Category: Old Dish

“No one lied. No one made up the intelligence. No one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services. Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty. That issue of good faith should now be at an end … But I have to accept, as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion, Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy … I have searched my conscience, not in the spirit of obstinacy, but in genuine reconsideration in the light of what we now know, in answer to that question. And my answer would be that the evidence of Saddam’s WMD was indeed less certain, less well-founded than was stated at the time. But I cannot go from there to the opposite extreme. On any basis he retained complete strategic intent on WMD and significant capability. The only reason he ever let the inspectors back into Iraq was that he had 180,000 US and British troops on his doorstep … Had we backed down in respect of Saddam, we would never have taken the stand we needed to take on WMD, never have got progress on Libya … and we would have left Saddam in charge of Iraq, with every malign intent and capability still in place and every dictator with the same intent everywhere immeasurably emboldened. For any mistakes made, as the report finds, in good faith, I of course take full responsibility. But I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all.” – Tony Blair, yesterday. It’s a classy, honest, intelligent and sincere rebuke to the anti-war arguments. If only the president had the character and strength to say something as candid.

It may not be huge in national polls, but it does seem to have had an impact on the electoral college, according to this synthesis of new polls in eighteen states:

Was there an Edwards bounce? Yes. Kerry picked up 30 electoral votes since yesterday and now leads by 117 EV. Of the new state polls, Kerry is ahead in 12, Bush is ahead in 4, and one is an exact tie. Since all of these are battleground states, this is good news for Kerry. He is ahead in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri. There is no conceivable scenario in which Bush can lose the majority of these states and win the election. But before Kerry supporters start popping the champagne corks, note that the vice-presidential bounce is usually short lived. Two weeks from now we will find out how much real change there is, if any.

another site comes to the same conclusion: Kerry: 322; Bush: 216. On the other hand, the Iowa futures market has Bush inching ahead a little this week.

SANTORUM’S HYPERBOLE: Eugene Volokh rebuts the Senator’s hysteria about the Defense of Marriage Act.

MEL’S ENGLISH PRIEST: An old duffer who refused to say the Vatican II mass died yesterday:

A quiet, kindly man who had been a practitioner of martial arts in his younger days, on July 2 Father Oswald Baker declared: “I am ready to die” – which he then did.

A lovely obit appears here.

ALLAWI ON SADDAM: He insists that the old dictator had contacts with al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Someone tell the New York Times.

MARRIAGE IN CANADA: Another province, the Yukon, grants gays the right to civil marriage. CORRECTION: Yukon is a territory, not a province.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “You write that Dean Jones ‘is known chiefly as one of Disney’s top stars in the 1960s and 1970s.’ Perhaps the highlight of his career, however, was his starring role as Robert in the Sondheim musical “Company.” There is some sad irony there.” More ironies on the Letters Page.

“Whoa! Wait a second! FMA collapses because of lack of REPUBLICAN support, and you label the Republican Party as exclusionary? Yes, some in the party supported it because of a heartfelt conviction that it was the right thing to do. The FMA went to honest debate within the party, and guess what? It lost. Seems to me the Republican Party is not the scary, neo-fascist entity you make it out to be. I consider myself to be pretty conservative, and a “right wing” Christian – one of your favorite whipping boys – but I did not support FMA on grounds of Federalism, and because, quite frankly, I thought it unnecessarily hostile. That being said, however, there is room for reasonable debate, and the only place where that debate could take place is the non-monolithic Republican Party. And as far as the consequences for W: Conservative Christians are not going to abandon him since, after all, he supported the amendment. He has maintained his good will with them. And I suspect that most of us out here following the debate have the intellectual integrity to understand that the point is debatable. The debate having been joined, it appears that your side won. So lighten up. Now that the light has faded from this sideshow, let’s get back to where this election should be fought – who will best prosecute the war on terror. Hint: It ain’t John Kerry.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

Wonkette has been having some fun with the celebrities Rick Santorum turned out for his alternative Hollywood endorsement of the FMA. The headliners? Drum roll, please:

