Category: Keepers

Douthat makes the case while engaging my arguments:

The idea that it’s possible to incorporate just a little bit of quasi-adultery into your online routines and then go no further seems to me deeply untrue to the way temptation actually works. Of course there may be some individuals and couples who can make the “it’s just the occasional sex chat, honey …” solution work: Human nature is diverse enough for that. But for the greater part of mankind, sins tend to compound rather than forestall one another, and giving in a little bit is usually a good way to ensure that you’ll eventually give in all the way.

Ross is referring to a new technology that can provide instant and new temptation to ancient human impulses. His view is that cutting online sex out of one’s life entirely is the only way to avoid its temptation. I tend, in contrast, to think that human nature is so flawed that a sane moral life cannot and should not insist on constant perfection/abstinence, but constant attention to morality, to conscience, and to what human beings can reasonably expect to achieve. If your standard is never to commit a venial sin, you will almost certainly fail. And you may set up a destructive pattern of perfection, failure, depression, more failure, more depression, a new commitment to perfection, failure … and so on: rinse and repeat. I think that cycle is horribly destructive and believe that moderation and risk-minimization is a safer guide to avoiding sin than total abstinence. That’s why diets fail; and why the Christianist South has higher rates of divorce and illegitimacy than, say, “barbaric” Massachusetts. Yes, you can get lost in an online hall of mirrors and addiction and narcissism.

Yes, there is a lack of dignity in what has happened to Weiner – but only because what was meant to be private became public. If videos of all of us taking our Morganscheisse were streamed live, a few of us would lose some dignity as well.

But if a married man jacks off to porn, I don’t think we should consider him an adulterer, let alone on a route to what Ross calls “barbarism”. (And if it is considered adultery, what percentage of American marriages would be intact?) Ditto if someone “kills” real-people-acting-as-avatars on World of Warcraft. That does not convict someone of murder. And if a married man chats online with a paid sex worker, and jacks off on his laptop, is that adultery too? What if he is just playing at wooing or preening with online strangers or fans but with no real intent to, you know, have sexual relations with any of them? In the grand scheme of social ills, these do not rank high on my list. The real-virtual distinction is a meaningful one.

Yes, this is a santorumy slope in many ways, but the element that Ross (and the Vatican) dismisses is that sex need not always be deadly serious. There is a vital part of the human experience that we call “play”. Fighting the need for play gets sex and work out of proportion and can distort our moral lives in ways far worse than the occasional victimless online flirt. And that’s what this technology has really opened up: not the potential for sin, which is always with us, but the potential for play. From Angry Birds to anonymous chat rooms to World of Warcraft to Chatroulette or Grindr or OKCupid, this is a safe zone for unsafe things by virtual people. That’s why we call it play. It is often a balance to work or lack of work. It is not the end of civilization. It is, in fact, the mark of one.

It’s probably clear by now that Sarah Palin and I are somewhat different creatures. I broke my pinkie and immediately went to the nearest emergency room. She went into labor with a fifth child with special needs, and gave a speech eight hours later while experiencing contractions before embarking on a near day-long airplane trip from Texas to Alaska. Compared with her, I’m a total wimp. More amazing was her composure throughout this extraordinary ordeal which no reporter has ever asked her to clarify. We know what was her state of mind from her own work of art, “Going Rogue.” It was overwhelming desperation and fear for the safety and wellbeing of her unborn child. Palin had woken at 4 am April 17 with “a strange sensation” in her lower belly. This is how she described her feelings at the time – despite not wanting to call her doctor because it was 1 am in Alaska!:

Desperation for this baby overwhelmed me. Please don’t let anything happen to this baby. It occurred to me, once and for all, I’m so in love with this child, please God, protect him! After all my doubts and fears, I had fallen in love with this precious child. The worst thing in the world would be that I would lose him.

Palin’s italics. And yet this wonder woman didn’t go to the hospital to make sure her child was ok, and was able to keep it together with almost preternatural calm, gave a public speech while undergoing labor pains – money quote from Going Rogue: “Big laughs. More contractions.” – took two flights back to Wasilla, gave birth, and then dashed back to work as if nothing had happened, with her body as amazing as it always is. We also have some independent evidence of how she appeared April 17 – 18. On her flight to Seattle, when, according to her, she was leaking amniotic fluid and experiencing contractions, the flight attendants had no idea what was going on:

Alaska Airlines has no such rule [barring late-pregnant women from geting on airplanes] and leaves the decision to the woman and her doctor, said spokeswoman Caroline Boren. Palin was very pleasant to the gate agents and flight attendants, as always, Boren said. “The stage of her pregnancy was not apparent by observation. She did not show any signs of distress,” Boren said.

