The Dish

Here's an interesting nugget from the Army secretary's recent sit-down with the Army Times:

Selling the idea [of repealing DADT] to Congress, which has the final say, could depend on exactly what the administration tries to do in terms of the timing of repeal and how it is applied, McHugh said.

It’s possible, for example, that homosexuals could be allowed into some occupations or units but barred from others, McHugh said, stressing that he was not aware of any such plans but only discussing how the issue might play out.

“I don’t want to prejudge the situation,” he said. “I am saying if he did that, it would be my job to explain it when the appropriate time comes.”

When asked specifically if lifting the gay ban would seriously disrupt the military, as predicted by those who oppose repeal, McHugh said there is no reason to think major turmoil would ensue.

“Anytime you have a broad-based policy change, there are challenges to that,” he said. “The Army has a big history of taking on similar issues, [with] predictions of doom and gloom that did not play out,” he said.

In a sign that all cable news is becoming talk radio, CNN slips behind even its own HLN in peak hours. At some point, blog readerships will eclipse CNN's at this rate. In some cases, that has already happened.

Bruce Bawer reports on violence and intimidation in an increasingly Muslim town in Denmark.

Taegan Goddard is as bemused by Rasmussen as I am. The polling outfit responds here. They claim it is all due to their sampling of likely voters rather than all voters.

This is rich:

“Is the United States a reliable partner with Afghanistan? Is the West a reliable partner with Afghanistan?” Karzai asked. “Have we received the commitments that we were given? Have we been treated like a partner?”

Yglesias provides a nice rebuttal:

[A] hawkish disposition and an obsession with toughness tend to erode our ability to play hard to get. For example, consider the widespread ideas that we’re fighting a “necessary” war in Afghanistan and that the cooperation of Hamid Karzai is vital to our success in that war. These two ideas, when put in combination, lead to the slightly absurd conclusion that securing the cooperation of Hamid Karzai is necessary for the national security of the most powerful country on earth.

In the real world, it should be the other way around.

We have interests in Afghanistan that it would be nice to successfully pursue. But Karzai’s interests are much more fundamental than ours. What’s necessary—or at least closer to necessary—is for him to secure our cooperation by acting in a way that’s helpful. And it’s the same for Poland and Georgia and all the rest. Relationships with friendly clients are nice to have, but the wise superpower should know how to play hard to get.

The Boston Globe's circulation is down 18 percent in one year; the San Francisco Chronicle's is down 26 percent. The WSJ is actually stable. But these slides and the readerships they now represent are hard to ignore. They are not signs of an industry as we have known it in trouble. They are signs of it ending.

Robert Reich is momentarily in agreement with Alan Greenspan:

The Street obviously detests the notion that its behemoths should be broken up. That's why the idea isn't even on the table. But it should be. No important public interest is served by allowing giant banks to grow too big to fail. Winding them down after they get into trouble is no answer. By then the damage will already have been done.

Whether it's using the antitrust laws or enacting a new Glass-Steagall Act, the Wall Street giants should be split up — and soon.

It seems to me that this should not be an ideological matter. It's an empirical one: how do we prevent Wall Street from repeating its recklessness of the past decade? How do we ensure that no single entity can hold the rest of us to ransom as these banks did? If Obama's reform measures are milque-toast, then he will have missed a critical moment to help capitalism help itself.

Iran Unfiltered sifts through competing versions of the story that Karroubi was physically attacked yesterday.

Reid signals that a public option, with an opt-out for the states, will be in the final Senate bill. You could see this coming.

"Please help us spread the message about Iran, its reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and what that means for Israel with your most generous contribution of $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000, or even the maximum $5,000, today," – Mitt Romney, passing the collection plate for his PAC.