Author: Andrew Sullivan

The Weekly Wrap

Today on the Dish,  Andrew decried the derailing of the DADT repeal by a few homophobic senators, even as he understood that the final truth of brave, gay soldiers would explode the heads of the Christianists. He twisted the knife on the GOP's demonization of Obama, and decimated the slippery slope arguments on gay marriage. And the Dish stocked up on copies of The Cannabis Closet, a new collection of stories from readers around the country.

Jay Newton-Small believed Palin will run, Palin's endorsed Paul Ryan's roadmap, and Hitch attacked the Tea Party. Palin's "family values" were lacking, even as she splayed her family out all over the media. We dug deeper on Gary Johnson, including his abortion track record, and Geroge Will ramped up for Pence for President. The stars were aligning for a tax reform compromise, and we took stock of the future of the pay-roll tax cut holiday. The blogosphere beat back Krugman on the tax cut compromise and the economy, Bernstein explained triangulation, and the Dish agreed with Krauthammer. Biking could be sold as carbon credits, Reihan clarified his immigration theory, and Timothy Lee batted another round.

Exum witnessed a resurgent enemy in Afghanistan, and Michael Cohen just called Afghanistan the girlfriend who is just not that into us. Iran was beating Israel, America robbed China of its talent, and we should still be reading the Wikileaks cables.  We checked in on American pubs, pot in California was relegated to the shadows, and Manzi defended matrimony. If wallets could talk, some wouldn't be happy, scientists opted to be Democrats, and humanity and misanthropy traversed the internet hand in hand.

VFYW here, MHB here, FOTD here, and badass reader generated book here.

Prop_8

Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty

Thursday on the Dish, Andrew pondered whether Obama could finagle peace in the Middle East after starting over, and drafted a State of The Union address. James Franco's self-kiss left Andrew speechless, Peter Beinart measured the exodus of Israeli youth to other countries, and Andrew assessed the tuition tax hikes in Britain and what they've done to the Lib-Dem brand. We suffered another jolt in the DADT roller-coaster thanks to one man's bitter vendetta, and we tracked the full reax. Nate Silver decided DADT could be a nice slice of social reform pie to pair with economic reform, we kept an eye on Lieberman's tweets, and Serwer reminded us why DADT matters.

Will Wilkinson disparaged the left for its overblown reaction to the tax compromise and its silence on core liberties and Andrew agreed in principle. Hugh Hewitt hyperventilated about Tea Party opposition, Bush's economic wonk advised the right to take the deal, and Ed Kilgore considered a failed tax deal, with more analysis here. Larison nominated DeMint as the right's fiscal fraud, and Pelosi did to the tax cut deal what McCain (and Reid) were doing to DADT.

Babbage interviewed the Wikileaks Anonymous hackers, and Greenwald called it a war over control of the Internet. Andrew pointed out that the emperor still has clothes just not the power to keep them on, and Hemanshu Nigam confirmed the government probably won't ever be able to shut down the site completely. Contra Reihan, Serwer and Timothy Lee defended the DREAM Act, and Conor chalked it up to more than economics. Partisanship ruled whether attacks ads are considered fair, TSA may be categorizing airports as Fourth Amendment free zones, Google squared off with Amazon on e-books, and Matt Feeney marveled at the wave of Kelly Slater's skills.

Dissent of the day here, when Maggie met Sully here, FOTD here, VFYW here, chart of the day here, MHB here, and email of the day here.

Face_day

By Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images.

Wednesday on the Dish, on the tax front, Andrew argued the deal would win back independents and some Republicans. Andrew parsed the two sides to Obama, and cheered that a post-partisan president could pop the bubble of demonization that the GOP had drummed up. Nate Silver previewed the GOP line of attack for 2012, readers responded, and Leonhardt imagined three outcomes for the tax cut game in 2012. Macroeconomic Advisers did the math, Howard Gleckman assessed it from both sides, we realized not even the Tea Party train could stop Bush's tax breaks, and we tracked the rest of opinion on the tax compromise here, here, and here.

