movement of unproven effectiveness.

So, on balance, I think judicial re-imposition of gay marriage in CA would be a propaganda blow in the short-term, but a net plus, and maybe a big net plus, in the long run.

A reader writes:

I don’t know how you routinely evaluate your blogging performance (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, etc), but today has been a good day of blogging on the whole. On top of the usual interesting topics, I enjoyed today’s variety. When you woke up today, did you think you’d be posting about Nigerian Email Scams, Nate Silver getting in some guy’s grill, Stephen Baldwin, Thomas Kinkade movies, Kirk Cameron (Oh, the hathos!), and hot chicks with d-bags?  All-in-all, not a bad day’s work.  Throw in a pirate post or two, and I’d call it a day if I were you.

Not bad for a “shrieking, hysterical” pant-wetter.

You never know what you’re going to be blogging about from day to day. As I got up this morning and removed my urine streaked boxers, put on my hysterical dress, and sat down to shriek, the world just opened up. All those doors to plow through; all that amniotic fluid to clean up after. Good times.