The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Thursday, November 12, 2009

12 Nov 2009 02:41 pm

A Dish First

This blog is coming to you from me on an airplane. I'm traveling to Waco, Texas, to attend the fifth Michael Oakeshott Association Conference, which this year also explores the thought of Voegelin and Strauss. Yes, I know: self-parody alert. But on the airplane I just found out they have in-flight wifi. So here I am, thousands of feet up in the air, broadcasting live to anyone with a modem anywhere on the planet.

Yep: this new millennium has its moments.

12 Nov 2009 02:41 pm

Our Man In Afghanistan

Andrew Exum reacts to the leak that Ambassador Karl Eikenberry is skeptical of escalation in Afghanistan:

Last week Michael Semple bluntly stated that the most important dynamic in Afghanistan was the relationship between the "international community" (for which we should read, he said: "United States of America") and the government of Afghanistan. Well how is that going to work now? It's now common knowledge that Karl Eikenberry -- the U.S. ambassador -- thinks you, Hamid Karzai, lead a collection of corrupt and ineffective goons unworthy of further U.S. investment! Whoever leaked these classified cables has cut the knees out from underneath the most important U.S. representative in Kabul!

Continue reading "Our Man In Afghanistan" »

12 Nov 2009 02:14 pm

The Mormon Move

It is possible to be cynical or begrudging in reacting to the LDS Church's unprecedented public decision to support civic protections against discrimination in employment and housing with respect to homosexuals in Salt Lake City. I think that is a temptation to be resisted.

What the LDS church has done in Utah is an immensely important and positive step and places the Mormon church in a far more positive and pro-gay position than any other religious group broadly allied with the Christianist right. They have made a distinction - and it is an admirable, intellectually honest distinction - between respecting the equal rights of other citizens in core civil respects, while insisting - with total justification - on the integrity of one's own religious doctrines, and on a religious institution's right to discriminate in any way with respect to its own rites and traditions.

I believe that there are forces of discrimination and bigotry within the Mormon church - and they have recently been ascendant. But that is true of most churches and most institutions. And what I have long observed among Mormons - unlike some other denominations - is also an American decency that tends to win out in the end. I've never met a nasty Mormon. They put many Christians to shame in their practice of their faith and the civility and sincerity with which they live their lives. And this decision in Salt Lake City - not an easy or inevitable one - to make a clear distinction between civil marriage and other civil protections is one worthy of respect.

I do not agree with it. I see no reason why civil marriage for non-Mormons should be banned because Mormons find it anathema to their doctrines - just as I see no reason why civil divorce should be banned because it violates the Catholic church's doctrines. But I can respect that position because I can respect the sincerity of that religious belief and see in this stance a genuine attempt to reach out and respect the rights of gay citizens in certain basic respects. Gays should and must reciprocate.

For this is not something that many other churches, including my own, have been able or prepared to do. I wish, of course, that Michael Otterson, who is also a decent and sincere man, had not framed the position in such a defensive way:

Continue reading "The Mormon Move" »

12 Nov 2009 02:10 pm

On Remaining Catholic

A reader writes:

It is very difficult to read your blog some days. The pain leaps off the monitor and sears me. It does sound like you are in stage three - enlightenment - of Battered Women's Syndrome. Please help yourself and your soul; break away from the church.

Another writes:

I deeply admire your staying in your church. It needs men and women of courage to stay and bear witness to its sick and sinful ways. I do the same in my Presbyterian Church, which disallows gay pastors, even though we have many, which disallows gay marriage, which I find reprehensible.

Continue reading "On Remaining Catholic" »

12 Nov 2009 01:53 pm

The View From Your Window

Fulton, New York, 10.33 am

12 Nov 2009 01:44 pm

Reefer Sanity

The AMA is asking the federal government to reclassify marijuana:

The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.

Continue reading "Reefer Sanity" »

12 Nov 2009 01:32 pm

Lou Dobbs Leaves CNN

The Onion has the best response, naturally:

Acting on anonymous tips from within the Hispanic-American community, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday deported Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, who has been living illegally in the United States under the name Lou Dobbs for 48 years.

