Month: November 2009

A reader writes:

After reading your recent comments on Israel's giving "the US the finger again," I want to point you to this Economist article. Granted, what Israel is doing is somewhat inappropriate. However, I think a problem in the negotiations is the definition of "settlement". Asking Israel to leave places like Gilo is asking them to let their country be destroyed. There are lots of settlements which have no reason for existing, and should be given to the Palestinians now. Gilo is not one of them. Israel, I think, is trying to demonstrate that they want a different definition of a settlement. If all land that Israel ever moved onto after 1967 is supposed to be given back to the Palestinians, than Israel will be more than cut in half. And, let's remember, the Israelis have co-existed with the Palestinians in places such as Gilo and East Jerusalem. Can we expect a Palestinain state to even let Israeli's live there? They didn't in between 1948-1967.

Another reader:

No one is being evicted from their homes to build apartments in Gilo. Land isnt being "seized" to make it harder to create a Palestinian state. in fact, Gilo is not in Eastern Jerusalem at all, but rather sits on the ring of Jerusalem suburbs to the West of the city. What you perceive as rebellion towards Obama (as if Netanyahu somehow works for him, and is not a sovereign elected leader of another country…) is actually a sort-of accommodation: this is "settlement expansion" that is NOT a provocation to anyone seriously looking at the conflict and trying to figure out solutions. It does NOT infringe on Palestinian ability to govern or create a contiguous state, and it doesn't even force the government to pave roads that restrict Palestinian freedom of movement. It is not a ridiculous town on a hill somewhere meant to make it harder for Palestinians to farm. Bitch about the Israeli government's inability/unwillingness to really tackle those crazies, and I am right behind you. But Gilo actually sits across the way from the road to Bethlehem and for years was the target of non-stop Palestinian gunfire, into civilian homes. (The current expansion is in the general direction AWAY from Bethlehem as a result). I don't support the need to constantly be expanding these areas- why not get a peace agreement moving forward to save the hassle of dealing with the fallout from this crap- but the idea that expanding Gilo is in ANY way going to ruin the life of a single Palestinian is utter bullshit. 

Thats why the French foreign minister was unperturbed by this non-news. It doesnt change anything on the ground, and allows Netanyahu to appeal to his right-wing coalition members. I think this was exactly Jeffrey Goldberg's point, which you railroaded right past so you could rant about your two favorite problems in the world- Palin and Israel- without the inconvenient facts getting in the way. .

 

 

Well, as promised the Dish is back to normal. I'm not. "Going Rogue" is such a postmodern book that treating it as some kind of factual narrative to check (as I began to), or comparing its version of events with her previous versions of the same events (as I have), and comparing all those versions with what we know is empirical reality (so many lies, so little time) is just a dizzying task. The lies and truths and half-truths and the facts and non-facts are all blurred together in a pious puree of such ghastly prose that, in the end, the book can only really be read as a some kind of chapter in a cheap nineteenth century edition of "Lives of the Saints." But as autobiography.

It is a religious book, full of myths and parables. And yet it is also crafted politically, with every single "detail" of the narrative honed carefully for specific constituencies. It is also some kind of manifesto – but not in the usual sense of a collection of policy proposals. It is a manifesto for the imagined life of an imagined Sarah Palin as a leader for all those who identify with the image and background she relentlessly claims to represent.

In this, the book is emblematic of late degenerate Republicanism, which is based not on actual policies, but on slogans now so exhausted by over-use they retain no real meaning: free enterprise is great, God loves us all, America is fabulous, foreigners are suspect, we need to be tough, we can't dither, we must always cut taxes, government is bad, liberals are socialists, the media hates you, etc etc. 

I tried to write a fair account of Palin's various stories of her incredible fifth pregnancy, labor and delivery and to reconcile all the various facts we know and the various versions of the story she has told. Just for the record and because we have aired the public record on this before. I honestly however cannot make total sense of them in a way that I'm completely convinced by and so simply do not feel comfortable making any judgment on them in any way at this point. That's fair to her, my readers, my colleagues, and the innocent private people caught up in this circus.

I thought there might be some new facts in here that would illuminate my confusion and dispel the whole thing.

There is, rather, more barely-credible myth-making and descriptions of actions taken that really make no sense even on their own terms. But since we now know that Palin tells odd lies all the time even when she doesn't have to, we cannot hold her to common sense readings. The story she tells is largely incredible if you assume a rational actor at the center of it. But we do not have a rational actor in the center of it; we have an unbalanced, delusional, ambitious fanatic whose relationship to reality is entirely instrumental and can change from minute to minute. And so we cannot even say: that doesn't make sense so it probably isn't true. With Palin, anything is possible her world is so imaginary and magical. Much that makes sense with others may not make sense with her. And without external evidence, how can we tell which is which?

