Category: The Dish

Perhaps the loudest voice in the Wright controversy has belonged to Fox News’s Sean Hannity. No one in the media has been more insistent that a politician’s choice of pastor is relevant to the campaign; and I cannot think of anyone more outraged by Wright and more determined that this should be a defining issue in discussing the candidacy of Obama. It seems to me worth pointing out therefore that Hannity himself had a candidate in this race not so long ago, and even headlined a fundraiser for him. That candidate was Rudy Giuliani.

It also happens that Giuliani has long been more attached to a pastor than even Obama is to Wright. Monsignor Alan Placa married Giuliani to his second wife, Donna Hanover, and is actually employed by Giuliani Associates. Placa has been credibly accused of serial molestation of teenage boys, was in charge of handling molestation accusations in Long Island in the heyday of the church’s cover-up of child abuse and was eventually suspended by the church from priestly duties for those reasons. The credible charges were made after the statute of limitations had passed and so no legal recourse was possible. But here’s the Associated Press last year:

"There’s ample evidence showing that Placa consistently protected predators, shrewdly deceived victims, and covered up horrific clergy sex crimes," said a statement from David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Last year, theocon Deal Hudson reported that:

The grand jury report includes excerpts from a letter in which Placa brags about his ability to settle multi-million dollar clergy abuse claims for "$20,000 to $100,000."… The suspension of Placa’s priestly duties has now reached the five-year point, far beyond the norm in such cases.

Here was Giuliani’s response when challenged about his continuing association:

"I know the man; I know who he is, so I support him. We give some of the worst people in our society the presumption of innocence and benefit of the doubt. And, of course, I’m going to give that to one of my closest friends."

How many hours did Sean Hannity dedicate to this story of his own candidate’s long-running association with and knowing employment of a priest who was an accused child molester?

This blogger reports one moment last December on Hannity’s radio talk show relevant to this issue. When a caller said she could not support Giuliani for president:

Hannity went ballistic, carrying on about how he’s the best on crime, talked about his handling of 9/11, etc. The caller interrupted him and told him that she could never vote for Giuliani because he has an alleged child molester on his staff.

Again Hannity exploded, telling her that he knew the priest was innocent.

In this campaign, as Ron Paul and Barack Obama have shown, exposing associations with unseemly words by close associates is on the table. But if those are the standards, is it not fair to ask Sean Hannity about his non-coverage of Rudy Giuliani’s long association with Monsignor Placa? Are dubious pastors only relevant when they are black and guilty of some ugly rhetoric? But not if they are white and credibly accused of molesting children?

There are signs that the Clintons can’t sell all the tickets to their Elton John concert. I’m still flummoxed why so many gay men, like Elton John, still support the Clintons. They should listen to David Geffen and David Mixner who have learned the hard way how the Clintons really think of gay issues.

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Marc considers the pairing:

I think the best way to look at an Obama-Bloomberg ticket is by noticing their complimentary traits. Obama isn’t much of an administrator or a details guy by his own admission, while Bloomberg is so concerned about Your Health and Welfare that he studies intently the ins and outs of congestion pricing and trans-fats. He’s a prime minister-type — although he brings an outsider’s sense of efficiency to the bureaucracy. Let Obama be the vision guy; Bloomberg could be the brass-tacts administrator.

The other argument coming out of Basra:

To the extent that the strategic goal of the Surge was to create space for political reconciliation, Basra’s descent into fighting is perhaps more evidence that this goal hasn’t been reached. At the same time, however, Surge advocates will be able to credibly make the argument, as I heard Fred Kagan make on NPR the other night, that what’s happening in Basra in fact validates the Surge strategy by showing what happens after a precipitous withdrawal of Western forces.

The Surge didn’t happen in Basra, after all, it happened in the Sunni triangle. In Basra, by contrast, British forces pulled out and left things in the hands of the Iraqis. If what is happening in Basra at the moment were happening in Baghdad, that would be much more damning stuff for advocates of the Surge. Instead, this descent into civil war is happening where our British allies pursued a strategy that is the complete opposite of the Surge.

Samantha begins to fight back.

Via Jason Pye, libertarian conservatives, alienated by McCain and queasy about Obama’s liberalism, may have a candidate this fall. Here’s the audio of the radio interview:

“There’s been a tremendous expressed to me both directly and indirectly on the Internet. I take that support very seriously, and I think it also reflects a great deal of dissatisfaction with the current candidates and the current two-party system. So it is something, to be honest with you, that I’m looking very seriously at.” Barr said a Libertarian candidacy would essentially be an extension of the Ron Paul campaign. “Ron Paul tapped into a great deal of that dissatisfaction and that awareness. Unfortunately, working through the Republican party structure, it became impossible for him to really move forward with his movement. But we have to have ….a rallying point out there to harness that energy, that freedom in this election cycle,” Barr said.

On Iraq:

“What we’ve fallen into in recent years — not just since 9/11, but particularly since 9/11 — is this notion that, in order to protect ourselves, we have to preemptively go into and — in the case of Iraq — occupy another sovereign nation,” Barr said. “Simply saying, ‘Gee, it’s better to fight over in this other nation and destroy another nation, so we’re not potentially attacked here, is the height of arrogance.”

As for the Bush administration’s refusal to define waterboarding as torture, Barr referred to the practice as “sophistry of the worst and rankest order.”

Actually it’s the town, Clinton, not the senator. But, given all the recent pastor hysteria, the Google headline made my eyes pop for a split-second. She has absolutely no connection with this sorry affair whatever.

The best anti-Clinton ad since the 1984 parody. Chilling and fucking hilarious at the same time:

Personal genomics meets facebook:

23andMe, a personal genomics startup in Mountain View, CA, is about to unveil a new social-networking service that allows customers to compare their DNA.

Nouakchott, Mauritania. 1.30 pm.