Leonhardt recalls Dobbs habit of not telling the truth, and Jason Zengerle predicts the future:

Continue reading "Lou Dobbs Leaves CNN" »

12 Nov 2009 12:43 pm

We Have A President

The news that Obama has refused to sign off on any of the four major options presented to him in Afghanistan reminds me of why he was elected president. This critical decision - arguably the most critical of his young presidency - is one that will not be rushed the way such decisions often are. His insistence that the civilian branch truly control policy there and that empire not be passively accepted as a fait accompli are real signs of strength in the struggle to recalibrate American foreign policy. Can you imagine Bush ever holding out like this on the military? Or for these reasons:

Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended.

The stunning honesty of Eikenberry has undoubtedly concentrated minds on the core pillar of any counter-insurgency strategy: the Karzai government. But, of course, no options have been closed off yet:

The White House says Obama has not made a final choice, though military and other officials have said he appears near to approving a slightly smaller increase than McChrystal wants at the outset.
Among the options for Obama would be ways to phase in additional troops, perhaps eventually equaling McChrystal's full request, based on security or other conditions in Afghanistan and in response to pending decisions on troops levels by some U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan.

What we are seeing here, I suspect, is what we see everywhere with Obama: a relentless empiricism in pursuit of a particular objective and a willingness to let the process take its time. The very process itself can reveal - not just to Obama, but to everyone - what exactly the precise options are. Instead of engaging in adolescent tests of whether a president is "tough" or "weak", we actually have an adult prepared to allow the various choices in front of us be fully explored. He is, moreover, not taking the decision process outside the public arena. He is allowing it to unfold within the public arena. Others, moreover, are allowed to take the lead: McChrystal, or Netanyahu, or Pelosi, in the case of Af-Pak, Israel-Palestine and health insurance, respectively. Obama encourages the process but hangs back, broadly - and persistently - pursuing certain objectives without tipping his hand on specifics or timing.

So the troop question is rather like the public option question.

Continue reading "We Have A President" »

12 Nov 2009 12:13 pm

Glory, Ctd

A reader writes:

Just before I read your post on black soldiers in the Civil War ("Glory"), I read this post on the Letters of Note blog: It's a hand written letter from Abraham Lincoln about just that, him allowing "blacks" to fight in the war. Quite a coincidence.

Money quote from Lincoln:

Continue reading "Glory, Ctd" »

12 Nov 2009 12:06 pm

Why Baby Jesus?

The brilliant British humorist, Craig Brown, does a classic Malcolm Gladwell parody:

Why baby Jesus? Research confirms there were upwards of 157 hotel-cum-stables in Bethlehem that night, with estimated 97 percent occupancy levels. So why did that star shine so brightly over his?
Imagine that I were to ask you to dress up as a baby and lie in a manger. Would you attract a comparable crowd of shepherds plus livestock and anything upwards of three kings from the East?
In a hugely influential 2004 experiment at the University of Colorado at Bollocks Falls, Professor Sanjiv Sanjive and his team asked 323 volunteers to wrap themselves in swaddling clothes and spend the night in a stable, lying in a manger. Logic would dictate that at least one of them would be visited by shepherds, wise men, or kings from the East, right?

The answer - which I'm sure will shock and alarm us and make millions of dollars for Malcolm - here.

(Hat tip: Clive.)

12 Nov 2009 11:43 am

It's Only Really About Abortion

Here is a classic document from Benedict's church. It is a public dressing down of a Catholic by his bishop because the Catholic, Patrick Kennedy, supports the right of women - of all faiths and none - in a secular society to abort an unborn child:

Your rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion falls into a different category – it’s a deliberate and obstinate act of the will; a conscious decision that you’ve re-affirmed on many occasions. Sorry, you can’t chalk it up to an “imperfect humanity.” Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.

Continue reading "It's Only Really About Abortion" »

12 Nov 2009 11:06 am

The Other Lesson Of Fort Hood

A reader writes:

I love my mother, but she exasperates me sometimes. She told me today that no Muslims should be allowed in the military. I told her that people used to think that about Catholics. To which she said, "That's different. We've proved ourselves. The Muslims haven't."

