The Dish

The social right, whose state amendments would ban civil unions in eight states, is mad at Bush for backing civil unions. Money quote:

“Civil unions are a government endorsement of homosexuality,” said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women For America. “But I don’t think President Bush has thought about it in that way. He seems to be striving for neutrality while defending marriage itself.” … The head of another group, the Campaign for California Families, said it, too, wants a sweeping constitutional amendment that bars civil unions and same-sex marriage. “Here’s the truth, civil unions are homosexual marriage by another name,” said Randy Thomasson, the group’s executive director. “Civil unions rob marriage of its uniqueness and award homosexuals all the rights of marriage available under state law… Bush needs to understand what’s going on and resist counterfeit marriages with all his might no matter what they’re called,” Thomasson said.

So why didn’t this debate happen earlier? Because the White House was smart enough to keep Bush’s views under wraps, only allowing spokesmen to utter them, while signaling to the hard right that Bush wanted to gut gay relationships of all civil protections. How would this debate have played out if Bush had endorsed civil unions – perhaps in a federal bill – back in February? Completely differently. But Rove decided to use the issue to gin up the base and stiff a million gay Bush-backers. I’m sorry, but I’m not falling for this last-minute socially moderate spin now. Meanwhile, though, the message is clear from Bush himself: vote against those state amendments that ban civil unions as well as civil marriages for gay couples. Vote no in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah. Still waiting for word from Gallagher and Kurtz, on whether they support these amendments.

Now, Allawi uses the word “negligent” to describe U.S. policy in Iraq.

The endorsement I once never thought I’d write. Here’s a free link, courtesy of TNR. I’m now headed to an undisclosed location.

The dynamic in this final week often comes down to shoring up vulnerable states and winning the news cycle. Ryan Lizza emphasizes how successful Kerry has been with the latter:

As for the explosives story, it shows once again how effective the Kerry campaign has been at turning the spotlight away from its candidate and back onto Bush’s failures. Granted, it’s always easier for a challenger running against a failed incumbent to do this, but it’s still surprising, given the reputation of Bush’s communications shop, that Kerry is able to win more daily news cycles in the homestretch than his opponent. Bush’s problem is that he has run out of news to make. He has been making the same case against Kerry for almost eight months, and the press corps has tired of the story. Kerry’s team, meanwhile, gets up every morning and feeds the press with a new anti-Bush angle.

Some may see MSM bias at work here. And there’s some of that. But the real problem is the Bush record. It’s vulnerable. For the first time, Kerry is making that hurt the president. And Bush’s counter-attack – dismissing Kerry as too risky, too lightweight and too inconstant – was fatally undermined in the debates, leading to the Kerry-as-liberal meme. Too late, I’d say.

Mystery pollster helps wean you off the daily tracking polls. Every recent shift is within the margin of error and is basically meaningless. Oh well. But did you see the latest Rasmussen?

Many of you have demanded I retract my criticisms of the Bush administration’s handling of the explosives cache at al Qa Qaaa. If the facts really do emerge that these materials were removed before or during the invasion, I will. But the evidence is far murkier than that and points predominantly in the direction of U.S. negligence. Marshall has the best summary. Two things stand out for me: David Kay believes the stuff was looted after the invasion; no news crew, like NBC’s, would have had the capacity to check the inventory of a plant hundreds of buildings big. But if the facts change, I’ll respond.

Who knows what to make of George W. Bush’s statement today that he now favors civil unions for gay couples – although his party platform is against them. For what it’s worth, I tend to think this is his real position, rather than a belated realization that his extremism on this matter has cost him many votes. But if it is his real position, why didn’t he say so before? And how can he support the FMA which specifically bars the “incidents of marriage” for gay couples? President speak in forked tongue. More to the point, he must surely be opposed to the state amendments in eight states that ban marriage for gays and also anything that even vaguely looks like a marriage. Those states are Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah. If you agree with this president, you have to vote against these state constitutional amendments. They bar civil unions as well. (On a brighter note, now that Bush has come out in favor of civil unions, will Maggie Gallagher and Stanley Kurtz finally tell us what they think? Are they against all these state amendments as well? If not, why not?)

One of the worst mistakes the administration made was not killing Zarqawi when they had the chance. They had their reasons – they didn’t want to derail the diplomatic preparation for the war against Saddam by striking within Iraq before formal hostilities broke out. But they had a chance. And they must surely regret not taking it today.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I have recently added your blog to my daily reading and have noticed a disturbing trend. Everything — and now the missing tons of high explosive in Iraq — is George Bush’s personal fault because, as always, there aren’t enough troops there. As a bureaucrat I can assure you that bureaucrats screw up hourly. Does the President have to be on-site to ensure an explosives dump in protected, or is it safe to delegate these tasks to the 100,000+ soldiers that are there? It seems obvious that half a million troops couldn’t perform all the tasks that are required in a country that big, nor did Rumsfeld intend that the country should receive blanket security, presuming, of course, that it was possible given the manpower shortages we now know exist.
My point is, it takes a certain (yes, Liberal!) attitude to identify every burned-out lightbulb as a dire consequence of the President’s intellectual shortcomings. In their case, it’s because their lack of self-esteem makes them hate everyone (themselves in particular). But what excuses your lack of tolerance for Dubya?” Don’t forget the best Letters Page on the web.

AND LIFE AND DEATH GO ON: A beautiful journal entry from one of my longtime readers and email interlocutors, who now has her own blog. It’s about getting through an election season while nursing your own brother to his early death from AIDS. It’s about life and the need for constant prayer.

IN THE DETAILS: The latest Washington Post poll showing Kerry with a minuscule lead contains something more significant, I’d say. It’s the following:

First-time voters also oppose reelection by 58 percent to 37 percent.

Now remember how unprecedentedly copious the new registrations have been in so many states. I have to say that I’d be more surprised now by a Bush victory than a Kerry defeat. Of course, I can still be surprised.

OLSON AGAINST BUSH: Another former Bush supporter (and campaign adviser) balks this time around – on the estimable blog, Overlawyered.com.

MORE LATER: Apologies for light blogging. Been feeling under the weather here. And I’ve been working on an endorsement piece, to be posted later today. More later.

Porn for the undecideds – especially those with a hankering for Bush.

“Having mis-spent my youth in grad school studying late medieval and early modern European intellectual history, I can now — 20 years after leaving academia — shed some valuable light for you and your readers (as well as for the BBC News).
When Luther said he made his discovery ‘in cloaca‘ (literally translated ‘on the toilet’), he was using one of a long list of late medieval theological-scatological phrases that meant ‘in deepest humility’ or in a state of profound ‘worthlessness’ (i.e., like shit).
So when Luther described arriving at his big theological conclusion ‘in cloaca‘, he (like hundreds of other theologians of the time) was not making a literal reference to his bathroom routine.
If this sounds strange strange today, it shouldn’t. The English language still uses lots of scat lingo (e.g., ‘up shit creek without a paddle’) to express extreme emotions or for emphasis. (‘No shit!’, you might say).
So once again, on major matters of import, the BBC News doesn’t know ‘shit from Shinola’ or its ‘ass from a hole in the ground.'”