Month: November 2009

"I don't care about the Constitution," – Bill O'Reilly.

Andrew Stuttaford speculates:

So far as abortion is concerned, we should also remember that so long as Roe v Wade remains in force, most pro-choice Republicans (or Republican-inclined) may well decide that this is an issue that they can safely overlook when deciding that the largely pro-life GOP is the party for them. It’s interesting to speculate what would happen to the GOP should Roe v Wade be overturned.

It reminds me of what would happen to a group like the Human Rights Campaign if full gay equallity were to be achieved. I guess I'm one of only a handful of people who would be thrilled to see both Roe overturned and marriage equallty exist in every state that wants it.

DiA defends the Medicare commission in the health care bill:

There's no way we can keep people from getting old. At some point, America is going to have to face the music on Medicare spending. If you don't think an independent Medicare commission empowered to make decisions that automatically become law unless Congress comes up with equivalent savings will do the trick, then you have a responsibility to suggest something that will. Otherwise you're just placing a bet that America's government is going to self-destruct—a tenable argument, certainly, but not very helpful.

Froma Harrop reviews Bruce Bartlett's new book:

Bartlett thinks that Congress should commit itself to a number, say $1 trillion, for deficit savings over 10 years. Then it should ask a commission to find a third of that money from higher revenues, a third from entitlement cuts and a third from discretionary spending.

Welcome to the world of grownups, where tax cuts don't magically pay for themselves — and where middle-class people must pay more for middle-class benefits. When it comes to addressing deficits, Democrats may be lax adolescents, but Republicans are total babies.

The world of grown-ups used to be called conservative until the supply-siders and neocons jumped the shark.

Paramaribo, Suriname, 3.45 pm

Afghanistan is only behind Somalia:

On the heels of [Monday's] announcement that Afghanistan is forming a new crime unit to address the pervasive corruption in the country after insistent calls from international leaders that President Hamid Karzai improve governance, a watchdog group has ranked Afghanistan the world's second-most corrupt country, surpassed only by Somalia (AP, Al Jazeera, AP, BBC, Reuters). The full results of the 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures perceived levels of public sector corruption by drawing on surveys of businesses and experts, are available from Transparency International (TI).

Ackerman says bring it on:

For me, the prospect of KSM grandstanding at his trial falls into I-wish-a-motherfucker-would territory. I want to hear how KSM builds a case against America, because everyone will hear how laughably conspiratorial and clownish it is. Think of what a cathartic moment it will be when America sees the face of the man considered to be UBL’s most efficient henchman and he delivers a pitiful harangue to a bank of cameras. No one will be emboldened to do anything but laugh. The only downside will be his inevitable discussion of how CIA operatives tortured him.

"The key to making a political comeback is to have somewhere to come back from — and somewhere to return to. Sarah Palin can't make a comeback because she didn't go anywhere. Not up, not down. Not sideways. Aside from a brief and totally artificial post selection bounce last year, Palin remains a fixed political commodity," – Marc Ambinder, CBS.

(Hat tip: Political Wire)

This Dish will resume as normal tomorrow morning. We apologize for the lacuna. And I suppose some will say we've gotten this book and the issues it raises out of perspective. But since the last campaign, we have raised many questions about Palin to which we have been given no incontestable answers (and still haven't) and the only real evidence we have are news stories, interviews and now, critically this book.

In his hagiography of Palin, Matt Continetti accuses yours truly of earnestness about all this. I am grateful for his not accusing me of cynicism. I remain earnest in both suspecting every word she says but also in trying to find out the truth as best we can. It's not that Palin cannot tell the truth; it is that it is so mixed up with lies and delusions that separating them all out is not a quick or easy task. The Dish, meanwhile, has aired a whole range of views about her various 33 and counting verified lies, and the Dish's own Patrick Appel has weighed in independently on the whole, bizarre pregnancy/labor story, which has mystified me from Day One. So I feel obliged to do the homework properly – to be fair to Palin and to our readers as much as anything else. 

Anyway, we're done now. And I hope to be up half the night trying to write a post on the great mystery of the stories about Trig, stories that have bedeviled the blogosphere and many others for months. There is no proof here of anything, but there is a much more nuanced and detailed narrative of the events (especially now we have Palin's first considered version of the events since the campaign) that when taken together has definitely helped illuminate what was once obscure and, well, bizarre. Believe it or not, it makes a little more sense now.

Stay tuned. And then the Dish will return to its normal programming.