Category: The Dish

Manzi on the marriage ruling:

I am skeptical that gay marriage is part of a process of social breakdown, but lots of people disagree with me.  We have differing theories.  I accept that I might be wrong, or at minimum wrong for some times or places.  It seems to me that the best way to answer this question is not to yell at each other, or even to see who can write the most elegant and persuasive books, but to let different groups of people voluntarily try different approaches and see what actually happens.

Americans have a healthy aversion to telling other people how to live.  Only about 30 percent of Americans support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Why don’t we try letting people live how they want to live, and let others try to impose uniform national rules on a heterogeneous population of 300 million people?

Are two states out of 50 really too much?

Danny Finkelstein on John McCain’s suggestion of a US-style Prime Minister’s Question Time. Danny used to prep John Major and William Hague – not that William ever needed much prep in debating (or jokes).

The president pissed him off:

Well I want to be perfectly clear with George Bush and John McCain – if they want a debate about protecting the United States of America, that’s a debate I’m ready to win, because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for.

"…in the Bush-McCain worldview, everyone who disagrees with their failed Iran policy is an appeaser. And back during his “No Surrender” tour, John McCain said anyone who wants to end the war in Iraq responsibly wants to surrender; he even said later on that he would be ok keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years, but yesterday he said our troops could be home by 2013. He offered the promise that America will win a victory, with no understanding that Iraq is fighting a civil war. Just like George Bush, his plan isn’t about winning, it’s about staying, and that’s why there will be a clear choice in November: fighting a war without end, or ending this war. Because we don’t need John McCain’s prediction about when the war will end – we need a plan to end it.

As I said, Bush just gave Obama a gift that will keep on giving. The more that McCain and Bush engage in this dated anything-but-us-is-unacceptable-appeasement nonsense, Obama will win. Do Bush and McCain think we’ve been asleep for the past seven years? How dumb do they think we are?

(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty.)

A very American sentiment:

They’re rattled, aren’t they? I’m still baffled that people still take the most disastrous political strategist in modern times in any way seriously.

His bid for Cameronism works with Democrats.

From Colorado, another mind-blowing attempt to micro-manage nature:

On Tuesday the group Colorado for Equal Rights submitted 131,245 signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot that would define a fertilized embryo as a person. Voters will decide on the measure that would amend the state Constitution to extend a fertilized embryo equal rights and protections. It would define "any human being from the moment of fertilization" as a "person" for purposes of the state’s constitutional provisions "relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law."

Do they have any idea how many such persons die of natural causes in one fertile woman in a year?

"Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor," – Mike Huckabee, joking about the possibility of shooting Barack Obama. He meant no harm, but given American history, he may regret that remark.

Totten on Yon. I’ve been struck by a few recent movements in Iraq, especially Maliki’s resilience. It seems to me that the core conservative position on Iraq needs to be skeptical and empirical. That means constantly reviewing our judgments in the wake of new facts and a basic truth: just because George W. Bush supports something doesn’t mean it’s inevitably bullshit. Just likely bullshit. But in Iraq, things appear to be getting more complex and less obviously doomed. It helps no one not to see this, least of all the troops. The long-term consequences of staying there indefinitely remain awful. But the possibility of a less traumatic departure needs to be grasped if we can.

Just asking. The way they do.