The Dish

I’ve just emailed Daryl Lindsey at Salon.com and Whitney Joiner of Inside.com, asking them to give me a list of all of the corporate sponsors and advertizers for both webzines. Fair enough, no? Both gave me a mere couple of hours to respond to their questions, so we’ll see how long these avatars of ethical journalism take to disclose their own sources of funding. (With both, it shouldn’t take too long.)

SCRAPING THE BARREL DEPT: Condit-Levy anagrams, courtesy of Tim Noah.

THE SHEER F**KING CHUTZPAH AWARD GOES TO …: Lanny Davis, former Clinton lackey, now telling Gary Condit to come clean.

Isn’t it a little odd that the two news sources hard on the tail of my first $7500 sponsorship are Inside.com and Salon.com, two big liberal loss-making online magazines? I like both sites, link to them, praise and criticize them, and consider many people at both places friends. And there is probably a legitimate story there, if not exactly an earth-shattering one. But isn’t it a little odd that these two sites should be the first to gang up on this one, and help deprive it of its only corporate sponsorship yet? (For background, check out the next but one item.) It’s especially striking that these big-ass websites argue that the reason my lone advertizer represents a conflict of interest and their sponsors and advertizers don’t, is that I’m a small website. Since the entire editorial staff is me; and the entire technical and business staff amounts to my friend Robert Cameron and his staff at Fantascope, Salon and Inside argue I cannot insulate myself from corporate influence the way they can. But that means that a one-man site like this one can never get ads or sponsors without a conflict of interest, doesn’t it? Which means only big sites will survive … like Salon and Inside. Hmmmm. Mighty convenient argument, huh? I guess it sucks to watch a site like mine actually make money while Inside and Salon get sold or delisted. Notice also the journalistic tactics. Both reporters went to my regular editors first at the New York Times and the New Republic to get statements and then contacted me last. This technique is designed to corner people; indeed to pressure them into caving. I feel bad I did. But sometimes, you’ve got to pick your battles. They won this one. We’ll win the war.

Another affair? Read the Washington Post‘s account of Gary Condit’s alleged affair with another young woman. Can you find anything in it relevant to the possible death of Chandra Levy? I can’t. The most ominous suggestion is that Condit once told his former paramour never to talk about the relationship again. This is seen as some sort of dark threat. It sounds like boiler-plate affair talk to me. Now, look. I know plenty of people suspect Condit killed Chandra or had something to do with it. But being a serial philanderer does not make you a murderer. Thank God Bill Safire gets this today. Maybe he’ll help stem the prurient tide. Nor, as Mickey Kaus suggests, does having sado-masochistic sex with neckties (no accounting for taste) suggest to anyone but the already convinced that this is relevant because Condit could have killed Chandra in a sexual accident. Do we need to know the kind of underwear he has in case it turns out he strangled her with it? What if it turns out that none of these things is relevant? How does Condit get his privacy back? He can’t and he won’t. And his punishment by media has nothing to do with his possible culpability in the Levy case and everything to do with the feeding frenzy of a slow news summer.

Two of my editors have been called by Daryl Lindsey from Salon.com, and another reporter from Inside.com, asking them what their position is now that this website has some sponsorship from PHRMA, the umbrella group for the pharmaceutical companies. Lindsey has asked my editors whether they will now stop me writing about that issue in their pages, or insert conflict of interest disclosures in such articles, because my work is now allegedly tainted. Tainted? How is this different than bigger magazines or newspapers taking far more money from such companies in advertising? Lindsey argues that unlike bigger magazines, this is an example of an individual writer, who covers pharmaceutical industry issues extensively, accepting direct payment for the ads. I see his worry, but he’s wrong. First off, the money goes to Fantascope.com, the parent company for this site. It doesn’t go to me directly. I see none of it – and none of the donation money either. We set up a very strict editorial/corporate wall early on for financing this little site. (I was unaware until a few minutes ago that we had even actually received any money from PHRMA. It turns out it was deposited two days ago. That kind of editorial-corporate separation is the point.) I have yet to receive a cent from this venture. Everything we have raised so far has gone to expenses. Secondly, all the direct negotiations for this matter were conducted by my webmaster, Robert Cameron, who handles all the business matters. Thirdly, there is full disclosure. Robert told the New York Times about the deal before it was even completed – and it would entail a clear and blaring ad on the site as the return. We’re not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.

