An insight into the fast sinking quartet called the major GOP candidates. Huckabee is the only one with favorables still slightly outweighing unfavorables in the poll of polls. This judgment on Gingrich strikes me as, well, judicious:
In April 2009 Gingrich's favorability was -8 at 36/44. Now it's -31 at 26/57, for a 23 point drop over the last two years. His net drop has been 20 points with Democrats, 25 points with Republicans, and 33 points with independents.
A reader writes:
I cringed when I read what you wrote about Bob Herbert. You came across as mean and snotty. Why say anything … ?
Another writes:
Long time reader and fan – but must disagree with your snarky dismissal of Bob Herbert. You wrote: "But such a boring, familiar voice. There was something about his writing that simply forced you to stop reading, even when his motives were obviously honorable, his compassion deep, and his solutions sincere, if invariably trite."
Fortunately for the people of Tulia, Texas, SOMEONE continued to read him, and paid attention to what he was saying:
In July 2000, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert launched a series of columns about the Tulia cases, the first of which was headlined “Kafka in Tulia.” Herbert’s columns, in Blakeslee’s view, shamed the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals — normally hostile to habeas claims — into sending four cases back to the trial court for evidentiary hearings.
I don't know your personal history – but for myself, I have done nothing that has had such a direct effect on undoing such an injustice, and helping strangers return to lives cruelly taken from them. Herbert could write nothing but pablum – and he would have my respect forever for his efforts on Tulia. I had never heard of this situation before his columns, and I will never forget them now.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the first ever legal civil marriages for gay couples in Holland:
In the intervening 10 years, 14,813 of the Netherlands' 55,000 gay couples have gotten married, according to Statistics Netherlands. Of those couples, 7,522 were female and 7,291 were male. There have been 1,078 same-sex divorces, 734 of them by female couples.
That's roughly a five percent divorce rate for the gay men after ten years. The general rate in the Netherlands – over a longer time period, of course – is 38 percent. I bet Stanley Kurtz never predicted that.
Above is an update of Eman al-Obeidy, the woman who burst into the foreign press dining room on Saturday telling of her gang rape by Qaddafi's men. Yesterday, women staged rallies in Benghazi and Tobruk in support of al-Obeidy. Juan Cole captions another video report from Al Jazeera:
A physician in Ajdabiya says that he has been finding Viagra and condoms in the pockets of the bodies of pro-Qaddafi forces who fell in battle [in Benghazi]. He is convinced that these material signals that the troops were systematically using rape as an instrument of war.
The latest on al-Obeidy's status:
Reports are coming in that [she] has not been freed from custody.
Her mother, Aisha Ahmed, say in an interview with Al-Jazeera that her daughter was being held at Gaddafi's Bab Al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli. Her claims contradict the official line from Tripoli which says she was released and five people arrested over her rape accusations. al-Obeidi was dragged away by security officials after rushing into a hotel full of foreign reporters on Saturday. "I don't feel ashamed, instead my head is up high," she says in the interview and says her daughter "broke the barrier that no other man could break". Holding the Libyan opposition flag around her shoulders, Ahmed calls al-Obeidi "a hostage, taken by the tyrants."
Freddie doesn't understand how I can applaud the rebel victories when I've "voiced many arguments [against the Libyan War] that have nothing whatsoever to do with who wins". He asks:
Can someone, pretty please, articulate any argument– any argument at all– that Oakeshottean or Burkean conservatism could ever support the Libyan war? I am truly straining to imagine any space whatsoever for such support.
Those arguments stand. I would not have initiated this war at this time in this way for these reasons. But it is perfectly possible to take that position, yet realize it's now a fait accompli and be glad that Qaddafi is no longer able to massacre thousands by brute force.
Or to put it another way: If one has failed to help prevent a war, that does not commit you henceforth to hoping for its failure, or not being relieved when it temporarily prevents mass murder.
"For someone who holds himself out as a public intellectual, Gingrich comes across all too often as more glib than thoughtful — more interested in joining the fray than in expressing carefully worked-out ideas. When he takes a strong stand on a controversial issue, it’s never clear how much conviction and deliberation have gone into it. He seems to think and speak at full gallop, tossing off opinions as fast as they come to him, less interested in being right than in being heard — and in taking shots at the opposition," – Jeff Jacoby.
A statue falls in Dara'a. Money quote from the NYT:
“It’s over; it’s just a question of time,” said a Western diplomat in Damascus, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with diplomatic protocol. “It could be a slow burn, or Qaddafi-esque insanity over the next few days. It’s very tense here, very tense. You can feel it in the air.”
Meet Ark Music Factory founder and CEO Patrice Wilson.
"I'm suggesting to you that it is entirely possible a loser candidate will get the nomination. That's what I'm telling you," – Rush Limbaugh on Election 2012 and the GOP.
Victor Davis Hanson dings the president for failing to go to Congress before going to war against Libya:
One can argue about the need for consultation with Congress before using major military force. Most of us think the requirement is essential, with ample constitutional support. But the question takes on new dimensions if the commander-in-chief is a progressive, antiwar, Nobel Peace Prize–winning politician whose political career was predicated on demanding just such congressional oversight of presidential war powers — and his vice president has strutted and boasted that he would impeach a president for doing just this sort of preemptive bombing against a Middle East country that poses no immediate threat to U.S. security.
Elsewhere at The Corner, John Yoo backs the president:
The Constitution does not give Congress the dominant hand in war, the Declare War Clause notwithstanding.
I love that last sub-clause. The Libya case is an interesting one because of the need for dispatch, as events on the ground made a Congressional debate moot. But to my mind, that kind of emergency decision is precisely the moment when deliberation is necessary. Deciding war in a rush and in secret is normally not a good idea. And Obama did not have to act urgently to save American lives or vital interests. He had to act urgently for purely humanitarian reasons.
And so we now have an executive branch claiming powers far, far beyond what the Founders or any prudent constitution would allow. The presidency becomes Angelina Jolie with an air force.
The Dish 