The Dish

Shiite militias, following strict Islamic theology, continue to terrorize Baghdad. Although Sistani may have revoked his murderous fatwa against all gay people, the pogroms continue. Money quote:

The death threat was delivered to Karazan’s father early in the morning by a masked man wearing a police uniform. The scribbled note was brief. Karazan had to die because he was gay. In the new Baghdad, his sexuality warranted execution by the religious militias. The father was told that if he did not hand his son over, other family members would be killed.
What scares the city’s residents is how the fanatics’ list of enemies is growing. It includes girls who refuse to cover their hair, boys who wear theirs too long, booksellers, liberal professors and prostitutes. Three shops known to sell alcohol were bombed yesterday in the Karrada shopping district.

Rumsfeld’s policy of just enough troops to lose has resulted in a new Taliban in Iraq. It pains me beyond measure to see the following quote from a gay activist in Iraq:

"We could never envisage this happening when Saddam was overthrown. I had no love for the former President, but his regime never persecuted the gay community."

God help them.

I just sat through an entire segment on the O’Reilly Factor dedicated to discussing the president’s position on the proposed federal marriage amendment. Should the president take it on more aggressively? Or not? Fair debate. The only guests are both paid-up members of the movement to pass the amendment, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Maggie Gallagher. Even if the debate were entirely an intra-Republican affair, wouldn’t it have been appropriate to have a Republican like LCR head, Patrick Guerrerio, to debate this; or Jim Kolbe? Or Mary Cheney? Or someone who might actually put the opposing point of view? Or are my expectations for Fox insane?

A publicly-financed hotline to report on others’ "hate-speech" is unveiled in Colorado. Grrrrr. Free speech for bigots is not a great rallying cry; but if they don’t have it, no one does. Provincetown, I believe, also has a police call-line for "hate incidents." What on earth is a "hate-incident"? And what right does a cop have to police or monitor anyone’s bigotry? It’s worth remembering that freedom isn’t only threatened by big government snoopers on the right; it’s also beleaguered by the sensitivity police on the left.

They’re sticking to their guns:

Here’s what we now know: I spoke personally yesterday with both Rove’s spokesman Mark Corallo and Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin. Both men categorically denied all key points of our recent reporting on this issue. Both said, "Rove is not a target," "Rove did not inform the White House late last week that he would be indicted," and "Rove has not been indicted." Further, both Corallo and Luskin denied Leopold’s account of events at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm that represents Karl Rove. They specifically stated again that no such meeting ever occurred, that Fitzgerald was not there, that Rove was not there, and that a major meeting did not take place. Both men were unequivocal on that point.

We can now report, however, that we have additional, independent sources that refute those denials by Corallo and Luskin. While we had only our own sources to work with in the beginning, additional sources have now come forward and offered corroboration to us.

We have been contacted by at least three reporters from mainstream media – network level organizations – who shared with us off-the-record confirmation and moral support. When we asked why they were not going public with this information, in each case they expressed frustration with superiors who would not allow it.

Leopold also emailed me to offer a factual supplement to my link to Howie Kurtz’s 2005 story of Leopold’s checkered past. Here it is:

My book, News Junkie, has been published. And his characterization of it came from a proposal not the finished book.

I don’t know what to believe about Rove. But we’ll soon find out. And Leopold will either be vindicated or humiliated.

There’s a fascinating email exchange posted at a blog run by Colonel W. Patrick Lang, a retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces. It’s between veteran military reporter, Joe Galloway, and Larry Di Rita, Rumsfeld’s spokesman at the Pentagon. For an insight into the cocoon within which Rummy operates, the Di Rita emails are hard to surpass. A more accessible summary can be found here.

(Photo: John Bazemore/AP.)

A reader suggests an interesting wrinkle to the immigration debate:

This may or may not be an obvious point, but don’t you find the right-wing hyperventilation about such a dated issue as immigration a bit too contrived and convenient?  Put another way, many of us have suspected a day would come I which even the most adamant Bush loyalists/apologists would have to acknowledge that his entire presidency, aside from being a manifest case study in incompetence, was also a repudiation of nearly all things that Republicans once held dear.

That said, for several years running, I‚Äôve often wondered how exactly this would happen.  Riddle me this, riddle me that:  as polls have revealed that their audiences had become hip to this President‚Äôs considerable shortcomings, under what pretense could Hugh Hewitt, the boys at Powerline, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and company (to say nothing of Republican congressmen running for reelection) possibly turn their back on this President without completely invalidating nearly every word they‚Äôd spoken or written in the previous 6 years blindly defending him?

The answer, it turns out, has been to use the age-old debate about immigration to set the President up and then, as he rejects the ridiculous proposal of erecting walls around the nation and conducting mass deportations, use the occasion to throw him under the bus.  In fact, were I more cynical, I would think it a near ideally orchestrated political strategy which would provide cover for the Republican machine to distance itself from a President who must know his fortunes are irreversibly sunk at this point anyway.

Well, it won’t work for Glenn Reynolds.

(Photo: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty.)

Conservatives are beginning to think the unthinkable.

The emails won’t quit:

Thank you for your essay on Christianism. I thought I was the only one who felt like this. I have been through a lot in my life – and never has my faith been so shaken as it has been by the last 5 years of judging by the political Christians. I have even thought about changing my faith but I know I am a Christian.

Hang in there. Then this:

Thank goodness you wrote the article on Christianism. As a woman pastor in an evangelical church I am appalled at the way political ideologies castigate the authenticity of the faith of the majority of Americans. It is stupid to assume that the religious right encompasses the perspective of thoughtful faith-filled people. It is a stereotype that creates stigma, and this constant assumption in the news media undercuts the very liberty and respect for others upon which this country was founded.

Oh yes … and let’s get some people on the news next time a catastrophe occurs who can answer questions about good and evil with theological integrity and humble authentic reflection. Those that spoke after Katrina didn’t do it for me. People deserve more than superficial ‘God’ answers to human tragedy. Certainly, political ideologies are far from the minds of those in the midst of tragic circumstance. Jesus, however, was always right there in the mix bringing ‘good news to the poor … and setting the captives free.’

Those last two ideas do not exactly seem central to the Christianist agenda, do they?

So they published an HIV denialist. They’ve still published the Muhammad cartoons (even with Art Spiegelman’s occasionally dumb comments). I’d say the one cancels out the other. Which reminds me: now that M: I 3 is officially over, will Viacom have the balls to re-run the Scientology episode of South Park? Or let Matt and Trey portray the prophet? Or are the Viacom suits still the pathetic, Cruise-whipped quislings we have come to know and loathe?