The Dish

You couldn’t parody his paleo-liberal column today. All government spending is good. But deficits are always bad! Tax cuts hurt – wait for it – children. Republicans – even if they try to reach out to black voters – are always evil. Marian Wright Edelman is such an unimpeachable figure, you just have to cite her to make your point. And then the moronic headline: “Suffer The Children.” This piece of hate was particularly noticeable:

The Bush men, father and son, are seldom more cynical than when they get it into their mischievous heads to rev up some support among black people. George the First could hardly contain a devilish smile as he gave us Clarence Thomas, a gruesome acolyte of Antonin Scalia who has spent much of his time on the Supreme Court taking a pickax to black interests.

Note the utter absence of any understanding of judicial reasoning. Note the monolithic notion of “black interests,” as if every black person has the same interests, dictated by people like Bob Herbert and the NAACP. Notice that appointing the first black secretary state and relying on a black woman as the critical figure in foreign policy is mere mischief and cynicism. As if deploying Bob Herbert to keep black voters in line with warmed-over propaganda weren’t as cynical a move as one could possibly get.

I still don’t know what Mike Kinsley really thinks about our future war with Iraq. (I don’t know what he thought about the last one either, come to think of it.) In his latest column, he just thinks we should have a real debate about it. Man, that’s a column I never thought I’d see with a Kinsley by-line. Wouldn’t it behoove a columnist to actually join that debate by saying what he thinks we should do? This is Kinsley’s brave call: Bush may go to war because of “the simple possibility that he sincerely believes Saddam poses a danger big enough to justify risking massive bloodshed and his own political ruin. And maybe he’s right.” Maybe he’s right? C’mon, Mike. Have you turned into David Gergen? Here’s a simple test for the best liberal columnist in the country: if he were president and he were responsible for the security of American citizens, and if he had had a wake-up call like 9/11, how long would he sit around before he acted to prevent something far, far worse? And if that meant a difficult but necessary war against Saddam, on what grounds should a responsible president punt?

I’ve been asked why I haven’t blogged much on the current attempt to inflict political damage on president Bush because of the accounting and business scandals of the last few months. I haven’t written anything because I don’t think I have anything interesting to say. (Yeah, I know that’s no excuse for a hack. But hey, I wrote a column about it.) The truth is: I’m really not qualified to make a judgment about what technically-speaking would be the best solution for punishing the guilty and preventing further abuse. The president’s balance seemed fair to my instinctively anti-regulatory impulses. But I’m open to other arguments. But I do think there’s something strained about the attempt to hold Bush personally accountable. The Harken stuff seems trivial to me. Almost all the worst corruption happened on (surprise!) Bill Clinton’s watch. Much of it can be attributed to the ethical temptations of a bubble economy and the root causes aren’t as salient today. I’m repulsed by the greed and dishonesty of some of the characters, but I don’t actually enjoy the thrill of class-warfare. That’s one thing that separates me from, say, Paul Krugman and Howell Raines. So let hem have their story. I’ll take a pass on their agenda.

THIRD-WAY ON POT: The Blair government has come up with a classic Third Way approach to marijuana legalization. They’ve suspended the laws that criminalize marijuana users who smoke pot discreetly in private. But they’ll be stepping up enforcement against dealers. So something will be illegal when sold, but legal when bought. Brilliant, no? It seems to me that marijuana, which is less socially and personally damaging than alcohol, should simply be legalized, its production regulated, and its sale taxed. That way, good laws against hard and addictive drugs can have more legitimacy; and the criminal problems associated with pot prohibition can be alleviated. My fear is that this semi-legalization will discredit the entire idea. It could keep the relationship between drugs and crime intact, while increasing drug-use. That’s about as bad as it gets. Or am I missing something?

AND NOW THEY WANT OUR COFFEE: The puritanical left – having tried to take away our booze, porn, and cigarettes – is now after our lattes. Okay, guys, this is serious.

GO, CAROLYN: The rape of Gary Condit’s private life by the media had some justification. The pillage of his wife’s had no such rationale. Every shred of her intimate life – from the first pregnancy to the difficult marriage – was laid bare, and with many lies thrown in for good measure. I hope she wins her future libel suit against the Enquirer, and that other unfairly trashed spouses follow her example.

THE SAVAGE TRUTH: My buddy Dan Savage tells the West Coast left some awkward truths in his latest column in The Stranger. It starts auspiciously enough:

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, I saw something that made me wanna hurl. I still see this something almost every day because it hangs in a window I pass on my way to work, and the urge to hurl–my lunch, a rock–is as fresh today as it was back when I first laid eyes on it. And just what is this offensive something? The American flag peace symbol that appeared on the cover of Seattle Weekly on September 20. They called it their “Peace and Patriotism” symbol. So what is it about the Weekly’s, uh, “PAP” symbol that bothers me so much? Just this: Pacifism and patriotism, together, is no longer an option after September 11.

