Category: Old Dish

“I got shot three times and my album comes out November 22,” – hip-hop artist Cameron “Cam’ron” Giles, in the Washington Post today.

Here’s why. Be patient with the streaming. It’s worth it.

The Fitzgerald investigation appears to be rather expansive. Maybe he’s establishing the primary motive for the smear and the cover-up. Not a good sign for Bush.

Hugh Hewitt’s attack on George Will can be read here. My bad.

No big deal now; big deal then.

THE MIKE ‘N’ FRANK SHOW: Two of the sharpest young journalists in D.C. now have a blog. What took you so long?

EMAILS OF THE DAY: Two readers comment on James Taranto’s defense of anti-Islamic interrogation techniques:

“You are right to say that Taranto’s comment on menstrual blood was pathetic, and to add the label “homophobic bigot” to the label “religious bigot” and “torture apologist” that he deserves to wear.
As a man who has been a happy heterosexual all my life, I just want to point out that I too find this interrogation tactic utterly repellent and un-American. And not because I find menstrual blood itself repellent–I actually have some very fond memories of being smeared here and there with menstrual blood over the years, and I have found it not the least bit repellent. (Sometimes as part of love-making, sometimes as part of the ordinary inevitable intimacy of living with the wife of twenty years who has given me two children).
But you know, there is this thing about the difference between what we may do consensually, and what the government may order its agents to force on people, which the Bush administration seems to have stopped paying attention to. You’d have thought this distinction was essential to the conservative outlook, but then…

But my real point is that targeting religious conscience violates something very important about America. Another reader adds:

I was disgusted by Opinion Journal’s defence of the tactic of using fake menstrual blood (and the attacks on your homosexuality). I do not think there is anything particularly immoral in using what an enemy most fears to get him to talk; I have proudly reported on WWII vets who interrogated Nazis and who brought out everything under the sun (within the confines of the Geneva Conventions) to get vital information from them.
But in this war, what we need most is to convince religious Muslims that we–and modernity–respect the basic tenets of their faith. Just like in our previous war what we needed most was to convince Commies that liberal democratic capitalism was the way. It seems to me that deliberately doing something that we know violates the Muslim faith and humiliates them, is the worst way to do that. Imagine the rumours going around Iraq: “the US military hates Muslims: see, they use menstrual blood just because they know it humilates it.” This creates more terrorists than anything else. Its a disastrous policy, and you should be commended it for opposing it.

But I’m defending the “rights of terrorists”! Actually, I’m simply defending the honor of the United States.

The conservative mud-slinging continues.

THE LEFT AND BUSH: They’ll never admit it, but this president is the liberal left’s best friend in a long, long time. Yglesias tiptoes near the truth:

It would be a serious mistake to confuse Bush’s brand of big conservatism with liberalism, or with any kind of real concession to liberalism, but it suggests that the underlying political dynamics have shifted a great deal. If you did have a progressive president, there’s no longer a particularly large amount of popular resistance to expanding the activist state. Even most Republicans don’t especially care about small government.

See? Bush has redefined conservatism into meaninglessness by legitimizing massive government spending for social policy. The left will take the 35 percent spending increase and up it. Then they’ll raise taxes to pay for it. From their perspective, what’s not to like? The left-liberal project and the Bush-conservative project are essentially the same: use the state to control and direct the actions of the citizenry, and wean them onto government aid. The only difference is that the constituencies that are the beneficiaries of other people’s money are not identical; and the ideologies directing big government are not the same. I miss Clinton-Gingrich. It was, in retrospect, the high-water mark for conservatism as a governing philosophy.

It’s only logical for the Senate to question James Dobson, the evangelical Protestant who has a veto over White House social policy. And it will help moderate Americans better understand who really pulls the strings in the Republican party. Money quote:

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said yesterday that his panel is likely to require Dobson and perhaps others to testify about such purported conversations. Asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” whether the committee will “bring some of these people who said they were told things that perhaps they shouldn’t have been told, like Mr. Dobson,” Specter replied: “my instinct is that they’ll be called. And the American people are entitled to clarification.”
Specter has expressed interest in Dobson’s comments before, but yesterday marked the clearest signal that the broadcaster may be required to face the 18-member committee in public.

The upcoming hearings (if we get that far) will be the best SCOTUS must-see TV since the Thomas circus. Get your popcorn ready.

THE COMING TAX HIKE: When it comes, remember who is responsible:

To date, the Bush administration has a disjointed, two-track budget policy. It has favored letting Americans keep more of their money via tax cuts while steadily building up the welfare state via unrestrained spending. Over time, that that strategy can’t work. As Milton Friedman and others have long argued, the size of government is found in its total spending and, ultimately, spending is a taxpayer issue. Higher spending and resulting deficits create a constant threat of higher taxes. It’s no surprise that not just Democrats but even moderate Republicans are now arguing that Bush’s recent tax cuts be allowed to expire.

Bush’s long-term legacy will be a much bigger welfare state and much higher taxes. He will have achieved what Ted Kennedy would never have gotten away with. Congrats, conservatives!

The Ugandan dictator and American president have one thing in common: they both back amendments to their countries’ constitutions to bar gay couples from marrying.

IN DEFENSE OF MILLER: Well, someone’s got to do it.

I’d like to be reassured about the potential effects of a bird flu epidemic, but count me in the still-panicky department. Fareed Zakaria rightly points out that new viruses – HIV among the most recent – often leap to humans during major population shifts. Today’s massive relocation of people and animals in China raises the odds of a new flu virus considerably. We are not doing anything nearly sufficient to prepare for a pandemic – either with the current bird flu strain or a future one. Money quote:

The total funding request for influenza-related research this year is about $119 million. To put this in perspective, we are spending well over $10 billion to research and develop ballistic-missile defenses, which protect us against an unlikely threat (even if they worked). We are spending $4.5 billion a year on R&D-drawings!-for the Pentagon’s new joint strike fighter. Do we have our priorities right?

We need some adjustment.

A DEPRESSING POLL: A British Defense Ministry poll of Iraqi attitudes suggests deepening hostility to coalition troops. Given their failure to provide even minimal security (which is not the troops’ fault, but their political masters’), this is fairly understandable. But worrying nonetheless.

The president’s tax reform commission proposes a one-page 1040-SIMPLE form. Nice work. I’ve long believed that simpler, flatter taxes are a potential vote-winner – as well as being good for the economy. If the president wants to re-boot his administration, real tax reform would be a good start.