Category: Old Dish

“He had used weapons.- He had manufactured weapons.- He had funded suicide bombers into Israel.- He had terrorist connections.- In other words, all of those ingredients said to me:- Threat. The fundamental question is:- Do you deal with the threat once you see it?- What- in the war on terror, how do you deal with threats?- I dealt with the threat by taking the case to the world and said, Let’s deal with this.- We must deal with it now.” – the president on NBC’s Meet The Press. It’s his best self-defense yet. And I liked his modest way of putting it. In the campaign he can make the case more forcefully, but I’m relieved that on this central question, the White House has belatedly realized it has to make the case again, and explain, and defend itself. It has nothing to be ashamed of, and a huge amount to be proud of, in the battle against terror.

It’s another display of ignorance on the part of the New York Times, when it comes to marriage equality. They’ve swallowed the religious right lie about their constitutional amendment completely. David Kirkpatrick, the new reporter for “conservatives,” is the latest offender. Here’s the error: Kirkpatrick describes the Musgrave Amendment (which will be the actual text that’s introduced) as one that “would allow state legislatures to recognize gay civil unions, a provision that had alienated many conservatives.” But that simply isn’t true. There were three possible amendments: one that stated in one sentence that civil marriage was between a man and a woman and by its silence let states do what they want on civil unions; the Musgrave one that restricts marriage to heterosexuals but also says that none of the benefits or legal incidents of marriage may be applied to “unmarried,” i.e. gay couples, thereby making civil unions void (all they are is a collection of incidents available to married couples); and a third one that would have barred marriage for gays, but allowed civil unions – if they were extended to all couples, regardless of any implied sexual conduct. The Musgrave Amendment is by far the most extreme. And it is the one that has been selected. Kirkpatrick makes it out to be the moderate compromise. What was he thinking?

THE TEXT: The critical evidence is the actual text of the Alliance For Marriage/Musgrave amendment, which Kirkpatrick omits. That in itself is a bizarre lacuna. Here it is:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

My italics. All the legal incidents thereof. That language doesn’t need to be in there if you’re just banning marriage for gays. If you merely wanted to keep the word marriage from gays, you would simply withhold “marital status.” But by barring “all the legal incidents” of marriage – in state or federal law – the amendment would render all civil unions and domestic partnerships legally and constitutionally void everywhere in America. The religious right know what they’re doing. And they use the word “construe” – not “judicially construe” – but simpy “construe” to make this amendment as devastating to gay couples’ rights as they possibly can. This isn’t just about restraining courts from protecting gay couples. It isn’t about protecting the word marriage. It’s about removing every single civil and legal protection gay couples have. That’s why the religious right has signed on. On this critical matter – which has already been threshed out in many places – Kirkpatrick gets it wrong. Echoing the far right’s lie will reverberate and make it harder for the truth to get out there. After the last marriage article debacle, you’d think the NYT would have put this kind of piece through a very careful fact-check. But on the most important aspect of this amendment, they got it wrong. Again.

My major doubt about Wesley Clark being the Clintons’ favored candidate for president was always that, er, Clinton fired him for being a loose cannon in Kosovo. Now we have the full evidence he was. Also signs of Clark’s paranoia: his fear that the Kosovo war would be terminated early to make way for Al Gore’s election plans – a full year and a half before the election. Huh? One of Gore’s great merits in the 1990s – before he became a Shrumist populist radical – was his support for preventing genocide in the Balkans. I just don’t believe he would have sacrificed this cause months before primaries, when it might actually have helped him in the campaign. At least, that’s my brief take. My long take is that I’d support Kucinich over Clark if I had to. Clark is simply too crazy to be president of the U.S.

Fascinating graphic of how hermetically sealed we are becoming one from another. We don’t even read the same books any more, depending on our blue-red identity. I agree with Jonah that there’s nothing wrong with a divided country. It can be fun! But a divided country where both sides don’t even talk to one another? That’s a little more worrying. One side benefit of my raising gay issues on this blog strikes me as being exactly that conversational clash. I understand why most people avoid it – it’s grueling to be in the middle of the vortex. But it’s important too. And increasingly rare.

Mickey Kaus echoes what I’m hearing in DC:

I recently talked with an old friend who is employed by the federal government at one of the important agencies. I asked how things were going at work. My friend said: “I’ve never seen an administration spend money like this since the days of CETA. The money’s flying out the door. I can barely keep up with it. … They give money away on telephone calls! No documents. No budget. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it.”

It really is Nixon’s domestic policy, after all. By the way, that’s your money Karl Rove is throwing away.

It won’t die, will it? Spinsanity is on the case.

On the marriage issue, here’s the question that needs asking of the president: if he is opposed to marriage equality, does he support civil unions? Just a suggestion.

Ryan Lizza checks in with the now-surreal Dean campaign.

Don’t miss a wonderful, terse polemic on National Review Online by one Lance Izumi on the consequences of president Bush’s spending binge and big government philosophy. Invoking Hayek and Friedman, he rightly insists that classical liberalism requires not just that taxes be lowered but that government spending be reduced as well. The whole point of cutting taxes was to put pressure on spending. Here’s what I fear Bush might accomplish: a huge jump in the role and size of government, and a spiraling debt. When the crunch comes, a future Democratic president will simply raise taxes back up to finance the spending Bush has unleashed. In fact, he may have no option. The result will be a big gain for statism and a big net loss for individual freedom. I grew up inhaling Hayek, Friedman and Thatcher. It breaks my heart to see a Republican president trash much of their legacy.

My last boyfriend died Tuesday of AIDS complications, and after traveling to LA today, where he lived, I went to his memorial service and reception. He was an amazing guy, a former Mormon, with a huge heart and astonishing determination to fight illness after illness. When we were together four years ago, he endured two heart attacks, chemotherapy and KS, and I never heard him complain once. In fact, he often cheered me up. He was an inspiration in many ways, although we had sadly drifted apart the last couple of years. Anyway, I can’t focus on much else right now. He never made it to forty. God bless, Brad. It was a great blessing to have shared part of our lives together.