Assanged was transforming from punk to hero, and Serwer feared for national security journalism if Assange gets prosecuted. Samuels expected better of journalists, Michael Moynihan tried to resist the conspiracy theories surrounding the rape accusations against Assange, and E.D. Kain asked the pertinent question of whether we'd let China do to Assange what we want to.

The DADT repeal teetered on the brink of getting to the floor. Steve Chapman was hopeful about DADT since he realized familiarity with gays breeds acceptance. Scott Morgan predicted a cannabis-friendly campaign for 2012 hopeful Gary Johnson, and Larison could hardly contain his enthusiasm for Johnson to run. McCain reversed himself on the DREAM Act, abortion politics stayed the same even when everything else changed, and Amanda Marcotte didn't understand what's so grand about marriage. Reza Aslan pleaded for a Palestinian state, and the most conservative part of the country ate like gluttony isn't a sin. The greenest packaging may already exist in banana leaves, Clive Thompson gushed over Instagram, and e-cigarettes celebrated a judicial victory. Tom Friedman baited Matt Taibbi with his bad metaphors, and Marty Beckerman sailed free with crotchless men's underwear.

Creepy ad watch here, chart of the day reax here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

Tuesday on the Dish, Andrew pegged Obama's tax move as shrewd and McConnell as a sucker. We rounded up the best reax from around the web and Ed Morrissey gathered reaction on the right. Andrew agreed with Clive Crook on what's wrong with the left on taxes, and the rest of the blogosphere conceded the compromise "makes sense if…" everything else falls into place. Greg Sargent honed in on why congress should extend their calendar to repeal DADT, Pareene and Burroway fumed, and Andrew advised a scaled-down temperature for the gay movement. Lyle Denniston decoded the logic in yesterday's Prop 8 arguments, Timothy Kincaid was optimistic, and Illinois state senator Ricky Hendon hated the hypocrisy.

Andrew prescribed we cutoff aid to Israel, after Obama threw in the towel on getting them to agree to a settlment moratorium. Israel allowed gay soldiers to serve, but some citizens didn't want to rent to gentiles. Salon envisioned scenarios for an American collapse, Obama finally exercised his pardon powers, Iran can't control Iraq, and Afghans don't enjoy being bombed. We collected the web's best on Assange's arrest, Clay Shirky straddled the fence on Wikileaks, Weigel differentiated on different document dumps, and Ron Paul nailed truth vs. treason on the head. Heather Mac Donald recognized Obama's commitment to American supremacy in attacking Assange, and Andrew charted Assange's rise to underground hero status.

The Weekly Standard profiled an actual government conservative (and his medical marijuana use), Breitbart played the victim card, and Domenico Montanaro fact-checked Halperin's hackery. Neocons feared nihilism, and TNC put the world's prison population in perspective. Allahpundit honed in on Huckabee, and Ed Kilgore looked at him from the Dems' side of the aisle. James Fallows saluted Elizabeth Edwards, who passed away today. Traffic cameras raise money but don't stop accidents, and the government can track you in real-time without a court order. Christmas signaled fascism to Andrew, and Chicago remained a good place to get drunk.

Chart of the day here, Andrew's household logic here, email of the day here, Malkin award here, MHB here, Hathos alert here, dissents of the day here, FOTD here, Andrew in DC on Catholics here, VFYW here, VFYW contest winner #27 here, and the VFYW Archive here.

Vfyw
Seattle, Washington, 8.15 am

Monday on the Dish, Andrew countered Brendan Tapley on the future of manly love in a post-DADT world. We tracked the Prop 8 oral arguments, and Adam Bink summarized Olson's points. David Link exposed a McCain clinging to prejudice, Brian Beutler killed the GOP defense canard to stall a DADT vote, and Andrew urged them to extend the calendar. James Harkin wasn't impressed with Iran's Twitter revolution, and Peter Beinart exploded the Arabs versus Iran argument on democracy in the Middle East. The Russians almost waged nuclear war on the Chinese (in 1969), Goldblog got accused of anti-Israel leftism, Scott McConnell calculated the real cost of our relationship with Israel, and a no-knock drug raid gone wrong turned a corner on the road to justice.

