The Dish

It’s odd, isn’t it, that perhaps the most momentous reform being considered in a Bush second term barely registered in the campaign: a flat tax. It could take the form of a national sales tax, or a flat income tax, or some combination of the two. I might as well put my two cents in. I’ve long been a huge enthusiast for the reform for a simple reason. Forget about the obvious economic benefits. The political benefits are legion. First, it deals a death blow to the cancer of corporate lobbying in Washington. If you restrict shelters to one or two (charity or home-ownership, but I’d abolish the latter), then the whole Washington game is over. Far, far more effective than campaign finance reform. Second, it upholds an important liberal principle: that the government should be neutral among its citizens. I don’t believe in affirmative action, because it means the government discriminates on the basis of race. I oppose heterosexual-exclusive civil marriage, because it means the government discriminates on the basis of emotional/sexual orientation. And I oppose punitive or “progressive” taxation, because it means the government discriminates on the basis of personal success. If we’re all taxed at the same proportionate rate, the successful still pay far more into the public coffers than the unsuccessful. They’re just not penalized even further by a higher rate. If you want to help the disadvantaged, and I do, then focus government spending on programs that help the under-privileged. But don’t penalize work. And don’t defend unequal treatment.

SPECTER’S PLEDGE: Did Snarlin’ Arlen promise Pennsylvania papers that he would make sure abortion stayed legal if he became chairman of the Judiciary Committee? Tim Perry examines the evidence.

Where’s Noam Chomsky when you need him?

EMAIL FROM OSLO: It was the anniversary of Kristallnacht last night. My friend Bruce Bawer observed it in Norway:

This evening in Oslo there was a march commemorating Kristallnacht. According to TV2 News, no Norwegian Jews were present. The authorities, saying that they did not want any trouble, forbade any Jewish symbols, including Stars of David and Israeli flags. On the TV2 evening news, a group of Jews and their friends who wanted to take part in the commemoration were shown being firmly told by a policeman to “please leave the area.” This in a city where Muslim demonstrations take place on a regular basis, and include signs and banners bearing hateful, barbaric slogans.

What on earth is happening to Europe’s sense of right and wrong?

PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS: The sanest and smartest piece I’ve ever read on the subject can be found here.

“[T]he wreckers loose in our own society are stronger, more confident, and more numerous. It is those wreckers that most concern me: the arrogant judges, the academic deconstructors, the teacher-union multiculturalists, the media guilt-mongers, the love-the-world pacifists, the criminal-lovers and family-breakers, the inventors of bogus rights and destroyers of cherished traditions, the haters of normality and scoffers at restraint, the enterprise-destroying litigators and pain-feelers.- – John Derbyshire, still hating, National Review.

TIME FOR HEALING II: “For many decades, conservative citizens and like-minded political leaders (starting with President Calvin Coolidge) have been denigrated by the vilest of lies and characterizations from hordes of liberals who now won’t even admit that they are liberals–because the word connotes such moral stink and political silliness. As a class, liberals no longer are merely the vigorous opponents of the Right; they are spiteful enemies of civilization’s core decency and traditions.” – Mike Thompson, Human Events Online.

More evidence piling in:

There was a very strong correlation between President Bush’s share of the vote in 2000 and his share of the vote in 2004 across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The president consistently ran a few percentage points ahead of his showing in 2000, but he did not improve on his 2000 performance any more in states with gay marriage referenda than in other states. In 11 states with gay marriage referenda on the ballot, the president increased his share of the vote from an average of 55.4 percent in 2000 to an average of 58.0 percent in 2004–an improvement of 2.6 percentage points. However, in the rest of the country the president increased his share of the vote from an average of 48.1 percent in 2000 to an average of 51.0 percent in 2004–an improvement of 2.9 percentage points.

I don’t believe that we should give up or change the fight for marriage equality. But I do think it behooves people like me to listen to what the other side is saying. I’m struck by how many of you have told me that your real objection is not with the issue of marriage equality itself, but by the means of achieving it. Court-imposed mandates rub people the wrong way, even those who support including gay couples within the family structure. Extra-legal tactics like Gavin Newsom’s particularly rankle. I wasn’t sanguine about this at the time but minimized it because I was so swept up in the emotion of seeing gay couples finally getting the respect they deserve. I should have been stricter in opposing Newsom’s grandstanding. I’ll have more to say in a forthcoming TNR piece. But it’s important to hear what others who disagree with me are saying. I’m trying harder.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “[W]hen a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental–men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost… [A]ll the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre–the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” – H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.

When you look at a simple geographical/political representation of the country, you can get overwhelmed by the red states, simply because they are much bigger than the blue ones. And that, in itself, can lead us to imagine that the country is more conservative than it actually is, or more consistently Republican. That’s why these cartograms are so enlightening. Check ’em out.

