The Dish

This weekend the Dish covered Scozzafava's surrender in NY-23. The local paper shifted support from Scozzafava to the Democrat, she soon followed suit, Charles Franklin looked where voters could go, a reader followed up, another reader shared a shrewd strategy, Andrew sounded off, and Ambers looked ahead.

In other news, DOJ dumped some documents, Ban Ki-moon pushed the remaining HIV-ban countries to follow the US, Plouffe talked Palin, Chris Wallace fawned over Limbaugh, The Advocate was swallowed by Out, and Jon Krakauer explained how McChrystal lied about the Tillman incident.

In religion and science coverage, we examined the rise of creationism among Muslims and its relatively short history in the US, Jerry Coyne discussed atheism and evolution, and Hitchens talked about talking to religious people. In other coverage, Breitbart found a gay against marriage equality, Jonah Lehrer examined online junk food, and we watched the history of evolving gay characters on TV.

In Halloween coverage, we took a look at the holiday in DC, highlighted a few more great costumes, realized how adorable bats can be, watched a family carve a pumpkin, re-watched a horrifying tale of torture, saw some terrifying taxidermy, and discovered the true identity of manbearpig.

In Andrew's column, he contrasted the the wars on prohibition in the US and the UK. Also, he examined the Johnston-Palin war at length.

— C.B.

A reader writes:

Our daughter also needed the ear tubes your reader described. Living in Australia, we have the option of waiting in line for our single-payer system to provide this necessary surgery for free, and most of the time this is what we do. This time we decided we needed to move more quickly (our one-year-old wasn't learning to speak because her hearing was affected) so we took the private option.

We booked in for the surgery the following week with our chosen surgeon. Not having health insurance, we paid the surgeon's and anesthetist's bills (about $1600 altogether) and the government reimbursed us about $600. So yes, I'd say your reader's estimation of an inflation factor of 10 is about right.

The surgery took 10mins, she settled within half an hour of waking, and our silent little girl chatted herself to sleep that very night (while I wept tears of relief in the next room). I'm praying your legislators ears are similarly cleared to healthcare options that benefit the people, rather than the profit-takers.

Equally, what this story says to me is that we'd have a far more efficient healthcare system if more, rather than fewer, procedures were paid for out of pocket.

The severance of the link between a customer and a product removes much of what helps bring market forces to bear. And for many non-emergency medical procedures, allowing for greater areas where patients are not insured, while maintaining catastrophic or minimal coverage, is the best option.

That requires more engaged and knowledgeable patients and more flexibility. Note how in the US we're debating whether to attach a public option to a subsidized private system; in Australia and Britain, they're debating more private options for a state-run public system. It's getting this mix right that's the key.

If Oliver Stone directed a cast of hipsters.

A reader writes:

Some may think that Scozzafava's exit and subsequent endorsement of Owens will somehow swing the race to the Dems, but it isn't going to happen. Hoffman may be a Christianist carpetbagger, but there is no way in Hell the North Country (as it's called by those who live there) is ever going to swing for a Democrat. Northern NY is very beautiful, very cold, very rural, and slowly crumbling to dust beneath the crushing weight of high state taxes and few opportunities for gainful employment. Industry fled years ago, and the main source of employment is a massive Army base, Fort Drum. Everyone else just kind of scrapes up what they can find…retail work, food service, etc. The dairy farmers up there aren't making it. The only way it stays populated at all is that, in time-honored small town fashion, there are always those who are afraid to leave what they know, even if they suffer for it monetarily. And they do.

Rural Northern Ny-ers are, in general, hardcore rednecks and proud of it. They hunt and fish and have snowmobiles and ATVs that are nicer than their falling down homes. They are clannish, but friendly (yes, Yankees really are pretty friendly). They are…well, a lot like Sarah Palin pretends to be. I'm sure her jumping into the fray made a difference, because she appeals so well to the "us vs. them" mentality that has arisen so violently in response to the growing class divide in this country. It makes me sad to see exactly how far Northern NY been sucked into the delusional vortex of the Christianist Right. But then, I watched the area, and the people who live there, decline even as I was growing up.

