Category: The Dish

That’s Washington Post reporter, Anthony Shadid’s description of the almost indescribable anarchy and carnage unleashed by the American invasion of Iraq:

"There was civil-war-style sectarian killing, its echoes in Lebanon a generation ago. Alongside it were gangland turf battles over money, power and survival; a raft of political parties and their militias fighting a zero-sum game; a raging insurgency; the collapse of authority; social services a chimera; and no way forward for an Iraqi government ordered to act by Americans who themselves are still seen as the final arbiter and, as a result, still depriving that government of legitimacy. Civil war was perhaps too easy a term, a little too tidy."

For good measure, we now discover that this anarchy has found a way to sustain itself financially for an indefinite period of time:

"A classified United States government report … obtained by The New York Times, estimates that armed groups responsible for many of the insurgent and terrorist attacks across Iraq are raising between $70 million and $200 million a year from illegal activities. It says that between $25 million and $100 million of the total comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry that is aided by ‘corrupt and complicit’ Iraqi government officials.

As much as $36 million a year comes from ransoms paid to save thousands of kidnapping victims in Iraq, the report said. It estimates that unnamed foreign governments — previously identified by senior American officials in Iraq as including France and Italy — paid Iraqi kidnappers an estimated $30 million in ransom last year."

Remember that only lasy month vice-president Dick Cheney was opining that the Maliki government was doing "remarkably well." These people cannot even lie competently, can they?

(Photo: Karim Kadim/AP.)

Another dip into heterosexual lifestyle. Duran Duran’s "Girls on Film" was banned from TV in the 1980s. And you shouldn’t click unless you’re prepared for one of the most sexist and sexy videos of the decade. Again: DO NOT WATCH if you do not want to see hot, naked women, mud-wrestling and sliding over goo-covered poles.

Click here to see the other entries…

A Mormon reader writes:

Many of us consider posting photographs of Mormon undergarments to be sacrilegious and offensive. Yes, we wear these garments at all times, except during swimming, athletic, bathing, and other activities where it would be impractical. They are made from a variety of textiles, and are comfortable to sleep in, being really not far removed from long johns. Many religious groups, and not just ours, wear clothing as a symbol of religious adherence. Ours, we wear as a reminder of our commitments, but not in public view, because we are reminding ourselves, not making a spectacle. Hence, underclothing. Additionally, they are cut in such a way as to require us to adhere to church modesty standards.

My policy on this site is to publish reality, within certain boundaries of religious respect. If I can publish a cartoon of Muhammad, I can sure publish tasteful pictures of Mormon underwear. Until today, I had no idea that LDS members even wore undergarments mandated by their church. The pictures provided come from Wikipedia. Is it sacrilegious for Wikipedia to publish them? I mean no disrespect. It’s a largely irrelevant issue. The racial history of the LDS church is far more pertinent to Romney’s candidacy. And none of this would be relevant at all, if the Republicans did not now base their politics on explicitly religious appeals. You wanna play by the rules of theoconservatism? Then deal with the consequences.

Here’s an official guide. Alas, no pictures. (If someone has some visuals, could they please send them to me?) So Mitt Romney will never have to answer the boxers or briefs question. But will he tell us whether he wears Mormon underwear at all times, including when asleep?

Update: we have pictures!

Spencertown, NY, 10 am.

Billy Idol’s "Cradle of Love" in which a younger, hipper version of Mickey Kaus stars.

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Glenn Reynolds gets all sensitive about Tennessee again. No, I didn’t imply, and my reader didn’t, that banning Madonna’s concert in favor of "Ferris Bueller" was somehow an attempt to sway votes in the last election. Rather, my Tennessee reader just pointed to it as an indicator of the cultural climate in Tennesee where Ferris Bueller is more morally acceptable than Madonna’s prime time broadcast of words from the Gospel. Reynolds, by the way, is very touchy about his Southern roots. I have no idea why. And he doesn’t address the actual point, as usual. Does he think Madonna is too dangerous for Tennessee viewers? Does he defend the decision to pre-empt her for Ferris Bueller? Would he have made the same decision? Does he have anything substantive to say about the point of the post? Nah. Just a silly distortion for silly point-scoring. Which is par for the course.

A priest explains why Mormons are not Christians:

Your original assertion was correct: Mormons are NOT Christians, because they do not baptize in the name of the Triune God. This is the basis upon which all Christian demoninations (including RC’s) baptize and recognize each other’s baptism. For example, if a baptized Methodist or Evangelical Christian wanted to enter the Roman Catholic Church, we would not re-baptize that individual because we recognize a common baptism by all Christians. The same cannot be said for Mormons.

A reader sets me right on one thing:

Just so that you know Andrew, most Mormons hated the Passion of the Christ.  Mormons have a very strict policy of no watching R-rated movies. Those who did generally hated it. You are right – Romney will fail over a few things: racism, Joseph Smith, and temple ceromonies (including his Mormon underwear). Imagine him trying to explain the underwear issue to the public.

I had no idea about underwear. Is this an urban legend? Or is there something to it?

