The Dish

I thought it was fun enough, but, sadly, Matt Klam doesn’t seem to grasp how deeply revolutionary the new medium is beginning to be. It was also skewed toward the leftward part of the blogosphere – and it failed to distinguish adequately enough, I thought, between blogs that are journalistic and those that are blatantly activist. It’s not that DailyKos or FreeRepublic are “nastier”; it’s that they’re unabashedly partisan, help organize politics as well as comment on it. But, hey, there’s plenty of space for all kinds of blogs; and no piece can cover it all. The good news is that I think we may have reached a blogging tipping point in terms of public awareness. This piece helps advance that. And it was a jolly read.

NOW, NOVA SCOTIA: Yet another Canadian province allows gays to marry. I know this sounds esoteric, but Canada does make a difference here for the U.S. It’s country deeply intermeshed with this one; it is relatively easy for gay couples to go there, get married and come back with an even deeper sense of their own equality. And the psychological impact of having your relationship affirmed and supported is profound. The truth is: there is no real struggle over whether gays will get married in this country. They are and they will. Gay marriage is a social fact. What is disputed is whether society will accord these relationships any legal validity, whether such couples will live constantly with the threat of their de facto marriages being derailed by the meddling of hostile relatives, using Republican-sponsored law to undermine them and break them up. Canada and the rest of the civilized world adds a huge amount of weight to the gay side of the debate. It shows gay couples that many parts of America are the exception, not the rule. And the idea of marriage as both imaginable and a right will percolate down to the next gay generation and make marriage seem a no-brainer. That goes for younger straights, as well, who already have very few issues with two dudes loving each other and living together as a married couple. What I’m saying, I guess, is that this social movement is unstoppable. All you can do is persecute, harass and marginalize those who are a part of it. But you can’t stop them loving one another, or committing to each other, or getting actual marriage licenses (from Canada) that will reinforce the revolution. For a long time, I urged conservatives to co-opt this social change rather than resist it. For the most part, I failed. But the real victims of this, in the very long run, will not be gays. It will be conservatives.

Naomi Wolf and I agree on something: Teresa is a much bigger drag on the Kerry ticket than anyone is now admitting. Her appalling speech at the DNC did a huge amount to deny Kerry any bounce. Here’s why:

So Laura Bush, in speaking warmly of her mate’s ‘wrestling’ with issues of war and peace, enhances his potency. This does not contradict my earlier point about appealing to swing voters; it has been well established that modern women maddeningly long for men who are tender in private but authoritative in public. Unfortunately, Teresa Heinz Kerry’s speech, which all but ignored her husband, did more to emasculate him than the opposition ever could. By publicly shining the light on herself rather than her husband, she opened a symbolic breach in Kerry’s archetypal armor. Listen to what the Republicans are hitting Kerry with: Indecisive. Effete. French. They are all but calling this tall, accomplished war hero gay.
The charges are sticking because of Teresa Heinz Kerry. Let’s start with ‘Heinz.’ By retaining her dead husband’s name – there is no genteel way to put this – she is publicly, subliminally cuckolding Kerry with the power of another man-a dead Republican man, at that. Add to that the fact that her first husband was (as she is herself now) vastly more wealthy than her second husband. Throw into all of this her penchant for black, a color that no woman wears in the heartland, and you have a recipe for just what Kerry is struggling with now: charges of elitism, unstable family relationships, and an unmanned candidate.

Bingo. Of course, Kerry cannot help the fact that his wife’s a walking embarrassment. But he can keep her waaaay in the background. And pray.

Almost all the reporters or human beings I read who have been there are beginning to say that Afghanistan is a big success story. Hitch, who just returned, was almost giddy with enthusiasm yesterday. Bergen’s on board. And here’s another missive of optimism. (Hat tip: Glenn.) You can read this either way, I suppose. It can make Iraq look worse in comparison – or it can be seen as a sign that, even when things look dire, the power of the franchise and a skillful leader, like Karzai, can turn things around. Maybe in Iraq too. Man, I hope so.

“Radical Islamists were surely watching in July when the Senate voted on procedural grounds to do away with the Federal Marriage Amendment. This is like handing moral weapons of mass destruction to those who use America’s decadence to recruit more snipers and hijackers and suicide bombers. One vital goal of the war in Iraq, and the war against terrorism, is to bring democracy to the heart of the Islamic world. Our hope is to make freedom so attractive that other Muslim countries will follow suit. But when radical Islamists see American women abusing Muslim men, as they did in the Abu Ghraib prison, and when they see news coverage of same-sex couples being “married” in U.S. towns, we make our kind of freedom abhorrent-the kind they see as a blot on Allah’s creation. Preserving traditional marriage in order to protect children is a crucially important goal by itself. But it’s also about protecting the United States from those who would use our depravity to destroy us.” – Charles Colson, Christianity Today.

