Category: The Dish

Here’s an amazing part of a sentence from Mark Levin at NRO:

In sum, John McCain has been weak on homeland security, joining with numerous liberal Democrats to argue for closing Guantanamo Bay, applying the Geneva Conventions to unlawful enemy combatants, extending certain constitutional rights to detainees, limiting tried and true interrogation techniques …

Let us be quite clear here: among those "liberal Democrats" urging the closing of Gitmo can be counted president George W. Bush. Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions has always applied to every prisoner, unlawful or otherwise, captured in wartime. And the only interrogation techniques McCain has opposed are all those that are not in the Army Field Manual, i.e. all those that are not "tried and true" in the United States. The "tried and true" techniques Levin favors have been tried and found "true" by the Gestapo, Stalin and the Khmer Rouge. That is now whence American conservatives like Levin now draw their traditions. The word "fascist" flatters them.

The opinion of another shrill hysteric? Just David M. Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO:

In a speech today at the National Press Club, he said, "If the federal government was a private corporation and the same report came out this morning, our stock would be dropping and there would be talk about whether the company’s management and directors needed a major shake-up."  Walker urged greater transparency and accountability over the federal government’s operations, financial condition, and fiscal outlook…

"The federal government’s fiscal exposures totaled approximately $53 trillion as of September 30, 2007, up more than $2 trillion from September 30, 2006, and an increase of more than $32 trillion from about $20 trillion as of September 30, 2000," Walker said. "This translates into a current burden of about $175,000 per American or approximately $455,000 per American household."

Full (PDF) report here.

Some bloggy reax: Larison (blech), Scott Johnson (yay!), Brody (hmmm), Jim Johnson (grrr), and Rick Moran:

This would almost certainly put McCain within striking distance of a shocking victory – a win that may very well deliver a crushing blow to the Romney campaign.

In my dreams. Reding:

McCain has some real momentum behind him now, and as 2003 demonstrated, the guy who’s languishing in the single digits can become the frontrunner overnight.

Uncle Jimbo:

National Security, Smaller Government and Judges are my issues. Both McCain and Lieberman are very solid on National Security, and I don’t know that either would be too bad on the other two as well. The fun would be how this would mess with the Congress. They could play both ends against the middle and just the total disruption of the status quo would be healthy for our democracy.

Ross ensures that Huckabee isn’t singled out.

Heilemann on Huckabee:

Huckabee’s brand of populism isn’t nearly as strident (read lunatic) as Buchanan’s. But to describe it as watery doesn’t do it justice. Huckabee’s posture on matters of taxing, trading, and even faith represent something shrewder: Buchananism minus the bombast, the paranoia, the out-front efforts to court the clenched-fist-and-camouflage crowd. And in this regard, the message and the messenger are the same—which could well make them more formidable, and no less disconcerting, than Buchanan and his gospel were in 1996.

"I am reminded of a comment once made by a former university professor.  In the 1950s colleges were quite conservative places.  Kooky, weirdo beatnik Marxist professors weren’t hired, much to their indignation.  Eventually, though, the political tide turned and these individuals began making their way onto the faculty.  Then, as they got tenure, they began to hire only people like themselves. As such, today we find a complete reversal of the zeitgeist—leftist kooky professors are the norm, whereas libertarians and conservatives are a distinct minority.

The inmates have taken over the asylum.  And, unfortunately, the exact same thing has happened to the conservative movement.  It’s gone topsy-turvy, from a party which respected religion to a party defined by religion.  And until the James Dobsons and Pat Robertsons of the world are gone, the religious buffoons in this country (i.e. Huckabee voters) will continue to run the party and sully the good name of conservatism," – Lee at Right-Thinking.com.

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"You mean: who the hell does this "uppity negro" think he is? Even I picked up on that one."

Oh come ON. Whatever your opinion of Bill and the Rose interview, there was nothing in the exchange that in any way suggested a specifically racial slant to Clinton’s argument. Nothing. Point out one thing Clinton wouldn’t plausibly have argued if his wife’s challenger was white but equally "inexperienced". If a Clinton supporter read gender discrimination into an attack on her in the way you’re reading race into Bill’s swipe at Obama, you’d be crying foul immediately.

There’s a case to be made against the Clinton campaign, but your arguments are sometimes really ridiculous – to the point that the enormity of the bias against her undermines the credibility of some entirely legitimate criticisms that can be leveled against her.  I loved your argument for Obama, but this kind of thing is precisely what sways her half-hearted supporters to become whole-hearted defenders.

I have to say it’s been a long time since I read an essay as ornerily brilliant as Kenneth Anderson’s in the current Weekly Standard. It will offend a lot of people – for all the right reasons. It’s a liberal (in the old sense) critique of Huckabee’s bigotry, Romney’s cynicism, leftist multiculturalism and Hitchensian atheism. And yes, it’s a defense of good-old liberalism: the notion that there is a critical distinction between the private and public spheres, that religious doctrines, in so far as they directly impinge upon public policy, are not beyond rational inspection, but that prudence (remember that virtue?) requires a civic balancing act between religious intolerance and the mindless multiculturalism that embraces all religions as equally valid. The essay is too complex and multi-faceted to summarize too quickly but this is the point that resonated with me most:

The firm demand of the state for conformity to neutral standards is what–contrary to the claims of the multiculturalists–provides the grounds of liberal toleration. There are many reasons, but the simplest is this: Taken together, the demands of religious groups for ever stronger and expansive special accommodations must eventually result in profound and antagonistic standoffs and conflicts. Indeed, we have gone too far with special accommodations for religions that depart from neutral governance.

The Christianists on the right and the multiculturalists on the left have combined to tarnish, destroy and delegitimize this notion of neutral governance. It may be difficult, extremely difficult, to achieve it in a pluralist modern world. But if we give up even trying to find a neutral, rational discourse in tackling our problems and engaging our politics, we will have entered down a path that will, in the end, extinguish liberal democracy.

I fear we are already far-gone, which is partly why I am drawn to Obama because he seems uniquely able to embody this old liberal balance. Forging a path between religious doctrine and identity politics is, to my mind, the great challenge we now face. (It is the subtext of my book, "Virtually Normal," which tried, and clearly failed, to chart a new politics of reason and public neutrality with respect to homosexuality.) That’s why it is such a relief to finally hear some words of caution from the right with respect to religious politics – and the bullshit Romney shoveled as a way both to disown it and exploit it at the same time.

I’m sorry it took the Huckabee-Romney spat to wake them up. But at least a few are finally opening their eyes.

Conservatism really is about a total ideology and life-style these days. Check out this pitch for a calendar with Star Parker as a cover-model:

Instead of, say, Paris Hilton gracing the cover in all her vacant glory, you see Star Parker or Michelle Malkin modeling the latest professional styles. And rather than being bombarded with teasers like “50 ways to make him want you,” your eyes are drawn to “10 policy positions that will make him crazy.” That would be worth your four dollars.

Readers are hereby invited to send in the top ten policy positions likely to make a man lust for Phyllis Shlafly.

"The president says: ‘The homeowners deserve our help.’ But why ‘deserve’? The principles of "compassionate conservatism" are opaque, but they might involve liberalism’s premise that Americans are so easily victimized they must be regarded as wards of government" – George Will, rightly berating Clinton and Bush. Obama, alas, is no better.