Victor Morton has posted a heartfelt letter by a man who has been acutely harmed by President Bush's aggressive foreign policy.
Nonetheless, I hope he doesn't have recourse to the American judicial system.
The New York Times's effort to "cover conservatives" is just so bizarre-yet-predictable that I haven't known what to say about it that the fact doesn't say about itself. However, Lane Core makes a suggestion that I find dishearteningly plausible:
I think "what this is about" is playing up as much as possible — if not more — the differences of opinion among various conservative camps, to make it look like the general conservative movement in the country is weaker than it actually is. They will, concomitantly, downplay or ignore the differences between various liberal factions.
Glenn Reynolds passes along news of a weapons cache discovered by accident in Texas. He notes the danger of (actual) right-wing extremists hooking up with the Islamicist variety and, after posting an email, writes something that led me to a really terrifying hypothetical:
Though domestic extremists are a different breed, and often seem to view the accretion of huge arsenals as an end in itself -- they're waiting for some future date when war breaks out against the "Zionist Occupation Government." That provides only limited comfort, however, as one can never be sure when they'll decide that the time has arrived.
The scary thought to which this led me is that these extremists will realize that the Z.O.G. has already reached the highest tiers of our government (hint: the name with which they disguise themselves starts with "neo"). When they figure that out, the right-wing nuts will find that they have common cause with the left-wing nuts, who have common cause with the "diverse" "third-world" nuts, who already have common cause with the sort of people who have maps to bomb shelters and weapons caches tattooed on the soles of their feet.
You've got to hand it to the people of my paternal line; their power to unify groups that otherwise have few commonalities is enormous.
ADDENDUM:
One of the problematic factors that arises from the nature of blogging is that a high-profile link can bring what is essentially a quip to the attention of people who have little or no understanding of the long-running context in which it is made. Nonetheless, I thought I'd written this post in such a way as to make the pervading humor obvious, even for those who are not aware of my politics.
One blogger summarized the above and then gave every indication that he thinks it's intended as serious analysis. Given the name of his blog, one would hope that he isn't always so literally minded. Meanwhile, David Neiwart, who is an actual journalist, has this to say:
I'm not sure if I've encountered anything as laughably convoluted and ludicrous in the blogosphere before, but this post sets a new low watermark.
Neiwart goes on to treat the post with complete credulity, pointing out that "there have been no known associations of their violent factions whatsoever." Well, of course there haven't! The parties in question haven't figured out that the Vatican has a secret underground tunnel to Paul Wolfowitz's house (running along the Halliburton pipeline to Iraq), yet. But once they do, their differences won't seem so large. How incompatible is book burning with tree hugging, after all?
Perhaps my tone didn't come across as well as I'd have liked, but it seems to me that the only reason to miss the fact that I was trying to be "laughably convoluted and ludicrous" — albeit with a serious, and valid, underlying observation about anti-Semitism — would be actual knowledge of people who have maps on the soles of their feet.
Now that's worrying.
As you may have inferred, I'm reading Andrew Sullivan's "reader" of works having to do with same-sex marriage, Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con. Therein, I just came across an instance of the sort of thing of which one must be wary in arguments about an ideologically divisive issue. Facts are not necessarily facts, and for this particular issue, Sullivan is to be commended for including the materials necessary to spot — although he doesn't draw attention to — a rather remarkable lie.
If you've followed this issue with any devotion, you've likely heard of the book Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe, in which author John Boswell claims to have found Christian ceremonies for gay marriage. Sullivan presents a portion of Brent Shaw's criticism of the book, followed by a response to that criticism by Ralph Hexter. In that last piece, Hexter writes (on page 20):
In the words of Montaigne, who witnessed the adelphopoiesis ceremony [the "gay marriage" ceremony in dispute] performed in Rome in 1581, "ils s'espousoint masle à masle à la mess" ("they married, one man to another, at a mass"). Apparently contemporary authorities didn't interpret the ceremony as the "ritualized" friendship Shaw would have us believe it is, unless we are also to believe that such friendships called for the burning that we know at least some of those who participated in the ceremony suffered in the sixteenth century.
Even as presented, one could respond that it was perhaps the heretical cooption of what was meant to be a brotherhood ceremony to cover gay marriage that sparked the flames, so to speak. But turning the page and reading Montaigne's actual account, one notes that Hexter (perhaps taking from Boswell) is guilty of more than shady analysis:
I met a man who informed me humorously of... San Giovanni Porta Latina, in which church a few years before certain Portuguese had entered into a strange brotherhood. They married one another, male to male, at Mass, with the same ceremonies with which we perform our marriages, read the same marriage gospel service, and then went to bed and lived together. The Roman wits said that because in the other conjunction, of male and female, this circumstance of marriage alone makes it legitimate, it had seemed to these sharp folk that this other action would become equally legitimate if they authorized it with ceremonies and mysteries of the Church. Eight or nine Portuguese of this fine sect were burned...
So, not only is it untrue that Montaigne actually witnessed the same-sex union ceremony — hearing of the incident through anecdote, and humorous anecdote, at that — but it wasn't even the adelphopoiesis ceremony that he did not witness. One wonders how often those who cite history count on the ignorance of their readers.
Paul Craddick (whose blog is very handsomely designed, by the way) focuses on David Kay's statements with respect to Syria in a post that is very much worth reading. Parsing various sources, he concludes the following to be the nuanced opinion that Kay has found it difficult to convey through professionally conducted interviews:
To sum up my impression: "WMD-related stuff probably went to Syria, but we don't know exactly what; it would be good to pursue the matter further, but we can't; since we're focusing on what we can establish at least somewhat definitively, this one will most likely have to be filed under 'intriguing and unresolvable'."