Continue reading "The Other Lesson Of Fort Hood" »

12 Nov 2009 11:04 am

The Mood In Ohio

Not so great for the Democrats or the president. The attacks and the recession and worries about health insurance reform are taking their toll.

12 Nov 2009 11:01 am

Quote For The Day

"We talked about everything. There's nothing that we didn't talk about," - Oprah Winfrey, on her taping with Sarah Palin yesterday.

12 Nov 2009 10:32 am

Deconstructing Sarah, Ctd

A reader writes:

My son, Calvin, has Down syndrome. We did not find out until after his birth, but it would have been nice to know. My wife and I love our son more than anything in the world. When you receive the diagnosis, though, you go through a mourning. You mourn the loss of the future you thought you had. Knowing before-hand would have allowed us to go through the grieving process before his birth. We would have been able to just enjoy him. We look back now and wonder what we were even mourning. Our future, and his, is nothing but bright. I think you might be overstating things with the amnio. A recent study has shown the risk to be very low.

Continue reading "Deconstructing Sarah, Ctd" »

12 Nov 2009 10:14 am

Another Drug Czar

Another lie.

12 Nov 2009 10:03 am

GOP Civil War Update

Senator Lindsey Graham is censured by the Charleston GOP for supporting cap-and-trade legislation to tackle climate change, for supporting the bailout of the banks, and for backing McCain's immigration bill. The base of the GOP's position seems to be that climate change is a hoax, the banks should have been allowed to fail, and illegal immigrants should be rounded up and sent home. This is not a serious platform for a party interested in actually governing.

12 Nov 2009 09:42 am

A Car When You Want It

Ryan Avent ponders the greenness of car sharing:

Zipcar may mean that some trips which were previously taken on foot or by transit are now taken by automobile. But because using an automobile to ferry around huge items is so much more convenient than trying to do it on foot, the availability of car-sharing makes city life more attractive relative to the suburban alternative. And this should encourage more people to live in cities, which will indisputably be green, on net.

Phew. A zipcar is the only guzzler we use. And only when we have to move something big or heavy, or have to go somewhere outside of bike-range.

12 Nov 2009 08:57 am

When Bibi Met Barack

The indispensable Laura Rozen does her best:

The one-on-one meeting between Obama and Netanyahu was supposed to last 30 minutes, but it went on for 70 minutes, a diplomatic source said — a very long one-on-one meeting with POTUS. There was also a 20 minute meeting between the larger U.S. and Israeli PM delegations.

The immense damage done by secretary of state Clinton's "unprecedented" gaffe is clearly being walked back as thoroughly as possible. It is easily the worst diplomatic error she has made so far. Rozen parses Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns speech to the Middle East Institute on Monday and doesn't disagree with the American Task Force for Palestine's Hussein Ibish:

"Almost everything cited here shows a subtle but noticeable shift back towards the Palestinian perspective."

And for domestic consumption: the appointment of a US special envoy to monitor global anti-Semitism. Which, given the climate these days, is a very good thing. Bottom line: amid deep, deep gloom (thanks largely to Netanyahu's intransigence), some tiny specks of hope.

12 Nov 2009 08:40 am

What Your Search Box Says About You

Tyler Cowen flags a Ben Casnocha post on the subject:

There are some remarkable contrasts between "dumb" searches and "smart" ones. People who start their search "how 2" are more likely to search "how 2 get pregnant" or "how 2 grow weed." People who start their search "how one might" are more likely to search "how one might discover a new piece of music" or "how one might for the rise of andrew jackson in 1828."

12 Nov 2009 08:22 am

What Marriage Is

Dan Savage:

12 Nov 2009 08:02 am

On Crap, Ctd

The reader who started the thread replies:

A reader wrote, "The gatekeepers own the future."

