The Dish

Mark Steyn discovers a new ideology. If this doesn’t make you laugh, then go read Eric Alterman.

Most of the gay groups have gone ballistic over president Bush’s Clintonian statements last night on the Federal Marriage Amendment. I guess I should be clear. I don’t believe basic issues of civil rights should be resolved by Clinton-like, almost-impenetrable phrases designed to appease all parties. But I am relieved that the president has essentially refused to endorse the religious right’s current effort to amend the Constitution. David Frum agrees with my analysis. But his arguments are revealing:

The longer we wait, however, the more likely it is that the ultimate result will be unfavorable. As for the US Supreme Court, nobody should feel any confidence about what it will do. The current court is highly unlikely to go as far as the Massachusetts court and discover a right of same-sex marriage in the US Constitution. But if offered an opportunity to over-rule the Defense of Marriage Act on highly technical grounds that did not involve same-sex marriage as such – well, I strongly suspect that Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Souter would accept, and Justice O’Connor might well follow.
The best argument against the Federal Marriage Amendment is that it might well lose, after which conservatives would be worse off than ever. And so it would be, if the Amendment were to lose badly. But if it were to lose narrowly, the FMA could nonetheless shock some reason into the courts.

When David is arguing in such defeatist terms, you know they’re up against it. But hitching the Constitution to a position that is fast losing popular support seems to me to be an abuse of that document. It should be amended only when there’s an overwhelming consensus on a strictly Constitutional matter – not when the country is deeply split on a social and cultural issue. Then he suggests trying to amend the constitution even if it’s doomed to failure. How’s that for abuse of a sacred document? The gay issue does strange things to presidents. Clinton said all the right things – and then enacted and supported some of the most anti-gay measures ever (DOMA, “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell”). Bush still cannot even say the words ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ but hasn’t done anything that damaging to gay men and women; and, by his ambivalence, might help kill an anti-gay Constitutional amendment. Go figure.

GIMLI GETS IT: If you want an antidote to Viggo Mortensen on the meaning of Tolkien, check out this interview with John Rhys-Davis, who plays Gimli. I saw Mortensen on TV the other night saying that the “Lord of The Rings” was all about bringing people together, eschewing violence, promoting peace, etc etc. Poor guy. Cute, but dumb as a post. Rhys-Davies is smarter:

“I’m burying my career so substantially in these interviews that it’s painful. But I think that there are some questions that demand honest answers. I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me… What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a jewel it is.
How did we get the sort of real democracy, how did we get the level of tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you around this table, and yet you will take it and you will think about it and you’ll say no you’re wrong because of this and this and this. And I’ll listen and I’ll say, “Well, actually, maybe I am wrong because of this and this.”
[He points at a female reporter and adopts an authoritarian voice, to play a militant-Islam character:] ‘You should not be in this room. Because your husband or your father is not here to guide you. You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.’
I mean … the abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True Democracy comes from our Greco-Judeo-Christian-Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.

Exactly. That is what I believe my generation has been called to protect – and this extraordinary, and deeply Catholic, movie couldn’t have come at a better time.

The documents found in Saddam’s hide-away seem to convey important information about the network of Baathist insurgency. That’s fascinating news. Already, key figures in the network are being apprehended and the intelligence gains are considerable. The two previous alternatives – that Saddam was conducting the terrorist resistance or out of the loop – can now cede to a third: that he was the rallying point for resisters, and well informed about their operations. We’ll know in the next couple of months if that violent opposition to a democratic transition is demoralized by this capture. Certainly this piece of news suggests that optimism is not crazy.

BUSH HAS IT BOTH WAYS: Those people who believe this president cannot speak in coherent sentences don’t realize how clever his alleged incoherence is. Here’s what the news story I’ve just read says about the president’s position on a constitutional amendment to ban gays from any civil benefits for their relationships:

Bush has condemned the [Massachusetts] ruling before, citing his support for a federal definition of marriage as a solely man-woman union. On Tuesday, he criticized it as “a very activist court in making the decision it made.” “The court, I thought, overreached its bounds as a court,” Bush said. “It did the job of the Legislature.” Previously, though Bush has said he would support whatever is “legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage,” he and his advisers have shied away from specifically endorsing a constitutional amendment asserting that definition. But on Tuesday, the president waded deeper into the topic, saying state rulings such as the one in Massachusetts and a couple of other states “undermine the sanctity of marriage” and could mean that “we may need a constitutional amendment.”
“If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman, codify that,” he said. “The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they’re allowed to make, so long as it’s embraced by the state or at the state level.”

Let’s unpack that statement. It gives something to the religious right, who want to bar recognition of any gay relationships in the constitution. But it’s all couched in the conditional tense. “We may need a Constitutional Amendment.” “If necessary, I will support …” That’s not an endorsement of the FMA now. What would transform the “may’s” into “do’s”? Dunno. The actual existence of gay civil marriages in Massachusetts? Maybe. Then, he seems to reiterate the Cheney position: “The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they’re allowed to make, so long as it’s embraced by the state or at the state level.” Does that mean marriage? Or civil unions? Or domestic partnerships? Or just ad hoc and fragile legal contracts? I don’t know. All in all: a carefully tailored piece of obfuscation. It seems to me that, from this statement, we neither have an unconditional endorsement of the FMA nor an uncategorical defense of states’ rights with regard to marriage. Bush wants to have it both ways. Or am I misreading this? I have a head cold and a fever so I’m headed back to bed. That means I reserve the right to re-think this in the morning.