So what to do? First off, she cannot be given the benefit of the doubt. And the Dish will continue to monitor those odd lies that can be independently and objectively proven, as we have all along. But for those things we cannot prove objectively, we just have to leave alone at this point. I believe nothing she says is true unless I can verify it. But if I can't disprove her accounts of things only she and her family can know about, I should shut up.

Move on and forget about her? If only. Not just because she is a vital figure in this country's politics right now and one of the most dangerous demagogues this country has seen in a long time, but because I just want to know. I want to know what really lies under that facade.

I'm going to keep poring over transcripts, Nexis and anything else I can find to monitor this phenomenon – and its many tributaries and nuances and narratives. If you have any verifiable facts or objective evidence relating to "Going Rogue", you have my email address. Everything is in total confidence. No wild-ass theories (we have more than enough of them). Just facts that I can establish as objective and that illuminate any part of the story in front of us.

As Sarah Palin says she said to herself after her water broke in Dallas and contractions had started and she had given a speech while experiencing more contractions and skipped the reception before getting on a transcontinental air flight all the way from Dallas to Seattle, then Anchorage and then Wasilla,

"I still have plenty of time."

(Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty.)

Allahpundit makes an interesting point:

[A]s things stand, [Palin is] a threat to win the GOP nomination but an almost certain loser in the general election unless economic conditions have deteriorated to the point where any Republican would be a threat to knock off Obama. But if any Republican would stand a good chance of winning, why would the GOP nominate the one Republican who would galvanize the Democrats in opposition? The more beatable Obama looks, the greater the temptation will be to nominate an inoffensive “electable” candidate like Romney and make the election a referendum on The One’s record; the less beatable Obama looks, the greater the temptation to roll the dice and nominate a lightning rod like Palin who can draw media attention away from Obama.

TMNT meets Reservoir Dogs. Surprisingly SFW:

Goldblog asks.

Eric Posner sorts through the KSM trial spin:

The main criticisms of Holder’s approach are that KSM and others will take over proceedings and use them for propaganda purposes, that secrecy will be compromised, and that the approach signals insufficient seriousness about the terrorist threat.  The first two concerns are actually irrelevant.  The DOJ will decide on a case by case basis, and if those concerns in any particular case are serious, it will opt for military commissions.  The last concern is harder to evaluate, but it boils down to the claim that a blunderbuss system that results in outcomes that people distrust is better, on symbolic grounds, than a surgical system that produces the same pattern of convictions but with higher overall credibility.  Why would the more intelligent approach signal lack of seriousness about terrorism?

Silver gives ten reasons:

Although I doubt that Palin can clear the conservative half of the GOP field, someone like a Huckabee could very well decide to go ahead and let Palin run her course, re-entering the field in a 2016 climate that is liable to be more favorable to Republicans.

 Mark Thompson counters Dreher:

[T]he conflict here is definitively not between gay marriage and religious liberty.  It is instead between laws regarding private discrimination and freedom of association, or perhaps between licensing laws and freedom of religion.  As they affect the private sphere and specifically religious organizations, gay rights, and specifically same-sex marriage, represent at most an expansion of existing conflicts rather than any new type of conflict.  Even here, the conflict arises not from whether or not same-sex marriage is permitted, but instead from whether or not statutory laws recognize sexual orientation as an impermissible basis for private discrimination (whether in an employment context, public accommodations context, or otherwise), which is independent of whether same-sex marriage is permitted.

E.D. Kain follows up.

An Australian senator, Nick Xenophon, calls for a criminal investigation of the Super Adventure Club.

Huckabee thinks that the Democratic party is finished if KSM gets off. Josh Marshall tackles the talking point:

Let's start with the idea that civilian trials have too many safeguards and create too big a risk these guys will go free. This does not hold up to any scrutiny for two reasons. First, remember all those high-profile terror prosecutions where the defendants went free? Right, me neither. It just does not happen.

The fact is that federal judges are extremely deferential to the government in terror prosecutions. And national security law already gives the government the ability to do lots of things the government would never be allowed to do in a conventional civilian trial. (People who really think this is an issue seem to base their understanding of federal criminal procedure on watching too many Dirty Harry movies, which, as it happens, I'm actually a big fan of. But remember, they're movies.) KSM is not going to be able to depose or cross-examine CIA Director Leon Panetta or President Bush or Vice President Cheney or anyone else.

Adam Serwer has more:

"They have three sources of authority that would allow him to detain [KSM], one of which is the AUMF [Authorized Use of Military Force], because it directly cites the 9/11 attacks in its language — the people who planned the 9/11 attacks are combatants and are detainable under the AUMF," explains Ken Gude, a human-rights expert at the Center for American Progress. "Under the .000001 chance that they are acquitted, they will have that authority to detain them."