Category: Old Dish

What’s this document that former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill claims he found showing elaborate post-Iraq war planning prior to 9/11? Could it be something else entirely?

Ramesh Ponnuru ducks the central question in National Review’s endorsement of a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage. If NR wants to preserve marriage as an institution, why is it happy to see states create a competing marriage-lite institution, civil unions, for heterosexuals? If the point of social policy is to protect marriage and to increase incentives for marriage (except, of course, for homosexuals), why acquiesce in an institution that will undermine it far more deeply and far more comprehensively than gay marriage ever could? The answer is that this kind of “anyone-can-apply-they-don’t-have-to-have sex” civil union keeps the government from any position condoning or acknowledging gay relationships. That is the bedrock position of NR. Anything but acknowledgment of the dignity and civil equality of gay couples. In NR’s eyes, gay couples are not the civil, moral or spiritual equivalent of straight couples. Britney and Jason are always the moral superiors to a lesbian couple caring for each other for years. You listening, Mary Cheney? That’s what they think of us. So the gay relationship is relegated to the 1950s status of room-mates – where the social right feels more comfortable. This is the fundamental difference. It is motivated entirely by animus for gay couples. You think the religious right was interested in providing civil benefits to straight room-mates before the issue of same-sex marriage came along? You think they were thinking of passing a constitutional amendment to strengthen marriage before the threat of gay equality? The bottom line is that NR’s editors consider gay relationships inferior as a civil matter to straight ones. They think that the most honorable and profound gay relationship is worth less than Britney’s 55 hour marriage. Why cannot they say this? My relationship wth my boyfriend will never be as good as Britney’s to Jason – and it’s worth amending the very constitution to affirm that for ever. Ponnuru may not like conceding this. But it’s true. The fight is between privilege and equality. NR, not for the first time, backs privilege. That’s why gay people and their families will fight this amendment to the very end. Because it’s about writing us out of the meaning of America – for ever.

A fascinating and disturbing interview with controversial Israeli historian, Benny Morris, is worth reading in Ha’aretz. The most common criticism of Morris is that he has both exposed some of the original sins of the state of Israel, while remaining a Zionist. Morris embraces both positions in this interview. Money quote:

Ha’aretz: Ben-Gurion was a “transferist”?

Morris: “Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist.”

Ha’aretz: I don’t hear you condemning him.

Morris: “Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.”

Read the whole thing.

I wonder what Mickey Kaus thought of the Democratic Iowa “Black and Brown” debate – in itself an example of the kind of special interest group pandering that has now returned to dominate the Democratic Party. There wasn’t a nano-second in which any candidate said anything to suggest that minorities can do anything to benefit themselves without more government help, more money and more white condescension. The crowd lapped it up. Joe Lieberman couldn’t even bring himself to oppose reparations. Not affirmative action. Reparations! You’ve come a long way, Joe. Long gone is the Clintonian art of giving a damn about race without resorting to paleo notions that all whites are at fault and all blacks are victims. In that kind of context, it’s no accident that Al Sharpton becomes the moral arbiter. His use of the race-card against Dean had me bolt upright, and was an indication of what could happen if Dean gets the nomination. There’s no guarantee that Sharpton will support the nominee, or won’t demand embarrassing, election-losing concessions from the platform if he does. He’ll also get a big speaking slot at the convention – or use the negotiations as more street theater. It truly is back to 1988 – as farce. But unlike 1988, the Democratic nominee will not be able to shun Sharpton. The Dems are now dependent on massive black support just to be competitive in many states – which gives Sharpton more leverage than even Jesse Jackson once had. One thing we have learned from this campaign is that the Clinton policy make-over of the Democrats now has only one standard-bearer: his wife. For the rest, it’s that ’70s Show, with post-industrial populism thrown in.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Mr. Clinton was doing well. The party lost. Gingrich killed us in ’94. ’96, under Clinton, we didn’t regain the Congress … in ’98. We didn’t regain it in 2000, we lost it all in 2002 when we were demolished. We lost everything as a party. Bill Clinton won the party, and Bill Clinton may not have won it had it not been for Perot. That is my point. Centrism killed this party. People are saying, well, Sharpton and progressives killed the party. The party is dead. I come to help start the resurrection.” – Al Sharpton, on WUSA in Washington. On this, at least, Sharpton agrees with Rush Limbaugh.

Who do you think wrote the following sentences:

The kaleidoscope of Mideast power relations has just gone through one of its periodic shifting of shapes. Saddam Hussein is a prisoner of war, Iran is accepting intrusive inspection of its nuclear sites, Khadafy is dismantling his weapons of mass destruction programs in order to have sanctions on Libya lifted, and Assad’s impoverished minority regime may look upon a negotiated peace with Israel as its best chance to prolong its existence.

Some nefarious neocon? Nah. Just the passionately anti-war Boston Globe, delicately avoiding why it might be that things have improved a mite in the Middle East recently. (Of course the only reason they are optimistic is in order to call for Israel to make more concessions. But sometimes you have to take epiphanies where you can find them.) A less surprising round-up of success is in Safire today.)

BUSH-IS-HITLER WATCH: The sicko left now takes on the troops. This image had me boiling mad.

