The Dish

It’s me, Arianna, Dennis Prager and Ed Schultz – debating the Republican crack-up. 9 pm. CNN. And Amazon seems to have come back online and able and willing to sell books. Their link is here. If you live in NYC, I’ll also be on the Brian Lehrer radio WNYC show tomorrow morning in the 10 am slot, and reading and signing books at Barnes and Noble at 82d Street at 7 pm.

A reader writes:

"When Not Seeing is Believing" was eloquently written. If you haven’t yet, go see "Doubt", John Patrick Shanley’s only play to make it to Broadway, subsequently sweeping the awards and receiving a Pulitzer. It asks what you so persuasively argue: Can anyone know with utter certainty what happened in a room besides those two people in the room? Can anyone know the mind of God, but God?

I too had an Irish grandmother (one of 12 children) who could rattle off the rosary with alarming alacrity; but her piety was never vehement. She was as humble about the church as she was about everything else. Was her faith a crutch at times? Sure. Better that than a sword.

I know it wasn’t your intention, but your article reminded me of just how beautifully gentle the practice of Catholicism can be in the right hands; not the hand of a Sister Aloysius (Shanley’s nun who is utterly certain that a priest molested a young boy) but the rosary rendering hands of grandmothers like ours, or the humble hands of most of the Christians living in the Middle East today, who cling not to certainty – knowing that it is an illusory trap – but, like you, embrace the fact that there can be no experience of faith without doubt.

The second installment in my Cato debate with David Brooks: my account of doubt as a political argument, from Hobbes and Locke to the American constitution. If you believe in a conservatism that restrains government power, rather than unleashing it, that backs checks and balances rather than an executive branch on steroids, then you might find plenty to agree with. You can buy the book behind the debate here.

Hastings Wyman is a very shrewd observer of Southern politics and he sees major damage to the GOP from the Foley affair. His report is behind a subscriber firewall, but here’s the money quote:

Across the South, beginning with Foley’s own 16th District – where voters have to cast a ballot for Foley for it to count for the GOP‚Äôs new nominee, Joe Negron – the Democrats should be major gainers. Southern Political Report now ranks the 16th as Likely Democratic; safe Democratic might even be more appropriate. In Florida, the 13th and 22nd Districts, both with competitive races before the scandal broke, are adjacent to Foley’s district and voters have been subject to the same media onslaught. In the 13th (Sarasota, etc.), Katherine Harris’s (R) district, Democrat Christine Jennings (R) has released a poll showing her lead has increased from 8 points to 12 points in the past three weeks. My best guess is that both the 13th and 22nd will join the 16th in electing Democrats next month. And Florida’s 8th District, with another competitive race, is further north, but could still be affected by the story. After all, Foley was the leading Republican US Senate contender in Florida for months in 2004 and is not unknown.

In Oklahoma, a campaign aide to Republican gubernatorial nominee Ernest Istook (R) resigned because of allegations that he was one of the pages who exchanged sexually oriented instant-messages with Foley. Istook’s campaign was already suffering; it’s now in free-fall.

Finally, the Foley issue – especially when combined with a variety of other voter complaints about the Bush Administration – could help the Democrats in a number of other congressional races across the South. In Kentucky’s 2nd District, which was already hotly contested, GOP incumbent Ron Lewis canceled a fundraiser featuring Speaker Hastert because of the scandal. And in Kentucky 4, ex-US Rep. Ken Lucas (D) is using the issue against freshman Geoff Davis (R). In Virginia 2, freshman Thelma Drake (R) must depend on the votes from an area heavily influenced by Pat Robertson‚Äô’s resident headquarters and educational establishments; will they vote this time? Indeed, all of the competitive races in the South – such as North Carolina‚Äôs 8th and 11th districts – are likely to be affected to some degree.

Wyman predicts that the GOP may respond by purging all gays from their ranks in order to protect their right flank. Openly gay and closeted Republicans in Washington are now besieged by both the gay-hating religious right and the Republican-hating gay left. I hoped it wouldn’t get this ugly. But it has.

From the creators of the Onion, a video presentation of the forthcoming unauthorized autobiography of George W. Bush. Money quote:

"I wanted to give folks a chance to see what’s inside my heart, and less importantly, my brain. The only impression the American people have of their President at the moment is through the filter of the media criticizers. I want to counter that propaganda with a little bit of common-sense biographizing."

Please don’t miss the video.

Merton College, Oxford, 2 pm.

No one seems to know why, but Amazon has either sold out its entire stock of "The Conservative Soul," or there’s some kind of glitch. You can buy the book online instead at Barnes and Noble.com. Here’s the link. Apologies for the inconvenience.

We really should have guessed this one.

The latest creepy twist to the Foley saga:

A source with firsthand knowledge of events says that this coming Thursday, Kirk Fordham ‚Äî former chief of staff to both Foley and more recently Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y. ‚Äî will testify that a few years ago he was told by then-House clerk Jeff Trandahl that Foley had been stopped while trying to enter the pages’ dorm in an apparently intoxicated state. The source said Fordham will testify that he recalls this being the event that convinced both him and Trandahl to warn Hastert’s office, with Fordham designated to have the conversation with Hastert’s chief of staff, Scott Palmer. The source said that both aides had been watching Foley’s behavior with pages and that Fordham had counseled Foley to watch his behavior.

The source tells ABC News that Fordham will testify that he alerted Palmer that Foley had a pattern of displaying inappropriate behavior toward pages. Asked about Fordham’s claim that he met with Palmer in approximately 2003 to warn him about Foley’s behavior, Palmer said in a statement, "What Kirk Fordham said did not happen."

Someone is not telling the truth. But drunkenly trying to get into the dorm rooms of teens – reported to Hastert’s office – is not an incident anyone would easily forget. Not if they gave a damn about the safety of minors. Which appears to be low on the list of priorities of Speaker Hastert’s office.

(Photo: Yuri Gripas/AP.)

A reader writes:

You should include another warning for the "Six Feet Under" clip. "Do not watch if you aren’t prepared for an emotionally draining experience involving the death of loved ones and yourself." I watched the finale of the show, which ended on that clip, and was floored – moved to despairing tears. These few minutes capture the inevitability of death, both the point and pointlessness of life, and the crushing surprise and lingering despair caused by death for survivors.  If they handed out Oscars and Emmys for scenes, this deserved both.

And I hadn’t had any real exposure to the death of a loved one yet. I can’t imagine how that clip might affect those who had. So, for their sakes, a warning for them would be a good thing.

Consider yourself warned. I got a pile of emails about it. I guess I lost friends in the plague years, and so I am more inured to the idea of death and life. In my C-SPAN interview with Brian Lamb (not sure yet when it will air), he caught me off-guard. I was all prepared to go on and make an argument about conservatism and he asked me what it was like to be HIV-positive. Huh? No one has asked me that in years. But I realize that the spiritual journey I recount a little in my book would have been impossible without the confrontation with mortality that I bumped into when I was still in my twenties. Maybe it takes watching people’s lives being shattered by illness to force you to lose a little religious certainty, and to grapple with the ineffable mystery of life more directly. So consider yourself unwarned. And watch the clip. It’s TV at its best.