The Dish

The media keeps saying that Iraq is getting more lethal for British troops. The statistics tell another story.

The Jihadists are panicking that they’re losing control of Iraq. At least, that’s what this document implies. Here’s hoping. But we need to keep an eye on who therefore is winning control of Iraq. The threat may be shifting from al Qaeda-type Sunni elements to Iran-controlled Shiite ones, infiltrated into the police forces. Still, it’s great news that Qaeda is feeling heat. Triumphalism can be read here. I’d be less complacent, but I’m certainly heartened, especially by the possibility that al Qaeda may be losing the media war in Iraq. If you kill hundreds of innocent Muslims, maybe Muslims will end up disliking you. Did that ever occur to you, Mr Zarqawi?

Greg Djerejian is looking for some foreign policy grown-ups in the Republican party.

Pro-life theocon, Mark Stricherz, reviews Ramesh Ponnuru’s book, "Party of Death," and confirms what I suspected:

The chief intellectual weakness of [the pro-life] movement is no longer rhetorical. If anything, it’s political. The cause is too often linked with that of conservatism and the Republican Party. "The Party of Death" is an interesting example of this phenomenon. Though its style has wide appeal, the book is structured as a conservative polemic. It contains virtually no criticisms of the Republican Party, let alone social conservatives.

The fig leaf just fell off, methinks.

Emily Yoffe discovers the pleasures of testosterone on a firing range.

Thanks for your emails. Here’s one point that needs addressing:

You decry the intolerance of those you call Christianists, but why? I agree that intolerance is wrong, but that’s my moral belief. If it is yours, too (and what else could it be?), then why should our moral belief be given precedence over another? You seem to be in a battle over morals and insist on taking the position that your moral values are better and deserve more respect because they’re … well, not moral values at all, and besides, they’re more moral.  I find this more fascinating than anything else, and sometimes even amusing.
Your moral values are consistent with your religious beliefs, of course, and you believe that intolerance is one of the big sins. That’s fine. But doesn’t that make you a Christianist, too, since you are trying to impose that set of moral values on others?

I’m glad to get this email because it offers me a chance to clarify something. My issue with Christianism is not "intolerance." In a free society, I’m quite happy to live among people who are intolerant of me, who decide not to associate with me, and generally disapprove of me, for whatever reason they decide. My point is that such intolerance not be enforced by the civil law; and that the civil law be restricted to reflect non-sectarian moral arguments that can be assessed and debated by Christian and non-Christian, Jew or Muslim, Mormon or atheist alike. If we can achieve a broad moral consensus, good. If we cannot, especially over divisive religious disagreements, then neutrality is the better option. And neutrality exists. A law that allows legal abortion or gay marriage as well as adoption and straight marriage is neutral with respect to its citizens’ choices. It is not biased in favor of any one of them. If you have a moral objection, persuade and proselytize, don’t legislate.

My belief in this boundary for political debate is not based on morality as such. It’s based on a political judgment. That judgment is that in a society where so many people differ on so many vital, irresolvable issues – especially the meaning of life, the fate of our souls, the morality of sex, the salience of gender, the true beginning and end of life – we should keep the law as neutral as possible, so it does not become oppressive of people’s freedom to decide for themselves what is true or untrue, right or wrong. This requires certain virtues – the ability to tolerate immorality in one’s neighbors, moderation, restraint, openness to debate. Just as Christianists want to obliterate distinctions between civil law and God’s law, so they want to describe such virtues of restraint as acquiescence to sin. And yes, in religious terms, they are. But acquiescence to others’ sins is another way of saying political toleration. And it is political toleration that is under threat in America right now. It’s time Christians and conservatives brushed up on their John Locke and came to its defense.

(Photo of Howard and Roberta Ahmanson by Thomas Michael Alleman for Time.)

No, not a new novel by Midge Decter. A Fox News Special. Greg Djerejian explains.

A new front has just opened up in the Second Amendment debate. The usual NRA argument is that guns don’t kill people; people kill people. I’ve always been almost-persuaded by this. The missing link is what actually owning or handling a gun does to male psychology. Does it ramp up testosterone all by itself and thereby make firing a gun more likely? A new scientific study suggests just that:

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., enrolled 30 male students in what they described as a taste study. The researchers took saliva samples from the students and measured testosterone levels. They then seated the young men, one at a time, at a table in a bare room; on the table were pieces of paper and either the board game Mouse Trap or a large handgun. Their instructions: take apart the game or the gun and write directions for assembly and disassembly.
Fifteen minutes later, the psychologists measured saliva testosterone again and found that the levels had spiked in men who had handled the gun but had stayed steady in those working with the board game.

Over to you, Mr Civil Rights.

That’s Mary Cheney’s response to the push by the far right to amend the federal constitution to strip her and every gay person of the right to legally marry or partner the person they love. I look forward to the socially conservative blogosphere describing her as "hysterical." She’s just stating the truth. And she is one of the least hysterical human beings you could wish to meet.

Tony Blair’s expiration date just got moved up a jot. The Tories now have an eight percent lead over Labour. Blair now has exactly Bush’s approval rating: 31 percent. Money quote from a Labour parliamentary rebel: "We have been eyeball to eyeball, and the prime minister has blinked."

Everyone knows that Gordon Brown will be fighting the next election as Labour leader. And so the next few months become an interminable series of internecine Labour spats, uncertainty, and Machiaveliian maneuvring. That can only help the opposition, now calmly united by the pleasant but, until now largely vacuous, leadership of David Cameron. It seems to me that Blair’s chances for pushing through real reform of pensions and the health service are all but lost. He should quit now, give Brown a chance to prove himself, and give the Brits a year or two to measure the comparative qualities of Brown and Cameron as future prime ministers. Two recent prime ministers hung on to office, past an obvious chance to get out while the going was reasonably good: James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher. Both regretted their inability to walk away from Number 10. Blair should heed that history and go soon. Like before the summer.

(Photo: Luke MacGregor/AP.)