The Dish

A Shiite cleric has the answer for infidelity.

My Paris-Hilton-In-Jail coverage begins here. More destruction of democracy here.

Shaftsbury, Vermont, 11.45 am.

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His spirit haunts American resistance to the Gitmo regime. My opposition to suspending habeas corpus, to the military commissions farce, and to torture has had many label me a liberal. Well, if Burke was a liberal, then count me in:

The Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol is a simple document – the transmission to two law-enforcement officers of his constituency of an act that the government of Lord North has put to Parliament. The act suspended the great writ of habeas corpus – not for the good burghers of Bristol, of course, but only for a group of murderous insurrectionists who then stood in open and bloody revolt against their lawful sovereign. And the act went further, namely, it provided that these miserable wretches, whose insolence and defiance now extended to the seas, could be labeled enemy combatants pirates at the King’s discretion, and thus robbed of the right to be tried in courts. They would be dealt with in a summary fashion by the King’s military. And the act also provided that these miscreants could be transported across the ocean to England and held there to await their summary disposition – a step which justified the suspension of habeas corpus, since otherwise an English court might demand an accounting for their brutal treatment and incarceration. And there was no doubt as to the brutality of that treatment – these wicked enemies were left rotting in ship hulks and were succumbing to pestilence and malnutrition by the hundreds already.

Burke was not a man to be taken in by such demonization, least of all by the likes of Lord North, and he registered his sharpest opposition to what was being done.

Not a debate, a "demolition." With pics and video!

Noah Pollak argues that we cannot ignore the threat:

Raise your hand if you’re in favor of handing over control of the U.S. economy to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

(Apologies for getting the name wrong first time around.)

After watching last night, it’s hard not to recognize that Juan Cole has a point:

These guys got away with these hawkish fantasies because they bamboozled the poor evangelicals into believing they would support public morality, and bamboozled poor conservatives into thinking they would uphold small government. Instead, they are hitching their wagons to a multi-trillion dollar quagmire abroad and don’t give a rat’s ass about evangelical values.

A lesson in how not to Youtube. Cracked me up, though:

"While I have specific criticisms for all of them, my common critique of Bushian compassionate conservatism, Brooksian National Greatness, Buchananism and Crunchy Conservatism is the common sense of crusade to all of them. There are times for crusades, to be sure. But I don’t think conservatism should ever be redefined as one lest it become just another populist fever. And I’ll go a step further. The reason Bush pushed me toward libertarianism is because I think any agenda built on the logic of the crusade is either doomed to failure or destined to be very un-conservative. It’s in the nature of things that you will always leave some children behind," – Jonah Goldberg, NRO.

It’s a refreshing change to find myself in total agreement with Jonah, but I suspect that recent political skirmishing has tended to disguise a great deal of what we have in common philosophically. Ross responds here. Larison gets frustrated. And Rod "Crunchy Con" Dreher deepens the paleo-crunchy over-lap. James Poulos summarizes the ongoing debate here. Tip for Ross: the phrase "crunchy condom" might not be the best neologism.

The latest from Giuliani:

"No, I don’t think a cancer patient should use marijuana. There are other options."

And we should care what Giuliani thinks … why? Meanwhile, Mark Steyn walks back his New Hampshire comment.