The Dish

“Our original Constitution divided the powers of the government and put restrictions on those powers, in a Bill of Rights, and in the retention by the states of much of their sovereign power. Lincoln’s War overthrew that Constitution. When 11 “free and independent states” sought peacefully to depart from the Union, they were dragged back in, by invasion and war. By 1884, Woodrow Wilson was writing in his “Congressional Government,” “we are really living under a constitution essentially different from that which we have been so long worshiping as our own peculiar and incomparable possession.” – Pat Buchanan, yearning for the Confederacy. I’m beginning to think that Lawrence vs Texas has driven several conservatives out of their minds.

Good for David for distancing himself from the dumb and ugly message of Ann Coulter’s latest book:

[Coulter’s use of the term] ‘functionally treasonable’ is … disturbingly reminiscent of the old Stalinist term ‘objectively fascist.’ This was how people who swore their loyalty to the cause were condemned (often to death) if they deviated from the party line. Stalinists defined all dissent as ‘objectively’ treacherous. This is not a path that conservatives should follow. When intent and individuality are separated from actions in a political context, we are entering a totalitarian realm where Ann Coulter does not really want to be.

I wish I could be so sure about Coulter’s ultimate intentions. She strikes me in this book as a crazed fanatic. When she can equivocate over whether John F Kennedy was a traitor to his country, she has written herself out of rational discourse.

No, I haven’t seen T-3, but I hope to. The political emergence of Schwarzenegger is a wonderful development, and not just for hacks like yours truly who love a good story. Arnold is an “eagle”: he’s tough on terror, open-minded on cultural issues, fiscally conservative. He’s also a brilliant politician. How do I know? Just rent “Pumping Iron,” the legendary bodybuilding documentary of the 1970s. It captures Shwarzenegger’s extraordinary ease with people, his irony, his composure, his wit, his gift with strategy and his determination. If I’m not mistaken, it also shows him lighting up a big fat joint after one of the contests. If ever there was a moment for that type of Republican, this is it. Boomshock fills in the details. Arnold’s my man.

“If the Democratic Party intends to run against a popular war, its leaders might wish to recall the lesson of a Democrat who ran against an unpopular war. He lost 49 states.” – Lawrence F. Kaplan, in the Wall Street Journal today. Lawrence is basically right, I think. Many liberal Democrats – and the media in general – are beginning to act as if the war is over and they can score debating points with a president’s foreign policy, rather than seriously proposing their own. That’s a formula for disaster. The unseriousness of the current Democratic field in national security matters is the determining factor in the next year and a half. Forget money, personality, media. The question every voter will and should ask of any Democratic in 2004 is a simple one: would I feel as safe with this guy in the White House? Right now, the answer is a resounding no. Until the Demsfigure out a way to tackle this, they’re screwed. And they deserve to be.

Paul Cella puts his finger on something about this president: for a privileged scion, his instincts are quite democratic. I liked this insight:

And thus the democracy is happy; indeed it is grimly amused and even heartened. It hears, “bring ’em on,” followed by a predictable round of hand-wringing and fatuous commentary, and it thinks, “He’s one of us”; or at least, and perhaps equally appealing, “He’s not one of them.” And I think it is this naturally democratic camaraderie (and it is important to note that it is quite natural) conveyed by President Bush, which immunizes him to charges of aristocratic irresponsibility by his opponents. The charges are too discordant with reality. To believe that Mr. Bush is a foolish aristocrat, men have to almost believe that they themselves are foolish aristocrats; and if Mr. Bush is indeed irresponsible, which he may well be, it is far nearer to the truth to say that he is a foolish democrat.

It’s also smart strategy as well – fighting terrorists on our terms, not theirs’. Tommy Franks gets it, of course.

MULLAHS’ JITTERS: The Iranian dictators begin to get nervous. Jeff Jarvis, as usual, is on the case. The Iranian has a piece on the vast wealth being accumulated by the theocrats. And the regime’s elites keep testing missiles that threaten Israel and the region. Their only hope of survival is a nuclear capacity. Our only hope for stability in that part of the world is to stop them getting it.

