The Dish

"This administration reacts to anyone who questions this illegal program by saying that those of us who demand the truth and stand up for our rights and freedoms somehow has a pre-9/11 world view. In fact, the President has a pre-1776 world view. Our government has three branches, not one. And no one, not even the President, is above the law." – Senator Russ Feingold, TPM.

Watching the hearings in the early hours, I was certainly impressed with Gonzales’ unflappable calm and pleasant demeanor. I was also convinced that this program is not just about national security. The way it was implemented and the manner in which it is being defended represent a calculated decision within the White House to use this war as a golden opportunity to expand executive power for a generation. There’s nothing unconstitutional about that – and the hearings struck me as an almost text-book case of one branch of government bristling up against another. But that also means that those liberals and, indeed, small government conservatives, who worry about individual liberty in this country need not apologize for fighting back. And they absolutely shouldn’t be intimidated by the thought that they might be endangering national security. This isn’t about the program; it’s about how it’s being conducted and authorized. Karl Rove is intent on erasing that distinction. The rest of us have to keep insisting that he fail.

"Nothing in Al Gonzales’s public statements, legislative proposals or anything else suggests that this is an individual who operates outside of the political gyroscope of President Bush," – Bruce Fein, deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration. When will all these liberals stop criticizing our Great Leader?

They call for the arrest of some Islamist demonstrators who were clearly inciting murder.

It’s amazing to me that this part of the story hasn’t gotten more attention. The most inflammatory of the cartoons were faked – by Islamists. They conned the BBC for a while:

Twelve cartoons were originally published by Jyllands-Posten. None showed the Prophet with the face of a pig. Yet such a portrayal has circulated in the Middle East (The BBC was caught out and for a time showed film of this in Gaza without realizing it was not one of the 12).

This picture, a fuzzy grey photocopy, can now be traced back (suspicion having been confirmed by an admission) to a delegation of Danish Muslim leaders who went to the Middle East in November to publicise the cartoons. The visit was organised by Abu Laban, a leading Muslim figure in Denmark.

According to the Danish paper Ekstra Bladet, the delegation took along a pamphlet showing the 12 drawings. But the delegation also showed a number of other pictures, including the "pig" one. The delegation claimed they were the sort of insults that Muslims in Denmark had to endure. These also got into circulation.

Here’s the source for one of the cartoons: from the French Pig-Squealing Championships in Trie-sur-Baise’s annual festival. Much of this controversy has been deliberately created by Islamists to polarize the world and to intimidate Western governments. Another reason to expose it for what it is.

At National Review. Here and here. They’re directed for the cheapest of political points with respect to Senator John McCain, who suffered incredible torture at the hands of the Viet Cong for the sake of his country.

A reader writes:

"I never heard of you or read any thing you wrote, but I watched you accidentally with Anderson Cooper talking about Islam. I saw you and I heard another caricature: a caricature of Ignorance, arrogance and lack of respect for others based on democracy and the West and brainwashed ‘freedom.’

In Islam RESPECT is Number one, RESPECT of the Mothers and Fathers the Elderly etc RESPECT is the key to conquer the Muslim world. So if you do not understand the world RESPECT … then as we say here forget it … if you wish to open your mind and understand what is Taboo in other people’s culture and understand the meaning of RESPECT, it’s fine. We call it here an open mind. If not, Ignorance is a great ocean to swim in. Jesus said love your neighbor: that means RESPECT your neighbor. Understand him and respect his feeling. Watching you talk was a disaster."

One small comment: I have no interest in conquering the Muslim world. I just want the West to remain free. That means that respect is a two-way street.

… for the late start today. I did Anderson Cooper last night (I mean the show, smart-asses), and then, well, uber-nerd watch coming up, but I found myself engrossed in the CSPAN hearings with Alberto Gonzales. Went to bed late. And I just woke up. Caffeinated blogging imminent.

He dislikes the press more than the Islamists. A blogger laments.

From the Washington City Paper, an almost-moving account of the former D.C. mayor and current council-member, Marion Barry. He has some interesting habits:

"’Sometimes I see him in the afternoon just walking back and forth to his car,’ Fullard says. ‘He‚Äôd walk to his car and then walk down the street.’ Fullard says she’d see him walk to where Douglass Place dead-ends, a spot overlooking Suitland Parkway and marked by Jersey barriers sprayed with a tag memorializing another neighborhood. There, Barry would turn left and disappear into the Sayles Place town homes’ parking lot.
Sometimes Barry, 69, would reappear five to 10 minutes later, Fullard says. Only this time he seemed like a different man. She describes the transformed Barry this way: ‘Like he could barely stand up. His eyes were half-closed.’

He needed help a long time ago. His supporters merely enabled him some more.

A reader writes about the movies:

All this talk of "Brokeback Mountain" and its cultural significance finally got me thinking again of my all-time favorite film, "Midnight Cowboy", and how much of a forerunner it is for "Brokeback". Besides the cowboy tie-in, there’s the struggle of two men to bridge the gap between them against the demands of their own repression. After having endured adolescence in Omaha (unfriendly environs unless you’re a straight, white, Catholic male), I saw Midnight Cowboy at age 18, and it, along with my burgeoning love of David Bowie, got me shaking with nervousness that I was gay. 

When I finally bothered to realize that I wasn’t attracted to men, it occurred to me that I was still carrying around received notions of how masculinity and heterosexuality were defined even though I knew how much damage those ideas had inflicted on me and the other non-macho boys in school and around town. What Midnight Cowboy and Ziggy Stardust did for me was to unmoor me from that awful, cowardly, emotionally stunted caricature of heterosexuality that I carried around because there were no indigenous alternatives in Nebraska. I love these works of art for beaming in those alternatives to people starving for them, but I think that point sells them short. I love them more because they taught me to be a better heterosexual, a better man, and a better person. The plight of gay characters in Midnight Cowboy or Brokeback Mountain or whatever else affects us not with the emotional blackmail of overwrought tragedy, as detractors surely assume, but by reaching for deeper commonalities that transcend categorization.  That is why it succeeds, and why other "gay art" remains, for better or worse, just that.

Amen about "gay art." If that’s what it calls itself, it’s neither. Speaking of movies, we watched "East of Eden" last night. I’d never seen it, but its deep themes of love versus truth, of sin and salvation, seemed more relevant than ever. What Steinbeck and Kazan seemed to be saying is that truth matters, but the ultimate Christian truth is love. When adherence to truth attacks love, it destroys itself. If I were forced to state the essentials of my own Christian faith, it would be something like that. Love before everything. And the more astonishing idea: that the force behind all of us, and all of creation, is … benign. That’s what Jesus came to prove. And what some of his followers occasionally forget.