The Dish

I’ll admit, the New York Post is a guilty pleasure. It’s the first paper I buy whenever I’m in the city. Like most of its readers, I take it for what it is, and enjoy it for a few minutes on the subway. It’s fun and understands its role as a tabloid, which is to say, it has a sense of humor. One of the best Post headlines was a front-page spread showing Yasir Arafat’s grieving wife at his funeral: "THE FAT LADY SINGS."

But New York magazine shows that the Post‘s coverage of the Larry Craig fiasco–perfect fodder for the tabloid–isn’t even funny. You can click on a link in the Post‘s news story to take their "Are you a gay senator?" test, which just traffics in old stereotypes. "Do you sing show tunes in the car between political events?" it asks. Who’s writing their jokes, Carlos Mencia?

A little media analysis: The Post differs from its rival, the Daily News (full disclosure: I’ve interned at the Daily News), in that it’s not just trying to reach New York’s working class, but also (if not primarily) its taste-makers, investment bankers, lawyers, media types, that is, professionals working in very, very gay-friendly environments. I imagine this affluent readership would have no problem with some tongue-in-cheek laughs at Larry Craig’s expense. But picking on gays in general and doing so in a way that just isn’t funny won’t endear the Post to the audience it’s trying to court.

Apparently, the editors responsible for keeping the Washington Post’s style spare and lean were on strike today:

"Consider the bathroom stall, that utilitarian public enclosure of cold steel and drab hue.

It can be a world of untold secrets, codes and signals as invitations to partake. Like foot-tapping: Who knew?

Let us peer in, shall we?"

No, let’s not.

***

UPDATE: Judging by the response at Obsidian Wings, I should say: this was meant to be a very slight post about style, not about whether it might be interesting to read about come-ons in bathrooms. I tend to hear metaphors literally: when I was a teenage Christian, I would dissolve in giggles every time we had to sing the hymn that includes the lines:

"By the light of burning martyrs

Jesus’ bleeding feet we track."

Likewise when I read this. Plus, it was late. ;)

From the Washington Post:

"A growing clamor among rank-and-file Democrats to halt President Bush’s most controversial tactics in the fight against terrorism has exposed deep divisions within the party, with many Democrats angry that they cannot defeat even a weakened president on issues that they believe should be front and center.

The Democrats’ failure to rein in wiretapping without warrants, close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay or restore basic legal rights such as habeas corpus for terrorism suspects has opened the party’s leaders to fierce criticism from some of their staunchest allies — on Capitol Hill, among liberal bloggers and at interest groups.

At the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress yesterday, panelists discussing the balance between security and freedom lashed out at Democratic leaders for not standing up to the White House. "These are matters of principle," said Mark Agrast, a senior fellow at the center. "You don’t temporize." (…)

The terrorism issue came to a head early this month in an explosive final closed-door House Democratic Caucus meeting before the August recess. Reps. Hastings, Moran, Melvin Watt (N.C.), John F. Tierney (Mass.) and Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) pleaded with party leaders not to bring to a vote a White House bill extending the administration’s authority to listen in on electronic communications from abroad without a warrant.

Conservative Democrats, including Rep. Allen Boyd (Fla.), argued just as vociferously that Democrats dare not leave on vacation without passing the White House bill.

"The most controversial matters are the ones that people use to form their opinions on their members of Congress," said Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), who voted for the administration’s bill. "I do know within our caucus, and justifiably so, there are members who have a real distaste for some of the things the president has done. But to let that be the driving force for our actions to block the surveillance of someone and perhaps stop another attack like 9/11 would be unwise.""

Dear Rep. Davis: this is not about "distaste". Our objections to allowing the administration to listen in on us without warrants is not aesthetic. It concerns some of the most fundamental principles in our Constitution, and the freedoms we take for granted as Americans. Distaste has nothing to do with it.

"Such divisions will not be easy to bridge in the coming weeks. Republicans have said that Democrats who are trying to close the Guantanamo Bay prison want to import terrorists to Americans’ back yards. And they have said that those pushing to restore habeas corpus rights want to give terrorists the legal rights of U.S. citizens.

"People say to me, ‘Well, what about the 30-second spots?’ " said Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, referring to attack ads. He is pushing a bill to restore habeas corpus.

"If you just say you’re standing up for civil liberties, the American people are with you, but if you say terrorism suspects should have civil liberties, it stretches Americans’ tolerance," said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), who along with Hastings represents Congress on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, a human rights monitor. "It’s a tough issue for us.""

