Category: The Dish

Some amazing new photos from Hubble via NASA.

In response to my thoughts on the pope, Michael Dougherty writes:

“This was not an accidental omission,” is a slippery phrase. Does Sullivan mean to imply the pope tacitly approves of U.S. torture? He should use plain language.

“His own priests” is also delightfully non-specific. Is Sullivan saying something about the pontiff’s time as Bishop of Munich (in the 70s), when he would have been in charge of priestly formation in his diocese? If it refers to the recent scandals, when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this is equivalent to pretending the secretary of health and human services should have devised an exit-strategy for Iraq. There are plenty of people to blame in the Church for what is euphemistically called the "abuse-scandal" – Benedict is not one of them.

“In return, the president refused” is even stranger, as if to say that Bush thought, “Hey Benny, thanks for not taking me out to the woodshed over that torture thing. I’ll do you a solid and not accuse you of covering up child-rape.”

One of Mark Shea’s readers remarks on the same post:   

The funniest part is that those who fear theocracy are the same people who are bashing the Pope for not smacking down Bush. If the Pope gets involved in American politics, it’s theocracy. If he doesn’t, he gets blasted for not condemning torture. B16 cannot win. Thankfully he does what he does regardless.

Two responses: anyone who believes that Benedict has no responsibility for the crimes the Church enabled while he was the very apex of ecclesiastical power is in willful denial. Yes, Benedict was the protector and ally of Bernard Law, the man who delayed holding Maciel to account for years, and the careful architect of the strategy to displace blame by holding celibate gay seminarians responsible. He is a man who even now argues that the broader culture is really responsible for the criminal cover-ups in the church he helped run for decades. As for Mark Shea’s reader, torture is not a political intervention. It is a profound, universal moral issue that the whole world knows is at the core of what is rotten in the Bush administration. Benedict punted in speaking truth to power. He is as much a politician in this respect as Bush.

(Photo: Benedict XVI and his inseparable aide, Georg Ganschwein, by Franco Origilia/Getty.)

A reader writes:

Vladimir Nabokov may have had a touch of clairvoyance. His novel Pale Fire’s entire structure is the posthumous publishing of a character’s (believed to be unfinished) poem and the self-appointed editor’s extensive commentary about said poem.  The commentary has little to do with the poem itself, but rather focuses on the editor’s quest to find himself in the lines of a poem that is clearly not about him.  It’s Nabokov, so naturally it’s more complicated then that, but there is a definite sense that Nabokov considers one man’s interpretation of another man’s work to be more about the interpreter then the interpreted. 

Presumably, Dimitri Nabokov, who is also a writer as well as a translator of his father’s work, will provide commentary since The Original of Laura was never finished.  While I’m sure that Dimitri will serve his father’s memory far better then Charles Kinbote served John Shade in Pale Fire, I couldn’t help but think about that novel and think that Dimitri publishing his father’s work is much more about him then it is about Vladimir.

That being said, as a person who just adores Vladimir Nabokov’s work, I would have had a very hard time destroying his words.  I do feel for Dimitri, although I would hope that I would have followed my father’s wishes.

From the WaPo:

… when Bill Clinton was a less impressive version of Barack Obama. Via Drudge, this is a classic NYT piece from 1992:

Eventually, most of the superdelegates are likely to back Mr. Clinton, if only because there is no place else for them to go. But they will do so "with extreme reluctance," one said, and the delay and the grudging spirit makes it harder for Mr. Clinton to move his campaign onto a higher plateau, free of character issues.

It’s a useful reminder that many people saw the moral deficiencies of Bill Clinton long before Ken Starr poisoned the wells. And that young and new candidates will always – and not unreasonably – prompt bouts of buyers’ remorse, skepticism and scrutiny.

A reader writes:

I just read your blog posting on Limbaugh’s view that he is responsible for Hillary’s win in PA. I am one of the individuals that changed his/her party registration from Republican to Democrat.  I did this because the Republican ideals of rational government, fiscal responsibility, and states’ rights over federal rights have been thrown out for religious fanaticism, federal control over every action, and spending out of control.  I changed my registration to vote for change…to vote for Obama.

It is cute that Limbaugh saw that the electorate is upset with the Republicans and made up this Operation Chaos as a means of attempting to jump on the band wagon, but the underlying effect is clear. People are not changing from Republican to Democrat to assist the Republican Party in the fall.  They are changing their party registrations because they lost faith in the Republicans to lead.  If Limbaugh and others do not wake up to this fact, they will be given another great election result such as 2006.

 

Operation Chaos should be called Operation Smoke Screen.

That’s what the Hannitys and Buchanans and Kristols don’t get: the next generation just isn’t trapped in the 1970s:

"Harold and Kumar’s attitude toward racism is more frustration at having to deal with idiocy than moral outrage. We try to create a world where racism is stupid."

Not evil, stupid.

The graphic on the costs of Obama’s and Clinton’s proposals from the WaPo editorial page is a useful and sobering one. The bottom line:

While both Democratic candidates would spend far more on new programs than Mr. McCain would, the Republican’s proposals for new tax cuts dwarf the Democrats’ plans. The Democrats are clearer than Mr. McCain — though that’s a relative term — about how they would foot the bill. Still, no one’s winning any awards this campaign season for fiscal responsibility.

The lack of courage on both sides is pretty dispiriting. Meanwhile, the debt mounts …

A reader writes:

Now that I am recovering from the Pennsylvania Hangover, I thought I would share how I have resolved myself to this continued drama, as one of your typical readers.
 
Since it is painfully obvious that She Who Must Not Be Named is going to take this battle into Denver (if not into November, as Jon Stewart "joked"), I that it is not the cowardice of the superdelegates to put an end to this, but the nearly unspoken necessity of sitting back and allowing the Clinton Campaign to play it out to its tragic conclusion. To allow that campaign to hang itself. Otherwise, Clinton will be a "victim". Again. This time it would not be the Great Right Wing Conspiracy, but their own party that has denied them. By allowing her to undeniably LOSE this nomination, with as little manipulative involvement possible, she will be forced to accept the truth of the matter, without relying on conspiracy excuses. She and her supporters can not be allowed to lose this with the slightest possibility of feeling robbed.

There is the possibility that she will irreversibly bloody Obama up before the end, and that would be part of the Greek tragedy of the Clinton legacy. However, as much of a shame it might be to sacrifice a "new voice" in politics, at least a destructive voice in present day politics might finally be silenced.

The key truth about the Clintons is that they are strongest when being attacked. It was Gingrich that gave Clinton purpose and direction in the mid-1990s; and it was Ken Starr who gave them a life-line in thr late 1990s. They are geniuses at pivoting off those who attack them. So the real answer to the Clintons is to let them collapse on their own terms, to watch them fail to get the necessary votes and delegates to win and desperately try to leverage the constructive forces of their opponent to gain back the White House.

Every push against them only strengthens them more. Obama needs to restate his core positive message, reach out to independents, Republicans, Hispanics, blacks and the young, and get out of the Clintons’ sociopathic path. You only get bloodied if you fight them. And watching them self-destruct, slowly and by their own efforts, is the only way they will not turn defeat into some kind of Pyrrhic victory.

And when they finally go down under the weight of their own cynicism, what a joyous day that will be. That day is coming. And a new hope lies beyond it.

A shrewd observation about Senate Dems from a Kaus reader.