Category: The Dish

Why else would he not be wearing an American flag lapel pin?

Nicholson edits a strange YouTube backing Hillary. He thinks she’d be hot as commander-in-chief.

We gays have work to do. A reader writes:

You wrote:

So many sympathetic straights just don’t know the kind of inequality gays live with all the time. What does that say about the effectiveness of the leading gay rights groups?

Just this week, I attended a forum of candidates seeking the Democratic Party nomination to run for one of the seats to the California Assembly.  The candidates were asked whether they would vote for the Marriage Equality bill when it is introduced yet again. (It has been approved twice, and twice been vetoed by Schwarzenegger.)  Four of five said they will support the bill.  Almost as troubling as the one candidate who said he will not support marriage, was the reasoning of one of the supporters.

The supporter said that if gays and lesbians feel more equal because they can get "that piece of paper," then that should be the law.  The other comments he made demonstrated that he has no understanding of the very real legal and financial problems that have are created by the soup of varying partnership laws around the country and by DOMA’s ban on federal recognition of state civil union, domestic partnership and same gender marriage laws.

LGBT political groups have worked hard to convince politicians that they can safely vote for LGBT legislation, but appear not to have worked to educate them about why they should support these laws.  It’s disturbing.

A supporter holds a photograph of Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton as she greets supporters after she spoke at a caucus training summit at Fox Technical High School March 1, 2008 in San Antonio, Texas. With less than a week before the Texas and Ohio primaries, Hillary Clinton is campaigning through Texas. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

A reader writes:

I had to respond to the photo of the dead 5 month old Palestinian boy killed in the Israeli rocket attack.  The photo was a gut punch to me.

I am hardly an Arab/Palestinian sympathizer. Indeed, I am a fairly strong supporter of Israel.  But the tragedy of this innocent child’s death evoked deep sadness for me.

And I also was forced to recognize that as a father of two children under the age of three, were I that little boy’s father I would now be the most avowedly radicalized anti-Israeli fanatic on this planet.  I have no idea what that child’s father’s politics are;  indeed I recognize that they were probably strongly pro-Hamas even before this tragedy.  However, can anyone begrudge the man his anger and hate now? Can anyone really dispute the right of this child’s family to seek retribution against Israel?

Which of course evokes images of blown up Israeli civilians killed by Palestinian bombers.  Can anyone blame their families for demanding swift retribution?

The cycle of violence and killing seems intractable.  I know that forty years ago the same could be said for Northern Ireland, but there seems so little common ground upon which the opposing parties might try to bridge their differences to gain peace.  And with each succeeding year, more little children die or perhaps even more tragically they become vessels of hate and prejudice.

It’s enough to break one’s heart. 

A reader writes:

My friends and I have been talking about this, and we have another, perhaps more convoluted theory.  That terrorist organizations and (more specifically) their leadership, are motivated by rational behavior more than religious zealotry.  Zealotry is just the weapon, used by rational top-tier actors like Bin Laden.  The biggest goal of leadership is to maintain their power and the influence of their organization.  Thus, the organization benefits if it:

1. Is seen as the underdog

2. Has a seemingly invincible foe onto which it directs rhetoric and violence

3. Carries the support of an indigenous population

4. Can convince others that its mission is righteous

Recall that much of the world rallied behind us after 9/11, people and governments and old stale friendships and even enemies were moved by the destruction that day.  And the immediate steps we took directly after to freeze assets and other strategic maneuvers hurt Al Qaeda greatly.  While Al Qaeda certainly scored a "victory" over us on 9/11, how would other, similarly spectacular victories shift the balance of power?  What would happen if they were to detonate a dirty bomb in a major US or European city, or carry multiple repeat victories?

The delicate balance would shift.  They would no longer be the underdog, the David taking on Goliath–it would be extremely hard to maintain that illusion.  They would be viewed as out of control and dangerous and brutal to the populations that currently support them. Their foe–the United States–would lose it’s devilish, invincible nature, become beatable.  And their mission, viewed by the bulk of humanity, would be stained and less righteous.  The most recent example of this was the rejection of Al Qaeda by the Sunni minority in Iraq–they overstepped their bounds, lost the "liberator" illusion, and payed for it.

 

If you view terrorist organizations as rational actors, constantly working to cultivate a delicate balance that keeps popular indigenous support, nations from unifying and the underdog illusion alive, then it certainly becomes possible that part of the reason we haven’t seen a terrorist attack on US soil for 7 years is because they simply have chosen not to.

Clinton always plagiarizes, doesn’t she?

On a campaign phone call yesterday, John Dickerson asked the Clinton campaign, "What foreign policy moment would you point to in Hillary’s career where she’s been tested by crisis?" Take a listen to the audio.

Today is Robert Lowell’s birthday. From his classic "For the Union Dead:"

The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;
my hand tingled
to burst the bubbles,
drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.

More here.

It seems like Clinton took Bill Kristol’s advice.