Agreed. However, as modern consumers we're already lined-up in front of the gates through which passes the crap we're most apt to appreciate. And, we're connected to like-thinking people on Facebook and Twitter that will alert us to any crap we might miss. We largely select what we read based on what we want to hear. This is a separate problem/issue, e.g. Fox News (although the tendency is endemic). I consider myself open-minded, but I still find myself day after day getting my news through the same filters: Talking Points Memo (Josh Marshall), Washington Monthly (Steve Benen), and of course, the Dish.

It's the issue roiling the PR industry. It used to be 20 journalists reached 80% of the market. Now thousands of people comment and influence the purchasing decisions of untold numbers (quantifying the return on social media marketing is still getting sorted out). One thing's certain, it's put relating to the public back into public relations.

I don't see the large publishing houses adapting to this new reality.

We don't either. By the way, you can buy this reader's "crap" here.

12 Nov 2009 07:43 am

"Peas In A Jihad-inspired Pod" Ctd

A reader writes:

I live in suburban Kansas City, hardly the most dynamic social/religious/racial melting pot, but a pretty tolerant place nonetheless. Yesterday, I read to my daughter’s third grade class, and afterwards, I answered questions about my career as a writer. The teacher asked if there were a person I’d like to write a book about, and I told of a very successful Japanese-American man I know who came of age during World War II, enduring all sorts of unpleasantness because America was at war with his ancestral home. One of my daughter’s classmates is the son of two Iraqi immigrants, and he’s the sweetest, most engaging kid. Without any sense of self-pity, he said “I think I understand how that man felt.”

Continue reading ""Peas In A Jihad-inspired Pod" Ctd" »

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

11 Nov 2009 10:34 pm

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish we did our best to honor America's veterans. First we featured the president's tribute in full - a speech that Andrew both lauded and lamented. David Ignatius praised the troops, the Dish connected a soldier and his father, James Joyner questioned the meaning of "heroes," readers pushed back, and a pair of beagles showed their appreciation. Goldblog called for more Muslims in the military and Barney Frank set a timeline for scrapping DADT.

In healthcare coverage, David Leonhardt guided us through the House bill, Saletan wrangled the Stupak debate, and Andrew took at look at the whole messy process of reform. We also covered the bizarre beating of a Greek Orthodox priest down in Florida and an odd act of heroism by a Muslim-American woman in Delaware.

The fact-checking of Palin continued here and here, and even Fox News got in the act. Andrew discussed both his marriage and his relationship to the Catholic Church. We found a catchy youtube on marriage equality and a cool ad with faces.

-- C.B.

11 Nov 2009 09:28 pm

Glory, Ctd

A reader writes:

Blacks, slave and free, have fought in every war America has engaged in without exception from before the Revolution and the War of 1812 all the way to the "War on Terror". They were always full citizens in every regard save that explicitly denied them by bigotry. Blacks have been dying for America from the beginning on the battlefield and right here at home.
Like gays the only difference is in the recognition of their sacrifice. It's a safe bet that there were homosexuals under arms in the Colonial struggle as well. Not being honored is a far cry from not being there.

11 Nov 2009 08:53 pm

Face Of The Day

Frank Squirrel, U.S. Army Korean War veteran and member of the Cherokee Nation Color Guard, looks on before the start of the annual Veterans Day parade November 11, 2009 in New York City. The nation's largest Veterans Day parade featuring 20,000 participants in New York is celebrating its 90th anniversary. By Mario Tama/Getty.

11 Nov 2009 08:15 pm

On Veterans' Day, Ctd

A reader writes:

That picture you posted features my son front and center. I spoke to him last night and he expressed what a moving ceremony it was. This has impacted him deeply and his unit was hit quite hard (3 of the fatalities and 11 wounded). One of those killed, PFC Pearson, was in the same basic training class as Josh.