She didn’t look pregnant in any way that would have set off alarm bells. And remember she was in labor with a six pound premature baby. A stranger who spoke with her during the lay-over in Seattle emailed the following day to apologize for disturbing her in what must have been an extremely stressful time: He should not have worried. Despite Palin’s own account of desperation for the child’s safety overwhelming her, she was cool as a cucumber. We now also know she was busy conducting state business on the trip back home, even as contractions continued.

In one e-mail in the middle of the day on April 17, Palin writes a casual, brief note to her attorney general thanking him for letting her know about a local blogger’s unflattering assertions about the reasons for a state attorney’s departure from the staff. Palin mentions heading home but makes no mention of rushing or her condition. “What a goof he is .?.?. truly annoying,” she wrote about the blogger to Attorney General Talis Colberg. “Thanks for the info. I’m on my way home now from Dallas.” … In another e-mail the morning of April 17, Palin weighs in from Texas about a proposed communications strategy. She urges her staff not to proceed with a draft letter to the editor expressing the governor’s outrage at some Alaskan disc jockeys’ recent offensive on-air jokes about Alaskan Native women. “Don’t submit at this time, as there will be more thought put into this as it relates to a more positive message/event,” Palin wrote just after 8 a.m. “Thanks.”

This was written four hours after her water broke. Then this an hour and a half after we are told Trig was actually born:

In a series of e-mails around 8 a.m. on the morning of April 18, Palin’s communications and political staff shared strategies and important contacts with Palin that she could use to try to become chairperson of the National Governors Association’s natural resources committee. In e-mails sent to Palin and copied to her closest aides, including her chief of staff, there is no mention of a pending Palin family birth and there is no record that Palin responded.

Her staff had no idea, it seems, that she was giving birth at all. That’s how secretive she was about this whole thing, even during this remarkable labor. And am I alone in detecting a tiny bit of skepticism creeping into the Washington Post’s report here? I mean, even a MSM editor cannot keep a straight face all the time.

It seems to me we have two options. It’s possible that Palin simply made up her drama of labor, or exaggerated it for effect, when in fact it was a routine, if rare, pregnancy, and she had mild warnings that the birth may be premature, and she gussied that up into a tall tale of her pioneer spirit, guided by her doctor, who refused to take the NYT’s calls as soon as Palin hit the big time. I think that’s the likeliest explanation, given the sheer world-historical weirdness of the alternative.

But it’s also possible that she never had that baby at all. I mean, if you read the emails and independent reports above and were asked if this woman were in labor with a special needs child, and that her water had already broken, would you believe it? Just put all the facts in front of you and ask yourself that question.

So she is either a self-serving drama queen who didn’t realize her story would imply she put her child – and many others on the planes – at great risk and then winged it to make her story more plausible; or she is a fantastic hoaxer and liar at a world class meshugana level that, at some point, will make Weinergate look like a damp squib.

To my mind, either option makes her unfit for high office, which is all you need to know really. And the fact that she has never been asked about this by any MSM journalist tells you so so much about what motivates the DC press corps. It’s certainly not curiosity.

There is no likelihood that the US will do the logical thing and vote for Palestinian statehood in the UN this fall. The US position will remain that peace will only come from the two parties with the US or the Quartet facilitating. But at this point, hasn't that option been totally played out? When the US exercises even a smidgen of even-handedness, as in Obama's recent speech, the pro-Israel fanatics have a cow. They have a cow every time Obama deviates from the hardest Israeli line of the moment. After two and a half years, it is clear this is going nowhere, apart from a consolidation of Israel's grip on the West Bank, the continued humiliation of the American president, and even greater transparency in America's faltering global power.

The logical next step would surely be to take the US out of the equation. We have become an enabler of Israeli intransigence, and the last two years have proven nothing except that Obama's hands are tied and that Israel and the US Congress run this relationship, as Netanyahu has memorably bragged about in the past. The promise of Cairo has been sabotaged by the Netanyahu government, the AIPAC Democrats, the AIPAC Republicans and the Christianist base. Continuing to keep up the charade that the US government has some kind of leverage or even appeal with the Israeli government is getting more than a little ridiculous.

