Category: The Dish

"As someone said the other day, there seems to be a pattern. It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush," – Senator Hillary Clinton, in Iowa.

Stephen Bainbridge blogs after two weeks in New Zealand. In Britain, James Campbell wonders if Gordon Brown’s next as a cashiered incumbent.

Grover endorses Bruce Fein’s constitutional amendment. I agree with the spirit but I’d much prefer to leave the Constitution alone. There’s already an option for those who don’t want the wives or sons of former presidents taking office: don’t vote for them.

If you’re looking for the results of the 1980s Video Contest, they’re all here.

I just found out that the Clinton campaign contacted the Stephanopoulos show before the airing this morning to ask who would be on the round-table to counter me. I’m flattered. But, jeez, I’m just a writer. It’s not like I work for a candidate, or, have ever worked for one like the, er, host. (Who, as a journalist, I might add, seems extremely even-handed to me.) As for balance, Cokie Roberts made a case for Clinton as a feminist change-agent on the show. Whether she or I were persuasive enough is for the viewers to judge.

Maybe the Clintons are merely concerned that some of the arguments in this essay are gaining more traction out there. If so, good. If you’re interested, "Why Obama Matters" can be read here, or is available on newsstands in the new Atlantic.

I do not know exactly who Bilal Hussain and do not know for sure whether the wild claims of the bloggy lynch-mob seeking his imprisonment are in any way merited. That’s why the justice system exists – in both civilian and military contexts. It exists to ensure that the guilty are correctly identified, and factual claims substantiated and weighed by an impartial system. Alas, under this president and during this war, these notions have become largely moot. This strikes me as a real outrage:

In the 19 months since he was picked up, Bilal has not been charged with any crime, although the military has sent out a flurry of ever-changing claims. Every claim we’ve checked out has proved to be false, overblown or microscopic in significance. Now, suddenly, the military plans to seek a criminal case against Bilal in the Iraqi court system in just days. But the military won’t tell us what the charges are, what evidence it will be submitting or even when the hearing will be held.

From what I hear behind the scenes, almost all of this is fueled either by animus or by an attempt to save face by the military, which internally concedes it has nothing to charge Hussain with but circumstantial hysteria. It does the US no good at all if the country’s international reputation is increasingly one that is at ease with kangaroo courts, is happy to detain individuals indefinitely without charges and then seeks, as in Gitmo, to construct "trials" that are mere Potemkin shows to exact revenge on enemies, real and imagined.

Dave Weigel makes a good point:

Earlier this week Mike Huckabee told reporters he was the only presidential candidate who’s seen a steady surge of support. Not true: Ron Paul has decisively broken from the 1 percent/margin of error ghetto into, at the very least, spoiler status. RealClearPolitics still doesn’t include Paul in all of the averages, but 4.5 percent in Iowa, 6.8 percent in New Hampshire, and 7.3 percent in Nevada. The latest South Carolina poll puts Paul at 8 percent. David Bergland, the (disastrous) 1984 Libertarian Party candidate for president, is overjoyed.

My italics. C’mon, guys. Be fair.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 4 pm.

I’ll be on the George Stephanopoulos show tomorrow morning.

"In a direct sense, the carnage on Wall Street is all about the great housing slump. This slump was both predictable and predicted. “These days,” I wrote in August 2005, “Americans make a living selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from the Chinese. Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a sustainable lifestyle.” It wasn’t," – Paul Krugman yesterday.