Andrew weighed the problems of debt vs unemployment, and compared Sarah Palin (who has been killing it lately) to a zombie. Andrew saw cold-blooded pragmatism in Obama's tax cuts compromise, Weigel saw disappointment brewing on the left, and Dan Bartlett relished the tax-cut trap he and Bush set for the future. Democrats were willing to bargain, Felix Salmon offered historical perspective on why federal taxes are the lowest they've been in 60 years, and millionares are now people who earn a million dollars a year. The left trumped the GOP on fiscal conservatism, Don Taylor watched for Obama's next move on the debt, and Ross praised progress made by a failed Simpson Bowles. Allahpundit propped up Mike Pence for 2012, and bloggers agreed that the dickishness of the GOP was out of control.

Racial profiling at the airport doesn't work, the Washington Monument will never be secure from terror, and we trust people more when we're holding a warm cup. Cablegate Roulette is Chatroulette without the penises, Umberto Eco compared Wikileaks to Orwell, and on the anniversary of prohibition's repeal, cigarettes got burned. Michael Lind defended big biz, Stephen Bainbridge tracked the church's moral evolution and readers debated whether religion is inherently sexist. Al-Qaeda could poke you, Cory Doctorow likened newspapers to vinyl, and Mark Halperin kept hackery alive. American hunters comprised the world's largest unofficial militia and the internet pounced on Mel Gibson's The Beaver. Portland and Wisconsin hoarded all of America's pubs, New York lured a lot of college graduates, and Colorado didn't want you to order a beer that wasn't strong enough. New Kids On The Block sang one for the children, Turks had to take it from behind and smile to prove they unfit for service, and Nicole Kidman moved her face.

VFYW here, quote for the day here, dissent of the day here, chart of the day here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

–Z.P.

Humanity And Misanthropy Online

Susan Orleans pens a touching essay about the realization that she is helpless to adequately care for her ailing mother – and a commenter who reacts flippantly to the post draws a more-in-sorrow-than-anger rebuke from Alan Jacobs. (An even more extreme version of the same kind of online interaction is explained here.)

Defending DADT Badly

In a column rife with breezy zingers, but woefully short on historical knowledge, the always disgusting Ann Coulter writes:

Today's military features "victim advocates" and sensitivity training facilitators, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services personnel and a million other goo-goo positions. How did we ever take the shores of Normandy without a phalanx of "sensitivity training" counselors?

This is the same Coulter recently feted by GOProud. Do they have no self-respect at all? The answer is that we stormed the shores of Normandy with an army that mostly prohibited black soldiers from serving in combat roles, and kept them in all black units. Only in 1948 did Harry Truman sign Executive Order 9981, desegregating the army. Due to racism, no Medals of Honor were awarded to black World War II veterans at the time. Decades later a military review resulted in seven black WWII veterans receiving the award, though only one was still alive.

Prejudice in the World War II era, and the resulting decision to organize units by race rather than efficiency, hurt the war effort. Certainly today's integrated army better takes advantage of its black soldiers and their talents. Perhaps if there were more racially sensitive Americans in the 1930s, an integrated military freed from the inefficiencies of segregated units would've taken Normandy with fewer casualties.

Pence For President?

George Will, in his continuing rapid move to the far right, sounds hopeful:

To those who say conservatives should set aside social issues and stress only economic ones, Pence replies: Economic problems are urgent, but social problems remain important in a way that blurs the distinction between social and economic issues. With the fluency of a former talk radio host, he says: "You would not be able to print enough money in a thousand years to pay for the government you would need if the traditional family continues to collapse." This is, he says, "Moynihan writ large," referring to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's preoccupation with out-of-wedlock births, which now are 41 percent of all American births.

Pence's district borders Ohio, which provided the only president who came directly from the House (James Garfield, 1881). Fifty-one and just elected to his sixth term, Pence, outgoing Republican Conference chairman, says he has always thought six is about enough. He says he might run for governor in 2012. The Republican incumbent, Mitch Daniels, who is term-limited, might be a presidential candidate, and one such candidate might be enough from Indiana, which has provided only one president (Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893). But if you have read this far you know why many Tea Partyers and social conservatives – essentially distinct cohorts – are urging Pence to run for president, and why, although he probably won't, he might.

