The Dish

It is easy to become numb to an outrage. But what just happened in Tehran – the Holocaust denial conference – really requires us not to give in to numbness. Anyone who seriously wants to question the fact of one of the greatest crimes in human history is a monster. Period. That such a person now controls a country that is trying to seek nuclear weapons should concentrate the mind. Anne Applebaum gets it right, as she often does:

Iran is serious ‚Äî or at least Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is deadly serious. Holocaust denial is his personal passion, not just a way of taunting Israel, and it’s based in his personal interpretation of history. Earlier this year, in a distinctly eerie open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he lauded the great achievements of German culture and assaulted "the propaganda machinery after World War II that has been so colossal that [it] has caused some people to believe that they are the guilty party." Such views hearken back to the 1930s, when the then-Shah of Iran was an admirer of Hitler’s notion of the "Aryan master race," to which Persians were meant to belong. Ahmadinejad himself counts as a mentor an early revolutionary who was heavily influenced by wartime Nazi propaganda. It shows.

The London Times has also recognized this new low.

A reader writes:

You can’t really argue that Romney hasn’t explained why he’s changed his position on ENDA. He did give a reason to the NRO:

"My experience over the past several years as governor has convinced me that ENDA would be an overly broad law that would open a litigation floodgate and unfairly penalize employers at the hands of activist judges."

Here’s where the real follow-up question to Romney should focus:

"You say your experience as a governor changed your mind on ENDA. Well, it happens that you‚Äôve been governor of a state that has had a law on the books since 1989 prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Has Massachusetts in fact seen a litigation floodgate? Can you cite any examples of employers who’ve been unfairly penalized at the hands of activist judges?  During your term as Massachusetts governor, did employers come to you complaining about how the non-discrimination law was harming then?   

And if not, then how can you claim your experience as governor leads you to believe that a federal version of your own state’s law would have all these harmful consequences?"

C’mon, K-Lo. Ask him.

Has any official report disappeared from relevance as swiftly as Baker-Hamilton? It’s a good question Kevin Drum asks.

He asks:

[I]f Andrew has not recanted his opposition to ENDA, why does he berate and abuse Mitt Romney for the offense of agreeing with him?

Er, I didn’t. Go read the post to see for yourself. The entire point was Romney’s flip-flopping. I merely pointed out that Romney had reversed himself on the ENDA question and I was interested in why. My anti-ENDA position is unchanged (I was trashing it on HRC’s satellite radio show just the other week), but I’ve largely given up on the matter, because support – gay and straight – is so overwhelming. David asks me to substantiate this. Here’s opinion poll data from 2001. A Gallup poll found 85 percent support for equal rights for gays in employment. A Harris poll found more explicitly on ENDA that

61 percent of Americans favored a federal law prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. Additionally, the survey found that 42 percent of adults surveyed believe that such a law currently exists.

The following states already have such a law: California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. Hence my quixotic libertarianism being a lost cause. Frum has another post on the subject here, where he plainly concedes that Romney once

"declared himself in favor of a federal antidiscrimination law against gays and civil unions – while staying cautiously mute on the issue of marriage."

No one can dispute this 180 degree turn on both ENDA and civil unions. Not even Frum. I’ve watched some brazen say-anything-to-get-elected maneuvers in my time, but this one is pretty out there, don’t you think?

I’m on Diane Rehm’s Friday round-up this morning from 10 am till noon on WAMU or some other NPR station.

Was that YouTube a fake? A reader suggests it was filmed backwards, with artful passers-by walking backwards to convey the impression of it being in real time. What about his words at the beginning?

There’s an obvious cut between it and the shot showing him solving it. With the addition of some background ambient noise, the whole thing is made to appear genuine. I personally think realising how it’s done improves it; makes it more Gondry-esque.

Watching it again, it’s clear my reader is right. Gondry has used reverse filming before. Here’s the link.

A reader writes:

I have been reading your blog for upwards of 3 years now and was reluctant to buy your book thinking it would have little new for me. 

How wrong I was. After one of your many plugs for the book, I broke down and bought it. You have written an interesting, important book. It is not only a great and convincing argument for conservatism, but a solid rebuke of the "conservative" Republicans and fundamentalism.

2 comments I wanted to make: 1) It is striking how utterly arrogant the ideology of fundamentalism and by extension the Republican party is. At its essence these people think they know all, what is best for me, how I should live my life, what is right. 

2) It seems another term needs to be created to replace "conservative". Republicans of  the last decade have taken the term conservative and not only bastardized it, but made it almost completely meaningless. When people say "George Bush is very conservative," What does that mean? It has lost all connection to what it once meant.

The right-wing media have done their best to rubbish the book and distort its message. They’ve done this because they realize the power of its case. But it’s surviving because of one thing: people who have read it. I’m grateful. You can buy what some don’t want you to read here.

A reader writes:

In Muslim countries, guess what they call Islamists?

Islamists. ("Islamiyyin")

In response to those offended by the term Christianists, all I can say is that they can all be proud that they are the first segment of the West to be outpaced by Muslims in honest political/religious dialogue in centuries.

My theory is pure, cynical expediency. He needs the Christianist vote to win the nomination. But there is another possible explanation: the Mormon church altered its position in the last decade and has become one of the most viciously anti-gay marriage organizations in America. I knew of the millions they have poured into anti-gay marriage initiatives. But an LDS reader fills in more history:

You’re right: Romney’s changed position about protecting the civil rights of gays and gay domestic partnerships is NOT a cave-in to Christianists. Instead these are a reflection of his being a devote LDS Mormon. When Romney voiced his earlier stances back in the mid-90’s, the LDS had not become active in its political battle against same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships. At that time most educated, urban LDS Mormons I knew had a "live and let live" attitide toward same-sex marriage and partnerships – even while believing that the "practice" of homosexuality was a sin. All that changed around 1997 when the LDS Church began to join the battle against gay unions of any sort.

A good friend of mine in NYC was an emotional mess when the LDS Church asked her to accept an "assignment" to begin networking with other groups – religious and political – to lobby against legislation that would legalize same-sex unions of any sort. This "assignment" came directly from LDS Church headquarters in Salt Lake City. My friend was told that although this was NOT a Church "calling" (which would imply that the LDS Church was involved in politics), she could nevertheless use LDS Church buildings for meetings, could use LDS Church office supplies and that she could ask her local LDS Church priesthood leaders (bishops, stake presidents, etc.) for advice and help if she needed it. The purpose of labeling this activity an "assignment" instead of a "calling," was to give the impression that she was more or less acting on her own as a concerned citizen and that the LDS Church was merely supportive of her efforts.

Romney is now the most public member of one of the most famous LDS families in the world. He is going to "follow the counsel of the Brethren" (do as he is told) on most issues – especially those that the LDS Brethren have made their central focus over the past decade. Among those issues, homosexuality is now number one.

So he’s obeying his church. That would explain the shift on gay relationships. It doesn’t explain the ENDA flip-flop, though.

Rich Lowry uses the "f-f word" to describe Romney. Not all of the Corner writers are as intellectually dishonest as David Frum.