Author: Andrew Sullivan

While defending France's burqa ban, Hitchens wrote that "my right to see your face is the beginning of it, as is your right to see mine." Geras deftly counters:

[D]o we have a moral right to see the face of those others with whom we come into close contact – with whom we have personal dealings or 'do business', with whom we interact, whom we sit opposite on the bus or beside on a bench or in a theatre, etc? One does not have to like the idea of not being able to see the faces of others in such situations in order to deny that one has a moral right to see them. You don't have a right to be spared everything you don't like. But what is the case for there being a right here? Are you gravely harmed by not being able to see a veiled woman's face, or cheated of the opportunity to flourish or to be happy? Is it a serious injustice to you, or indeed any kind of injustice? I think it's implausible to answer any of these questions in the affirmative; particularly since you have the freedom to minimize the veiled company you want to keep, as also to make it plain as often as you want what your own personal preferences are in this respect.

(Image: A Muslim woman wearing the niqab (veil which covers the body and leaves only a small strip for the eyes) participates in a meeting with Imam Ali El Moujahed on May 18, 2010 in Montreuil, outside Paris. The French parliament unanimously adopted on May 11, 2010 a resolution condemning the full-face Islamic veil as an affront to the nation's values. By Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Image)

Contra Frum, who asks how "is it that the GOP has lost its antibodies against a candidate like Rand Paul", Friedersdorf argues Paul would be a net positive in the Senate:

I’d say that the GOP has lost its ability to discredit candidates with libertarian foreign policy sympathies by backing an enormously expensive, strategically ill-conceived war in Iraq. They’ve compounded that error by refusing to publicly acknowledge that many of their judgments about the war have proved utterly wrong.

Were I a Kentucky voter, I’d have cast my ballot for Rand Paul, despite the fact that I disagree with some of his views about the financial system, the gold standard, and various other matters. This reflects my estimation that it is vanishingly unlikely Dr. Paul will cast a decisive vote to abolish the federal reserve, and that a far greater danger is a reflexively hawkish GOP Senator foolishly backing a future military campaign as ill-conceived as Iraq.

Today on the Dish, we rounded up reaction to Rand Paul's big win in Kentucky. Packer feared his influence, Larison added two cents, and he also warned the GOP against nationalizing House races. Bloggers reacted to the sudden sanctions plan against Iran, the gay couple in Malawi was convicted, and some unsettling details emerged over Rekers.  Palin's lying again.

Andrew addressed the politics of questioning Kagan's orientation and delved deep into the deception of living in the closet. More fallout from the Beinart piece on Zionism here, here, and here.  Walter Frost questioned military spending, Kinsley got cute over Kagan, Andrew saw some cultural progress in American Idol, Joe Carter went after atheism, a reader grieved for Adam Bellow, another dissented over our drug coverage, and we were introduced to a utterly unique face in politics. More on NYC's alleged tyranny here and here.

TNR dodged a fabulist, a bus driver got the best birthday ever, and a head of state got owned by a wreath. Cool ad here and trippy MHB here.

— C.B.

"And yes, I know this is a smart ass and tendentious post," – Jonah Goldberg.

Amy Davidson of the New Yorker defends our cultural capital:

One hears about places where one can live for twenty years and still be seen as a newcomer. New York is more generous—you don’t have to be here for very long before those of us born here consider you a New Yorker, and before writers for the Atlantic think nothing of holding you up as an archetype for our city. For a city of supposed snobs, we are quite good at making people feel right at home.

And not just people from Akron. How could Friedersdorf write about our role on the American scene—in the American drama—without mentioning that a third of the people in places like Akron and Allentown have an ancestor who passed through Ellis Island? New York has welcomed generations of immigrants and, by teaching them that they belonged to the city, also made them feel a part of America. This has made the rest of the country immeasurably stronger. Far from being a brain drain, we have been a schoolroom for new Americans and their children, and have done a pretty decent job.

Conor responds:

[Davidson's post] is a well-crafted, forceful and enjoyable rebuttal –  though I hasten to add, addressing everyone who has responded, that I neither wrote nor believe that New Yorkers are especially narcissistic, smug, or even blameworthy for the state of affairs that I lament. My post has been taken by some as an effort to diminish the esteem afforded to NYC. It is my intention to raise the esteem in which other cities are held by airing posts that describe their strengths (extending a project I began at Culture11 called Pins on a Map, and my current boosterism for the photography site What America Looks Like). I also want to call on the progeny of other cities to better them as inexorably as New York has been improved, though in a manner true to their own identities.

