Author: Andrew Sullivan

The Pope And The Male HIV-Positive Prostitute, Ctd

Theocons rush to limit the damage from the Pope’s recent gaffe:

If someone was going to rob a bank and was determined to use a gun, it would better for that person to use a gun that had no bullets in it.  It would reduce the likelihood of fatal injuries. But it is not the task of the Church to instruct potential bank robbers how to rob banks more safely and certainly not the task of the Church to support programs of providing potential bank robbers with guns that could not use bullets.  Nonetheless, the intent of a bank robber to rob a bank in a way that is safer for the employees and customers of the bank may indicate an element of moral responsibility that could be a step towards eventual understanding of the immorality of bank robbing.

Alrighty then. This is the nub of the matter:

The Holy Father is not articulating a teaching of the Church about whether or not the use of a condom reduces the amount of evil in a homosexual sexual act that threatens to transmit HIV. The Church has no formal teaching about how to reduce the evil of intrinsically immoral action.

My italics. What this means is that the church has no moral teaching for gay men in their sex lives and relationships except total celibacy. And yet even the Pope found some room for a spectrum of morality in the actions of an HIV-positive prostitute. You try making sense of that.

Hathos Alert – And A New Contest

Miley Cyrus wants “forgiveness and love”. But it was very hard to forgive this from last night’s AMA:

Which prompts the thought of a contest: what is the worst pop song designed to reflect a profound moral conscience, a political cause, or a general form of celebrity-as-intellectual-activist? I.e. the smuggest, most pretentious pop song in history? We haven’t had a contest in a while, so let’s call this one “Shut Up And Sing.” For the thing to work, we need you to provide a Youtube of the song – either music video or live performance. Group “We Are The World” efforts are not eligible.

Is Hillary Done?

She says that she won't run for president again. Doug Mataconis accepts this at face value:

Hillary Clinton will not run against Barack Obama in 2012, anyone who believes she will is simply ignoring reality, and she will be 69 years old when Election Day 2016 rolls around. Would she be willing to put all her energy into what is likely to be a wide open race regardless of what happens to Barack Obama in 2012? I tend to believe her when she says she’s done.

Which is why, given her skillset and ambition, it would be foolish to under-estimate her potential to make a mark as secretary of state. But if she did have a successful two-term run as secretary – imagine if we did get a two-state solution, withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, a reset with Russia and a Pacific/South Asian alliance to moderate Chinese ambition – I can see her being able to reconsider. 69 is younger than McCain was in 2008. And if my own feelings are in any way salient, my view of her has changed significantly given her professional and refreshing stint at State. I think she has won over many of her former foes.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm, Ctd

Mercede Johnston, Tripp Palin's aunt and sister of Levi, on the mysteries that remain about the provenance of Trig Palin:

I’ll admit that there have been many times when I have had my doubts. It is simply a fact that I just cannot fathom someone being evil and narcissistic enough to fake a pregnancy. Plus I was around during that time, and heard first hand Bristol saying that they thought their mom was pregnant, which she at first denied, and then admitted. And after seeing Bristol so furious with her mom for hiding it, well that led me to believe that it was legit. But yes I still do have my doubts, and if I were Sarah I would just release some proof to end all of this speculation. If it were me that would seem like a no-brainer.

Me too. The editor of the Anchorage Daily News tried to get the Palins to offer proof to put the resilient myth to rest in December 2008:

I want to be very clear on this: I have from the beginning and do now consider the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth to be nutty nonsense. If that's true, then why has Lisa Demer been asking questions about Trig's birth?… It strikes me that if there is never a clear, contemporaneous public record of what transpired with Trig's birth that may actually ensure that the conspiracy theory never dies. Time will tell.

You can read Dougherty's email exchange with Palin in full here. More Mercede comments here.

The Weekly Standard And The Palin Panic, Ctd

Fred Barnes hedges his bets:

When moderator and [Alabama Policy Institute] president Gary Palmer asked the panelists for their take on potential 2012 presidential candidates, Moore brought up the names Chris Christie, Paul Ryan and Mike Pence. “Moore forgot Sarah Palin!” exclaimed Barnes, who said that Palin is the most solidly conservative possibility with a tremendous following. While he considered Jim DeMint to also be a good potential candidate, Barnes said “Never underestimate Sarah Palin.”

Meanwhile Conservatives4Palin is about to get a major makeover, and its propaganda engine is in full throttle. Among their new list of qualifications for the presidency that Sarah Palin has that five recent presidents didn’t:

2. Ten years volunteer work in the Parent-Teacher-Association.

That’s Number 2.

The TSA Freakout, Ctd

Adam Serwer puts it in perspective:

The last president of the United States brags openly about ordering people to be tortured, and the current one asserts the authority to kill American citizens he believes to be terrorists overseas.

But most of these measures are either invisible enough to put out of mind or occur outside of what most Americans can imagine happening to them. As long as it's just Muslims being tortured and foreigners being detained indefinitely, the price we pay to feel secure seems all too abstract. The TSA's new passenger-screening measures just happen to fall on the political and economic elites who can make their complaints heard. It's not happening to those scary Arabs anymore. It's happening to "us." 

The Weekly Standard And The Palin Panic

David Frum sees the deeper meaning of Labash's anti-Palin story:

Politicians love to present a narrative in which they and their band of outsiders battle an entrenched party establishment. In most cases, the stories are self-serving myths: party establishments are far less entrenched than they used to be, and the insurgents usually hold paid-up memberships in the party establishment themselves. See eg Howard Dean, career of.

But in Palin’s case, the myth rings true. There really is a GOP party establishment. That establishment took up Palin as a useful tool in 2008, deployed Palin as an edged anti-Obama weapon in 2009 – and is now horrified to see that they may have set in motion a force possibly too powerful to halt when its time has ended. The story of the behind-the-scenes struggle to squelch Palin – and her ferocious determination not to be squelched – will be the big GOP-side story of the coming year.