The Dish

A reader writes:

Gerson writes:

"But Second Life is more consequential than its moral failures. It is, in fact, a large-scale experiment in libertarianism. Its residents can do and be anything they wish. There are no binding forms of community, no responsibilities that aren’t freely chosen and no lasting consequences of human actions. In Second Life, there is no human nature at all, just human choices."

A world without consequences? That’s not libertarianism, it’s liberalism.

Indeed, libertarianism is about conferring liberty and concomitant responsibility where they most rightly should rest – on the individual. Liberalism is about granting the individual choice (at least socially) but spreading the economic risks (the consequences) over the entire group.

A reader writes:

There may be no rational explanation.

A shrewd operator like Cheney might well have foreseen that outing Plame would produce a storm of inquiries and bring more, not less, attention to the dubious WMD argument for war. But he went ahead anyway. Possibly he was sending a signal to any restive CIA analysts to keep their mouths shut if they wanted to keep their jobs. And given an acquiescent Congress and easy-going media, he may have thought there would be no consequences.

But I often get the impression that Cheney is just barely keeping a lid on his anger and spite. Maybe this time it blew. The visceral need for payback trumped calculation.

Then again, maybe he isn’t as shrewd as we all assume.

He is now ahead of John McCain in cash-on-hand, and third overall, behind Giuliani and Romney. Whereas McCain is fading, Paul is, er, surging. It’s amazing what integrity, conviction and a little courage can do, isn’t it? Money quote:

Paul, who polls show with support in the low single digits, said his surprisingly strong fundraising is the best measure of his support.

"I think people have underestimated the number of people in this country who are interested in a freedom message," says the Republican congressman from Texas, who has strong libertarian leanings.

(Photo: from a reader in Pittsburgh who writes:

Ron Paul grew up just outside Pittsburgh in the then-rural suburb of Green Tree on a five-acre farm where his father ran a small local dairy operation. On June 29, he visited his old neighborhood, which included his grandma’s house in the enclosed picture. Paul slipped in and out of Pittsburgh with no entrourage, no fanfare and no pr efforts (in fact, his press guy missed the plane from DC and had to catch up by Greyhound).

He was met by an NBC "Today" show crew that taped a segment on him for its upcoming August-airing series on candidates’ childhood homes, "Candidates Cribs." As part of a longer story I am working on for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, I spent several hours with Paul as he knocked on the doors of several houses that once made up the Paul Family compound and visited a local museum to look at old pictures of his high school sports teams (he was a track star and a jock). Coat-and-tieless, wearing black running shoes, he was his usual regular-guy self. (He reminds me of another local hero, Mister Rogers — same gentle, laid-back personality and a Pittsburgh accent that can still be detected despite decades living in Texas.)

If you didn’t know who Dr. Paul was (and virtually no one did), you’d  never have guessed he was even the most-local of politicians. The fact that he’s running for President and has probably raised enough money via the Internet to keep himself and his honest, GOP-shaming libertarian principles in the race all the way, is a hoot — and a minor hopeful miracle of the new Digital Age.)

Agreed. Know hope. Ann Coulter isn’t the only voice for conservatism in America.

A reader writes:

There are two "whys" to be answered:

1) Why did Libby lie in the first place? To keep the prosecutor from getting to Cheney. That one is simple.

2) Why did Libby risk his career by committing perjury, which is not a common-or-garden variety of lie? This is a more complicated issue, because one would presume that Libby would know better than to risk a perjury rap. Here, my view is that Libby was entirely confident that he would not get caught, because he assumed that the journalists with whom he had spoken would never testify. He probably lied all the time, and never got caught, so why should this time be different? He could not have predicted that Fitz would squeeze testimony out of the reporters.

That sounds right. But he’s a perjurer nonetheless. And this president has declared that perjury by a senior aide does not require any jailtime. Remember when he was promising to restore honor to the Oval Office?

"What do the four [senators] share in common except a loss of confidence in the troops and their ability to win? Senator Voinovich is 70; Senators Domenici and Lugar 75, Senator Warner 80. Though Senator Voinovich only joined the club in 1999, Senator Domenici has been in the Senate for 35 years, Senators Lugar and Warner 29 years. The combination of advanced age and long tenure in government seems to increase a senator’s sense of self-importance even as it decreases their connection to the GOP’s base," – Hugh Hewitt, on his blog.