So many have nothing. They're working on having even less. Drugs have gotten to be a huge problem, as in so many rural areas. But somehow, it's become easier to fixate on the so-called "culture war" than it might be to start looking at real ways to fix what's killing the area. Though at this point, I'm not sure there's really any fixing it. Industry has gone, and it isn't coming back. If it wasn't for Fort Drum, there would be nothing left at all.

Hoffman will be elected, and he will ignore them. But then, the people of NY-23 haven't elected anyone who gave a damn about them in a very long time (yes, McHugh, I'm looking at you). My mother, who is a die-hard liberal, actually spoke very well of Dede Scozzafava. Figures she'd be the one whose head ended up on a pike, figuratively speaking. I'm an Independent mainly because I think most politicians are pretty loathsome, but man, the Republicans are really starting to freak me out.

Me too.

 

Yglesias notes this map from Open Left. It is rather discouraging. Matt draws this inference from it:

I would say that another message is that progressive politics is badly disadvantaged by a situation in which the overwhelming majorities of political leaders and prominent media figures are white men.

When the disparities of experience and understanding are this acute, Washington has a problem with its pundit class. Increasingly, we're talking about ourselves, not America.

Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, DC's first delegate to Congress, spoke out against marriage equality for the District last week by saying, in part, "I have some brilliant friends who are gay, and it bothers me that they're not going to pass those genes on." Dan Savage scratches his head:

I'm sure your gay friends, who can pass their genes on now by doing surrogacy or co-parenting with lesbians, appreciate your concern for their DNA, Rev. Fauntroy. But gay people who can't legally marry each other typically don't marry opposite-sex partners instead. We're still going to fuck each other and shack up with each other and we're starting families with each other even in the absence of legal marriage rights. And we really shouldn't be encouraged to marry opposite-sex partners for the sake of appearances or to pass on our genes. Am I right, Mrs. Craig? Can I get an amen, Mrs. Haggard? Care to share your feelings on the subject, Mrs. McGreevey?

Robert McCartney recorded some other colorful characters at last week's hearing:

"Once you became a homosexual, you gave up your rights," Leroy Swailes told the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics. He is the founder of Tears for Children, whose Web site says it's a Maryland nonprofit group that opposes gay activists on children's issues. He wore a T-shirt saying "Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender morals are worse than animals."

Janet Boynes, who testified that she was a lesbian for 14 years before repenting and founding a ministry to convert others to heterosexuality, said, "They chose to go into it, and they have to decide they want to go out."

The intolerance at the core of the opponents' message — and gay groups' success in focusing the public's attention on it — helps explain why same-sex marriage has advanced as much as it has.

The DailyKos poll is interesting for what it tells us about the general public view of the two parties. Both have slumped since the beginning of the year (although the Dems do seem to be experiencing a mild recovery since September). But here’s the thing: the Dems have gone from a +10 favorable rating in January to a – 10 right now; but the Republicans have sunk from a -30 to -60. However loathed Pelosi and Reid are (I get it, I really do), Boehner and McConnell are in worse straits. Pollster’s assessment of party i.d. this year:

Jon Krakauer explains:

After Tillman died, the most important thing to know is that within–instantly, within 24 hours certainly, everybody on the ground, everyone intimately involved knew it was friendly fire. There's never any doubt it was friendly fire. McChrystal was told within 24 hours it was friendly fire. Also, immediately they started this paperwork to give Tillman a Silver Star. And the Silver Star ended up being at the center of the cover-up. So McChrystal–Tillman faced this devastating fire from his own guys, and he tried to protect a young private by exposing himself to this, this fire. That's why he was killed and the private wasn't. Without friendly fire there's no valor, there's no Silver Star. There was no enemy fire, yet McChrystal authored, he closely supervised over a number of days this fraudulent medal recommendation that talked about devastating enemy fire.

The only thing less credible is McChrystal's disavowal of his responsibility for some of the worst abuse and torture of detainees in Iraq.

That’s Foster Kamer’s take on Mr Johnston’s latest interview with the Guardian, noted by the Dish on Friday. Listen to the audio and make up your own mind. Kamer homes in on the critical section:

It’s startin’ to get bad again. They’re making it kind of a pain in the ass again (to see Trip). I know I’m gonna end up (going to court). There’re a lot of secrets and a lot of things that I haven’t put out there that are bad…so I don’t know if I want to.

