The Dish

Forest Hill, Maryland, 6 pm.

Vernon Robinson, the Republican candidate responsible for this disgraceful ad, self-immolates on cable television. Even Hannity cannot rescue him.

The British Labour government wants Muslim immigrants to integrate, not separate. It’s something of a volte-face. The Telegraph comments here. Some of you have argued that my opposition to public school teachers wearing the full, face-covering veil is contrary to my generally laisser-faire approach to cultural and social issues. But the distinction in the case of a public school teacher is obvious: in representing the state, and doing a job paid for by the government, you are obliged to follow the rules. One of those rules is that teachers should be able to explain fully what they are teaching, which is somewhat hard when everything but a small slit for your eyes is covered. Dress codes in public offices are not an infringement of freedom. We require many public officials to wear uniforms. No one is suggesting making wearing the chador illegal. What many are urging is an attempt to discourage meretricious cultural separatism. I see no problem with that.

A reader challenges me:

During the past week I became dimly aware of the Kuo book, but only from skimming over posts about it on your blog and the Corner, etc. I heard him interviewed on Fresh Air tonight and got up to speed on the theme of his book. I’ll take him at face value – he seemed like a straight shooter.

The thing I was most struck by is that the gist of what he said amounts to a strong contradiction to your thesis that the Christianists are running the White House, Congress, and the Republican party in general. His main point is that the White House doesn’t take the religious people seriously and mostly just uses them for political purposes. That’s pretty unseemly, but it also suggests that you’re wrong to think that a bunch of fundamentalists have the Republican party in their collective pocket.

The only problem with this analysis is that it assumes that Christianist dominance of the GOP policy agenda and cynical exploitation of it by party operatives are mutually exclusive phenomena. They’re not. What Kuo is arguing, it seems to me, is that the base is genuinely committed to Republican politics for their own religious reasons, and that the party leadership sees this – or, simply by using it, came to see it – as a political tool and lever to win elections. And so cynicism crept in at the top and rage built at the bottom. And each reinforced the other. In fact, if the base weren’t sincere it would be impossible for the elite to condescend to them.

But have the Christianists gotten nothing from this deal? Kuo’s case is that not enough federal money was shoveled into their coffers. He was expecting an $8 billion bonanza – and got one percent of what Bush promised. But we also have the following set of facts: a party platform committed to criminalizing all abortions (including rape and incest) and banning legal same-sex unions by federal constitutional amendment; unprecedented federal and presidential intervention in the Terri Schiavo case; advancement of Christianist activist judges at all federal and many state levels; 39 states where same-sex unions are banned or gutted; the promotion of religion as science in the classroom; a federal ban on funding for stem cell research; restrictions on Plan B contraception; explicitly religious appeals by political leaders like Tom DeLay; a stepped-up federal war on state medical marijuana decisions; a concerted effort to withdraw Catholic communion from many Democratic politicians; and sectarian worship within the Armed Forces. Have Christianists overhauled the entire country? Of course not. Have they had unprecedented access to power and influence? Ask James Dobson and Jerry Falwell who gets to vet Supreme Court Justice nominees. Have the Christianists been bamboozled? To some extent, yes. But the radicalism of their agenda is self-limiting in a diverse, liberal society. There was simply no way that their cherished constitutional amendments could leap the hurdles the founders set for such drastic changes in one presidential term. But in the long term, the foundations have been laid – in organization, structure and policy. The shift in the judiciary is palpable – and would become far more permanent with another presidential term.

I think of the GOP and Christianists as being in an alliance of mutual use and abuse. After a while, who is using whom can become blurry. Both would be better off, in my view, with a lot more clear sky between them.

Here’s another handy graph when people like Rush Limbaugh start telling you that today’s GOP is conservative. He’s lying. This graph is from the Heritage Foundation, which, last time I checked, was conservative. And don’t be deceived by the reduction of earmarks in 2006. As Heritage explains:

There were more earmarks in 2005 than from 1991 to 1999 combined. Although the number of earmarks went down in 2006, their cost increased $6 billion in one year – from $23 billion in 2005 to $29 billion in 2006.

"All conservatism begins with loss.

If we never knew loss, we would never feel the need to conserve, which is the essence of any conservatism. Our lives, a series of unconnected moments of experience, would simply move effortlessly on, leaving the past behind with barely a look back. But being human, being self-conscious, having memory, forces us to confront what has gone and what might have been. And in those moments of confrontation with time, we are all conservatives…

The regret you feel in your life at the kindness not done, the person unthanked, the opportunity missed, the custom unobserved, is a form of conservatism. The same goes for the lost love or the missed opportunity: these experiences teach us the fragility of the moment, and that fragility is what, in part, defines us…

Human beings live by narrative; and we get saddened when a familiar character disappears from a soap opera; or an acquaintance moves; or an institution becomes unrecognizable from what it once was. These little griefs are what build a conservative temperament. They interrupt our story; and our story is what makes sense of our lives. So we resist the interruption; and when we resist it, we are conservatives," – "The Conservative Soul," Chapter One.

Well, I asked for it. I now have well over a hundred 80s videos to sift through. (And a book to promote; and a blog to write; and two columns due.) Thanks much. But I can’t watch any more! Results as soon as I’m able.

Instapundit is making the right enemies.

"I remember a time when, following an event of international significance, the world would wait to hear what the president of the United States had to say about it. In Britain we would have an impatient few hours before America had woken up. Because until the President had spoken, you couldn’t be sure of even the shape of what might happen next.

On Monday we woke to the news of North Korea’s nuclear test, and to a banal commentary of people who didn’t really know what to say about it. Just when you wanted some real insight and even facts, the [BBC radio] Today programme again indulged its tiresome obsession with Iraq, focusing upon whether Tony Blair’s actions there had made this move by Kim Jong Il more likely blah blah. That didn’t surprise me. What did was my instinctive reaction when George W. Bush did speak much later in the day. There he was gravely intoning on one or other news channel that this "constitutes a threat to international peace and security", and "Oh sod off" I heard myself muttering, with no desire to hear any more. It was as much ennui as irritation: I didn‚Äôt believe he would have anything useful to say and found it faintly annoying that he spoke as though the world would care.

One reaction from a completely insignificant voice in the political process. Yet it reveals, I think, a sad truth: the 43rd President of the United States of America has squandered the political authority of a great country," – Alice Miles, The Times of London.

Mike Allen explains it all for you.