Category: The Dish

With apologies to Tom Lehrer.

Altogether now: awwww.

Like many other Christianists, Huckabee has invented history to suit his zeal:

During the Republican debate, Mike Huckabee said he believes one of the defining issues facing the country is the sanctity of human life. Arguing that the issue is of historical importance, he invoked the Declaration of Independence’s rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and said that most of the signers of the declaration were clergymen.

Er: no.

Only one candidate will really do:

While the Democrats are caving in to Bush’s demands on FISA and refusing to put a stop to warrantless wiretapping and much more, Paul is putting out bills like the American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007 (PDF).

This bill would repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006, restore full habeas corpus requirements, prohibit the use of secret evidence under all circumstances, and end the practice of rendition to other countries to torture terrorism suspects. It also would grant standing to Congress to sue the President over any signing statement that proposes that the President may ignore any provision of the legislation for any reason. An extraordinarily important bill that, sadly, has no chance of passing.

Larison is less impressed than Hitch:

What is the more specific purpose of the Awareness Week? It is aimed at confronting “the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat.”  So it isn’t really very much about “raising awareness” about anything as it is an obvious effort at pushing pro-administration spin.  The phrasing they use is also a bit confused, since the “war on terror” is officially the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and presumably they do want to credit Mr. Bush with that response.  What they probably meant to say was that Bush didn’t “start” the war with jihadis, but that isn’t actually what they said.

Robert Penn Warren got it right a while back in an interview Paris Review now has online:

INTERVIEWER: Do you feel that there are certain themes which are basic to the American experience, even though a body of writing in a given period might ignore or evade them?

WARREN: First thing, without being systematic, what comes to mind without running off a week and praying about it, would be that America was based on a big promise—a great big one: the Declaration of Independence. When you have to live with that in the house, that’s quite a problem—particularly when you’ve got to make money and get ahead, open world markets, do all the things you have to, raise your children, and so forth. America is stuck with its self-definition put on paper in 1776, and that was just like putting a burr under the metaphysical saddle of America—you see, that saddle’s going to jump now and then and it pricks.

A new twelve-step group goes where no twelve-step group has gone before.

An event promoter trips over himself.

The awful truth of campus life:

Matt reads the fine print. Yep: nothing specific there at all. With the Clintons, you always have to go back later and read the transcript very, very closely. They reflexively lie, the way other people breathe.