The Dish

Several readers let me know that “playing with pain” is a sports analogy, referring to playing with an injury. My mistake. How I missed it with all the football I watch I just don’t know. But what in this case is the injury? Jackson seems fine. His grief and remorse lasted, ooh, well 36 hours.

I’m a typically conflicted libertarian-leaning Catholic on abortion, as regular readers will know. Personally opposed to all abortion but committed to maximizing human freedom in deeply contested moral areas, I can live with its being legal in the first trimester. But I try and respect both sides as far as I can. The one thing I can’t fathom, though, is the notion that one side is somehow more “extreme” than the other. I’ve heard several comments today from friends who see W’s suspension of overseas aid for groups that promote abortion as scary, divisive and extreme. Huh? Why is it more extreme than the previous policy that used tax-money to fund abortions abroad? The public is pretty evenly split, but somehow only the pro-lifers get called “out of the mainstream” by the media. But when Janet Reno came out and supported partial birth abortions, no hue and cry was uttered. Is it me or is there a double-standard here?

For anyone in a movement for modest social change, the attitudes of college students are often salient. They are the future, and although they may get a little more curmudgeonly as they age, their current attitudes predict something of the future of our culture. Good news, then, from my point of view, that a solid majority of college freshmen now back civil marriage rights for gay men and women. The Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, conducts an annual survey of over a quarter of a million freshmen – a hefty sample – and asks a whole variety of questions. Last year, 56 percent backed gay marriage rights outright. There’s a gender gap – with men less supportive than freshman women, 47 to 63 percent – but the majority for equal rights is now clear and growing by about 2 percent a year. More interesting, from my point of view, is that Catholic colleges show higher levels of support for civil rights than others. Almost 62 percent of freshmen at Catholic colleges back equal marriage rights. I’d like to think that’s because Catholic colleges put such a high premium on thinking rationally rather than emotionally and on following one’s moral conscience. And the movement for equal dignity for gay men and women in their lives and loves is a moral and rational crusade before it is anything else.

‘”A two-year-old story was made public,” Mr. Jackson said. “So, one can sense that there may be some motivation. But … I accept my responsibility. What we must do here is put our focus not on my pain, but the people’s agenda … Sometimes, leaders have to play with pain. I’m feeling well. My family is well,” Mr. Jackson said.”‘ – Associated Press. By the way, what does he mean by “play with pain?” Was that some kind of transcript error or is Jackson actually saying this whole exercise in responsibility and publicity was some kind of game? Maybe he really was Bill Clinton’s spiritual adviser. And was it completely coincidental that tonight’s Simpson’s episode was on Krusty the Clown’s discovery of his own illegitimate daughter? Krusty … Jesse. Suddenly the world makes a tiny bit more sense.

Don’t hold your breath for the New York Times or the Washington Post to report this, but today’s Naples Daily News reports on the results of their hand-recount of all uncounted ballots in Collier County, Florida. If you count every thing from dimples to pin-pricks, Bush gains an extra 770 votes to Gore’s extra 544. No big surprise in heavily Republican Collier, and a slight confirmation of Mickey Kaus’s “sloppy Dem thesis,” and Sullivan’s Law, which argues that Democrats are disproportionately likely to screw up their votes, especially if they’re female or elderly or black. Gore got 41 percent of the dimpled votes for the two major candidates and 33 percent of the real votes in Collier. Nevertheless, W still gained votes, even with sloppy Dems, which suggests that outside Democratic strongholds, Gore may well not have enough dimples, pin-pricks etc to pull ahead in a media recount (barring of course, the “over-votes,” which in most places on earth are known as spoiled ballots). The extra 226 Collier votes, after all, is almost half W’s state-wide victory, an impressive number, and shows the logic behind the Gore team’s effort to recount only in their own counties. They were worried that their own attempt to win the election might go awry if they allowed every county a hand-recount. Even so, Miami-Dade came up dry, and it even helped W. Bottom line: Florida wasn’t stolen by anyone. It was nearly stolen by someone. And that someone wasn’t Bush.

“I have had occasion frequently to reflect on the Jones case. In this consent order, I acknowledge having knowingly violated Judge Wright’s discovery orders in my deposition in that case. I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely, but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish this goal and that certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false.” Do you have a clue what that means? He did not fully accomplish his goal of “walking a fine line between acting legally and testifying falsely?” Huh? How is it possible to be somewhere in between legal and perjurious? And how can you honestly describe that fine line except as an attempt to lie under oath and get away with it? His final non-apology is as phony as all the rest. That said, I’m glad it’s over. I’m going to go out tonight and get hammered.