Moreover, the days when the US could both back Israel in everything and keep the Arab world's dictators and even democracies appeased is fast coming to an end. The Arab Spring is not just a reckoning for Irsael; it is a reckoning for the US-Israel relationship. If and when an Egyptian democratic government insists on a two-state solution, the US will have to choose between Israel and Egypt. We will just as starkly have to choose between Israel and Iraq, and between Israel and Jordan. In the WaPo today, we have also been warned that we will have to choose between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Here's Saudi macher, Turki al-Faisal, laying it on the line:

[H]istory will prove wrong those who imagine that the future of Palestine will be determined by the United States and Israel. There will be disastrous consequences for U.S.-Saudi relations if the United States vetoes U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state. It would mark a nadir in the decades-long relationship as well as irrevocably damage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and America’s reputation among Arab nations. The ideological distance between the Muslim world and the West in general would widen — and opportunities for friendship and cooperation between the two could vanish.

If Israel continues to settle the West Bank, and the US refuses to take any concrete action to stop it, or is revealed as having no power to stop it, then the US will perforce appear much weaker on the world stage, we will alienate our European allies, lose a critical opportunity to re-engage the Muslim and Arab world, and damage our credibility with emerging Arab democracies. If the UN vote comes and the US is one of very few countries backing Israel's continued occupation, then the Jihadist blowback will be just as serious. It is well past time for us to acknowledge the obvious: Israel's current intransigence is posing a serious threat to the interests of the US and the security of its citizens.

At some point, if Israel continues to refuse a 1967-based partition, the US should, in my view, end this dysfunctional relationship, until it can be re-established on saner lines. Ideally, as a warning sign, the US should abstain in September's vote, unless settlements are frozen and talks begun. The US has a foreign policy with the whole world, not just one tiny country. Netanyahu needs to compromise on settlements or risk the US being forced to choose between the two.

Joe Klein calls Weiner "yet another male victim of testosterone poisoning":

As I get older, and farther removed from my own hormone-addled salad days, I find maleness–the blind, bullish insensitivity of it–to be as much a disease as a gender. And as I watch (male) politicians routinely get their weiners caught in a wringer under the most outrageously stupid (Weiner) and/or brutal (DSK) of circumstances,  I become increasingly (a) perplexed and (b) convinced that we are the lesser sex. Perplexed, because even in my most obsessive hunter-gatherer period (which mostly occurred before the advent of the women’s movement), I would immediately stand down, as it were, when a woman indicated that things had gone far enough–it just wasn’t even remotely sexy to blast through the stop sign.

As a gay man, I have lived in a world created, propelled and dominated by testosterone. I have loved it, been entranced by it, obsessed by it, crushed by it, exposed by it, humiliated by it and also exhausted by it. The gay male world is in some respects women's revenge on men – because everything women deal with on the testosterone front is doubled and then inflicted on other men.

In the long run, it makes sense to settle down and see this raging, deranging horniness/temper decline in one's life, whether you're gay or straight. Marriage has had this effect on me in ways I never fully expected. Yes, men can domesticate men, even if not as effectively as women can. But in the short run, especially when young, surging testosterone offers unparalleled sexual excitement, constant no-strings-attached adventure, risk, ecstasy, thrills, passion and a form of psychological escape from the ordeal of consciousness that is, to my mind, unmatched. I suspect that's especially true for men, gay and straight, under stress or in the public eye constantly. To be something else for a while, to be purely an id, must be a particularly powerful relief for those required to be civilization's super-egos.

But back to the gay angle. Because there is so much more physical and psychological equality in a male-only sexual culture, the traps and tragedies of straight men's testosteroned lives in interaction with calmer, saner women, may not be so common. Yes, hearts are broken, diseases caught (by far the biggest drawback), cruelties unleashed. But there is also more civility than you might expect. Very few fights break out in gay bars over emotional rivalries. Aggressive, unwanted pursuits of beloveds are less likely, because guys can tell guys to fuck off and mean it much more successfully than less physically imposing and more decorous women. When you're rejected, you are more likely, as a man, to know it's only superficial, because you too are superficial, and perhaps recover more quickly from the blow to the ego.

I generalize wildly of course but when I tell straight friends that among the most civil places I have ever been have been gay sex clubs, they are often amazed. But they are. The best check on testosterone can be testosterone. And gay men are simply less affronted by an unsolicited picture of someone's dick than many women. Just don't send them the female equivalent. Now that will offend them.

