Category: The Dish

Harvard has an online test to see who you really like for president. It has to do with reflexes and positive associations. I’m a little jet-lagged and out of it, but my own score gives McCain a slight lead over Obama in the depths of my psyche. And yes, I disliked Huckabee more than Clinton. Just.

The wind is at his back.

Krugman on Bernanke. Krugman has predicted gloom for a very, very long time. This time he may well be right.

Josh Marshall is loving it. Happy birthday.

We will never have a vaccine for HIV. The resources directed toward it might well have been better spent on prevention and better treatments. Maybe a therapeutic vaccine to ameliorate the immune response of those already infected – but nothing like a vaccine the way we normally think of it.

A reader writes:

Aussies follow all-things American pretty closely.  Interesting, it seems as though older Aussies are more comfortable with Hillary – indeed excited by her – whereas younger Aussie’s are very much behind Obama.  They recognise the global PR coup that would be won by an Obama victory, and they’re caught up in the charisma he has to offer as well.

Keep in mind that yesterday, the Australian government officially apologised to the Stolen Generation, those indigenous – black – Australians who were stolen from their parents in an effort to "protect" (read "whiten") them from the 1930s into the 1970s.  In a way, Obama’s success represents a hope for reconciliation, renewal, and rebirth for this country as well.

Prime Minister Rudd’s Apology was received as the type of refreshing leadership they sought when they voted for him. Obama represents that same hope and potential leadership, and this, no less, in the form of a black man!  Talk about progress!

Keep in mind that Australia is also very much a part of Asia.  The woman who sits next to me is Indonesian.  Everyday with excitement and great anticipation, she asks me how Obama is doing.  She says Indonesia loves him – this, the world’s largest Muslim nation, and Australia’s closest neighbor.  Not only does she think that Obama would be good for America, but she’s convinced that Obama will be very good for her country.  She very much hopes that Obama will one day visit Indonesia and address them in their tongue.  What better wan to win favour with the Muslim world than elect as our leader someone who can so easily bridge such a troublesome cultural and political divide.

What is it? A public service movie against meth abuse? Well, you know you want it:

"Oh yes, we are well aware of Senator Obama’s morally unacceptable position on abortion. No Catholic can or will endorse the taking of innocent life. Indeed, conscience could not just dissuade, but directly preclude, casting a vote in his column. However, Catholic moral teaching enjoins us to work to transform the culture in every vineyard, not just those that are friendly. And Senator Obama has courageously and intriguingly opened a window of opportunity for important conversation across faith traditions, by reminding us that "we should not use faith as a wedge to divide, but instead use faith to resolve cultural tensions and mediate conflicts rather than engage in a politics that exploits them and drives us further from a solution …
To date, Senator Obama has kept the essence of his campaign at the level of the statesmen, which is why many Catholics, including myself, find this to be a favorable comparison to the memory of Ronald Wilson Reagan," – Douglas Kmiec, responding to Ramesh Ponnuru, in NRO.

His orthodox Catholic defense of Obama over McCain can be read here. I don’t agree with all of Kmiec’s views, but I do believe that Obama’s sensibility and public conduct are appealing to most of the Catholics I know.

Clinton 44, Obama 42. Those kinds of numbers suggest an Obama victory over all.

The English language will never be the same.