Category: The Dish

Mark Steyn’s "America Alone" and my "The Conservative Soul" are, in some ways, two rival defenses of two different types of conservatism. Steyn’s is far more popular on the American right at the moment. Canada’s "Globe and Mail" reviews both new books here.

Mrs Garrison explains Darwin, from South Park:

Portland, Oregon, 2.15 pm.

He tells my colleague, Mike Allen:

"The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I’d expected. Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard added to the general distaste that people have for all things Washington, and it just reached critical mass."

And Rove had nothing to do with Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard, did he?

No greater evidence that we are still at war with a very dangerous enemy:

"We are aware of numerous plots to kill people and to damage our economy," Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5, said. "What do I mean by numerous? Five? Ten? No, Nearer 30 — that we know of. These plots often have links back to Al Qaeda in Pakistan and through those links, Al Qaeda gives guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale."

Boring but essential human intelligence, surveillance with court oversight, greater attention to the borders, and keeping the pressure on al Qaeda in Iraq and elswhere: all these are part of the solution. But any complacency seems to me misplaced.

If you need to get spiritual for an extra keg, why not?

"Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions, in their highest ideals, hold dear. It degrades everyone involved ‚Äî policy makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation’s most cherished values. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable. Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed?

Let America abolish torture now — without exceptions," Рan editorial in Theology Today.

It will indeed be a test of the Democrats. They have a chance to revisit the military detainee bill, and amend it to show the world that there can no longer be any doubt that the U.S. does not torture anyone anywhere; and to declare that torture means what is has always meant, legally and morally: "the infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering" to get information. If the religious right wants to rehabilitate its tattered reputation, this would be a good place to start.

K-Lo gets all aflutter. It would make the choice easy, though, wouldn’t it?

They could do with some good Kazakh jokes right now:

I’m constantly asked about it, for some reason. Here’s an exchange in the new MW interview that may help clarify things:

MW: Given the case that you make in the book about the Republican party being taken over by fundamentalists who are so hostile to gays and lesbians, is there a point where it becomes ethically or morally wrong to be gay and Republican?

SULLIVAN: Having never been institutionally in the Republican Party, I never had to face that dilemma, but I’ve seen people who have. I was very proud of Log Cabin for not endorsing Bush in 2004. I think Patrick [Guerriero] did a spectacular job under insanely difficult circumstances.

I don’t know how gay Republicans can exist today unless they are actively out and actively fighting the forces within their party that are aligned against us. There is no space for, ‘I’m just going along to get along.’ No. We’re at war with these people, and they’ve made that very clear. The Mary Cheney option is contemptible at this point. Either you fight back from within – and I mean fight back from within, which is an honorable position to take – or you leave and fight from outside for the principles you believe in. But the coward option, I think, has to be called by its name. It is that. You’re enabling these people. At some point it’s sick. It becomes masochistic.

I’m never going to force that decision on anybody else, because I’m not judging anybody. But I’ve seen a lot of gay people in the Republican Party – just go to the Duplex Diner on Thursday night, it’s not like it’s a mystery. I know the strain that this has put on a lot of them and I know good people torn up about this. I just call them to stand up for themselves. That’s all I’m doing. We can sit here and we can judge and we can condemn, but as gay people we’ve been judged and condemned. Maybe we should be a little forgiving of one another, but at the same time, urging people to come forward and fight. It’s not easy. It’s never been easy. Our lifetime as gay men has been bewildering, to be honest.

But we dealt with it through this terrible plague as well, this hideous illness that struck so many people down. And the current younger generation I don’t think even understands what we went through, what we witnessed. For me that’s the fuel. The ashes of all the people I loved who are dead keep me going. I promised one of my best friends that I would not give up. And that’s still very much a part of my identity. I am a child of the plague and I will never, never forget that. For some of us, that changed us forever. It gave us a sort of intensity and drive that the younger generation cannot know because they are lucky enough to have escaped it.

(Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP.)