The deeper question is: can me-zines accept any financing from sponsorship and advertising without these kinds of attacks? By their very nature, these sites are individual ventures. I want to try and make this one more than a simple personal web-page – not to make myself rich off it (fat chance) but to prove a point about the economic viability of journalism on the web. But inevitably, it’s andrewsullivan.com, which makes the appearance of a conflict of interest almost unavoidable. It doesn’t help matters that my first sponsors are the target of leftist hatred and demonization, and that they are embroiled in a public controversy I intend to keep writing about. So here’s my decision. I’m returning the money and revoking the sponsorship. I don’t want to be a wimp, but nor do I want to give my critics an easy target. This is not a criticism of the drug companies. I would be proud of their sponsorship. But I don’t want to have every argument I make about the importance of pharmaceutical research to be undermined by the lie that I have been bought and paid for. It’s a lie, as anyone who has read me for long enough knows. My beliefs on this and on many things are not for sale. But I don’t see why I should give my critics any unnecessary ammunition or my beloved editors elsewhere any grief. But here’s my request in return. If you know of any company that would be willing to sponsor this site, with a minimum sponsorship of $10,000, please contact Robert Cameron at robert@fantascope.com. We need financial support, and we’d prefer it from companies which are not directly involved in major controversy. If this site is to last longer than, say, Suck or Feed or, ahem, Salon, we need your corporate help.

Well at least Larry Kudlow is honest. The economics writer for National Review weighs in this morning on the Condit case. His argument? Condit should resign already because he has committed adultery. In fact, anyone who commits adultery should resign from public office. For Kudlow, there is no distinction between private and public life – and immoral people have no right to have any privacy at all. “Judeo-Christian religions teach that marital fidelity and faithfulness are the building blocks of a civilization and society,” Kudlow writes. “Without them, there can be no stability. This is not a trifling point. It is a major point. It’s not merely that he covered up the affair, but that he had the affair.” He goes on: “Flimsy distinctions between private and public behavior ignore all this and serve merely to muddy the waters of proper conduct. Those Ten Commandments should govern our behavior at all times. There is no difference between public and private actions; they are all of the same piece.” Wow. Kudlow even looks kindly on a law in the District making adultery a crime. Doesn’t that make this public? Presumably, Kudlow supports outing anyone he disapproves of if they are gay, especially if they live in states with sodomy laws. The fact that a leading conservative writer can see absolutely no necessity for a public-private distinction in a liberal democracy shows how degenerate some conservatism now is. Give me an adulterer over an ayatollah any day.

I’ve been wrestling with the issue of stem cell research for the past week, trying to figure out how to write a column about it. The difficult question for me is the ethical issue of embryos which/who can be created for the defensible purpose of fertility but which/who are inevitably accompanied by other ‘unnecessary’ embryos as an ineluctable part of the process. It’s a kind of collateral damage argument. These extra embryos will die anyway: why not put them to good use? It makes me queasy, I have to say, but that’s not an argument. So it helped to read the story in today’s New York Times, in which scientists have actually created human embryos entirely for research purposes. Is that less defensible than the collateral damage approach? Most seem to think it is. I’m not so sure. It seems to me that if you believe that such embryos are not human in any meaningful sense, and that they can therefore be used for research purposes with no ethical conflict, does it really matter what the motives are in creating them? Moreover, if it’s true that designer embryos might be more suitable for research purposes, why should we prefer the inferior ones that are left over from fertility attempts? On the other hand, if these embryos actually are human life, then surely using them for research is unethical, whatever the reason for their existence, or the quality of research they offer. (And why, by the way, is making someone pregnant a better or more ethical goal than saving someone’s life through better research?) If anything, the purer approach of manufacturing micro-humans to experiment on them has at least the quality of honesty. As well as the ability to run a chill down your spine.

FAITH-BASED U-TURN: Thank Heaven the Bush administration has backed down from using government money to discriminate against gays. It still reflects badly on the Bushies, though. Either they were deliberately trying to do this behind Congress’s back; or they have been caught in another p.r. screw-up (like the leaked arsenic regulations) that casts a harsh light on their competence. We don’t need a spin room. But we sure could use someone who can head off policy leaks as obviously damaging as this one.

The problem with the government’s funding of religious organizations to do social work has always been the difficulty of clearly separating church and state. I’m a strong believer that religious groups should be exempt from regular non-discrimination laws in the private sector if such laws offend their calling. Some groups won’t hire women or gays or masturbators or non-believers. Fair enough. But when those groups seek to get public money, that distinction goes out of the window. If Dana Milbank’s report in the Washington Post is correct, and the Bush administration is seeking to waive anti-discrimination laws for groups that support its ‘faith-based’ policies, then we are truly into dangerous territory.

