Category: Old Dish

You notice a couple of things about the two NYT op-eds that have appeared on the subject of the proposed ban on chaste gay seminarians in the Catholic church. The difference between Amy Welborn’s description of the new policy on her own website as “insane” and her milque-toast defense of the new policy in the NYT just speaks to the limits of someone’s ability to tell the full truth when the spotlight is really on her. But John Allen’s piece is merely bizarre. The Vatican’s defense of their reversal of the classic policy of “hate the sin, love the sinner” to “ban all gays, regardless of their conduct” now comes to this: we won’t really enforce it. Of course, they’ve already conceded that by saying that they wouldn’t bar any already-ordained gay priests (the only logic here is prudential; if they actually enforced their new policy, they could lose up to a third of their current employees).

A GERMAN POPE: But Allen goes further by attributing the new nakedly homophobic policy to Italian cultural norms. I’m sorry but when the Italian Paul VI ran the Church, we had a ground-breaking document rebutting the notion that homosexuality in itself is a sin. The last Italian pope, Pope John Paul I, had, in his previous career, spoken very positively about gay men and relationships. The force behind this new discrimination is not Italian: it is from a German pope whose history shows he has a very clear idea of what he means by authority and how he means to enforce it. I may have missed one of those fatwas from Ratzinger’s Congregation that was intended not to be enforced, but it certainly hasn’t been his style. The new policy is backed by a group of hard-right Catholic American intellectuals who are very, very close to Benedict’s ear. The policy may well not be able to be enforced because a) many seminaries and religious orders in the U.S. will simply refuse to go along; b) many gay seminarians will dissemble their way in (those may well be the least adjusted gay seminarians and the most likely to be unethical in their future actual conduct); and c) the church cannot practically afford to lose more candidates for the priesthood. But the idea that the policy is designed not to be enforced is, well, weird. Even if true, it amounts simply to a rhetorical statement that gays are somehow inherently morally inferior to straights, whatever they do and however they act. Doesn’t that make the policy even worse? That it is not actually intended to address an actual perceived “problem” and to solve it, but as a kind of homophobic mood-setter for the Church’s cultural climate?

Hitch calls it like it is. I’m sorry, but I can respect criticism of the conduct of this war. In fact, I find it hard to respect those who refuse to subject the conduct of this war to constructive criticism. But I cannot respect the organizations and agenda that pollute such legitimate criticism, or their fellow-travelers. Anyone who attends rallies organized by International ANSWER deserves no quarter and no hearing. And the notion that abruptly abandoning the beleaguered Iraqi people to the tender mercy of Jihadists is somehow “progressive” boggles the mind. As Hitch observed of the motley crew in Washington last weekend: “Was there a single placard saying, “No to Jihad”? Of course not. Or a single placard saying, “Yes to Kurdish self-determination” or “We support Afghan women’s struggle”? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Your post on the children’s book with scary liberals under beds reminded me of a column by G. K. Chesterton from the Illustrated London News (June 15, 1912 in the Ignatius Press Collected Works edition). He tells of a “Socialist Sunday School” and of a friend seeing “a string of small, thin children, with small, thin voices, singing in a shrill but lifeless manner the following words:

When the Revolution comes,
When the Revolution comes,
When the Revolution comes,
The Social Revolution.”

Chesterton continues: ‘You would naturally suppose that the Anti-Socialists…would hold such pedantry to public scorn…’See what sort of people these Socialists are! how cut off from humanity and humour! They don’t know what a child is; they don’t know what a school is; and they certainly don’t know what a revolution is, or they wouldn’t mix up such incongruous things together.’ But do the Anti-Socialists say this or anything like it?…I saw in the paper yesterday that they had established a serious official organization called ‘The Children’s Anti-Socialist League’. What an age of infanticide! Fancy a little girl of six being either a Socialist or an Anti-Socialist! She might as well give us her views on Bimetallism while she is about it.’
I don’t think Chesterton was ever accused of lacking a sense of humor.”

Meanwhile … here’s another kiddy book about a cat who’s a … Republican.

