Month: June 2010

Scott Payne begs me to acknowledge that "the criticism progressives keep hurling at the President and many of their fellow Democrats is a feature of American politics, not a bug." Bernstein says much of what needs to be said in response:

If one believes that the only reason a policy is not enacted must be that the president did not favor it, then one is going to make a lot of poor choices in deciding how to advocate for policies.  Indeed, the hallmark of the American system of government is that it's easy to stop policy change.  That certainly does not mean that one should never criticize the president!  Sometimes, that's going to be the best way to place pressure.  All it means is that criticisms (or support) of the president should be based on knowledge, and good judgment.

A reader writes:

Your reader wrote, "If the people of Utah could see the executions, and they were horrified, they would demand change, and executions would stop."

I have heard this argument before, but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that people witnessing an execution would be horrified. Executions in the past were public. And was the effect to cause a horror of capital punishment? No, it became an opportunity for a picnic lunch to let the kids watch. People who advance this public-execution argument have no sense of history. Consider the rowdy crowds that would cheer as they watched people being hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, or the gleeful cheering at executions by guillotine during the French Revolution. Public executions would attract people who enjoy watching executions. Period.

Another writes:

I completely support your reader who advocates for the televising of executions. I often wonder how many who support capital punishment in our country have actually witnessed justice being served in their name this way. The public hanging of Stephen G. Simmons so shocked the thousands of citizens in Detroit who gathered to watch in 1830 that it led to the State of Michigan becoming the first English-speaking government in the world to abolish the death penalty. In 1846!

Bring executions back in the public sphere. Let's also get a window on some "advanced interrogation techniques" while we're at it. I suspect after a few botched attempts (and there are still botched attempts, regardless the method) we might have a different approach on how we manage criminals in our care. Even the most evil ones.

NPR did a piece on the last public execution in the US, carried out in 1936. Another writes:

I was outside the Utah State Capitol Thursday night and into the early morning with our group, Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, protesting the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner.

The Catholic church in Utah is one of the main coalition members. We had had a solemn, well attended interdenominational prayer service at a church earlier, and afterward had been at the Capitol in the very cold wind, from about 9 pm on. We had about 200 people with us for the first two hours, but our music and speeches ended at 11 and some of us were just hanging on because, well, because it seemed like the right thing to do. Some very sad cousins of the condemned man had just heard about the gathering and had shown up; they were very quiet, didn't want to address the crowd, just said it was good to be around some kind people.

Our attorney general, the lamentable Mark Shurtleff, was not, as some of your readers inferred, tweeting from the prison. No, he left the dirty work of witnessing to his deputies, who also did all the court work as best as we can tell. He was tweeting away in his nice warm office in the Capitol Building a few yards from us. I know this because we protesters were allowed into the media room at the last minute. There were some other non-media there, probably families of some of the victims. (Others of the victims' families had not wanted Gardner executed.)

The AG emerged once, just at midnight, to tell us proudly that he had just ordered the execution to start "because there was no legal reason to delay any more" and that Ronnie Lee Gardner was "being strapped down" even as he spoke, and that he would "be back to tell us more when it was over. " He was all solemn and pompous as usual. And as usual it was all about him: he had the gall to say with a sigh that the "process" had been "very onerous" for him, and quite burdensome … but that he had handled it with dignity. Dignity! How do you talk about dignity while you are killing someone who is in no position to do anything to anybody.

At that I told my friends I couldn't stand to see Shurtleff's face another minute and that I'd be back outside with the 50 or so solemn, mostly young people in their 20s, who had stayed on. In my opinion, and only my opinion of course, our AG is a Palin type. He does what he thinks makes him look good, sanctimonious, tells lies, big lies and small lies, is not very bright, associates with some really unethical types, and drops them when they get caught.. But even for him, I could not believe that he was tweeting. Tweeting! To my mind he was committing premeditated murder that night and should have been on his knees quaking.

I'm proud of our Church on this one.

J.M. Bernstein answers critics:

In a highly recommended response that was scathingly critical of the Tea Party, BR of Times Square (5) stated that, nonetheless, “Their [the Tea Party’s] motivations and their passions are noble.” This sort of generous recognition of something worthwhile underlying Tea Party excesses was an element in lots of left-leaning responses. I take the motivations and passions that BR find noble to be those that bespeak a desire for more democracy. Left and right are in angry agreement that our democracy is being hijacked, that rather than the voices of concerned citizens it is corporations, lobbyists, special interests, party hacks, entrenched privilege, business-as-usual politicians, noisy media pundits, and, sure, sometimes even big government itself that are determining policy, creating a massive democratic deficit.

