The Dish

My take – from my latest Sunday Times column.

WHY KERRY’S LOSING II: More off-message, paranoid ramblings from Teresa Heinz-Kerry. She really is an embarrassment: a stereotype of the arrogant, mega-rich liberal, who has long forgotten that the only reason anyone is interested in what she has to say is her inherited money. My own theory is that she also has something to do with the new gender gap, where women are no longer as Democratic as they once were. Women look at Kerry’s marriage and do not relate. They see a man who has married mega-wealthy heiresses twice, and they then look at the Bush marriage and see something simple and calming and traditional. I’m not saying that Kerry’s marriage is any less admirable than Bush’s; or that this kind of criticism is in any way fair. It isn’t. I’m just saying that many people, especially in the heartland, are uncomfortable with it. I’m therefore simply amazed that the Kerry team are still allowing THK to mouthe off at events. Maybe she has too much leverage to be silenced. But someone needs to silence her, if Kerry is to have a chance. And soon.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Let’s say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But in some places you couldn’t because the violence was too great. Well, so be it. Nothing’s perfect in life, so you have an election that’s not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet,” – Donald “Get a life” Rumsfeld, yesterday. Hey, why not a civil war, while we’re at it? Nothing’s perfect.

I get countless emails from mostly conservatives arguing that the only reason that I have become disanchanted with Bush is that I’m gay, obsessed with gay marriage, and nothing else matters to me. They even accuse me of betraying the war because of it. On the left, some agree. These kinds of charges, because they are really about my motives and integrity as a writer, are impossible to disprove, and so I have largely ignored them. They’re an unanswerable smear. To say that, for example, my opposition to Bush’s spending profligacy only began after his decision to back the FMA is both factually wrong (I criticized this long before he endorsed the FMA) and also ignores my long record of being a fiscal conservative, which led to my only real criticism of Reagan. Ditto Iraq. Some are saying that my anger at the administration’s incompetence and arrogance in Iraq is somehow related to the FMA. In fact, it’s related to my enthusiasm and belief in the Iraq war and its importance in the war on terror. It’s precisely because I am so pro-war that I am so enraged that this administration went into Iraq on a wing and a prayer, when so much was at stake. I’m not alone in this among many neoconservatives; I’m just alone in being so vocal about it. I still hope we win; and I will support any president, including this one, who is serious about fighting it. But, unlike others, I cannot ignore the evidence of incompetence in front of me for short-term political reasons.

FREEDOM MATTERS: I also have a strong libertarian streak, and so the gradual accretion of socially conservative meddling under this administration has disappointed me in ways far more manifold than the gay issue. I’m for legal pot, see nothing wrong with porn, and am reluctantly pro-choice. You think I need to be gay to worry about John Ashcroft? My dislike of the brutal campaigning methods of Rove was also something I wrote about four years ago. Remember: I wanted McCain in 2000. I’d add one more thing. I endorsed Bush in 2000 knowing full well his position on marriage rights for gays and his anti-gay past. I am happy to live with people who disagree with me on this, even to the point of supporting them in elections. And if anyone thinks it was easy for a very public gay man to endorse Bush four years ago and support him on so many issues, then they should think again. To accuse someone like me of caving in to peer pressure, when I have the scars of bucking such peer pressure for years, and have been targeted by the gay left for as long as I have been writing, is preposterous. But Bush’s support for the appalling FMA – with nary an attempt to explain it to gay people, reach out to them, or even listen to them – was a kind of kick in the gut to all of us who went out so far on a limb to support him. You think you’d feel the same way about a president after that? But feelings are not the same as arguments. And the broader arguments I have made against this president’s policies – on fiscal matters, war-management, entitlement expansion, protectionism, social intolerance, the blurring of church-state distinctions – are absolutely consistent with views I have held for years and years. I might add that reducing someone’s political philosophy to the crude template of sexual orientation is itself a form of subtle prejudice. I expect this, sadly, from some (but not all) on the right; but it is also present on the left.

A LETTER TO YGLESIAS: I was prompted to write this self-defense because someone actually did it better. Here’s an email from a reader to Matt Yglesias:

If you go back into Sullivan’s archives and read his writings about Bush prior to September 11, or even once the post-Sept 11 national devotion to Bush had died down, you will see that he is wary of Bush’s profligate spending and Bush’s dismissal of the concept of deficit from the very beginning, even when he was a fervent supporter of Bush in most other areas. And the disagreements that many of us have with the religious agenda of this administration are not limited to the question of homosexuals. There are Ashcroft’s occasional wars on free speech, or the whole concept of the government supporting religious organizations. That Andrew Card “we need to treat the American people like a bunch of ten year olds” line was telling. And as far as the war goes, some of us found Abu Ghraib a bit embarrassing and found the president’s seeming lack of embarrassment a problem. And aren’t those of us who supported the war from the beginning and agonize at this administration’s colossal hubris-directed incompetence possibly upset with Bush for reasons unconnected to homosexual rights? And perhaps, isn’t the mud slinging by Swift Boat Veterans allowed to offend some of us even if we believe in lower taxes? I turned on Bush earlier than Sullivan did, I honestly never really liked him to begin with because of what he did to McCain in South Carolina. But please, as an open-minded guy (and one of the few bloggers I’m still reading regularly now that the football season has taken over my life) step back and reconsider this “Sullivan only turned on Bush because he’s gay” thing. Many of us agree with Andrew in our reasons for believing that Bush is a bad president and essentially unconservative, and the fact that Andrew sleeps with a dude is not the reason that we feel this way. It may be one of the reason he does, but it isn’t the only one, so don’t just simplify him to “the gay guy.”