Monday, president Bush touted his alleged fiscal conservatism. If he’s fiscally conservative, I don’t know what fiscally liberal would look like. Here’s what he said:

“I want to remind you of a fact that I think you’ll find interesting – or maybe you won’t find interesting, but I find it interesting – that non-military, non-homeland security discretionary spending was at 15 percent – increase from year to year was at 15 percent prior to our arrival, then it was at 6 percent, 5 percent and 3 percent. So we’re working with Congress to hold the line on spending. And we do have a plan to cut the deficit in half.”

Here’s a link to a Cato Institute study on federal non-defense non-homeland security discretionary spending over the last few years. Here’s Heritage’s account of how Bush’s touted “3 percent” for 2004 is actually 9 percent. Here’s a graph detailing Bush’s massive increases in domestic spending. Note that these studies are from groups favorably disposed to the administration. There are a few options here. Either I’ve missed something or the president a) doesn’t know what he’s talking about or b) he’s lying. Let’s hope I’ve missed something, shall we?

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Evil, that is, has every advantage but one–it is inferior in imagination. Good can imagine the possibility of becoming evil–hence the refusal of Gandalf and Aragorn to use the Ring–but Evil, defiantly chosen, can no longer imagine anything but itself. Sauron cannot imagine any motives except lust for domination and fear so that, when he has learned that his enemies have the Ring, the thought that they might try to destroy it never enters his head, and his eye is kept toward Gondor and away from Mordor and the Mount of Doom.” – W. H. Auden, reviewing Tolkien’s masterpiece, from the New York Times, January 1956.

BAATHIST BROADCASTING COROPRATION WATCH: Glenn Reynolds has the scoop on how the Beeb managed to quash the Iraqi foreign minister’s criticism of the U.N. They would, wouldn’t they?

I guess it’s hard for many people today to understand the profound racism that animated people like Strom Thurmond for most of his life. It was a racism that didn’t forbid sexual relations with African-Americans, but kept them in a permanently second-class position. And look at the context: Thurmond had sex with Carrie Butler when she was a mere 16 years old and he was 22. She was his servant. And his power over her – and his daughter – was so great that neither woman went public with the fact until now, long after this bigot died. Everyone else in the family went along with this demeaning and dehumanizing escapade. Even now, Thurmond’s son, climbing his own way up the greasy pole of politics, reflects this attitude:

The family doesn’t know much about Williams, Thurmond Jr. said. “I had a conversation with my dad about it about 10 years ago. I asked about this, and he didn’t tell me whether she was or whether she wasn’t (his daughter),” he said. “I did not ask again.”

Why not? The answer is that Carrie Butler’s daughter was illegitimate, of course. But also that neither Butler nor Essie-Mae Washington-Williams, were racially pure enough to be included in Thurmond’s public or even private life, except under a penumbra of secrecy and hush-money. There is a racial closet as well as a sexual one. In the case of Thurmond, both closets were combined. What it reveals is the deep human and necessary hypocrisy of racism; the ancient tendency to sexualize African-Americans as a way to keep them at a distance from full human equality and dignity; and the lingering power of inter-racial sexual taboo. Fascinating also that Thurmond fought so long to maintain miscegenation laws he himself violated so early in his life. He was fighting against himself, against his own daughter, against his own country. And he was never publicly called to account. Better late then never.

I fisk Howard and Hillary’s speeches yesterday. What’s with this “internationalization” blather? Less than meets the eye.

They’re not calling it that, but Howie Kurtz’s often indispensable ‘Media Notes’ online column is now going round the clock. Poor Howie. I’m not sure he realizes what a permanent deadline of ‘now’ does to your mental equilibrium. But welcome to the, er, blogosphere.

From the Guardian:

In the same northern Iraqi town yesterday, about 700 people rallied, chanting: “Saddam is in our hearts, Saddam is in our blood.” US soldiers and Iraqi policemen shouted back: “Saddam is in our jail.”

Ouch.

We’re Texans. No doubt the Family Research Council wants more arrests like this one.

THE VATICAN ON SADDAM: I wish I could say I am surprised. But the current leadership of the Roman Catholic Church – and I include the current pope – is so misguided at this point no one should be surprised. They find excuses for Saddam and strongly supported keeping him in power; and declare loving gay couples “evil.” Not much more needs to be said.

A left-wing skewering in the Guardian. Money quote:

For the first time in its history the Left has nothing to say to the victims of fascism. Defeat explains much of the betrayal. The past 20 years have witnessed the collapse of communism, the triumph of US capitalism and the recognition of the awkward fact that many Third World revolutions are powered by a religious fundamentalism so strange the traditional Left can’t look it in the eye. The result of the corruption of defeat is an opposition to whatever America does; a looking-glass politics where hypocrisies of power are matched by equal hypocrisies in the opposite direction.