Month: May 2010

It's reminiscent of this phrase, uttered by another man trying to subdue Afghanistan: "bleeding wound." The man was Mikhail Gorbachev. His job was to put the Soviet empire into foreclosure. Obama seems to be intent on extending America's for another (bankrupt) generation.

Well, that's one explanation for last night's Idol result. And, yes, this is also true:

We understand why the lyrics of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” had to be altered during that singer’s duet with Ms. Bowersox, but did they have to choose such a laughably obvious replacement line? When Oliver Stone makes his Crystal Bowersox biopic, that scene is going to be hilarious.

The whole event felt like a badly organized wedding.

A list.

Tom Ricks notices a comment:

An Army officer writes about being a lesbian in the 10th Mountain Division — and, in a courageous move, does it on the division commander's discussion board. I think this is one of the best pieces of writing I have ever seen on the subject.

Part of the officer's letter:

I know exactly how hard it is to serve knowing that my career could end at any moment if someone were to find out about my sexuality. I have never gawked or looked at a woman inappropriately whom I serve with. That is not out of fear of being caught, it's out of respect for other women. I would never want someone gawking at me while I change, so I don't do that myself. I have deployed with 10th Mtn proudly and when I came home I was not able to share my relief and joy with my girlfriend as others could at the welcoming home ceremony. I live in constant fear that my career could end at any moment. I hate having to hide who I am and there's not a day that goes by that I don't struggle with it. When I ended my relationship of 7 years, I couldn't talk to anyone about it. My relationship lasted longer than most military marriages and yet I have no support. I still go to work everyday having to put up a front that everything is fine, because as far as anyone was concerned I wasn't even dating anyone. I can't express the insurmountable stress it causes to have to hide a piece of who I am.

When DADT is overturned, I won't be jumping out of my office screaming "I'm gay" to the world. I'll just be able to breathe easier knowing that my job is secure and relax. I won't discuss my personal life with coworkers because it's none of their business, but at least I would have the option to. I wouldn't have to pretend to have a crush on a guy or go on a date with a fellow CPT in order for others to not get suspicious.

For those saying that gays shouldn't be allowed in the military, the news flash is that we currently do and are allowed to. Under the current policy, no one is allowed to accuse us without evidential proof nor ask us questions about our sexuality. I am also not able to talk about my relationships as others are free to discuss their husbands/wives/girl/boyfriends. Could you heterosexuals imagine not being able to say anything about your partner? What if the policy said no one discusses their relationships, period? I bet the suicide rate would skyrocket. Don't discuss your wife's new attitude or husband's infidelity. Don't talk about your girlfriend getting pregnant or boyfriend proposing. Imagine going throughout your entire career not being able to discuss your relationships and not being able to bring your loved one to any military function. I bet you couldn't.

It's easy to say the policy should stay the way it is when you don't have to live it.

Noah Millman wants to know which issues palecons are willing to compromise on:

I suspect that, for Larison, the most important issues relate to foreign policy, with civil liberties a distant second and both social and economic questions further back in the back. That is to say: his top priorities line up better with the priority list of a left-wing critic of the Obama Administration like Glenn Greenwald than with his fellows on the right, even if the larger intellectual framework and much of the stuff further down on the list would be stuff where he and Greenwald would strongly disagree.

If I’m right, and if most paleos agree, then there’s a basis for cooperation with the Greenwalds of the world, and a clear way that a paleo tendency could make itself relevant. But what if a significant bloc of paleos is concerned primarily with questions of race and identity? Or with some other issue – abortion, opposition to Federal regulation, gun rights – that sits comfortably within the existing Republican coalition? Then the basis for making that tendency politically effective is much less obvious.

I think the paleocon critique of the imperial hubris of the last decade is the most valuable. What we don't have is a prudentially non-interventionist, civil libertarian, fiscally strict, socially tolerant conservatism. At least not in America. In Britain, it seems to be thriving right now. But the paleocons deserve a real place in this conversation, if only because they might trouble the right enough to examine its anachronisms.

Bernstein's rule of thumb:

She should be covered because, as a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president, what she says is newsworthy. The same goes for the other leading candidates. They are newsworthy to the extent that they are leading candidates, and in my view editors and producers should try to assess as best they can who those leading candidates are (using polls, endorsements and comments by informed observers and participants and evidence of campaign activity)…. It's hard, of course, for the press to cover a candidate who doesn't tell the truth without inadvertently just amplifying falsehoods or smear attacks, but it can't be correct to try to solve that by just ignoring her.

So cover her aggressively. Push back on the lies. Get to the bottom of her deeply shady stories. She is the next GOP nominee.

(Photo: Jewel Samad/Getty.)

A great beard question.

That's the advantage Democrats now have over Republicans with the Latino vote. It was just 22 points six years ago. More:

68% of Latinos approve of Obama’s job (compared with 48% of overall respondents and 38% of whites), and they view the Democratic Party favorably by a 54%-21% score (versus 41%-40% among all adults and 34%-48% among whites). And their views of the Republican Party? In the poll, the GOP fav/unfav among Latinos is 22%-44%. What’s more, Latinos think Democrats would do a better job than Republicans in protecting the interests of minorities (by 58%-11%), in representing the opportunity to move up the economic ladder (46%-20%), in dealing with immigration (37%-12%), and in promoting strong moral values (33%-23%). The only advantage they gave Republicans was in enforcing security along the border (31%-20%). And Latinos remain a sleeping — yet growing — political giant: 23% of them aren’t registered voters (compared with 12% of whites and 16% of blacks).

If this is a long game, Obama's got this.

The video below pounds the table a little harder than necessary but it nevertheless serves as visual reminder of what Elizabeth Kolbert noted is the single largest source of imported oil to the US this year:

H2oil animated sequences from Dale Hayward on Vimeo.

Virginia Postrel shreds William Loeffler's article on the alleged extinction of metrosexuals:

Loeffler's is the latest in a string of articles on the so-called Menaissance (see for instance this 2006 Boston Globe piece). What struck me, however, was the juxtaposition of Don Draper and Michael Westen… The real contrast isn't between these guys and overgroomed Metrosexuals but between both groups, with their grown-up polish, and the beer-bellied American male in comfy shorts and untucked oversized shirt...

What makes Retrosexuals seem manlier than Metrosexuals is their sprezzatura. They hide the artifice it takes to achieve their look. But the popularity of both models suggests that at least some American men want to escape the pressure to be sloppy.

This is a technique only very accomplished practicing homosexuals achieve: the meticulous attempt to look undone. And it may take a $400 pair of sunglasses.