The Dish

"I believe [homosexuality] is a vital issue in the life of the church. The hope of wholeness and holiness of life is integral to the Gospel message. Jesus didn’t die on the cross to save us from throwing gum wrappers on the sidewalk or using the wrong fork to eat our tofu, he died to save our deepest selves from our darkest sins. And, because we are created with human bodies full of hormones and fallen psyches full of what my friend Bill Stafford calls "disordered affections," many of those deepest sins will involve our sexuality. We are not given new life and new power in Christ so we can do what we darn well please. We are not our own, we are bought with a price, says St. Paul. Therefore, he says, we are to glorify God with our bodies," – Episcopalian priest, Sam Pascoe, who quit the Episcopal Church over homosexuality and joined the Anglican Mission in America.

Pascoe was stripped of his clerical credentials on Monday, after an "inappropriate relationship" with an adult female parishioner. And the beat goes on.

Matt Yglesias diagnoses what may be behind some support for Giuliani. My own view is that political movements that are primarily motivated by what they are against rather than what they are for … tend to fail in the end. But they can succeed in the short term. Ask Karl Rove. Then think about the netroots left. Kinda similar, aren’t they?

Some analysis from Romney-watcher Liz Mair. The Boston Globe story is here. Money quote from Liz:

This document is going to irk those members of the Base who love George W Bush and revile anyone who calls him stupid.  According to the Globe, "the plan lists two ways Romney can set himself apart from Bush. The first says, simply, ‘Intelligence.’"

The fact that Romney’s campaign staff lend credence to the notion that the President is a blithering idiot is bound to irritate a lot of people.  Which I suppose in sum brings us back to the big, overarching point made in the document: as it stands, Team Romney does not think success is on the cards.  I’m not sure I’d be as dismissive of their candidate’s chances as Romney staffers seem to be, but then again, I’m not in the trenches, so to speak – so maybe things are just that bad.

"Who is losing Afghanistan? George W. Bush, that’s who. His watch. His administration. His incompetence. His arrogance. His failure to learn from failure," – Andrew Stuttaford, NRO. I’m with Andrew on the drug war insanity. You cannot fight drugs and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pick one or the other. 

The former veep defends himself.

The copy-editing dept, i.e. you, has sent me a memo. "Coup de grace" means a strike that tries to put a victim out of his or her misery. It does not mean what I wanted it to mean in this post. A reader elaborates:

If Cheney had been killed in the attack it might have been the coup de grace to the administration’s policies in the region. The attack may have been a coup de main; it was certainly a coup de theatre.

Obviously not my coup of tea.

The former Chief Justice prevented Hispanic voters from casting ballots in Pheonix in 1962. Newly declassified FBI documents fill in the picture. That much is clear. But was his judicial philosophy also designed to keep minorities from the polls? Here’s a negative view of Rehnquist’s legacy from Legal Times.

Phillip Weiss re-emerges in … The American Conservative, a magazine that’s getting hotter by the day. His thesis? That Carter’s vicious attack on Israel has been a net plus for the former president in the curren political climate. Money quote:

The conventional wisdom seemed to be that Carter had damaged himself, and badly.

But the fury has masked a quieter trend —nodding support for the president’s views across the country. The book still ranks sixth on the New York Times bestseller list three months after publication, and Carter has taken on a moral halo among progressives and realists, the shotgun marriage of the Bush years. Film director Jonathan Demme, who mainstreamed gay rights with “Philadelphia,” is making a documentary on the book tour. “NBC Nightly News” featured the former president breaking down in tears on a panel at the Carter Center when relating a story of praying to God to give him strength before he confronted Anwar Sadat at Camp David in 1978, when Carter forged an historic peace accord between Israel and Egypt.

“I think the attacks in some ways have made the book more effective,” says Michael Brown, a fellow at the Palestine Center. “It’s extraordinary, but when people oppose a book or a movie, and make a big fuss out of it, most Americans will say, ‘I want to know what this is about.’”

That’s Dinesh D’Souza’s game-plan as well. (Hat tip: 3Quarks. Photo: Former US President, and electoral observer, Jimmy Carter, speaks with candidate Daniel Ortega from the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in Managua, 06 November 2006. By Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)

Romney’s flip-flop routine is understandable once you realize he’s a businessman:

In the executive suite, abandoning deeply held attitudes and reversing positions are job requirements. How often have you seen a CEO proclaim that a struggling unit is not for sale, only to put it on the block a few months later?

And Bush’s MBA taught him … what, exactly?