Author: Andrew Sullivan

Here’s a question worth asking: whatever John Kerry’s record, could he afford in office to be weak on terror? Wouldn’t he be obliged to continue Bush’s policies in Iraq and Afghanistan and even, as he has already promised, actually increase troop levels in those countries? I don’t think it’s out of the question. John McCain knows Kerry and says he doesn’t believe he’d be “weak on defense.” Sometimes, a Democrat has to be tougher than a Republican in this area – if only to credentialize himself. I can certainly conceive of Richard Holbrooke being a tougher secretary of state than Colin Powell. I’m not yet convinced and want to hear much more from Kerry. But I’m persuadable. Four more years of religious-right social policy and Nixonian fiscal policy is not something I really want to support.

POLAND WOBBLES: Al Qaeda’s stunning success in Madrid continues to reverberate. By far the most worrying so far is the new equivocation from the Polish president, Aleksander Kwasniewski. But what strikes me as truly worrying is Kwasniewski’s reference to the WMD stockpile intelligence fiasco. “But naturally I also feel undomfortable due to the fact that we were misled with the information on weapons of mass destruction.” Although I hope Poland stays the course in Iraq, I do think he has a point. and he’s not the only one. A considerable number of Americans – including many in the pro-war camp – believe this administration has not been forthright enough about the reasons for the intelligence failure. What the president should have done, in my view, was give a talk to the American people a few months ago, tell them exactly what we had and hadn’t found, and explain that, although some of the intelligence turned out to be flawed, he still took the right decision in the circumstances. Bush made too much of the WMDs before the war as a casus belli not to confront this issue directly when it emerged we were wrong. Instead, he acted defensively. He first denied there was a problem, then he dismissed the problem, then he justified his actions regardless, without taking full responsibility for the errors. In a word, it made him look insecure and weak. Yes, there was a risk in fessing up directly to an intelligence failure. But it turns out that the risk of simply ducking and spinning was greater. The reason he has lost standing is because insecurity is not something people look for in a war leader. There were many times that Churchill had to tell Britons of mistakes or failures or difficulties. When confronted with errors of the kind that Bush’s intelligence made in Iraq, a good war leader steps up to the plate. When asked about the lack of stockpiles of WMDs as opposed to evidence of possible WMD programs, such a leader doesn’t irritatedly respond, “What’s the difference?” Part of the Aznar lesson is that people don’t like being bamboozled. If Bush doesn’t learn that soon, he may learn it the hard way in November.

SPEAKING OF WHICH: Imagine for a moment that there is a Democratic administration in the White House. Now imagine that at a time of soaring deficits and a looming social security crisis, the president endorses a huge new entitlement program for seniors, designed purely for electoral purposes. Now imagine that he deliberately low-balls the costs of this program, to the tune of something like 30 percent. Would Republicans be outraged? You bet they would. Now imagine that the official designated to provide accurate costing figures was told that if he released the real numbers, he would be fired. Now stop imagining. It appears that all this occurred in the Bush administration over the Medicare prescription drug program. The administration pressured its own officials to mislead the Congress and the public about the scope of the expenses involved. Here’s how the New York Times reported the incident, when a Congressional aide, Ms Cybele Bjorkland, tried to get the real numbers from the actuary responsible for the costing:

Ms. Bjorklund had been pressing Mr. Foster, [Medicare’s chief actuary], for his numbers since June. When he refused, telling her he could be fired, she said, she confronted his boss, Thomas A. Scully, then the Medicare administrator. ‘If Rick Foster gives that to you,’ Ms. Bjorklund remembered Mr. Scully telling her, ‘I’ll fire him so fast his head will spin.’ Mr. Scully denies making such threats.

What on earth was going on here? I thought conservatives were supposed to be responsible for conserving the country’s fiscal health and honest about the costs of entitlements. I smell Rove here. He wanted a political victory. He has no principles. He doesn’t give a damn about the country’s fiscal health. So he lied and put pressure on others to lie. Every single one of us will be paying higher taxes for years because of this.