A friend points out a shrewd analogy for those claiming that W doesn’t have the right to be president the way others have because he lost the popular vote. Say we play a game of tennis and you win 6-4, 0-6, 6-4. I actually won 14 games to your 12. But would I ever claim that you didn’t rightly win the match? Even if there were a few close line-calls along the way? Of course not. Gore and Bush both knew the rules going in. They played by them. One lost. The winner gets inaugurated tomorrow. Game, set and match.

Well, it took a news cycle for the paranoid spin on the Jackson scandal. (Silver lining: Jackson may well avoid calling W “illegitimate” for a while). A reader sends in the following report from Reuters last night: “The Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York civil rights leader, was questioned why the story came out just as Jackson was challenging the outcome of the presidential election and President-elect Bush’s nomination of former Sen. John Ashcroft to be his attorney general. “The timing of this is very suspect,” Sharpton said on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” “I really don’t think at this point, where we’re seeing a president being inaugurated who we feel lost the election, that we can afford to lose his voice.”

Thank God we have a Drug Czar. A friend points out a truly wonderful government-sponsored website , courtesy of General Barry McCaffrey (24 more hours!) which details the latest street lingo for various kinds of drugs. The report also includes all sorts of recipes for powerful drug combos, a helpful consumer’s guide to “Costs and Quantities,” of various illegal substances, but it draws the line at obscenity. You will all be amazed to hear that heroin is sometimes known on the street as “sh*t.” Among other nuggets, the party drug “G” is also known as “goop,” “easy lay,” “scoop,” “soap,” and “Georgia Home Boy.” Wanna get a drug combo that’s a “Combination of PCP and marijuana, sprinkled with cocaine and smoked; marijuana, PCP, and crack combined and smoked; with a sprinkle of LSD?” Be sure to ask for a “squirrel.” Gee, thanks. Mr. McCaffrey. I’ll remember next time. Wanna track down a “female who trades sex for crack?” Ask your brother on the corner for a “strawberry.” Ever wonder what a “toucher” is? That’s a “User of crack who wants affection before, during, or after smoking crack.” Awww. A “tweaker,” on the other hand, is a “Crack user looking for drugs on the floor after a police raid.” And I thought he’d lost his contact lens. A “ringer” is a “Good hit of crack; hear bells.” Let freedom ring! For some weird reason, a cocktail of cocktail of heroin, LSD and PCP is known as an LBJ. I could go on. The site is a) an amazing menu for innovative drug-use; b) a testament to how our language is being recreated as we speak in crack houses and street-corners across the country; c) worthy of an NEA grant. But, then, who needs the NEA when we’ve got a Drug Czar?

A typically smarmy piece by Andrew Ferguson in the current Slate about the alleged “failing upward” of Mary Matalin. Ferguson cannot believe that anyone would fall in love with someone whose politics is diametrically opposite. Mercifully, I don’t know anything about the romantic life of Andrew Ferguson but his aspersions on the Matalin-Carville hook-up are truly cheap. I see no reason to believe that either Carville or Matalin are insincere in their politics or their love. In my occasional interactions with them, Mary seems about as smart and as kind a person one can find in this city and James seems like a crackpot – but a sincere one. Both are acquired tastes and have done their fair share of political hustling – but their genuineness I don’t doubt. As to their love, why should it be odd that opposites attract? Personally, I have only been attracted to people who disagree with me. There’s nothing less erotic than a yes-man, or less exciting than the cooing echoes of a fellow political hack. The alarming thing about so many politicos in this city is precisely their desire to find love consonant with their politics, a trait Ferguson seems to admire. It’s amazing how many neo-cons marry each other; and how many professional liberal power-couples there are. Maybe being gay has saved me from this. It takes you out of the professional dating game and throws you into a more diverse subculture where you can meet literally anyone. (Let’s think. Of my last few serious emotional attachments, all have been liberals, none journalists, most of them have denied to their friends that they’re seeing me, and the friction has made all the difference.) My suggestion to Ferguson is to open up a little. And before he writes any more snide attacks on people allegedly failing upward, he might ask why he’s writing about them, and not the other way round.