Thanks for that.

A Scottish reader informs me: “Numptie is a most useful term. It’s originally Scottish but seems to have spread south in recent years. It means a fool, a dolt, a cloddish moron. You’ll often find it used thus: “The problem with the Scottish parliament is that it is full of numpties.” (Surely the title for a novel: ‘A Confederacy of Numpties’?)”

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “You write: ‘I wonder why Bush-haters haven’t thought of this: that the way to punish Bush is to force him to live through the consequences of his own policies.’ Andrew, we ALL have to live with the consequences of Bush’s policies. And so do the Iraqi people. And so will future generations, if we don’t get spending under control.
I don’t ‘hate’ Bush (though I DO hate the way he’s mangled our fiscal and foreign policies), and as much as I’d love to see him squirm in a second term, I love America more. I’m voting Kerry. And if Kerry’s a disaster and the GOP nominates a grown-up in four years, I’ll vote to oust him too.” Don’t forget the Letters Page, where the smartest readers on the web take me on.

Allawi’s address was moving, inspiring and almost persuasive. Obviously, he’s under-playing the grip that terrorists now have on a swathe of Iraq, and he’s over-stating, if polls are any indicator, the support for the coalition forces among Iraqis. But what choice do we now have? And this is Bush’s essential response to Kerry. Yes, we’ve screwed up; yes, we’ve under-manned the liberation; yes, we haven’t been able to spend more than a fraction of the reconstruction funds; yes, we haven’t sealed the borders; yes, insurgent attacks are growing fiercer and more frequent than ever before; yes, we’re unlikely to get even one international ally in future wars; yes, we’re even losing the Brits; yes, we’re up shit creek if another world crisis blows up, because we don’t have enough troops to cope. But because we’ve screwed up so badly, it would compound things if Kerry were elected, and we gave some kind of mixed message to our enemy. Re-elect me, because I’ve made such a mess of things! Only a Bush re-election would inject the occupation with the necessary conviction to give us a chance of seeing this through. And conceding our failure – or even admitting that we have made mistakes – will only demoralize the troops. Tada! Heads, Kerry loses. Tails, I win.

BUSH-HATERS FOR BUSH: Once you’ve absorbed the chutzpah, it’s a pretty powerful argument. It’s a bit like Bush saying, after bankrupting our fiscal future in three short years, that we cannot afford Kerry’s big spending instincts. No shit, brother. So we’re torn between holding Bush accountable and re-electing him. But here’s another brilliant Bush counter-argument: wouldn’t we actually be holding him accountable by re-electing him? For the first time in his entire life, Bush may actually be forced to take responsibility for his own actions if he is re-elected and becomes the LBJ of the Iraq war. I wonder why Bush-haters haven’t thought of this: that the way to punish Bush is to force him to live through the consequences of his own policies. Why, after all, should Kerry take the fall? If he gets elected, can you imagine what Fox News and NRO are going to do to him the minute he brushes his teeth in January? He’ll be destroyed by the chaos in Iraq, whatever he does. The right will give him no lee-way at all. Maybe this is simply another version of the notion that we shouldn’t change horses in the middle of a cliche. But there’s an upside: if Bush fails in Iraq, at least he will be punished for his own failures; if he succeeds (and, of course I hope he does), we all win. Am I persuading myself to endorse Bush? Or am I finding some kind of silver lining in the increasingly likely event of his re-election? I blog. You decide.

An emailer from Blighty writes the following:

Bush doesn’t deserve to win, because his errors – Iraq, deficits – outweigh his merits – Afghanistan, not being Al Gore.
Kerry doesn’t deserve to win either, being, as we’d say in Britain, a plonker, a prat, a numptie.
Who’d prefer a frivolous result e.g. Bush wins the popular vote but Kerry wins the Electoral College?

Okay, I haven’t lived there for twenty years. What on earth is a “numptie”?

Peter Bergen is by no means a Bush-supporter. He’s an excellent reporter, did pioneering work on al Qaeda and (full disclosure) was at Oxford when I was and is an old friend. He’s a soft-lefty, but very trust-worthy. His endorsement of what is happening in Afghanistan is good enough for me. Good for Shipley for running it. I was also heartened by Allawi’s interview in the NYT today: he says much of Iraq is ready for elections. Sure, he has an interest in optimism. But I don’t get the impression he’s a complete bull-shitter either. Two points for optimism in the war. Now back to Fallujah …

THOSE BLACK GAY REPUBLICAN(S): Wonkette has the goods on their Bush endorsement. The spokesman (and possibly only member), Don Sneed, believes “that God’s existence can be proven through a number that shares the name of his video, “The God Num-ber: Mathematical and Scientific Proof of the Exist-ence of God.” A press release states:

Sneed has developed an associated scientific theorem: “Definity-Uninity-Infinity” that substantiates the identification of the specific number that represents God. The theorem has been registered with the United States Copyright Office and has been issued a certificate as an original work. “‘Definity-Uninity-Infinity’ sets forth a new, more realistic and sensible view of the innate structure and order of the Universe,” Sneed states, “and is created, sustained and controlled by God – then, now and forever.” The viewer is able to easily understand Sneed’s mathematical and scientific proof of God’s existence.

