The Dish

"Judicial and penal institutions play a fundamental role in protecting citizens and safeguarding the common good (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2266). At the same time, they are to aid in rebuilding “social relationships disrupted by the criminal act committed” (cf. "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church," 403). By their very nature, therefore, these institutions must contribute to the rehabilitation of offenders, facilitating their transition from despair to hope and from unreliability to dependability. When conditions within jails and prisons are not conducive to the process of regaining a sense of a worth and accepting its related duties, these institutions fail to achieve one of their essential ends. Public authorities must be ever vigilant in this task, eschewing any means of punishment or correction that either undermine or debase the human dignity of prisoners. In this regard, I reiterate that the prohibition against torture “cannot be contravened under any circumstances” (Ibid., 404)." – Pope Benedict XVI, yesterday.

That’s quite a beard, job, Binnie.

"I find the reaction to [Romney’s] remarks last night a little dismaying. Do conservatives really want to tie themselves to the position that the surge is not only working, but that there can be no doubt on the score and that anyone who acknowledges the existence of doubt is a heretic? As for Romney’s looking forward to a possible troop drawdown—something Bush has also done!—what’s our bottom line there? Do we want troops there forever? Is that what conservatives should want Republicans to campaign on next year?" – Ramesh Ponnuru, NRO.

Ponnuru is onto something. Does the GOP really want to claim the position that the surge has "worked", whatever that means? Do the Republicans really want to campaign on that message – an indefinite, prolonged occupation of Iraq? Almost all the candidates have now locked themselves into that position. I fear it is hopelessly utopian. There is something desperate and unseemly about all these high-octane declarations of "success" in Iraq, when the evidence for such success is extremely thin, and largely irrelevant to the fundamental task of putting the country back together again. My own view is that the surge simply cannot do what it was designed to do, because it isn’t nearly large enough and came far too late. If I’m right, then we are going to have a terrible 2008 – as violence engulfs the country even while the US claims victory. The current Hewitt-style message – "We’re winning! All critics are traitors and hate the troops!" – may rally the ranks now, but at the risk of a wipe-out when the bottom falls out of this alleged turning point as well. At that point, which of the GOP candidates will have any credibility on foreign policy? They’ll be in the "last throes" land that has consigned Dick Cheney to deserved ridicule.

The premise of the current GOP position, in other words, is that Iraq is on the verge of improvement. I’m sorry but I don’t see it. If I’m right, the GOP is throwing itself off a cliff. At least Ramesh sees the possibility.

A reader writes:

You wrote:

If they want a decades-long occupation, they need to say so.

Um, why WOULD they say so?  They know the American public isn’t ready for their vision.  It’s clear to anyone that they do want a decades-long occupation; why else build a new embassy the size of the Pentagon?

But if they admitted their goal candidly – their desire to leave American troops in Baghdad as long as they’ve stayed in other countries we’ve conquered (cf. our base in Rammstein) – the American people would be shocked, and the goal would become unachievable.

For all their talk about bold leadership and the willingness to make unpopular choices, what they really mean is: "We make choices that would be really unpopular if you knew about them."

You must know that expecting them to be honest about their plans is really too much, yes? Their position is, "If we want a decades-long occupation, we need NOT to say so."

This, I think, is partly why we are where we are in Iraq. The president was never candid about what was needed for victory, never provided the requisite resources, and even now, is preferring spin to reality. For some reason, he is too afraid to tell the American people the truth.  In the short run, he got away with it. His Rovian gambit now is to get away with it until he has to leave office. Then he can blame others. That is a way to massage a political reputation. It is no way to run a country or a war.

I commended Mitt Romney’s pro-life but subtly pro-choice-for-now position yesterday. I did not mean to duck the deeper issue, and the third chapter of my book deals with this in great detail. This reader puts it very well, I’d say:

The problem with the pro-life movement isn’t merely that it is prohibitionist, but that its fundamental position cannot be formulated in any fashion that is coherent to someone, except that they first accept some bit of magic that turns a few cells into the moral equivalent of a person. Yes, there is plenty of argument about abortion in its later stages. But the pro-life movement has no interest in fashioning a dividing line based on the neurological criteria. If that were the mode of discussion, there would be far less fervor and more ready compromise. Few of us on the pro-choice side argue that our interest in personal liberty is SO great that we will abide NO restriction on late-term abortion.

