The Dish

Posted opposite are my latest column on how to deal with Iran; and a replay, on the cusp of a critical Supreme Court decision, of the history, theology and politics of sodomy.

The good news for the president is that the left is still obsessing about his “lies” and his stupidity. The question of lying, however, is obviously an important one. Did, on current evidence, the president deliberately mislead the public on the imminence of the threat of WMDs under Saddam? I’ve read a lot of critiques now – and it seems obvious that a few parts of the administration’s multi-faceted and drawn-out case for deposing Saddam were, to put it kindly, hyped. But the evidence unearthed by The New Republic’s estimable John B. Judis and Spencer Ackerman ultimately amounts to an argument that the administration exaggerated the intelligence estimates on Iraq’s nuclear capacity and its ties to al Qaeda. I think we’ll soon know more about both arguments. But there’s a premise here that strikes me as off-base. The premise is that after 9/11, only rock-solid evidence of illicit weapons prgrams and proven ties to terrorists could justify a pre-emptive war to depose Saddam. But the point of 9/11 was surely the opposite: that the burden of proof now lay on people denying such a threat, not those fearing it. Would I rather we had an administration that remained Solomon-like in the face of inevitably limited and muddled intelligence and sought the kind of rock-solid consensus on everything that would satisfy Jacques Chirac or the BBC (or John Kerry)? Or would I rather we had a president who realized that post-9/11 it was prudent to be highly concerned about such weapons and connections and better, by and large, to be safe than sorry? Condi was clear about this distinction: “There will always be some uncertainty about how quickly [Saddam] can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” I don’t think that’s hype. I think it’s prudence. Do I wish in retrospect that the Bushies – and more pertinently, the Blairites – had been doubly careful in not saying things that couldn’t be proven? Yes. Does this prove them to be liars and irresponsible leaders? Nope, as even the New York Times concedes. It simply shows that they used all sorts of inevitably hazy pieces of intelligence in order to remove what was clearly a potential danger to the region and the world. They screwed up in a few small ways. They triumphed in the one big way that mattered. No historical revisionism will change that.

I’m as mystified as Eugene Volokh by this statement by Dick Gephardt about the possibility of Supreme Court decisions with which he disagrees: “When I’m president, we’ll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day.” Does Gephardt understand even the basics of constitutional law? Or does he think his audience is too craven to notice an obvious piece of nonsense. You expect it of Kucinich who is – let’s put this politely – not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. But Gephardt? Fibber, dumb-ass, or panderer? I report. You decide.

Two right-of-center columnists, Stephen Chapman and Cathy Young, both back marriage for all. I have to say that the best discussion right now is being held in conservative venues – where real diversity of opinion is actually present. Stanley Kurtz’s opposition to all marriage rights to gays is now tempered at National Review, for example, by more moderate voices, which is encouraging. But then you have quotes like this one, cited by Jonah as somehow valid:

Many social conservatives in America believe there is a God and a Holy Spirit and a Bible that condemns homosexuality as an abomination, and they will not be defeated.

What this quote reveals is something important about the religious right. Many simply do not acknowledge a need to make anything but religious arguments on this matter – or any other. They pick pieces of the Bible with which they agree (you won’t find many members of the religious right decrying usury or personal wealth) and then insist that they be reflected in the civil law. They see zero distinction between religion and politics. Zero. Can you imagine Jonah quoting a fundamentalist Muslim who simply asserted that “many social conservatives in America believe there is one God who is Allah and a Koran that says that women have no right to vote.” It’s politically meaningless, except as an endorsement of theocracy. Yet that is what parts of American conservatism are now reduced to: assertions of religious authority as indistinguishable from civil law. No wonder these theocrats are losing the argument. They haven’t even joined it.

It’s an interesting insight into Slate’s liberal bias – to which it’s fully entitled and doesn’t really disclaim – that the two writers they pick to analyze the Supreme Court’s end-of-term decisions are both pro-racial discrimination liberals. The good news is that they’re both wonderful writers and smart as whips. Dahlia Lithwick’s strength, however, is not just her sense of humor but intellectual honesty. Here she weighs in on Sandra Day O’Connor’s complete incoherence:

Like you, I was terrified that today might have seen a thick dark cloud blot out all the good that affirmative action programs have achieved over the decades.
But intellectual honesty doesn’t let me accept O’Connor’s basic ends-justifies-the-means approach to upholding the principle. And so much of your analysis today suggests that this is what’s best about O’Connor’s opinion: She got it morally right, even where she’s logically wrong. As you put it: Powell’s opinion in Bakke is riddled with logical flaws but is nevertheless “wise.” Why? Because we need affirmative action. And so even if a program singles out only three traditionally underrepresented races, and offers them special advantages under the fiction of fostering “educational diversity,” we’ll laud it because the alternative – doing away with such programs – is intolerable to us. But then, let’s be honest. Justice Thomas is correct in his dissent when he argues that “diversity” means nothing and can’t be the cornerstone of affirmative action jurisprudence. And Justice Scalia is right when he says (or rather bellows … ) that today’s decisions in Gratz and Grutter will do nothing but further cloud and confuse the affirmative action debate for years to come.

She’s right. But why is a racially un-diverse but intellectually multi-faceted campus such a bad thing? Why is a world without racial discrimination so “intolerable”?

