Taken. Clive Crook weighs in on the Ambinder-Greenwald spat:
Greenwald demands skepticism toward those in power — which any good journalist must have — but then confuses this with implacable hostility. They are not the same. The job of a reporter is to question, understand, and inform. You need a vigorous skepticism to do this. But unreasoning hostility is as inimical to understanding as blind deference.
Ouch. They are called Lancelot and Arthur, after all. But it's in a good cause.
An insight into the partisan fanaticism of this protege of Jesse Helms and Dick Cheney.
TNR found this fine fellow in front of the White House. But he can't compare to this:
The White House was forced to respond Wednesday to a conspiracy theory too silly for even the birthers: Did Barack Obama appear in the video for Tag Team's 1993 one-hit wonder "Whoomp! (There it is)"?
Some are as backward as the Republicans. Which is why repeal of DADT has taken so long. Take it away, Rachel:
Yglesias buries Caitlin Flanagan's latest article about "hookup culture" in a mountain of data. Douthat moderates:
Eventually, somewhere between the AIDS epidemic and “Sex and the City,” youth culture began to adapt, becoming considerably more coarse and cynical about sex than the characters in “Forever,” but somewhat less naive as well. And this is the crucial thing to understand about contemporary mores: Many of the trends that Flanagan laments, from the rise of oral sex (and other alternatives) to the ubiquity of pornography to the culture of casual hook-ups (which, especially in high school, don’t necessarily involve intercourse), emerged in part as paths to safety — as ways to navigate the post-sexual revolution landscape without experiencing as many dangers, physical and emotional, as the young people of the 1970s faced.
A Chelsea Pensioner wipes his eye following the Founder's Day Parade at The Royal Hospital Chelsea on June 10, 2010 in London, England. The celebration is also referred to as is 'Oak Apple Day' as it commemorates the escape of founder King Charles II following the Battle of Worcester when he hid in an oak tree to avoid capture by Parliamentary forces. By Oli Scarff/Getty Images.
A reader writes:
In today's Theocon Watch post, you missed that Pakaluk stated the following:
"I saw this beginning to happen in my son’s school: not wishing to offend, teacher and parents would refer to the two men as the “parents” of that boy, even though only one was the father."
By this logic, the Church should not be calling any people who adopt children parents.
Another writes:
I just realized that Professor Pakuluk’s article seems to rest on the presumption that his ideas will lose if challenged. Pakuluk’s concern seems to be that if his children or the children of any other catholic parents in a catholic school encounter a homosexual couple, they will decide that the Church is wrong. Pakuluk never even seems to consider that his children might determine that the Church was right, much less that the children of the gay parents or the gay parents themselves could be won over to the Church’s position. Instead, Pakuluk takes it as a given that his children’s acceptance of Church doctrine will crumble when faced with reality.
Great point. The kind of fundamentalism exemplified by the current Pope is indeed based not on confident faith, but on neurotic fear.
Nina Shen Rastogi notices a surge of non-stereotypical TV and movie roles played by actors of Indian descent:
Performance historian Brian Herrera theorizes that South Asian actors may have gotten a boost from the flurry of terrorist-type roles that followed in the wake of Sept. 11. A one- or two-episode arc as a featured character on, say, 24 would represent a solid credit line for a young actor, potentially opening the door to more interesting opportunities down the line. It’s a trend Herrera has noted with other minority groups, though in less-accelerated forms. “So many of the elder statesmen of Latino actors got their start doing gang stories in the ’80s,” he notes.
Catherine Rampell studies a new report on how much seniors rely on social security:
As you can seen, elderly Americans in the bottom income quintile receive 88.4 percent of their income from Social Security. Members of the highest income quintile receives less than a quarter of their income from this source.
I reiterate my longstanding position: social security should be seen as insurance, not investment. You pay in to ensure that you do not retire or die in penury. But if you have managed to find a way to live well without that security, you don't get your premiums back. I know this is not how it was sold in the first place; I know this violates core liberal principles about social welfare (but screw you, I'm not a liberal); but in a fiscal crisis where every dollar counts, means-testing the wealthy elderly seems to me an easy call.
The Dish 