The task of American democracy tackling the kind of issues that were once the province of South American countries has now begun. The authorization of war crimes, torture, and illegal wire-tapping by this administration needs to be thoroughly investigated in order to hold more than a few scapegoat grunts responsible. The definitive proof is in the hands of the administration – and they have a constritutional duty to hand it over to the Congress. Since the Bush administration has repeatedly said that they have never authorized torture or war crimes, then they presumably should be eager to hand over the critical, relevant documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee in order to exonerate themselves as quickly as possible. According to the president, he has never signed any memos authorizing torture – so what does he have to lose?

The usual arguments will be made about "national security" requiring complete secrecy. But these are not operational secrets that the enemy can use. These are documents that may or may not reveal techniques that have already been exhaustively documented in public, and that any enemy with a modem knows about in full. The only secret is: who signed off on them, and when? The fundamental question is not the content of the memos so much as who authored them and what exactly did they sign off on?  Money quote:

Justice Department officials have long said they will resist efforts to require disclosure of classified documents that provide legal advice to other agencies. But in the interview this week, Mr. Leahy signaled that he expected the department to provide a fuller documentary history on issues like detention.

The senator’s letter to Mr. Gonzales requested "all directives, memoranda, and/or orders including any and all attachments to such documents, regarding C.I.A. interrogation methods or policies for the treatment of detainees." It also sought an index of all documents related to Justice Department inquiries into detainee abuse by "U.S. military or civilian personnel in Guant√°namo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison or elsewhere."

We need proof of Bush’s, Cheney’s, Rumsfeld’s and Gonzales’ direct involvement in turning the United States into an international pariah on questions of prisoner abuse and torture. Then we need justice.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

After a deluge of emails from readers insisting that Mormons are indeed Christians, all I can say is that they are Christians of a very different stripe than most others. The strains between evangelical Christians and Mormons are real, have always existed, and will empirically play a part in restraining some evangelical Christians from supporting Romney.

For a website devoted to evangelical support for Romney, however, see this page. Since the galvanizing force for Christianism (not Christianity, I might add) is the imposition of public policy criminalizing all abortions, banning all legal protections for gay couples, and banning embryonic stem cell research, the theological issues do not seem to me a huge problem for the Christianist Popular Front. Look at the Christianist movie, "The Passion of the Christ." It united Catholics and Protestants and Mormons in the culture war. I suspect that Christianism will trump Christianity in Romney’s case, but a minority of Christians who do believe that theological correctness is the central criterion for public office will probably abstain. (A Clinton candidacy alone would save Romney. If it’s a choice beteen a Mormon and the Anti-Christ, most Christianists will pick a Mormon).

The bigger problem for Mormons in public office – especially national public office – seems to me to be the long period of racial discrimination in the Mormon Church. While the founder, Joseph Smith, was an abolitionist (after some early prevarication), his sect subsequently banned all African-Americans from the Mormon priesthood. (For Wikipedia’s discussion of this history, click here.) Brigham Young, whose eponymous university Romney attended, was particularly emphatic about God’s damnation of Africans and African-Americans:

Almost immediately after the death of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young returned to the old rhetoric concerning African Americans and the curse of Ham. Brigham Young actually subscribed to another common, although less popular theory that the descendants of Ham were also the descendants of Cain, Ham having married a woman of that race … Some scholars interpreted the mark placed upon Cain as the black skin of the African peoples.

President Young remained very strict in his interpretation. He believed the curse included not only priesthood restriction but also black skin and perpetual servitude. He believed the curse could be removed only by God and that the Civil War effort to free the slaves was in vain. He believed that the Civil War would destroy the United States and spread to every nation until the Saints could return to Missouri and build a temple in Jackson County. The slaves could be freed only by a decree from God by revelation to the prophet accompanied by the removal of the mark of Cain. It was not expected before the millennium.

The first statement linking priesthood denial with the curse of Cain is dated February 13, 1849. It was given by Brigham Young in response to the question, "What chance is there for the redemption of the Negro?" Young responded, "The Lord had cursed Cain’s seed with blackness and prohibited them the Priesthood."

President Young never cited Joseph Smith for the source of his doctrine but stated it in his own authority as a prophet, even in the name of Jesus Christ on a least one occasion, as did multiple apostles, including Parley P. Pratt and Heber C. Kimball. In 1852, while addressing the state legislature, Young stated: "Any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain]…in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spoke it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it."

They only changed this position as late as 1978! Romney was part of a church that barred blacks from the priesthood for his first 31 years. The church policy was amended when expansion into Brazil made racial classifications for the priesthood almost impossible because of such high levels of miscegenation.

Of course, other Christian churches also exclude groups of people from the priesthood. Catholics still bar women, and, since last year, also celibate gay men. But the racial exclusion for such a long period of time is unique to Mormonism,  so far as I know, and the racial question in America is still extremely potent. The only sect I can think of as equivalent is the Nation of Islam – in reverse. I don’t know if Romney has addressed the question of Mormon racism in its historical practices, or whether he has a record of opposing it in his twenties, when he was a missionary for a racist church. But it strikes me as a matter that will require addressing. It sure won’t help increase African-American votes for the GOP.