Category: Old Dish

This strikes me as a revealing comment by one of the most enlightened conservatives at National Review, Jonah Goldberg:

Most conservatives who don’t regularly write about “gay issues” refrain from doing so for a fairly simple reason: they don’t care about them very much one way or the other. Speaking solely for myself, I don’t track every event in the world of homosexually oriented public policy. The first time I hear about most of these sorts of things is from reading Andrew Sullivan’s site. I think this is a sign of my generally libertarian attitude toward gay stuff. I don’t think the silence of conservatives on such events as those in Virginia is a sign of our approval, my guess is it’s a sign of our ignorance.

This is a cop-out on many levels. National Review regularly and rightly publishes many, many articles on the issue of marriage rights and gays. They have recently run several pieces about the issue in Norway, Holland and Scandinavia – even down to nuances such as variations within Norway. They are covering the national debate as they should. How many pieces have you read about Massachusetts in NRO? But a major state has done something just as radical as Massachusetts in reverse. And Republicans who have said they do not seek to harm gays do not comment when Virginia does such a thing. This cannot be an oversight. It is deliberate blindness to their own extremes. Jonah’s second point is simply insulting. If one half of a gay couple cannot visit her spouse in hospital minutes away from where Jonah lives, he’s not interested enough to worry about it. And I repeat: Jonah is the best of them. Conservative opinion on gays ranges from boredom to outright hostility and animus. There are times when I prefer the animus. Hating someone at least takes that person seriously. Not being able to be bothered while a minority is persecuted (and that’s the only interpretation of the Virginia law) is the moment when inactivism becomes indistinguishable from moral abdication.

I mean in a simple, personal sense. This story says it all.

BUSH JOB APPROVAL AT 47 PERCENT: I wonder if Abu Ghraib isn’t a turning point. I was glad the president went on Arab television to explain. I’m befuddled why he cannot simply apologize. Rumsfeld’s blithe assertion that he hadn’t even bothered to read the full Taguba report before a major press conference also cannot quite dislodge itself from my consciousness. I don’t think Rummy gets it. Meanwhile, Peter Hart observes: “Voters see neither peace nor prosperity on the horizon.” And Rove has spent $60 million to see Bush’s ratings drop.

The conventional wisdom in Washington right now is that Kerry is such an awful candidate that he is doomed in the fall. If Bush can stay even after the last three, horrendous weeks – when he has shown that his administration has no real control over even the conduct of its own servicemembers and contractors in Iraq – then Kerry is toast. I’m not so sure. My instinct is that this election will not, in fact, be close. Either Bush will convince people that he is winning the war on terror and turning the economy around and win handsomely, or he won’t, and Kerry will win big. Recent history suggests that incumbent presidents either lose badly or win well. The crackhead Rasmussen tracking poll shows Kerry with a real lead again. My sense of the mood among Washington neocons is something bordering on real depression. Bush is campaigning in Ohio and Michigan as if he were in real trouble and knows it. Moreover, his approval numbers are now below 50 percent. In most critical states, the candidates are neck and neck, but Kerry keeps being nominally in the lead, as in New Hampshire, where he leads by four points. Maybe the new ads reintroducing Kerry will boost him some more (or maybe the more people see Kerry the more he will bore them to death). But he’s been retooling himself for the center, as David Brooks has shrewdly noted. Kerry also tends to finish well in campaigns, and has said exactly the right things on Iraq lately, if he wants to reassure voters that he is the man to finish the job there. The Democrats are also energized. It’s a long, long way to go, and I’m predicting nothing (except a massive gay-baiting campaign by Karl Rove in the summer). But I do think that Republicans who think they’re a shoo-in because Kerry is such a bad candidate are deluding themselves. This election will be about Bush.

