The Dish

Peter Berkowitz pays tribute. No one has ever captured the intractability of the theologico-political problem like Spinoza. Money quote:

Rebecca Goldstein believes that Spinoza’s thinking is highly relevant today. Its relentless naturalism provides philosophical depth to the demand that human conduct be understood without recourse to mysterious and unobservable causes. Its attention to fundamental desires as well as the avenues to their satisfaction and the causes of their frustration advances a psychologically rich theory of the emotions. And, as I’ve mentioned, its reflections on the true requirements of piety furnish powerful arguments in support of the separation of church and state (before he wrote the Letter Concerning Toleration, Goldstein notes, John Locke spent several years in Amsterdam after Spinoza’s death in the company of those who had been influenced by his thought).

On immigration, he stood his ground. On the war, he’s sadly wrong, I think. But I don’t doubt his good will and conviction. He’s not a saint and he’s made compromises (I can’t forgive him for giving Bush the power to torture). But in the interaction above, he directly confronted and addressed the pain and tragedy of this bungled war in a way the president has not and cannot. And McCain’s view that withdrawal will be extremely dangerous must absolutely be put on the table. The question of whether we withdraw from the Jihadist trap will soon become a question of how we do it. I don’t see how Darfur liberals can be so blithely indifferent to a looming genocide in Iraq that we have precipitated, while urging intervening to mitigate one elsewhere. McCain’s conviction will rightly put that debate front and center. Giuliani earned some integrity points for sticking up for cultural pluralism and against the impulse to bring the healthcare industry under more government control. But his crudeness in foreign policy is too hotheaded, in my judgment, for these perilous times. So: McCain’s night from my perspective, even though he may be losing the base. Best to go down fighting, Senator.

The line of the night from McCain to Romney:

Governor, muchas gracias.

It’s rare to see a fraud exposed quite as clearly in real time as the Republichameleon. So he’s for making English the national language, but runs campaign ads in Spanish: an almost perfect representation of the plastic one’s bullshit. And I have to say that McCain’s defense of Native-Americans and Latino-Americans has been one of his finest moments. He didn’t have to go there. But he did anyway. He reminded me why, despite many disagreements, I still believe he’s as classy a leader as the GOP has got.

He both declared that the principle of life was non-negotiable; then he said he would support a pro-choice nominee, if it came to that. That principle lasted about 35 seconds, didn’t it? Can these people hear themselves?

It’s fascinating to watch the GOP candidates try and walk back from Christanism. But they’re in too deep. Since the Rove strategy, the GOP has appealed on explicitly religious grounds to Biblical literalists. In fact, they sometimes defend public policy – like opposition to civil marriage for gay couples – on Biblical grounds. If they have cited Genesis, it’s fair to ask if they literally believe in it. They all dodged it. That branch they’re sitting on the end of. It’s getting wobbly, isn’t it? Now ask them about the Rapture.

An interesting nuance, if I read it right. Giuliani opposes Iran’s possession of even civilian nuclear power, not just nuclear weapons. I can see the logic behind such a position, but it would fatally undermine the sanctions regime. Someone needs to ask Rudy if that is indeed his position. It’s a ratcheting up of the stakes, if it is.

All I can say is: what a disgrace. Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee don’t even seem to know what the current policy is. It is currently based not on regulating behavior or misbehavior but on orientation and the disclosure of that orientation. How can candidates be so ignorant about such a well-trafficked issue? Huckabee even called being gay an "attitude." Jeez. What planet do these guys live on? Then there’s Romney, who once again has flip-flopped. His defense of the Clinton policy which he once opposed is that "it’s working." I know of no one who once opposed the policy who now supports it, because "it’s working". And I simply don’t believe Romney means what he says. He’s an opportunist and a liar. And, of course, as the question showed, the policy is throwing out critical servicembers in a time of war. McCain and Giuliani: they know better. The lack of any real argument in defense of the Republican candidates’ position combined with the blanket refusal to revisit it is a sign of only one thing: contempt for the many servicemembers who are gay. The truth is: Giuliani and McCain do not support the troops. They want to persecute and stigmatize a minority of them. These old men are out of date and out of touch. Like the party they represent.

"Romney will not distance himself from who he is and what he believes," Kathryn-Jean Lopez, NRO.

A reader writes:

Your anti-Hillary posts are wearing thin already. With all due respect you’ve already shown colossal bad judgment regarding presidential character so your credibility in this area is near nil. You’re great at your strengths – perhaps the best. But you’re in no position to be lecturing Democrats who their best candidate is.

If I vote for Hillary it’s because I think she’s the best person in the race to restore this country from the degradation it’s been subjected to by the President you first supported. I certainly won’t be voting based on how the reality-detached right will act or react.

A reader writes:

I must say, watching the Democrats up there really clarified my vote: I won’t vote for any of them. I am dedicated to voting only for a candidate who refuses to grovel before the religious crowds on the right or the left. Indeed, the whole thing seemed to reveal how much the Democrats have become Republican-light: they never set their own agenda or stand diametrically opposed to the right. Instead, they merely stake out the center-left (at most) position on whatever the Republicans care to bring up. Rather than suggest that these vulgar mashes of religion and policy don’t belong in our election process, they have grown terrified of Republican morals-bashing and give in. I have to say, it is a startling indictment of the entire electoral system. 

But, an equally frightening thing occurred to me as I watched – why were only Edwards, Obama, and Clinton participating? Who gets to decide who the candidates are?  Last time I checked, there were other Democrats running. Don’t they get the same air time to humiliate themselves with talk of the ‘prayer warriors’?  This exercise, to me, said more about how much corporate media gets to dictate our choices than it did about religion. If CNN were to argue that these three lead in the polls, I would simply ask if that is not exactly the problem. They lead in the polls because the media has declared them the ‘first tier’ before people even have a chance to consider, say, Chris Dodd (I am not, I stress, a Chris Dodd supporter!). This comes on the heels of the vastly disproportionate speaking time in Wolf Blitzer’s disastrously moderated debate, I might add, in which Obama spoke 3 times as much as Gravel. Why not just let the press pick the candidates and save us the dog-and-pony show?