Category: The Dish

Here’s an intriguing, constructive idea for calling the executive to account for violating the FISA law.

Our power. It frightens me.

Inevitable, I guess.

I’ve fulminated against the GOP’s embrace of massive public spending increases for years now. Jonathan Rauch does much more and explains how the DeLay Machine of big money, lobbyists and congressmen, has made reducing government impossible. Money quote:

"No one should be surprised that political entrenchment militates against governmental reform. One-party rule always turns reactionary. Still, the 2006 budget cycle is important for three reasons. First, conservatives finally realized they were captives of their own machine. Second, they rebelled, passing a package of entitlement cuts for the first time in eight years. Third, their rebellion proved not how much they could accomplish without Democratic votes, but how little. DeLay’s fortress is conservatism’s prison."

Seriously, read this column. It’s the most piercing analysis yet of how today’s Republicans have destroyed yesterday’s conservatism.

In full – thanks to Iraq The Model. The good news – and I’d say it’s very good – is that the Sunni Arab parties have made serious gains, more than I expected. Juan Cole notices some Shiite rhetorical positioning. I’d place more emphasis on the following:

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the country‚Äôs largest Shia party, told The Associated Press in an interview that Sunni Arabs must accept the ‘new reality’ in Iraq and shoulder their responsibility to rebuild the nation nearly three years after the collapse of Saddam’s Sunni-dominated regime.

‘Every day we are getting closer to accepting this reality. But there are some groups that will not accept this,’ al-Hakim said, citing religious extremists and Saddam loyalists. ‘Those people will continue confronting the government…Those people should be confronted firmly by the government.’ …

‘The important thing is that they [Sunnis] believe there is a new reality in Iraq,’ al-Hakim said. ‘The doors are open to them and no one wants to confront, harm them or deprive them of their legitimate constitutional rights. They are our brothers and they will get their rights.’

May the dirty deal-making commence. And let’s hope Zalmay can arm-twist real concessions for the winnable Sunni center. Bit by bit, there’s still a chance for success. And this, of course, is a critical lever against Iran. I don’t buy the idea that a democratic, federal state in Iraq is somehow a boon to Iran, just because the biggest Iraqi group will be Shiite. Our best hope in Iran is not what we can do; but what the Iranian people can do to topple their deeply unpopular theocracy. The example of democratic pluralism next door is a real threat to the mullahs. And would be a real shining light for the democratic resistance. Persistence, persistence …

Kevin Drum notices a fascinating nugget: the more education you have, the less likely you are to support a swift withdrawal from Iraq.

First Prada and Gucci. Now this:

"The pope who wears Prada has a new set of chic custom wheels.Pope Benedict XVI, who has made headlines with his high-style red designer loafers and his Gucci shades, is tooling around the grounds of Vatican City in an electric car outfitted in luxurious Natuzzi Italian white leather."

Just white leather? No ermine trim this time?

I know my job is to come up with a solution. Apart from doing everything we can to support and aid the younger generations of Iranians who want the West’s freedom, I can’t see many feasible options. Sanctions may hurt the next generation and barely dent the regime’s hold on power. A military invasion would be all but impossible without a drastic overhaul of the defense budget and the Iraq occupation. Air-strikes might delay nuclear advancement, but couldn’t stop it. Iran’s maniacs have played their hand shrewdly. Still, I can link to a couple of pieces that have helped me think through the opposite sides of the debate. Here’s Simon Jenkins, in a pretty clear case for what can only be called appeasement. And here’s a full-blown argument for military invasion. Michael Ledeen is a broken record, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t right and worth listening to – like, say, two years ago. I wish I could come up with a third way. Maybe a reader can.

"[This] is political porn for every conservative who knows where to find it." – David Adesnik, on a new profile of Markos Moulitsas, the man who’s doing so much to ensure that the Republicans stay in power for ever. Enjoy.

A reader demurs:

One of your readers neatly summarized the Post-PC mindset: “if you offend everyone, you offend nobody”. This is in fact a deeply nihilistic attitude, and the popularity of Post-PC humor derives directly from the feeling of most people I know that the world is totally out of control. This sensibility holds at its core that offending everyone is acceptable and funny because nothing matters, nothing has any value, and the there is nothing which is beyond the pale. It is a very liberating outlook, because there is no need to examine your own attitudes or beliefs, because any action or statement is acceptable.

While I am no apologist for the ultra-sensitive PCistas, I believe that there are such things as right and wrong, whereas those who write Post-PC shows assert the opposite, or at least assert that those who try to demarcate right and wrong are clowns.

I don’t dispute that some of the post-PC humor is a response to a sense that the world is spinning out of control. But I think it’s not so much nihilism as the latest cultural adjustment to the astonishing diversity of modern life. It doesn’t preclude the idea of right and wrong. It just brackets it, like much humor, while it laughs at our mutual differences. I think that’s a sign of cultural health, not sickness. But then I’m a fan of modernity, which appears to be a lonelier position than it was only a short time ago.