Continue reading "On Veterans' Day, Ctd" »

11 Nov 2009 07:22 pm

Muslims In The Military

Goldblog writes that "the military has a real and abiding need to recruit more Muslims, and not fewer, to its ranks, for all the obvious reasons -- language skills and cultural knowledge, for starters." His follow up:

I want all sorts of Muslims (people of Arab descent, Iranian descent, Pashtun descent) in our military for all the obvious reasons, including, by the way, because the military can serve as an effective melting pot and break down barriers among different ethnic groups (as it has done so effectively for blacks and whites). But this doesn't mean that soldiers -- of all backgrounds (Timothy McVeigh comes to mind) -- shouldn't, or can't, be screened for dangerous behaviors or beliefs. Of course I want more Muslim soldiers in the American military. What I don't want is anti-American soldiers in the American military.

11 Nov 2009 07:20 pm

The Christianists Target Snowe

The purge of the last few Republican moderates intensifies.

11 Nov 2009 07:02 pm

Victims, Not Heroes, Ctd

A reader writes:

Those on Flight 93, in the towers, and in uniform at ground zero epitomize heroism because of the severity of their respective situations and their courageous responses to them. They became heroes at a level recognized by the entire world. But, as you wrote:
We rightly see servicemembers as special - because they make possible everything else. Without defense, we would have no secure country. And without citizens prepared to risk their lives, we would have no defense.

By this logic (which I completely agree with) the very act of enlisting is in itself a heroic act. Maybe not on the same scale as those who risked their lives on 9/11, but to the enlisting individual's family, friends, and community, of course it is. That thirteen of such individuals would lose their lives, not in combat, but on their home soil, is tragic. They are victims of something we presently do not understand, but they are still heroes in their own right. Let's not split hairs here.

Another writes:

Continue reading "Victims, Not Heroes, Ctd" »

11 Nov 2009 06:43 pm

The Right's Answer To John Kerry, Ctd

Responding to Reihan, Larison makes his pick:

What the war was for Democrats in 2004, health care legislation and bailouts will be for the Republicans in 2012. Romney fits the Kerry mold perfectly, and like Kerry he will be forced by the strength of the primary challenge from some Dean-like representative of the “Republican wing of the Republican Party” to run away from his record on health care and bailouts. In fact, Romney has already been trying to make people forget that he favored the bailouts when it mattered, and no doubt he will engage in some of his typical dishonesty when confronted with the question of his record of support for health care mandates.

Continue reading "The Right's Answer To John Kerry, Ctd" »

11 Nov 2009 06:40 pm

Mooning The Washington Times

Hard to parody.

11 Nov 2009 06:16 pm

Lest We Forget Them

Remembrance crosses for servicemen killed in the current conflict in Afghanistan sit outside Westminster Abbey after the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph on November 8, 2009 in London, England. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War and on Remembrance Sunday the country honours its veterans with the commemorations paying particular focus to the troops who have lost their lives in current conflicts. A British soldier from 2nd Battalion The Rifles, became the 200th British soldier to lose his life in combat in Afghanistan November 7, bringing the total number of British losses, including accidents and illnesses, to 231. By Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.

11 Nov 2009 05:58 pm

The View From Your Sickbed

A reader writes:

A personal story: my girlfriend has a tumor on her ovary and no health insurance. She's taking her last class for her nursing degree, but since she's not going to school full-time, she's not elligible for insurance through the school. She has two jobs bartending, neither of which offer health benefits, working nights so she can spend her days studying and taking care of her six year old daughter (who thankfully is on her father's insurance).

I don't know a person who works harder than her and who gives so much of herself to others.

Continue reading "The View From Your Sickbed" »

11 Nov 2009 05:30 pm

The Church In The Castro

There is one, of course, The Holy Redeemer, smack bang in the gay district in San Francisco, and unmolested, respected, admired. Rod Dreher's conflicts are a fantasy of his own creation. The truth is that gays have long been amazingly tolerant of the churches that seek to strip us of civil rights. One ghastly exception was Act-Up's assault on St Patrick's Cathedral, but that proves the rule. If anything, gay men actually do more to support the church than attack it. A reader writes:

I am a non-Christian gay man dating a Catholic priest, and am struck by the Catholic Church's reliance on gays as priests. Many come from places and homes in which being a priest has been the only acceptable path for a devout gay Catholic boy. In answer to your question asking if it is bizarre that the Catholic Church finances a campaign to tell gay kids they cannot have a relationship like their parents: If those kids knew they could have happy, loving, same sex relationships, would they still choose to be priests?