Some of the stuff I got, kept in, would either really hurt her or really get her in trouble. So, I really don’t want to say anything else. I’m not that kind of person, no matter how much she pisses me off. I don’t want to leak anything huge on her.

Now, if we had actual non-deferential, out-for-the-truth MSM reporters, they’d be knocking on Levi’s door asking what he could possibly mean by secrets that he has that “would either really hurt her or really get her in trouble.” Johnston, of course, has said he won’t divulge such material – which is, in Levi’s eyes, more damaging to Palin than anything revealed so far. As for the privacy angle, look: she’s not a regular person able to keep some things secret. She’s potentially the next Republican nominee, the most powerful force in her own party right now, and a former vice-presidential nominee. She has repeatedly insisted that her life is an open book. She has repeatedly thrust her own family into the klieg-lights, including an infant and a teenage daughter. Her family narrative is a central plank of her political appeal. It is not illegitimate to ask her factual questions about it, and follow up with requests for proof.

Now recall especially what Johnston told Vanity Fair, when he says he was retaliating against Palin’s refusal to give him full access to his son. This was his idea of a warning shot:

Sarah told me she had a great idea: we would keep it a secret—nobody would know that Bristol was pregnant. She told me that once Bristol had the baby she and Todd would adopt him. That way, she said, Bristol and I didn’t have to worry about anything. Sarah kept mentioning this plan. She was nagging—she wouldn’t give up. She would say, “So, are you gonna let me adopt him?” We both kept telling her we were definitely not going to let her adopt the baby. I think Sarah wanted to make Bristol look good, and she didn’t want people to know that her 17-year-old daughter was going to have a kid.

Whatever Johnston is now insinuating is clearly worse, in his eyes, than trying to pass off her daughter’s baby, Tripp, as her own. Of course, Johnston may be lying about all this. He has a motive: to get access to his son, and to make lots of money.

But, again, in reviewing the competing stories from both Johnston and Palin, all I can say is: Johnston seems far less artful and contrived than the former governor of Alaska. She too has a motive: to make lots of money and to seek political power through a compelling narrative. What we need are reporters to get to the bottom of this “he-said-she-said” back and forth. And  what are the actual odds of MSM follow-through on this? One word: zero.

Still, some of you non-journalist types may be interested, so here’s some of the transcript, via Gawker:

On Sarah Palin’s Vice President nomination: “Didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t care. I didn’t think it was that huge. I’m just gonna sit here and not say a word.”

On Palin’s personal interaction nature: “You can catch her in a lie a lot of the time. She don’t read the newspaper. A lot of the things she’s sayin’, I know she’s lying.”

On the outdoorsmen nature of the Palin family: “I’d say (Sarah’s) definitely stretchin’ it big time. They’re not a big hunting family.”

On racism in the Palin household: “No, not (Sarah Palin)..no. She never said anything like that. She’s not the racist type.”

On Palin’s loss: “After the election, she didn’t want us to get married, really. You could tell that they’re all sad about everything. I don’t know, just her attitude towards everything was pretty down. I don’t think she had much care for anything for a while. She hung around in her room a lot. I think she just wanted to be left alone for a while. She just went through a big depression, I think. She was bummed out bad.”

On his breakup with Bristol: “There’s no one to blame for it. I mean, if it didn’t work, it didn’t work.”

On what he thinks of Sarah Palin now: “I still don’t think bad about her. But…You know, just some of the shit she pulled on me—encouraging Bristol not to let me see the kid and everything else, from her acting like she liked me for four or five plus years, and then going on saying that stuff, is just ridiculous how fake they are…it’s just ridiculous.”

Yep, the Palin drama is ridiculous. As is the political party that seems to be taking it seriously.

(Photos: Levi, Bristol and Trig at the GOP Convention last year, and Sarah Palin, posing with son Trig for Runner’s World.)

A reader writes:

Charles Franklin seems to think that Democrats should want Owens to win in NY. I'm not sure why. I'm rooting for Hoffman; as a partisan Dem, I want nothing more than for the emboldened teabaggers to primary every moderate Republican.