Category: The Dish

When Michael Ledeen and Kevin Drum agree, they may be onto something. Me? I think it’s a natural and somewhat predictable call on the chess board. Mr Ahmadinejad, your move.

I haven’t commented because I’m waiting for the official report. This context, while in no way excusing what may have happened, is nonetheless worth considering.

This is pretty embarrassing.

Kevin Drum observes some cracks in the Christianist movement – and some nastiness as well.

The stock price for the New York Times hit a new low today. At $24, the stock has lost around half its value in three years. (Hat tip: Steve Bartin.)

Another book; another hideous title. And check the blurbs. My favorites:

"Did you ever want to know – I mean really know – how and why America is being transformed from a unified, Judeo-Christian society into a divided, false, murky, neo-pagan culture?" РJoseph Farah.

And this, from the usual suspect:

"Now watch the cockroaches run for cover," – Michelle Malkin.

When political debate is reduced to describing your opponents as "cockroaches," then it’s fair to say there is no civility left. How bad does it have to get before civil conservatives disown this type of rhetoric? Or are there really no enemies to the right any more?

It’s not just the religious right that does it.

"Bob Wright describes how a combination of a) a third party in laptop (such as the effort reported by Jon Alter) and b) a timely dropping-out could lead to a quasi-parliamentary negotiated government and radical, elite-driven reforms. … The semi-paralyzing complexity comes when there isn’t one party in a laptop but five of them," – Mickey Kaus, today. Was that in English?

A reader responds to the email from a soldier in Iraq:

I would ask your erstwhile military reader that if a car bomb in Detroit today killed five policemen, as happened today in Mosul; if the president was forced to declare a state of emergency in Dallas because 140 people were kidnapped and killed this month, as was the case in Basra; if a priest was gunned down in Washington D.C., as was the case today in Baghdad where a Shiite muazzin was killed; if the major of a Westminster, Md., was killed by a bomb hidden in his air conditioner, as was the case in a city 60 miles north of Baghdad today; if jittery police forces fired upon and killed two women, one of them pregnant, north of the capital – if all of these related events happened in the United States this day, May 31 – a day after another 54 were killed by a car bomb in Washington – do you think the news media would, or should, report that despite the violence, all was well in most of America?

"I think it’s largely true that the GOP is picking up the gay marriage card as a cynical ploy during an election cycle. If you think gay marriage is the threat to Western Civilization many Republicans claim, why wait to talk about it at election time? If gay marriage isn’t a big enough deal to actually do something about it before election season rolls around, why campaign against it at all?" – Jonah Goldberg, stating the obvious.

One small point about the charade next week. We have had equality in civil marriage for a while now in Massachusetts. It’s the only state that allows it; and no other state has been forced to recognize such marriages. Long-standing constitutional and legal precedent, as well as the 1996 "Defense of Marriage Act", prevent that. In contrast, seventeen states have passed amendments to their own constitutions, preventing gay couples from having any legal rights at all. Five more have such amendments on the ballots this fall. By definition, no state court can affect those constitutions. Maybe at some distant point in the future the Supreme Court will rule on this. But the idea that SCOTUS, with Roberts and Alito on high alert, is going to pull a Roe vs Wade on marriage for gay couples is paranoia verging on fantasy.

So what exactly is wrong with the process as it has played out? In a diverse country, states get to decide their own marriage policies, as has always been the case in the U.S. The FMA or MPA is essentially saying: this process is irrelevant. Why? Why should there be a federal imposition of a single rule on a question which provokes genuine disagreement? On an issue where public opinion is in flux, and where the next generation seems to have a very different view than seniors, it is prudent and conservative to let states take the lead. Besides, no one believes the FMA stands a chance of passing. So why take valuable time to debate something federally that has already been debated and dealt with by the states? We know the answer: it’s a naked political attempt to appeal to some voters by whipping up fear and prejudice against others. It’s despicable – and a sign of how degenerate American conservatism now is.