Author: Andrew Sullivan

The video above is distressing. The following context might help:

Scores of Bedouin men were standing on a yellow hill, sharing their experiences from the early morning hours, while all around them uprooted olive trees lay on the ground. A whole village comprising between 40 and 45 houses had been completely razed in less than three hours.

I suddenly experienced deja vu: an image of myself walking in the rubbles of a destroyed village somewhere on the outskirts of the Lebanese city of Sidon emerged. It was over 25 years ago, during my service in the Israeli paratroopers. But in Lebanon the residents had all fled long before my platoon came, and we simply walked in the debris. There was something surreal about the experience, which prevented me from fully understanding its significance for several years. At the time, it felt like I was walking on the moon.

This time the impact of the destruction sank in immediately. Perhaps because the 300 people who resided in al-Arakib, including their children, were sitting in the rubble when I arrived, and their anguish was evident; or perhaps because the village is located only 10 minutes from my home in Be’er Sheva and I drive past it every time I go to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem; or perhaps because the Bedouins are Israeli citizens, and I suddenly understood how far the state is ready to go to accomplish its objective of Judaising the Negev region; what I witnessed was, after all, an act of ethnic cleansing.

Haaretz reports on new subsidies for Israeli army officers to move into the Negev. I am unaware of any legitimate reasons for destroying these people’s village and lives. Perhaps I am missing something.

Paul Ryan can only name two things he would cut from the federal budget: repealing the rest of the stimulus and TARP. Seriously? Shadegg falls for the bullshit of an "across the board cut". Steve King repeats the nonsense that the Bush tax cuts paid for themselves. Others are merely flailing.

If you care about debt and deficits, do not, repeat do not, enable the GOP to take us all down that denialist road to bankruptcy again.

To my mind, the coming elections are all about whether 1) the Republicans have a better alternative than returning to Bush-Cheney policies on spending, taxes, war and debt and 2) whether what the Democrats have done in this Congress is worth rewarding. My view is that 1) the GOP has actually gotten worse since Bush-Cheney and their vows of spending cuts are utterly unconvincing (especially since they will have no mandate on any of the specifics necessary to forge a new path). And I remain of the belief that the stimulus worked about as well as one can in an advanced economy, the bank bailout was much more successful than I expected, the decision to bail out GM now looks prescient as it recovers, and the health reform is a decent start but requires careful monitoring on the cost front.

But what do voters think? On health insurance reform, the poll of polls still shows a plurality opposed (the proportions both supporting and opposing the law have sunk). But this nugget from the Kaiser poll stuck out:

Among Republicans, opposition to the law remained steady at 69 percent, but the intensity of that opposition ticked upward. Fifty-three percent of Republicans said they had a “very unfavorable” opinion of the law this month, up from 50 percent in June. Independents, who can tip the balance in elections, split 48 percent to 37 percent in favor, compared with 49 percent to 41 percent a month earlier. The intensity of opinion among this group showed little change; just less than a fifth expressed a very favorable view, and just more than a quarter expressed a very unfavorable view.

This is the great risk of the Palin strategy. By marinating in Fox News propaganda, the Republican base has become extremely angry and polarized. But the sane and not-so-political middle has softer and more favorable views. I wonder whether this pattern is beginning to spread to other areas. As one detects a GOP becoming simply an anti-Muslim party, as the draconian measures against illegal and mainly Hispanic immigrants proliferate, as epistemic closure grows … will we be surprised this fall? Or can anger really change the entire scene?

In a rare congruence, some writers at NRO agree with the Dish on … Doctor Who.

My favorite doctor's assistant? Patrick Troughton's Jamie, on whom I had a massive crush as a little boy. (Given the image above, who wouldn't? And he looked so hot in a kilt facing a Yeti.)

And I have to say I always feared the Cybermen more than the Daleks. Why? I presumed in my bed at night that the Daleks couldn't get up the stairs.

Ryan Avent suggests putting a $5 tax on every barrel of oil.

Providing some historical perspective on Iran's Greens, Michael Singh keeps hope alive:

All three opposition movements [of the 20th century] took years to consolidate before becoming powerful enough to force change on the regime. The Constitutional Revolution, which is thought of as emerging around 1905, as protests broke out over tariffs, was in fact a continuation of events that began in 1891, with the campaign to overturn an exclusive tobacco concession the shah had granted to the British. Similarly, Mossadeq’s National Front achieved power in 1951, but this was after decades of discontent with a monarchy that had descended into disorder following World War II. … The Islamic Revolution of 1979, moreover, had roots going back to 1960–4, when riots against the shah swept the country and Ayatollah Khomeini and many other activists were exiled.

On the current unrest:

[T]he Green Movement is built on discontent that predates the June 2009 elections: it is the same dissatisfaction that led to Khatami’s landslide electoral victories in 1997 and 2001 and to the student protests between the late 1990s and today. Just as reform movements past were slow to build, today’s cannot be declared over because of the Green Movement’s apparent sluggishness.

Meanwhile, Ahmadi continues to alienate conservative hardliners.

(Photo caption from Life Goes On In Tehran: "A man selling two puppies on the side of the street. Technically pets are illegal in Iran. But that doesn't stop people from buying their cats and dogs. Even if it takes buying them from a shady dude! And for some reason pet food isn't illegal. So you can actually buy pet food in most stores.")

The neo-fascist punched her in the face. Now we have the photograph of her chipped teeth.

“We’ve taken great pains to make clear what were all about. We view ourselves as a new civil rights movement…. committed to something that in the 1960s was key: the right to vote," – Brian Brown, National Organization for Marriage's executive director. Chris Geidner does a double take.

New Hampshire is not Palin country.

We have a new comic action hero: Foreskin Man! (Not for the squeamish). He's fighting male genital mutilation – and his official website is here.