Don’t misunderstand me. I think the Salvation Army is a fantastic organization. I think they do more good than most public agencies. In fact, when I was editor of The New Republic, we ran a cover-story saying just that. But if they take tax-payers’ money, they need to act as a public and not a private entity. Discriminating against gay citizens is against the law in many states and cities. It applies to all public entities. If the SA wants our money, they need to play by our rules. And if the Bush administration thinks it can push this assault on Church-state separation without fierce resistance, they’re wrong. Drop it now, guys. It’s unconstitutional, divisive, and dumb for all involved, including the Salvation Army. This goes, by the way, for all faith based government programs. Religion can only do what it does best when unshackled from government interference. And government can only win legitimacy if it represents all the people (including gays), rather than imposing religious orthodoxy on all of us with our own tax-payers’ money. I grew up in a country where the government explicitly supported a particular religion and subtly denigrated my own. One reason I love America is that it couldn’t happen here. Or could it? Would I have backed Bush at the last election if I’d known about this in advance? Probably. Does it make me and many other non-religious conservatives and moderates queasy? More than I can express.

OFF THE EDGE: The latest Condit press grotesquerie came on Fox News’ The Edge with Paula Zahn. Not content with broadcasting completely irrelevant details of Condit’s alleged affairs with others, Zahn coaxed this quote out of attorney Jim Robinson:

“ZAHN: Can you elaborate for us when you say
she discovered things of a sexual nature that
made her nervous? What do you mean by that?

ROBINSON: Apparently there were ties –
neckties tied together, tied underneath the
bed – as if someone had been tied up in bed.
And that had never happened to my client
before. And, apparently, Mr. Condit made a
joke about it, just brushed it off. And
[Smith] told me that she was very afraid for
her life at that point.”

So now it’s relevant what kind of sex Condit had? What’s next? How often he slept with his wife?

PHRMA SPONSORSHIP: The usual suspects from the far left have emailed me outraged that this website has accepted a small sponsorship from PHRMA, the umbrella group that represents the drug companies. Since we haven’t actually received any money yet, and haven’t added a sponsorship ad, I haven’t written about it yet – waiting for the appropriate moment. But seeing as this sponsorship was published in the New York Times, it behooves me to say I see absolutely no problems with it. In fact, I am extremely proud to get some support from a great industry that has saved my and countless other people’s lives, despite a massive attempt to penalize them for their work. They approached me initially. I was happy to respond, although I recused myself from any direct negotiation. They advertise in dozens of magazines, including The New Republic and the New York Times Magazine and many gay magazines, including POZ. The sponsorship is pretty minor. We hope to attract others. If people believe that my convictions on this matter over several years were designed to elicit a small donation to this site in the distant future, they’re welcome to believe it. But it’s paranoid hooey. In part, of course, the real worry of those who want to attack the free market in pharmaceuticals is that I might have been a teensy bit effective in my arguments – and that these arguments might even have some merit. The usual suspects want to silence opposition. They won’t. And this little donation will help keep debate alive.

WHAT’S NOT A DISABILITY: A legal reader sends in the following information from the Americans with Disability Act about what is not a disability under federal law: “Under this chapter, term ‘disability’ shall not include–
1) transvestism, transsexuals, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, or other sexual behavior disorders; or
2) compulsive gambling, kleptomania, or pyromania; or
3) psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs.
(42 U.S.C. sec 12211(b).)
So the Congress that passed this bill equates transgendered or transsexual people with pedophiles. Mary Eberstadt must be deliriously happy.

Interesting story from Fox News about a New Jersey court ruling that being a transsexual can be deemed a disability under state law. The case involves a man who became a woman and who was fired, during his/her transition process, for inappropriate attire. My emotional sympathies lie with the transsexual. I’m a strong supporter of the notion that those individuals who feel that they are internally a different gender from their physical self should be able to change genders if they so wish. Firing someone on those grounds strikes me as cruel and wrong (whether it should be illegal is another matter). At the same time, I’m queasy at the thought of gender conflict being regarded as a ‘disability’ because it robs transsexuals of their dignity, and reduces their human identity to an illness. It also adds yet another layer of litigation to an already overlawyered world. What really interests me about this story, however, is why some conservatives are upset about the precedent. The deep internal problem with the religious right’s view of gender conflict and homosexuality is that they want to view homosexuality as a sickness, yet not treat it as a sickness. I’d have far more respect for some on the far right who view homosexuality as a ‘biological error’ or an ‘objective disorder’ if they actually followed the logic of their own argument. If homosexuality is an illness, then it surely should be regarded as blameless and be protected as a disability under American law. Since even fundamentalists concede that it is difficult to cure, those who remain ‘sick’ should therefore be accorded the same social and legal status as others who have incurable diseases. If, for example, it is illegal to discriminate against people with HIV, why should it be legal to discriminate against those afflicted with the ‘illness’ of homosexuality? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe this for a moment. But shouldn’t the religious right? Their current position is that homosexuality is an illness – and that being sick is good justification for discriminating against people, in public and private life. It doesn’t make any sense. It certainly makes no Christian sense. It’s cruel and incoherent, which is about as good a description of prejudice as any I know.

