Category: The Dish

"A great majority of Germans remained faithful to their fuehrer, many of them to the end, and, it has to be admitted, quite a few even after the end. That, for a historian, is a puzzling situation. Stalin was feared by the Russians—admired by only a section of the population. Roosevelt was hated by many people in America. Churchill was hated by many people in England. But in Germany, you find adoration of Hitler — even after Stalingrad, even towards the end when everything was in ruins. The psychology of this I do not understand very well," – Saul Friedlaander, Dissent. It is the psychology of political theology, fused with unrestrained nationalism and hero-worship. And it’s far more powerful than many seem now to believe.

A new offense in Sweden, apparently, where a body-builder was forced by a cop to take a test for illegal steroids.

It’s hard to disagree with Andrew Cohen’s take in the WaPo:

For the defense, it’s further proof that if you can convince an American jury that a man in the dock had anything to do with al-Qaeda, you can pretty much bank on a conviction no matter how tenuous the evidence. And in this case, all the government’s resources were brought to bear upon this trio of (let’s face it) losers who were so inept as terror "trainees" that the feds gave up their trail in 2000…

For this jury, the simplest explanation was that these guys were up to no good. They were acting suspiciously (or at least not innocently). They were talking like spies (or at least not like relief workers). Teenagers are expected talk and text in code so that their parents don’t know what they are up to. Makeshift humanitarians are not.

None of this in my view necessarily justifies today’s verdicts — but it certainly in my mind helps explain them.

In the outrage some of us have expressed with respect to Padilla’s fate, it’s worth stating a few things that are often left unsaid. Defending Padilla’s rights as an American citizen to a fair trial is not the same as believing that terrorist plotters and cells should not be aggressively investigated and followed. It isn’t to say that we don’t have a legitimate interest that terrorists captured in a genuine battlefield in a foreign land be taken hors de combat. It is to say that if the war is to be conducted against American citizens and anywhere in the world, then such citizens must retain the protection of the Constitution and habeas corpus. It is to say that prisoners of war should be treated in accord with the Geneva Conventions.

It is to say that the power to wiretap by the executive must have a judicial check on it, to prevent abuse. It is to say that torture – under any euphemism – must become illegal again and taboo. It is to say that the purpose of imprisoning terror suspects is to prevent terror crimes and attacks, and punish crime and acts of war, not to create a pool of torture subjects for the purpose of intelligence gathering.

I am prepared to believe that the jury made the right call. But the path to that call remains indefensible. A reader put it best:

Leaving aside the torture issue (which is a big aside) I am not that concerned that Guantanamo exists.  Our military is capturing people on battlefields and they need to be placed somewhere.  I do think there needs to be a better procedure to determine whether those people are POWs or illegal combatants, but I do not want the military in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere to be fighting a police action.

But the Padilla case was different.  Here was a guy arrested by law enforcement inside the US (though, as he was at an airport, arguably legally outside the country).  He was not captured on a distant battlefield holding a rifle or even in the process of engaging in a terrorist act.  The fact it took the government three years to try him, and everything that happened in between is a travesty.

A reader writes:

I wanted to say how moved I was by the story you linked to in Indiana about Brett Conrad and Patrick Atkins. While it is a scenario I have certainly heard before, everytime it is personalized, it is painful.

I have been married to my wife for about a year and a half after a lifetime of doing whatever I could to avoid getting married, and she has really transformed my life. In that short time, I have become one of those irritating people who says "we" instead of "I." I can only imagine how I will feel after 23 more years of shared life. I never really believed in marriage, but now I do — and I have come to believe that there are really fewer injustices in our society more cruel than the apartheid-nature of marriage and marriage-rights. I guess this email is mostly about me, but opponents of marriage equality tend to argue that it somehow diminishes marriage if gay couples are included. It is obvious to me that it diminishes marriage when loving couples are excluded, and I feel that more now than ever.

I feel the same way. My marriage has been an immense source of joy and strength to me. To tell an entire group of children that they will never be worthy of this, that they are beneath such commitment, they they will never have a relationship as worthy as their perants’ is one of the deepest wounds anyone can inflict on another’s nascent psyche. We are changing this. But it has been a struggle. And it is by no means over.

A Pew report finds that media consumption hasn’t changed much in two decades:

On balance, there is scant evidence that during the last quarter century — despite major changes in the news "menu" — the American audience has moved toward a diet of softer news. News tastes have become neither less nor more serious since the 1980s.

