Category: Old Dish

That disgusting cartoon showing Ariel Sharon literally eating a baby has now won the top prize from the British Political Cartoon Society.

“The FTAA Summit in Miami represents the official homecoming of the “war on terror”. The latest techniques honed in Iraq – from a Hollywoodised military to a militarised media – have now been used on a grand scale in a major US city.” – Naomi Klein, the Guardian.

As usual a great piece by Hitch on the latest al Qaeda bombings in Turkey:

I have not yet read any article explaining how the frustrations of the oppressed Muslims of the world are alleviated by this deed, or how the wickedness of American foreign policy has brought these chickens home to roost, or how such slaughters are symptoms of “despair.” Perhaps somebody is at work on such an article and hasn’t quite finished it yet. (I have noticed, though, a slight tendency on the part of this school to shut up, at least for the time being.)
There is a vulgar reason for this reticence. In recent attacks from those gangs who have been busily fusing Saddamism with Bin Ladenism-and who didn’t start this synthesis yesterday-it has been noticeable that Saudi citizens (the week before last), or Iraqi citizens (every day, but most conspicuously in the blasting of the Red Cross compound in Baghdad), or Indonesian citizens (in the bombing of the Marriott in Jakarta in August), or Moroccan citizens have been the chief or most numerous casualties. To this, one could add the Christian Arabs whose famous restaurant in Haifa was blown up, along with its owners, on Yom Kippur. I sometimes detect a strained note in the coverage of this. Why would the jihadists be so careless, so to speak? Have they no discrimination, no tact?

I know. Any day now, the hand-wringers may even be forced to concede that there’s a teensy bit of anti-Semitism in the violent brigades now murdering people across the globe. Just not yet.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “The enemies of free societies today are those who want to burden us down again with layer upon layer of regulations. We had that in communist times. But now if you look at all the new rules and regulations of EU membership, layered bureaucracy is staging a comeback.” – Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, on the corruption and inanity of the European Union.

FISKING THE AMENDMENT: Well, someone had to do it.

What is he? Baptist? Methodist? Jewish? Catholic? I’d say a beguiling mixture of them all. But the key tenet is separation of faith from politics:

We stopped going to Catholic Mass some years ago in the Army. We’d go to these Catholic churches, and when you’re Catholic, of course, going to church is a duty. But we’d walk out of the church and say ‘God,’ and we’d complain about the homily. One night I walked out of the church when the priest said that we should never have fought the Revolutionary war and every war was bad. It was 4th of July. It was an outrageously political statement. I just never felt right when people in the church would take these overtly political positions especially when I felt like I was a good Christian, I was serving my country, and I just didn’t feel like I deserved to be lambasted by the priest on the 4th of July.

It seems to me that there are two important things in a person of faith in political life. The first is that his faith be respected. The second is that he understands the civil-religious distinction. I fear George W. Bush doesn’t see that church and state truly are different things. I’m reassured that Wesley Clark gets it – for the sake of politics, but also, above all, for religion.

SOUTH PARK REPUBLICANS: An update from Brian Anderson. For the record, I think Brian is more right than wrong. The important thing is where the energy is in the culture. And there’s no question that an non-lefty perspective has gained enormous sway recently. But it’s also true that the left has also become energized during the war. I don’t know how you explain Dean’s surge or the popularity of Michael Moore or Paul Krugman without acknowledging that.

“Perhaps you could take a moment to correct a misconception which you’ve helped promulgate. That is, we’re “Howard Stern Republicans” much more so than “South Park Republicans,” as you have proclaimed. We’ve been around longer than these South Parker johnnie-come-latelies. I thought that Howard’s social importance was finally established with his unique and indispensable coverage of the OJ trial, as well as his two decades of lampooning liberal hypcrisy and bringing to the people a patriotic, often conservative message. Despite this history, despite his important work on 9/11 and since then, and despite Howard’s brief gubernatorial run on the Libertarian ticket, Brian Anderson neglects to mention the self-proclaimed King of all Media in his culture wars pieces. Howard’s been bringing the word to his huge national and highly urban audience for two decades. In closing: Howard Stern’s balls!” – more reader feedback on the Letters Page.