Mr Rove, your attempt to build a new gay base for the GOP is already gathering steam.

I don’t have much of an idea about what it would look like, what it would do or even who’d be in it. In my informal chats in DC since I got back, no one else does either. I assume Powell and Rumsfeld are gone; but I can’t say I have a clue who would replace them. Rice? Hadley? Armitage? Bush never fires people and we have very little evidence of him replacing anyone. So it’s tricky. I’d say Ashcroft stays; along with Rove and Card. But that’s total guesswork. As for policy … I’d love it if he made a real push for a flat tax, or social security privatization (or whatever euphemism they’re going to come up with for it), but I don’t believe he’ll do anything that ambitious (or conservative). Second terms are not good opportunities to do that, especially since his first two years will be consumed with trying to find a way out of the morass in Iraq he has created these past eighteen months or so. Iran? I have zero confidence the administration will do anything that different from a hypothetical Kerry administration. NoKo? Ditto. Tax cuts? Bush can hold the line, since the true fiscal calamity won’t happen till after he’s left, and then he can blame his successors. Socially? With the war working everyone’s nerves, he’ll shift even more to his base. More anti-gay stuff, I presume; more government funds for fundies; a right-turn on immigration maybe. Excited yet? Me too.

BUSH’S SPEECH: I didn’t have time to fisk the U.N. speech, but John Addis has, and finds it far superior to Kerry’s latest offering.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “Two million people who fought in World War II and lived through the Great Depression die every year. That generation has been an exception in US history, because it has defended anti-American policies. They voted for the creation of the welfare state and for obligatory military service. They are the Democratic base, and they are dying.” – Grover Norquist to the Spanish paper, El Mundo.

In that KUOW interview, Lewis Lapham was asked about blogs. This is what he said: “I don’t know enough about blogs. I don’t scan the Internet. I guess as a source for clues and leads for a newspaper … they might prove useful. But … I’m sure there are a lot of them that are simply the equivalent of scratching your name on the men’s room wall at the Blue Moon Bar.” Figures, no?

Karl Rove’s closest adviser on how to appeal to conservative Catholics quit his campaign advisory role a while back, after a previous instance of sexual harassment came to light. Now he’s quitting the hard-right Catholic magazine, Crisis, after pressure from columnists and the magazine’s board. Money quote:

In addition, specific accusations of more recent sexual misconduct had come to the board’s attention, one scholar said. “This was not about one incident 10 years ago,” he said. “It’s surprising it was held down as long as it was. I haven’t gone out of my way to track Deal Hudson’s improprieties – I could be doing nothing else. But you began to wonder after a while if they are true.”

None of this would be salient, in my view, if Hudson hadn’t gone out of his way to deny any right to privacy for public figures, hadn’t campaigned furiously against gay rights, and wasn’t an adamant defender of the strictest Catholic teachings about sex. It confirms my own anecdotal experience, however: some who are the most obsessed with others’ sex lives often have issues themselves. Speaking of which …

DEFENSIVE CROUCH: Paul Crouch is a big deal in the evangelical world. He’s the president and on-air star of Trinity Broadcasting Network, the world’s largest “Christian” broadcaster, and he’s also gay, according to a man who says he slept with him, Enoch Lonnie Ford. Ford claims he was sexually harassed by Crouch and was paid off for keeping quiet in 1998. That deal has now apparently unraveled. More details are emerging in the LA Times:

After checking out of the hotel, Ford said, Crouch took him to a TBN-owned cabin near Lake Arrowhead. It was there, Ford said, that Crouch first had sex with him. “I did it because I didn’t know if this man is going to throw me straight out of that cabin,” Ford said. “And I didn’t want to lose my job. I was going to be in trouble if I said no.”
The next morning, Ford said, Crouch read a Bible passage to him in an attempt to reassure him about the night before. The passage, Proverbs 6:16-19, details seven “detestable” attitudes and acts in God’s eyes.
Ford said Crouch told him that because homosexuality wasn’t listed, the Lord wasn’t worried about what they had done. Still, Ford said, Crouch warned him to keep the encounter quiet “because people wouldn’t understand.”

At this point, it’s worth recalling that the two leading spokesmen for the “ex-gay” movement have also been exposed as subsequently seeking gay sex, and that Pat Robertson’s congressman, Ed Schrock, who wanted to make the military’s anti-gay discrimination even more stringent, was also gay.

Do we simply vote for the guy we most think we resemble? An interesting pop-quiz/political survey. Takes 15 minutes. Take a procrastination break.