Author: Andrew Sullivan

 Stanley Kurtz believes that Obama is a socialist. Eugene Debs summarizes:

In other words: while Obama does not act like a socialist now, with a big Democratic majority and in the full flush of his mandate, he might act like one later, when he’s weaker. Or maybe not.  Maybe the transition is so precise and slow that Obama won’t act like a socialist at all, and leave that to subsequent Democratic presidents and congressional majorities. So when Obama rejects his party’s left and takes the most incremental available path on universal health care – that confirms his socialism. When he declines to temporarily nationalize the banks – that proves it too. And when he does temporarily nationalize the auto companies—that also proves it! Omitting real socialists to key positions in his administration – all part of the plan.

Frum's earlier plea for sanity here. Stanley's "beliefs" are not based in reality. His belief that somehow same-sex marriage in Europe increased divorce rates for straights is of the same variety as his belief in Obama's socialism. And he frames the subject so as to be unfalsifiable:

One key difference between American and European socialists is that the American variety resorts far more often to deliberate stealth. This is particularly true of Alinskyite community organizers.

"Deliberate stealth." Elsewhere, Stanley claims Obama is engaged in "deception". Dealing with his actual political record since becoming president is irrelevant.

Sometimes, I think the only people who believe he is a socialist are those who have never lived in a socialist country. I grew up in one. If Obama is a socialist, so am I. And proud to be.

Goldblog sounds the alarm.

A reader writes:

The poll says: Only 12 percent — down from 25 percent last year — say that Arabs should continue to fight even if there is a two-state peace agreement.

How is this bad news? The more Arabs that are willing to acknowledge Israel in the case of a two-state peace agreement the closer we come to having one. No other president has gotten Israel to suspend settlement increases, or gotten Bibi Netanyahu to be so willing to come to the bargaining table.

The reason Israel elected Likud is because the population is cynical about the peace process and wanted a political party that would protect them from terrorism and missile attacks. Now even that party is basically demanding face to face negotiations with Abbas. The Arabs who disapprove of Obama are sounding a whole lot like the liberals who disapprove of Obama — considering all he's done to further the peace process there's a whole lot to be happy about.

Obviously we're not there yet, but let's not get caught up in whether Arabs are happy with Obama. Israelis also aren't happy with Obama. Maybe that's for the best. They can unite in their mutual loathing for the guy who is working to save their lives in the Middle East.

But there is a window for Obama's credibility. And it is slowly closing, while Netanyahu does his best to wait it out. The prime minister has, however, apparently promised a real shift this September. Let's wait and see. And believe me, if the Palestinians turn out to be the resistant party in the wake of Israeli concessions, the Dish will not be turning a blind eye. I'm interested in winning the long war of ideas against Jihadism. I think, in the end, the Israelis are too.

Cowen weighs the pros and cons of Wyclef Jean running for president of Haiti.

If you need cheering up, this story about a gay couple, a homophobic neighbor and a house-fire will do the trick.

Mark Thompson answers this Dish reader:

Where this average person may believe humans who live in high crime neighborhoods are capable or uniquely capable of evil or, at the very least, that cops are justifiably anxious and untrusting of such humans, this average person also likely knows that pets – and especially dogs –  are always innocents, and that no decent human being could ever be so afraid of a dog as to try to kill it (well, unless it’s a “pit bull” of course, which is why cops have a bad habit of describing every dog as a pit bull when one of these incidents happen).  The intentional killing of an indisputable innocent who could never be a threat to anyone like a poor, defenseless animal is so incomprehensible that it can, in this worldview, only be performed by a complete psychopath. When it is done coolly and professionally, or when the police chief tries to defend it as being merely a matter of procedure, even the most insulated suburbanite should be able to quickly understand that this is not the act of a lone bad seed, but instead the symptom of something much, much larger.  Maybe this leads such a person to begin to think seriously about violent crime, police abuse, and the like.

Joyner agrees. On reflection, I do too, although my reader's critique of Dish coverage holds.

Yael Borofsky and Jesse Jenkins respond to Avent’s suggestion that we put a $5 tax on every barrel of oil:

Instead of raising energy prices, the point of the gas tax should be to raise revenues. In fact, a $5 gas tax could raise about $40 billion annually, as Avent notes, without consumers feeling much financial pain at all. These revenues could then be dedicated to the kind of public-private partnership that has successfully catalyzed private sector entrepreneurialism and innovation and delivered transformational technology investments throughout America’s history.

There is little historic evidence that marginal price signal changes can spur significant innovation — after all $5 gas taxes throughout the EU haven’t given Europeans affordable electric cars or bio-fuel alternatives.

I think the fiscal necessity is increasingly argument enough. And Europe is far further ahead on non-carbon energy than the US at this point, so perhaps those hints at industrial policy are not dispositive.

Naturalist Jack Rudloe has started a Noah's Ark for animals affected by the Gulf oil spill. It includes over 350 species:

We have to get as many animals in there as we can and then if the conditions permit, be able to put some of them back and get some things started. I don't believe that the oil is gone. It's still out there in cold water, little tiny droplets that could come spilling up here in the wrong conditions of one or two hurricanes.