The Dish

Julian Sanchez isn't so sure:

It’s easy to look at all the information that comes up in a simple Google search for someone’s name and conclude that privacy is dead. But I think it’s at least as significant that the crucial first page of results is likely to consist of information that the individuals themselves have chosen to make public: Blogs, Facebook or MySpace profiles, Twitter accounts, Last.fm pages, YouTube channels.

A similar inquiry a generation ago surely would have been much more laborious and less fruitful, but it also would have consisted to a far greater extent of what others had to say about the target: gossip first and foremost, but perhaps also press mentions, official records, and so on. It’s not that such information is now less accessible, but for the average person, it’s pushed to the margin by what we’ve chosen to disclose. That’s not an unmixed blessing—some may feel as though this merely traps them in a kind of openness arms race—but neither is it the privacy death-spiral a purely quantitative analysis might suggest.

Ben Smith notes how the Clinton machine has not leaped into action to attack the portrait of the petty, paranoid, listless and shameless duo outlined in Game Change. Why?

The book’s primary sources about the former candidate and current secretary of state are her own former staffers and intimates.

I think Clinton has been a great secretary of state. And I stand by every word I wrote about her and her husband in the primaries.

Clay Shirky ponders the future of the internet:

Given what we have today, the Internet could easily become Invisible High School, with a modicum of educational material in an ocean of narcissism and social obsessions. We could, however, also use it as an Invisible College, the communicative backbone of real intellectual and civic change, but to do this will require more than technology. It will require that we adopt norms of open sharing and participation, fit to a world where publishing has become the new literacy.

A reader writes:

Thanks for linking to Ted Olson’s article in Newsweek re: gay marriage and the constitution.  It was so gratifying to read a rational, ‘conservative’ defense of gay marriage; this is the conservatism of my in-laws and my husband (until he got so disgusted with the current party that he no longer claims the title). 

One issue he didn’t address was the fact that gay couples CAN procreate. 

Maybe that’s just a bridge too far but the daughter of one of my good friends has a healthy, happy 8-month-old little boy who is hers through artificial insemination and her partner's through a loving, parental bond.  We have all remarked about how lucky that little boy is to have TWO moms (of course, since we’re all moms, we would say that).  And my friend, who had trouble dealing with her daughter’s homosexuality and then her marriage and then the baby is one of the happiest grandmothers you would want to know.  And she sends pictures around to all of us and tells us about how he looks a ‘little bit’ like her.  There are a lot of grandmothers/grandfathers out there who are enjoying their genetic off spring as much as anyone.

Oh and gay men: there were two who became the poster picture of Gavin Newsom’s ill-fated adventure into gay marriage … When they got married, they were both holding baby girls in carriers on their chests and the very interesting thing that I found out (turns out my pilates instructor was a cousin of one of the men) was that each of those babies were their biological daughters.  They had a surrogate mother and implanted 4 fertilized eggs; two from each of them and when they checked DNA, each man was a dad. What right does any state or any one have to tell people how to raise their biological children?

Margaret Talbot has a very long article on the Olson case and the fight for marriage equality. The kicker:

[O]ne of the arguments that the anti-gay-marriage side has increasingly turned to outside the courtroom is that allowing same-sex marriage would hurt heterosexual marriage. At the pretrial hearing, Judge Walker kept asking Charles Cooper, the lawyer defending Proposition 8, how exactly it did so. “I’m asking you to tell me,” he said at last, “how it would harm opposite-sex marriages.”

“All right,” Cooper said.

“All right,” Walker said. “Let’s play on the same playing field for once.”

There was a pause—it seemed like a long one to people in the courtroom, though it was probably only a few seconds. And Cooper said, “Your Honor, my answer is: I don’t know. I don’t know.”

A reader writes:

The problem with Goldsmith's projection about the deficit and economic melt down is that it assumes we will stay on the track we are on right now.  Had you made similar projections about the future of our economy in the mid to late 1930's, I suspect you'd have come to a similarly bleak conclusion.  Yes, there are a lot of risks to our economy right now, but the reality is that our politics only tends to be good at dealing with imminent crises rather than far off projections. 

Recall that in 1992 we had an election that was largely driven by concerns over the deficit.  It's not unreasonable to think that after a few years of patching the economy back together, concerns about rising deficits will drive our politics again.  Whether the solution will be to cut back government services, raise taxes, or some combination of both will ultimately depend on what political forces come to the fore at that time.  But historically when it's come time to make the hard choices we've always done what we've had to do. 

This medical report has to be read to be believed. And yes, if I were this dude's right ball, I'd be leery of descending as well.

A reader writes:

The reason why the public is outraged at baseball is because they had no testing system in place to stop the spread of steroid use. Football on the other hand has one of the most stringent testing policies in all of sports. Huge difference. So while you can suggest that football players are all juicing, the evidence just does not support this statement.

Another writes:

You're picking on the wrong sport, at least at the professional level. The NFL adheres to IOC steroid testing standards, tests players during the off-season, and randomly tests 7 players per team (more than 10%) every week of the season.  With that much money on the line, there are obviously some people finding ways around the rules, but by and large you can be confident that the freakish size is largely an organic result of huge advances in training techniques … aided by the most cutting edge supplements yet to be banned, obviously.

Another:

Check out this story from the NY Times three years ago. Money quote: "The N.F.L. is considered to have the most stringent testing policy among the major American sports leagues."

Who am I going to believe? The NFL or my own lyin' eyes?

Today on the Dish, the fight for marriage equality took an important turn: Ted Olson raised the standard for conservatives and carried it into court. Rick Jacobs live-blogged the proceedings while Volokh debated his arguments at length. Even Harold Ford Jr. has seen the light.

On the salacious news front, just as Palin solidified her role as the right's celebrity-in-chief, Schmidt and "Game Change" opened the floodgates on the VP pick. One reader heaped the blame on McCain and another grieved over her students' starbursts (speaking of which, don't miss this fascinating footage of Palin as sportscaster).

Regarding the Reid uproar, Steele played his race card, TNC talked sense, and McWhorter laid out the linguists. Also, the "Negro" quote looked dubious to begin with. In other news, the undie-bomber didn't fly one-way after all. Up in Massachusetts, Blumenthal read the political terrain while Chait looked into the future of healthcare.

Andrew's latest column centered on increased polarization. He also took stock over the sanctions situation between Israel and Iran. Stephen Goldsmith sounded the alarm over US debt.  Krugman, Noah Millman, and Tyler Cowen joined the Chait-Manzi debate. Friedersdorf hit Jonah again over torture. E.D. Kain countered Conor over Avatar. Mighty Mark grew up to steal your girlfriend.

Meanwhile, still crickets at the Corner …

— C.B.

Since SCOTUS put a hold on cameras or even delayed YouTubes, Rick Jacobs decided to live-blog Day One. It's excellent. I love Olson's response to the judge's question as to why should the courts get involved in this issue at all:

That’s why we have courts, to protect those who are discriminated against, when their children can’t go to school because of their skin color. We would not need a constitution if we left everything to the political process. We’d just let the majority prevail and that’s a good thing about democracy, but it’s not so good if you are different, new. It causes gays and lesbians unrelenting pain. We have the courts to take our worthy, upstanding citizens who are being hurt to be protected by the courts. That’s why we are here today.”