Category: The Dish

It appears to be crumbling. Money quote:

After he was arrested in 2002, Jose Padilla was considered so dangerous that he was held without charges in a military prison for more than three years – accused first of plotting a radiological "dirty bomb" attack and later of conspiring with al-Qaeda to blow up apartment buildings with natural gas.

But now, nearly a year after his abrupt transfer into a regular criminal court, the Justice Department’s prosecution of the former Chicago gang member is running into trouble.

A Republican-appointed federal judge in Miami has already dumped the most serious conspiracy count against Padilla, removing for now the possibility of a life sentence. The same judge has also disparaged the government’s case as "light on facts," while defense lawyers have made detailed allegations that Padilla was illegally tortured, threatened and perhaps even drugged during his detention at a Navy brig in South Carolina.

The Justice Department denied the allegations of torture last week and is pursuing an appeal of the conspiracy ruling in hopes that the charge will be reinstated.

So an American citizen, detained without due process for three years, accused of terribly serious crimes, and allegedly tortured, may not be found guilty, after all. And people wonder why many of us have concerns about the way the Bush administration has handled military detainees.

Hewitt leads the hysterics, as usual.

Brendan Nyhan pores over the record. Charles’ recent statement was that

Our objectives in Iraq were twofold and always simple: Depose Saddam Hussein and replace his murderous regime with a self-sustaining, democratic government.

But he once cited WMDs as the core reason. What happened? Or was this merely an oversight?

Why did Tori Amos not find a way to burn every copy of this? Heh:

Click here to see the other entries…

The NYT runs a very curious article today about Italian humor about the current Pope. None of the jokes cited seem to me to be very risque or even funny. The entire argument of the piece is undermined by lack of any real evidence that this pope is subject to any more ridicule than has historically been the case. Except of course for that photograph (see above). It shows the source of the actual jokes circulating in the Vatican and elsewhere about this Prada-preferring, Gucci-wearing, high-drama German intellectual. The actual jokes – which the NYT won’t print – are about how good looking so many of the men are who surround Benedict, especially his personal assistant, Msgr. Georg G√§nswein, shown holding the large phallic microphone in front of Benedict’s face. The Vatican gossip merchants call Georg "Gay-Org." He is inseparable from Benedict. And he surely is easy on the eyes. There is no evidence that Benedict has ever broken his vows of chastity; but there is no evidence that he is heterosexual either. Hence the gossip; hence the jokes. When you’re a Pope who declares that even closeted, chaste gay men cannot be priests, it’s pushing your luck to clothe yourself in Prada, bedeck your Pope-mobile with luxurious Natuzzi Italian white leather, and surround yourself with assistants who look like they strayed from the pages of "L’Uomo Vogue."

Butch it up, sister. Or the jokes will only get louder.

(Photo of pontiff and Georg by Franco Origlia/Getty.)

A reader writes:

The abolitionists certainly did accuse Lincoln of moral equivalence. Even the less radical anti-slavery men, like Horace Greeley, accused Lincoln of not taking the moral cause of slavery seriously enough as a component of the war. Consider Greeley’s famous letter to Lincoln pleading with him to make the war a moral cause. Lincoln’s reply to Greeley is very telling. He specifically separates the idea of personal conviction of morality (his "often expressed wish that all men, everywhere, could be free") with his offical morality as to his position as President. In his offical capacity, Lincoln is, of course, famously concerned not with slavery, but preserving the union ("If I could save the union by freeing some…"). But more telling is his attitude of doubt and his desire to change course when the facts merit:

"I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views."

That, to me, is the heart of Lincoln’s anti-fundamentalism: his willingness to consider opposing viewpoints and to adjust when times call for it. And it was what separated him from both the abolitionists and the southerners.

And it is what made him a conservative genius – on a par with Elizabeth I, James Madison and Benjamin Disraeli. You can read more about the Lincoln-Greeley relationship here.

San Francisco, California, 3 pm.

A reader writes:

I love your blog, but I think the Burke quote you used Friday is spurious. Here’s a quick and dirty analysis of its appearances online and its provenance. I know this essay isn’t the last word on the subject, and if you have better information I’d be very interested in hearing about it. In the past I’ve used the quote and this essay to start a conversation about evaluating sources with my freshman writing students. (The really bright ones pick up on the fact that this essay isn’t peer reviewed, either.)

Thanks for the info. Whoever coined it, it still makes sense to me.

There I was, naively wondering if it would be an option for the Bush administration. Now we find out the Baker Commission has been chatting with the Mini-Axis-Of-Evil power for quite a while. Money quote:

"What would it take Syria to help on Iraq?" the Syrian ambassador, Imad Moustapha, recalled Mr. Baker asking Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Muallem, during a meeting in New York at the Waldorf-Astoria in September. Mr. Moustapha described the session as "very promising."

Funny how we never found out about this before the election, isn’t it?

(Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP.)

"At this point, it seems almost beside the point to say this: The New Republic deeply regrets its early support for this war. The past three years have complicated our idealism and reminded us of the limits of American power and our own wisdom. But, as we pore over the lessons of this misadventure, we do not conclude that our past misjudgments warrant a rush into the cold arms of "realism." Realism, yes; but not "realism." American power may not be capable of transforming ancient cultures or deep hatreds, but that fact does not absolve us of the duty to conduct a foreign policy that takes its moral obligations seriously. As we attempt to undo the damage from a war that we never should have started, our moral obligations will not vanish, and neither will our strategic needs," – the editors of the New Republic.

(For contrast, you can read the cri de couer by Lawrence Kaplan. I’m not sure what he’s trying to say, except that he’s been to Iraq and some of us haven’t. Or does he think we’re winning?)