Insofar as I've been misunderstood, flaws in my initial post are the biggest culprit. This followup seeks clarity via a specific example: The cultural supremacy that worries me is exemplified in the world of journalism, and the particular way things

play out is instructive.

Exceptional publications exist outside of New York City. Subscriptions are available to one obvious example. Just as The Atlantic is a tribute to a long line of people in Boston and Washington DC, and is partly a product of the civilizational capital offered by those locales, New York City deserves credit for its exceptional journalistic products, a list longer than any other metropolis in the world can claim.

Abridge that list for the sake of brevity: let us take The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and New York Magazine. A moment's thought about these publications clarifies why it would be folly to blame New York City for its cultural supremacy. After all, these began as publications for New Yorkers, NYC remains indispensable to their identities, and serving its audience remains central to their editorial and business success. How else would we have them act?

The unhealthy thing is, for example, that every week in San Francisco when the Sunday New York Times arrives at the doorstep or is picked up at the Starbucks, its readers get international coverage, national news, and a first rate national magazine, accompanied by a bunch of cultural commentary, slices of life, and other miscellany filtered through the lens of NYC, magnifying its ethos and crowding out the local equivalent.

The whole post is worth reading, especially Conor's telling correction that "This American Life," founded in Chicago, has now in fact moved under the tyrannical umbrella of New York.

(Photo of sidewalk lanes via Choire)

London, England, 8.30 pm

Packer warns:

Less than a few decades ago, Republican voters would never have defied their most powerful politician—in this case, Mitch McConnell—and nominated a party outsider like Rand Paul. It’s almost certain that Paul will win in November, and when he gets to Washington he’ll make Jim Bunning seem like a dull, go-along-to-get-along insider. The prototype for Republican senators these days is no longer McConnell, and it certainly isn’t an aging centrist like Richard Lugar. It’s Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who holds office not to legislate but to blow things up, who doesn’t need to make party elders happy because he can create his own base of support by making himself irresistible to cable news. Rand Paul will up DeMint’s ante, and “the world’s greatest deliberative body” will continue its descent into mass-media hell.

Pensioners exercise in London's first purpose built 'Senior Playground' in Hyde Park on May 19, 2010 in London, England. The playground, which cost 50,000 GBP, features six machines: a cross-trainer, sit-up bench, body-flexer, free runner, flex wheel and an exercise bike. By Oli Scarff/Getty Images.

Larison hammers away at the national GOP:

The national Republican leadership and quite a few conservative pundits and bloggers have convinced themselves that excessive spending and government expansion were the things that drove the public away from the GOP, and this is not at all true. Nonetheless, when a primary candidate appeared who made an argument for strong fiscal conservatism and opposition to bailouts, much of the party establishment worked to try to defeat him. If the spending argument were correct, Paul would be an ideal candidate for the fall and the party leadership ought to have rallied around him. In refusing to do so and in actively working to defeat Paul, Grayson’s backers have made clear that they don’t actually put much stock in their own anti-spending rhetoric, and they have reminded everyone that their aggressive, ruinous views on national security take precedence over everything else.

Suzanne Smalley recalls the media's failure during the Chandra Levy case. You will recall that much of the MSM and key parts of the blogosphere, like Mickey Kaus, assumed Condit's guilt. There was much much less fuss about accusing a public figure of murder than in describing a public person as a lesbian. But the blogosphere also maintained some skepticism – the Dish primarily among them:

The summer of Chandra Levy seems like yesterday, though almost a decade has passed. I'd like to think I'm a better reporter now, less likely to follow the pack. More important, the media landscape has changed. Blogs barely existed in 2001. Now, when I cover any high-profile crime, I make sure to check out Web Sleuths, an Internet forum for armchair detectives who analyze cases and post court filings. … Bloggers are unrestrained by the orthodoxies of the professional reporter. They don't need to follow the conventions of the 800-word newspaper story and can instead toss out an idea in two sentences that will nonetheless spur national discussion. They can ask questions without necessarily supplying an answer. Critically, bloggers also do not typically rely on official sources for information. Reporters and their anonymous sources both benefit from the relationship. Reporters get exclusive information, which earns them promotions; sources weave narratives that serve their interests. This corrupting symbiosis makes the reporter all too quick to take an official's word at face value.

In the Levy case, this dynamic was clearly at work. At routine press conferences, all that reporters wanted to hear about was [Congressman Gary] Condit.

But some of us stayed fair. And were eventually proven right.