GLENN ON IRAQ: Instapundit writes a cogent, sane and eloquent case for staying the course in Iraq. How does he do it? So many links and yet he also writes so well. I endorse all of it. I do feel that, in some ways, our setbacks are also opportunities – that the notion that this was all going to be perfect and easy is as foolish as the notion that it is doomed. Two recent things: the fact that the imposition of a Saddamite general on Falluja spurred the Shi’a leadership in the South to isolate al Sadr further shows how some bad things can lead to good things. Ditto the horrors at Abu Ghraib. What they reveal is something true: Americans are no better and no worse as human beings than anyone else. They can become savages as well. But our system – the open press, the internal reviews, the democratic accountability – minimizes the damage of our flawed human nature. I hope that this incident demonstrates to the Iraqi people that it’s the system that we’re trying to help them build. This system is not American. It is simply the best of the worst options for human government there is. They deserve it, after the terror of so long a tyranny. We need to hang in there. Through the inevitable mess and mistakes, the goal is clear and noble and essential.

“I was indeed stationed at Abu Ghuraib prison from October 2003 thru late March 2004. I was in the 870th MP Company. The one listed as having had its Commander relieved for snapping photos of female soldiers naked in the shower.
I do not excuse what went on whatsoever. All of us who served honorably over there want to see these idiots fry.
I’ve read the 15-6 investigation report and all of the problems we identified and reported up thru the chain of command show up in that report. Lack of staffing, training and written guidance. Most of the latter we had to write ourselves, based on Rules of Engagement (ROE) and what we learned in the battlefield hand off from the preceding units and what we could apply doctrinally. Our unit, being a Combat Support Company, had no prior experience in or training in Internment/Resettlement (I/R) operations. Our preMob training had nothing to do with it either, as it was more focused on basic soldier skills and survivability and Combat Operations, such as car searches, convoy escort, building clearing, prisoner search. In fact, our fist mission was in Karbala from June 2003 to the end of September 2003 and involved the above listed missions as well as runing the Karbala Police Station and training new Iraqi Police Officers. But I digress…
One of the points brought up in the 15-6 regards morale. One has to have been there to fully appreciate just how far morale had sunk. Here’s what the report said about factors affecting morale:

(U) Reserve Component units do not have an individual replacement system to mitigate medical or other losses. Over time, the 800th MP Brigade clearly suffered from personnel shortages through release from active duty (REFRAD) actions, medical evacuation, and demobilization. In addition to being severely undermanned, the quality of life for Soldiers assigned to Abu Ghraib (BCCF) was extremely poor. There was no DFAC, PX, barbershop, or MWR facilities. There were numerous mortar attacks, random rifle and RPG attacks, and a serious threat to Soldiers and detainees in the facility. The prison complex was also severely overcrowded and the Brigade lacked adequate resources and personnel to resolve serious logistical problems. Finally, because of past associations and familiarity of Soldiers within the Brigade, it appears that friendship often took precedence over appropriate leader and subordinate relationships.

The undermanning led to 12 to 16 hour days, sometimes working 2 shifts per day with no days off. The report doesn’t mention that there were periods of months where a mortar attack took place every day! Soldier going out on patrol at night were blown up with IEDs and rockets. Prior to the Fallujah Battle that started in late March, Abu Ghuraib prison had the distinction of being the most attacked place in Iraq.
The stress of living under constant threat of mortar attack plus the lack of downtime, coupled with an obviously broken Command structure and dismal environment…imagine being stationed at Dachau for the year after the liberation of Europe, living in a cell that was host to God knows how many executed and tortured human beings before you got there. Then add all the stress from all that other crap. Words cannot describe the effects of the combination of it all.
That so few soldiers abused Iraqis is testament to the discipline and strength of the vast majority of the 1000 soldiers stationed at Abu Ghuraib at the time.” I checked this guy’s credentials out (military i.d., email, etc, even a photograph). In so far as I can vet these emails without personal, face-to-face interviews, I do. But this is a blog, not the NYT. More feedback – including a defense of Ted Rall – on the Letters Page.

