The Dish

I have yet another ally.

The fiance and I are headed to England for Easter and the week thereafter. Family time, mainly, in Sussex. But we’re planning on a few days in London and I know the blog has plenty of Londoners reading. I wonder if anyone has any tips on new spots to discover. I’m out of touch. If you’ve seen a great stage production in London recently, or know of a good new restaurant, or an art exhibit we should definitely check out, I’d be grateful for suggestions. I’ll write up the trip when we return, and maybe we can give a few pointers to other potential tourists as well.

"I think that it is necessary for the president and vice president to tell the American people exactly what happened… I do say that there’s been enough of a showing here with what’s been filed of record in court that the president of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people … about exactly what he did," – Senator Arlen Specter, ratcheting up the pressure on the president and veep today.

This other WaPo piece is pretty damning. A "concerted effort" to strike back at Joe Wilson? And, as so often, Cheney is at the heart of it. Wilson, I should add, seems to me to be a low-life. But the people who go all out to attack low-lifes tend to end up on their level.

It’s our new health obsession. I don’t share the tone of slight condescension in this Observer piece from London. Exercise, diet and sleep are the three essential parts of maintaining good health and a good immune system. Some of us have to be a little more vigilant on this front than others. But everyone can benefit. In D.C., the sleeplessness is endemic. It doesn’t help good government.

The Sunday Times of London (my other corporate overlord) has a lengthy piece on the Bush administration’s apparent planning for a conventional, and even nuclear, war against the Ahmadinejad regime. They have a senior White House official confirming Sy Hersh’s piece. And Richard Perle gives good quote.

Some readers have objected to my attempt to coin a new word to describe those who would deploy the teachings of Jesus as a political ideology as "Christianists." They don’t like the analogy to Islamists, and think it imputes to politicized Christians an endorsement of terror or violence. The latter is not in any way my intent. In the war on terror, many have distinguished between Muslims and Islamists. The distinction made is between those who sincerely hold to an ancient faith, and those who are deploying that faith as a political weapon, who see no distinction between state and mosque, and who aggressively foist their religious doctrines onto civil law. And this is a critical distinction. It helps us to criticize regimes like the Taliban or Iran’s, while not tarring all Muslims with that label.

That is my intent with the term "Christianist" and "Christianism." The truth is: I do not recognize my own Christianity or the Christianity of millions in the blasphemous words of Tom DeLay or Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. These individuals are political figures, using faith as a weapon to advance a political agenda that aims at policing people’s moral lives, removing people’s civil rights, and marginalizing minorities. Today, in the NYT, Garry Wills brilliantly defends Christianity and Jesus from such blasphemy and hubris. In this, I think many evangelicals and even fundamentalists quietly but overwhelmingly concur. The distinction between religion and politics was long understood among American evangelicals; and it is central to Jesus’ message. It took hubristic liberalism to galvanize American evangelicals into a politicized response; but subsequently the movement of right-wing Christianism has achieved a momentum all its own. It has even spawned a Catholic off-shoot: the theocons who also want to deploy faith for political gain and an assault on liberty. Wills is right that a left-wing Christianism would be no better. Democrats should do all they can to resist that temptation.

So: no apologies from me. People who believe in the Gospels of Jesus Christ are Christians. People who use the Gospels of Jesus Christ for political gain, and for a political program of right or left, are Christianists. And Christianism, like many "isms", is an ideology that will corrupt faith and poison politics. It has already done both, under the auspices of this president and his acolytes. It is long past time that real Christians took their faith back from these political charlatans. One first step is to deny them the name that they have so artfully coopted. It starts with language. It always does.

The British comedy series, "Yes, Minister," and subsequently, "Yes, Prime Minister," was a masterly insight into how people in government view themselves, especially the permanent civil servants who implement government directives. In Britain, these people form a professional government caste. Sir Humphrey is the master of that caste; and he had something to say about leaks of classified information that is certainly pertinent to the current American debate. Money quote:

Prime Minister: We must do something to improve my relations with the press, which deteriorated considerably when my private secretary told them I felt I was above the law when it came to official secrets.

Bernard: Yes, you may well hang your head.

PM: What’s the constitutional position, Humphrey?

Sir Humphrey: Well, in a sense, Bernard was right. The question, in a nutshell, is what is the difference between a breach of the Official Secrets Act and an unattributable, off-the-record briefing by a senior official? The former – a breach – is a criminal offence. A briefing is essential to keep the wheels turning.

Bernard: Is there a difference or is it a matter of convenience and interpretation? Is it a breach of the act if there is an unofficial, non-attributable briefing by an official who’s been unofficially authorised by the Prime Minister?

Sir Humphrey: Not if it’s been authorised by the PM, no.

PM: That’s what I say. I should decide if it’s in the national interest for something to be disclosed, not officials.

PM: Last week’s leak must’ve come from an official.

Bernard: But what if the official was officially authorised or even unofficially authorised? What if the PM officially disapproves of a breach of the act, but unofficially approves?

Sir Humphrey: Then a leak would be unofficially official, but officially unofficial.

Everything clear now?

Sy Hersh’s new piece is now posted. Money quote:

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that ‘a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.’ He added, ‘I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?”

Gulp.

The children captured as "enemy combatants" in Afghanistan and subsequently released, have nothing but good things to say about their time at the camp, and America. They were sequestered from the adult prisoners and gave up no useful intelligence. Of course, most twelve-year-olds do not qualify as, in Rummy’s words, "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the Earth." But their treatment was humane. Money quote:

The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. "Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don’t have anything against them," he said. "If my father didn’t need me, I would want to live in America."
Asadullah is even more sure of this. "Americans are great people, better than anyone else," he said, when found at his elder brother’s tiny fruit and nut shop in a muddy backstreet of Kabul. "Americans are polite and friendly when you speak to them. They are not rude like Afghans. If I could be anywhere, I would be in America. I would like to be a doctor, an engineer _ or an American soldier."

Some, of course, will use this to dismiss the inhumane treatment of adult prisoners at Gitmo. That’s a non-sequitur. Moreover, it shouldn’t be news that the U.S. treats minors decently. But, given Rumsfeld’s record, it is.

First they came for the cartoons …