The Dish

This is pretty embarrassing.

Kevin Drum observes some cracks in the Christianist movement – and some nastiness as well.

The stock price for the New York Times hit a new low today. At $24, the stock has lost around half its value in three years. (Hat tip: Steve Bartin.)

Another book; another hideous title. And check the blurbs. My favorites:

"Did you ever want to know – I mean really know – how and why America is being transformed from a unified, Judeo-Christian society into a divided, false, murky, neo-pagan culture?" РJoseph Farah.

And this, from the usual suspect:

"Now watch the cockroaches run for cover," – Michelle Malkin.

When political debate is reduced to describing your opponents as "cockroaches," then it’s fair to say there is no civility left. How bad does it have to get before civil conservatives disown this type of rhetoric? Or are there really no enemies to the right any more?

It’s not just the religious right that does it.

"Bob Wright describes how a combination of a) a third party in laptop (such as the effort reported by Jon Alter) and b) a timely dropping-out could lead to a quasi-parliamentary negotiated government and radical, elite-driven reforms. … The semi-paralyzing complexity comes when there isn’t one party in a laptop but five of them," – Mickey Kaus, today. Was that in English?

A reader responds to the email from a soldier in Iraq:

I would ask your erstwhile military reader that if a car bomb in Detroit today killed five policemen, as happened today in Mosul; if the president was forced to declare a state of emergency in Dallas because 140 people were kidnapped and killed this month, as was the case in Basra; if a priest was gunned down in Washington D.C., as was the case today in Baghdad where a Shiite muazzin was killed; if the major of a Westminster, Md., was killed by a bomb hidden in his air conditioner, as was the case in a city 60 miles north of Baghdad today; if jittery police forces fired upon and killed two women, one of them pregnant, north of the capital – if all of these related events happened in the United States this day, May 31 – a day after another 54 were killed by a car bomb in Washington – do you think the news media would, or should, report that despite the violence, all was well in most of America?

"I think it’s largely true that the GOP is picking up the gay marriage card as a cynical ploy during an election cycle. If you think gay marriage is the threat to Western Civilization many Republicans claim, why wait to talk about it at election time? If gay marriage isn’t a big enough deal to actually do something about it before election season rolls around, why campaign against it at all?" – Jonah Goldberg, stating the obvious.

One small point about the charade next week. We have had equality in civil marriage for a while now in Massachusetts. It’s the only state that allows it; and no other state has been forced to recognize such marriages. Long-standing constitutional and legal precedent, as well as the 1996 "Defense of Marriage Act", prevent that. In contrast, seventeen states have passed amendments to their own constitutions, preventing gay couples from having any legal rights at all. Five more have such amendments on the ballots this fall. By definition, no state court can affect those constitutions. Maybe at some distant point in the future the Supreme Court will rule on this. But the idea that SCOTUS, with Roberts and Alito on high alert, is going to pull a Roe vs Wade on marriage for gay couples is paranoia verging on fantasy.

So what exactly is wrong with the process as it has played out? In a diverse country, states get to decide their own marriage policies, as has always been the case in the U.S. The FMA or MPA is essentially saying: this process is irrelevant. Why? Why should there be a federal imposition of a single rule on a question which provokes genuine disagreement? On an issue where public opinion is in flux, and where the next generation seems to have a very different view than seniors, it is prudent and conservative to let states take the lead. Besides, no one believes the FMA stands a chance of passing. So why take valuable time to debate something federally that has already been debated and dealt with by the states? We know the answer: it’s a naked political attempt to appeal to some voters by whipping up fear and prejudice against others. It’s despicable – and a sign of how degenerate American conservatism now is.

A military reader chastises me:

I saw your statement about how one reader can longer read your blog because it is too depressing. I agree that you are not in denial and believe that you’re a fantastic writer. But as I could tolerate your views on Iraq when I was in the U.S., now that I am here, I too find your blog difficult to read. You are co-dependent with the vast majority of journalists who hang around the Green Zone and eventually try to figure this country out by riding in a convoy or going from camp to camp. Just like any experience, you must work to achieve full understanding and the stories you parse together as indicative of what is going on in Iraq is just flat out wrong.

That you have missed the true story here in Iraq and don’t realize it is perfectly understandable to me. I was blissfully ignorant while back in the US a few months back, gorging on the Green Zone press menu of car bombs and massacres. Of course these are news-worthy stories, but do little to show how the overall war effort is going here. Al Anbar has changed dramatically just since I have been here and not for the worse, but just different. I wish I could recount to you how things have changed, but for operations security reasons, I can’t. But, I shouldn’t have to. There is enough information about what is going on here that I think you should be able to look at all of the sensational stories that play so well in New York, but also do a little bit of digging and find the true story.

I have tried hard to inform you about Afghanistan, but you don’t seem to get that struggle either. I even told you prior to this spring that the Taliban regularly stir things up this time each year by sending groups of 100 down from the mountains to fight near Kandahar. I also told you that these fighters die by the score and are finished by July if the past yearly pattern is any indication.  Each year, the press jumps on the story and uses "resurgent Taliban" to describe the rag-tag forces that cross the border from Pakistan not knowing most will be dead in a few months.  Again, go back and read stories from 2004 when everyone predicted the Taliban were back until they were all dead by July.  Of course they will be back next spring in limited numbers to attack poor farmers around Tarin Kowt and you will all get depressed again because you think everything is lost.

All I can say is that I do my best to figure out what’s actually going on. Maybe there’s a reality out there that no journalist has understood or uncovered – but the fact that they cannot find out without a real risk of being murdered is surely testimony to something awry. Readers know I have sought out slivers of hope wherever I can find them; and still desperately want success in Iraq. History will eventually sort it all out. All I can say is that I’m doing my best with a modem a few thousand miles away. And more journalists have been killed in the line of duty in this war, including an old friend, than were killed in Vietnam or World War II. If the good news is out there, many have died trying to discover it. 

A reader writes:

When naughty-word filters were first put into use, they were not particularly sophisticated and as a result I found myself most cruelly treated.  My last name is "Dick", and for a few months couldn’t send any email at all.  Still my wife’s email client marks almost every email with little chili peppers to indicate spicy language when clearly there is none.
I’ve even been refused logins on newspaper sites from time to time based on my name.
Apropos of nothing other than the stmvirgin.com story.
Regards,
Matt Dick

And, yes, he’s not making it up. His name was in the email address.