The Dish

A fascinating analysis of how differently a trained artist and a trained psychologist look at the same image.

"I and a number of others were critical of president Clinton when he first came into office and almost immediately removed all U.S. Attorneys. But that’s not the same thing as what’s happening now.

We’re seeing a president in his second term go after U.S. attorneys of his own party for reasons that are clearly political: not moving fast enough against targets on the other side of the aisle, succumbing to pressure from Senators for example. That is very, very corrosive, both to morale for U.S. Attorneys as well as in terms of reducing the confidence that the public has that the system is fair and impartial and non-partisan," – former U.S. attorney, Bob Barr, a Reagan appointee who was a Republican congressman from 1995 to 2003.

A wild and weird internet adventure begins here – from the award-winning web artist, Jonathan Harris. (Hat tip: 3Quarks.)

A theory.

Here’s what they are telling emailers who complain about their lack of transparency:

Unfortunately, despite Sullivan’s promises to run our responses in their entirety, he instead edited what we wrote. So when we chose to respond, Sullivan did not post our actual responses on his blog. Instead, he has only used our attempts to engage him in productive dialogue as ammunition to further fuel his attacks on HRC.

This is a dodge. I published everything relevant but some throat-clearing from their first email, and subsequently even published the first two banal paragraphs, because they complained. I have provided their own explanation of their "membership" numbers; have linked to criticism, and wider coverage in the gay press. Their insinuation that I haven’t fully aired their response is unfair. On every substantive question, I have given them ample space to respond. But let’s put this behind us, shall we? I hereby publicly pledge to publish every word they send me without any commentary from me in response to the five simple questions I publicly asked here. As a blogger, I am publicly accountable for living up to such a pledge. Why won’t an organization dedicated to transparency take up the offer?

Their current member campaign is to force Peter Pace to apologize for his remarks. I’m fine with that, but isn’t it pointless symbolism? Why not a campaign to actually end the ban Pace supports? HRC gives you an opportunity to do so here. They call it "further action". Why not "immediate action"? Gay men and women are risking their lives for their country – and we can’t support them now? You can email HRC and ask if they support attaching a suspension of the ban to the next defense spending authorization bill.

Say goodbye to the stereotypes.

In your dreams, of course. But I hope the next president considers it.

(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty.)

Here’s a simple challenge to the Democrats. Your two leading candidates do not believe that homosexuality is immoral; another, Bill Richardson, is calling for an end to the ban on openly gay soldiers in the miiltary. Discharges for homosexuality are at a record low, as they often are in wartime, when gay soldiers are needed. (Isn’t that in itself a refutation of the policy? That the gay ban is more enforced when we are at peace? If gay soldiers are a real threat to military effectiveness, shouldn’t discharge rates go up in wartime?) The public overwhelmingly supports openly gay service. The U.S.’s closest allies, including Britain and Israel, allow openly gay people to serve. And the Democrats have an obvious opening to achieve this: attach an indefinite suspension to the ban to an upcoming defense spending bill. If HRC were more than a financial wing for the Democrats, they’d be pushing this proposal on the Dems right now. Many moderate Republicans might support it. Even Ramesh Ponnuru does. So why not?

I knew the piece would raise hackles. It did mine. But it was worth reading nonetheless, in my view. One reader sums up the views of many of you:

Sailer is culturally illiterate. Obama didn’t create the one drop rule that pervades American society, he just lives under it. He points to Tiger Woods as an alternative to Obama without mentioning that Woods is the exception, not the rule. His mother’s ethnic identity as an Asian undoubtedly informed his decision to dub himself Cablinasian (a distinction fraught with its own psychodramas–why Caucasian first?). As a product of a black/Asian family, his family history plays outside of the white-black narrative that pervades our national history and led to the persistence of the tragic mulatto in 19th century American fiction.

More relevant figures that Sailer might have mentioned if he were intellectually honest are Halle Berry and Mariah Carey.  Like Obama, they were the products of divorced black fathers and white mothers raised mostly by their white families.  Despite their being more fair-skinned than Obama and thus more likely to "pass," they have both been widely recognized as black, especially as they have gotten older (see: Berry’s Oscar triumph or Carey’s R&B/hip-hop heavy comeback).

This is not the story of a part-white man abandoning his family. It’s the story of a part-black boy, becoming a man, and realizing that his mother’s race didn’t matter much in the eyes of strangers. An article this ignorant of America’s racial history could only be pubished in Pat Buchanan’s magazine.

Another adds:

Sailer may have read Obama’s book looking for a slant. I have to assume you haven’t if you think his reading is any way correct. Barack speaks often in his book of the love and support of his maternal grandparents. He spent most of his teenage years with them.  When he discusses his late teenage and adults years and coming to grips with black identity, it’s hard for me to see that as ‘rejecting’ his white grandparents or white identity. I’m just an ordinary white guy, and the first few years out of my parents’ home and on my own were also a time for soul-searching and finding my own identity. I didn’t reject my parents as much as forge my own place in the world, and neither did Barack.

I haven’t read the book, but plan to. You can get it here and make your own mind up.