Category: The Dish

The MSM wakes up. But you read blogs, so you knew this already:

Carville stands by his remark. By the way, did he ever clear up whether he was working for the Clinton campaign or not? Last time I checked, there was a question about his veracity on that point.

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

More of this John Updike poem here.

A reader writes:

I have to agree with the reader who commented on the tone and content of the Dish pre and post Obama’s speech on Race (and ultimately Faith) in America and on your own assessment of Obama’s great strength.  He gives us permission to be flawed, to sometimes contradict ourselves, to "flip-flop" when facts force a reassessment of previous positions, to have controversial bedfellows, to love the sinner.  Above all else, Obama is teaching me to be less judgmental.

If I’m going to ask the Right to move beyond the Wright soundbytes and examine the man’s full resume, I must do the same with people like Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Pastor Hagee.  It’s been so easy to dismiss these pillars of the Christian Right as hate-mongers and bigots based on soundbytes posted throughout the liberal blogosphere.  But clearly their messages are not limited to the demonization of gays and abortion-providers or they would not have developed such enormous support.  If I truly believe in the decency and honor of the American people, I must assume that the millions of Americans that congregate to these churches are going because these men inspire them in some way and provide a positive spiritual message.

Obama’s message inspires me to question my own biases and assumptions, to keep an open mind about people with whom I disagree, and to stay positive.  Obama has even inspired me, a life-long agnostic, to consider exploring some congregations in my community. Not because I’ve suddenly "found God", but because I see in his experiences the value that can be gained from involvement with the spiritual community.

I have been thinking along the same lines. I do know, for example, that James Dobson, for example, has done good for people, even though he has also demonized people like me and my husband. This Easter, I found myself forcing myself to ask whether I have also been too quick to condemn on the bases of soundbites. I’m not saying that opposing the worldview and hatefulness of some statements from the religious right is in any way wrong. I’m saying that Christians have an obligation to try and see the good others do as well – and to realize that we are all a mix of good and bad.   

How they did it.

Peggy Orenstein considers the rise of mixed race identity in America:

Of the seven million Americans who identified themselves as mixed-race in the 2000 census (the first in which it was possible to do so), nearly half were under the age of 18. Almost 5 percent of Californians now identify themselves as mixed-race; by comparison, fewer than 7 percent are African-American. Hawaii, Obama’s childhood home, is the most diverse state in the Union: 21 percent of residents identified as “Hapa,” a Hawaiian word meaning “half” that has gone from being a slur against mixed-race Asians to a point of pride — and has increasingly been adopted by multiracials of all kinds on the Mainland.[…]

More than anything, though, Hapas remind us that, while racism is real, “race” is a shifting construct. Consider: Would Obama still be seen as “black enough” if the wife by his side were white?

And don’t get my husband started on why Tiger Woods — whose mother is three-quarters Asian and whose father was one-quarter Chinese and half African-American — is rarely hailed as the first Asian-American golf superstar.

Race is thrust on Hapas based on the shades of their skin, the shapes of their eyes, their last names. (Quick: What race is Apolo Ohno? How about Meg Tilly? Both are half-Asian.) But ethnicity, an internal sense of culture, place and heritage — that’s more of a choice. Cultivating it in our children could be the difference between a Hapa Nation that’s a rich, variegated brown and one that fades to beige. I know that challenge firsthand. Because we are trying to raise our daughter as bicultural, much in our family is up for grabs, from the food we eat — and what we say before and after eating it — to the holidays we celebrate to whether we call her rear end a tushie or an oshiri.

My Sunday Times column last week was on the future fusion of TV and the web. Michael Hirschorn has a longer, nuanced take:

As TV and the Internet converge into something generically known as broadband, the distinctions between the two will soon become nugatory from a consumer point of view. But will this resulting hybrid be more like TV, plus interactivity; or more like the Internet, plus TV? The distinction will be worth billions to whoever gets there first and organizes this mess in a fashion that’s satisfying for consumers. The networks and cable companies, therefore, will need to move quickly to find a way to package the different streams—professional and user-made, broadcast and Internet—into a huge, interactive library, all easily and pleasingly accessible on demand and portable to whatever device people are overpaying for at that moment.

From Dan Radosh.

Hilzoy questions McCain’s tax cuts:

The Gordon/Kvaal report estimates the cost of these changes at $2.17 trillion dollars over ten years. They think their estimates are conservative: for instance, they do not count increased spending on debt service. The Wall Street Journal, everyone’s favorite bastion of radical leftism, writes: "In all, his tax-cutting proposals could cost about $400 billion a year, according to estimates of the impact of different tax cuts by CBO and the McCain campaign." That would make the cost over ten years $4 trillion. […]

Let’s pretend that McCain’s advisor is right, and earmarks really do cost $60 billion a year. And let’s ignore the fact that some of those underperforming programs might actually be useful programs that should be reformed, not eliminated. The problem is: that still leaves $130 billion a year to make up, if you accept the Gordon/Kvaal report’s figures, or about $320 billion a year, if you accept the WSJ’s.

And that’s without taking into account the costs of paying for that hundred year war McCain keeps talking about, rebuilding the army, paying for veterans’ health care, or anything else we might take it into our heads to do.

An interesting contrast between his views on Wright and Falwell, and whether good deeds can eclipse bad words. Money quote on Wright:

HANNITY: Reverend Lawson, with all that we’ve heard from Reverend Wright, do you support everything he has said? LAWSON: Of course not. I don’t support everything anybody says, even members of my own family. But I do recognize him as a friend, as a prophetic preacher and as a person who has been extremely valuable, not only in Chicago but nationwide, almost globally. He is a good man.

HANNITY: He is a good man that says G.D. America, the U.S. KKK of America, all of these statements. Do you think that’s coming from a good man?

And on Falwell:

HANNITY: I’m sure you’re perfect in your life and that you’ve never made any mistakes.

HITCHENS: I’ve never committed treason like that. I don’t believe in the sincerity of his apology…

HANNITY: I knew Reverend Falwell, Christopher. I know the good work that this man has done.

HITCHENS: Tell me about it.