CHE WHAT? The moral perils of lionizing Guevara. Terrific piece by Paul Berman.

OAKESHOTT AND BERLIN: Noel Malcolm sees Oakeshott as having a more enduring legacy. I agree. I haven’t read Paul Franco’s new book, but his previous tome was exhaustive and smart.

What wimps the Washington Post editors are for pulling the latest Boondocks strip. I actually met Aaron McGruder with Bill Maher out in L.A. and I’m sure I’d disagree with him on almost everything, but he’s a very gifted cartoonist and speaks with a fresh, clear voice. South Park with soul, if you will. His reality-show parody of “The Apprentice,” “Can A N***a Get a Job?,” is pretty damn funny, and it deals with some generational divides among blacks. I laughed and learned something. Why couldn’t the tired old p.c. souls at the Post? Anyway, here’s the strip. It carries on all week. See, Big Media? You can’t stop us any more, can you?

“Andrew, there is nothing wrong with life as a media whore, and, in fact, I applaud it. After seeing you pop up on a few programs recently, my girlfriend – who is not one to frequently compliment men as to live up to the stereotype of the man-hating lesbian – asked, “Is that the Andrew who you read online? I like him. He’s smart. And cute.” In five years together, I can’t say that I’ve ever heard her say that about a guy before.
Just a couple of quick things –
First, I don’t think for a second that you’re not supporting Bush strictly on ‘the gay thing.’ As you correctly pointed out, you’ve had no shortage of criticism of the guy on a number of issues, not the least of which have been the war and the economy.
But I don’t think that your record can beat the real problem. There’s a perception that we – by nature of being gay – must not like the Republican candidate because Republicans are always bad for gays. This is what makes so many gays single-issue voters (a concept completely devoid of logic since I’d be hard-pressed to find any presidential candidate who has done anything for us as gays). When people encounter a gay who votes for the Republican, they just can’t resolve it. We’re in denial, or full of self-hatred, or just dumb.
Now that you’ve come out against Bush, I don’t think that people can help themselves but assume that your reason is – despite what you say – because of The Gay Thing. We need to fit into people’s happily constructed assumptions of what gays should do when it comes to politics. Like you, there are lots of people calling me and rejoicing in the fact that I can’t support Bush this time around just so they can say, ‘I told you so – you can’t be gay and vote Republican.’
They need us to live up to their expectations, even if what we say, do, and think is the opposite.
Sad, but true. And if anyone else calls me and gleefully suggests that I’ve finally comes to my senses by voting for the Democrat, I might be sick. But trust me – the sickness is precipitated by the fact that it’s nauseating that Bush is the best that the GOP can do.” More not-so-lesbian feedback on the Letters Page.

Yep, the RNC did it. I might add that blogs broke this story, although David Kirkpatrick refers only to a liberal religious group. Still: it’s enlightening to see how the RNC peddles hysteria and homophobia to win votes. And not an apology in sight.

Here are two striking but different takes on Iraq’s current situation. Cheery Chrenkoff notes the extraordinary devastation that the Saddam mafia wrought on that poor country. Juan Cole asks what America would be like if it had the same level of violence and instability as Iraq now has.

I’m on CNBC’s Capital Report today on blogging – at 7 pm EDT. Guests include Jeff Jarvis, John Hinderaker and Mike Isikoff. A new edition of the Sully and Hitch show, hosted by Tim Russert, will also be on CNBC over the weekend. It airs on Saturday at 7 pm and 10 pm, and Sunday at 1 am EDT. The chat lasts an hour, covers everything from the election to Iraq to faith and secularism. Hitch is voting for Bush, but he shares much of my concern about the incompetence of the war effort in Iraq. Tune in.

I’m going to wait till after next week’s national security debate to make a final assessment of John Kerry on the war, but this statement by Joe Lockhart about Ayad Allawi is just vile:

“The last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet of the United States, and you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips.”

This is the same Joe Lockhart who calls nutjobs in Texas at the behest of CBS. Look, Bush’s war-management deserves ferocious criticism, but the notion that Kerry is fit to wage this war is getting more and more untenable as the days go by. He has sent signals that he wants to withdraw troops soon; he disses our allies; he shows contempt for a man risking his life to bring democracy to Iraq. We’re in a war, senator. Fight the enemy, not our friends.