Author: Andrew Sullivan

It’s getting down to the number of centrifuges allowed for Iran:

“We need at least 100,000 IR-1 (first generation) centrifuges to produce enough fuel for each of our (civilian) nuclear (power) plants. We have informed the International Atomic Energy Agency about our plans to build 20 plants,” a senior Iranian official said on condition of anonymity. U.S. officials, however, have made clear for months that the number of centrifuges they are willing to tolerate operating in Iran over the medium term is in the low thousands to ensure that Tehran’s ability to produce a usable amount of bomb-grade uranium, should it go down that road, is severely limited.

Iran, which has demonstrated a readiness to curb higher-level enrichment, says such draconian limitations would be a violation of its right to enrich – an issue Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said is a “red line” for Tehran.

The historian James Kloppenberg, author of Reading Obama, explains why there’s no contradiction in the president embracing both Christianity and skepticism:

I think of the tradition of Christian skepticism as a very old tradition, a tradition of people who are as aware of and concerned with their doubt as they are committed to their faith. I think that’s the kind of Christianity that Obama found at Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Church of Christ, and I think that’s what appealed to him.

[Recently] I quoted a comment that Jeremiah Wright made to Obama’s biographer, David Remnick. Wright said to him, “He came to Trinity not just looking for a social gospel but looking for a church that didn’t put other people down.” That sense of Christians as people on a quest, and that quest taking them in different directions, and different people choosing different worlds for themselves is something that I think appealed to Obama and is consistent with the way you would expect from the son of cultural anthropologist to think. He understands that the different cultures in human history have had different orientations toward values.

He finally found in Jeremiah Wright’s church a way of thinking that made sense to him, and he uses that phrase, “I felt the spirit of God beckoning to me” with reference to his experience in Trinity Church. I think it’s pretty powerful. It’s the sort of conversion story that you get in William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, and I think it’s similar to the experience that Obama himself had.

Partly because of the Muslim canard, very few have taken the president’s profession of Christianity very seriously. I’d argue it’s critical to his record and to his politics, but Christianist Republicans and secular Democrats have largely missed it because of ideological blinders. Back in 2007, I wrote:

He was brought up in a nonreligious home and converted to Christianity as an adult. But—critically—he is not born-again. His faith—at once real and measured, hot and cool—lives at the center of the American religious experience. It is a modern, intellectual Christianity. “I didn’t have an epiphany,” he explained to me.

“What I really did was to take a set of values and ideals that were first instilled in me from my mother, who was, as I have called her in my book, the last of the secular humanists—you know, belief in kindness and empathy and discipline, responsibility—those kinds of values. And I found in the Church a vessel or a repository for those values and a way to connect those values to a larger community and a belief in God and a belief in redemption and mercy and justice … I guess the point is, it continues to be both a spiritual, but also intellectual, journey for me, this issue of faith.”

At some point, a historian may take a look at Obama’s record and see in it the contours of this very modern Christianity: His Niebuhrian foreign policy, with a few moments of compassionate weakness (Libya) and his dogged resilience on expanding access to basic healthcare for millions come to mind. But it’s a theme way under-covered and a paradigm rich for interpretation. Obama’s religiosity is of a type that seems occluded in a culture riven between fundamentalism and scientism. But I suspect it is the religiosity of the American future.

Jill Abramson's 'Badass New Hobby' http://t.co/xTSuvjiITL via @mashable pic.twitter.com/WwAqVTIQ9c

— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) May 15, 2014

Ken Auletta reports on one reason Jill Abramson may have been fired as NYT editor:

Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect … Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said that Jill Abramson’s total compensation as executive editor “was directly comparable to Bill Keller’s”—though it was not actually the same.

I was also told by another friend of Abramson’s that the pay gap with Keller was only closed after she complained. But, to women at an institution that was once sued by its female employees for discriminatory practices, the question brings up ugly memories. Whether Abramson was right or wrong, both sides were left unhappy. A third associate told me, “She found out that a former deputy managing editor”—a man—“made more money than she did” while she was managing editor. “She had a lawyer make polite inquiries about the pay and pension disparities, which set them off.”

Bryce Covert points out that such executive pay disparities are common:

Many women who reach the top are still paid less than their male peers. The highest paid female executives at S&P 500 companies still make 18 percent less than the men in these roles, on average. For example, Heather Bresch, CEO of pharmaceutical company Mylan, makes about a third less than average CEO pay in her sector, and Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison makes about a quarter less.

Olga Khazan comments:

Economists have suggested that one factor driving the gender wage gap is that women “don’t ask” for as much money in negotiations. The implication is, then, that women should ask, since they supposedly have nothing to lose. But both social-science research and real-life job sagas have shown that women sometimes do pay a price for self-advocating. A few months ago, the story of one female job candidate went viral when her offer to teach at Nazareth College was allegedly retracted when she asked for better compensation.

Times national editor Alison Mitchell suggested to Capital New York Tuesday that Abramson’s firing “wouldn’t sit well with a broad swath of female Times journalists who saw her as a role model.” But what would be even more demoralizing is if it turns out to be true that a woman as powerful as Abramson was punished for being “pushy”—and, worse yet, if the pay gap between the two editors was real.

