Month: February 2010

The SF Chronicle outed Judge Vaughn Walker over the weekend. Talbot analyzes:

Does it matter? Well, yes and no. On the one hand, Walker, a conservative with libertarian sympathies (he has spoken out about the futility of the drug war, for instance), is no more likely to let his sexual orientation determine his judicial orientation on a matter like this one than any heterosexual judge ruling on say, a divorce or sexual-harassment case would be. He didn’t choose this case—it was assigned to him at random. And in at least one high-profile instance that involved him in a legal matter related to the gay community, Walker was on the opposite side.

In 1987, as a lawyer in private practice, he represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in a copyright suit to prevent a local group from calling its athletic event “The Gay Olympics.” In fact, criticism of Walker from the San Francisco gay community helped to derail his judicial nomination—he was Ronald Reagan’s pick before he was Bush’s.

On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine that a 65-year-old gay man hasn’t thought about questions like whether homosexuality is innate—and hasn’t thought about them more deeply and empathetically than most 65-year-old heterosexual men. Perhaps more to the point, if Walker rules in favor of the plaintiffs, opponents of gay marriage may try and make an issue of his sexual orientation. It wouldn’t be fair, but it wouldn’t be surprising, either.

NOM is predictably outraged. I'm afraid they will be able to make a case to their already enraged base that this was rigged. And reduction of gay people entirely to their orientation – rendering them outside civil institutions as just citizens, rather than as members of a minority group – is, of course, precisely the Christianist argument. As readers know, I don't believe in using someone's identioty against them in this way. And one might add that Walker was not truly "outed." He was not leading a secret life. He was openly gay but didn't make a fuss of it and wanted not to make a fuss of it in his office.

Man, these culture wars grind up people's lives and souls.

Chait thinks that the GOP is whitewashing its true position on health care reform:

[It's] pretty clear that the Republican pretense to really want to do reform, only just not this reform and not right now, is rooted in an understanding that their real position does not reflect public sentiment. There's been an enormous amount of bluster about popular repudiation of the Democratic health care plan. If Republicans truly thought the public shared their beliefs, they wouldn't be talking constantly about starting over and doing it right in a bipartisan fashion.

Chart from the WaPo.

Tom Ricks posts some advice from David Kilcullen on various metrics that shouldn't be used when judging the success of war tactics. The quotes are Kilcullen; the rest is Rick's commentary:

"Any input metric [should be avoided]." Megadittoes. This was another thing that used to drive me nuts in Iraq, listening to Americans boast about money spent, projects initiated, patrols conducted, and such. "These indicators tell us what we are doing, but not the effect we are having." Rather, he advocates, look at outcomes, and especially the effect on the population.

How to look at outcomes here.

Damon Linker counters Dreher over a report on open marriages among gay men in San Francisco:

What a fascinatingly bleak view of the human condition we find among sexual traditionalists: Traditional marriage is natural, and homosexuality is contrary to nature; but nature is so fragile that it needs to be backed up by unquestioning tradition, as well as by the force of law; the moment those traditional mores and legal sanctions are loosened, people begin to diverge from their own natures and conform to the unnatural practices of the deviants, thereby dissolving traditional marriage. This is why I’ve always had a perverse respect for those traditionalists who have been willing to follow their darkly pessimistic convictions all the way to the end—to admit that they think traditional marriage is fundamentally incompatible with freedom. (And no, redefining freedom to mean “obedience” doesn’t count.)

Angela McGlowan, an FNC contributor who lit up the Tea Party Convention, just launched a congressional campaign. Money quote from John Fund:

The feisty Ms. McGlowan is a force of nature, and a direct challenge to the GOP good ol' boy network. While not conversant with the details of all issues, she is a fast learner and clearly would have national fundraising ability.

Remind you of anyone?

(Image from here)

Massie wasn't impressed by David Cameron's speech on restoring trust in government:

Cameron had a populist swipe at lobbyists. Which is fine. No-one likes lobbyists. But Cameron's attitude towards lobbying is instructive, for it demonstrates the extent to which, despite his rhetoric, he remains a centraliser. The problem with lobbying is a "lack of transparency" and so he'll also slow down the revolving door, making it harder to ministers to move seamlessly into lobbying. Which is also fine but no more than tackling a symptom while ignoring the cause of the disease. Which is, silly, government. 

The more lobbying there is, the more that's because the government intervenes in and interferes with so much, so often. The growth of lobbying is merely a commentary on the growth of government. "Tackling" lobbyists mistakes the problem and, in so doing, not only contradicts the putative idea of Open Source Toryism but helps confound it, making one suspect that, alas, Tory rhetoric will not be followed by real action. Here again, it would be nice to be mistaken…

Today on the Dish, Andrew digested the healthcare summit while Harvey Mansfield, William Galston, Bainbridge, and John Cole mulled over HCR. Meanwhile, Obama got pissed and Gibbs got petty. The Economist highlighted a new version of cap-and-trade. Green Movement updates from Reza Aslan, Enduring America, and Juan Cole.

Wieseltier went after Andrew. Bloggers came to his defense here and here. Thiessen and Yglesias went at it over torture, Friedersdorf and Greenwald tackled Obama over his assassination program, and Rubio gay-baited Crist. In optimistic omens for gay rights, Iowa forgot about marriage equality and Dan Choi returned to the ranks.

John Avlon saw a silver lining in the Tea Party Convention while even Ron Paul is getting targeted by its candidates. Ambinder glimpsed at the frightening future for Palin, Nate Silver contrasted her with Bush, and the mother of a special-needs child wrote in.  The Dish tallied another odd lie, delved into the latest Trig email, and posted Andrew's birth certificate once and for all.

MTV finally admitted what all of us have known for years. A reader continued the conversation on The Hurt Locker, another chimed in on Ethan Bronner, and another responded to a recession view update. We found a great movie mash-up here and window view here.

— C.B.

Yglesias defends me:

For the purposes of intimidation…baseless charges work better than well-grounded ones. Nikolai Krylenko, Bolshevik Minister of Justice, said “we must execute not only the guilty, execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more.” And it’s much the same here. If you call anti-semites anti-semites, then people who aren’t motivated by anti-Jewish racism will figure “hey, since my political opinions aren’t motivated by anti-Jewish racism, then I’m safe.” The idea is to put everyone on notice that mere innocence will be no defense. But relatively few people are actually goonish enough to execute the strategy properly, so instead Wieseltier’s piece beats around the bush and doesn’t really come out and say what it’s saying.

Brad DeLong, no fan of mine, also comes to my defense.