The Dish

"I thought it was okay to be single. I thought it was okay to not have children, and I thought you could still make good decisions on behalf of the country if you were single and didn’t have children," – secretary of state Condi Rice.

Good for Rice. She doesn’t have to have kids or family members to understand the gravity of warfare or the arguments about policy in Iraq. No one does. Subjecting her to this kind of cheap shot is completely unnecessary – and counter-productive for Boxer’s case. Her refusal to even contemplate that her statement was loaded with prejudice (even unconscious prejudice) only keeps the insult alive. Apologize, senator – to single women, and childless women – and move on.

(Photo: Ron Edmonds/AP.)

A reader asks a good question:

I need an explanation. The common argument for why we "cannot lose" in Iraq, is that it will result in a breeding ground for terrorists (specifically Al-Qaeda) in Iraq – much like Afghanistan was (is?).  But doesn’t this assumption rely on the same misunderstanding that haunted Congressman Reyes, that there is a significant difference between Shiite and Sunni.  If we leave Iraq, I suspect the civil war would escalate. Who would win?  Almost certainly the Shiite majority.  Why would the Shiites then allow Sunni terrorists such as Al-Qaeda to set up shop there?  I don’t see why they would.  So the result would seem to be a Shiite state and no large-scale Sunni terrorist activity (certinaly none focussed on the US).

I recognize the problems of a possible genocide against the Sunnis and of an Iranian puppet state.  But those problems are wholly different than the argument made by Bush and his supporters that leaving would result in an Al-Qaeda breeding ground.

Where am I wrong?

Give him points for chutzpah.

This reader has at it:

Reasonable counter argument? Man this is easy. OK, here we go, so all of you out there put down the bong and try to follow. Your reader wrote about the "human element" of watching your child go off to war and how that is relevant to governmental policy decisions. Fair enough. Then should any elected official have a say in public education if their children go to private school? How many of these phony Democrats who are "for the little guy" actually educate their children in the public schools they purport to believe in? Hello, Kerry, Edwards, Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, Clinton, et al?

Or should any of them have a say in welfare policy? How many actually are punitively subjected to the ravages of a bunch of lazy malcontents sitting around their neighborhoods while they go to work at low paying jobs that disqualify them from receiving public entitlements (but yet have to live with the crime and nonsense that goes with the neighborhoods where such conditions exist). This is fun!!! Want some more? OK. Why should any elected official get to have a say or vote on immigration and border enforcement issues if they don’t reside in the border states where the destruction of open borders have made regions of the US almost unidentifiable as America anymore. This is the kind of logic I have to debate?

Be honest Andrew. Liberalism is all about feelings and intent, not actual facts and results.

Well, liberalism can be like that – at its worst. It can also be a lot better than that. Just not Boxer.

Boxer’s comment was vile, but the brazen arguments of one Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, are far worse. A legal defense of terror suspects is somehow un-American? It tells you all you need to know about the depravity of the Bush administration’s detainee policy that a McCarthyite like this should be in charge of it.

I’ll be on the Chris Matthews Show this Sunday – with Dan Rather, Andrea Mitchell and Katy Kay.

Well, I ticked a lot of people off with my post on Barbara Boxer, one of more egregiously sanctimonious Senators. Here’s a reasonable counter-argument typical of many of your emails:

I think it is valid to say to someone that it is easy to sit somewhere and discuss war as some abstract political idea. It is another to watch your child get on a plane for a combat zone knowing they may not come back. I think that had Bush at some point since 2003 been able to convince one of his daughters to join even the Navy or Air Force we the people would be more likely to trust this man.

Asking if Dr. Rice can truly understand what the parents are preparing to do is not wrong in my book. It is bringing up a real issue. For many peole this is not an abstract discussion of geo political strategy it involves Death. That is real!

Sorry, but I’m not buying this for a second. Boxer’s was the kind of cheap shot that makes substantive discourse impossible. Boxer was questioning Rice as a senator questioning a secretary of state. Their family relationships are utterly irrelevant to the point at hand, i.e. the current Iraq strategy. As readers know, I tend to agree with Boxer on this. But I’m not going to personalize it. What Boxer was clearly doing was insinuating that those without children or without children in combat somehow have less moral and political standing to debate this issue. If that’s true, why allow any non-soldier to have a say on this? Why allow women an equal say, since men comprise an overwhelming majority of combat soldiers? Since openly gay people are barred from the military, are they also to be told they have less standing to debate? Once you go down this line of emotional and mroal blackmail, you end up with virtually no one being able to debate the central issue at hand without Sheehan-style idiocy. Boxer’s remark was a piece of slime. And she should apologize.

National Journal’s Top Ten Blog Stories of 2006 should prompt a wave of blogospheric annoyance. "Blogs officially recognized as media" is one such story. Er, some of us  acknowledged that years ago.

Michael Totten reports from a Christian Lebanese village that was attacked by both Hezbollah and the Israelis last summer.

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.