The Dish

Republican? Moi? Another GOP candidate won’t even use the label in his election campaign. (Hat tip: Ryan.)

"The Prime Minister of Iraq and others have condemned Hezbollah and say they do not support them," – senator John McCain, yesterday.

He’s beginning to sounds as detached from reality as the president is. There are also ominous signs that he may agree to the administration’s position that their new military tribunals – which will allow for "coercive interrogation" – conform to Geneva Article 3. They don’t. Are we witnessing the selling of McCain’s soul for power? We can only pray we aren’t. He’s one of our last best hopes for the next presidency.

She wants committed gay couples to have all the benefits of civil marriage:

After years of declining to state her personal views on the matter – and without using the words "civil union," – Gov. Chris Gregoire said at a press conference a few minutes ago that the state should provide gay and lesbian couples with the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexuals, but without actual marriage.

"As to my personal beliefs, Mike and I received the sacrament of marriage in the Catholic faith," she said. "State government provided us with certain rights and responsibilities, but the state did not marry us."

"I believe the state should provide these same rights and responsibilities to all citizens. I also believe the sacrament of marriage is between two people and their faith; it is not the business of the state."

The state legislature should get to work. Which was the not-so-subtle message of the court.

"It sucks. Honestly, it just feels like we’re driving around waiting to get blown up. That’s the most honest answer I could give you," said Spec. Tim Ivey, 28, of San Antonio, a muscular former backup fullback for Baylor University. "You lose a couple friends and it gets hard."

"No one wants to be here, you know, no one is truly enthused about what we do," said Sgt. Christopher Dugger, the squad leader. "We were excited, but then it just wears on you — there’s only so much you can take. Like me, personally, I want to fight in a war like World War II. I want to fight an enemy. And this, out here," he said, motioning around the scorched sand-and-gravel base, the rows of Humvees and barracks, toward the trash-strewn streets of Baghdad outside, "there is no enemy, it’s a faceless enemy. He’s out there, but he’s hiding."

"We’re trained as an Army to fight and destroy the enemy and then take over," added Dugger, 26, of Reno, Nev. "But I don’t think we’re trained enough to push along a country, and that’s what we’re actually doing out here."

"It’s frustrating, but we are definitely a help to these people," he said. "I’m out here with the guys that I know so well, and I couldn’t picture myself being anywhere else." – from the Washington Post today.

The question becomes: why is she invited on talk shows? She’s a vaudeville act of a deranged bigot.

Shelter Island, New York, 6.30 pm.

Yesterday, I proposed that we look seriously at Peter Galbraith’s plan for redeployment of U.S. troops to Kurdistan because Baghdad is lost and this administration has no serious plan to win it. Truth be told, the administration never had a serious plan to win Iraq as a whole – just a plan to destroy its previous regime. I missed it yesterday, but here’s David Frum’s rueful acceptance of the same idea. Yes, I expect locusts to appear and frogs to start falling from the sky. I wonder how long it will take for other conservatives to call even Frum an appeaser, defeatist, leftist, etc etc. He’s just a realist. And the reality is grim.

Given the difficulties of the military task, the lack of any sustainable basis for security under these tactics, and the need for the European powers for a potential buffer zone, the Israeli hope for a quick Hezbollah-destroying offensive looks increasingly bogged down. U.S. interests in the Middle East are equally not served by alienating every Arab or Muslim ally, including Maliki, in a war of attrition that will not accomplish the only worthwhile purpose: serious stability and border security. Greg Djerejian has more here:

My point? We must remain very focused on reducing the winds in the sails of radical Islamist groups like al-Qaeda, but our basic carte blanche to Israel these past weeks, and our total conflation of Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and seemingly every other group under the sun that we don’t care for in the Middle East – is not only leading to far too simplistic foreign policy analyses among too many in the Beltway – but also, more important, serving as recruiting sergeant for more radicalized Islamists to proliferate, not only in the region, but in Europe and perhaps even the United States itself.

There will come a time when the destruction of Southern Lebanon and the inability to remove Hezbollah by force will demand either re-occupation of Southern Lebanon by Israel, or an international force. Time is running out for the former option. Given our other urgent task in the Middle East – finding a way to prevent Iraq descending into all-out civil war – involving allies in the fight against Hezbollah is increasingly vital. A cease-fire is needed, sooner rather than later.

Pathetic, craven Bush-base pandering. More conservative outrage on Bush’s attempt to unilaterally reorder the constitutional balance here.

"The plaintiffs in this case represent the ever-growing diversity of the openly gay community in Washington. They are teachers, attorneys, ministers, and foster parents. In their everyday lives they are bosses, coworkers, neighbors, clients, parents, friends, and volunteers. It is in these seemingly mundane, everyday roles that the discrimination imposed by the DOMA is deeply felt, but it is nowhere more wounding than in their very homes. Unless the concept of equal rights has meaning there, it has little meaning anywhere," – Justice Bobbe J. Bridge, in the Washington State court 5 – 4 ruling against equality in civil marriage. Many of the decisions in the majority relied entirely on deference to the legislature.

It was a close decision, with the more powerful and impassioned arguments in the dissents; and may well generate a legislative approach to granting more benefits to gay couples that inch closer and closer to marriage rights. Dale Carpenter has an excellent legal analysis here. Money quote:

To the state legislature, the message seems to be this: “Get moving on addressing the hardships faced by gay couples and their children, some of which we’ve listed for you. You don’t have to give them marriage and maybe not even all of the rights of marriage, but something needs to be done. If you don’t act, we might.”

To gay-marriage litigants, the message seems to be this: “Go to the legislature and see what can be done about the sorts of problems you’ve identified and that we agree exist. If the legislature is unresponsive, come back to us not with a claim for the status of marriage, but with a remedial claim for the benefits and protections of marriage for your families.”

My guess is that this dual message was necessary to get the five votes needed to uphold the state’s marriage laws.

California and New Jersey are the next battlegrounds. California has already passed marriage rights in both state houses, and the court is mulling. Will the court over-ride the legislature in that state? And if they do, will extreme judicial restrainters cry foul?