FACT-CHECKING JOSH: Begravia Despatch goes after Josh Marshall.

“Good Lord, Andrew — if you would get your head out of the Republican Party’s ass for five minutes, you’d be able to see that the reason that paleoconservatives don’t differentiate between between the Tennessee proposal to ride the gays out of town and the President’s opposition to gay marriage is that they don’t feel it is a substantive distinction. It’s not necessarily that all Republicans are homophobes (Thanks, Rudy!), but most fundamentally do not believe that gays ARE a minority in the way that Jews or Blacks constitute “legitimate” minorities, and they regard the Tennesseans’ repugnance as falling within the spectrum of acceptable moral expression, just as, in my native Georgia, it used to be regarded as acceptable to force blacks to use separate water fountains. Stop splitting hairs in order to make excuses for them.
Ask Jonah if Hitler’s Germany would’ve been OK had they JUST confined themselves to laws prohibiting Jews from owning businesses, living and/or working in certain places, etc., without moving on to the Final Solution. Would that have been a “legitimate” exercise of local power? And if not, what differentiates those laws from the proposal in Rhea County?” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

Oh joy. My favorite line: “Allowing Jayson Blair to judge the ethics of a writer – or publication – is a little like green-lighting Josef Mengele to lead a malpractice investigation of Marcus Welby.” My own contribution to this sordid little debate is posted opposite.

I’m mystified by NRO’s Corner discussion of my alleged objection to federalism – or my fair-weather federalism, as it were. But both paleocon, Kathryn Lopez, and Jonah Goldberg, conflate two entirely separate issues. I am horrified that the commissioners of Rhea County Tennessee don’t just want to ban gay marriage – as is their right – but actually want to ban the existence of gay people from their county. Now it strikes me that even the writers at National Review would draw the line at the physical expulsion of a group of people for simply being who they are. There are basic constitutional limits to federalism, after all. This would not be news if Rhea County had just passed a law banning marriage rights for gays. It’s news because Rhea County has endorsed the elimination of gay citizens. If Jonah Goldberg is unworried about such a move against a minority, I suggest he re-read some history. His own minority faced very similar threats in the past. I also notice that neither Jonah nor Lopez can bring themselves actually to criticize the bigots in Rhea County. But ask yourself: if a county voted that Jews should no longer be allowed to live within its boundaries, and a leading commissioner said, “”We need to keep them out of here,” do you think Jonah Goldberg would merely say that such commissioners were merely “getting a bit carried away”? The inability to see what is going on here is gob-smackingly obtuse.

FEDERALISM AND ME: As to the federalism argument: obviously I believe that the right to marry is a basic constitutional right that no government can or should deny under the Constitution as it stands. Interestingly, so does National Review. Otherwise, they would not be so keen to amend the constitution to prevent such equal protection from ever taking place. But that is the prerogative of the Supreme Court of the United States at some point in the distant future. Such a decision is not inevitable; it isn’t even likely in the foreseeable future. If Bush is re-elected, we’re likely to get a far-rightist or two on the Court, someone who will ensure that gays are never protected by the Constitution. Until such time, I’m happy to let federalism work. It may be that the experiment of civil marriage rights for gays will prove a terrible failure, that within a few years, as Stanley Kurtz has predicted, heterosexual marriage will fall apart, straights will stop having children, and civilization will disintegrate. Or not. There’s nothing to stop the social right from pushing for a constitutional amendment under such circumstances – or even in response to a future Supreme Court decision. So why now? Why before civil marriage for gays is legal anywhere in the U.S.? The answer is that the right doesn’t want gay marriage in any state under any circumstances for any period of time. They are the true anti-federalists. They don’t even support something like the Hatch amendment that would make the issue procedural rather than substantive and leave the issue of gay marriage on the table for states to decide. Why? Because they know they’re losing. They know that within a generation, majorities will emerge to support equal protection for gay couples. They have to prevent the next generation from ever having a say; and they have to prevent gay people from ever believing that they are truly equal, truly worthy of dignity and truly citizens of the United States. That’s why I’m a federalist; and they emphatically are not.