THE SAVAGE TRUTH: Every small thing I heard about Michael Savage deterred me from inquiring further. But it was perfectly clear that he was a lout, a loudmouth, a bigot for hire, and a significant part of what is wrong with the far right. The amazing thing is not that he no longer has a big job at MSNBC. The amazing thing is that he ever had a job in the first place.

COULTER’S LAW ARTICLE: It’s been retrieved from the archives – a close look at Ann Coulter circa 1987. And, of course, it’s been blogged.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “A vinegar toast to Ann Coulter and Michael Savage for supporting the worst stereotypes of conservatives. I’m a religious person, and I believe that sodomy is a sin. I also believe that fornication and adultery are sins, but I don’t believe that a society that no longer punishes heterosexual sins has any moral claim left for punishing homosexual ones.” – more insightful feedback on the Letters Page.

Some insiders are predicting Pinch will undo his error of two years ago and pick the man he should have picked then.

She’s the Maureen Dowd of the right. Ouch.

“UK Parliament Clears Govt of Misleading on Iraq” – Reuters/Washington Post.
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“Campbell cleared by MPs over Iraq dossier” – Daily Telegraph.

“Dossier report clears Campbell” – The Guardian.

“Iraq weapons claims criticised” – BBC headline today.

David Warren seconds my interpretation of president Bush’s “bring them on” taunt:

While engaged in the very difficult business of building a democracy in Iraq — the first democracy, should it succeed, in the entire history of the Arabs — President Bush has also, quite consciously to my information, created a new playground for the enemy, away from Israel, and even farther away from the United States itself. By the very act of proving this lower ground, he drains terrorist resources from other swamps.

This is the meaning of Mr. Bush’s “bring ’em on” taunt from the Roosevelt Room on Wednesday, when he was quizzed about the “growing threat to U.S. forces” on the ground in Iraq. It should have been obvious that no U.S. President actually relishes having his soldiers take casualties. What the media, and U.S. Democrats affect not to grasp, is that the soldiers are now replacing targets that otherwise would be provided by defenceless civilians, both in Iraq and at large. The sore thumb of the U.S. occupation — and it is a sore thumb equally to Baathists and Islamists, compelling their response — is not a mistake. It is carefully hung flypaper.

Is this unconscionable? Yes, if we’re not fighting a real war with real and dangerous enemies. No, if we mean to win. Under this president, we mean to win. To my mind, that’s the surpassing political truth of the current administration and the standard by which any Democrat must be judged.

SUPPORT JULY 9: Oxblog has a guide to rallies in support of Iranian democracy around the country and the world. Do what you can.

LOVED TO LOVE YOU, BABY: The best sex music ever. Then the best Gen-X “sex music” ever. A meeting with the late, great Barry White.

The battle to reform the BBC is now in full swing. Could it be another Raines-like casualty of the Iraq war? Here are Blair’s “no-surrender” comments:

‘It is untrue. That statement is untrue,’ Blair said of the claim that the original weapons dossier published last September had been deliberately interfered with against the wishes of the intelligence services. ‘The idea that I or anyone else in my position would start altering intelligence evidence or saying to the intelligence services “I am going to insert this” is absurd. ‘There couldn’t be a more serious charge, that I ordered our troops into conflict on the basis of intelligence evidence that I falsified. ‘You could not make a more serious charge against a Prime Minister. The charge happens to be wrong. I think everyone now accepts that that charge is wrong.’

But you’re dealing with left-wing ideologues, Tony. This isn’t about the truth. It’s about discrediting a war that discredited them. Meanwhile, the Beeb responds: “The BBC did not have an agenda in its war coverage, nor does it now have any agenda which questions the integrity of the Prime Minister.” Try not to laugh too hard.

COULTERKAMPF: My take, having read (or tried to read) Ann Coulter’s appallingly bad new book. For good measure, my fisking of John Derbyshire’s recent anti-gay rant. A nice and dyspeptic start to the new week.