Two books worth checking out in the aftermath of November 2: “The Right Nation,” by my old friends, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, and “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” by Thomas Franks. This isn’t an endorsement of either book (I found Franks unconvincing) but they’re good resources to ponder the questions raised.

David Frum is re-writing history:

Now the battle [for Falluja] has begun. What is to come we cannot know. But we can know this: Fully aware of the stakes, American voters massively rejected the candidate who promised to put an end to battles like Fallujah–and massively voted in the candidate who pledged to do whatever was necessary to win these battles.

Now, it’s perfectly fair to say that the key to Bush’s victory was his unambiguous support of military strength to fight terrorism. But it doesn’t seem fair to me to describe Kerry’s position as the abdication of military might in Iraq. Kerry backed Bush’s future plan for Iraq; in fact, Bush’s plan owed much to Kerry’s. And the solution in Iraq is never and can never be purely military. If Frum believes that, he is asking for a come-uppance. What if we win the battle for Falluja and lose the war for democratic legitimacy in Iraq? The balance between military force and political skill is a delicate one and critical to success in Iraq. Kerry and Bush placed differing emphases on each part of the equation. Yep, most Americans backed Bush. But Frum seems to be arguing that no such balance is necessary.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “God gave this President and this President’s Party one more chance … God heard the fervent prayers of millions of values voters to keep His hand on America one more time despite our national sins of denying the right to life, despite ignoring the Biblical injunction against acts which are ‘an abomination unto the Lord’ and despite the blatant attempt to remove God from the public square.” – Paul Weyrich, Republican operative. Only one vote counted, apparently. And it was divine.

It’s simply impossible to know how things are going there from this distance. But I was concerned to read the following on Stratfor (subscription only):

No Iraqi army or national guard unit fought in Al Fallujah, sources close to the Interim Iraqi Government (IIG) say. Iraqi national guard units reportedly have refused to attack guerrilla positions; their commanders have been unable to make soldiers move forward and some officers are siding with the troops. Only the Iraqi army’s special forces unit, which is mostly Kurdish, helped search for hidden guerrillas behind U.S. Marine lines outside the city. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers have deserted to bases around Al Fallujah, the sources added.

Stratfor is not a lefty outfit. It’s just an excellent source for military analysis. Belmont Club, on the other hand, thinks things are going swimmingly:

I believe (speculation alert!) that the enemy mobile defense is nearly at an end; that his active response has probably fallen to pieces much quicker than he anticipated and they are probably going to concentrate their resistance into mutually supportive strongpoints or explosive barriers fairly soon. The enemy’s remaining hope is to hit the “jackpot” by demolishing a building or blowing up a street just as US forces occupy or overrun it. As they become squeezed into a smaller and smaller area, the risk that US forces will run into an exploding house or building will increase. But the rapid progress of the last two nights may be tempting US commanders to accept the risks and snap at the enemy’s heels. Going fast may prevent the enemy from setting up their defense.

Belmont Club, of course, is a pro-Bush partisan site. But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong in this case. And, given the overwhelming superiority of the coalition forces, military victory is surely not in much doubt. The question is: how many civilian casualties? How many insurgents killed? How successfully did the Iraqi units perform? What is the political fall-out? Let’s hope for the best.

WHAT’S THE 36TH? Defense Tech has the skinny on the Iraqi armed forces in Falluja. Basically, they’re Kurds.

A round-up of Begala Awards nominees from Deutschland. (Newbies who are unused to my occasional facetious awards can find the explanations here.) (While you’re at it, if you want to change the color scheme of the site, click the little “Black and White” button at the top of the Dish.)

THE REALITY-BASED DOLLAR?: Dan Drezner looks at the worrying trends behind the dollar’s decline.

SLATE HITS BOTTOM: Yep, they have an entire article on the fact that at the end of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” (transcript here), I got up and readjusted my power-glutes. Slow news day? It was the first thing my boyfriend pointed out to me when I called him after the show. The reason? Slate demands an answer. It itched.

A HATER OF GOD’S PEOPLE: James Dobson, the social policy director of the Bush administration, had an interesting exchange with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. Josh Marshall has the details.

“Their new health care plan will probably be a return to leeches.” – Maureen Dowd, unable to move on.org.

BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE II: “I hope we all realize that, as of November 2nd, gay rights are officially dead. And that from here on we are going to be led even closer to the guillotine.” – Larry Kramer, in a speech to the gay community in Manhattan Sunday night. I’m very fond of Larry, but understatement is not his strong suit.

BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE III: “Freud stayed in Vienna until Hitler had completely taken over the country, but I don’t want to be wrong about when it’s time to leave. My fear is that I won’t know when to get out.” – Peggy Bowen, BBC News.