But to echo Joe, testosterone is a blessing and a curse. (I wrote a whole essay on it a while back.) But in gay male culture, these things tend to cancel themselves out with fewer costs and less drama. We are lucky in this way, which is why so many gay men remain a little mystified by the outrage over a few emailed dick pics. But, as marriage spreads and gay male culture evolves, perhaps this will begin to decline, or gay marriages will seek their own ways to deal with them, without wrecking the marriage entirely. Perhaps that will help inform straights better; or warn them of the dangers.

We are, of course, also cursed by it – and I don't want to minimize that. What matters in a testosterone-only society are muscles, good looks, youth, masculinity. There is a ruthless simplicity to this that keeps gay guys in better shape than many straights, but leaves many men with more to offer than a hot pair of biceps a little stranded at times. Ageing can be particularly cruel. Marriage, in this way, has helped give more dignity and status to older, less sexually marketable men. Which is one reason it helps humanize what can be a brutal facet of a subculture. Otherwise, you're on your own. And, yes, it can be harsh as well as manly.

(Photo: A competitor runs through fire during the Tough Guy Challenge 2009 at South Perton Farm on February 1, 2009 in Wolverhampton, England. The biannual event to raise cash for charity challenges thousands of international competitors to run through a grueling set of 21 obstacles including water, fire and tunnels after a lengthy run at the start. By Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.)

Goldblog says I misunderstand the Israel lobby:

Andrew now interprets Israel's power in Washington in the manner of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, whose anti-Israel polemic, "The Israel Lobby," blames American Jewish supporters of Israel for most of the bad things that have happened to America abroad over the past decade. Their argument is simple: Without "the Lobby," Israel would be friendless in Washington.  This always struck me as wrong, not because AIPAC isn't powerful, but because Walt and Mearsheimer (and Andrew) don't seem to understand what makes a powerful lobby group powerful. The most powerful lobbies, over time, are those that lobby for causes that are already popular among the American people.

Let me just correct the record and insist I do not blame "American Jewish supporters of Israel for most of the bad things that have happened to America abroad over the past decade," and I have not written that. Al Qaeda hated America primarily for broad reasons of unwanted intervention in the Middle East, specifically our troops in Saudi Arabia and was only peripherally and opportunistically interested in Israel/Palestine. Israel's elites were also smart enough to be against the Iraq fiasco. My objections have stemmed from Israel's recent decisions to disporportionately pulverize Gaza and intensify settlement building on the West Bank, even as a responsible partner emerged on the West Bank and an American president had a chance to rebuild US relations with the Arab and Mulism world. In my view, Netanyahu has acted without the slightest concern for the interests of his allegedly closest ally and most powerful supporter.

Jeffrey quotes Walter Russell Mead:

Full-throated support for hardline Israeli positions is a populist position in American politics — like full-throated support for a fence on the Mexican border.  It is a foreign policy idea that makes elites queasy and that they try to steer away from, but support for it is so strong in public opinion, and therefore in Congress, that presidents have to figure out how to work with this force rather than taking it on directly.

Really? There is absolutely a broad sentiment of sympathy with Israelis over Palestinians. But this is not always reflected in support for "hardline Israeli positions." A Rasmussen poll last year, for example, found Americans opposed Israel's policy of continuing to settle the West Bank by a margin of 2 – 1. The settlements have been the core issue between Netanyahu and Obama. Yet in that struggle, Obama has lost decisively. (And Rasmussen, if anything, is likely to understate opposition because it tilts Republican).

Polling on the Gaza war, to take another example of a "hardline Israeli position", varied depending on the question.

When posed as which side do you support, Americans backed Israel over Hamas by 2 – 1. But when asked whether the war was preferable to negotiations, the public was divided almost equally (44 – 41), again according to the right-leaning Rasmussen poll. More saliently for whether AIPAC makes a difference, a 55 percent majority of Democrats opposed the Gaza war. Yet every single Democratic Senator voted for a resolution essentially supporting Israel's position. 71 percent of Americans believe the US should be neutral between Israel and Palestine. The US Congress gave the Israeli prime minister more standing ovations when he addressed them recently than they did heir own president's State of the Union, and the Senate Majority Leader backed Netanyahu against Obama on the peace process.

Now check out something called political donations. AIPAC doesn't donate to campaigns itself, but its members do aggressively – and perfectly properly. On political contributions made between 2009-2010, MAPlight.org lists the pro-Israel lobby in the Ideology/Single Issue subset, which it dominates (second only to the Republican/Conservative category), contributing more than four times as much as the pro-gun lobby, ten times more than the gay and Cuba lobbies, three times more than women's rights organizations, and 143 times more than the pitiful "Pro-Arab" lobby. The most popular destination for members of Congress on foreign trips sponsored by non-profits? Tel Aviv.

