Month: April 2009

Bob Dylan understands the president’s appeal:

BF: You liked Barack Obama early on. Why was that?

BD: I’d read his book and it intrigued me.

BF: Audacity of Hope?

BD: No it was called Dreams of My Father.

BF: What struck you about him?

BD: Well, a number of things. He’s got an interesting background. He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage – cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.

BF: In what way?

BD: First of all, Barack is born in Hawaii. Most of us think of Hawaii as paradise – so I guess you could say that he was born in paradise.

BF: And he was thrown out of the garden.

BD: Not exactly. His mom married some other guy named Lolo and then took Barack to Indonesia to live. Barack went to both a Muslim school and a Catholic school. His mom used to get up at 4:00 in the morning and teach him book lessons three hours before he even went to school. And then she would go to work. That tells you the type of woman she was. That’s just in the beginning of the story.

BF: What else did you find compelling about him?

BD: Well, mainly his take on things. His writing style hits you on more than one level. It makes you feel and think at the same time and that is hard to do. He says profoundly outrageous things. He’s looking at a shrunken head inside of a glass case in some museum with a bunch of other people and he’s wondering if any of these people realize that they could be looking at one of their ancestors.

Steve Waldman asks it: "Why didn't the Christian stop the torture?"

Hilzoy:

I am not, in general, a big fan of saying: Republicans: you lost. Get over it. But in this case, I'm going to make an exception. The Republicans do not seem to be willing to allow the President to do things that are plainly his prerogative: appointing the reasonable, qualified, law-abiding people of his choice, deciding which documents should be declassified, and so forth. Any moment now they'll threaten not to pass the budget unless he sets his air conditioner at their preferred temperature.

I have a feeling this dude is about to go viral, so to speak:

More sex advice from a Christian perspective after the jump:

Palin news latest:

In an interview that airs Monday on The Tyra Banks Show, Levi Johnston admits he and Bristol Palin were allowed to share a room at Sarah’s Alaskan home even though she probably knew they were having sex. “I’m pretty sure she probably knew,” says Johnston. “Moms are pretty smart.” … His sister, Mercede, also admits their entire family was under a gag order during Sarah’s vice-presidential campaign.

That last point I can believe.

The president in Turkey:

Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject.

But I also want to be clear that America’s relationship with the Muslim work cannot and will not be based on opposition to al Qaeda. Far from it.

We seek broad engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, bridge misunderstanding, and seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. And we will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better — including my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country — I know, because I am one of them.

But it’s tough going from then on:

“If I were they, I would think carefully before setting foot outside the United States. They are now, and forever in the future, at risk of arrest. Until this is sorted out, they are in their own legal black hole,” – Philippe Sands, British human rights lawyer, on those Bush-Cheney officials named by Justice Garzon.

Sands was particularly shrewd in assessing the response of Bush officials to Abu Ghraib, which revealed many of the techniques they had already approved for use:

Sands said that he read the protestations of innocence from Bush Administration officials, who blamed a few “bad apples” for the incidents, with the eye of a barrister. He recalled, “I could spot right away that they were speaking as advocates of a cause. So I decided to find out what really happened.”

One wonders why the Senate GOP is getting so pissy about releasing key documents relating to the Bush-Cheney torture program. You'd imagine they'd want to get as far away from the Bushies as possible at this point, rather than embracing what history will surely judge as one of the most shamefully lawless periods in US presidential history. Scott Horton reports that they are threatening to go nuclear on the Johnsen and Koh nominations if the DOJ continues its policy of transparency. But this is a no-brainer, right? Part of the point of the Johnsen nomination was clarity on torture. To save her nomination by promising secrecy over the Bush-Cheney torture record would be a total contradiction.

Obama was not elected in order to run interrogation the way John Cornyn would run interrogation. Release all the memos and the internal report on Yoo's and Bradbury's professionalism. The public has a right to know what was done; and the rule of law requires that serious evidence of potential official lawlessness be examined in full.

Tirana, Albania, 5.24 pm