Month: September 2010

Michael Moynihan illustrates the Delaware race with the wonderful little video above.

Elsewhere at Hit & Run there’s an attempt to wade through the substance of the campaign, and this conclusion:

One way of interpreting O’Donnell’s upset victory is as a sign that insane anti-masturbators are emerging from America’s fever swamps and marching toward Capitol Hill, ready to sic ex-gay-ministry counselors on Barney Frank in the unlikely event they can get past Democrats on Nov. 2. And maybe that’s true. But I might propose an alternate way of looking at it: Anti-spending and anti-establishment sentiment is running so strong right now that even an obviously flawed, possibly nutsoid political neophyte looks better to a lot of people than just another TARP supporter.

Does even the most devoted libertarian really believe that any responsible president of any party would not have tried to save the economy from a total financial meltdown? Do they recall that the Congress initially did turn it down and then changed its mind? And would it be possible for them to acknowledge that the bank bailout seems to have been far more successful than almost anyone believed at the time? 

As readers know, the Dish is very libertarian-friendly. But sometimes they drive us nuts with their utter disengagement with, you know, political reality.

The Pope's first statement in Britain. From a former member of the Hitler Youth.

“I think the architects of the O’Donnell putsch, namely S.C. Senator Jim DeMint and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, should both temporarily move to Delaware full time and personally lead the O’Donnell campaign. Control it, direct it, and own it. Show that Georgetown cocktail party addicted and hapless GOP establishment how it’s really done. I’ve got my notebook out, and I’m ready to learn. Call me a peacemaker,” – Republican campaign strategist Mike Murphy.

Image via Mark Shea:

It's easy as pie to generalize to millions of people the crimes of a few. We Catholics have had it done to us. And we can have it done to us again. So we should be bloody cautious about insane schemes to do it to 18 million fellow citizens.

The grotesque excuse "But the the first amendment is dead, and Islam killed it. There is no 'freedom of speech' or 'freedom of religion' with the threat of Muslim violence hanging over your head" is rubbish. Cancelling the rights of 307 million people because you are, by your own admission, afraid is neither patriotism, nor courage, nor Christian fortitude. It is cowardice. And it is extra-special cowardice when you are ready to cancel your most precious national heritage because you are afraid of a speck.

Original chart, sans Qu'ran burners, by Technipol.

Here's a story that really does leap out from the fray. It's about a recently deceased British war heroine who acted as a spy in France during World War II until she was captured. It's good she will have a proper funeral. But this is what matters:

According to Professor Foot the Germans tried to extract information from Miss Nearne through torture. She was stripped naked and repeatedly forced face down into a bath of cold water until she nearly drowned, but such was her allegiance to Britain that she refused to divulge anything to her captors. Miss Nearne was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany and later transferred to a sub camp from where she escaped.

Would the New York Times call that torture? Would president George W. Bush?

Here's a moving – and instructive – tale of a young gay man, Wade Richards, who once worked with Christine O'Donnell in the Christianist trenches until he came to terms with his identity. O'Donnell emerges as a viciously anti-gay bigot, blaming people with HIV and AIDS for their illnesses and conflating homosexuality with pedophilia. Her gay-baiting was also central to her smear campaign against Castle, something even expert gay-baiter Karl Rove found too much. (Rove usually finds some tiny shred of evidence to smear someone as gay and probably objects to the amateurism of O'Donnell's smears).

Another classic detail: O'Donnell's own sister, according to Richards, is openly lesbian. These people demonize their own family members as well (as, of course, was the case with Rove).

From Palin to Angle to Gorman to O'Donnell:

Christine2010.com, O’Donnell’s website, now resolves to nothing more than splash page asking people to donate. There is no content, contact info, or biography.

However, until at least 9:32 [Tuesday] night, there were several other pages, including one titled “About Christie,” another explaining, “Why Christie?” another supposedly debunking smears against O’Donnell, a list of endorsements, and several press releases. … The URL for all of these pages now direct to an error page.

No actual policies; no media accountability; repeated statements of demonstrable untruths; total absence from the airwaves for fear of any genuine exposure. Palin – and the MSM's total capitulation to her lies in 2008 – has changed politics more than most imagined.

Well: I warned you.

Suzy Khimm has more operational details from the O'Donnell campaign.

Many readers have taken me to task for allegedly allowing my personal feelings and gratitude toward Marty Peretz overwhelm the Dish's usual impatience with rank expressions of bigotry. We posted two examples of such dissents here. I try valiantly not to allow this to happen – and I confess to a deep conflict here. For a more dispassionate – and, on reflection, definitive – treatment of the issue, check out Jim Fallows' post here. It's one of the more elegantly concise arguments against such crude generalizations as "Muslim life is cheap" as one could read. And it helps connect this newly ascendant truism to the bigotries of the past in a way that is truly helpful. I'd like to reassure Jim that "hate the sin, love the sinner" is indeed my sentiment.

Former TNR acting editor, Bob Wright, also elaborates, as he did in his brilliant book, The Evolution of God, (my review here) how the Scriptures of Jews, Christians and Muslims all contain ugly as well as life-saving passages, and how missing their complexity does justice to none of them. The violence done in the name of Jesus over the centuries is certainly comparable to the violence done by Muslims.

None of this affects any individual judgment of an individual's motives. But then we have this from the Daily Beast:

"Reached by phone, Peretz offered the following response to [critical] comments before hanging up: 'The notion that after teaching 45 years at Harvard and people giving money in my honor that I have to defend myself – please.' "

In a word: unacceptable. Sorry, Marty, you do have to defend yourself. Addressing the serious and reasoned critiques of Fallows and Wright would be a start.