Getting Off The Bandwagon

Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs:

The main reason I can’t march along with the right wing blogosphere any more, not to put too fine a point on it, is that most of them have succumbed to Obama Derangement Syndrome. One “nontroversy” after another, followed by the outrage of the day, followed by conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, all delivered in breathless, angry prose that’s just wearying and depressing to read.

It’s not just the economic issues either. I’ve never been on board with the anti-science, anti-Enlightenment radical religious right. Once I began making my opinions known on issues like creationism and abortion, I realized that there just wasn’t very much in common with many of the bloggers on the right. And then, when most of them decided to fall in and support a blogger like Robert Stacy McCain, who has neo-Nazi friends, has written articles for the openly white supremacist website American Renaissance, and has made numerous openly racist statements on the record … well, I was extremely disappointed to see it, but unfortunately not surprised.

McCain’s views are, strictly speaking, fascist in tone and intent. His open declaration that he would be open to the genocide of Palestinians is depraved. That he remains in the polite company of the bloggy right is a sign of just how degenerate much of it has become.

(Hat tip: Drum)

Eikenberry’s Stand

Ackerman has some fascinating details on this morning's NSC conference in the White House.

I suspect Eikenberry has given Obama the opening he needs to leave Afghanistan and refuse to commit more young Americans to the defense of a corrupt government and the prosecution of an unending war that no longer serves a core national interest for the US. If Obama does that, it will take enormous courage. It will reveal a strength of character and judgment that America and the world now need.

One other intuition: Obama has recently clearly been pondering the dreadful responsibility of sending soldiers to war. From the decision to witness the return of coffins at Dover to the un-scheduled solitary trip to Arlington and this week's emotionally cathartic ceremony at Fort Hood: these events, it seems to me, would concentrate any serious, ethical president's mind.

And I suspect Bob Gates is not that far apart from the minimalist position.

Utah Leading On Gay Rights

Another good sign: an LDS apostle is quoted as backing the Salt Lake City anti-discrimination laws, and there's a real chance that this model could go state-wide:

Even an LDS apostle — continuing the string of stunners –thinks Salt Lake City's ordinances could be a model. "Anything good is shareable," Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said in an interview Wednesday, referring to Salt Lake City's new policy aimed at protecting gay and transgender residents from discrimination. He praised the efforts of Mormon officials and gay-rights leaders who sat down to discuss the issue before the church's endorsement. "Everybody ought to have the freedom to frame the statutes the way they want," he said. "But at least the process and the good will and working at it, certainly that could be modeled anywhere and even elements of the statute."

Kudos to both the Mormon church leadership and to the gay rights groups in the state. They're offering the rest of us a model for grappling with this – a model that does not deny our differences but seeks common ground where we can. I also see the influence of former governor Jon Huntsman, a Mormon Republican who went further than the LDS and backed civil unions for gay couples in his state.

Someone has decided to offer an open hand. A civil rights movement should never spurn such a good faith effort. We should build on it, and see if we cannot ask other churches to follow the same model.

A Dish First

This blog is coming to you from me on an airplane. I'm traveling to Waco, Texas, to attend the fifth Michael Oakeshott Association Conference, which this year also explores the thought of Voegelin and Strauss. Yes, I know: self-parody alert. But on the airplane I just found out they have in-flight wifi. So here I am, thousands of feet up in the air, broadcasting live to anyone with a modem anywhere on the planet.

Yep: this new millennium has its moments.

Our Man In Afghanistan

Andrew Exum reacts to the leak that Ambassador Karl Eikenberry is skeptical of escalation in Afghanistan:

Last week Michael Semple bluntly stated that the most important dynamic in Afghanistan was the relationship between the "international community" (for which we should read, he said: "United States of America") and the government of Afghanistan. Well how is that going to work now? It's now common knowledge that Karl Eikenberry — the U.S. ambassador — thinks you, Hamid Karzai, lead a collection of corrupt and ineffective goons unworthy of further U.S. investment! Whoever leaked these classified cables has cut the knees out from underneath the most important U.S. representative in Kabul!

All of this is to say that Karl Eikenberry — whatever you think of the man — got royally screwed by some short-sighted jerks in the 202 area code. The cables had already been deliberated upon by the president and his advisors, but that wasn't enough, so some idiots decided to also make the cables public knowledge. Now whatever U.S. policy goes forward — counterinsurgency, counter-terror, withdrawal, rape and pillage, whatever — is going to suffer for the soured relationship between our man in Kabul and the government of Afghanistan.

Ackerman writes up this mornings Afghanistan White House meeting from the perspective of an anti-Eikenberry staffer:

It was a tense meeting this morning at the White House, as Ambassador Karl Eikenberry addressed the National Security Council by teleconference from Kabul just hours after the media got hold of his dissent on the crucial question of sending more troops to Afghanistan. “He is very unpopular here,” said a National Security Council staffer who described the meeting.

