Month: January 2012

Joe Klein thinks negative ads have been more effective this cycle because no one has to claim ownership:

It became harder to for a candidate to have an ad accusing an opponent of being a mother-raper if he or she had to appear at the end and say, "I approve this message." In fact, in 2004, "I approve this message" just about killed Dick Gephardt in Iowa, as he set to work filleting Howard Dean. Iowans are nice. They don’t like candidates who aren’t.

This time, however, the vast majority of Iowans don’t know that friends of Mitt Romney have put several bajillion dollars worth of ads up eviscerating Newt Gingrich.

Mataconis dismantles a common partisan lie:

Except perhaps for Aaron Burr and John Breckinridge (the candidate who came in second in the Election of 1860), I can’t think of a single major party nominee in our history who it could be fairly said would have been a grave danger to the Republic had they won the election. The only purpose that engaging in such rhetoric serves is to rile up the partisan masses, and while that’s a grand old American tradition (just look at the politics of the 1820s or late 19th Century for proof of that) it seems as though we’ve entered an era where the partisan nature of campaigning has made governing itself impossible. If you believe your opponent is not just wrong, but evil and a threat to the nation, then compromise is impossible. The fact that it isn’t true doesn’t really matter.

More principles, consistency and humility than Ron Paul? Alana Goodman thinks this not-Romney isn't like all other not-Romneys:

Yes, he has plenty of his own flaws, and they shouldn’t be glossed over. But so far, his baggage doesn’t seem to be of the fatal sort. There’s no history of adultery, no sexual harassment charges, no problems with articulation, no shoot-from-the-hip attitude. Santorum’s debate performances have been excellent, and he’s shown a notable grasp of foreign policy issues. He also has impeccable social conservative credentials.

Yes: he's for criminalizing all abortion and nullifying my civil marriage by constitutional amendment. He's also for a Judeo-Christian global war against Islam, government-directed industrial policy, and torture. His "notable grasp" of foreign policy is revealed by his unique belief that Iran is seeking national "martyrdom" by engaging in a nuclear war with Israel. But Paul is the paranoid candidate.

On the culture-war front, Andrew Kaczynski dug up video of Santorum claiming that Obama should be pro-life because he's black. Steve Benen notes that the Romney campaign is treating Santorum pretty similarly to other rivals. Bob Costa profiles Santorum's Iowa operation.

The Damascenes in the above video, who ring in 12:00 AM on January 1st with chants of "Come on and leave oh Bashar," may have reason to hope for a good new year if Michael Totten is on the money:

So [Assad] is “only” killing a few handfuls of people each day. He might be able to keep that up for years without bringing a regime-change from abroad down on his head. There’s a problem, though, with that strategy. I am not better at math than the people of Syria. They, too, can compute that the odds they’ll be shot in a demonstration are only one in 5,000. Their incentive to hide under the bed rather than take to the streets is not large. Assad, then, is finding himself in a vise. If he kills too few people, they may eventually bring him down. And if he kills too many, we might bring him down.

Nick Cohen thinks the threshold for Western intervention has already been crossed. Dan Murphy argues that, regardless of how the intervention debate falls out, we ought to consider the Arab League observer mission a failure. Daniel Serwer counters:

 At least some the observers, rather than following the bad example of their Sudanese leader, are trying to restrain the authorities in Syria by saying plainly what they are seeing. Friday’s demonstrations, which the Western press thinks brought out as many as 500,000 people, were large and energetic precisely because the observers were present.  Withdrawing them prematurely would be a serious error and give the regime another opportunity for a massive crackdown against reduced numbers of protesters.

Gene Zitver and DaveM translate a YouTube'd debate between the "Sudanese leader" al-Dabi and Syrian protestor Khaled Abu Saleh. The below video of a young boy shot in the face by a sniper rifle, who somehow still manages to stay on his feet, is some strong support for Saleh's side:

Protestors in Hama aren't slacking off in the New Year:

Finally, these murdered men (purportedly Turkish citizens) were simply left on a highway near Homs:

Dreher struggles to teach his children healthy eating habits:

In a way, getting your kids to adulthood at a healthy weight, with good eating habits (versus shaming them into dieting; I have a friend whose mother gave her diet pills as a young teenager), is a physiological analog to helping them get through college without taking on crippling amounts of student debt.

Eric Cantor is simply stumped when faced with reality and history.

"Right now it looks like 2008. Evangelicals, generally speaking, don’t understand politics," – David Lane, an "influential and low-profile Christian conservative," worried by Romney's seeming inevitability.

A classic from Derb on Newt:

If I were to disgrace myself in public with such a maudlin display of bogus emotion, my own sainted mother would return from the Afterlife wielding her big old cast-iron frying-pan and whack me upside the head with it.

A reader responds to my year-end reflections:

It may be that the vitriol from the right (not to say there's none from the left) may be a sign of the incredible progress in opening minds in 2011.  If you believe as I do that any discrimination against gay people is unjust, and that 2011 was a breakthrough year, then vitriol from fundamentalists – an inevitable accompaniment and sign of such progress – is to be accepted as a cost. May the fundamentalists of all stripes have as much cause for bile in the coming year!

Another writes:

A happy new year to you and everyone at the Dish. A small correction in your Ides of 2011 piece regarding Mohamed Bouazizi, whom you referred to as having died in 2010. Although his self-immolation took place on the 17th of December 2010, he in fact died in hospital on the 4th of January 2011.

In any case, I heartily agree with your assessment of him as man of the year. His one, tragic act has had unimaginable consequences – could anyone at the start of 2011 have predicted the overthrow of three north African dictatorships and the probability of more to come in the Middle East? Although there's a definite sense of two steps forward, one step back, I'm optimistic that Bouazizi's act (and the defiance of all those in the region who have been standing up to opression) will ultimately result in a more free Middle East.

On a final, personal note, I'd like to say thanks for your blog over the past few years. I came across the Dish about four years ago during the 2007/08 US presidential campagin, and it's been mandatory reading ever since. I'm often fascinated by your coverage of US politics, marriage equality, the Green Revolution and the Arab Spring, religion and faith, beards and even Doctor Who, which I was thrilled to discover you were a fan of recently. Keep up the good work and all the best for 2012.

Another:

You forgot The Royal Wedding!  ;)

(Video of the fireworks display from Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, via Buzzfeed)