Category: The Dish

As his nomination and potential presidency loom larger, the opposition in some quarters gets weirder. Novak:

According to this activist, at the heart of the let-Obama-win movement is longtime Virginia conservative leader Michael Farris — the nation’s leading home-school advocate, who is now chancellor of Patrick Henry College (in Purcellville, Va.) for home-schooled students. Best known politically as the losing Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1993, Farris is regarded as one of the hardest-edged Christian politicians. He is reported in evangelical circles to promote the biblical justification for an Obama plague-like presidency.

The Black Death?

Noam says Obama shouldn’t debate McCain in unmoderated forums:

McCain has several big disadvantages vis-a-vis Obama. He faces a massive enthusiasm gap and will have trouble attracting large crowds. He’s in all likelihood going to be massively outraised and outspent, making it hard to get his message out. And, possibly as a result of the previous problem, he’ll be cast as a right-winger determined to continue George Bush’s policies.

The unmoderated debates would help him overcome all three problems. They’ll draw big crowds and generate lots of buzz. They’ll help him get his message out for free. And, just by virtue of appearing frequently at Obama’s side and having a civil debate, they’ll make him look much more moderate than the Obama campaign wants him to look.

A bear for Obama.

"The Geneva Conventions were set aside in February 2002 by decision of the president, at the insistence of Doug Feith and a small group, including some lawyers. And the memo by Donald Rumsfeld then came in December, 2002, after they had identified Muhammed al-Qahtani. But it was permitted to occupy the space that had been created by clearing away the brush work of the Geneva Conventions. And by removing Geneva, that memo became possible.

Why does it abandon American values? It abandons American values because this military in this country has a very fine tradition, as we’ve been discussing, of not doing cruelty. It’s a proud tradition, and it’s a tradition born on issues of principle, but also pragmatism. No country is more exposed internationally than the United States. I’ve listened, for example, to Justice Antonin Scalia saying, if the president wants to authorize torture, there’s nothing in our constitution which stops it. Now, pause for a moment. That is such a foolish thing to say. If the United States president can do that, then why can’t the Iranian president do that, or the British prime minister do that, or the Egyptian president do that? You open the door in that way, to all sorts of abuses, and you expose the American military to real dangers," – Philippe Sands.

The meme that she could have won if she’d done the white blue-collar schtick earlier is belied by a simple point: John Edwards had that covered.

A fascinating interview with my colleague, Jeffrey Goldberg:

Obama and I spoke over the weekend about Hamas, about Jimmy Carter, and about the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community, and about the influence Jews have had on his life. Among other things, he told me that he learned the art of moral anguish from Jews. We spoke as well about my Atlantic cover story on Israel’s future. He mentioned his interest in the opinions of the writer David Grossman, who is featured in the article. “I remember reading The Yellow Wind when it came out, and reading about Grossman now is powerful, painful stuff.” And, speaking in a kind of code Jews readily understand, Obama also made sure to mention that he was fond of the writer Leon Uris, the author of Exodus.

“I remember reading The Yellow Wind when it came out." No wonder he’s having trouble in some parts of Kentucky.

If you missed it:

Take a bow, Charles Murray:

What accounts for the decline of ideologically mixed localities? Bill Bishop, a journalist, and Robert Cushing, a sociologist, who have studied this issue, stress that the age of “white flight” to the suburbs is over. Instead, during the past two decades, many whites have moved to one group of cities and many blacks to another. Meanwhile, young people have deserted rural and older manufacturing areas for cities like Austin and Portland. Places with higher densities of college graduates attract even more, so that the gap between such communities and less-educated areas widens further. Zones of high education, in turn, produce more innovation and enjoy higher incomes, generating communities dominated by upper-middle-class tastes. Lower-educated regions, by contrast, tend to be more family-oriented and more faithful to traditional authority.

The Bell Curve‘s fear of an increasingly divided and stratified society – based on intelligence and education – keeps coming closer to reality.

Carrboro, North Carolina, 7.57 pm.

A glimpse to make a theocon’s blood run cold:

So I’m sitting at the kitchen table around 1:30 when my 16 year old daughter finally gets up. I’m reading the Times with a Starbucks’ latte on the table along with the remaining two petite vanilla scones and my MacBook is blaring Castro’s "Over the Rainbow". I’m a single dad and we have a very honest relationship and I should note she’s an officer in her high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.

She hits the mute on the Mac and says "Dad, you know that if you wanted to date men it would be OK with me". She put the volume back on and asked me to make french toast while she took her shower.

Television got a lot more gay-inclusive in the last month or so as well.