The Dish

” Both Truman and Ford ran for reelection after suffering the mother of all shellackings in mid-term elections two years before. We all know about the 1974 election, but 1946 is noteworthy as the last time the Republicans won a majority of the votes cast for House seats until 1994. It was as dramatic a midterm rejection of the incumbent as 1974 or 1994.
The populace was angry, they didn’t respect the President, and they let him know in the mid-terms. Ford and Truman were both able to recover, in Truman’s case successfully and in Ford’s case within a hair’s breadth of success, based on the excesses of their opponents.
I’m not sure what this says about Bush, but perhaps it means that the Democrat and Independent outrage is building up bigger than ever–and the Republican romp in 2002 was the worst possible result for Bush’s reelection. Or maybe it just means that political junkies spend too much time reliving the past and boxing in their own minds with old patterns.”

His highness backs marriages for gays. And a county in New Mexico issues more licenses.

I’ll be on the network Chris Matthews Sunday show with Peggy Noonan and Sam Donaldson this weekend.

Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. But he was adamant about the impermissibility of divorce. How can the Protestant right ignore his direct teachings on one and yet demand Constitutional action against the other? On their own Biblically inerrant terms? Can someone clue me in here?

At this point in the election cycle, only three post-war incumbent presidents have been behind their challengers in the polls: Harry Truman and Gerald Ford. And George W. Bush.

EUROPE TACKLES ANTI-SEMITISM: Not exactly. They’re finally holding a conference about it. That’s what Europeans do whenever there’s a real problem. I seem to remember a lot of conferences in the 1990s about genocide in the Balkans, but they did nothing about it. And in reporting the conference, we get this paragraph from the Guardian:

Meanwhile, some European commentators have caused offence by identifying a “cabal” of largely Jewish neo-conservatives driving Washington’s unilateralist and pro-Israeli agenda.

Unilateralist? Will this lie never die?

Bored of red and blue states? How about states where people say “Grammy Hall” as opposed to “Grandma Hall”? Or states where students call an easy course a “gut”? It’s all here, if it’s a very slow day in the office. Bonus fun: use the results to find out if you’re more Yankee or Dixie! Believe it or not, I came out marginally Dixie. It’s the residue of my English accent, I suppose.

BUSH KEEPS HIS PROMISE: And Blair gets his Gitmo prisoners.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “As an independent, Republican-leaning Edwards supporter. I guess I’m a swing voter – I voted for Clinton in ’92, Dole in ’96 and Bush in 2000. If Edwards is the nominee, I will vote for him. If Kerry is the nominee – feckless, say-anything, “Do you know who I am?” John Kerry – I will vote for Bush. It’s that simple. And I imagine that a big reason Karl Rove is keeping his powder dry on Kerry right now, who’s incredibly vulnerable to attack based on his record, is that the White House would much prefer to run against Kerry than Edwards.” – more feedback on the Letters page. For a different view of Edwards, check out Overlawyered.com.

IS IT ALREADY LEGAL IN NEW YORK? A fascinating piece of legal arcana about marriage licenses in New York state. Meanwhile, Bill Daley comes on board. And here’s a quick way to send flowers to some of the couples waiting in line outside San Francisco City Hall.
CORRECTION: That should be Richard Daley, not Bill.

San Francisco files suit to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s discrimination against gay couples in marriage. There is nothing illegal about this. But it opens a whole new front in the legal and constitutional fight for equal marriage rights. Not so long ago, I thought I had a handle on this movement. But now it has a life of its own. When freedom begins to emerge, its momentum is hard to stop. But it now seems almost certain that the president will try.

The gay agenda is revealed.

“The difference is that many other nations, America included, want to like Germany. The same cannot be said of France under Chirac.” Eurosoc analyzes France’s continued slide in influence in Europe. Germany now wants Britain at the big table. The upshot of the Iraq war may well be a realignment of internal European power – to America’a advantage. Credit: Bush/Blair.

No, I’m not taking this poll that seriously. When a poll of likely voters shows a bigger Democratic lead than among registered voters, it’s a little suspect. But I have absolutely no doubt that there has been a profound mood-change in the country toward president Bush. Some of this is a result of the Democrats’ dominating the media during primary season. But much of it is also due to the president’s extraordinary drift, incoherence and – at the same time – cockiness. That’s a lethal combination. People have registered that the WMD issue has undermined one argument for the war. But instead of acknowledging this forthrightly and making a strong case for the war’s morality and the importance of Iraq’s democratization, the president has fallen back on self-satisfied platitudes. People know that public finances are in a terrible shape. But the president first denied the problem, then minimized it, and then argued that tax cuts would cure it. No one is buying it. There has been little coherent defense of the education bill, or of the administration’s environmental policies. There is, in short, no argument for a second term. Instead, we’re told that the re-election theme will be: I’m a strong leader in a time of change. But leading where? We don’t know. If the president wants to get re-elected, we should.

EDWARDS IS WINNING THE SMART VOTE: Or so says Noam Scheiber:

Less sophisticated investors just pick the stocks whose prices they’ve heard are going up. More sophisticated investors actually do some research about the companies they plan to invest in. Up until yesterday, Kerry was that tech stock that the girlfriend of the cousin of the guy down the street said was a can’t-miss opportunity, while Edwards was the unheralded stock of a company with a little-known but solid product.
Judging from the way Kerry timed his victory speech last night to bump Edwards off the air mid-sentence, it sounds to me like he’s getting scared.

I still haven’t met a clued-in Democrat who’s enthusiastic about Kerry. But Edwards hasn’t yet clinched the deal. He’s got two weeks.