The Dish

A reader writes:

There’s a telling moment in the YouTube you posted of Norman Podhoretz speaking about the need to bomb Iran.

About halfway in he’s asked what the correct British response should have been to the kidnapping of their sailors.  Podhoretz responds that "they should have threatened to bomb the Iranians to smithereens."  This comment in itself is unremarkable.  Pretty much par for the course for Podhoretz these days.  It’s what follows that’s illuminating.

He follows up his original comment with the caveat, "Whether they would have had to carry out threat, I doubt.  Maybe they would have."  He accompanies this last sentence with the most minimal of shrugs.  And the shrug tells you everything you need to know about the current state of neo-conservativism.

The shrug, an incredibly casual gesture, suggests that in the end, such indelicacies as bombing a country "to smithereens," don’t really matter.  What is important is that the United States’ will is enforced throughout the world.  By any means necessary.  The shrug suggests that posturing and diplomacy and military strikes are all (morally neutral) aspects of United States’ foreign policy.  And, finally, the ultimate neoconservative falsehood, the shrug suggests that the democracy of the sword is just as effective and lasting and precious as the democracy of the popular will and the ballot box.

Norman Podhoretz speaks about bombing Iran like it is a necessity, vital to the preservation of Western democracy.  However, the shrug reveals that it simply another foolhardy attempt to create democracy in a vacuum regardless of the cost in human lives.

"I can’t begin to tell you how tired I am of the South’s victim complex. Five of our last seven presidents have been from the South and the other two have been from the Southwest — and the reason, as near as I can tell, is that most Southerners just flatly refuse to vote for anyone who comes from north of the Mason-Dixon Line. And yet, somehow, it’s the rest of us who are supposedly intolerant of Southern culture. Feh," – Kevin Drum on those touchy Southerners (and watch the emails flood in).

The usual cowardice and illiberalism in the face of Islamist threats after Rushdie gets a knighthood. Norm Geras gets it right:

Two days ago I argued that the left should cleave to the epithet ‘liberal’, on account of the importance of the values liberalism has stood for historically. I did not then enter the reservation that I will enter now: which is that if the word is sometimes held in low esteem, part of the reason for this is the kind of ‘liberalism’ that will lose sight of the need to defend some crucial liberal value in the light of obfuscating considerations. You may be opposed to the honours system, or you may think that Rushdie wasn’t worth a knighthood for literary or personal reasons; but ambiguity about how much respect is owed to the outrage over the award there should not be. None is.

Victor Davis Hanson calls Newsweek – and I think it’s Fareed Zakaria – a pathological liar.

What else is a Brit going to spend his prize money on? (Yep, it’s that Welsh dude again.)

A young Catholic reflects on the resilience of beauty in modernity. Well, Rocco Palma has a near-orgasm over the iPhone. Money quote:

Message here? The quest for, and appreciation of, beauty still exists in the world—and a bitten-into piece of fruit marks its vanguard.

As an amateur architecture buff I see a parallel at work. While the modernist project in design sought to exalt utilitarianism, banishing what it saw as a superfluous emphasis on the "decorative," the post-modern movement has restored the balance, as if to say, "Sure, functionality is helpful, but in our focus on function the uplift of something bigger went missing."

There’s an analogy of faith in this. People want to belong to something that makes greatness manifest in our own time, a movement that can show beauty and achievement as more than just traits of the past. If that weren’t true, today’s masses wouldn’t go to the ends of the earth—or, alternatively, blow thousands of bucks after keeping vigil all night on a strip-mall pavement — to it seek out, bring it home and plug it in…

If only Apple’s sense of embracing the future was heeded within the walls of the church. We need to change the perception that the only future we can offer is a return to the past.

If the Vatican opened churches as beautifully innovative as Apple stores, the faith would be stronger.

Literally: Maxim presents the hottest women from Israel’s Defense Forces.

Here’s a great map from a great blog, Strange Maps. Each state is represented by a foreign country with the same GDP. I’m struck by one obvious thing. The District of Columbia has the same GDP as New Zealand. Now imagine if no one in New Zealand were allowed to vote for their own government, and they were governed by the Senate in Australia as a colony. Yep: that’s how it is in America – the once-colonized now colonize themselves.

It seems to me that Rudy Giuliani’s negligence with respect to the Iraq Study Group is a big deal. He blew off service to his country to rake in moolah on the public speaking circuit. Classic Rudy, but not exactly of a piece with "America’s Mayor trying to save the country from terror." Greg Sargent swiftly exposes the Giuliani’s campaign’s attempt at spin here. He didn’t show up because he was a presidential candidate and didn’t want to turn the report into a political football? Then why did he agree to participate months after he declared himself a candidate? The truth is: Giuliani has shown no interest or expertise in crafting war policy. And on a study group dedicated to the critical issue of Iraq, Rudy couldn’t be bothered to show. If he were a Democrat, this record would be translated as clear evidence that he is unserious about foreign policy and national security. And the truth is: Giuliani is unserious about national security. Just listen to his boilerplate: full of testosterone and devoid of content or analysis. The man is simply unqualified to be president.

The NYT got breathless about the alleged decline of internet shopping. Shafer busts them.