MEET THE BLOGS: Tim Russert just discussed the intersection of the web and politics. Jeff Jarvis is way more interesting than the transcript. But the transcript has a picture of John Kerry that – even without words – sent me into a near-coma.

Yes, we all know that spokesmen and women for the far left have been subjected to vicious McCarthyite tactics by the Bush police state and, er, bloggers, because they have dared to dissent bravely from the war on terror. But there are some dissidents the far left is quite happy to see in jail – as long as that jail is in Cuba. Some context: Nat Hentoff has been championing dozens of writers, thinkers and librarians who have been subject to Fidel Castro’s latest bout of chronic communism and now have no freedom at all. Hentoff – about as liberal and as saintly a defender of civil liberties of anyone on the planet – was particularly incensed by the imprisonment of librarians. But the American Library Association won’t protest the incarceration of their Cuban colleagues. Why not? Over to Michael Moore’s fact-checker, Ann Sparanese, who is on the board of the ALA, protesting Hentoff in the Village Voice’s letters page:

Hentoff is mistaken about why the dissidents are in prison. The laws under which they were convicted criminalize collaboration with, or aid to, a foreign power seeking to overthrow the Cuban government. The Law of Protection of the Independence of the National Independence and Economy of Cuba (Law 88) was passed in 1999 in direct reaction to the passage of the Helms-Burton Law by the U.S. Congress in 1996. Helms-Burton tightens the economic embargo against Cuba and appropriates millions of our tax dollars every year for the overthrow of the Cuban government, euphemistically referred to as ‘transition.’
Those arrested were convicted of receiving aid from U.S. agents for the purposes of regime change, not for distributing copies of 1984. Even Amnesty International devotes quite a bit of ink to the role of U.S. policy in creating conditions for the ‘crackdown’ in Cuba.

Off-base: one of Hentoff’s championed dissidents, Victor Arroyo, was jailed on charges of simply having an independent library. But even if Sparanese were right, it’s now legit to jail librarians if they receive aid for their work from a foreign source? Nice to know whom Ms Sparanese would be putting in the slammer come her revolution. And, of course, Castro’s tyranny is actually the fault of … the United States: “Without Helms-Burton, the Cuban laws would lose their rationale and those imprisoned might be freed. Many of us disdain the idea that our cherished professional values should be enlisted in the service of the wrong-headed and provocative foreign policy of our own government.” They learn nothing. Ever.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “You write: ‘But while Derb yuks it up about straight people’s abuse of the institution, he still finds inclusion of gay couples an abomination. How does he justify this double-standard?’ Presumably the same way people can yuk it up about TV wrestling but still be concerned at a proposal to recreate the Roman Forum games. Why is it so hard for you to understand that normal people find it neither admirable nor harmless to have a perversion? Lots of people entertain with prostitution, bestiality, sado-masochism, etc. That doesn’t convince many folk to think we ought to honor these amusements or teach them to our children.
Get it straight: homosexual “marriage” makes no more sense than “diets” where you seek nourishment through self-induced vomit. There are plenty of people to think queers are extremely amusing, but who don’t think that amusement is worth marriage. If you want to be queer, privately enjoy your recreation without thinking that the normal people need to be forced to approve.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

Maybe I don’t have it so bad after all:

Dude, I’m 53 and this is the sickest I have ever been in my life. I’m in my 7th day and just starting to feel a bit better. I live alone and had to have everything: box of tissues, jug of water, TV remote (not that I had a clue what was on, I was semi-delirious for 2 days, sat up in my bed and thought I was sitting at my computer at work (then I woke up hours later on the floor) but I digress, had to have everything in the bed cause I could not even make it to my nightstand on the other side of the bed. I got 2 hours at work Wednesday and they sent me home, and 2 hours in today wanted to make sure they signed my time sheet, I’m a contract worker so I’m screwed next payday!
Funny thing; friends and family would call and ask if I needed anything. So from time to time they’d arrive at my door with a few bottles of ginger ale or some such and I’d be yelling “leave it and go”, not wanting to contaminate them. It started sounding funny, I began to feel like a hideous character in a Poe novel “leave it and be on your way!! You’ll not see me in my shame!!!!”. Like I said, I’m semi-delirious.

I know the feeling.

“During the 2000 election, many journalists deluded themselves and their audience into believing that there weren’t many policy differences between the major candidates, and focused on personalities (or, rather, perceptions of personalities) instead. This time there can be no illusions: President Bush has turned this country sharply to the right, and this election will determine whether the right’s takeover is complete.
But will the coverage of the election reflect its seriousness? Toward that end, I hereby propose some rules for 2004 political reporting.
* Don’t talk about clothes. Al Gore’s endorsement of Howard Dean was a momentous event: the man who won the popular vote in 2000 threw his support to a candidate who accuses the president of wrongfully taking the nation to war. So what did some prominent commentators write about? Why, the fact that both men wore blue suits.
This was not, alas, unusual. I don’t know why some journalists seem so concerned about politicians’ clothes as opposed to, say, their policy proposals. But unless you’re a fashion reporter, obsessing about clothes is an insult to your readers’ intelligence.” – Paul Krugman, New York Times, December 26, 2003.