But the Internet has given us all an opportunity to become better informed. And more effectively entertained at the office.

Scott Horton digs up a revelatory sermon from 1625.

And boy does he have rhythm. If you can’t hear, turn your volume up. And tell the boss it’s porn. Insect porn. (Hat tip: Sherillmix.)

I think criticism of my minimalist link to a Brit who died because the National Health Service refused him a costly, experimental drug is legit. I should explain what I was trying to convey with less Instapundit-style passive aggression. I guess what I’m saying is that the reality of healthcare in a world where technology is making the whole concept of health a relative and constantly shifting term is that there will always be limits. This will be the case whatever system we’re in. The cost of some new treatments, or procedures, or drugs will always exceed the capacity to pay for them for everyone who needs them. Someone will die or suffer because of this. It’s relative, of course. A few decades ago, there would have been fewer agonizing choices because we didn’t have such an amazing array of options. But it stings nonetheless.

The market enforces these limits by its usual brutal mechanism – price. A socialized system enforces it by its only real option – rationing.

For the patient unable to afford or get a critical treatment, it amounts to the same thing. The question is whether this unavoidable issue should be a function of politics or economics, whether government should make these calls or private entities, or whether some mix of the two works best. My hope in the post was to debunk the fatuous idea parlayed by Michael Moore that the only thing that stands between Americans and treatments for anything for free is the public-private mix we have in America. That’s untrue. My aim in pointing to a British example is to suggest that politicizing this process – having debates in Congress over who deserves what treatment and which politician is responsible for de facto murdering which patient by their votes – is a very ugly and divisive matter. It begins a process whereby government becomes once again our guardian and protector, and initiates greater and greater dependence on its largess and wisdom. Before we go down this path, it behooves us to observe those who are already on it.

So this is what it feels like? We decided on the most minimalist wedding possible – basically close family only. (We’ll have a bigger party for friends later). We’re getting married in the same place – a beach house – that we’re having the tiny reception. It’s a block down the beach from where we live. We have the license, the judge, the clothes, the menu, the photographer (although he hasn’t been in touch lately – gulp), and the rings. I’ve written out the civil liturgy. We’ve settled on the vows. I should relax now, right?

But last night it hit me for the first time that this is really about to happen. I guess I just put it out of my head until it’s only a matter of a week or so away. We’re effectively married and have been for quite a while. I have no jitters about our actual relationship. For me, this is for life. I have no reservations. But standing up in front of my family and my spouse’s and saying the vows out loud has me in a state of butterflies. I can go on TV and barely break a sweat, but I’m terrified of performing in front of my own family. I’m scared I’ll lose it. I bawled through the last same-sex wedding I went to. You fight for something, never expecting it to happen, let alone to you, and then it does, and it can overwhelm. Taking yes for an answer can be harder than no. Maybe it’s a function of having over-thought this issue for so long; maybe it’s just handling a big family occasion of any sort (Christmas is bad enough). Maybe it’s a lifetime in which my actual relationships have always been private, or so targeted by political enemies I’ve become very defensive. Maybe I’m scared that two decades of passionate advocacy in theory is easier than a simple act in practice. But whatever the reason, going public with my husband – even in front of our supportive families – is suddenly much tougher than I expected. My throat is a little dry. My stomach is a little unsettled.

My sister emailed support:

Don’t worry, it is natural to stress, I practically had a baby the day before mine! 75 to the church, another 75 in the evening, the food, the flowers, the photos, all those people watching me! On the day it just felt like a dream, I felt like I was letting out a huge breath all day, like that waiting to exhale, I exhaled all day and it was wonderful.

Our wedding is much smaller. My old friend and marriage advocate Evan Wolfson reassured me as well:

You’re supposed to be in a zombie-state till the beauty of it breaks through.

Are zombies nervous? They never seem to be. They just stagger forward. Oh, well. Here goes …

Whatever the polls say now, he’ll likely sweep the African-American vote in the Democratic primary. Mark Kleiman explains here. Newsweek recalls history:

Even though polls show that blacks still have doubts about Obama, he weathered similar skepticism in the 2004 Illinois Senate primary before winning nearly all of their votes. "He soared with elites initially," says Mark Blumenthal, who polled for Obama’s chief rival. "But it took until the last week of the campaign for blacks to decide." If they break his way again, says Blumenthal, Obama could ride a new black-upscale majority to the nomination.

In South Carolina, that could be critical. If Obama rivals Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire and then wins South Carolina, he could catapult to victory.