Month: December 2009

A reader writes:

I’m sorry but every time I see a picture of Trig on the book tour I cringe.  As the mother of a Special Needs child, I know that Trig should be home getting intensive speech, physical and occupational therapy at this point in his young life.  He shouldn’t be used as his mother’s prop to boost her favorability with a certain segment of voters who appreciate that she didn’t abort him.  

Sarah Palin is potentially setting her child’s potential progress back by years.  Any parent of a Special Needs child can vouch that early, intensive therapies are key to future development. Every time I see her with him on her hip, instead of with a speech or other therapist, I keep wondering what she’s thinking.  

Me too. And then I try not to think about it any more.

The far right, including even educational establishments like Patrick Henry College, is now conjuring up visions of an America where the government banishes Christianity or criminalizes its free expression in all its many varieties. A Patrick Henry alum, David Sessions, objects here. It's a brave and nuanced piece. As the Christian right, in the Vatican and Colorado Springs and Uganda and Saddleback ratchet up the demonization of gay people, the following words seem particularly apt:

More disturbing is the willingness to take a bristling, irrational stance toward homosexuality, an issue that the church—with a few notable exceptions—has already failed to address with any sort of grace. I have resisted the bullying characterization of all gay marriage opponents as bigoted yahoos, but to take a religiously conservative stand on the issue requires almost superhuman amounts of love, humility and nuance. The firebrand tone of these fundraising letters is exactly the opposite; it is openly comfortable with capitalizing financially on unfounded fear of the men and women next door. Regardless of where you stand on the politics of gay marriage, we can all agree that making up wild tales of a government-assisted invasion by people God has commanded you to love is an egregious perversion of the Christian gospel.

A blogger explains why reading the liberal blogosphere's routine attacks on Obama has led her to rethink where she stands.

A chilling interactive map of America showing the transformation of the economy in the past three years.

Adil Najam of All Things Pakistan tries to reason with a suicide bomber:

Weigel recalls that this isn't the first time:

It’s the latest in a tradition of Rasmussen polls that attempt to find the angry center of American politics. It was Rasmussen, remember, who asked voters back in 2006 whether they’d back a “pro-immigration enforcement” third party candidate in a presidential race. Thirty percent said they would, and therein lies the rationale for a 2012 Lou Dobbs vanity campaign.

Hanna Rosin notes a new study:

Divorce is officially a casualty of the Great Recession. Rates are down for the first time in five years, according to the newly released study of the National Marriage Project. Michael Gerson has called this shift a kind of “cultural renewal”; the idea is that when times are tough, people connect with their cherished values and stop indulging in the kinds of luxuries a fat economy allows. Divorce rates also dropped dramatically during the Great Depression. The reality is, however, that divorce is just expensive. People can’t afford to get divorced during a recession. Marriage rates are down as well; they can’t afford that luxury either.

Tyler Cowen argues against a government jobs program. His sense of the current economic climate:

Right now we’re looking at a double dip recession. Still, some parts of the stimulus have been useful, including the extension of unemployment insurance and the aid to state governments. Pretty soon, before we know it, those parts of the stimulus will run out. So if we feel we have more money to spend (a debatable proposition), let’s extend those programs.

They’re already in place and they can have an economic impact more or less immediately. A new direct jobs program will mean more bureaucracy, more delays, and a new and permanent constituency for a program, which, at best, should not exist for more than a few years’ time.

Yglesias makes some:

[If] you know someone who spent all of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 lambasting conservative economic policies for destroying the value of the dollar, and then who felt that good things were happening to the economy during the fall and winter of 2008, as reflected in the rise of the dollar, then you know someone who’s a crazy crank. But he’s a crazy crank who’s earned the right to complain about Obama! But if you know someone who never mentioned the falling dollar in 2007, and never mentions today that the Obama-era “plummet” merely reflects a reversion to where things were before the financial panic, then you know a partisan crank.

Today on the Dish we mostly monitored the latest protests in Iran. Tehran Bureau provided some history, the Newest Deal framed the day, Josh Shahryar showed the media constraints, Borzou Daragahi reported some of the first violence, Robert Mackey recorded increased violence, Enduring America warned that things might have gotten out of hand, Scott Lucas called out the state media, and Kalameh covered the attack on Mousavi's wife. We also compiled tweets here and YouTube clips here, here, here, here, and here.

In other coverage, Seton Hall researchers reconstructed a disturbing scandal at Gitmo, Scott Horton backed them up, Greenwald was aghast, and we provided some links. Kevin Drum discussed the politics of carbon taxing, Ambinder did the same with Copenhagen, James Hansen butted heads with Krugman over cap and trade, Larison looked at the anti-war right, and neoconservatives tried to derail Hannah Rosenthal.

In Palinpalooza, we took the pulse of her fans in Iowa, a reader pushed back, two others talked about her use of Trig on the trail, another proposed that her editor is hanging her out to dry, another rounded up her troubling record on ethics, Hitch tackled her scary style of populism, and Palin demonstrated a bit of it herself. Also, Sully chilled with Tank and Levi today.

In home news, readers received our window books to great review and the Atlantic blazed a trail with e-fiction.

— C.B.