Month: April 2012

When the core issues of civil marriage and military service unite into one great exhibit of our shared and equal humanity:

A reader writes:

I am constantly amazed that religious conservatives fail to read carefully the text upon which they allegedly base their dogma. Ross argues that “the Biblical narrative strongly suggests that God intended sex to be” unitive in the “male-female, difference reunited sense . . .” It is not clear to what narrative Ross is referring, but if he is looking for support in Genesis 2, the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, he needs to review the narrative.

As the story goes, after God created the first man, God perceives that it is not good for the human to be alone and thus, decides to “make a suitable partner for him.” Accordingly, God creates the different animals and birds from the dirt and brings them to the human to see what he would call them. Ultimately, none proved to be a suitable partner for the human. So, God causes Adam to fall asleep and removes one of is ribs out of which God forms a woman. When God presents the woman, Adam proclaims: “This one at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” It is the sameness of the two humans, that is highlighted in Adam’s response. The woman is like him, as they are made of the same stuff. The suitable partner for the human is the creature made of the same bone and flesh as he, rather than the animals and birds that were created out of the dirt.

The unitive purpose of the narrative appears to be that it is not good for humans to be alone, that they need a suitable partner and that the suitable partner is one like them, of the same flesh and bone. Yes, the first couple are also sexually of different genders, but it is the sameness that is highlighted not their difference. Clearly, as a first couple, they are the beginning human relationships, not the final statement of the expectable diversity.

Washington, DC, 5.15 pm

Peter Popham believes that Benedict is returning to form:

So far Pope Benedict has not been as ferocious a pope as many liberal Catholics feared. Soon after his election he hinted at one reason for that, in a remark to a dinner companion: “It was easy to know the doctrine,” he said. “It is much more difficult to help a billion people live it.” Another reason is that the priest-pedophilia scandal, which has generated vast problems for the church, forced him onto the back foot. But for anyone who dreamed that Benedict had mellowed with age, the decision to hang the LCWR out to dry is a rude awakening.

Garry Wills looks at who the Vatican is welcoming back into the fold:

It is typical of the pope’s sense of priorities that, at the very time when he is quashing an independent spirit in the church’s women, he is negotiating a welcome back to priests who left the church in protest at the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. These men, with their own dissident bishop, Marcel Lefebvre, formed the Society of Saint Pius X—the Pius whose Secretariat of State had a monsignor (Umberto Benigni) who promoted the Protocols of the Elder of Zion. Pope Benedict has already lifted the excommunication of four bishops in the Society of Saint Pius X, including that of Richard Williamson, who is a holocaust denier. Now a return of the whole body is being negotiated.

None of the anti-Semitic ties of the Pius X crew matter to Rome, since that crew holds to the hard line against women priests, gay marriage, and contraception. 

Like Obama, Romney says he supports keeping rates low on student loans, a position the Obama campaign claims is inconsistent with Romney's support of the Paul Ryan budget:

Daniel Stone sees Romney's new position as tacking to the center:

Ezra Klein isn't sure that Congress will be able to act:

We've got a lot of questionable priorities in this country. But helping kids afford higher education really isn't one of them. That's why this is, as far as I can tell, the first legislative issue of the campaign in which Obama and Romney have actually agreed. The question is whether that'll be enough.

Britain is now officially – and unexpectedly – in a double-dip recession. Maybe revised stats will change this. But more worrying is that most of the cuts in spending have yet to really bite. The debt is, however, currently stable, even if growth is lower than anemic:

Figures released yesterday by the ONS showed that the government borrowed £2bn more than expected in March, but managed to meet its full-year target because of downward revisions to previous months. Total borrowing for the financial year came in £11bn lower than the same period last year, providing relief for the Chancellor who has repeatedly restated his commitment to austerity in an attempt to drive down the deficit and preserve Britain’s AAA credit rating.

Ratings agency Fitch put the UK on negative outlook last month, meaning that there is a one in two chance that the UK's credit rating will be downgraded over the next two years.

Joe Weisenthal plays "spot the Tory" on the above chart (made by Scott Barber):

[T]he first thing to note is that the US has recovered WAY better than either the Eurozone or the UK. So if you think Obama has been a disaster, you might first acknowledge that the US has performed better than all its major Western peers. But beyond that, check out the UK line. The UK was recovering on a fine trajectory right up until early 2010, at which point UK growth hit a brick wall. What happened in 2010? That's when conservative David Cameron came to power with an agenda of reigning in the debt.

Krugman (justifiably) preens:

It’s important to understand that what we’re seeing isn’t a failure of orthodox economics. Standard economics in this case — that is, economics based on what the profession has learned these past three generations, and for that matter on most textbooks — was the Keynesian position. The austerity thing was just invented out of thin air and a few dubious historical examples to serve the prejudices of the elite.

And now the results are in: Keynesians have been completely right, Austerians utterly wrong — at vast human cost.

The Tories, like Obama, inherited a huge debt, and with a much more vulnerable currency than the dollar, they opted for Romney-style austerity swiftly to avoid the fate of Greece and currency speculators. But if austerity kills growth and thereby revenues, the debt problem can worsen. And Britain, remember, isn't in the Euro-Zone; it has some currency flexibility to ride some of the shocks. Even so, the passage this ship has to pass through to growth and lower debt is getting narrower and the rocks and tides more treacherous. The goal of structural fiscal balance within one five-year parliament has already been abandoned in the face of reality.

As I've said before, I have a long record of fiscal hawkishness. I'm a Tory and want them to succeed. But the one time I worry about fiscal retrenchment is in a period of global recession, where premature austerity can hurt, not help. The key is to stimulate enough to get the economy moving on its own momentum and then phase in serious long term structural budget cuts and tax reform. There remains a chance that the US can pull this off – because of Obama's stimulus and extension of the Bush tax cuts. But a sudden collapse in demand that would occur if no post-election deal is reached could change all that – and put America on Europe's path. As would a Romney presidency, as Ezra Klein helpfully reminds us.

Here's a gallery of the vicious British newspaper covers this morning. In the hearings today, Murdoch took a swipe at Harry Evans, the editor of the Sunday Times when Murdoch took over, and whom Murdoch famously fired. Watch Harry strike back here.

(Full disclosure: Harry is a friend and the husband of Tina Brown, editor of The Daily Beast. I have also written a weekly column about America for Murdoch's Sunday Times for almost two decades now, and have never experienced anything but great editing, complete freedom of thought, and warm collegiality.)

Read Spencer Ackerman‘s reporting at Danger Room. Video archive here.