One group announces it will cease operations in Spain to reward Spanish voters for striking a blow against “the axis of Crusader evil.” There’s a catch, of course. Here’s part of the statement: “Because of this [electoral] decision, the leadership has decided to stop all operations within the Spanish territories… until we know the intentions of the new government that has promised to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. And we repeat this to all the brigades present in European lands: stop all operations.” They’ve learned something, haven’t they? And if Zapatero doesn’t withdraw from Iraq, Spain will be targeted again.

The far right strikes again in Tennessee:

Rhea County commissioners unanimously voted to ask state lawmakers to introduce legislation amending Tennessee’s criminal code so the county can charge-homosexuals-with crimes against nature. “We need to keep them out of here,” said Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the motion. County Attorney Gary Fritts also was asked by Fugate to find the best way to enact a local law banning homosexuals from living in Rhea County.

Don’t hold your breath for any establishment fundamentalists to rebuke them. So much attention has been paid to the handful of places that have advanced gay civil rights in the last few months that the tidal wave of anti-gay legislation being proposed and passed across the nation – pioneered by Republicans – barely merits notice. One state – just one – has moved toward establishing equality in marriage for gays. Thirty-eight have banned it outright. A few have re-written their constitutions to ensure inequality for gay citizens. Virginia, to take one example, is in the midst of a full-scale anti-gay legislative pogrom – banning gay marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships and attempting to revivify the sodomy laws. The Bush administration, for its part, has now come out of its own closet. It’s in the forefront of attacks on gays, with Karl Rove leading the brigades, urging activists to keep up the pressure on writing anti-gay discrimination into the constitution itself. During the internal debate on the constitutional amendment, gay Republicans were shut out completely. The administration is also busily reneging on its promise not to roll back federal protections for gay government employees. No one can spin this attack on gay employees as a response to “judicial activism.” It’s pure animus, directed and supported by the fundamentalist right. I have to say that I have been culpably naive about this administration on this issue. They led me to believe they weren’t hostile to gay people, that they would not use anti-gay sentiment to gain votes, that they would not roll back very basic protections for gay federal employees. I was lied to. We were all lied to. But now we know.

“God forbid that such crimes should be visited on our shores, but we must be prepared for what the security services deem a probability rather than a possibility. We are renowned as a phlegmatic people, but we are not forgiving to those who let the side down, whether at home or abroad. If such an attack were to take place here, the question would inevitably be whether our support for America’s war against Iraq had made it more likely. The prime minister in particular will now ruminate on this. If ever there was a case of an individual driving the nation into a war then it was him. People will inevitably link his personal crusade to any failure to forestall terrorist outrages. Thus the stakes for him have increased alarmingly.” – Peter Kilfoyle, former Blair minister, all but hoping for Blair’s downfall, in the Guardian.

THE KURDS IN SYRIA: Something is obviously afoot. Why is this not front-page news? Check out these photographs on FreeArabForum as well (keep scrolling down).

A DITTY FOR ZAPATERO:

MINSTREL: [singing]
Brave Zapatero ran away,
Bravely ran away, away.
When danger reared its ugly head,
he bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Zapatero turned about
And gallantly, he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Zapatero.

With apologies to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

MoveOn’s ad attacking Donald Rumsfeld is not entirely fair. Rumsfeld never said that the threat from Iraq was imminent, or immediate, but that he could not know for sure. Nevertheless, this ad strikes me as a strong one, because it taps into general public skepticism about the honesty of their governments. That skepticism is a healthy instinct in a democracy, and it has, alas, been given new force by the WMD intelligence errors and the inability of the administration to face up to them squarely. Exactly that kind of skepticism played some role in the Spanish vote, and it accounts for some of the British hostility to Blair. If I were Kerry, I’d respond to the devastating Bush ads exposing his ability to say everything at once with a few focused ads on Bush’s history of inaccuracies. I’d start with replaying large sections of the Meet the Press interview.

