The Dish

Just a word, if I may. You are employed by the American people. You are not a monarch; and you are not a Pope. You have seriously wounded another human being. The news was kept from the public for a day. The man is in intensive care. There are many serious questions about the incident: How did it happen? What happened immediately thereafter? Why the decision to keep it secret for so long? The least the American people deserve is your own account in public in front of the press corps. Who are you hiding from? And who on earth do you think you are?

Now Russian Muslims are threatening to attack anyone who participates in a planned Gay Pride parade in Moscow this spring. Money quote from Chief Russian Mufti Talgat Tajuddin: "The parade should not be allowed, and if they still come out into the streets, then they should be bashed." I am constantly being told that violent Muslims do not represent the real Islam. But this is the chief Muslim spokesman in Russia, issuing what amounts to a threat. Remind me: Why should I respect bigotry, backed by violence?

He’s 78. He got hit in the face and body by a spray of tiny pellets. He’s back in intensive care. It’s not inconceivable that the vice-president may have accidentally killed someone. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t know Texas law; and I’m not a lawyer. But wouldn’t this be a case of something like negligent homicide? Maybe some Texas lawyers are out there; and could clarify.

So great, in fact, that He cannot tolerate a few Danish cartoons. What a vulnerable deity. And so the violence continues.

"Under the unitary executive theory of Article II, the President of the United States, as Commander-in-Chief, has inherent authority to shoot anyone he likes, and he may surely delegate that authority to his second in command, the Vice President of the United States…"

The memo continues here.

A reader points me to an amusing contrast on National Review’s compelling blog, the Corner. Here’s Jonah Goldberg at 8.48 pm on Sunday, ridiculing the idea that anytime someone criticizes Bush, he’s immediately denounced as a "liberal" by other conservatives:

"This quote by Glenn Greenwald is objectively inaccurate and stupid and yet Andrew Sullivan makes it his "quote of the day" and says it "accurately" diagnoses the current situation. Greenwald writes: [snip]

‘In order to be considered a "liberal," only one thing is required ‚Äì a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a "liberal," regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more "liberal" one is.’

I defy either of them to attempt to demonstrate this assertion factually."

Well, we don’t have to. On the same blog, only a day later, John Podhoretz, complains of exactly the thing Jonah says doesn’t exist:

"[A]ccusing me of being either a liberal or in a liberal bubble or being manipulated by the liberal media for saying that it’s a big deal when the vice president shoots somebody isn’t a rational response to what I’ve said about the Vice President’s hunting accident."

Ahem. If conservatives can impulsively accuse John Podhoretz of being a liberal, then I think the case is closed. Jonah’s assertion was, in his words, "objectively inaccurate."

"Mr. Cheney is a man of high intelligence, character and, as I have found, personal goodness. But even the finest men have their blind spots, and I’m afraid that was the problem here. Birds are not skeet. They are living creatures, "the fowl of the air," and it is unkind and dishonorable to treat them this way. The sportsman shoots in jest, to paraphrase a saying, but the creature dies in earnest," – Matt Scully, former White house speechwriter, whose book, "Dominion," is as morally serious as it is eloquent.

Maybe it’s time we quit the jokes. The poor guy, Harry Whittington, had a heart attack this morning.

A reader writes:

"You have just shown another way in which you’re not a real conservative. You know nothing about guns or shooting! What Cheney shot Whittington with was birdshot, not buckshot. One does not use buckshot for hunting quail. I’d guess Cheney was using nothing bigger than No. 6 birdshot. Also, had Whittington been hit in the head with buckshot rather than birdshot, he’d likely have been killed."

I’m grateful for the correction. I’m guilty as charged. I know next to nothing about the subject. For the record, I have no problem with people who spend their spare time wandering woods in order to kill small animals. To each their own. Liberty means liberty. But, speaking personally, I’d rather leave small animals alone than spend time killing them for fun. Yeah, crazy, I know.

P.S. Just after writing this post, one of my beagles jumped up on my laptop and the re-edit page popped up. I kid you not. The Sullivan household clearly has some dissent on the whole hunting issue.

"A later realization – I suppose I have sensed it most of my life, but I have understood it philosophically only during the preparation of this talk – has been the beauty of the idea of the pursuit of happiness. Familiar words, easy to take for granted; easy to misconstrue. This idea of the pursuit of happiness is at the heart of the attractiveness of the civilization to so many outside it or on its periphery. I find it marvelous to contemplate to what an extent, after two centuries, and after the terrible history of the earlier part of this century, the idea has come to a kind of fruition. It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit. I don’t imagine my father’s parents would have been able to understand the idea. So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement. It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist; and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away." – V.S. Naipaul, 1990 (Wriston lecture).