Month: August 2009

Jason Schwenkler thinks I overreacted by calling Gibbs' "elected" comment "unforgivable," suggesting that I thought Gibbs should have overtly condemned Ahmadi.  I did not.  Gibbs' word choice was alarming  because it was a clear departure from the relative neutrality of the White House so far. And it was unforgivable because it was immediately seized upon by Iranian state press and bemoaned by reformists in the twitterverse and elsewhere. Allahpundit said it well:

[Gibbs] could have dodged this question a dozen ways. He could have said the election’s irrelevant from our standpoint since we have to play the cards we’re dealt; he could have noted, as Obama’s often done in the past, that true power resides in the supreme leader so it’s only his legitimacy that’s at issue;

Larison makes a more substantive point than Schwenkler:

Andrew complains, “He was selected.” Oh, well, that’s different. As if the finalists for the first round of voting on June 12 were anything other than selected, screened and pre-approved by the real powers in Iran.

Perhaps. But that mistakes and miunderstands the transformative nature of the past few months. A selection of candidates turned into a real election for a symbol of real reform. To cast the coup as an election, as Gibbs did, is to have missed the core truth of what happened. I take his retraction as a reflection on his part that he screwed up.

Yglesias singles out a critic of Bill Clinton:

Probably the most ridiculous remark comes from Steven Hayes, who says “John Bolton is right, this is a lifeline to a regime that is a terrorist regime that has proliferated nuclear technology.” Think about that metaphor. Does Hayes really think that Clinton going to Pyongyang or not is the difference between the DPRK collapsing or not? Why would that be? I suppose this is consistent with the general neocon belief that symbolic, expressive activity on the part of Americans is the key factor in determining events abroad but it seems like a mighty extreme version of it.

A Canadian reader writes:

I was struck by two different views of America yesterday. On the one hand the Town Hall protesters who seemed elderly,white,scared and come across as unwilling to listen, and on the other hand the two freed journalists who seemed young,with ethnically diverse families and friends, and came across as generous and open minded.

The first group has become emblematic of the Republican party. The second group were surrounded by Democrats. Is there any doubt which party is winning the battle for the future?

Steven Pearlstein calls the current GOP what it is:

The recent attacks on the effort to reform the health-care system by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems. There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress — I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation…

Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society — whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.

If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.

Today on the Dish we saw a fascist take office and a press secretary retract an ill-timed gaffe. Bill managed to avoid Kim Jong Il's sharks and bring our journalists home. Neocons predictably pounced.

Andrew got some blowback for his clunker stance, while Marc returned fire over astroturfing. Andrew also elucidated his conservatism on marriage, offered Obama the benefit of the doubt on gay rights, and mused about the power of partisanship over prejudice. In gay-and-racial news, this great thing happened.

Palin continued to reveal herself as an opportunistic fraud, while Heath Ledger revealed himself as a talented but twisted director. And this was pretty rad.

— C.B.

Sarah Palin, tribune of the plebs, dines with the media elite. On a previous occasion when she was in NYC, she was at Tao's for an intimate dinner with "real Americans": Vera Wang, Cindy Adams, Martha Stewart and Queen Noor. Just remember her first ever quote in the Anchorage Daily News, way back when she held no office at all:

Sarah Palin, a commercial fisherman from Wasilla, told her husband on Tuesday she was driving to Anchorage to shop at Costco. Instead, she headed straight for Ivana. And there, at J.C. Penney's cosmetic department, was Ivana, the former Mrs. Donald Trump, sitting at a table next to a photograph of herself. She wore a light-colored pantsuit and pink fingernail polish. Her blonde hair was coiffed in a bouffant French twist.

''We want to see Ivana,'' said Palin, who admittedly smells like salmon for a large part of the summer, ''because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.''

Don't worry, Sarah. You've left those salmon behind now and are richer than almost all of us.

Michael Crowley writes:

In reality Clinton's trip didn't require much skill. The prisoner release was pre-cooked by the Obama team well before his arrival. All he had to do was show up and not smile too much. […] Nevertheless, this was Bill's first big test of the Obama administration–and he passed. Actually, let me amend that. The first real test was whether Bill could keep his mouth shut and stay out of trouble in general, and for six months until now he's passed that one as well. It's a good thing for the Clintons — but more important, a good thing for America, to see Bill making a positive contribution this way.

He's always been bold and this is certainly that:

Murdoch also said the company intends to charge for all of its news Web sites. "Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting," Murdoch said.

It's an experiment that may transform the future of the web. Or it may end in tears. This is a dynamic medium, and although I suspect it may drastically reduce readership, it may conceivably save newspapers as we've known them. We'll find out. (And, of course, I get paid by him for my Sunday column.)

Cilizza takes his lumps well:

This may have been the last straw.