Month: November 2009

Marc Lynch on the state of Arab public opinion:

Arab audiences see Guantanamo still open (including in an endlessly repeating al-Jazeera promo), US troops escalating in Afghanistan, Gaza still blockaded, and no settlement freeze or peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.  They have seen little follow-up on the ground on the Cairo address (regardless of what's been cooking secretly in Washington).  A narrative is clearly hardening that Obama has not delivered on his promises, and that he hasn't really changed American policies despite his personal appeal.

U.S. officials may complain that this is unfair, that it's only been four months since Cairo, that they are preparing a lot of programs… but the world isn't fair.  This window isn't closed yet, but it's closing fast and opinions appear to be hardening.   I don't think that the risk here is that al-Qaeda will take advantage of it, given its weakened state — in fact, Secretary Gates made an uncharacteristic mistake when he lapsed back to the Bush-era argument that we had to win in Afghanistan because otherwise al-Qaeda would capitalize.  It's more that the mobilized Arab and Muslim publics which Obama hoped to win over will be lost.

The problems are so deep and the time so constrained … In some ways, we're seeing if Obama's patience and calm is viable in an impatient and frenzied world. And yet we also know that more frenzy will not help. 

The Awl rounds up some sobering stats:

1. “Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood.”

2. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture said nearly 200,000 retailers nationwide now accept food stamps, 20 percent more than in 2005.” […]

4. “Some 36 million Americans are on food stamps, an increase of nearly 10 million over the past two years…. Some 66 percent of those eligible participate.”

Marc has an interesting interview with Shushannah Walshe and Scott Conroy, authors of a new book about Palin. On why she tells easily disprovable lies:

Palin almost always seems outwardly poised and confident in front of a microphone, but she also demonstrates time and again–often in more subtle ways–signs of profound insecurity. It takes a self-confident person to admit mistakes and acknowledge one's own shortcomings, but Sarah Palin is quick to cast aside people who cross her in even minor ways, and her unwillingness to tolerate much dissent often leads to an infallibility syndrome.

And the conservative movement is enabling it all. Oh God. What a November it's gonna be.

TNC wasn't impressed by Brooks's article on technology allegedly ruining romance:

I read Brooks's column and thought of the 80 and 90 year old slaves interviewed by the WPA. There is a lot in those oral histories that is, as they say, old and true. But there's a lot that's old and false. A constant refrain is the notion that the "moving pictures" were ruining young people, and the next generation wasn't worth anything. To be clear, that would be the same generation that gave us Martin Luther King, and effectively finished the Civil War.

This is a theme residing in the conservative soul–a professed, thinly-reasoned skepticism of the fucked-up now, contrasted against a blind, unquestioning acceptance of the hypermoral past. This is a human idea–most people, like those slaves, believe some point in the past was better. And indeed, in some case the past was demonstrably better. But the writer who would argue such has to prove it. He can't just accept his innate hunch. He has to bumrush and beat down his theories of the world, And should they emerge unbroken, that writer might have something to tell us. It's got to be more than justifying your prejudice. It's got to be more than those meddling kids.

He's a contender for the US senate:

The result — for now — is that Rand Paul, whom national media once considered a novelty candidate, is in a serious position to win the GOP nomination in a safe red state.

Today on the Dish we live-blogged the latest violence and unrest in Iran. Tehran Bureau provided a historical primer, the opposition movement apologized for the hostage crisis, Obama spoke out, the regime prepared for protesters, and bedlam ensued. We tracked the resulting YouTubes here, here, here, here, and here. Scott Lucas summed up the sentiment of the day.

Andrew vented his disappointed over Maine here, here, and here. He and E.D. Kaine also fumed over the Church's role. Dale Carpenter stayed positive, Adam Serwer pointed the finger at Obama, Dreher got defensive over "bigot," and Chris Good highlighted the good news out of Maine.

Off-year reax here and here, with added thoughts from Nate Silver, Mudflats, David Corn, and Axelrod.

— C.B.

A reader writes:

I know so many gay priests, all over the country, and indeed, the world who are disgusted with the double life and the lies and the fear – I used to be one of them.  One of my 50-ish priest friends said, "If I won the lottery, I'd leave in a heartbeat – but as it is, I'm too old to start over, and I can't afford it financially."

If I win the lottery, I'm establishing a fund for these guys to get out.

One option used to be to come out. If you were celibate, what did it matter? And you could then prove the hypocrisy in the Vatican. But Benedict knew this and so shifted the church's position (as he does a lot when it's in his interests but defers to the Holy Spirit when it isn't) to one in which homosexual orientation itself is a bar to the priesthood, regardless of conduct. Even if this cannot be fully enforced, it creates a chilling atmosphere in which gay people are slowly purged from the priesthood and the pews. Which is the point. The undesirables are to be cleansed, or forced to recant their very being.

The profound injustice and cruelty of this is hard to overstate. Meanwhile, the priesthood becomes narrower and narrower – since women are barred, heterosexual men cannot marry (unless they're former Anglicans), and gay men are required to enter a suffocating closet that destroys their mental health. The result is what we all see: a priesthood of such low quality it's almost an ordeal to listen to their homilies. And so the exodus continues, as Thomas P. Barnett explains.

Does it really have to get this bad before it gets better?

That seems to me to be the take-out of Axelrod’s chat with Tapper. This struck me as worth noting from the Ax:

I can see that this as a concern that, that Republicans on the right are threatening to purge moderates who have the temerity to say, “Yes, we are going to cooperate with the president or our Democratic colleagues to solve a health care problem, to help solve the economic problems that we have.” And it has a chilling effect. And one hopes that they are not intimidated. You saw the other day Gov. Pawlenty taking off against (Maine Republican) Senator (Olympia) Snowe for having worked with us to try to solve the health care problem. I think that sends a very tough message and you know we’re going to have to work our way through that.

So from a governing standpoint I don’t think this is a great development. From a political standpoint I think it’s disastrous for the Republican party.

Lose-lose in other words.

Adam Serwer says Obama lost last night:

As for the biggest loser last night, I'd say the president, but not because these elections are a "referendum" on his agenda. That happened in 2008…No, Obama is a loser for backing two losing Democratic gubernatorial candidates while staying relatively silent on Maine's referendum. Just as this country will one day look back in shame at discrimination against same-sex couples, so should President Obama feel regret, wondering if things could have been different had he intervened and put the full force of his office behind those fighting for their rights, rather than simply looking out for his party.

But we know by now that he is not a civil rights president. He is like Kennedy in this regard, cautious to a fault, not Johnson, seized with a historical urgency that nonetheless destroyed the Democrats for a generation. And we keep forgetting that Obama openly opposes marriage equality. What he wants, and has always said he wants, is the separate-but-equal civil unions route, which protects his own party from the blowback fighting for real equality inflicts. If he'd said something about Maine, it would have had to have been: vote yes. Better surely for him to say nothing than that. And better for us to stop hoping he'll help. He won't.