Is "with the fluency of a former talk radio host" supposed to be a compliment?

Afghanistan As An Ex-Girlfriend

Michael Cohen responds to Andrew Exum’s report that “we have two “Achilles heels” in the current strategy: Afghan governance and insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan.” Cohen emits disbelief:

Huh, you don’t say? Calling these two Achilles heels is a bit like asking Mrs. Lincoln,”other than that how was the play?” …

Sometimes when I read this stuff I feel like Afghanistan is like an ex-girlfriend that broke up with you. You’re still really in love with her, but she has clearly moved on and you keep coming up with ways to win her back, and maybe for a brief time you patch things up . . . but in the end she kicks you to the road because she just really doesn’t think you’re the one. …

Yup, that’s my analogy for Afghanistan! We keep thinking of new ways and new ideas to try and do something that simply can’t be done there. But instead of recognizing that our new ideas and ways aren’t going to work; that Afghanistan really isn’t interested in reforming its governance structure, that Pakistan really doesn’t want to crack down on Afghan Taliban safe havens we keep hoping against hope that maybe the next time will be different.

Immigration: The Fundamental Question, Ctd

Timothy Lee goes another round against Reihan:

I suspect that the process of debating and enacting the DREAM Act will actually increase the number of “slots” [for immigrants] by improving the public view of undocumented immigrants in general.

This is how politics works. If you want fewer abortions you focus on “partial birth” abortions. If you want legal pot, you start with medical marijuana. If you want universal vouchers, you start by focusing on vouchers for kids in failing schools. If you want to end the estate tax, you focus on the relatively small minority of families who are forced to sell off their business to pay the tax man. This kind of half-measure is not only much easier to enact, but it also tends to move public opinion to be more favorable to the 200 proof version. In an ideal world, voters would be perfectly rational and omniscient and we wouldn’t have to play these kinds of games. But they’re not, so we do.

 

What Marriage Equality Won’t Do, Ctd

Hamsters

Eugene Volokh blesses Jon Rauch's "chill, gays" article – which is a little odd, as Jason Kuznicki points out. Volokh says he's for marriage equality but adds so many qualification and arguments from the far right, he sounds like Jeff Goldberg on Israeli West Bank settlements. Take Volokh's slippery slope argument from a year ago:

[P]eople who worry about slippery slopes generally — and who worry about slippery slopes in the field of sexual orientation and the law — can't be lightly dismissed. And it is reasonable for them to worry: If we have gotten this far partly through slippery slope effects, will we slip further, and to what? In particular, would this increase the likelihood of further broadening of antidiscrimination laws? Would it increase the likelihood that groups (such as the Boy Scouts) that discriminate based on sexual orientation will be excluded from tax exemptions, just as groups that discriminate based on race are often excluded from tax exemptions? Would it increase the likelihood that such groups will be excluded from generally available benefits?

Would it increase the likelihood of broader restrictions on anti-homosexuality speech — in government-run organizations, or in private organizations coerced by government pressure — by analogy to the broad support in many areas for restrictions on sexist speech? Would it increase the likelihood of restrictions on people's choosing roommates based partly on sexual orientation, or advertising such preferences in "roommates wanted" ads? Would it increase the likelihood of punishment of wedding photographers who refuse to photograph same-sex weddings (even if they have religious objections to participating this way in such ceremonies, and even if they feel that requiring them to photographing same-sex weddings compels them to create artistic works that they do not wish to create)? Would it increase the likelihood that legislatures will repeal religious institutions' partial exemptions from some bans on sexual orientation discrimination in employment?

But the slope stops slipping at some point. And when we slip too far we remain capable of walking back up the hill. A reader adds:

Whenever I hear the "churches will have to marry them" argument, I think of my straight cousin and his equally straight wife, both baptized and confirmed in the Catholic church. When they wanted to get married, they went to the church, the priest said the church wouldn't marry them because they hadn't been to mass or confession in years. Period. So they had to get married in a protestant church. If they couldn't force the church to marry them, how on earth could a same-sex couple force them to do so? 

