Author: Andrew Sullivan

A reader writes the most challenging and effective email I've read so far on this subject:

I thought one sentence in your reply was especially revealing, and it neatly crystallizes the true point of dissension over the best way to confront Islamic terrorism:

“But I do not believe, as Glenn does, that we are not at war with a vile, theocratic, murderous organization that would destroy this country and any of its enemies if it got the chance.”

What this tells me is that we still need to nail down our understanding of precisely what groups like al-Qaeda are really trying to achieve through the tactic of terrorism. Is it our destruction, or is it something else? The answer to that question is crucial for coming up with the appropriate response. If you truly believe that al-Qaeda’s goal is the destruction of Western countries, then wouldn’t logic dictate that Dick Cheney’s approach is the correct one?

If we are truly in a fight-to-the-finish, kill-or-be-killed existential conflict, then surely we are justified in whatever measures may be necessary to destroy them before they destroy us. What if Cheney is right that fighting this war “as surgically and as morally as we can” will not work, and the only way to win is a multi-generational war with no limits, including torture? If the United States faced imminent destruction without the use of Cheney’s methods, are you seriously saying you would permit that to happen? Once you accept the premise that Islamic extremism’s end goal is to wipe out our very existence, then I don’t see how we can in good conscience set limits on our conduct in fighting them.

If, on the other hand, al-Qaeda’s true goal is something else – like, say, causing such damage to the West in terms of both civilian and military lives lost as well as economic devastation, that it began to change the internal calculations of our foreign policy decisionmakers – then that is a different situation. We would at some point need to have an honest debate about what Glenn properly characterizes as our quasi-imperial role in the world, and the effect that our military actions have in fomenting the very hatred we say we are trying to defeat. We would, in short, need to take a good look at ourselves in the mirror, something we avoided after 9/11 and still haven’t done to the present day.

We would also need to recognize our enemies for what they actually are: not warriors (as they fantasize they are) but rather a band of extremely cunning gangsters with very concrete aspirations that have everything to do with their personal power and prestige, and less to do with killing us out of spite or nihilism. In short, nearly ten years after 9/11, we STILL don’t have a proper understanding of why it occurred, and that’s why we continue to make the same mistakes, over and over again.

Another: Two points I would like to raise regarding the debate between you and Glenn Greenwald. First, the US kills its own citizens all the time without due process (i.e. no court trial) every time a police officer decides to use deadly force. I'm sure a very good portion of these incidences are completely justified (like killing a burglar before he becomes a murderer) while an not insignificant portion are horrific such as the assassination of an unarmed and detained Oscar Grant by a BART police officer. If we can easily make distinctions like this everyday regarding our police, why is it so hard for Glenn to grasp this in times of war?

Second, the check on this power is having due process for those who take a life with the authorization of the government. We should not be saving from prosecution those who obviously abuse this extensive power, soldiers and commanders-in-chief alike. And the penalties involved for this abuse of power in the most egregious cases should include significant jail time an not just a resignation. To say that America must have due process in every situation without exception to save us from dictatorship is simply absurd when examined, as absurd as saying we should have none. Neither deals with the world as it is which exists in the messy gray between those two positions.

A reader writes:

Chait is right, for the most part, but when I read his comment about a media filter, I couldn't help but think of how Keith Olbermann always has on guests that agree with him. Maddow and Schultz invite conservatives on to debate the issues. Bill O'Reilly is unbelievably arrogant, but he has on liberals. Olbermann never has on conservatives.

Olbermann's rationale for not have on people who disagree with him is this:

The premise of the guests is often misunderstood as some sort of political reinforcement, or a 'Keith gets only the guys who agree with him.'  I ask a lot of these questions to find out whether or not I'm wildly incorrect about something. The point of the show is to illuminate.  It is not to throw off heat; it is to throw off light.

And as Newsbusters pointed out a while back, it's hard to find out what you're wrong about if all you have on are MSNBC political analysts and members of the Democratic party. I know this is nowhere near the kind of epistemic closure you find on Fox News, but it's still significant.

Another writes:

I'm probably not the only one who noticed this, but if MSNBC's campaign slogan is Lean Forward, shouldn't Olbermann be, you know, leaning forward instead of back?

A reader writes:

I know I'm a bit late on this, but I wanted to reach out to you regarding the View From Your Window contest from Islamabad, with the Margalla Hills in the background.  I've been a loyal Dish reader for some time now but didn't see this one when it was first posted. I haven't been able to read the blog as regularly these days.

I only saw the picture when you announced the winner and I recognized the location immediately, almost to the point of tears.  My father was aboard the plane that crashed in the Margalla Hills on July 28 this year. 

I've spent a lot of time up there since the crash, but it meant a lot for some reason – I can't explain why – to see those hills on my favorite blog.  I've moved back to California to be with my family since the crash and it has not been easy moving forward given the nature of the death, but my family and I are making progress.  My dad left Pakistan for California in 1971, spent the majority of his life in America and raised two kids.  Who would have thought his end would come in Pakistan.

I guess the point is that it's a great contest that can touch people in ways you never imagined. Keep up the great work.

The O'Donnell ad gets a lovely parody (NSFW).

So many readers have written in about this post about my latest beard disaster that I thought I'd post another link. Bonus: this one doesn't have three separate errors confusing Billy Mays and Willie Mays.

How a Jewish 23-year-old and his future husband kept their cool and poise amid a total meltdown and backtrack in the local Jewish press. The NYT story here. There are many reasons I think the next gay generation is leading the way right now, and Avi and Justin are two of them.

Howard Gleckman reads through Bill Galston and Maya MacGuineas's plan.

There are hypocrites, and then there's this guy:

[I]n 2006, [Washington State Supreme Court justice Richard B. Sanders] signed an opinion denying marriage equality to gay couples—because they have “more sexual partners” and because other courts have found that monogamy is “the bedrock upon which our culture is built.” Meanwhile, he’s been divorced twice, and this election season it became clear he has multiple simultaneous girlfriends. He doesn’t see anything inconsistent in any of that.

I'm sure David Vitter, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich don't either.

“We are going for a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look. These characters are from West Virginia so think coal miner/trucker looks… Clothing Suggestions” included jeans, work boots, flannel shirt, denim shirt, “Dickie’s type jacket with t-shirt underneath,” down-filled vest, “John Deer [sic] hats (not brand new, preferably beat up),” “trucker hats (not brand new, preferably beat up),” – the casting call for the now infamous GOP ad that aired briefly in West Virginia.

Why not the more economical: someone who looks like he’s clinging to his guns and religion?

Buttman was right. Saletan heralds it:

Here's the big story. In 1992, 16 percent of women aged 18-24 said they'd tried anal sex. Now 20 percent of women aged 18-19 say they've done it, and by ages 20-24, the number is 40 percent. In 1992, the highest percentage of women in any age group who admitted to anal sex was 33. In 2002, it was 35. Now it's 46.

The last time I looked at the anal sex data, I figured that most women who reported having done it meant they'd tried it just once. I was wrong. If you push these women beyond the "have you ever" question, the numbers stay surprisingly high, and they're getting higher. In 1992, the percentage of women in their 20s and 30s who said they'd had anal sex in the past year was around 10 percent. Now that number has doubled to more than 20 percent, and one-third of these women say they've done it in the last month. Among all women surveyed, the number who reported anal sex in their most recent sexual encounter was 3 percent to 4 percent.

That's a lot of butt sex. And remember, this is what women are reporting. If anything, they're probably understating the truth.

So maybe Rick Santorum has a chance.