“Can we trust a man who muffs his mufti?
Trying to soften his military image and lure more female voters in New Hampshire, Gen. Wesley Clark switched from navy suits to argyle sweaters. It’s an odd strategy. The best way to beat a doctor is not to look like a pharmacist.
General Clark’s new pal Madonna, who knows something about pointy fashion statements, should have told him that those are not the kind of diamonds that make girls swoon.
Is there anything more annoying than argyle? Maybe Lamar Alexander’s red plaid shirt. Maybe celebrities sporting red Kabbalah strings.
After General Clark’s ill-fitting suits in his first few debates – his collars seemed to be standing away from his body in a different part of the room – a sudden infusion of dandified sweaters and duck boots just intensifies the impression that he’s having a hard time adjusting to civilian life.” – Maureen Dowd, insulting her readers’ intelligence, New York Times, January 12, 2004.

“We’re in an emergency situation. The United States has become an absolutely terrifying country, and I would hope that I could participate in some way in stopping the horror and the brutality.” – playwright, Wallace Shawn, New York Times Magazine, tomorrow.

BLISTER GAS FOUND? Danish troops make a discovery in Southern Iraq. Of course, we’ve had stories like this one before and they haven’t panned out. But this one is worth keeping an eye on.

THE BEEB IMPROVES: How’s this for a shocker? Here’s how the BBC described the recent Carnegie Endowment criticism of the liberation of Iraq:

The left-leaning Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said US officials misrepresented the threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Just giving credit where it’s due.

THE ESSENTIALS OF MARRIAGE: Every now and again, the facade drops. Here’s how John Derbyshire joked yesterday about marriage:

ZSA ZSA’S GRASP OF MARRIAGE ESSENTIALS [John Derbyshire]:
A reader reminds me of Zsa Zsa Gabor’s most inspired comment about her nine (?) marriages: “I’m a good housekeeper, darlink. I ALWAYS keep the house.”

It’s funny, of course. But notice the sub-text. Nine marriages? What a hoot. But while Derb yuks it up about straight people’s abuse of the institution, he still finds inclusion of gay couples an abomination. How does he justify this double-standard? The other money-quote:

The short answer is that if a customary social institution is trashed and trivialized by irresponsible buffoons, we ought to exert more control over it – to tighten access, not loosen it. If it turns out that there has been chicanery in the counting of votes, that is an argument for making supervision of the voting rules stricter, not for opening the voting booths to felons, foreigners, lunatics, and minors. Things are for whom they are for.

So how does Derbyshire propose to “tighten access” to marriage, as currently conceived? He offers nothing. Would he crack down on Las Vegas marriage laws? Would he lobby for a constitutional amendment banning no-fault divorce? Would he require waiting periods before marriage is legal? No word yet. Methinks he’s blowing smoke. When those in favor of traditional marriage start proposing measures that would infringe on heterosexual abuse of marital privileges, I’ll take them seriously. Until then …

FEELING BETTER: The night-sweats are gone. All I need now are my lungs back. Thanks for the emails.

From those wanting to ban gay marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships. The so-called “Coalition for Marriage” had to concede yesterday that it had grotesquely misrepresented the results of a Zogby poll it commissioned. Massachusetts is pretty evenly split on a state constitutional amendment, and a tiny majority thinks the legislature should do nothing to prevent gay marriage. The anti-gay coalition skewed the results to make the opposite point. But of course they had to. They are confronting the religious right’s nightmare. When gay marriage gets an actual popular majority, as it soon will in Massachusetts, they won’t be able to hide behind their argument about “judicial activism” and will have to be candid that their real, anti-gay goal. I used to give the anti-gay marriage forces some benefit of the doubt. I believed they were genuinely worried about marriage, not merely interested in stigmatizing gays. (Some, I’m sure, still are; and I don’t mean to impugn their motives.) But look at the National Review’s editorial this week. NR editors want to trash traditional marriage by creating a civil unions structure open to absolutely anyone – gay couples, straight couples, aunts and nephews, college room-mates, bridge partners, whoever. So if you’re a young straight couple considering marriage but unwilling to embrace all the responsibilities, National Review will provide you with an easy alternative. That measure would do more to undermine marriage than anything the pro-gay marriage advocates are supporting, or have ever supported. (My original case for gay marriage was designed specifically to avoid the anti-marriage civil unions option that NR is now endorsing.) In their convoluted amendment, they argue that these other relationships would not undermine marriage because they could not include sex. But how on earth could this be enforced? Videocams in bedrooms? The whole idea is preposterous. NR’s open-ended anyone-can-apply civil unions proposal would be the biggest assault on marriage since no-fault divorce. If they really were concerned about marriage and marriage alone, they’d support a simple, one-sentence amendment restricting marriage to straights, period. But that wouldn’t be enough for the gay-baiters. What’s telling about National Review is that when it comes to two competing principles – protecting marriage and keeping gays marginalized – they pick the latter. not to glean from this that they are animated not by a concern for marriage but by loathing of homosexuality. This is not conservatism. It’s discrimination.