This all relates to an old Ross Douthat post the Dish meant to respond to. A couple months ago, Douthat wrote a long second response to my criticism of his column . There are many points to disagree with. Here's his conclusion:

The benefits of gay marriage, to the couples involved and to their families, are front-loaded and obvious, whereas any harm to the overall culture of marriage and childrearing in America will be diffuse and difficult to measure. I suspect that the formal shift away from any legal association between marriage and fertility will eventually lead to further declines in the marriage rate and a further rise in the out-of-wedlock birth rate (though not necessarily the divorce rate, because if few enough people are getting married to begin with, the resulting unions will presumably be somewhat more stable). But these shifts will probably happen anyway, to some extent, because of what straights have already made of marriage. Or maybe the institution’s long decline is already basically complete, and the formal recognition of gay unions may just ratify a new reality, rather than pushing us further toward a post-marital society. Either way, there won’t come a moment when the conservative argument, with all its talk about institutional definitions and marginal effects and the mysteries of culture, will be able to claim vindication against those who read it (as I know many of my readers do) as a last-ditch defense of bigotry.

But this is what conservatism is, in the end: The belief that there’s more to a flourishing society than just the claims of autonomous individuals, the conviction that existing prohibitions and taboos may have a purpose that escapes the liberal mind, the sense that cultural ideals can be as important to human affairs as constitutional rights. Marriage is the kind of institution that the conservative mind is supposed to treasure and defend: Complicated and mysterious; legal and cultural; political and pre-political; ancient and modern; half-evolved and half-created. And given its steady decline across the last few decades, it would be a poor conservatism that did not worry at the blithe confidence with which we’re about to redefine it.

Like Volokh, Ross is engaging in a slippery slope argument, but Ross offers no concrete harms at the bottom of the hill. His argument is brilliant in its own way; you can't disprove invisible, immeasurable harms. It is a first principles argument that appeals to the genuinely conservative notion of preservation. But conservatism is not immune to change, it is not intent on cryogenically freezing the moral compromises of today and preserving them eternally. And conservatism must weigh unknowable potential pitfalls less heavily than known harms; what sort of perverse moral arithmetic would count the very tangible and painful consequences of denying marriage less than the immeasurable harms Ross fears?

Conservatism must have a vision for the future of marriage rather than a nostalgia for a time when marriage was primarily an economic institution. If heterosexual marriage is now about love and not necessarily about procreation (this is simply a social fact, as every recent court decision has been forced to acknowledge), and the love gays feel towards their spouses is equal to the love straights feel towards theirs, how can one logically deny marriage equality?

If love is created equal, then the institution that celebrates love ought to be open to all.

What Is Triangulation?

Bernstein's answer:

Triangulation is an advertising slogan coined by Dick Morris to advertise himself — to give him as large a share of the credit for Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election as possible. That's all. Trying to find any deeper meaning in it is like trying to find the deeper meaning in "Coke Adds Life" or "Tiger in Your Tank." Might be interesting to do it, but it's not going to tell you much about soft drinks, gasoline, or politics.

Why DADT Repeal Matters II

A reader writes:

What are the fundamentalists going to do when out GLBT service members begin earning commendations and awards for bravery?  Imagine the first gay soldier being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. It will forever destroy one of fundamentalism's most cherished and nurtured stereotypes, that GLBT folk are weak and craven. Military protocol requires that the entire chain of command, including Commander in Chief salutes anybody wearing that medal.  What a thrill.  I will rejoice when I someday see a President Gingrich or a President Huckabee humiliated into putting that medal around the neck of a towering, heroic, gay man.

That's precisely why so many Christianists resist this. Because it means that the most heroic American icon – the American soldier – would be revealed as gay. The Christianists cannot compute that (although many Christians, especially Catholics, can). For those who have no real interaction with real live gay people, there is an assumption that gay people are sick, perverted, miserable, and anti-American. They simply cannot bear this lie to be disproven in such an irrefutable way. So they struggle to sustain other people's closets to make their own white-knuckled and ignorant beliefs more plausible to themselves.

In the end, I believe, their heads will explode – but with the truth. Which is a good thing. God cannot be in conflict with truth. And maybe Christianity can be reborn in America through a series of such truth-eruptions.