HOIST PETARD WATCH – ON THE LEFT: The whole contemporary apparatus of anti-discrimination law, on the other hand, is just as incoherent. It started out as a legitimate attempt to protect a genuinely persecuted and marginalized group – African-Americans – after decades of slavery and then segregation. It then metastasized into a general principle that no-one should be discriminated against for any arbitrary reason. My own controversial view is that only blacks should be protected in this fashion, because their history of discrimination – especially at the hands of their own government – is uniquely awful. But if you’re going to extend the principle, I fail to see where you finally draw the line. Steven Landsburg has a terrific piece in Slate looking at evidence for discrimination against the ugly. There’s no question that ugly people have a far rougher time of it than good-looking types – and, in fact, that the discrimination they face is often more severe than many other groups now protected. Now, if you’re going to have an anti-discrimination law that protects those who can hide their identity (e.g. Catholics, Mormons), on what grounds do you not have an anti-discrimination law that protects those who have no option but to turn up at the office looking a fright? Beats me. So far the dividing line has simply been decided by whose political lobby is the strongest. Women are protected; religious groups are protected; gays still, for the most part, are not (another idiotic exception). I guess you could pass a generic law saying no-one should be hired or fired for any irrelevant, involuntary characteristics – but can you imagine the litigious hell that would open up? Still the current state of the law makes no sense – which is why I favor abolishing all protections except for blacks. But on what grounds do liberals defend the status quo? On about as logical a ground as conservatives who want to keep discriminating against people they regard as suffering from an illness.

South Africa’s ruling party still refuses to remove value added tax from HIV medications, a tax that helps put such medicines out of reach of those few in South Africa who have adequate private medical care. So Pretoria now won’t provide the drugs publicly; and it taxes the drugs if they are provided privately. Thanks, Mbeki. As opposition Democratic Alliance spokesman, Kobus Gous, said last week, “Removing VAT from AIDS drugs in the private sector is the least this government could do, given its refusal to make them available in the public sphere.” Not a squeak from the usual suspects in America who spent many months demonizing the pharmaceutical companies for letting Africans die. Why isn’t ACT-UP protesting the South African government? Why hasn’t Bob Herbert weighed in? Can you imagine what they would be saying if white people were enforcing these policies?

THE DEFENSE OF COWARDS: “”This story has gained so much momentum that it seemed foolish to avoid it,” said Andy Buncombe, a Washington-based foreign correspondent who penned a 1,200-word account of the saga for the London Independent. “It’s one thing, pure and simple: the relationship between an intern and a congressman who seems to be less than wholly forthcoming.”” – from a disturbing piece about the Condit affair in the Fresno Bee. Notice the story is no longer about finding a missing person or tracking down a potential murderer. It’s about a possible sex scandal. And the justification for pursuing it as a story is simply that others are already doing it. (Hence the ‘news’ of Condit’s alleged affair with a flight attendant). Some readers have emailed to say that Condit’s refusal to be forthcoming to the cops about his relationship with Levy renders the story legitimate. But the incursion into Condit’s private life began long before such a detail was known. If you can justify any incursion into privacy on the grounds that sometimes your hunch can turn out to be right – then you have basically ended privacy altogether. Even if it turns out that Condit has something to do with Levy’s disappearance, it still doesn’t justify this fishing expedition. The ends do not justify these means.

CORRECTION: Provincetown and Truro are not part of the Upper Cape, even though they are to the north of the rest of it. They are part of the Lower Cape. Apparently, these sections were named according to where the English landed first – not where they tried to vacation several centuries later. Sorry.

“[President Bush] has selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics… He has appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing. And he has chosen Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection … Race remains the central fact of life for every nonwhite American. It eclipses income, position, gender, education – race trumps them all.” – Julian Bond, Board Chairman of the NAACP, July 8.

SELF-PROMOTION DEPT.: Check out Alex Kuczinski’s piece on me-zines in today’s New York Times. Nice plug for the site, although Mickey Kaus rightly takes center-stage (he started this). My only quibble is that Kuczinski doesn’t quite get what this means for journalism as a whole – the independence movement for writers. But, heck, it’s just a short piece. We’ve also been named the web-site of the month by the conservative website, EnterStageRight. They call us “always enjoyable and a must-read for those who follow current events.”