It’s hard to get a clearer definition of Jacobinism. Contempt for age, and experience, immunity to the practical arguments all these senators have made, description of policy disagreements as an attack on the troops,  and an insistence that the only valid qualification for office is ideological conformity with "the base". If conservatism is ever to recover, it is going to have to leave radical zealots like Hewitt behind.

Der Spiegel realizes what’s behind Islamism in the Middle East:

The average member of the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t a rabble-rouser, either — he’s a doctor, pharmacist, teacher or lawyer. He wears Western trousers and shirts, not the ankle-long dishdashah garment traditionally worn by Arab men. He’s middle class — and he’s filled with rage. Rage over what he sees as the close cooperation between his government and the hopelessly corrupted West. Kept from pursuing his political aims, he is often a functionary amongst his contemporaries in Arab professional associations for doctors, engineers and attorneys.

Those who cure us will kill us.

Here’s a good sample. Here’s more. And more. If this new poll is accurate, it looks to me as if more Americans now want to impeach Bush than ever wanted to impeach Clinton.

I do not believe, as Jamie Kirchick asserts, that the commutation of Libby’s sentence for perjury is a sign of creeping authoritarianism. I’ve said it’s constitutional, but indefensible. My concern with authoritarianism is related to the Bush administration’s claims that it has the right to detain any American or non-American anywhere in the world, detain them indefinitely without charges and torture them, if deemed necessary to national security; it is related to the use of signing statements that exempt the president from enforcing the laws; to wire-tapping Americans with no court oversight; and to the suspension of habeas corpus. I know Jamie seems utterly unconcerned by any of these things – and for good reason. We now know that neocons need not fear the justice system. They have a president who will exempt his ideological supporters from the rule of law. Maybe if a president Clinton assumes these Cheney-crafted powers, they will become less complacent.

This belongs to the category of Things We Love About Britain. The Pet Shop Boys have dissed Live Earth, but they are often sharp political commentators in their music, and have a strong liberty-loving bent. Here’s a YouTube of their anthem against the national security state ushered in by Bush and Blair, set to scenes from a recent Doctor Who episode featuring the Cybermen. It’s the song Integral from their recent album, Fundamental. Think of the Cybermen as tools of Alberto Gonzales and you get the picture. And the threat:

If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear,
If you’ve something to hide you shouldn’t even be here,
You’ve had your chance
Now we’ve got the mandate
If you’ve changed your mind,
I’m afraid it’s too late."

Over to Chris and Neil:

According to FNC’s best-rated star, there are hundreds of lesbian gangs rampaging across Washington DC, carrying pink pistols, forcing children to go gay, taking down Christmas decorations, confiscating loofahs, and setting child molesters free. Or something like that. We’re so lucky O’Reilly is on the case:

Confronted by the Intelligence Report, Wheeler was unable, in several phone and E-mail exchanges over a two-day period, to specify a single law enforcement agency or officer, police report, media account or any other source he relied upon for his D.C. area lesbian gangs claim. But he insisted that his report was accurate and that any law enforcement officer who disagrees is "out of touch." "For some reason or other, these organizations don’t lay it on the line because they don’t know what is going on on the streets," said Wheeler. "This is a serious crisis and the so-called experts are missing it."

According to Wheeler’s personal website, he is a member of Jericho City of Praise, a conservative Christian megachurch in Landover, Md., whose leadership publicly advocates against equal rights for gays and lesbians. The website details Wheeler’s 500-plus appearances on MSNBC, Court TV and Fox News Channel shows including "The O’Reilly Factor," "On the Record With Greta Van Sustern," and "Hannity & Colmes."

Fox News officials and Bill O’Reilly did not return E-mails seeking comment for this story. O’Reilly is quoted on Wheeler’s website heralding Wheeler as "America’s most recognized and trusted authority on crime analysis and law enforcement."

They’ve been firebombing creches as well. And illegal aliens with leprosy were helping.