The Dish

McCain’s Straight Talk Express with the Christianists manages to tick off supply-siders.

"Most Americans recognize immoral behavior when they see it. The others merely choose to ignore or support it to be seen as tolerant. Can you imagine if this nation was to become tolerant of stealing or killing? Rule of law is what has made us a great nation. There have been, for years, laws prohibiting homosexual behavior. We once had laws that found adulterers guilty of a crime as well. There are still laws in many states against such acts. We just choose to ignore them. I guess if you don’t like the law and you have a large enough lobbying group, like the gay community, you can just ignore the law and do what you want? I guess adultery is very acceptable now days? Not to me it isn’t. It is wrong," – Craig R. Smith, pining for the days when you could get criminally prosecuted for adultery.

A great anecdote from a recent story in the Boston Globe magazine, about New England Patriots owners, Myra and Robert Kraft. Kraft has some diamond-studded Super Bowl gold rings:

As Kraft tells it, she and her husband were in St. Petersburg with Sandy Weill, then the chairman of Citigroup Inc., their ‘good friend’ the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, an oil executive, and a physician. That group, all except for Kraft, met at Konstantinovsky Palace with the Russian president, and when she next saw her husband in their hotel room, he confessed he had a problem.

"They were getting up for formal pictures, and Sandy said to Robert, ‘Why don’t you show the president your ring?’" she says. "So Robert never wears the ring, [but] sometimes, in certain instances, he’ll have it in his pocket, he’ll take it out. Putin put it on his finger, and his first comment was ‘I could kill someone with this,’ which was a little bit of an unusual comment, and then they took pictures, and Putin put it back in his pocket and walked out."

He’s trying to mend fences:

In keeping with his "big tent" philosophy, McCain told CBN News that he’s trying to reach out to moderates, liberals and religious conservatives. He believes that his overtures toward key religious leaders are significant.

"I have had meetings with [Southern Baptist Convention President] Dr. Richard Land. I have met with Reverend Jerry Falwell. I have had good conversations with [Evangelical leader] Reverend [John] Hagee. There are many others. Now I have not had a conversation with Dr. [James] Dobson because he has said he prays that I will not be the nominee of the party. I’m not sure where we start the conversation."

McCain has had a rocky relationship with religious conservatives going back to 2000, when he branded the Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance." Many Evangelicals have been wary of McCain ever since. Brody asked McCain, "Do you regret saying it? Do you feel like you need to apologize for it at all?"

McCain responded, "I’ll give you some straight talk. I was angry after what happened. Many of them were traced directly to many in the Evangelical movement. Not overall, but there was a professor at Bob Jones University who told CNN that John McCain had to prove that he didn’t father illegitimate children. That’s not the way. So of course I was angry. And sometimes you say things in anger that you don’t mean. But I have put that behind me. It’s over. And it’s something that happened, it’s finished and I move forward not back."

(Photo: Mario Tama/Getty.)

I feared that last email had to be too good to be true:

I just couldn’t let this one go.  The recent post on HRC has me all up in arms.

Yes, HRC helped defeat a pro-gay Republican, Mike Fitzpatrick, and elect Patrick Murphy to Congress. Former Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) supported ENDA, supported ending DADT and allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, voted for hate crimes, and voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment. Fitzpatrick had lots of gay support.  In fact, just before Election Day, the Log Cabin Republicans held an event for Fitzpatrick in New Hope, PA.  It was very well attended.

If HRC’s priority is electing Democrats, then they did a good job in PA.  But if their priority is to help candidates who support LGBT issues, then their working to defeat Mike Fitzpatrick ought to cause outrage.

Punishing pro-gay Republicans: sounds like HRC.

I linked recently to some slivers of positive news about the surge and a poll that suggested that most non-Sunni Iraqis still believe that life is better than under Saddam. The latest poll provides some grim background. Again: I think it can be misleading to look at what "Iraqis" think; the perspectives are very skewed along sectarian lines:

Most Shiites and Kurds say things have improved in their lives and for the country overall; fewer than one in 10 Sunnis agree.

To my mind, the critical number is the following:

Despite U.S. efforts to promote the emergence of a free-standing Iraqi government and political system, 59 percent of Iraqis said the U.S. government "controls things in our country," up from 24 percent who said so in 2005. The percentage of those who say that the Iraqi government is in control dropped from 44 percent in 2005 to 34 percent in the current poll.

So as time goes by, the government’s power seems to be decreasing in the eyes of Iraqis, as U.S. responsibility sems to grow. Alongside this, over half thinks it’s acceptable for others to attack U.S. forces. That’s up from 17 percent in 2004. So the Iraqis feel free to see the US attacked, believe we are part of the problem, but don’t want to see us go quite yet. No wonder Condi Rice is asking for patience. One would need the patience of a saint to endure this for several more years.

A lament for the decline of the citizen-soldier. I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing a lot more about Blackwater in the months and years ahead.

Cofradia, Honduras, 7 am.

A reader writes:

I’ve been watching with much interest as a HRC Federal Club member as you have taken on the financial transparency of the organization. Thank you for leading the way because I’ve had a wary eye as this organization has wrapped itself in a cloak of info-tainment as the work of gay civil rights has marched on, particularly with marriage.

I write, however, to give you pause. I live in a moderate Pennsylvania suburb of Philadelphia where we elected our first Democrat in a long time named Rep Patrick Murphy. It was an upset over a solid Republican Mike Fitzpatrick – a good guy with a good record. Murphy the Iraq war veteran, however, won here with nearly two years of wearing down his shoe leather – a remarkable campaign in a county filled with discontent about the war. Nonetheless, Murphy embraced the gay community here. He came regularly to The Raven, the only gay gathering place in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County area. And he also sought me out at Pride Events in Philadelphia. Consistently, he has verbally supported civil unions and gay marriage.

HRC has supported him and he has attended HRC events along the way. What I’m saying, Andrew, is that HRC has given a political forum and source of fundraising to a very gay-friendly congressman. The man won in November, and that’s a very good thing thanks to his hard fought campaign, and support from people like me and my spouse, as well as HRC’s financial and grass-roots supoort.

Really, the support of candidates can work. And yes, HRC needs more transparency. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Agreed. The question is simply how effective the support is, how focused it is, and whether the group is as ethical, transparent and accountable as it should be. In the last election cycle, Tim Gill’s group did exactly the same thing – to greater effect and with far less overhead.

If you’re an economic and fiscal conservative, Clinton’s record beats Bush handily. Daniel Mitchell has a good piece making the case here. Money quote:

If Clinton and Bush were graded solely on the basis of fiscal policy, one could argue that their tax and spending records offset each other. But there are other important issues, and Clinton clearly wins the tiebreaker.

Take trade, for example. At best, Bush has a mixed record. The Central American Free Trade Agreement is a step in the right direction, but his steel tariffs and agricultural subsidies are examples of anti-trade initiatives. Clinton policy was unambiguously pro-trade, however, largely because of the approval and implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that also launched the World Trade Organization.

Clinton gets a better grade on regulatory policy, as well. Bush signed into law the prohibitively expensive Sarbanes-Oxley law, as well as a market-distorting energy bill. The Clinton years, by contrast, saw the burden of regulation reduced on numerous sectors of the economy, including agriculture, financial services and telecommunications.

Clinton also beats Bush on federalism. He signed a welfare reform legislation that ended an entitlement program and reduced the central government’s power and authority. On education, Bush went the other direction. His No Child Left Behind Act increased federal control over an area that properly belongs under the purview of state and local governments.