Chadwick Matlin observes the sizable pay gap in journalism:

If the pay gap did exist, Abramson wouldn’t have been the only woman in journalism paid less than her male peers. According to the Census Bureau’s 2008-2012 American Community Survey, the median annual earnings for a male editor was $59,183 (+/- $1,467). Female editors made $51,249 (+/- $844).

Hadas Gold notes that Abramson wasn’t always the easiest person to work with:

[S]ome who worked with her said she fostered an atmosphere of insecurity by seeming to regard disagreement as a personal challenge or even betrayal. In contrast to her careful and fastidious style as a reporter, her opinions as editor, some believed, were prone to snap judgments that hardly braked for conflicting evidence or points of view. She struck a note of disdain for people who considered job offers elsewhere, as though the Times were the only worthy place to practice one’s craft, and even had a tattoo with the “T” of the Times — an institutional loyalty that did not protect her from the whims and changing moods of her own boss when the going got tough.

I can imagine a man with that rep being lionized as an old-school character. A woman? Not too much. Weissmann believes “whatever the reasons for her abrupt departure, by pretty much any meaningful measure, Abramson seemed to be doing an excellent job piloting the Times into a bright digital future”:

Consider: Bill Keller led the paper from 2003 until mid 2011. During that time, its finances degenerated so thoroughly that the company was forced to borrow a glorified payday loan from Mexican oligarch Carlos Slim. Near the very end of Keller’s tenure, however, the Times finally began implementing the online paywall that’s resurrecting its business. It has almost 800,000 digital-only subscribers—the vast majority of whom have been acquired on Abramson’s watch—and is now turning a decent operating profit.

Yglesias also defends the business side of Abramson’s NYT tenure:

You often see companies change management amidst business crises. But one thing that is clear is that amidst a generalized crisis for the American newspaper industry the Times is doing quite well as a business. In the first quarter of the year, the Times scored a $22 million operating profit on $390 million in revenue. That revenue figure represented a 2.6 percent increase from the year-ago quarter, including a 3.4 percent increase in ad revenue.

The overall newspaper industry, meanwhile, is a disaster area.

Rebecca Traister calls Abramson’s firing “among the most harsh and humiliating I’ve ever seen play out in the media’s recent history”:

Within minutes of the editorial meeting at which the turnover was announced, Abramson’s name had been scrubbed from the masthead of the paper she’s run for the past two and a half years. A Times spokeswoman told Buzzfeed that Abramson would not be remaining with the paper in any professional capacity and would have no involvement in the transition of power. Sulzberger made no pretense that this was anything other than an unceremonious dump. When staffers reportedly expressed concern that Abramson’s firing would be a blow to women, he helpfully explained that that women in top management positions are just as likely to be fired as men in top management positions.

Ezra cautions:

“As part of a settlement agreement between her and the paper, neither side would go into detail about her firing,” reports the New York Times. Perhaps that’s not true. With anonymous sources you never really know who’s talking and who isn’t. But at this juncture it’s probably mostly true. The Sulzbergers are likely trying to ride this out. It sounds like Abramson is legally barred from discussing the break. Friends and allies might step into the breach, but so too will hanger-ons, troublemakers, and earnest observers who think they know a lot more than they do. Moreover, this seems to have been an incredibly well-kept secret in the Times newsroom. The universe of people who know the real story is, for now, quite small — and they’re only in the know because one side or the other is sure they won’t talk.

Which isn’t to say the reporting coming out now is wrong. It’s just not quite right, either. There’s some truth in it, a lot of truth missing, a few lies mixed in for good measure, and it’ll be a long time till we can tell which is which.

We’re rounding up as many assessments of Jill Abramson’s abrupt exit from the NYT as we can, so stay tuned. But one thing is worth recalling:

Although both have denied it in public, Thompson and Abramson’s relationship spiraled down over the past year, as Thompson pressed ahead with plans to move the Times into native advertising. “She was morally opposed to that,” an executive said. “She told me it would not happen on her watch.”

But it did, of course, as the philistine from the UK pushed it through. If one factor in Abramson’s firing was her resistance to this unethical and desperate gambit, then it’s all the more depressing. And yes, I thought and think the world of Abramson. And what always struck me about her – apart from her sardonic humor, relentless drawl and revulsion at bullshit – was her transcendence of gender. She leant in at every opportunity. She never accepted a gender double standard for a second – which is why she was a real role model for other women in journalism. I sure hope these virtues – and yes, they’re virtues – weren’t behind her demise at the NYT:

As I’ve written before, female leaders are liked best when they lead their organizations not unlike one would lead a casual weekend drum circle—cheerily deferring to others and giving everyone a chance. Meanwhile, they’re resented to a greater degree than their male counterparts when behaving authoritatively. And Abramson, by all accounts, was nothing if not authoritative … Times national editor Alison Mitchell suggested to Capital New York Tuesday that Abramson’s firing “wouldn’t sit well with a broad swath of female Times journalists who saw her as a role model.” But what would be even more demoralizing is if it turns out to be true that a woman as powerful as Abramson was punished for being “pushy”—and, worse yet, if the pay gap between the two editors was real.