Dan is basically a lefty but he’s not a complete fool. His sex column is one of the joys of American journalism and no-one could accuse him of being a right-winger on social matters. (He famously tried to give Gary Bauer the flu.) But Dan is also living proof that an awful lot of cultural and social liberals are fully aware of the terrorist forces we are still up against, and are not wringing their hands in response. Bottom line:

[I]t depresses this Gore voter past the point of despair to write this… but… uh… the recently unveiled Bush Doctrine (rough translation: If we think you’re coming after us next Tuesday, we’ll be bombing your ass flat this Tuesday) is a necessary evil.

Not exactly an epiphany. But writing this piece for Savage’s audience required balls. Dan has them.

FREUDIAN SLIP: If you subscribe to the Democratic Leadership Council’s email newsletter, you’d have had a chortle. The latest issue has a correction:

Due to an error, some subscribers may have received a copy of today’s New Dem Daily email with a mislabled subject line reading “NEW YORK TIMES: The Era of Evading Responsibility.” It should have said, “NEW DEM DAILY: The Era of Evading Responsibility.” We regret any confusion the error may have caused.

No confusion here. Just wondering why the correction was necessary. The New York Times is a DLC newsletter. Just further to the left.

The real story behind former CAA super-agent, Mike Ovitz’s, Vanity Fair meltdown is that his outburst about a “gay mafia” was not an isolated case. He has, apparently, a long record of intense discomfort around homosexuals, constant use of the word “fag,” and aversion to gay movies and gay agents. L.A. Weekly has the goods. The social right might have to adjust their notions of a monolthic pro-gay establishment in Hollywood. For many years, the most powerful agent was apparently a homophobe. Maybe that helps explain the still-stunning absence of almost any mainstream openly gay movie actors. It’s also pertinent that Vanity Fair didn’t seek to explore this dimension. But then Graydon Carter has long found peddling cliches about homosexuals to be very good copy.

Israelis are worse than the Nazis, says the Saudi ambassador to Britain. “This is a war of occupation, far more severe than anything the Germans did when they occupied Europe in World War Two.” We still have diplomatic relations with these nut-cases?

“How much money would you pay to see the makers of The Last Temptation of Christ make a similar film about the Prophet Muhammad? How long would they be alive? An hour? An hour and fifteen minutes?” – Jay Nordlinger, National Review

SPIN-FREE ZONE: It may be that the British commander of a naval ship that struck a rock in the South Pacific will be court-martialed. He clearly goofed badly. But I can’t help but admire his honesty and contrition. Here’s his account of what happened:

“It hazarded the lives of 250 men and women. We have done significant damage to a major British warship. This is not a good day for me.” Asked what caused the accident, he said: “A combination of unfortunate circumstances and human error. This is quite the worst thing that has ever happened, quite the worst. Character-building stuff.”

Wouldn’t it be great if a politician who screwed up royally would be as straight-forward about taking responsibility?

WAS HE A TERRORIST? Mark Steyn’s piece on Hadayat had me howling.

MORE RELIGIOUS CHILD ABUSE: This wasn’t sexual, but it strikes me as horrifying nonetheless. And all in the name of Christianity.

THE DEBATE ON C-SPAN: The gay debate between me, Richard Goldstein, Norah Vincent and Carmen Vasquez will apparently be shown on C-SPAN on Saturday July 13th at 3.50pm and Sunday July 14 at 1.35 am.

EUCLID UPDATE: The stray beagle, Euclid, that I found a couple months back had some rough heart-worm problems. She was treated with arsenic at the vet and slowly recovered. Here’s the latest missive from her new parents:

Euclid has gotten back some of her old spunk and zip. She has taken over the couch. But generously. Anyone else is permitted to sit there as long as they pay her adequate attention. She’s also turned into a somewhat finnicky eater — the only “treat” she’ll accept are bacon jerky strips from Giant. Forget plain biscuits, Sausages, or even the treats from the foofey Three Dog Bakery here in Bethesda. Ron and I are going out of town and leaving her for the first time next weekend. Euclid will be staying with my parents. My mother realizes that Euclid is about as close to a grandchild as she’ll ever get and is correspondingly doting. We’ll see if she can get even more spoiled.

Can’t wait to see her again when I get back to DC.

What’s the betting on when some Islamists will start arguing that the LAX shooting was actually a Jewish plot? Hadayat’s widow insists her dead husband had nothing to do with what happened.

GUNS DID IT: The Guardian frames the LAX shooting within the context of gun violence in America. I kid you not. Here’s Peter Preston’s view:

Two innocents killed at a ticket check-in are two too many. They are also mere drops in the ocean of blood which the US allows to flow daily – including on July 4 – through a society where guns and gun culture remain ubiquitous.

The lengths to which these appeasers will go to defend terrorism and attack the United States still take my breath away.

