The Dish

Listen to it here.

A reader urges me to believe Karl Rove:

You continue to repeat the idea that somehow this prolonged race for the nomination is a disaster for the Democrats. It is not the case. As an Obama supporter I am embarrassed by how we have all gone running and screaming about how "sleazy" Hillary’s campaign is. This is nothing. We are not teaching McCain anything that Karl Rove has not figured out already. Moreover, last night was McCain’s moment of triumph and he got all of five minutes of coverage. This battle for the Democratic nomination is wiping McCain off the news cycle. Sure, he can take the time shore up his standing with conservatives but he can not introduce himself to voters if no one is covering him.

Karl Rove thinks it is bad for McCain, I can’t believe it but I agree with Karl.

Not if the Clintons win.

Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax has died:

It was Gygax, more than anyone else, who turned Tolkien fandom from a premodern pose into a postmodern, participatory phenomenon.

Bradford Plumer tries to sort out McCain’s record:

It wouldn’t be wholly outlandish for McCain to follow in Schwarzenegger’s steps: After all, during the early Bush years, the Arizona senator did more than just about anyone to put climate change on Congress’s radar. On the other hand, his lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters is a dismal 24 percent, and he’s generally more likely to side with miners, developers, and loggers than the EPA. So, while it’s possible a McCain presidency could offer a Nixon-to-China moment on global warming, it’s also possible McCain could say all the right things on the campaign trail and disappoint environmentalists once in office. […]

Holtz-Eakin suggests that McCain’s approach would essentially be a conservative one. Unlike Newt Gingrich or Rudy Giuliani–who insist that, in lieu of emission caps, Congress should just fund alternative-energy solutions– McCain favors setting a cap on carbon and letting the market adjust on its own. He’s generally disdainful of corporate handouts (save to the nuclear industry, that is)–a hostility that has bolstered many of his environmental positions over the years. Bob Witzeman, an Arizona conservationist who has canoed with McCain, recalls that, "whenever I’d bring up an environmental topic, like mining law or grazing, he’d become cautiously non-committal." But, Witzeman adds, on the subject of pork, McCain’s eyes would widen–"it’s his favorite topic." Indeed, one Senate staffer who has worked with McCain suggests that the senator’s much-lauded opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge had as much to do with his contempt for Alaska Senator (and arch-porker) Ted Stevens as with any principled concern for nature. Likewise, when McCain helped filibuster the 2003 energy bill, he seemed to be as exercised about its earmarks for an energy-efficient Hooters restaurant in Louisiana as its irresponsible promotion of fossil fuels.

Gassy cows make their contribution.

Dale Carpenter listened to the State Supreme Court arguments on marriage equality:

The most likely result is that the gay-marriage litigants will lose 4-3 or possibly 5-2 … This prediction assumes both that (1) the dominant tone and substance of the comments from an individual justice actually reflect his or her views about the case and that (2) the justice will not change his or her mind post-argument.

I’m not a constitutional expert in California, so I will not weigh in on the jurisprudence here. But I will say such a result would not crush me. The great achievement of the marriage movement has been to establish that marriage equality is a legitimate and constructive social reform, to establish it securely in one state and to tell our stories across America. The speed of change has been phenomenal – far faster than many of us ever dreamed of when we embarked on this two decades ago.

And that means that our chance to win democratic and legislative victories is now much, much higher than it has ever been. We have also managed to prevent the worst from happening: a federal constitutional amendment. And so our task now is to keep making the case, keep building and strengthening our own families, keep reaching out to the next generation of more inclusive Americans. Establishing civil unions and domestic partnerships that are the equal of civil marriage is enough work for now. The society needs time to absorb this change, and to let go of its own irrational fears. Using courts to establish a precedent is one thing; using them to force social change prematurely when it is happening at its own pace anyway is foolish.

Haven’t you always wanted higher education to be crackling with the threat of armed violence?

Fallows worries about the neocon position on China:   

The same people — same individuals, same organizations, same publications, same blog sites – that ginned up a war with Iraq, and that have supported ginning up a war with Iran, are settling in for a longer term confrontation with China.

These people need to be judged on their track record. And compared with a confrontation with Iraq or Iran, a military showdown with China would be 10 times as unnecessary and 100 times as stupid.

Here’s his first encounter with the right-wing blog cocoon on foreign policy.

A reader sums it up well:

I have always qualified my prediction of a victory by Democrats by saying that I could not rule out the possibility that they would seize defeat from the jaws of victory.  To my amazement, they seem to be actually doing so.  One could not write a scenario more favorable to Republicans than the one playing out.  If Hillary wins, I think the party will be so damaged that she will definitely lose to McCain.  Although Obama would still be favored over McCain, Hillary is unwittingly showing the Republican how to beat him and testing out the strategy that McCain will be able to use against him.  There is no question that she has drawn some blood.  And the longer she stays in the race the more blood she draws, as well as draining Obama’s money and time from focusing on McCain.  When you consider that McCain, for all his flaws, was always the only Republican who could win this year, I almost have to wonder if God is a Republican after all.

Never, ever under-estimate the ability of the Democratic party to screw it up. They should have won this election easily. Now, the odds clearly favor McCain. And if it’s him versus the Clintons, after all they have revealed about themselves in this primary season, many, many Independents will not be particularly torn.