Category: Old Dish

Zach Wendling suggests a new nickname for Tom DeLay. I’m not that impressed with the ethical complaints against him. His sleaze doesn’t seem to me to be that unusual. Having his wife work for him is almost routine in Congress. The problem with DeLay is that he’s a repulsive figure on television and elsewhere. I’ve never met him and can’t believe he’s this repellent in person (he wouldn’t have done so well in politics if he were). But his religious fanaticism, his seething hatred for his opponents, his natural proclivity for arrogance all reflect a real problem for the GOP. He does indeed represent what the party seems to be becoming. That’s why he won’t be forced out. And that’s why smart Republicans will keep him out of the public eye as much as possible. He makes Newt seem likable.

THE NEOCON CONSPIRACY: Another dark twist from Germany.

BLOGGING HEZBOLLAH: A firsthand account of their nefarious influence in Lebanon.

BUSH AND LIBERIA: A disturbing story from Ryan Lizza.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “You’re being too nice to Eric Cohen. The State doesn’t ‘intervene’ in right-to-die cases. These cases end up in court because of disputes among family members or between families and caregivers. The state is forced into action–it doesn’t volunteer. Moreover, Cohen’s example is fatuous. In the situation he describes, the decision is left up to the incapacitated individual’s legal guardian, just as it was in the Schiavo case. Michael Schiavo said that Teri told him she would want to die, and the courts agreed. In Cohen’s example, the guardian could enforce the terms of the living, or not. It’s his or her call. If the legal guardian chose to ignore the terms of the living will and provide treatment, it would be very difficult for anyone else to challenge that decision on legal grounds. The state doesn’t just jump in to enforce the terms of a living will–someone has to ask for relief in court, and that person then must overcome the presumption that the legal guardian’s decision is not in the best interests of the incapacitated person. If you’re going into court asking for guardianship so that you can kill someone, it would be pretty tough to overcome that presumption, regardless of any statements made in a living will.”

Apparently he’s up to no good, according to a State Department press release issued April 5:

According to the indictment, between August 1999 and July 2001, Christ was assigned as a political-economics officer at the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius. Christ allegedly conspired to fraudulently provide nonimmigrant visas and to deprive the State Department of Christ’s honest services. Christ and others allegedly charged individuals amounts ranging from $3,000 to $14,000 to acquire nonimmigrant visas to the United States. The indictment also seeks forfeiture of $42,500 and a vintage BMW motorcycle.
The co-conspirators allegedly obtained visas from Christ without the applicants having to appear in person at the American Embassy in Vilnius. The recipients then used the visas they fraudulently obtained to enter the United States, with most arriving through O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, according to the indictment.

That would, of course, be one Matthew Christ, a State Department Foreign Service Officer.

From the always-thoughtful Robert A. George (not the theology professor).

“What’s maddening about this pope’s signature gay bashing is this: When the pope – the dead one, the next one, the one after that – says something stupid about homosexuality, straight folks take it to heart. The church’s efforts have helped defeat gay rights bills, led to the omission of gays and lesbians from hate-crime statutes, and helped to pass anti-gay-marriage amendments. But when a pope says something stupid about heterosexuality, straight Americans go deaf. And this pope had plenty to say about heterosexual sex – no contraceptives, no premarital sex, no blowjobs, no jerkin’ off, no divorce, no remarriage, no artificial insemination, no blowjobs, no three-ways, no swinging, no blowjobs, no anal. Did I mention no blowjobs? John Paul II had more “no’s” for straight people than he did for gays. But when he tried to meddle in the private lives of straights, the same people who deferred to his delicate sensibilities where my rights were concerned suddenly blew the old asshole off. Gay blowjobs are expendable, it seems; straight ones are sacred.” – Dan Savage, in his often-brilliant weekly column. Yes, the only theological argument against gay sex is identical to the argument against almost all straight sex now occurring in America. But it’s easier to beat up on and discriminate against fags, while giving straight sodomites every protection of the law.