A reader emails:

I actually keep tabs on AIDS research and treatment (pretty much) and I didn’t realize anyone is able to take “drug holidays” (don’t know if you use that term – that’s what all the child psychiatrists call it).
You’ve lived a miracle.
We have, too, in our way. Our 16-year old autistic son is able to live with us, attend his own high school here in town, and have a life solely due to medication. In any other era he would have been “placed” long before now. Placed out of home, and in restraints.
He was one of the first autistic children in the country to take Risperdal (around the time the protease inhibitors came out, as a matter of fact) and after that everything changed. That was our miracle. He’s still autistic to beat the band, so we’re working on, and waiting for, our next miracle.
But this one gave us our son. (So-Yay, big pharma! I’m with you on that one.)
I’m happy for you, and I think I know something about your courage and strength, although I don’t yet know very much about death.
A few years ago I saw a photo of a mother, a farm woman, sitting with her grown autistic son. The son was wearing leather gloves to protect his hands because he was so self-abusive, and he was doing some nutty thing or other, with a telephone, I think. The mom had her face kind of sunk down on her hands, and she was smiling, and maybe even laughing a little, and looking straight into the camera. Naturally her son wasn’t looking anywhere near the camera; he was off in autism-space somewhere. But he looked perfectly comfortable, -sitting next to his mom.
I always thought that photo should be called, “Still here.”
That’s how I’m thinking of you today: Still here. –
Be sure to have someone take a picture!

I will. One of the weirdly wonderful things about survival is how it also connects you to people in very different circumstances who nevertheless see what you’re talking about. The story of my own spiritual, physical and emotional survival is told in my last book, “Love Undetectable.” I fear some people didn’t read it thinking it was about AIDS. It is and isn’t. It’s really a book about faith. And how friendship transcends everything. More new feedback on Hillary and Bakke on the Letters Page.

“‘When I lose control, I like it,’ ashamed scientist Bruce Banner confesses in one scene. Considering the military context of the film, it’s hard not to hear this as an expression of the public’s own collective excitement when the United States “Hulks out” at an undermatched foe, especially since the movie’s major special-effects sequence could almost be a sci-fi reimagining of Operation Desert Storm or its sequel. As one general observes: ‘There’s a lot of powerful people want in on this. There’s money to be made – lots of it.’ And yes, the desert scenes are set in the American West; but why does Danny Elfman’s music score erupt with Arabic-sounding ululations if not to make us think of the Middle East?” – John Beifuss, at gomemphis.com, equating Bush’s foreign policy with the Incredible Hulk.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “Mr. Goldberg, therefore, is not a well-intentioned Neville Chamberlain seeking to placate the implacable. At best, he is one of the traitorous Vichy French, sympathetic to the conquering invader. At worst, he is Tokyo Rose, an enemy feigning friendship and sympathy to better undermine the morale of our troops. Mr. Goldberg’s own banner is not the white flag of surrender, but the rainbow flag of multiculturalism. The homosexual movement has, indeed, made great gains in the recent past and expects even greater victories in the near future. Things look grim for the natural family in America. Yet, capitulation to a new pan-social homosexual mind-set would be cultural suicide. The homosexual movement in a society is analogous to the AIDS virus in the human body: It is not benign but destructive; it thrives at the expense of the host; and you’re most likely to get it by saying yes to sodomy. The best way to avoid it is through abstinence until lifelong monogamous heterosexual marriage. Mr. Goldberg wants us all to say yes to sodomy, much as the French said yes to Nazism and for the same unprincipled reason – the desire to be on the winning side. I, for one, would rather go down fighting for what is right – namely, the protection of the critically important unit on which our society, and all societies, are built – the natural family. Viva [sic] la resistance.” – Scott Lively, attacking Jonah Goldberg in the Letters section of the Washington Times (not online).

Still here, ten years to the day after finding out I was HIV-positive. When I got the news, it was conventional wisdom that very few lasted a decade. My close friend, who got the same diagnosis weeks before I did, died in front of me two years later. I went into work the next day wondering if I could last in my job for much longer, and then, when the meds kicked in, spent a couple hours a day barely conscious in my office. A year later, I lost five friends under the age of 30. But then, through the years of debilitating medication regimens, things slowly got better. My then-boyfriend found out in the same year and is also still around. We talked the other night, like two wacko Vietnam vets, recounting fears and terrors and guilt – and, yes, shame at getting infected in the first place – alien to others who didn’t live through them. Many, many more spend their own anniversaries in a slight air of bewilderment, while others look at us and fail to understand why we can’t just move on. Well, we have moved on; but we cannot and must not forget. Thanks to my amazing docs, a peerless shrink, a loving family, dedicated friends, and the love of a compassionate God, I feel much better today than in most of those early years. My immune system is faring so well that I have been off my meds for two years now with no serious deterioration (although I doubt that will last much longer). Many days, I don’t even think of my virus any more (and people wonder why I don’t support demonizing the drug companies). You feel some guilt about this – because of all those who died and all those who right now have this disease around the world without access to the treatments that could save them. But, like others whose terminal illness is in remission or, for some reason, benign, you also feel the need to live a little more boldly, merrily, fearlessly. I’m taking a bike ride this afternoon. Small gestures of living and loving matter. If only it hadn’t taken a fatal disease to get me to realize that. But I take it as an example of my Savior’s mysterious but all-powerful grace that I now do.

Am I an extremist to be disappointed that SCOTUS didn’t just strike down both Michigan Law School’s racist entrance policies and the undergraduate admissions scheme? In terms of what might happen to the racial make-up in higher education, perhaps I am. But I still don’t believe that discrimination as a means is justified by diversity as an end. And I think that kind of squeamishness is integral to liberalism as a political philosophy. It’s part of the long American story: how race has always been the greatest solvent for political liberalism; and still is.

It appears that some documents implicating British anti-war campaigner George Galloway in pay-offs from Saddam were forged. But the same expert who determined that the Christian Science Monitor’s docs were phony still believes that the Daily Telegraph docs are legit. Galloway – revealingly – still hasn’t made good on his promise to sue the Daily Telegraph. The Guardian has a decent story summing up the state of play.