What about the 30-second spots? Dear God, Democrats: grow a spine. Figure out that if there’s no principle for which you would willingly lose your office, then you don’t deserve to hold it in the first place. The liberties enshrined in our Constitution matter more than your political careers.

And even if they didn’t, this is not a moment when you need to be afraid. People don’t like the Republicans. You are winning. Grow up and deal with it.

"If anything, the habeas corpus and Guantanamo Bay issues will be tougher. In June, nearly 150 House Democrats signed a letter by Moran urging the shuttering of the prison. But Moran said last week that he no longer thinks he could muster the votes to pass the measure, even though the move is supported by former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Republicans appear to have won the argument with their accusation that Democrats want to import terrorists.

A restoration of habeas corpus rights may have a better chance. Leahy said he will push the issue next month, and legislation co-sponsored by Conyers and Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is likely to move through their committees this fall.

But political fear still hovers over any legislation that touches on the fight against terrorism, which, for Democrats, may be the new third rail of politics.

"We can do this, but you have to keep in mind Republicans care more about catching Democrats than catching terrorists," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. "They have spent years taking Roosevelt’s notion that we have nothing to fear but fear itself and given us nothing but fear.""

Oh, come on. As I said above, the Republican party is not very popular these days. Moreover, it’s not as though it’s hard to craft a really inspiring message on these issues. We’re not talking about some arcane feature of patent law that it’s genuinely difficult to get people to care about; we’re talking about the freedoms we all claim to cherish. Honestly, if Democrats can’t figure out how to make a winning issue of keeping the government from being able to throw you in jail without having to explain themselves to anyone, or at least to prevent it from outweighing what looks to be their pretty serious electoral advantage in 2008, they must be brain dead. And if they can’t be bothered to support our Constitution if there’s any possibility that it might cost them politically, then their love of their country must be dead as well.

The article I’ve quoted makes it clear that not all the Democrats feel this way. 41 Democrats voted for the FISA bill, but 181 voted against it. Moreover, even those 41 are generally not falling all over one another in their eagerness to gut our civil liberties, as many Republican members of Congress are.

Still, the fact that there’s even a debate about this in the Democratic caucus is sickening.

(Cross-posted to Obsidian Wings.)

When George W. Bush finally managed to get to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, he said this:

"Tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again."

The electricity was turned on to light his speech, and then turned off again. That should have told us everything we needed to know about how much this President’s pledge was worth. And in case we were still in doubt, the announcement that he had put Karl Rove in charge of reconstruction made it clear how serious he was about rebuilding one of America’s greatest cities.

Now, two years later, Douglas Brinkley writes about what has happened since then:

"Over the past two years since Hurricane Katrina, I’ve seen waves of hardworking volunteers from nonprofits, faith-based groups and college campuses descend on New Orleans, full of compassion and hope.

They arrive in the city’s Ninth Ward to painstakingly gut houses one by one. Their jaws drop as they wander around afflicted zones, gazing at the towering mounds of debris and uprooted infrastructure.

After weeks of grueling labor, they realize that they are running in place, toiling in a surreal vacuum.

Two full years after the hurricane, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city’s long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn’t President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James Baker to oversee the ongoing disaster? Where is the U.S. government’s participation in the rebuilding? And why are volunteers practically the only ones working to reconstruct homes in communities that may never again have sewage service, garbage collection or electricity?

Eventually, the volunteers’ altruism turns to bewilderment and finally to outrage. They’ve been hoodwinked. The stalled recovery can’t be blamed on bureaucratic inertia or red tape alone. Many volunteers come to understand what I’ve concluded is the heartless reality: The Bush administration actually wants these neighborhoods below sea level to die on the vine."

A report from the Institute of Southern Studies gives some details:

"Although it’s tricky to unravel the maze of federal reports, our best estimate of agency data is that only $35 billion has been appropriated for long-term rebuilding.

Even worse, less than 42 percent of the money set aside has even been spent, much less gotten to those most in need. For example:

* Washington set aside $16.7 billion for Community Development Block Grants, one of the two biggest sources of rebuilding funds, especially for housing. But as of March 2007, only $1 billion — just 6 percent — had been spent, almost all of it in Mississippi. Following bad publicity, HUD spent another $3.8 billion on the program between March and July, leaving 70 percent of the funds still unused.

* The other major source of rebuilding help was supposed to be FEMA’s Public Assistance Program. But of the $8.2 billion earmarked, only $3.4 billion was meant for nonemergency projects like fixing up schools and hospitals.

