Category: The Dish

On Father Mychal

An Australian reader writes:

Being a foreigner it may be presumptuous of me to suggest this, but having seen that photo of the late Father Mychal Judge several times over the past few years since 9/11, it strikes me odd that such a perfect embodiment of loss and sacrifice was never turned into the definitive memorial statue for that time and place. Especially as even after more than 5 years, 9/11 still seems conspicuously lacking in any meaningful memorial.

I don’t understand how this picture didn’t capture the same kind of sentiment as the Iwo Jima flag raising, and how it didn’t result in the same kind of spontaneous popular response years ago. Perhaps bringing it to the attention of the WTC Memorial Foundation committee could be one of those rare unifying jobs for the blogosphere, which might even help justify its existence.

The answer, alas, is that Mychal Judge was a gay man and a priest. And no gay man, however heroic, would be given such an honor in today’s America. Gay men – especially gay priests – are beneath inclusion in the official history of America. One day, maybe. But not yet. If you are interested in Father Mychal’s astonishing life of service to God and his fellows, the documentary "Saint of 9/11" is eye-opening. His death was reflected in a lifetime of love and sacrifice.

Vile

That’s the only word to describe Senator Boxer’s ad feminam attack on Condi Rice yesterday. There was a trace of homophobia to the smear as well. This kind of attack is like the "chickenhawk" smear and worthy of low-life liars like Michael Moore. We really should be able to debate national security without the politics of personal destruction. The senator should apologize. Today.

Condescension and Anger

Here’s one enraged response to this post:

I just have to respond to the reader who basically put down most if not all but a handful of the opposition to the war. Sure there were a lots of people on the "left" who were screaming "no blood for oil" or who "associated themselves with vacuous slogans, wanker academics and unreconstructed anti-globalists who fear corporations and hate trade" but by no stretch of the imagination did that encompass all those on the left.

When will you and other conservatives get it though you thick heads, not to confuse the vocal, squeaky wheels with the quiter people like me and many, many others?  At no point did I, and a good number of those I know who didn’t support the war, ever talk in terms that your obtuse reader and even yourself sometimes think. I am sick and tired of this lazy shit. I opposed the war because it was patently obvious that that Bush wanted to go to Iraq for his own reasons and was using 9/11 and WMD as an excuse.

I am not one of those "flaming lefty," pacificifist, whining liberals that Republicans love to label those who don’t reflexively agree with them. I am not against war per se, but war is serious business. There are consequences, unintended and intended. People die and they often come home in boxes. You don’t undertake war by lying, you don’t undertake it without an honest look at what you may be getting into, you don’t undertake it without a look at all the possible outcomes, you don’t go in undermanned and without all the best equipment you can offer to the people who are going to do the fighting and dying. I saw all of this and so did others.

And on another note, I have not had all that much problem with the lack of WMD intelligence as it is as much an art as it is a science – but I have had a problem with them deliberately cherry picking what they know to be bad intel from suspect sources, despite (or in spite of) warnings from those people whose job it is to  make sure intel is as good as can be determined. I have a problem with this administration deliberately making a decision based on their own preconceived notions without an honest look at the facts, and this applies to a whole host of things and not just Iraq.

Point taken. And I agree with almost all of this. But it doesn’t detract from my continued opposition to those Michael Moore elements that dominated the rhetoric of the anti-war forces before the war, many of whom opposed the war in Afghanistan as well. Another reader takes another view:

Your succinct observation of so many of the anti-warriors’ "reflexive hostility to American power, partisan hatred of Bush, and blindness toward Saddam’s atrocities" comforts me insofar as I’ve lately lost any sense of anchoring conviction on your part against the long-term threat of radical Islam.

I honestly believe that a main component of our response to that threat must be dogged, blunt perseverence despite the Bush Administration’s many costly mistakes in conducting this war. That is the message I took from Bush’s "surge" speech: dogged, blunt perseverence. More importantly, I believe it is the message taken by our adversaries both inside and outside Iraq.

It has been said that in all of history’s great campaigns and great battles, there are moments when each side believes it is beaten–and that victory goes to the side that wills itself through these pivotal moments of doubt. Is it possible the current Iraq campaign is at just such a moment? One wonders what is the real state of confidence of Iraq’s insurgents and their supporters? It can only have been diminished by the prospect of an American "surge."

I wish it were diminished. I fear this president has actually given them much of what they were hoping for. In fact, fear bin Laden might have drawn the most solace from the prospect of the U.S. military being poised to alienate both Sunnis and Shia in Iraq – and to inflame global Muslim sentiment even further. But, hey, we’ll see. I should say this, though it goes without saying. I hope I’m wrong and the president is right. I really do.  Nothing would give me more pleasure than the thought of our actually constructing a viable national government in Iraq and turning back the tide of Islamist terror. But I’m not clinically delusional.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad

Troopsjohnmooregetty

John Burns provides, as usual, indispensable analysis. But this paragraph, buried by the NYT, leapt out at me this morning:

A Shiite political leader who has worked closely with the Americans in the past said the Bush benchmarks appeared to have been drawn up in the expectation that Mr. Maliki would not meet them. "He cannot deliver the disarming of the militias," the politician said, asking that he not be named because he did not want to be seen as publicly criticizing the prime minister. "He cannot deliver a good program for the economy and reconstruction. He cannot deliver on services. This is a matter of fact. There is a common understanding on the American side and the Iraqi side."

Views such as these — increasingly common among the political class in Baghdad — are often accompanied by predictions that Mr. Maliki will be forced out as the crisis over the militias builds. The Shiite politician who described him as incapable of disarming militias suggested he might resign; others have pointed to an American effort in recent weeks to line up a “moderate front” of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political leaders outside the government, and said that the front might be a vehicle for mounting a parliamentary coup against Mr. Maliki, with behind-the-scenes American support. [My italics.]

If this is the case, this president is lying to us once again. It’s one lie too far. If all of this is a ruse to depose Maliki and attack Iran, the constitutional consequences of a runaway, duplicitous president are profound.

(Photo: John Moore/Getty.)