But that’s not the mode of discussion. The pro-life position requires acceptance of a notion that is both religious in origin and odious to common sense, that even the earliest zygote should be treated as a person. The philosophical gedanken often used to exhibit the absurdity of this position is whether, caught in a burning fertility clinic, and able to save only one, you would choose to rescue a child? Or a tray holding thousands of viable embryos, ready for implantation into would-be mothers?

Pro-lifers twist themselves in knots when they try to deal with that question. If they take their position at face value, they must do what we all know is repugnant, saving the far greater number of embryos, pretending that they are people. The alternative — the sane alternative — is to recognize that yes, there is a great difference between a person and an embryo. The gedanken’s question isn’t even tough. One saves the child. Of course. There is a difference between someone who is aware and who has experienced consciousness, and something that has never been more than unconscious tissue. Of course. It is a difference that should have moral and legal consequence. Of course.

The pro-choice position is not just about arguing the consequence of that difference should include more reproductive freedom than the pro-life movement desires. It also is about preserving sanity in how these issues are argued.

The numbers being bandied about on casualties in Iraq are highly controversial. Here’s one reason why some are skeptical of the looming report by general Petraeus:

When Petraeus told an Australian newspaper last week that sectarian attacks had decreased 75 percent "since last year," the statistic was quickly e-mailed to U.S. journalists in a White House fact sheet. Asked for detail, MNF-I said that "last year" referred to December 2006, when attacks spiked to more than 1,600.

By March, however – before U.S. troop strength was increased under Bush’s strategy – the number had dropped to 600, only slightly less than in the same month last year. That is about where it has remained in 2007, with what MNF-I said was a slight increase in April and May "but trending back down in June-July."

Petraeus’s spokesman, Col. Steven A. Boylan, said he was certain that Petraeus had made a comparison with December in the interview with the Australian paper, which did not publish a direct Petraeus quote. No qualifier appeared in the White House fact sheet.

The deeper problem is that the commander-in-chief is un-trustworthy. We know he is uninterested in empirical reality, just spinning whatever reality suits him politically. If Petraeus decides to join this partisan spin, his own reputation will suffer. Let us have data – real, unvarnished, hard data. We won’t get that from Bush or Cheney. They have done nothing but lie and spin about the war for four years. Maybe Petraeus can surprise us. But my bullshit detector is on high alert.

"Political gamesmanship at the expense of moral clarity is what frustrates so many Americans today. If the GOP wants to declare itself to be the party of virtues and values, it should act like it. David Vitter evidently broke the law and cavorted with prostitutes and then got caught. The fact that he didn’t plead guilty in a court of law doesn’t make his actions any less illegal, and certainly no less immoral, than what Larry Craig did…

Cheering for Sen. Vitter was a shameful thing for Republicans to do and perhaps might sum up what’s wrong with the GOP today. Until David Vitter meets the same political fate as Larry Craig, we’re no better than the Democrats," – Mike Gallagher, Townhall.

… stealing from cops.

I missed this in my honeymoon bliss, but they just had a world beard contest:

Competitors were vying for the tankard with a moustache shield that comes with victory.

Categories of moustache included: Natural, English, Dali, Imperial, Hungarian and Freestyle. Partial Beard categories were Natural Goatee, Chinese, Musketeer, Imperial, Freestyle and Sideburns Freestyle.

For full beards, competitors battled it out in the Verdi, Garibaldi, Natural Full, Natural Full with Styled Moustache and Freestyle categories.

"The freestyle beard is probably the most spectacular one because basically, as the name suggests, it’s freestyle, so you can do anything you like," Parsons said, according to the BBC.

"For example, at the last championships in Berlin, one of the competitors there actually styled his beard in the shape of the Brandenburg Gate with horses and flags and everything."

For the finale, the men with the biggest beards should compete for the silliest walk.

(Photo: Daniel Berehulak/Getty.)