There is something deeply, sadly sick about the whole enterprise: a nest of dysfunction and dishonesty and hypocrisy. I am peppered with emails asking me why I don't just leave or at least disassociate - especially since the anger on this blog is not contrived. It engulfs me at times - to my shame.

Continue reading "The Church In The Castro" »

11 Nov 2009 04:44 pm

The Limits Of Hoffmanization, Ctd

Christopher Orr's thoughts on that Snowe poll:

Under normal circumstances, this is the kind of insurgent candidacy that would quickly be squelched by the party establishment in the name of holding onto a GOP seat in inhospitable terrain. And perhaps that's still what would happen. But the establishment's clout contra the conservative insurgents is at a historic low, and it wouldn't take much--a Palin endorsement here, a Beck crusade there--to scramble the usual political assumptions.

Continue reading "The Limits Of Hoffmanization, Ctd" »

11 Nov 2009 04:20 pm

Mental Health Break

Ever heard of finger tutting?

(Hat tip: Random Good Stuff)

11 Nov 2009 04:16 pm

A DADT Timeline

Barney Frank sets one:

Repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” will likely be included as part of next year’s Department of Defense authorization bill in both chambers of Congress, Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Wednesday.

“Military issues are always done as part of the overall authorization bill,” Frank said, insisting that this has been the strategy for overturning the policy all along. “'Don’t ask, don’t tell' was always going to be part of the military authorization.”

11 Nov 2009 04:02 pm

In Palin We Trust? Ctd

A reader writes:

Looks like some audience member went rogue with a recording device.

11 Nov 2009 03:44 pm

The Case Against Representatives Reading The Bill, Ctd

A reader writes:

Bartlett's point about reading bills being a waste of time is exactly right. As a computer programmer, reading that section of legislation felt EXACTLY like reading a "snippet" of code. I worked until very recently at a bank that has a large (> 3000 headcount) IT department. The idea of managers reading every line of code that goes into a release is absurd - in fact, many senior managers who grew up programming mainframes in COBOL are effectively illiterate in the VB, Java and .Net paradigm that's taken over.

Continue reading "The Case Against Representatives Reading The Bill, Ctd" »

11 Nov 2009 03:22 pm

"I Just Know"

K-Lo gets an email:

Your article about marriage struck a chord with me, mainly when you wrote about the brutal tactics employed against defenders of traditional marriage. I'm 26 years old and my generation holds very strong views on this topic... in my experience, mostly in support of same-sex marriage. Personally, I'm on the fence about it. But for most people my age, that is not good enough. The peer pressure to support gay marriage is enormous. Which is precisely why I refuse to give my (socially mandatory in many circles) full-throated support to it. When friends tell me it's a civil right and denying gays their "universal right to marriage" is the same as forbidding whites and blacks to marry, it makes my skin crawl . . . but I don't know how to argue against these points. I just know deep down there's something fishy about the arguments.

In K-Lo's piece, Robert P. George continues his argument that those of us who want to be full members of our own families and societies are working for "the abolition of the conjugal conception of marriage as the union of husband and wife." This is untrue. I completely support the conjugal conception of marriage as the union of husband and wife. I cherish marriage as an institution between husband and wife. It remains a bedrock of society, critical to rearing children, central to teaching mutual responsibility and a miraculous place for the creation of new life. You can pore through every word I have ever written (and they have) to find a scintilla of hostility to this.

Continue reading ""I Just Know"" »

11 Nov 2009 02:58 pm

Soldiers And Their Dogs

Mental Floss rounds up videos of canine welcoming committees. John Cole highlights this one:

Yes, that sounds familiar.

