Mark Blumenthal’s conclusion:
While attitudes on withdrawing troops from Iraq appears to be hardening, Americans are more closely divided on whether to withdraw than they were in 2004.
More poll parsing here. I don’t see a recent surge in support for premature withdrawal. Americans are smarter than that.
Josh Muravchik tries to understand the Bush administration’s apparent volte-face on democracy in Egypt.
A reader reminds me:
This kind of stuff has gone on for a while. Frank Sinatra’s fourth – FOURTH! – marriage was performed by New York’s Cardinal Cooke.
I rarely agree with you on matters religious, but the double standard practiced over the years with regard to marriage and annulments definitely has been pretty appalling for a religion priding itself on its internal consistency.
Another point about the Kidman farce. If the church is utterly indifferent to marriages conducted by other churches or the state, then why has it devoted so much effort to demonizing civil marriages for gay couples? Shouldn’t they be as irrelevant to the Vatican as, say, civil divorce or re-marriages in other churches? The double standards abound. Some of them can be explained by catering to the rich and powerful (the Kidmans and Sinatras and Kerrys); some can be explained by Orwellian-speak (calling divorces "annulments"); but some can only be explained by bigotry and fear. None of it speaks that well of the Church, it seems to me.
"Among the core values we Republicans share with President Reagan is a passion for free market principles such as lower taxes and opposition to unnecessary government regulation; and, very importantly, belief that the government that governs best governs least. I don’t think any Reagan Republican would disagree that fiscal restraint and small government are bedrock principles of conservatives.
So why has my party, the party of small government, lately adopted the practices of our opponents who believe the bigger the government the better? I’m afraid it’s because at times we value our incumbency more than our principles. We came to office to reduce the size of government. Lately, we have increased the size of government in order to stay in office," – John McCain, our only hope, blogging at Porkbusters.
I’m fine with Porkbusters, but it needs to be said again and again that pork is not our real problem. Middle-class entitlements are. If pork-obsession becomes a way of denying our real fiscal calamity, rather than addressing it, it will do more harm than good.
She has a blog. It’s great stuff. Money quote:
Hello Everyone! First, I would Like to thank everyone for the opportunity to blog. I am currently staying with my friends Laurie and Arianna in Bel Air or some such place. The guest room is dark, and the television is not a flat screen of any such kind.This is the moment when the hand of the Merciful Allah strikes down my son’s enemy, which I believe is anyone who canceled the Golden Girls to show the England game yesterday. I am a big fan of Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur, who i hope to meet while I am here. I am very tired of having to discuss politics with these eater of pigs, although Anderson Cooper seemed very handsome. He only said hello, and then he began to flirt with my bodyguard Ahmed. Cursed be he then – Allah has no place for such violators of human nature. Plus, he smelled better than me. Like lilacs of some such kind – oh once the Merciful One is done with the Bush one, cursed be he, then he must smite the Body Shop. I was given a complimentary basket of soaps there, and which gave me a full-body rash. This burqa is making it worse … Oh wait, Arianna says Al Gore is here. We are going to see his movie with Janeane Garofalo. I hope there is popcorn or may the Merciful one strike them down. I prefer the caramel kind.
There’s more. It made my day.
The Brits innovate.
Max Boot speaks my mind. Money quote:
By now it should be obvious that the "light footprint" approach has not worked. It has increased, not decreased, resentment of the United States because Iraqis are aggrieved by the breakdown of law and order. Yet there appears to be no serious rethinking of this flawed strategy at either the Pentagon or the White House.
The administration may think it doesn’t have any more troops to send. It’s true that the armed forces are overstretched and need to be enlarged, but there are still just 150,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq out of 2.6 million in the active-duty ranks, reserves and National Guard. More soldiers could be found to police Baghdad if this were deemed a top priority.
Some in the administration may think that increasing troop numbers, which may bring more casualties, would be political poison. But what’s really hurting Republicans politically is not the number of troops in Iraq, or even the continuing casualties. It’s the perception that we’re not winning. If a heightened troop presence could establish security in Baghdad, the president and his party would reap a reward at the polls.
Rumsfeld won’t allow it. He’d rather lose a war than concede a point. And he knows too much to be fired.
Andrew Breitbart alerted me to this blog. It’s the best new blog I’ve read in ages. Hilarious. He has an important addition to the vital news of the day re: Star Jones, and the merits of flashing in subway cars:
I once caught a guy masturbating openly in my driveway back in college. I went up on the roof and then carefully dumped a bucket of water on him. He was really angry because, as he told me later over coffee, he was "almost there."
Pertaining to flashing: I always felt there was an easier, more benign way of getting your jollies than exposing yourself to strangers on a train. For example: flash to your pets. Sometimes I’ll get really drunk and expose myself to my girdle-tailed lizard. She doesn’t seem to mind or care. Or, If I am feeling especially daring I will "accidentally" let my robe fall open while I am watching the View on television. For some reason, just knowing that Star Jones might know that I am watching her with my robe open is all I need to satisfy myself.
Go ahead. Make her day. Although flashing the TV appearances of Barbara Walters would provide more enduring satisfaction, methinks. But it’s highly subjective, I’ll concede.
She says so herself:
Asked on April 28 about Ms. Jones Reynolds’s future in the O’Donnell era, Ms. Walters told a New York Times reporter: "Rosie will be there. And if Star wants to continue to be there, she is welcome."
Ms. Walters said yesterday that when she made those remarks, she was aware that the network did not plan to renew Ms. Jones Reynolds’s contract. Asked to explain why she had suggested, erroneously, that Ms. Jones Reynolds would be the one making a decision about her future, Ms. Walters said, "I was trying to protect Star."
When Barbara Walters asks politicians to be straightforward in future, remember she is holding them to a standard she doesn’t apply to herself.
I’m trying to figure out what this classically passive-aggressive item written by Glenn Reynolds means. Here it is:
JEFF GOLDSTEIN CONFRONTS HOMOPHOBIA: And is undeterred.
What can this mean? So I click over to Jeff Goldstein’s site, and find some leftist troll has written a homophobic remark in the comments section. Goldstein comments:
Anyway, I‚Äôll leave this up as a public service to Andrew Sullivan ‚Äî just to let him know with whom he’s aligning himself these days. Seems it ain’t just the Islamists who might want to cut your head off, Andy.
Some quick thoughts. First (and I’m doing my best here): my name isn’t Andy. Second: Goldstein seems to be advancing the notion that there are two teams, and I’m now "aligned" with the homophobic one, i.e. the team Goldstein isn’t on. But what if someone’s approach to politics does not devolve into a moronic question of whose "team" you’re on? I know this is a difficult idea for someone like Goldstein or Reynolds to grapple with; it would require thinking, for example.
But let’s assume that Goldstein is making the point that the "left," whatever that now is, can be homophobic. He, a brave, Republican blogger, thinks I need to know this. Hmmm. That devastating insight somehow never occurred to me for the two decades in which I have been subjected to constant homophobic attacks from the gay left, accused of being the anti-Christ, a diseased faggot, a spreader of disease, my private life ransacked, my reputation lied about, my integrity smeared on a daily basis. Left-wing homophobia? Thanks, Mr Goldstein, for clueing me in. I look forward to your future receipt of slurs and innunedoes for writing what you believe. For the team! (Just don’t mention the rampant, far more virulent and empowered homophobia on the religious right, or you might forget whose "side" you’re on.)
The Dish 