THEOCONS VS LIVING WILLS: Eric Cohen has another thoughtful piece about the limits of autonomy in end-of-life decisions. He proposes that where a living will has clearly stated that a person, under some future medical conditions, wants to refuse treatment and die, such a living will should be over-ruled:

[L]egally, guardians should not be forced to implement living wills that aim at death as their goal.

As for the courts that are called upon to settle certain cases, they will need some political guidance or governing principles to do so. For example, what if a tenured professor of bioethics, unable to bear the loss of his cognitive powers, leaves written instructions not to treat any infections if he ever suffers dementia? Decades later, now suffering from Alzheimer’s, the former professor is mentally impaired but seemingly happy. He can’t recognize his children, but he seems to enjoy the sunset. He’s been physically healthy for years, but then gets a urinary tract infection. All his family members believe he should be treated.

Should the state intervene to prohibit antibiotics–to protect the incompetent person’s “right to die”? Or should the state leave the family members alone, so they can do what they believe is in the best interests of the person the professor now is? If Andrew Sullivan and other critics are worried about “theocons” using the power of the state to undermine the right to self-determination, are they willing to use the power of the state to impose death when families choose life? Is this what their idea of “autonomy” really requires?

It’s a tough case, but: yes. The state isn’t enforcing this death: the dying person is. And freedom inheres in the individual, not his or her family, let alone government. If such a person wants to avoid life-saving treatments because in his view, he has essentially stopped living, that should be his choice. Is it a choice I would make? I doubt it. But as someone living with a terminal illness that might one day render me incapacitated, there are treatments that I would like to refuse in advance – regardless of the wishes of my family, or Eric Cohen. I don’t see why my family or Republican politicians should determine my fate. Liberty means above all the right to control what is done to our own bodies. The religious right has long been appalled by modern Americans’ control over their own bodies. They don’t want us having sex as we want to. And now they don’t want us to die as we want to. How do I put this nicely: Don’t tread on me. Make your own moral decisions about your body and I will make the same about mine. And leave me – and every other freedom-lover – alone.

THEOCRACY WATCH: “Whether the debate centers around a Presidential election, the right to die movement, the gay agenda, prayer in school, or simply letting our children recite the Pledge of Alligence, the teachings of Jesus Christ always seems to thwart the agenda of America’s left wing elites. Forget what you heard in the 1960s. God is not dead. In fact, he is very much alive and beating liberal elites on one political issue after another. Maybe that is why so many of them hate the Prince of Peace.” – Joe Scarborough. Is Scarborough honestly saying that Jesus Christ had a position in the last presidential election, that only Republican voters were true Christians? Is he saying that criticism of a Pope’s style or record is somehow identical to “hatred” of the Gospels? Did a Jesus who never mentioned homosexuality take a position on gay politics in the 21st century? The complete conflation of politics and religion among today’s Republicans just gets deeper and deeper. And dumber and dumber.

Some interesting dissenting points can be found here. While you’re at it, here’s another gay, conservative blog from … Canada!

EMAIL OF THE DAY: Both of my parents were raised in fairly strict Roman Catholic households, but drifted away from the church in the 1960’s. For them, this was over the issue of contraception, and what they saw as the hypocrisy of Catholic clergy giving special dispensation for those from England’s upper classes to use contraception (based on their value to the church or how many children they had produced), while of course, the rest of the faithful flock had to follow church teachings.