* Louisiana officials recently testified that FEMA has also "low-balled" project costs, underestimating the true expenses by a factor of four or five. For example, for 11 Louisiana rebuilding projects, the lowest bids came to $5.5 million — but FEMA approved only $1.9 million.

* After the failure of federal levees flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received $8.4 billion to restore storm defenses. But as of July 2007, less than 20 percent of the funds have been spent, even as the Corps admits that levee repair won’t be completed until as late as 2011.

The fact that, two years later, most federal Katrina funds remain bottled up in bureaucracy is especially shocking considering that the amounts Washington allocated come nowhere near the anticipated costs of Gulf rebuilding.

For example, the $3.4 billion FEMA has available to recover local public infrastructure would only cover about one-eighth of the damage suffered in Louisiana alone. But this money is spread across five states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas — and covers damage from three 2005 hurricanes, Katrina, Rita and Wilma."

While George W. Bush celebrated John McCain’s birthday, this administration left people to die in the days after Hurricane Katrina. Now it is leaving the city of New Orleans to die.

A new, interesting blog — Wonkosphere — monitors how much ‘buzz’ is flying around the blogosphere on the various presidential candidates. Interestingly, Ron Paul places second at the moment behind front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Obama is third.

Chris Dodd runs in seventh place but beats Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Brownback, and Kucinich.  Gravel is not on the list — and oddly, neither is Joe Biden.

But one must guess that Chris Dodd’s "Wonkosphere Ranking" will probably surge given the just announced endorsement of him by the International Associaton of Firefighters.

The most recent analysis of the Dodd endorsement came to me from an observer of unions and politics who has given me permission to quote his comments from a private listserv:

My theory [on the Dodd endorsement]?  It’s a case of the Althusserian "absent center" with Dodd as the donut hole. 

The Firefighters don’t want to make the "wrong" choice between the three candidate that can win — Clinton, Obama, and Edwards.

They like Edwards like the rest of the movement but don’t think he’s going to win, and don’t want to piss off the Hillary machine. But they also don’t want to seem paralyzed and ineffectual.  They want to be players.  So they pseudo-aggressively endorse someone, but don’t piss off any of the big three by picking one of them against the other two. 

After Dodd drops out following Iowa or New Hampshire, they see the lay of the land and jump to the likely winner.

Sounds very plausible to me. 

I agree with much of Hilzoy’s eloquent essay from 2005, but I don’t think the points she raises are mutually exclusive from the ones in the email I posted. In other words, one can oppose the incompetent managing of the Iraq War and still believe that the West lacks "grit" in terms of the greater war against Islamic extremism. I think that’s the point my correspondent was trying to raise. I still don’t understand why the email I posted generated such vitriol (judging from the inbox). I imagine it’s because people think my correspondent is making an oblique case for remaining in Iraq for an indefinite period of time. But my correspondent makes the explicit point that his message is not about "stay[ing] in Iraq forever," but rather the consequences of a strained, U.S.-U.K. partnership. He too agrees with Hilzoy’s critique of Bush. He’s concerned about America’s image in the world, because he considers it to be an "indispensable nation." It was Madeleine Albright who came up with that appellation. How many Democrats believe this today?

Also, keep in mind that Hilzoy wrote her essay two years ago, before a leading Democratic presidential candidate declared that the War on Terror is just a "bumper sticker" slogan, a line he repeats to rapturous applause at rallies. I fear that this sort of sentiment–that the war against Islamic militancy is not really a war at all, and not nearly as potentially lethal as we’ve been made to believe–is gaining currency in America and certainly already has in Britain. Downplaying the threat that the enemy poses is, yes, a loss of grit. Thankfully, Hillary (the presidential candidate, with two "l’s"), who has taken on something of a motherly role in her frequent repudiations of the more naive pronouncements of her opponents, refuted Edwards for his attempts to win over the Kossack wing of the Democratic Party. She’ll likely win the nomination, and this ought to reassure both my worried correspondent as well as Chris Orr, who says that his email was a "fairly transparent critique of liberals." Yes, it is a  critique of some liberals, but certainly not all of them (and it’s a critique of some conservatives, too, for instance, those partial to the world-view espoused by Andrew’s beloved Ron Paul).

Anyways, I agree with the following reader (and I imagine my original correspondent does as well), in saying that "The defense of anti-Iraq grit is a straw man."