• Darrell Green (Green played for the Washington Redskins for twenty years, earning seven trips to the Pro-Bowl.- Once the fastest man in the NFL, he retired as the oldest defensive back ever in the NFL) —– ——- ——-
• Dean Jones (Jones was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1971, and is known chiefly as one of Disney’s top stars in the 1960s and 1970s.- He is also known for his leading role in ” Herbie the Love Bug.”) —– ——- ——-
• Marvin Winans (Marvin is a member of the gospel group The Winans, who are Grammy, Dove and Stellar award-winners.- He is also pastor of a church in Detroit, Michigan.) —– ——- ——-
• Pat Boone (Boone was the second most-popular singer in the United States in the 1950s – second only to Elvis Presley.- He’s recognized by Billboard Magazine as the #10 rock recording artist in history.)

Of course, Pat Boone’s orange-chartreuse-sherbert jacket stole the show. But hey, no one can accuse the GOP of being out of touch with the 1950s, can they?

“Isn’t that the ultimate homeland security? To defend the sanctity of marriage?” – Senator Rick Santorum, equating his campaign against marriage rights for gays with the war on terror. I should have added that the 48 – 50 procedural vote greatly understates opposition to the FMA. The Santorumites were afraid to put their amendment to the vote. If they had, it might have been crushed. Here’s the Log Cabin analysis:

Senator McCain’s opposition to the amendment came just hours after Senator John Warner (R-VA) took to the floor and announced his opposition to the anti-family amendment. In addition to Senator McCain and Senator Warner’s floor statements, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters on Tuesday that, “I see no need for a constitutional amendment … at a time when we already have a federal law on the books that protects the rights of states to define marriage as between a man and a woman.”
Log Cabin has made it clear from day one that this debate is not about protecting marriage, but is really about protecting the Constitution and protecting federalism. Over this past weekend, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) added to the growing voices of Republican opposition to this unnecessary amendment by stating, “I believe that marriage should be defined as a marriage between man and woman, but I don’t think that a constitutional amendment is necessary.”
Even some of the most conservative members of the Senate expressed reservations about amending the Constitution. Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) said, “a federal constitutional Amendment is premature at this time, as federal law already gives authority to the states in recognizing marriage.”
Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) made his opposition to this amendment clear. “I do not support amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same sex marriage at this time.”
Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) courageously spoke out against the amendment in the midst of a difficult primary campaign against an anti-gay opponent. Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) went as far as to circulate a letter to his colleagues asking fellow Republicans to reject this anti-family amendment.

Up to a dozen Republicans would have voted against the measure. It truly is a humiliation for the anti-gay forces in the GOP. Let’s hope they take this to heart – and leave the states to figure out how to accommodate gay families into American society.

The anti-gay forces couldn’t even muster a simple majority for their constitutional amendment. It lost 48 – 50. I concur with this editorial in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer:

No matter what one’s position is on the socially divisive questions of same-sex marriage, civil unions and other nontraditional arrangements, the Constitution is not the place to engrave social policy – as we should have learned eight decades ago with Prohibition. Some true constitutionalists of both parties, to their credit, realize that.
So the states, for now, remain in control of marriage law; the federal Defense of Marriage Act, for now, inoculates those states whose residents do not wish to recognize marriages licensed in other states. That’s a status quo that can stand while American society, in the way that it does, works out what it will – or will not – accept in relationships among its members.

Thanks to all of you who lobbied against this; thanks to the many Republicans who stood up against it; thanks to the Democrats for being so solidly opposed. This is a symbolic but important blow to the agenda of the far right. They have divided their party, and tarnished their reputation for fairness – but the Constitution remains intact and unviolated. That’s one reason to cheer.