The cynical political nature of the church over the Bernard Law affair should come as no surprise to students of Vatican history, but it is surely the contempt that this body has shown to its own followers which is most distressing. My mother [as a lapsed Catholic] is all too familiar with the ritual and mystery, but also genuine spirituality and religious feeling which is part of the Catholic faith and her comment on the church’s attitude to the sex abuse scandal was quite insightful. What she feels is so appalling about the abuse itself and the church’s dismissive attitude to it, is that what has been done to these children is not simply the horrible physical and sexual acts committed – abhorrent though they are. The worse aspect from a Catholic perspective, is that the spirituality of the affected children will probably have been harmed or even destroyed, after being so exploited by these paedophile priests. How can one think kindly of God, when one of his representatives on earth has been sodomizing you? People of a non religious disposition might take this concept in their stride but those who actually believe in God are more likely to understand how serious this all is. Not only have these Children lost their innocence on Earth, but after such abuse, they are more likely to turn away from the path, which in Catholic eyes at least, will allow them into heaven.
No doubt this point has been made before, but it is an important one for Catholics and by treating this matter with so little remorse or real compassion, the Vatican is only going to prove to its critics that it has totally lost its moral, religious and spiritual compass.” The betrayal of the Church in this instance is indeed fathoms deep: the abuse was not just an attack on chidlren’s psychological and physical health; it was an assault on their religious and spiritual life; and an attack on the church itself. We know how the Vatican really views this by the way Cardinal Law is now an esteemed part of the Roman establishment.

James Dobson, the religious figure who all but dictates Republican social policy, just referred to Supreme Court justices as the modern equivalent of the KKK. Yes, the GOP is getting even more extreme. Money quote from Dobson:

I heard a minister the other day talking about the great injustice and evil of the men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan, that roamed the country in the South and they did great wrong to civil rights to and to morality and now we have black-robed men.

The quote is around the 22 minute mark. Dobson then referred to the coming Supreme Court nomination battle as “World War Three.”

Sorry, I gave the wrong link to my latest Sunday Times column. It’s here.

It behooves me to write that I’m chastened – and extremely heartened – by the progress we’re making in Iraq. The elections were obviously the key – and they should have been scheduled at least a year before they were. But it’s equally true that the constancy of our amazing troops, and the magic of democracy, are turning this long hard slog into a long hard slog with an end in sight. The criticisms of the past endure. But the fundamental objective seems to be within sight. The right decision – to remove Saddam – is no longer being stymied by wrong decisions. I feared the worst. I was wrong.

HIPPIES, HAWKS AND THE HOLY: The strange but wonderful geo-green alliance. My take in the Sunday Times.

THEY ARE STALINISTS: The more I read about the recent conference for conservative critics of the judiciary, the scarier it gets. One attendee, according to the Washington Post, had this to say:

[L]awyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that [Justice Anthony] Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, “upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law.”
Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his “bottom line” for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. “He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: ‘no man, no problem,’ ” Vieira said. The full Stalin quote, for those who don’t recognize it, is “Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.”

Cornyn is beginning to sound mainstream. This was a meeting Tom DeLay promised to attend, before going to the Pope’s funeral. Last week also saw the meeting of something called the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. Christian reconstructionists play a part in it – they want to abolish the Constitution and put Biblical precepts as the only source of American law. They have an agenda, as cited by the National Journal:

According to [organizer, Don] Feder, the manifesto will call for a plan to begin impeachment proceedings against federal judges; remove judicial jurisdiction over issues key to religious conservatives, including marriage and the separation of church and state; limit courts’ jurisdiction over the establishment clause of the Constitution, which has been used to enforce the firewall between religion and government; initiate a process for defunding courts that defy these new rules and continue to overstep their authority and eliminate the ability of Democrats to filibuster Bush’s judicial nominees.
The manifesto is based in part on legislation introduced early last month by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., known as the “Constitution Restoration Act.” Their bill would limit federal courts’ jurisdiction and would enshrine a recognition of God in federal law — a provision the bill would make nonreviewable.

Theocracy? Only hysterics think that’s going on, don’t they?

ATWOOD, KANSAS: The residents of this small town voted 984 to 113 to deny gay couples any protections for their relationships whatever. Even hospital visitation rights. The man who set up the town’s newspaper website, a man who calls Atwood his home, is now one of the undesirables. So he’s taking down the website. And letting his neighbors know what it’s like to be declared an enemy of society, even while you have long been one of its most solid citizens. The attack on gay relationships continues.

