Author: Andrew Sullivan

Alex Knapp argues, along with Jon Stewart, that the media professionals should ignore the Willow story:

No matter how much you may dislike her famous mother, a 16 year old should be able to say something stupid on the Internet without it becoming national news. And she should certainly be able to say something stupid without having it analyzed, criticized, or defended by adults she’s never met and likely never will meet.

Saying stupid things is a part of growing up. Let her find her own way in the world which will mean that, yes, sometimes she will say things that are cruel, or thoughtless, or stupid. I’ll wager you said some pretty stupid things when you were 16, too. So lay off.

What if she had written "ni**er?" And one has to note that her mother has put all her children into an unforgiving spotlight, even subjecting them to reality show exposure. The idea that we should all abide by rules that Palin herself freely violates – her family "privacy" my ass – is surrender to her double standards. Palin cannot cite her son, Track, in every stump speech and not have his history examined. She cannot parade a child with Down Syndrome like a campaign poster and not have any questions asked about the kid's journey into this world. She cannot push one daughter into a reality show and an abstinence campaign without allowing that person's past and present to be a story. If Palin kept her family private, it would be one thing. But she relentlessly exploits them when it suits her and then acts offended if there's any pushback or scrutiny. Screw that.

Weigel, meanwhile, was ignoring the story until GOProud decided to issue a "get-out-of-slur free card."

It's perfectly defensible to have a principled opposition to federal funding for journalism. But this is absurd:

House Republicans announced today that they will force a floor vote to eliminate taxpayer-funded support for NPR in response to the firing of Juan Williams. A proposal to defund NPR was the winner in the GOP’s weekly “YouCut” contest, in which the public votes online for various spending cuts — GOP leaders have pledged to force votes on the winning items (so far nearly every such vote has failed to pass the Democratic-controlled House).

They're making a decision about whether to end federal subsidies to a decades old news organization because of Juan Williams? More to the point, the GOP rank-and-file could force a vote on a federal spending cut, and they picked NPR? I have a sinking feeling that this is what the GOP intends to do for two years: ride populist base fads into trivial nicks in spending, while never facing up to fiscal reality.

"Is there anything Fox News can do to demean and destroy NPR that Mara Liasson will publicly object to?" – Eric Boehlert, noting that Roger Ailes has now declared that Liasson's bosses at NPR are "of course, Nazis."

Drum shrugs:

I think the privacy concerns are close to insane. But I do care about whether we’re spending billions of dollars on technology that doesn’t do us any good. Looking at the pictures the scanners produce, it sure seems as if they’re more effective than standard screening. So can someone please explain why they aren’t?

In practice, I haven’t given a toss when I’ve gone through those things. But like Kevin, I would like to know if they can actually catch someone with some explosives in his taint.

"Yes, I’ve said that, senator. You’re absolutely correct [about] the social costs from drug abuse, especially from marijuana. Legalizers say it will help the Mexican cartel situation; it won’t. It will allow states to balance budgets; it won’t. No one is looking at the social costs of legalizing drugs,” – Michele Leonhart, Obama's choice to head the DEA.

Sigh.

A reader writes:

You quoted Palin saying, "What I see in a bear, in any other species in their natural habitat, they are self-sufficient. They are not sitting around waiting for something else to catch that salmon for them and feed them."

Actually, bears, like other predators, will scavenge another animal's kill when convenient. A grizzly will have no compunction about running off another, weaker predator and taking its kill. Not to mention their preference for human refuse over "meat on the hoof". I wonder if Palin would point to a homeless person rummaging, bearlike, through garbage and assert that this is an example of the kind of self-sufficiency she is for?

In fact, grizzly bears in Yellowstone were once famously dependent on trash:

Forty years ago, grizzly bears in Yellowstone were dependent on garbage intentionally fed to them in Yellowstone Park. When the Park Service abruptly closed these garbage dumps, some thought this would cause the extinction of grizzly bears in Yellowstone because the bears had become dependent on garbage. While grizzly populations declined following dump closure, the end result was a growing population (4 percent to 7 percent a year for the last 15 years) that has grown and now survives entirely on natural foods.

(Photo from Flickrite fionabearclaw, who captioned: "One of the many popular attractions throughout the Central Adirondacks has been visiting the Village Dumps to watch the Native Black Bear feeding.")

A reader writes:

ABC may have shot itself in the foot with the casting of Bristol.

Judging by online posts and comments, there is a real outcry from longtime fans of the series at the apparant hijacking of the process by the Palin cult. Take into account that many of the Palin voters are either not watching (as admitted in several of those message boards cited on Jezebel and others that I've seen firsthand) or watching only for Palin, and chances are you're likely going to be losing those viewers in subsequent seasons no matter what. I seriously get the impression that a Bristol win might irrevocably damage the show's standing amongst the core audience who simply want to see the best dancer win.

Another writes:

The ABC message boards are hopping with people threatening to never watch the show again. They say that people are on to the Palins, and feel that ABC/DTWS producers have also helped rig things for ratings.  In fact, there are some postings about how this is supposed to be "Dancing with the Stars" – and when was Bristol ever a star?

Another:

The message boards of some of these conservative pro-Palin sites have been scrubbed – just since last night.  Moderators of these sites are now put in the embarrassing position of trying to hide the evidence of the inflated voting due to a technical snafu on ABC's website.  Previously the messages on that board encouraged and bragged about taking advantage of that weakness in the system.

Adam Serwer clarifies and corrects.

The only thing to say about the remarkable acquittals on almost all counts for a tortured prisoner of war is that torture renders convictions all but impossible. By throwing aside all norms for prisoner treatment and setting up an apparatus of systemic torture, Bush and Cheney destroyed critical evidence that could have been used by the prosecution to convict. Greenwald notes that military commissions would have been constrained in exactly the same way.

Hence Bush's and Cheney's legacy.

They made it close to impossible to convict most of the terror suspects they seized and tortured in any trial whatsoever; and prudence demands that such radicalized terror suspects not simply be let go to strike again. So we get the worst of both worlds. We could, it seems to me, have made a case for indefinite detention as prisoners of war until the conflict ends – as long as prisoners of war were treated humanely. But we really can't make such a case when those prisoners have been abused and tortured. So the US indefinitely will be forced to detain torture victims for the rest of their lives.

This is not Obama's fault. It is Bush's and Cheney's – because of their incoherent, short-sighted and barbaric choices in the first years of the war.

Bryan Fischer's rant about the need to "award the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely" is really worth reading if you want to understand the violence and aggression embedded in Christianism. This is what happens when you work for the American Family Association for too long:

We have feminized the Medal of Honor. According to Bill McGurn of the Wall Street Journal, every Medal of Honor awarded during these two conflicts has been awarded for saving life. Not one has been awarded for inflicting casualties on the enemy. Not one.

It gets better. He defends "honoring those who kill bad guys" by citing Jesus:

Jesus’ act of self-sacrifice would ultimately have been meaningless – yes, meaningless – if he had not inflicted a mortal wound on the enemy while giving up his own life.

The significance of the cross is not just that Jesus laid down his life for us, but that he defeated the enemy of our souls in the process. It was on the cross that he crushed the head of the serpent. It was on the cross that “he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15).

The cross represented a cosmic showdown between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, and our commanding general claimed the ultimate prize by defeating our unseen enemy and liberating an entire planet from his bondage.

We rightly honor those who give up their lives to save their comrades. It’s about time we started also honoring those who kill bad guys.

(Hat tip: Mark Thompson)