Month: January 2009

Ross joins the SSPX debate:

If the Pope de-excommunicates a Holocaust denier, the Vatican press office should be working around the clock, with press releases flying, to provide context and do damage control. What’s more, if the Pope de-excommunicates a Holocaust denier, the Pope himself needs to say something about it, and not just obliquely nod to the decision in his latest homily. Yes, the Church’s primary business is saving souls, not public relations – but in this day and age, public relations is part of the business of saving souls. And nobody in Rome, from Benedict on down, seems to have figured that out.

Or maybe they have and this decision sent exactly the correct signal about where Benedict will compromise and where he will not. Neo-fascists yes! Feminists no!

Ambers parses CBO’s parsing of the stimulus package.

Marc Lynch tallies Gaza’s costs:

Israel’s attack has generated tremendous outrage across the board, has worsened the divides between Gaza and the West Bank and between Hamas and Fatah, and probably will hasten the election of Benjamin Netanyahu next month.  The environment for peace talks will be as toxic as possible.  On the other hand, prospects for peace talks were already very shaky, and even before the Gaza war I heard more support for the "Syria First" option than for immediate moves on the Palestinian front.  The crisis forces the Israeli-Palestinian track on to the agenda, and perhaps strengthens the case for a  more even-handed approach (the appointment of George Mitchell is a very encouraging sign). What’s more, if Gaza undermines the prospects for a return to Clinton-era "peace processing" this might actually be a very healthy thing…

Patrick Ruffini wants Rush:

Either we engage the liberal media on our terms or on none at all. The Times needs someone who is as far to the right, in as hard-edged and partisan a way, as Paul Krugman is to the left. The fact that strident left-wing voices one step voice up from Kos appear on the op-ed page is not considered a problem, so why shouldn’t the same be true on the right?

How sad that someone as smart as Ruffini has been turned into talk-radio-roadkill. Suderman counters:

…[what] should the NYT be looking for? Not someone who’ll shock or attack, but someone who will authoritatively challenge, through evidence and artful persuasion, the sensibilities of those elites — not a provocateur, but someone who can speak to the NYT’s readership in a way they’re likely to respond well to: a missionary, not a warrior.

The other truth: it sure doesn’t matter as much as it used to.

Not quite onomatopoeia, but cool:

"I wonder if the reporter could point to one example of “sharply partisan commentary” in Kristol’s Times column or for that matter in anything else he has written elsewhere," – Yuval Levin.

News from Iceland. Sigurdardóttir would be the first openly gay prime minister in history.

"We’re a nation not just where you are free to believe or not to believe; we’re a nation founded for Him — so we could praise Him, so we could do His will," – Kathryn-Jean Lopez. 

Bob Gates actually provides some fact.

Josh sums it up:

They want to criticize as many provisions of the bill as possible, push for as many non-stimulus inducing tax cuts as possible at the expense of spending on infrastructure, and then vote against the final bill en masse.