MORAL EQUIVALENCE WATCH: Nick Kristof, after yet another murder of Jews by a Muslim hater, worries about American religious bigotry. “If we want Saudi princes to confront their society’s hate-mongers, our own leaders should confront ours,” he preaches. Our bigotry is as bad as theirs’, he opines. Excuse me? When conservative Christians start murdering thousands of Muslim and Jewish civilians in the Middle East, it will be. Until then, there is simply no equivalence between anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S. and anti-Western and anti-Semitic terrorism in the Arab world. One bigotry mouths off (often appallingly). The other murders thousands of civilians because of their religion and culture and glories in it. If Kristof cannot see that distinction, he should take a trip downtown and see the mass grave these evil fanatics created. They weren’t killed by the religious right.

HOW GERMS GET NICER: An archived article from the Atlantic provides some backing for my argument that some viruses mutate into less lethal forms as epidemics progress. Not necessarily true of HIV under drug regimens, but a hopeful possibility worth exploring.

RAINES WATCH: More checkable untruths in a New York Times editorial. Here’s what they wrote yesterday in another classic hack-liberal editorial about global warming:

Then came a more narrowly focused but equally disturbing report by The Times’s Timothy Egan about Alaska, where an astonishing seven-degree increase in average temperatures over 30 years has led to melting permafrost, sagging roads, dying forests, unexpected forest fires and disruption of marine life.

Here’s what the Alaska Climate Research Center has said about that Egan piece:

The article “Alaska, No Longer So Frigid, Starts to Crack, Burn, and Sag” written by Timothy Egan, stated that the average temperature has risen seven degrees in the last 30 years. This statement was repeated in an editorial by Bob Herbert of 24 June 2002. This statement is incorrect. The correct warming for Alaska is about 1/3 of the quoted amount for the last climatological mean 1971 to 2000 (see table below). It should be pointed out that the table presents data from first class weather stations, which are professionally maintained and generate high quality data. The three stations, Barrow, Fairbanks, and Anchorage, represent a cross section of Alaska from north to south. Further, Barrow, situated in Northern Alaska, which gave the largest temperature increase, is the only long-term first class meteorological weather station in Northern Alaska. All changes are based upon the time period 1971 to 2000 and are compiled from a linear trend.

Now this correction has been around since June 24. So has this chart which shows average temperatures in Alaska for the last century, in which the century-long rise has been around 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The Egan piece’s assertion of such a temperature rise has no basis in fact whatsoever. It’s made up. It’s a non-fact. It has expired in verifiability. It has gone to rest among the fjords of Alaska. It is an ex-fact. So when will the Times correct this mistake? And when will they stop broadcasting it as if it were something they should be proud of?

ME IN TIME OUT: Here’s a recent interview I gave to Time Out New York. I hope you like the picture. I was in a silly mood.

THE EGYPTIAN PROFESSOR: It turns out that professor Mona Baker of the University of Manchester, the woman who has blacklisted two Israelis from a scholarly journal because of their nationality, is actually Egyptian. She immigrated to Britain twenty years ago. But she didn’t leave all her background behind.

IN DEFENSE OF THE ECONOMIST: My friends over there tell me there will be a formal response to Bret Stephens’ article about anti-Israeli bias at the Economist later this week. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, a pro-Economist sends in this example of a long, recent piece on the Middle East from the Economist, which, he argues, is very well-balanced. It’s not free. But if you don’t mind paying, decide for yourself. UPDATE: Here’s a free version of the piece.

Here’s why I’m a bit of a skeptic with regard to CDC AIDS stats. Here are two consecutive paragraphs in Lawrence Altman’s report this morning from the AIDS conference in Spain:

Federal officials said they felt confident in reporting that the number of new H.I.V. infections has been stable in recent years, with an estimated 40,000 Americans becoming infected each year. Government officials estimate that 900,000 Americans are living with H.I.V. or AIDS. The number has increased by 50,000 since 1998, largely because advances in treatment have controlled the infection in many people, allowing some to go back to work and live longer.

If 40,000 are infected each year, shouldn’t over 120,000 new infections have been logged since 1998? So why only 50,000? No one at the CDC really answers that question ever. The 40,000 a year is plucked almost out of thin air, and used for funding purposes. (And factoring in deaths doesn’t help either. The total number of deaths for those three years is a decelerating 50,000. That still leaves 20,000 alleged infections unaccounted for.) Imagine the panic among the AIDS lobby if they had to report that the rate of infections were declining! And by the way, here’s the link to the actual JAMA study that shows the emergence of a “super-bug.” The boilerplate announced that “in 1996, only 2.5 percent of those tested were infected by a virus resistant to two different classes of drugs. That number rose to 13 percent by 2000.” How many were in the actual study? 225 people over all, but in the specific studies that gave the results cited by the press, less than 100. The number of people with actual resistant virus to one class of drugs? Twelve people. The number with resistance to protease inhibitors? Seven. And the conclusion of the study: “The frequency of primary resistance to NNRTIs is increasing, although resistance to all available classes of antiretroviral therapy remains rare.” How many stories focused on the fact that such resistance to all drugs is rare?