The Dish

Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru do their best to make the case that Bush hasn’t lowered the bar on firing a leaker in his administration. They’re not crazy or wrong. You make your own mind up. But this is surely finesse worthy of the 42d president, not the official version of the 43d.

HEATH AND THE TORIES: An emailer recalls:

For what it’s worth, at the time when the Tories rose up against Mrs. Thatcher and forced her out as party leader and PM, I saw Jeffrey Archer, speaking for the Tories, debate a Labour MP on a news program. Whatever you may say about Archer, he is a very quick-witted speaker, quite witty and sharp in a way that the English pull off and Americans rarely do. Anyway, Archer was saying at one point that the Tories should not be considered ‘conservative’ but progressive in some ways. As he put it, to the Tories credit must be given for ‘the first Jewish prime minister, the first lady prime minister, the first bachelor prime minister.’ The way he emphasized the word ‘bachelor’ left no ambiguity about what he meant. Clearly he was referring to Mr. Heath, and clearly he was saying Heath was gay.
All of which is to say, I too wish the obituaries had made more of his private life, because quite clearly it is something that distinguished him – and something some Tories (or at the very least, Jeremy Archer) felt was worth celebrating.

Maybe the bachelor thing is really the astonishing part. A bachelor president is pretty much unthinkable, isn’t it? Far more transgressive than a woman or an African-American or a Jew or even a married gay man.

A pretty dreadful prime minister, in my view. A viscerally anti-American Tory who wanted to submerge Britain into a European super-state, and never managed to forgive Margaret Thatcher for succeeding where he so manifestly failed. There was barely a dictator he couldn’t find an excuse for. Of Tiananmen Square, he said: “There was a crisis after a month in which the civil authorities had been defied. They took action. Very well.” I must also say that it is very weird that the obits barely say anything about his private life. He never married. It was widely assumed he was gay. Why is this somehow a subject that we cannot even discuss after someone has died? I know of no one in British politics who didn’t talk of it privately. And a gay prime minister – however terrible he was at the job – is an historic matter of fact or at least inquiry. Or was he just a gay man of a cerain generation who learned that the only way to control his feelings was to kill them off?

An Iranian dissident’s hunger strike may be drawing to a close.

Another boo-boo.

QUOTES OF THE DAY: “If anyone in this administration was involved in it [the improper disclosure of an undercover CIA operative’s identity], they would no longer be in this administration.” – Scott McClellan, September 29, 2003.

“I don’t know of anyone in my administration who has leaked. If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it, and we’ll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.” – president Bush, September 30, 2003.

“I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts and if someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration,” – president Bush, today.

I think it’s possible to parse these statements as meaning the same thing. I just don’t think you can and have any record deploring Bill Clinton’s use of legal semantics.

It’s “hypocognition,” coined by “framer” “expert,” George Lakoff. It means “lacking ideas”. As bullshit goes, it’s pretty good.

More indispensable analysis on how far the Bush administration is taking this country away from legal guarantees of humane treatment of pirsoners of war and enemy combatants. Money quote:

It should come as no surprise that the Administration believes it is not bound by customary international law when the President is acting pursuant to his constitutional authority – that’s a conclusion that the Executive branch appears to have adopted long before this Administration, and it may well be correct. What is very new – and very ominous – is the President’s determination that the United States will not uniformly apply the standards of [Geneva] Common Article 3 as a matter of policy, thereby deviating from more than a half-century of consistent U.S. practice.

Marty thinks we need a legislative intervention. I agree. John McCain described the administration’s loop-hole of using torture against enemy combatants – that Geneva’s “principles” should be applied only “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity” – as “as wide open as anything I have ever heard.” There’s still hope for reform, and for confining the damage the president has done to a few shameful years in American history. McCain – who knows the consequences of America’s de facto acquiescence in abusing even legitimate prisoners of war – may well be the man who can bring us back from the brink of lawlessness. A report on last Thursday’s Senate Armed Services Committee can be read here – with video! I’m also impressed by Lindsay Graham’s conscience and determination to fix a real problem.

Could Fitzgerald be looking for someone who violated this law?

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “The stubborn spark of hope you cling to regarding the decency of the Catholic masses is sweet, but it’s sad to see you get kicked in the face so often just the same. I’m afraid another boot is headed your way. First, I doubt Benedict XVI will demand the ouster of all current gay priests and bishops – that strategy invites the possibility of a great deal of embarassment, as former priests kicked out of a job would be a potentially endless source of dirty laundry regarding other Catholic officials. Can you imagine? The far wiser course would be to bar all homosexuals from entering seminary and adopting a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that grandfathers the gay priests who are already ordained, keeping them scared but very aware that they still won’t lose everything if they keep quiet.

Second, the vast majority of heterosexual Catholics will actually approve of Benedict’s decree and will thank him for it. By permitting existing gay priests to remain and banning only future gay priests from being ordained, the pope will place the stigma of homosexual menace only on faceless individuals who have not yet had the chance to let their gifts as priests win them supporters among the Catholic rank and file. Heterosexual Catholics will not “rise up and defend” someone they have never met. Rather, they will solemnly nod and think to themselves, ‘finally, someone is taking a step to protect our children’ and conveniently ignore the fact that any pedophile can still enter the priesthood just by telling a few lies to himself. It won’t matter that this new policy neither serves justice nor solves the problem of pedophile priests to any degree: people are desperate for certainty and security, and will create it even when it doesn’t really exist. Unfortunately, that aspect of human nature is the bedrock of all faiths, and we will see it come into play here as well.”

I don’t disagree with any of this. The question will be how the thousands of gay priests now serving the Church will respond. I suspect they will do what they often have: perform their service because that is their calling, and endure the obloquy and taint of association with child molesters as the cross they have to bear. But I hope more find the grace to come out, to tell their parishioners who they are, if they haven’t already, and explain how this new policy is unjust and violates the most basic precepts of justice, fairness and charity.

Apparently, in the wake of “No Child Left Behind,” they are. But don’t tell the NEA. It would only upset them. Eduwonk has great analysis, as always, here and here.

From the hilarious fringes of the Republican party.

Johann Hari’s long-term solution for the threat of Islamo-fascism.