CHARLIE COOK ON MARRIAGE: I think the guy’s onto something when he argues that this will not be a major wedge issue for the religious right in this election season. Here’s why:

Regardless of how they might feel about same-sex marriage, many potential voters might look at the candidate or party stressing the issue and wonder what planet they come from, to dwell on issues like this when far more important priorities are at stake. Whether voters see the war in Iraq as essential to our national security and the fight against terrorism or as an ill-advised quagmire, few people put the gay marriage issue above it on their list of priorities. Then there’s the economy. Some voters see it as finally turning around as a result of the president’s aggressive round of tax cuts. Others see it as faltering, with too many people unemployed or underemployed and the president not doing enough to fix it. Still, jobs and the economy are likely to be more prominent on most people’s radar screens than civil unions or gay marriage.

Last week, it struck me how this issue really didn’t gain much traction in the media. Compared to Iraq, Bush’s visit to Britain, and Michael Jackson, it was fighting for media oxygen. In general, most people don’t want to think about this question. (They should, but that’s another argument). They will blame whoever brings it up. The Massachusetts decision is rightly viewed as a state matter that doesn’t affect most Americans. If the religious right go on the rampage nationally about this, they’ll discover voters may well get turned off.

A heads up for an important new book about the way in which many Americans are still in denial about the extent of Communist espionage and treason during the Cold War. There’s a great interview with the authors on Front Page right now. I’ve been reading the book, and it’s superb.

The latest polls show a 20 point lead for Bush over his Democratic rivals.

Reading the transcript from yesterday’s Democratic debate, I am reminded of why I couldn’t ever be a Democrat. Please spare me the emails calling me a quisling toady sell-out to the gay-hating right. I already get a dozen a day. I can’t get beyond idiotic statements like the following from John Kerry: “If the drug companies win, who’s losing? It’s the seniors!” And people call George W. Bush a moron. Has it occurred to Kerry that the drugs that he wants working tax-payers to give to seniors free only exist because of the drug companies? Does he really think it’s this “zero-sum”? Of course he doesn’t. He’s just demagoguing again. Or this sad exchange, highlighted by Slate’s Will Saletan:

“Gov. Dean raised prescription costs for seniors in his state when he needed to balance the budget. He called himself a ‘balanced-budget freak,’ ” protests John Kerry. On Medicare, Kerry tries to spin Dean: “Are you going to slow the rate of growth? Because that’s a cut.”

Does Kerry really believe that all entitlement programs are sacrosanct – even those that, in a few years, will destroy the country’s fiscal balance or force a huge increase in taxation? At least Howard Dean seems to have said some sensible, brave, fiscally responsible things in the past. But that is now a huge obstacle to winning the nomination. And people wonder why we have soaring debt and deficits. Between Kerry’s entitlement defenses and Bush’s election year bribes, our choice is grim. Where are the grown-ups? (Random observation: Wesley Clark seems to be getting much better as a candidate. He’s the only one who has anything sane to say about Iraq. I disagree with him, but he presents a perfectly coherent argument, and is candid enough to admit the U.N. is not a panacea.)

I’ve been waiting for a conservative take on the popular support for gay marriage in Massachusetts. Now we have one. No, poll numbers are not the same as an actual vote. But the argument that this shoud be opposed because judges are foisting it on an unwilling populace has to be revised. (Bonus rhetorical dig: if a 4-3 decision on gay marriage is judicial tyranny, what is a 5-4 decision resolving a presidential election?)

CORRECTION: “In your essay on Rich and “Angels In America,” you assert that AZT was available as an anticancer drug before it had been used in HIV disease.
Although your contention in no way undermines your essay, it is wrong. AZT was synthesized in 1964 by a scientist, funded by the US government, seeking a cure for cancer. It failed as an anti-cancer drug and was not used again until the AIDS epidemic. I believe a study showing the efficacy of AZT in the treatment of AIDS patients with PCP was published in the New York Times in 1986, and it became commercially available at that time.”

Econopundit takes me to task for worrying about the deficit. Then he runs the numbers on how he thinks the economy would have performed without the tax cut. But he’s debating a straw man. I never said I blamed the tax cut! I love the tax cut. What I blame is the spending increases. Nevertheless, I’m struck that, on his models, the tax cut only marginally helps the economy while doing enormous damage to the deficit. Hmmm. I don’t think he intend to persuade me to be less worried about Dean, but he did. If this is the best the budget-busters can do, I’m unimpressed.