I think the discussion about grit misses the point of the original author’s essay, at least as I read it.  I didn’t take away that the lack of grit in current society is a reason for IRAQ, or even having much to do with the war over there.  I took it as a lament for and indictment of the soft, flabby, intellectually and physically lazy society we are all a part of.

Perhaps it is a generational thing (I am 39) but I see a big difference between "the grit"  of my parent’s generation and my own, let alone some of the 20-somethings that are coming into the workforce today. Perhaps it is a matter of the increase in general prosperity and advent of technological improvements, but I think it’s pretty clear that people in the past could tap an inner reserve of fortitude that most Americans (myself included and excluding the brave people of New Orleans) would find it almost impossible to locate.

My mother grew up during WWII in occupied France.  She saw friends hauled off to concentration camps, neighbors shot, her brother-in-law hauled off to jail for aiding the resistance.  She survived many many years on short wartime rations, had a toe amputated because she couldn’t get shoes that fit and her toe was permanently deformed,  and rode her single-speed bike 5 miles to school through the mountainous terrain of eastern France (though not, famously, uphill both ways).  She volunteered for the Peace Corps after she retired and turned 70 while in-country in Cameroon  My father was a Minnesota farm boy who rode his bike to Missouri to go to college because that was the only way he could get there.  He volunteered for the armed services at a time (Korean War) when the draft would likely have gotten him anyway. He walked 2 miles to and from school every day, often through the worst that a Minnesota winter had to offer (his teacher would put snow on his cheeks to prevent frostbite).

My parents understood the concept of "paying your dues."  They knew that you had to earn your opportunities and make the best of them once they came along, because many people never got those opportunities.  The never expected to be handed anything, and they rarely were.

This is not to laud my own parents for being particularly "gritty" people. They were and are not, at least not for their generation.  I’m sure that most people with parents of a certain age could tell similar stories to illustrate what their parents had and we seem to have lost.  It is not the ability to blindly support a policy or president, it is the ability to not only survive, but to grow and dream of larger and better things while the world throws hard curves at you each and every day.  Not just to persevere, but to prosper during difficult times.

I find it sad to admit that we are becoming a spoiled and lazy people.  People complain that Bush didn’t ask Americans to sacrifice anything for Iraq and thus we never felt connected to the mission and (especially) the soldiers on it.  What this missed is that we likely would not have been willing to make such a sacrifice, and even minor inconvenience would have led to widespread bitching and moaning. (not that the fiasco in Iraq was or is a good reason to sacrifice anything other that Bush’s fat head) Every American of my generation (and most of the Baby Boomers) has had so many luxuries handed to them that we cannot fathom true need or want.  Or sacrifice. What are you going to do, ask me to give up my Playstation?  Go a week without cable?  Eat only ethically-produced earth-friendly organic leafy greens that cost 3 times as much as the head of Foxy lettuce? Refuse to fill the gas tank of my Humvee on a particular day to "send a message" to the oil companies, forgetting that we’ll all be at the same pump again tomorrow?  Please…

My point in all this (and yes there is one) is that you all should stop trying to defend the "grit" of people who want out of Iraq as I don’t think that question was ever the point.  I want us out of Iraq, and I freely admit that my parent’s willingly suffered far more privation than I’m ever likely to see (Gods willing).  There is no connection, unless some fool like Bush tries to fabricate one (Bush, BTW, is a great example of just how much grit we have lost – just compare his wartime experiences to his father’s).  The defense of anti-Iraq grit is a straw man. 

What really saddens me is that if we had a legitimate "freedom" war, a "good war" like WWII, I still don’t think most of us would be willing to make even 50% of the sacrifices our parents (or grandparents) did.  We want easy answers, fast food and no one to tell us that we can’t have everything that we want whenever we want it.  We deserved to get Bush for a president because we let people ask (and happily answered then discussed what it meant) who we’d rather have a beer with instead of smacking those pollsters upside the head and telling them we DON’T CARE what a candidate is like having a beer and would rather discuss what they might actually do or not do to us, the country and the world.

But that would require some sort of intestinal fortitude, some inner strength and, dare I say, some grit.

Call me if you find any (try looking in NOLA).  I’ll be out back eating sand and waiting for the next election.

I will avoid today discussion of the reasons why so many men chose to look for sex partners in public bathrooms, gyms, and the like over the last few decades.  Most engaged in this kind of sex would probably have preferred socially supported venues for relationship and sexual development — in the clubs, restaurants, public places galore that the heterosexual world has to walk together, to talk, to hug, to kiss, and to ‘do it.’