And this is troubling to me:

In a controversial 2013 piece in Politico, Dylan Byers wrote: “At times, [staffers] say, her attitude toward editors and reporters leaves everyone feeling demoralized; on other occasions, she can seem disengaged or uncaring.”

But a look at the examples he gave shows just how gendered these discussions can get. In one instance, Abramson reportedly ordered an editor to leave a meeting to change a stale photo on the newspaper’s homepage. That was played in the article as proof of Abramson’s brusque, demoralizing style. But compare that to this anecdote about how Tim Cook, head of Apple, dealt with a manufacturing problem in China.

Cook forced an executive to leave the meeting to get on a plane to China, without the dude even changing his clothes. I doubt if that was regarded as “pushy”. Look: no woman has a right to keep a job she’s doing poorly in because she’s a woman. But Abramson’s management of the NYT coincided with relative success in an extremely troubled time in media – and certainly seemed to me, as a loyal subscriber, to be producing an excellent paper. The combination of that record and yesterday’s brutal, near-vindictive public firing suggests something awry. I’d say that at the very least, we need to find out exactly what the pay disparity may have been between Abramson and her predecessor, Keller. And I’d also say that this story may get some more legs if the tiny few who know all about it start to leak.

(Photo: Executive Editor of The New York Times Jill Abramson attends the WIRED Business Conference: Think Bigger at Museum of Jewish Heritage on May 7, 2013 in New York City. By Brad Barket/Getty Images for WIRED.)

This is terrific news for combating the resilient transmission of HIV among gay men:

“HIV infection is preventable, yet every year we see some 50,000 new HIV infections in the United States,” stated CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden. “PrEP, used along with other prevention strategies, has the potential to help at-risk individuals protect themselves and reduce new HIV infections in the United States.” The new guidelines also stress that patients be tested for HIV prior to starting PreP and be tested again at three-month intervals so if someone on PrEP does become infected with HIV they discontinue taking the drugs and begin HIV treatment.

Soon to follow: a serious public health education campaign. The CDC report is here (pdf). The Dish’s extensive recent coverage of this issue can be read here.

Hans Noel tries to answer the question:

Members of Congress are not polarized because voters are now better sorted. And voters are not polarized simply because legislators now are. The missing piece is ideological activists, who now dominate the political parties. In short, policy demanders. These politically engaged activists are the base that legislators are increasingly playing to, because they are the ones who provide campaign resources and who threaten primary challenges. Their polarization also filters to voters, through elected officials but also through the media and informal networks. (And ultimately, these activists themselves may be polarized because elite political thinkers are polarized, but you don’t have to buy that story to believe that activists are important.) Of course, studying legislative and mass polarization is very important, but its far from the center of the story.

Seth Masket adds that almost no one “gets into politics with the goal of driving the parties further apart.” Instead, he argues, individuals “get involved in politics usually because they want the government to do something different from what it’s currently doing”:

Activists have become better at this over time. They’re increasingly organizing over a broader range of issues and they’ve become adept at getting political parties to adopt their stances, making it even harder for politicians to resist them. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, this is how governing ideas are generated and translated into law. But it’s important to remember that the parties aren’t far apart because people hate each other; they’re far apart because people want the government to do things. This is why exhortations for common ground tend to fall on deaf ears. People favor compromise in principle, except on the one thing that drove them into politics in the first place.

Julia Azari partially blames growing polarization on growing distrust of government:

[P]artisanship and declining trust in government have become mutually reinforcing. In my research, I find that mistrust of governing institutions (I focus on the presidency, although I think we can all agree that Congress has not been immune to this) emerged around the same time that the parties began to sort ideologically in response to the collapse of the New Deal coalition and the rise of cultural issues on the agenda. These began – in the late 1960s – as distinct phenomena. But as time went on, they became intertwined. A general lack of reverence and respect for the office of the presidency – not without good reason after Watergate and Vietnam – have merged with party polarization to create an environment in which presidents tend to be divisive, rather than uniting figures. They also tend, as I argue in the book, to rely more on language that appeals to their supporters and their campaign promises, which does little to alleviate the problem. In turn, these developments shape the incentives of individual members of Congress, who have increasingly little reason to collaborate across party lines.

Perusing the latest Pew survey data from seven European countries, Adam Taylor notices an interesting finding about attitudes toward ethnic and religious minorities:

The most negative views in Europe aren’t directed toward Muslims or Jews. Rather, it’s Roma. This chart is really quite remarkable, showing that Spain is the only nation where more people hold positive views of Roma than negative. In Italy, just 10 percent have positive views about Roma, while 85 percent have negative views.

Unfortunately, it’s not entirely surprising. Roma, often dismissively referred to as “gypsies” in Europe, have suffered discrimination in Europe for centuries, and some estimates suggest that 70 percent of their European population was killed during the Holocaust. Last year, Europe’s tabloid media got into a frenzy over allegations that Roma families in Greece and Ireland had stolen “blond girls.” (In both cases, it was later confirmed that the children were actually Roma).

The Dish looked at attitudes toward the Roma in Europe at the time of the “blond girls” allegations here.