PORTRAITS OF GRIEF: Iberiannotes blog has a few sketches of some of the victims of the Jihadist massacre in Madrid. We too easily forget the victims. Here are a few.

SOAP FROM STARBUCKS: I think this is not a spoof. But I may be wrong.

STU TAYLOR ON FFC: An interesting piece by Stuart Taylor on marriage and the Full Faith and Credit Clause. I’m less worried than he is about the U.S. Supreme Court intervening any time soon. But his piece is revealing because it shows that even if you do believe that the judiciary is going to impose civil marriage rights for gays, the Musgrave amendment is still not the way to go. In Taylor’s words:

By no stretch of the imagination, however, is the proposed amendment behind which Bush has placed his prestige an appropriate way to protect representative government. Quite the contrary. The first clause of the so-called Musgrave amendment (sponsored by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo.) would impose a uniform federal definition of marriage upon the whole country: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.” This amounts to an anti-democratic, anti-federalist effort to ban all state legislatures, for all time, from experimenting with gay marriage — even if and when most voters in most states come to support gays’ right to wed. And public opinion appears to be headed in that direction: Although polls still show voters opposing gay marriage by a ratio of about 2-to-1, the numbers appear to be softening over time. Especially significant is that young voters are far more open to gay marriage than old ones.
In this sense, the president’s position on gay marriage has something in common with that of the Massachusetts court: Neither is willing to defer to democratic governance. While the court has imposed its definition of marriage on today’s voters, Bush seeks to impose his own definition on their children and grandchildren.

“I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,” – Democratic nominee, John Kerry. In some ways, that small sentence completely sums him up.

Well, we have a very quick new entry for the Prodi award, and it’s Howard Dean. Blaming the murder of 200 innocents on the Bush administration’s liberation of Iraq is a sign of serious moral derangement. “The president was the one who dragged our troops to Iraq, which apparently has been a factor in the death of 200 Spaniards over the weekend.” Dragged? As commander-in-chief, he ordered, and he did so with the overwhelming backing of the Congress and dozens of allies. But then you have the real Dean touch: he has the phenomenal capacity to assert something obscene and then refuse to take responsibility for it. Remember the “interesting theory” that the president knew about 9/11 in advance? Here we go again: “Let me be clear, there is no justification for terrorism. Today I was simply repeating what those who have claimed responsibility for the bombings in Spain said was the reason they carried out that despicable act.” So he’s just parroting Jihadist spin, not endorsing it. Looking back, I was simply wrong to entertain the idea that a Dean nomination would be refreshing for the country. If he were the nominee today, he would have just lost the election. And there would be no more debate.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MARRIAGE: Please, please read this piece in the New York Times. It reiterates something I have been banging on about for months. The social right just ignores it. But the important truth is: the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not apply to marriage. The looming civil marriages in Massachusetts will be restricted to Massachusetts because a) it’s accepted legal doctrine that all other states can refuse to recognize such marriages if they violate the public policy of those states; b) DOMA underlines this and puts several exclamation points after it; c) Massachusetts law itself voids any civil marriages contracted in that state for the purpose of evading marriage laws in another state; and d) 38 states have passed their own mini-DOMAs to declare their own public policy on such a matter with no ambiguity at all. The notion that this limited exercise in federalism poses such a terrible threat to the whole country that it has to be pre-empted by a federal constitutional amendment is simply hysterical nonsense. The Cheney position remains the smartest one: let the states decide. Let them come up with a variety of means to recognize gay couples; let’s see which ones make most sense; leave Massachusetts alone to resolve its own public policy without clumsy federal intervention. I thought that was what conservatism was supposed to be about.