Andrew Sullivan has much better dexterity with this subject than I do — but it is disgusting that while so many are now cringing at the thought of gay man having tearoom sex that they are at the same time so obsessive about trying to stop same sex marriage between committed individuals.

Tucker Carlson brought this home in an interview he did yesterday in which he got "bothered" in a public restroom when he was a high school student and then got a buddy and went back to beat up the guy before he was arrested.  To be fair to Carlson, we haven’t yet heard whether the "botherer" grabbed Tucker’s crotch or just tapped his foot under the stall. 

But Carlson’s comment that he chose to beat up the trespasser "after the fact" in a vigilante action says much.

This from Media Matters:

On the August 28 edition of MSBNC Live, hosted by MSNBC general manager Dan Abrams, Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC’s Tucker, asserted, "Having sex in a public men’s room is outrageous.

It’s also really common. I’ve been bothered in men’s rooms." Carlson continued, "I’ve been bothered in Georgetown Park," in Washington, D.C., "when I was in high school."

When Abrams asked how Carlson responded to being "bothered," Carlson asserted, "I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the — you know, and grabbed him, and … hit him against the stall with his head, actually."

Read the full transcript (or watch the video clip) which is pretty disgusting, not just because Tucker Carlson, self-described as "the least anti-gay right-winger you’ll ever meet", admits to beating up someone trolling for sex in a public bathroom — but because Dan Abrams and Joe Scarborough just laugh.

Someone should go look for evidence of the arrest that Tucker Carlson mentions.

— Steve Clemons

Update:

Tucker Carlson responds:

Let me be clear about an incident I referred to on MSNBC last night: In the mid-1980s, while I was a high school student, a man physically grabbed me in a men’s room in Washington, DC. I yelled, pulled away from him and ran out of the room. Twenty-five minutes later, a friend of mine and I returned to the men’s room. The man was still there, presumably waiting to do to someone else what he had done to me. My friend and I seized the man and held him until a security guard arrived.

Several bloggers have characterized this is a sort of gay bashing. That’s absurd, and an insult to anybody who has fought back against an unsolicited sexual attack. I wasn’t angry with the man because he was gay. I was angry because he assaulted me.

Sorry Tucker — guess I misunderstood the banter and your comments here:

ABRAMS: Tucker, what did you do, by the way? What did you do when he did that? We got to know.

CARLSON: I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the — you know, and grabbed him, and — and —

ABRAMS: And did what?

CARLSON: Hit him against the stall with his head, actually!

[laughter]

CARLSON: And then the cops came and arrested him. But let me say that I’m the least anti-gay right-winger you’ll ever meet —

Tucker — use your fame and opportunity for influence more wisely.  You conflate your views toward gays with a bad bathroom experience with someone who came on to you.  What lessons do you think you convey in your banter with Scarborough and Abrams?  Vigilanteism is cool. Gays lurk in bathrooms — watch out! It’s OK to assault someone after they have done something inappropriate.

I’m sure you were shocked — but you turned your opportunity to educate Americans as the "least anti-gay right winger" into frat boy banter.  But thanks for the clarification.

— Steve Clemons

In President Bush’s recent speech to the American Legion he continues to ratchet up the war of words with Iran, notably speaking of the region potentially being under "the shadow of a nuclear holocaust" because of Iran’s nuclear program. I find this rhetoric very incendiary, very uneven, very dangerous. Of course, we expect this from the disgraced ideologues surrounding Vice-President Cheney. But I hope people like Bob Gates and Steve Hadley and Josh Bolten have the courage to speak truth to power so that the United States government pursues a policy short of war vis-a-vis Iran. After all, their reputations are on the line if they let this President blunder into a catastrophic conflict with Iran. These are dangerous times, and there are very few individuals tasked with protecting the national interest at the highest levels of government. Here’s hoping historical perspective and tempered reason will ultimately prevail among them. The stakes are very high, and we have rarely in our history had an Administration as reckless as this one charged with the public trust. It is time for some of our most senior public servants to finally summon the courage to face down the seeming propulsion to messianism passing as policy-making that has infected this Administration.

(Cross-posted at Belgravia Dispatch)

The United States and its ally, the EU, has supposedly been trying to pressure Iran to halt its nuclear development via economic sanctions. So what’s this all about?

…by blocking facebook. But seriously, while American college kids use it to post drunken party photos and find out who’s-hooking-up-with-whom, Iranian students were using it to bring about a democratic revolution. Iran, apparently, fears "that virtual  organizing could help opposition movements."