It has become routine for many conservatives opposed to civil marriage for gays to say that they are not homophobic as such, that their arguments are about the need to preserve marriage rather than rooted in hostility to gay people. I do not have a window into people’s souls, so I cannot judge these protestations. My view is that people should not be viewed as bigots unless proven otherwise. But there’s the rub. Take the Heritage Foundation, a critical institution in Washington conservatism. Their research database on the family includes several research papers by one Paul Cameron, a man who is to gay studies what Holocaust deniers are to historians of Nazi Germany. To check out who Cameron is, and what his methodologies are, read this piece and this one by yours truly. Money quote:

Over the years [Cameron] has also argued that gay men are responsible for up to one half of all child abuse cases (despite making up maybe two percent of the population), that they are ten to 20 times more likely to molest children than heterosexuals, and that fully half of all sex murderers are homosexuals. One of Cameron’s “studies” included 41 gay men out of a total sample of 4,340 adults. Another was based on interviews with 34 serial killers. One of his “pamphlets” is illustrated by a photograph of an adult male arm dragging a small boy into a public restroom.

If we rightly ask the left to disown someone like Ted Rall, then why should the right be allowed to propagate the poison of Cameron and expect to be given the benefit of the doubt on homophobia?

The other insistence by those opposed to equal marriage rights is that they are not averse to private contracts that might amount to some sort of civil unions. “See?” – they say. “We don’t hate gays. We just love marriage!” Yet in Virginia, a law was just passed that explicitly denies the validity of any such contracts, voids civil unions of any kind, under any name, and may eventually be struck down by the Supreme Court for the radicalism of its attempt to prevent even private legal arrangements to protect such things as hospital visitation. This was a Republican-sponsored measure, and exposes the lie that the Republican party is tolerant of gays but draws the line at marriage. Have you heard Stanley Kurtz or Maggie Gallagher oppose this law? Have you heard a single conservative commentator worry about it? Recall that Kurtz is aware of five same-sex marriages in a remote region of Norway but is apparently unaware of what has just happened in Virginia.

Most of it is in the rapidly growing left-wing part of the blogosphere, which is encouraging, to say the least. Here’s one, another, another, and another. Thanks for tracking them down. My favorite quote:

Rall’s wrong. He doesn’t understand how patriotism works, or how a democratic nation goes to war. Wrong or right, we decided, as a nation, to go to war. We had a public debate. The Congress authorized it. The President ordered it. In short, through democratic processes the country called, and those who answered that call are patriots, not saps. Whether the call was correct or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that when their country called, they answered, and they deserve our respect and appreciation for that reason.

The difference between liberalism and the hateful far left. Thank God for it.

I have to say that the treatment given by Editor and Publisher to the contretemps over Ted Rall is really instructive. I’ve found the publication to be excellent at times – innovative and thorough and often news-breaking. And then you read their stories about Rall. Take the latest. It is, in essence, an attack on Bill O’Reilly. Or the original one, where, again, Rall is regarded as the victim of a smear, rather than the perpetrator of an obscenity. Money quote:

When E&P called Rall, he had only received one message about the cartoon. But, as the interview went on, the messages started pouring in. A few were positive, but most were vicious. As Rall opened each e-mail for the first time, he quoted briefly from each one. “You make me sick”; “lies and distortions”; “move to France”; “I pity you”; “disgusting”; “sad and pathetic”; “f— you, you coward bastard”; “I will s–t on your grave”; “horrendous”; “rot in hell”; “freak”; “I hope you’re killed by an Arab terrorist attack”; “people died to publish the b.s. you do.”

E&P also implies that the only reason for the outpouring of outrage was that Drudge had whipped up conservative ire – as if only conservatives would be appalled by Rall’s bile against a fallen soldier on the day of his memorial service. Dave Astor, who wrote the pieces, is doing his job, of course. His readership – because it is primarily media establishment types – skews left. Same with leftist, Jim Romenesko, whose media site is highly successful because it reflects and caters to the left-liberalism of its readers. But these people would still insist they’re not biased! They are about as credible in that respect as Fox News.

A fascinating and civil same-sex marriage debate with the author of the superb new book, “Gay Marriage: Why It’s Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America,” Jonathan Rauch.

Bio-chemical warfare from Islamist terrorists is, to my mind, inevitable. More evidence here.