…I would be more convinced that the Tea Party really was committed to radical democracy if their most notable achievement to date was not to wreck one of the few remnants of Jeffersonian democracy — the town hall meeting.

Tom Ricks:

Putting Petraeus in command in Afghanistan is only the first step. Now, what to do about Ambassador Eikenberry and special envoy Holbrooke? My second big concern is what happens to Iraq now. As readers of this blog know, I am very worried about trends there. If Iraq begins to fall apart, and Petraeus is busy in Kabul, who is going to step on? At the very least, they should consider extending General Odierno's time there. 

Ackerman:

Today Obama clarified what [the] July 2011 [transition to Afghan soldiers and police taking the lead in securing the country] means — somewhat. It means what Gen. Petraeus, his new commander, told the Senate he supports: not a “race for the exits,” but a “conditions-based,” open-ended transition. If that still sounds unclear, it’s because the policy itself is unclear. But by placing Petraeus at the helm, it means that 2012 will probably look more like right now, in terms of troop levels and U.S. troops fighting, than anything Biden prefers. That is, unless Petraeus and Obama come to a consensus that conditions on the ground necessitate more rapid withdrawals. Think of the deadline as getting deliberately blurrier. Tom Ricks called his last book about Petraeus “The Gamble.” It’s sequel time.

Michael Yon:

The United States has again called upon General David Petraeus during crisis. There have been other times, the most remarkable being in January 2007 when we were on the cusp of losing the war in Iraq. The chances against success were increasingly remote. I was there through the entire surge, and more, and saw the remarkable transformation under command of General Petraeus and due to the incredible efforts of our armed forces and civilian counterparts. No book that I have read, including the one that I wrote, has fully conveyed the magnitude of those days. You simply had to be there.

Here we are again. This time on the cusp of losing the war in Afghanistan. The situation is worse than ever before. Again, the United States has asked General David Petraeus to step into a situation that seems hopeless to many people. It is not hopeless, just extremely bad. All is not lost, just nearly lost. Our people can turn this war around.

Rich Lowry:

I'm not sure how Obama could have handled this any better. He was genuinely graceful about McChrystal and his explanation of why he had to go made perfect sense. He called for unity within his adminstration in pursuing the war and sounded quite stalwart about both the war and about the strategy. More importantly, his choice of Petraeus as a replacement for McChrystal is a brilliant move: He gets a heavy-weight, an unassailable expert in this kind of warfare, and someone who presumably can step in pretty seamlessly.

Adam Serwer:

Liberals were hoping that McChrystal's departure would offer an opportunity for the administration to rethink a strategy which some suspect was adopted largely due to political pressure to continue the mission.They point to the recent difficulties in Marjah as evidence the strategy isn't working to dislodge or weaken the Taliban, and maintain that the structure and corruption of the Afghan government is an intractable problem. At the very least, they would have liked a serious reevaluation of the viability of the current counterinsurgency strategy.

The appointment of General Petraeus is likely to squelch any such discussion before it gets started.

Max Boot:

In Iraq, Petraeus succeeded in part because he found such a capable and cooperative “wing man” — Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Perhaps Eikenberry will work better with Petraeus than he did with McChrystal; certainly Petraues is more diplomatic and better at tending to those kinds of relationships. But I hope that the president would give serious consideration to the other part of Bill Kristol’s suggestion to appoint Ryan Crocker as ambassador in Kabul. And if Crocker wouldn’t do it, because of his health and other reasons, no doubt there is another capable diplomat who could do the job. Whoever the top diplomatic representative is, he needs to cultivate a good relationship with Hamid Karzai — something that Eiekenberry has notoriously lacked and that McChrystal, to his credit, did not.

A reader writes:

While that South Park clip is great, you guys might appreciate this clip from Mr. Show, with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. It's one of those uncanny examples of life imitating art.

A reader writes:

"Will Palin retract her lie?  Does the Pope crap on the tortured souls of hundreds of raped deaf children?"

Okay, Andrew.  That deserves the Moore Award.  (Thanks to Bill Donohue, such criticism of the Pope seems to be best qualified as "left wing".  But I'm just as happy to nominate you for the Malkin if you prefer).  The comment about the pope and the sexual abuse victims certainly falls under the criteria of shrill, hyperbolic, divisive, bitter, and intemperate.  Moreover, it is gratuitous snark that's beneath what the Dish stands for: honest, sincere, and thoughtful reflection on the world. 

Also, I'm confused.  The answer to the former question is presumably no; the answer to the former, you seem to indicate elsewhere, is yes. 

It was a South Park reference.

As this single-serving site suggests, the two groups have more in common than the far right would want to admit.

And they say it's not a culture …