The Dish

"It was bad enough when the left argued for the erosion of press freedoms, but it’s incoherent for conservatives to go down this road. Conservatives are supposed to be skeptical about unchecked power for the federal government. It is one of the principles that binds together a coalition of home-schoolers, federalists, gun owners, and tax cutters – the view that while the federal government may be necessary, its power should be checked at every available opportunity.

Yet if conservatives get their way, enormous new powers will be delegated to the federal government. If the executive branch starts prosecuting the recipients of leaks on a wide scale, then Americans would be trusting the people who make national security policy to determine when the rest of us – without clearances – are allowed to know when they make mistakes. Forget for a moment the problems this poses for the First Amendment. What about the values of good government the congressional Republicans who captured the House in 1994 have all but forgotten?" – Eli Lake, New York Sun, as quoted by Robert A. George.

The fight for the soul of conservatism continues.

"Georgeous mulatto bodies," in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s words from an ancient video of a trip to Rio for Carnival. He rhapsodizes about his "favorite body part." Yes, it’s Arnold in his early days. The man knows how to party. (Warning: there are boobies in this video.)

Of course, the voters of Massachusetts should have the right to decide if they want to vote to amend their state constitution following a court decision granting marriage rights to all citizens. The attempt by some gay activists to prevent the legitimate constitutional process from going forward is lamentable and misguided. The legislature should decide, according to the established procedures, whether to place the measure on the ballot. I feel confident that if it were on the ballot, equality would win – especially since, here in Massachusetts, public opinion has swung so quickly and favorably toward equality in marriage in the wake of thousands of gay weddings. This proposal, moreover, is so draconian it will struggle to gain minimal acceptance. It would not only rob gay couples of the right to marry, but of the right to a civil union or a domestic partnership. It actually helps expose the bigotry of those behind it. And yes: denying gay couples any rights at all is, to my mind, an expression of bigotry. Fair-minded people can agree to disagree on support for marriage or civil unions. But denying gay couples any civil protections is on its face hateful. So why so defensive?

"Andrew Sullivan considers himself an opponent of torture. But he’s not. He’s against the war in Iraq, which has ended a great deal of state-sponsored torture, not to mention state-sponsored rape, state-sponsored executions, and all the other inhumanity unleashed by maniacs like Saddam Hussein," – Mark Levin, at National Review.

So now I’m not only not a conservative, I opposed the war against Saddam. In the unhinged world of the Republican far-right, anything is possible.

I’m awaiting the firestorm of blog-fueled criticism against Republican Pete Hoekstra who received classified information from a leaker about one secret anti-terror program kept top-secret by the president. Where are you, Ms Malkin? No outrage at the whistle-blower’s treason, Mr Levin? It’s perfectly clear by now that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney do not regard merely the American press as the enemy of their anti-terrorism efforts; they also regard lap-dog Republican members of the relevant intelligence committees as foes. Today, we find that Hoekstra was informed of programs kept from Congress by an inside informant. He tells the NYT:

"This is actually a case where the whistle-blower process was working appropriately. Some people within the intelligence community brought to my attention some programs that they believed we had not been briefed on. They were right."

What we’re seeing in the multiple leaks both to the press and now to congressmen shut out from oversight of administration policies is a widespread government revolt against its political leaders. It’s not that hard to be a journalist in Washington right now. Just sit there and countless troubled, angered and concerned soldiers, CIA agents, State Department officials will track you down and tell you how out-of-control the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld clique has become. This isn’t just sad; it’s dangerous. The Bush policy of seizing power from Congress and the courts, breaking the law, violating treaty obligations and ignoring the settled procedures for intelligence-gathering and detainee treatment has actually led to more leaks and less secrecy than if they had played by the rules. Once again, the rank arrogance of these people, which is connected in many cases with rank incompetence, has made us less, rather than more, secure. And it has forced many loyal competent concerned government professionals into releasing secrets they would have kept under a more rational and law-abiding executive.

Ideological purism is on the march – against Democrats like Lieberman who favor an aggressive fight against our enemy and against conservatives resisting the new fundamentalist authoritarianism of the GOP. A reader comments on the parallels:

Hardcore leftists – like, for instance, most current leaders of GLBT-rights organizations – apply ideological "purity tests" to their members.  When I was a committed leftist, I failed one of these purity tests (I didn’t think America deserved the 9/11 attacks) and suffered the wrath of my comrades for such heterodox thinking.

The problem with today’s conservatives is that in their desire to present a united front at all costs, they’ve begun to act just like the leftists they claim to despise. I don’t have a solution for this quandary, and I suspect there may not be one. Perhaps the allure of political influence makes true freedom of thought impossible.

But the blogosphere makes it more possible.

Urbana, Illinois, 5.30 pm.

Fighting over a label like "conservative" can be silly and pointless. Fighting over core principles and arguments in a political tradition – especially one I think has been highjacked by one extremist faction – is not. Conservatism has become a very broad church, and I think it’s a tribute to its intellectual vitality that it contains so many different varieties today. Why cannot we all be called conservatives of different stripes? Here’s a distinction that makes some sense to me:

I personally divide the spectrum up into "Conservatives," which are all those pro-big-Government (when the government is interfering with private non-Christianist morals), pro-Christianist, pro-Bush folks, and "conservatives," who are folks like yourself and, on a lot of issues (smaller government, balanced budget, strong military, government out of my personal life) me. Just how I personally keep tabs, is all. Ponnuru is a Conservative; you are a conservative. Mark Levin is a Conservative; George Will is (mostly) a conservative.

In my next book, I specifically foreswear any ambition to describe the politics I favor as the only legitimate form of conservatism. I merely argue that it is one legitimate form. The most coherent and persuasive one, to my mind. But not the only one.

It’s from Pete Hoekstra, as loyal a lapdog as this administration could hope for in the Congress. And yet even he has now lost patience with King George. Money quote from his leaked letter:

"I have learned of some alleged intelligence community activities about which our committee has not been briefed. If these allegations are true, they may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of the law, and, just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies."

Eventually, even the most loyal Republicans will discover that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal treats them all with contempt, the same contempt they have for limited government, the constitution, and the rule of law. Hoekstra asks a salient question, however. What else don’t we know about what these pseudo-monarchs are up to?

A stimulating podcast debate about (IMHO) the greatest political philosopher of the last century here. I met one of the discussants, Ian Tregenza, at the recent Oakeshott conference. He knows his Oakeshott cold.