“Great! Thank you to the theocrats and religious extremists who’ve shown that they’re great at dividing our party during an election year. What genius! I can just see them thinking this out: “Oh, we’ll force a vote on an intensely divisive issue, and make our party look like fools. This way to electoral success!!” Argh! If I didn’t know that Kerry would be a disaster against the Islamofascists, I’d seriously be reconsidering my vote right now. However, it looks like GWB will be getting a grudging vote from me, just like he did in 2000. Boy, and I had thought things had changed since then.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

Rich Lowry objects to my use of the shorthand phrase, “Santorum theocrats and old-school conservativess.” Perhaps I should have been clearer about what I meant. By “old school,” I mean simply those who think the states should have primary responsibility for dealing with family law, that the federal Constitution should not be amended for social policy or electoral reasons, and that everyone – including gays – should be asked to live up to the same levels of responsibility in America. The Santorum wing, in contrast, is a relatively new one in conservatism. Its origins lie in the Dixie Democratic party and the Francoite conservatism embraced by Opus Dei founder, Monsignor Escriva. It beieves in the literal application of Biblical or Vatican views to the civil law of the United States – and amending the very Constitution to achieve this hardly troubles them at all. And yes, in my view, writing into the constitution a measure that would deny gay couples not just marriage rights but also domestic partnerships and civil unions is indecent. And using fear of homosexuals to galvanize a party base is indecent. And passing laws, as in Virginia, that try and take away even the right of private contract from homosexual couples is indecent. And tolerating outright bigotry, as Lowry does in his own online magazine by publishing John Derbyshire’s rants against gays, is also indecent. If that’s preachy, so be it. I’m not denying Lowry’s right to say or publish anything. I am eager and happy to defend his civil rights and First Amendment rights, and have often defended the right of individuals and groups to uphold private discrimination against gays and voice hate-speech without fear of the law. But I also believe that gay citizens should have equal rights as well. Lowry doesn’t. That’s the difference between us. I support his civil rights; he opposes mine.

Tim Perry has the goods: “ultra-ultra-ultra conservative.”

THE FMA COLLAPSES: Even I didn’t anticipate quite how humiliating the FMA debate would be for the religious right. They cannot agree on amendment language, they have managed to make the GOP look exclusionary and intolerant, and they look likely to lose by a big margin. Meanwhile, not only Lynne Cheney and John McCain have been standing up for conservative principle. Here’s Richard Epstein from CATO, making the obvious case; even the Wall Street Journal has balked at the Allard-Musgrave language; and the conservative Chicago Tribune has also come out against. Maybe the Rove strategy – to use fear of homosexuals as a rallying cry for his fundamentalist base – will pay dividends. But maybe the abject failure of this measure, the splits it has opened up among Republicans, and the way in which many leading figures in the party just cannot go along with the far right’s agenda, will only anger the religious right sufficiently to stay home in November. All I can say is that, from one perspective, that of the gay community, president Bush has done what no Democratic candidate has been able to do for a couple of decades: he has united the entire community around the Democrats. The effort by many of us to persuade gay voters to consider the Republicans, to give Bush a chance, has been rendered almost comically moot this fall. Bush won a quarter of gay votes in 2000. I wonder if he’ll even get a tenth of them this year. He deserves fewer.

Here’s Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blaming the terrorist violence against civilians in Iraq on … Americans and Israelis. “We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims.” Try not to burst out laughing.

BLAIR ON THE BRINK: Johnny Freedland is a pretty good indicator of where the liberal chattering classes in London now are on the question of Tony Blair. Here’s the money quote from his column:

The plain truth is this: British troops went to kill and be killed last year on a false premise. We were told Saddam had WMD and he did not; we were told he was a threat to us and he was not. So far that act has brought no consequences on its perpetrators.
Those who made bad errors in shedding light on the act – at the BBC and the Daily Mirror – have paid for their errors. But for the act itself, there has been no punishment. This suggests a failure of our very system of governance: it allowed a government to go to war in defiance of its people and on a false pretext and get away with it. The system needs to prove that it can correct itself – and to do it soon.

The knives are out for Blair, but he remains Labour’s best electoral asset. My bet is that he will survive, but that, alas, is no longer certain.