The Dish

Here’s the formulation the president laid out yesterday about Iraq:

"Our goal has not changed. Our goal is a country that can defend, sustain and govern itself, a country that which will serve as an ally in this war. Our tactics are adjusting."

I notice that the word "democracy" is missing.

I love them and they’re wildly popular, and please keep sending them. But please remember to put a place and time of day. Also: no pets or rainbows, or we open Hallmark’s box. And a window frame of some sort puts you way near the front of the line.

TNR’s Katherine Marsh asks:

When was the last time anyone even cared whether a male politician was happy with his life choices?

How about the day before in the same magazine, in a piece on Mark Warner by Ryan Lizza?

(Of course, I write this on a book tour in a hotel room in Wisconsin, missing my other half and the beagles, so maybe I’m just more touchy about life choices right now. But, you know, if you’re lucky to have a happy home, it sucks to abandon it).

No one said it better:

"On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.’"

– Barry Goldwater, September 16, 1981.

A reader writes:

I urge you to see the Criterion Collection DVD of 1960’s Tunes Of Glory in which John Mills, as Lt. Col. Barrow, speaks of his having been waterboarded by his Japanese captors. Plainly, from Barrow’s words, it was known to the novelist, and screenwriter of the film, James Kennaway (a young ex-junior officer when he wrote the novel) that waterboarding is torture and that its psychological effect upon the tormented is profoundly painful and permanently harmful.

I shan’t spoil for you the plot or other details of the film, whose roles in it were regarded by both Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Mills as the finest of their cinema careers. It is, I should only say, a haunting story unforgettably told by director Ronald Neame.

That’s what Netflix is for, innit? 

… and JFK Democrats? A reader muses:

Like you, I greatly enjoyed the profile of Barry Goldwater done by his granddaughter. You may call yourself a "Goldwater Republican" – I would call myself more of a "JFK Democrat". Funny how that era had more inspiring leaders. It seems to me that while both of them had differing points of view they agreed on many "big" issues when you look back from 40 years down history’s road. Sorry to say one died five years before I was born and the other saw his brand of conservatism thrown to the curb and retreated to his beloved Arizona.

It’s way too simplistic, but "Southwestern" American Conservatism I understand and appreciate even where I wouldn’t neccessarily always agree. It is expansive especially in regards to personal liberty and freedom. But "Southern" American Conservatism, which largely grew out of former Democrats (or as they called themselves "Dixiecrats") seems nearly devoid of all the principles previously held so dear by "conservatives". In my view that split is a great paradox of our time in American history.

Well I didn’t think of that. Why not have readers comment on a review? Here’s one:

I have just finished reading the review of your book in the Economist.  The reviewer (if he understood the book correctly) seems to use various keywords (quest, perplexing, personal, intriguing, unfinished) to describe your "brand" of faith and political philosophy.  The last sentence the author writes on your book, ""The Conservative Soul" is peculiar and inconclusive, but it is also intellectually challenging and thoroughly captivating," was striking to me.  Not so much that your book is "intellectually challenging and thoroughly captivating," but that it is described like a personal journey toward understanding the true meaning of faith.  If so, it is an honest reflection of Christianity as I understand it:  never fully formed and absolute (for that is the realm of the fundamentalist), but incomplete, full of doubt (for this is the true catalyst for a more meaningful search for understanding).

"Peculiar and inconclusive" – that is my life in a nutshell.

Mine too. And I’m grateful for it. For balance, here’s a negative review I just received. The reviewer is actually cited in the book defending fundamentalism. Money quote:

Sullivan has given up the hope that his religion is true. When he finds a contradiction between tradition and experience, he jettisons tradition and appeals to himself.

For the record, this is what I write about religious tradition in the book:

How can a Christian exist without the Gospels? How can a Christian today believe without the church’s centuries-long care in protecting an inheritance? How can a Catholic simply ignore the statements of those who have authority and leadership in the institution that baptized and educated him? He can do none of these things; and wouldn’t want to. But he will subject all of them to scrutiny and will not stop at any of these points. Such a faith incorporates these things but aims to live them, to translate them into life, and to experience God in the living here and now.

I have great hope that what Jesus taught was and is true.

Some of you think so:

I’m retired from the military and I read that quote as a jab at Rumsfeld.

A comment like that in front of troops would have caused eyes to roll and maybe a few laughs. The fact that General Pace felt he could make a comment like that about his boss is telling. If Rumsfeld could read that quote and not see the sarcasm, then maybe the SECDEF really believes he is channeling the will of God.

Maybe there’s a YouTube and we can tell.

A reader writes:

Growing up in South Africa, I had more than enough opportunities to be confronted by injustice. The fact that people of my particular hue happened to be the beneficiaries on these daily cruelties didn’t make it any easier. One (not the only, but certainly an important) source of consolation was the US‚Äô example. You had segregation, but you ended it. You ‘concentrated’ Japanese Americans, but you apologized for it. Being gay, I appreciated your focus on individual liberty ‚Äì the notion that people should live as they please. I liked the American project, and I wanted us to follow a similar dream.

I remember standing in the doorway to my bathroom (overly specific, I know, but that’s how I remember it), and hearing on the radio that Nelson Mandela was going to be freed, and the ANC un-banned. I cried (I was about 14 at the time, so that was a big deal also). I remember thinking: ‘Now we can be a normal country (like the US). Now we can make normal mistakes, fix them, and try to do better next time.’

I give you the background to put in context how incredibly disappointed I’ve been in America since September 11. Angry sometimes (Guantan√°mo), shocked a few times (Abu Ghraib, the fact that Dick Cheney and George W. are real people and not characters in a bad political satire). But the disappointment has been the worst.

So many lost opportunities to be the good guys.

In any event, the reason for my email: I had forgotten that the old dreams still live in America (if not in the White House). Your blog reminded me of that.

I’m reminded of it daily as I read my emails and tour the country. I have confidence – no, faith – that Americans will recover their country, its meaning, and its promise. Soon.

You’ve got be careful about what words you use in politics these days. With YouTube and naughty satirists, you can be edited and spliced to look, well, ridiculous. Ken Blackwell … well, let’s cut to the tape:

(Hat tip: Hit N Run.)