Here’s an email that makes me feel great:

“I saw you on CNN sometime ago and you were talking about your sleep apnea and the fact that you sleep with a CPAP machine. I had no idea what that was.
When you described your symptoms for the first time in my life I could relate to it… took me a little time to go to the Sleeping Disorder Clinic but I did last month. The results were HORRIBLE – the worst they had ever seen. I was extremely surprised. I also had triple surgery 2 weeks ago, nose, throat and pallet. Painful recovery but worth it.
After I started to use the machine the change was immediate, the very next day I was “THAT GUY”, happy, calm, rested, my anxiety disappeared, it was like magic.
I’m 32 and I never thought I was going to hit my 50’s because I always felt a knot in my stomach and EVERYTHING would set me off. I sabotaged every aspect of my life, career, family and emotionally.
After Therapy, Meditation, Self Help Books and feeling guilty about everything I’ve done with my life, apparently all I needed was a good night’s sleep.
I’m the happiest I have ever been in my life, it’s hard to describe it, the only problem that I have right now is not knowing what I really like in life and what I don’t. It’s like waking up a stranger in your own body. It will be a fun ride from now on. Maybe in 10 years I’ll write a book about my 32 years in HELL.
Thanks for helping me find out what I had. If it wasn’t for you it would have taken me longer to connect the dots.”

By the way, I’m still happily plugged in each night: 2,311 hours of CPAP sleep and counting. If you think you might have sleep apnea, or your sleeping partner thinks you do, see a doctor. I can’t stress enough what a difference it can make.

Drudge pulls out the rhetorical stops for Cindy. (This is just to prove to JPod that I do indeed have a sense of humor.)

Keep them coming. We have three new entries:

“Drawing is taking a line for a walk.” – Paul Klee:

“Architecture is frozen music.” – Goethe

“Poetry is the music of what’s happening.” -Seamus Heaney.

A reader takes issue with my Larkin quote:

When it comes to jazz, is there a better one-line description than (New Yorker) jazz critic Whitney Balliett’s famous observation that jazz is “the sound of surprise”? I don’t think so. Larkin’s description falls a bit short because he describes how jazz works, i.e., what jazz does. Balliett, however, describes what jazz is.

IT’S NOT SATIRE FOR ADULTS: The debate over “Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed” continues. I am accused of being one the most humorless people on earth. By John Podhoretz. But it isn’t satire. It’s indoctrination. (Yes, lefty idiots ruin their case by posting fake parodies of the illustrations, but lefty idiots have been makng Sean Hannity’s job easy for years now.) From the blurb:

This news-making book is a fun way for parents to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. Written in simple text, readers can follow along with Tommy and Lou as they open a lemonade stand to earn money for a swing set. But when liberals start demanding that Tommy and Lou pay half their money in taxes, take down their picture of Jesus, and serve broccoli with every glass of lemonade, the young brothers experience the downside to living in Liberaland.

Chairman Mao, anyone? It has caricatures of Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy. It has a Democratic donkey under the bed, posing as a member of the press. Jonah thinks the left does the same thing. I’m sure there are examples out there, but they are generally fuzzy tracts about saving the earth or explaining why over a hundred thousand kids have two parents of the same gender. I haven’t yet seen or heard of any 4 – 8 year old kiddies’ books which caricature George W. Bush, Dick Cheney or Bill Frist, or get into the details of tax policy or the liberal media. This is also not a fringe book. It’s #44 on Amazon! In a word, it’s creepy, in the way all ideological fanaticism is creepy. From one Amazon reviewer:

Our children need to know that there are those in our country who desire to limit our freedom, such as our freedom of religion, our freedom from governmental control, and the freedom of our markets. The extreme, elitist, liberal minority in the U.S. starts foisting its agenda on our children from kindergarten. But, with more educational materials like this book, perhaps we can teach our kids to truly be free thinkers and help them to recognize the elitist liberal bias in all its forms.

So the culture war is now in Kindergarten. The author, by the way, is not a humorist:

Katharine DeBrecht is a mother of three. A freelance newspaper reporter who previously worked in Washington, D.C., she is a member of the South Carolina Federation of Republican Women and served as that state’s co-captain of “Security Moms for Bush.” Ms. DeBrecht graduated cum laude from Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, where she studied political science and history.

Whatever else this kind of ideological indoctrination is about, the notion that it is promoting freedom of thought is risible.

The latest horrifying torture revelations give his proposed anti-torture legislation a push. This is a real war within Republicanism right now: the decency and honor of John McCain and Lindsey Graham versus the incompetence and brutality of Cheney and Rumsfeld. And in army captain Ian Fishback, we have a real American hero. In his words: “We are America. Our actions should be held to a higher standard. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is ‘America.'” That’s the real voice of the U.S. military. And it abhors the brutality this administration has sanctioned and covered up.