11 Nov 2009 02:53 pm

"Childish Evasions"

Rich Lowry takes aim at the "obsession with PTSD" in several press reports about Hasan:

[I]t fits the media’s favorite narrative of soldiers as victims. Here was poor Hasan, brought low like so many others by the unbearable burden of Iraq and Afghanistan. Never mind that PTSD usually results in sleeplessness, flashbacks, and — in the extreme — suicide. [...]The press keeps mistaking Hasan for Private Ryan, when the closest he’d come to combat was counseling sessions with soldiers.

Lowry later airs an email from an expert who explains that military psychiatrists have indeed been known to suffer "vicarious traumatization" from their PTSD patients. However, the reader insists, Hasan probably wasn't one of them:

Continue reading ""Childish Evasions"" »

11 Nov 2009 02:17 pm

Cool Ad Watch

Advertising BaseNation by JUL & MAT from JUL & MAT on Vimeo.

11 Nov 2009 01:56 pm

Whorper Collins: Can They Make Back The Palin Money?

An analysis.

11 Nov 2009 01:41 pm

Priorities

Conor Friedersdorf points out some cognitive dissonance over at Hot Air:

The author argues that it is folly for David Frum to criticize an article on Sarah Palin when the right should be focusing all its energy on opposing the health care legislation now en route to the Senate… yet the author finds that when it comes to his own writing, rather than focus on health care, it makes sense to write a blog post complaining about the fact that David Frum is complaining about an article on Sarah Palin instead of writing about health care.

11 Nov 2009 01:25 pm

Glory

The president's superb speech yesterday had many memorable moments. But I was struck particularly by this passage:

We are a nation that is dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal. We live that truth within our military, and see it in the varied backgrounds of those we lay to rest today. We defend that truth at home and abroad, and we know that Americans will always be found on the side of liberty and equality. That is who we are as a people.

It is. Although it has always been a process, always a struggle, and America's great virtue is in having those struggles right out in the open, and the rawness of the issue placed front and center. Race first, of course. One of the most moving movies I've ever seen is "Glory", Ed Zwick's remarkable film about the first African-American volunteer company in the Civil War, its battle against prejudice on its own side as well as among the Confederate enemy. The reason it hit home for me is that I realized that this must have been the first time that black Americans actually fought for their own country that included them as citizens. Before then, they had been slaves or somehow marginal to the civic task of national defense. But by fighting for their country, in some ways they finally became full citizens of their own country.

It is not a right, military service. But it is transformative of a citizen's place in the world. We rightly see servicemembers as special - because they make possible everything else. Without defense, we would have no secure country. And without citizens prepared to risk their lives, we would have no defense. And when a country says that one section of its own citizenry is barred from service simply because of who they are, even though they may be fine soldiers, it is saying a very clear thing to them:

You are not real Americans. This is not your country. Because of who you are, you must take an observer's role in the defense of your own country. More to the point, if we discover that you are in the ranks, we will expel you. We will do this to you at any time, even if you have served honorably for years. We will strip you of your pension. We will allow anyone to expose you. And even if your skills - like fluent Arabic - are desperately needed, you are so repulsive to the military, and so disruptive to its cohesion, that we will throw you out anyway. There is nothing you can do to avoid this. There is no act heroic enough to overcome this. There is no record good enough to avoid it. You are beneath this ultimate act of citizenship because of who you are.

The sad truth, then, is that the president was wrong yesterday. When he said

We are a nation that is dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal. We live that truth within our military,

He misspoke. We do not live that truth. We betray it.

And there are some Americans whose open, proud chance for glory is yet to come.

11 Nov 2009 01:08 pm

On Veterans' Day

David Ignatius has a splendid column on the character and courage and resilience of those tasked to defend us. Humor, perseverance, sacrifice: these appear to be routine even under the extraordinary stress of these two endless, confusing occupations. On this, David is surely right:

In truth, the U.S. military may be the most resilient part of American society right now. The soldiers are clearly in better shape than the political class that sent them to war and the economic leadership that has mismanaged the economy. (I'd give the same high marks to young civilians who are serving and sacrificing in hard places -- the Peace Corps and medical volunteers I've met abroad and the teachers in tough inner-city schools.)

11 Nov 2009 12:48 pm