EUPHEMISM WATCH: I think I know what the NYT is trying to tell us here:

Prince Albert, meanwhile, has been linked to a long list of high-profile women known for appearing on the arms of middle-aged bachelors. There have been no signs of anything like a romance. “Knowing Rainier, I am convinced he was sorry not to see his son marry a young Catholic princess and have children,” said Claude de Kemoularia, a former chief of staff in the palace and a longtime friend of the prince. “He was always reluctant to give the power to his son too early because he was waiting for his son to marry and have a male heir.” So reticent has Albert remained about marriage throughout the years of public speculation and private pressures that his father sought changes to the Constitution three years ago to allow the crown to pass to one of the princesses or their children if Albert abdicated or died without a child.

Take a wild guess.

One is a bare-knuckled political operative; the other a young soldier who was awarded a Purple Heart in Iraq. Last week, we discovered that the former has married his long-time partner and the latter has demanded that he be allowed to serve openly to defend his country. You can argue over homosexuality for ever, but what is changing the world – what has already changed the world – is the simple witness of people from all backgrounds and walks of life that this is who they are. What social conservatives have to grapple with is that openly gay people are not going away. The coming generations will have even greater cohorts, as fear and shame recede. Where do these people fit in? How can they be integrated into family life? How do we acknowledge their citizenship? And their humanity? The pro-gay-marriage forces have an argument: we want full integration into civil institutions, the same rules, the same principles of responsibility. No excuses. The anti-gay-marriage forces have … what exactly? They are against civil unions, against domestic partnerships, against military service, against any form of recognition. They want to create a shadow class of people operating somehow in a cultural and social limbo. That strategy may have worked as long as gay people cooperated – by staying in the closet, keeping their heads down, playing the euphemism game. But the cooperation is over, as last week once again demonstrated. The old conservative politics of homosexuality has disintegrated; so the social right turns to even older, more virulent and prohibitionist methods. They won’t work either. Get real, guys. Deal with the world as it is, not as you would imagine it should be. That was once a conservative project.

ANOTHER PVS TWIST: This time in Ohio.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I was glad to see you praise John Derbyshire’s latest column (which was excellent, I agree). The thing is, I think you’ve been too hard on Derbyshire; he’s one of the few interesting writers left at National Review. Yes, he is virulently and often appallingly homophobic. But that’s nothing new among conservatives (or among people in general), is it? But his open homophobia is far more tolerable than a Stanley Kurtz, who disguises his homophobia, or at least homophobic policy prescriptions, behind a veneer of fake sociology. At least with Derbyshire you know where he stands. And he’s willing to admit inconvenient facts that don’t support his worldview, as in his piece on why he believes that homosexuality is inborn. Have you ever seen Kurtz admit that? Doubtful. He will not admit anything that doesn’t back up his talking points.

Which is the reason I like Derbyshire’s writing even when I find it appalling: he’s one of the few writers at NRO who has no use for talking points. Most of the writers there just go to prove that conservatism now is where liberalism was twenty years ago: ossified, unthinking, dependent on stupid cliches. My heart sinks whenever a new issue comes up because I know exactly what most of the posters in The Corner will say; they’ll recite the same talking points that are on Fox News. The exceptions are Jonah Goldberg, who doesn’t have a lot of original ideas but seems uncomfortable with reciting talking points (except about the war in Iraq, where he never really seemed to know what he was talking about), and Derbyshire, who, for good or for ill, always has something original to say.

I notice that of late Derbyshire’s tendency to think for himself has taken him “off the reservation” several times, as he’s split with the other NRO-niks on nation-building in Iraq, on intelligent design, on Terri Schiavo and now the Pope. Be interesting to see whether he gets dropped from NRO, not for being homophobic, but for independent thought.”