No one was happy to read in The Washington Post that Eikenberry, who commanded the war himself from 2005 to 2007, thinks that the Karzai government needs to demonstrate its commitment to anti-corruption measures before the administration can responsibly authorize another troop increase. The prevailing theory is that “he leaked his own cables” because “he has a beef with McChrystal,” the staffer said. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Eikenberry’s successor as NATO commander in Afghanistan, has requested an increase in troops to support a counterinsurgency strategy with a substantial counterterrorism component.

Follow up by Ackerman here.

The Mormon Move

It is possible to be cynical or begrudging in reacting to the LDS Church's SLCGeorgeFrey:Getty Mormon church in a far more positive and pro-gay position than any other religious group broadly allied with the Christianist right. They have made a distinction – and it is an admirable, intellectually honest distinction – between respecting the equal rights of other citizens in core civil respects, while insisting – with total justification – on the integrity of one's own religious doctrines, and on a religious institution's right to discriminate in any way with respect to its own rites and traditions.

I believe that there are forces of discrimination and bigotry within the Mormon church – and they have recently been ascendant. But that is true of most churches and most institutions. And what I have long observed among Mormons – unlike some other denominations – is also an American decency that tends to win out in the end. I've never met a nasty Mormon. They put many Christians to shame in their practice of their faith and the civility and sincerity with which they live their lives. And this decision in Salt Lake City – not an easy or inevitable one – to make a clear distinction between civil marriage and other civil protections is one worthy of respect.

I do not agree with it. I see no reason why civil marriage for non-Mormons should be banned because Mormons find it anathema to their doctrines – just as I see no reason why civil divorce should be banned because it violates the Catholic church's doctrines. But I can respect that position because I can respect the sincerity of that religious belief and see in this stance a genuine attempt to reach out and respect the rights of gay citizens in certain basic respects. Gays should and must reciprocate.

For this is not something that many other churches, including my own, have been able or prepared to do. I wish, of course, that Michael Otterson, who is also a decent and sincere man, had not framed the position in such a defensive way:

"The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage."

That's a lamentably inflammatory way to describe gay citizens' genuine attempt to seek equality in civil marriage – which we certainly don't see as "violence" in any way at all. But the extremity of that quote may well have been necessary to avoid a backlash among conservative Mormons. And I would much rather focus on the positive gesture than the back-handed swipe that accompanied it.

The other thing to say about this is that it speaks very highly of the strategy of Equality Utah, the state's main gay group, who decided to call the LDS bluff when the church said it was merely opposed to civil marriage – and not other protections for gay and lesbian citizens. Equality Utah immediately tried to get the church to endorse civil unions. That was a non-starter, but in response, we have this support for an anti-discrimination ordinance. Treating religious groups as interlocutors to be engaged, rather than as enemies to be attacked, has not been successful in most places. I did my best with the Catholic hierarchy in the 1990s and got little but contempt or terrified silence in response. Imagine the impact if the Pope came out and explicitly endorsed anti-discrimination laws for gay and lesbian people and used those words and expressed the kind of respect the Mormons just have. It would do a huge amount of good – for gay people and for the church. This Pope cannot do that; but the Mormons just did. More power to the Mormons.

For this degree of respect – even if it is not fully what I want or what gays truly deserve – we should reciprocate with respect as well. This is a moment of genuine dialogue and civil compromise. And it was accomplished in Salt Lake City among gay and straight Mormons and gay and straight non-Mormons in a way that other Christians in other places have been unable to replicate.

Leadership comes in the unlikeliest places. And when it does, we should thank God and be glad.

On Remaining Catholic

A reader writes:

It is very difficult to read your blog some days. The pain leaps off the monitor and sears me. It does sound like you are in stage three – enlightenment  – of Battered Women's Syndrome. Please help yourself and your soul; break away from the church.

Another writes:

I deeply admire your staying in your church. It needs men and women of courage to stay and bear witness to its sick and sinful ways. I do the same in my Presbyterian Church, which disallows gay pastors, even though we have many, which disallows gay marriage, which I find

reprehensible.

But I stay because I believe, and I live by hope, not because I'm an optimist, but because one of the gifts of faith is hope–and hope spurs perseverance, and perseverance says I will not quit until justice has been done. We must fight.

Again, I read your blog and I follow your 'way' because you are committed to the faith. I've known enough people, colleagues, and grad students to know that committed people are the ones that attract my admiration, because they aren't cynics, they believe in something.

I recently decided to work part-time as my church's youth pastor, the lowest status job in the church, but I know in youth and children lies the kingdom, so precious, so fragile, so beautiful.

Keep the faith, my friend. Jesus will lead us into a better way, a clearer way, someday, someday, I pray.

Reefer Sanity

The AMA is asking the federal government to reclassify marijuana:

The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.

…In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.

"Despite more than 30 years of clinical research, only a small number of randomized, controlled trials have been conducted on smoked cannabis," said Dr. Edward Langston, an AMA board member, noting that the limited number of studies was "insufficient to satisfy the current standards for a prescription drug product."

(Hat tip: Alder)