There is nothing even faintly illegal or fishy about any of this. It is all in the light of day; it is a legitimate form of lobbying the government; it represents the passions of many American citizens. AIPAC has every right to exist and to celebrate the fact that, "except for the State of the Union address, the AIPAC Policy Conference is the largest annual bipartisan gathering of U.S. senators, representatives, administration officials, diplomats and foreign ambassadors.”

But to argue that somehow this does not give one foreign government disproportionate clout, that it acts as a mighty force swaying the political discourse in Washington, that it has a huge edge in setting the boundaries of acceptable policy toward the Middle East, seems perverse to me. If all its positions – de facto defending settlements, defending all of Israel's wars – were supported by vast majorities, it is spending a hell of a lot of money and a huge amount of time on nothing.

I don't think they're that stupid.

(Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves as he arrives May 23, 2011 to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference 2011 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. By Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.)

The doctrines of Ayn Rand and the core values of Christianity are explicitly opposed – as Rand herself insisted. And this poses a philosophical problem for contemporary Republicanism which insists on both Randian capitalism and evangelical Christianity. That can only work if you treat Christianity as a cultural signal and a political organizing tool, rather than a living faith, hence my insistence on using the term Christianism, rather than Christianity.

But the tensions remain, as the confrontation above reveals. Then there’s this new ad aimed at Ryan’s own district. Given how closely so many on today’s right have embraced Rand, this ad was perhaps inevitable. And powerful:

(Hat tip: Amy Sullivan.)

One reason I don’t believe today’s Republican party should retain the word conservative is its relationship to institutions. Conservatives respect the institutions of government, even if they try to limit its power. My prime exhibit is the GOP’s contempt for the judicial branch of government, a critical element in a republic designed to check too much power in any branch. Another would be the Federal Reserve, and even, at this point, Medicare. Conservatives are respectful of these anti-democratic institutions because conservatives are concerned about excessive democracy which can trample on basic rights.

Now I do not think that drastic cuts in entitlements and defense are unconservative, because, in many ways, those cuts are necessary to preserve the fiscal balance of the ship of state. But the manner in which they are accomplished should be honed to avoid what Newt Gingrich rightly denounced as right-wing “social engineering.” Reform, not revolution, pragmatic experiments, not radical overhauls, are the lodestars of the real conservative temperament. And if you are trying to rein in healthcare costs, the ACA represents this conservative approach.

Which brings me to the debt ceiling. I think that raising it is a classic opportunity for the GOP and fiscally conservative Democrats to insist on more seriousness on deficit and debt reduction. I hope they do. But I do not believe it should be used as a piece of blackmail at the expense of the American and the global economy. In fact, this may be the riskiest un-conservative posture the GOP has yet advanced. Palin, who is the id of the GOP, addressed the question yesterday:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin weighed in on the debt ceiling debate Thursday night following a private clam bake in Seabrook, N.H., saying the nation’s borrowing ceiling should not be raised. It would be “a failure of leadership in the House” if “they were to cave and the debt ceiling were to be increased based on what I believe are Timothy Geithner’s false statements to the American people that a catastrophe would befall us all if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.” She told reporters outside the small beach house at which she had organized the party that increasing the debt ceiling is “just going to allow the big spenders to have an additional tool to spend more money.”

Remember: the spending has already been passed. This is not about changing spending in the near future. It’s simply about paying our debts on time. The minute that the US is regarded as being unreliable on this core piece of governing competence, the world markets will experience shock waves in the midst of a still very fragile, post-bubble recovery.

None of this matters to Palin. Because for her, radicalism is so much easier than responsibility. In fact, the reason I am focused on Palin is because she represents, to my mind, the core of today’s “conservative” movement: a desire to smash existing institutions and to “fundamentally restore” the American status quo before the Great Society, and even, the New Deal.

They are playing with sharks. But one of these days, it will no longer be play.

