By Patrick Appel
A reader writes:
Andrew leaves for vacation and somebody leaves a back-stabber like Patrick Appel to write crap like "In Defense of Sarah Palin".
Andrew and I spoke last Friday. He encouraged me to air my dissent on this matter. I back-stabbed no one.
By Patrick Appel
A reader writes:
A year or two after the invasion of Iraq started, my boyfriend (who was a cadet at West Point at the time) used to pass Gen. Shinseki on the way to class every day, often greeting him amiably with a "hey! what’s up sir!" … until he was informed that this unassuming man in civilian clothing was actually the former Army Chief of Staff and a retired four-star general. Once we learned who Gen. Shinseki was and why he wasn’t in uniform anymore, the lesson for us young people entering the officer corps became very clear: your superiors will not tolerate informed dissent, so keep your mouth shut unless you want to be retired and "put out to pasture" early.
I’m so glad Obama is broadcasting the exact opposite message.
Me too.
By Patrick Appel
Romney is already running for 2012.
by Chris Bodenner
"Dennis Kucinich is a biter," – George Stephanopoulos, on his advice to David Gregory, the new moderator of "Meet The Press."
By Patrick Appel
A reader writes:
On Sam Harris’s point:
"It seems to me to be obvious that everything we value in Christmas — giving gifts, celebrating the holiday with our families, enjoying all of the kitsch that comes along with it — all of that has been entirely appropriated by the secular world," [Sam Harris] said, "in the same way that Thanksgiving and Halloween have been."
Sam Harris’ knowledge of history must not stretch back much further than the 1950s, as this statement is categorically wrong.
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As a religious holiday, pre-modern Christmases were rather austere celebrations defined by lengthy church services. That this coincided with pagan culture’s raucous celebrations of the winter solstice was a source of great displeasure to institutional Christianity for centuries. The "kitsch" that Harris discusses (Evergreen Trees, the man from the north who brings us goodies) are pagan icons. Giving gifts and spending time with your family and friends (instead of spending the day in mass) are also holdovers from popular tradition of drinking and reveling which the church had been actively hostile to.In short, everything WE secularists value in Christmas has been entirely appropriated by the Christian world.
By Patrick Appel Will, a loyal Dish reader, writes:
Andrew Sullivan’s latest on Trig Palin’s maternity is uncomfortable reading. After wading through the muck, I’m left wondering why he feels the need to badger the poor woman over the circumstances of her son’s birth. Even if everything he says is true – the pregnancy was staged to protect her daughter; the entire story is fraudulent; the press is silently complicit – I still have no idea why we should care. If Palin is lying to protect her daughter, I have nothing but sympathy for the poor woman and her family.
I agree. While signing off, Andrew mentioned the months long argument he and I have had with regard to Sarah Palin’s fifth child. I am the only other person who has read all the obstetrician interviews, the interview with a reporter at the scene, and all the primary sources. I strongly believe that there is nothing to this story. Andrew writes:
There is no formal record of Trig’s birth at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, although there is a record of two other babies born on the same day.
This is highly misleading. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (pdf) protects patient information. The "formal record" Andrew is referring to is a list of newborn babies on the Mat-Su website. This list is voluntary. Parents have to give their approval for their children to be listed (The Dish checked with the hospital). Trig not being on this list isn’t proof of anything.
Forget about grainy inconclusive photographs: reporters saw Palin pregnant. This was one of the primary reasons Alaskan papers stopped investigating the story. Additionally, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Bristol Palin was pregnant during this time. The Dish interviewed Lori Tipton, an Alaskan TV reporter at the hospital the day of the delivery. Here’s part of that interview:
Sarah [Palin] was in another room, and they said that she was sleeping when we arrived. And so, we got a little bit of footage of Sally [Heath] holding Trig, and Chuck [Heath] standing next to her. And Bristol [Palin] was in there, and I said to Bristol, "We should get some footage of you and your brother and your grandparents." And she’s like, "No I really don’t like to be photographed." And I said, "Are you sure?" And she’s like, "Yeah, yeah, no." And she didn’t have any make-up on or anything, but she was dressed in typical teenage attire, a tight shirt, low-cut jeans, you know, and we had heard the rumors before the delivery of this baby also, that Bristol was pregnant, and so, when my photographer and I got to the hospital and we saw her, I thought, well, clearly there’s no way that that girl just delivered a baby seven hours ago.
The easiest way to disprove these conspiracy theories is to consider what would be required for them to be true. Palin’s doctor, along with a good number of Mat-Su Regional’s doctors, nurses, and administrators would need to be in on the cover-up. On multiple occasions Palin would have had to pad her belly to make herself look pregnant. She would have needed to get friends to lie about seeing her breast feed. She would have had to silence an entire community – including two 17-year-olds and their friends – while the national media and the National Enquirer snooped around. Implausible to say the least.
I don’t believe Sarah Palin is capable of pulling off such a cover-up. And, like Alex Massie and John Schwenkler, I don’t understand what is being accomplished by continued investigation.
By Patrick Appel
"This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren’t progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn’t the way he thinks and it’s not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn’t, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people – not just those on the left," –Steve Hildebrand, Barack Obama’s National Deputy Campaign Manager.
by Chris Bodenner
Fred Thompson offers up his DC condo for rent during the Inauguration.
by Chris Bodenner
Paul Bedard reports:
[Obama] might ask CIA Director Mike Hayden to stay on for a while, intelligence sources say. Much of the speculation about the CIA job has been that Obama wants a change, in part because he disagreed with the CIA’s detention policies.
But officials are pushing back a little on that issue, suggesting that Hayden has been carrying out the policies backed by Congress and the president before he arrived at Langley, not freelancing on his own. "It’s unfair to blame Hayden for things that occurred long before he took the job. But he deserves credit for standing up for the folks over there at CIA, even though a lot of the stuff he has dealt with didn’t happen on his watch," said an intelligence official. "Administration policy and American law shape what the CIA does. If the president says he doesn’t want something done, that’s it. These are his programs," added the official.
What’s more, intelligence officials say that the program has changed and that, for example, waterboarding—officially used on three detainees—ended three years before Hayden came aboard.
By Patrick Appel
Matthew Bolton wants Obama to ban cluster bombs:
There were some noticeable absentees as 100 countries gathered in Oslo this week to sign a treaty banning cluster munitions. While 18 of the 26 Nato countries were on board, the world’s superpowers – the US, Russia and China – were all no-shows….To overcome resistance to the cluster bomb ban, Obama should argue that signing the treaty would represent a small step toward reinstating US global credibility and good will, following eight years of disregard for humanitarian constraints on war, multilateral institutions and international opinion.
He could also argue that it’s the correct humanitarian and strategic choice. Laos is still finding cluster-bombs, "bombies" as they call them, 30 years after they were dropped. Cluster-bombs are imprecise weapons with long-lasting consequences. They do nothing to win hearts and minds. In a surprise move, Afghanistan signed the agreement last week. Maybe we should follow their lead.
The Dish 