Email of the Day

A reader writes:

More with those window views! – maybe a weekly feature? There’s something about having the worldwide anonymous online world get placed – can’t put it into words, but it makes me happy.

Certainly not a weekly feature. But I agree. This online world can get pretty abstract. It’s good to add some sense of somewhere. I should apologize for the fact that, simply because of the hundreds of photos I’ve received, I can only publish a fraction unless I surrender the whole site to the slide-show. My aim is to post five a day through the weekend.

People of Faith For Marriage

One of the interesting developments in the battle for marriage equality has been the increasing involvement of religious groups – in favor of the reform. Many churches and synagogues now have same-sex commitment ceremonies; and many people of faith believe that gay couples are just as deserving of God’s love as straight couples. Money quote from a related story in the NYT today:

"When one group is singled out for discrimination, it’s not long before other groups will be singled out, too," said Rabbi Craig Axler of Congregation Beth Or in Maple Glen, Pa. "It’s the first time we see the Constitution in danger of enshrining discrimination against one party, one class, and to remain silent as a Jew is unconscionable."

It’s no coincidence, I think, that Jews remain the ethnic group most supportive of gay dignity and equality.

Quote for the Day

"The Da Vinci Code is fiction. In real life, a multi-year cover-up at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church of horrible crimes by the leader of a major religious order affiliated with reactionary politics simply couldn’t happen. Could it?" – Mark Kleiman, yesterday.

I notice that, like many pieces of news that help expose the rotten core of theoconservatism, National Review has yet to mention that one of its favorite Catholic prelates, Father Maciel, protected by their favorite pope, John Paul II, has just been acknowledged as a sexual abuser – by the Vatican. At least Neuhaus felt the need to say something.

On Rove

A reader writes:

I agree with you completely on Karl Rove – I’ve never regarded him as an evil genius. Evil, yes. Genius, no. But the evidence of his strategic mediocrity actually goes back longer than you say. The only races he ever won were before 2000 were in places like Texas and Alabama, where it would have been extremely difficult for a right-wing Republican to LOSE (and even there he picked his races).

And his main accomplishment as a strategist in 2000 was to come within a hair of unnecessarily losing the race for Bush by deciding that his election was a lead-pipe cinch and encouraging Bush to "build up more of a mandate" by spending his last few days trying to add California and New Jersey to his list of states — both of which he lost by a landslide. Had it not been for the evil stellar conjunction of the Electoral College, Ralph Nader, the ballot designers of Palm Beach, a highly doubtful Supreme Court decision, and Gore’s own decision to blow his own foot off by trying to cherry-pick his way to victory instad of immediately demanding an honest statewide recount, Karl Rove would be a political laughingstock today.

Hard to disagree.

The Goods on Addington

U.S. News has a long and worthwhile profile of David Addington, Dick Cheney’s righthand man, and the key force behind the United States’ abandonment of the Geneva Conventions on torture and prisoner abuse. Money quote:

Little known outside the West Wing and the inner sanctums of the CIA, the Pentagon, and the State Department, Addington is a genial colleague who also possesses an explosive temper that he does not hesitate to direct at those who oppose him. Addington, says an admiring former White House official, is "the most powerful person no one has never heard of."

His belief in an untrammeled, extra-legal executive power is as fervent as it has proven dangerous and maladroit.