Matt Latimer gets Palin's mojo – and her strength – in the GOP vs MSM death match. But the pros remain adamant that nothing she is doing is going to help her in the primaries. I was talking to a veteran campaign manager last night and he made the simple point that Iowans and New Hampshirites take their responsibilities seriously and expect to see candidates in person and often. Campaigns also need organization on the ground and the critical support of local pols and activists. Yet Palin has breezed up and down the East Coast with nary a nod in their direction:

Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Rob Gleason, whose state hosted Palin on visits to Gettysburg and the Liberty Bell, voiced a common exasperation about Palin’s tour: “I don’t think theater wins elections.” “Running for president is a very serious thing and you need to deal with it as such,” Gleason said. “I’m looking for party builders.” In New York – where Palin stopped at Ellis Island – GOP Rep. Peter King mused that the Alaskan “probably has more hardcore support than any other candidate.” “But she needs to show that she can go beyond that, and this tour doesn’t accomplish that,” said King, who is urging Rudy Giuliani to enter the 2012 race.

And so we face an acid test. Have the rules of politics changed so that the old hands will be proven wrong? Or is she headed into a ditch if she runs? I'd like to believe the pros. But at this very stage in the process four years ago, I became convinced Obama would be the next president and every single pro told me Clinton was unbeatable. They were proven wrong, because they were extrapolating from the last war.

Obama's core advantage? New media and a powerful theme: change.

Palin's? New media and a powerful theme: revenge.

(Photo: Jeff Fusco/Getty.)

Meir Dagan, the man who until very recently headed Israel’s Mossad, now embraces the Saudi peace plan of 2002:

In a forthright contradiction of the position of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that a withdrawal to 1967 borders posed an unacceptable security risk, Mr Dagan said Israel ”must present an initiative to the Palestinians”. ”We must adopt the Saudi initiative,” Mr Dagan said.

‘We have no other way, and not because [the Palestinians] are my top priority, but because I am concerned about Israel’s wellbeing and I want to do what I can to ensure Israel’s existence. If we don’t make proposals and if we don’t take the initiative, we will eventually find ourselves in a corner.”

Dagan has also described Netanyahu’s desire to strike Iran as insanely reckless. And compare Dagan’s sanity with the hysteria from the likes of Krauthammer, Hannity, Ailes, Palin, Romney, AIPAC, et al. Dagan is also open-minded and skeptical about the Fatah-Hamas agreement.

Some questions for the Washington pro-Israel faction. How can you dismiss Dagan as not knowing enough to have an opinion on the two-state solution? Do you regard him as a self-hating Jew? Or as a delusional peacenik? Ben Caspit in Maariv writes:

In really closed talks, Dagan says in a loud and clear voice, that the Netanyahu-Barak duo is dangerous for national security. He uses even stronger language that I don’t intend to print. He promised, upon his release, that from now on they would hear from him a lot, and he is keeping his promise, big time… These are not just ordinary red warning lights, these are enormous projectors that have been lighting up the black sky above us for quite a few months now. Nothing would make me happier than to discover that these three prophets of doom are wrong. The problem is that I have a more than a slight concern that it could very well be that they are right.

Notice that Dagan is willing to cede more territory than Obama proposed. There are no land-swaps in the Saudi peace deal. So, Mr Romney, has the former head of the Mossad just thrown Israel under the bus? And Mr Bret Stephens, is Dagan an “anti-Israel” head of the Mossad? Or was the hysteria of the last month entirely manufactured to prevent an Obama second term and buoy Netanyahu’s support at home? There is no strategy for Israel in the AIPAC mindset. Just knee-jerk defensiveness and a major role in leading Israel to self-destruction.

ThinkProgress has a slam dunk:

It is not true that the debt under Obama has increased more than all the other presidents combined.

When Obama took office the debt stood at $10.6 trillion. After inheriting two wars and the worst economy since the Great Depression, the debt has grown by $3.7 trillion since Obama has been in office. Palin is off by about $7 trillion.

Her publicist, Greta van Susteren, does not dispute this and does not point out that a huge amount of it is due to a collapse in revenues during a deep recession that Obama inherited – a recession that would have been even deeper were it not for the stimulus package. Now I can guess you can still argue that there should not have been a stimulus at all, but even then, who would seriously doubt that the deeper crash would have temporarily reduced revenues even further? Even the most hardcore of anti-Keynesians would acknowledge that letting the US economy hit rock bottom, and allowing the entire auto industry to be wiped out, and letting the banks collapse would have led to greater debt in the short term.

But when so many partisan hacks attacked Obama for the debt within minutes of his getting into office, who can blame this know-nothing for parroting a piece of obvious, provable untruth? And who, more to the point, will insist on a retraction? Palin doesn't do retractions. Her lies instantly become her reality.