How many were killed in the Superdome? Apparently: one.

“Command is a sacred trust. The legal and moral responsibilities of commanders exceed those of any other leader of similar position or authority. Nowhere else does a boss have to answer for how subordinates live and what they do after work.” – Dep’t of the Army, Field Manual 22-100, sec. 1-61.

“An Army inspector general’s report has cleared senior Army officers of wrongdoing in the abuse of military prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere, government officials familiar with the findings said yesterday.” – Washington Post, Saturday.

It’s still unclear what impact the war on terror is having in the Middle East, with some positive signs and still worrying possibilities in Iraq and elsewhere. But the impact on America – and on the U.S. military – is already clear. The United States has become a country that practices and condones torture and abuse of war detainees – even in a conventional conflict, such as Iraq. The legal memos allowing this are clear; the responsibility is clear – from president Bush down. And the consequences are clear: hundreds and hundreds of cases that prove systematic, approved torture and abuse of prisoners in every field of conflict, in camps and bases across Afghanistan and Iraq. The latest news about Camp Mercury is sickening, horrifying, but, at this point, utterly predictable. And when you read the Human Rights Watch report, and hear what the courageous and heroic soldiers say about what they witnessed, the conclusion is unavoidable. Scott Horton takes up Marty Lederman’s baton and explains more here. Money quote:

Soldiers state they fully appreciated that the abuse to which the detainees were subjected was sanctioned up the chain of command. A decision apparently had been made not to apply the Geneva Conventions in the War on Terror, and unambiguous instructions had come down the line of command to “take the gloves off” with the detainees. But one officer saw Donald Rumsfeld testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2004 saying that the Geneva Conventions were being respected in Iraq. “Something was wrong,” he said. The officer went up the chain of command and to the JAGs in theater trying to get clarification of how the Geneva Conventions could possibly permit what was happening. He got nowhere. Moreover, he found he was subjected to implied and direct threats. Asking questions or reporting on what he saw would affect “the honor of the unit” and would damage his career.
The officer attempted to report these matters to several Republican senators. When his intention to do this became clear, officers in his chain of command denied him leave and took other steps to block his actions.

I think it’s pretty clear that the military knows they have a lot to hide and that Rumsfeld knew he was lying when he assured Senators that the war in Iraq was being conducted in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. The cover-up of abuse that was the norm went all the way up the military command to Rumsfeld himself. Someone had told these officers that torture was now okay. That someone told the Senate another version.

THE END OF ACCOUNTABILITY: The Bush administration – especially vice-president Dick Cheney and Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld – have fiercely resisted releasing critical documents that could nail this down without any doubt. They threatened to veto any bill that would bar the CIA from inflicting torture, and they oppose any Congressional attempts to insist that the U.S. military be legally forbidden from “cruel, inhumane or degrading” treatment of detainees. We need to see the rest of the Abu Ghraib photos that have been withheld, but we also need some critical documents, in order to categorically disprove propaganda like that recently published by National Review. Horton again:

Until the Yoo March 14, 2003 memo is released to congressional oversight — and to the public — it is impossible for any serious analyst to accept the Harvey and Schoomaker claims about the role of doctrine. To the contrary, the unjustified withholding of this document — along with the military’s own Church Report, and the numerous primary documents collected during that investigation — invites a strong inference that their claims are false. Moreover, at this point the text of the March 14, 2003 memo in and of itself is not enough. We need to see exactly how it affected military doctrine in the form of advice given by the DOD General Counsel’s office, the JAG Corps, and the Military Intelligence branch, among other things. Some e-mail traffic I have seen among MI officers in Iraq suggests that this memo shaped actions on the ground in the War on Terror within a matter of weeks, if not days.

Horton reminds us of an important fact. In the military, responsibility goes up the chain of command. Punishing the grunts, while excusing those who devised these policies is not only unjust, it violates basic principles of military accountability. Read this analysis from someone who actually cares about the military’s reputation. The president has already repeatedly declared his own view of his own responsibility for what goes on in his administration: others are always to blame. Only with Katrina did he manage to spit out his own responsibility. But destroying centuries of honor in the U.S. armed services is a graver crime than slovenly hurricane response.