That's the sense that I've gotten, although I would emphasize something that Paul addresses: we don't know what, in all this, abuts classified information. In other words, the view that Kay is presenting for public consumption is inherently broad.
But turning back toward the media, Paul's post reminded me of something that I've neglected to point out in any of my writing on this topic. To see the mechanics of the distortion of Kay's message, consider this exchange from an interview with Tom Brokaw:
TB: Intelligence report says ... "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with range in excess of U.N. restrictions. If left unchecked it probably will have a nuclear weapon within this decade."DK: Well, I think it’s got elements that we have certainly seen are true. The area that it’s probably more seriously wrong in is in the nuclear area.
TB: But as you know, the vice president and, to a lesser degree, the president of the United States, raised the nuclear threat as a reason that the United States had to go to war against Iraq.
DK: I think the weight of the evidence — was not great.
If you watch the video (which isn't working for me just now), you'll see that Kay's tone and body language were sending quite a different message than the words suggest of themselves. So much is this true that it's obvious that MSNBC edited the video a split second before Kay was able to say "but." Unfortunately, the original interview is currently locked away in the network's vaults, so it's unlikely we'll never know what degree of "not great" he meant.
The Providence Journal's editorials are generally fair and well considered. This, however, lightly highlights an attitude that contributes considerably to the problem:
As far as the BBC is concerned, Lord Hutton's report was full of recommendations about reforming its editorial processes to avoid a recurrence of that one faulty story. Our conclusion is that news organizations, even government-subsidized ones like the BBC, are well equipped to improve practices on their own, and that the last thing a free press needs is government "guidance" such as Lord Hutton suggests.
It wasn't just one story, and it wasn't just a fault. I haven't read the Hutton report, so I don't know if this remains an officially unstated truth, but the underlying problem is that the BBC acted out of naked political, ideological interest. It didn't just err; it deliberately "sexed up" its story on intelligence being "sexed up" out of an inexcusably similar motivation to that of which it accused Blair's government.
How can news organizations be "equipped to improve practices on their own" when they don't realize that anything substantive needs improvement? Frankly, I'm beginning to think — not only out of wishful thinking, but out of observation and analysis — that the day of "big media" as some mythically objective social institution and political force is coming to its sunset.
The major outlets, such as the Providence Journal, aren't going to disappear; they've too many resources and investments for that. But they will become, in essence, better-funded, more-polished, but no more credible bloggers.
I've been taking a break from Andrew Sullivan commentary. There's just so much that can be said about the way in which he responds, insults, and plays the race card in reaction to Stanley Kurtz's essay on Scandinavian marriage that I couldn't possibly address it well with the limited time in my schedule. But one point, I just can't pass up. Here's Sullivan in the post at the first link above:
There are no marriage rights for gays in the countries he cites. There are, instead, what are called "registered partnerships." ... Then Kurtz tries to argue that there is a causation effect between registered partnerships for gays and the decline of traditional marriage. He proves nothing. There are so many independent variables - from secularism to contraception to cultural gender roles and on and on - that such a conclusion is intellectually preposterous. ... These kinds of unsubstantiated correlations, slippery links and simple associations would be laughed out of a freshman social science class. Did no one edit this?
And here's Sullivan introducing the "Same-Sex Marriage in History" section of his Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con (1997):
And today in Denmark and Sweden different compromises have been made [for homosexual relationships] that affect the meaning of marriage itself.
ADDENDUM:
Upon further reading, there's more that's worth noting. Sullivan on his blog:
... the entire premise of the piece - that marriage for gays is legal in Norway, Denmark and Sweden - is factually untrue. There are no marriage rights for gays in the countries he cites. There are, instead, what are called "registered partnerships."
From a summary essay about Denmark's Act of Registration of Partnership by Deborah Henson on page 42 of Sullivan's Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con:
This legislation is the first of its kind to grant homosexual couples the legal status comparable to married couples — with the exception of adoption and custody rights. The new law provides for "registered partnerships" which give each partner the same rights to inheritance, tax deductions, social service entitlements as married partners have, in addition to mandating similar obligations as well: tax liabilities and partner support upon separation. ...... the Act also allows registered partners to be included whenever Danish law refers to "marriage" or "spouse." If the terms in a given statute are "husband" or "wife," however, registered partners are not included in coverage.
As I understand, from Kurtz, Sweden and Norway had instituted or expanded their offerings similarly by the mid-'90s to, as he characterizes it, "de facto gay marriage." It bears mention that precisely this sort of direct legal comparison to marriage would be barred by the Federal Marriage Amendment.
Today's Chris Muir cartoon made me wonder if he meant: "Only when there is William Jefferson, is there ever a way."
Although I'm much delayed in noting it, Rev. Sensing had a worth-reading post on whether explanation disproves a miracle:
The fundamental understanding of "miracle" in Christian thought - and I'm pretty sure in Jewish thought, too - is not primarily supernaturalism (though that's there, to be sure), but the way that God's will is worked in the affairs of nature and human affairs, what America's founders, for example, called God's providence. So that the parting of the Red Sea might have occurred through natural causes disturbs this notion not a whit, because nature is under the dominion of God. Hence, I see no problem with Prof. Volzinger's observation that "God rules the Earth through the laws of physics."
As I explained in parts III and (more) IV of my "theory of everything" series of essays, timing and odds are really the relevant measures of a miracle. That makes direct sense, doesn't it? Perhaps people believe that they can imagine miracles that "defy the laws of physics," but I don't believe it's possible even to do that much.
The reason people err in this way has more to do with the understanding of laws of physics than of miracles. Whether or not something accords with the laws as we know them, if we can perceive that something, it must manifest in the physical world. Therefore, there will be a proximate cause (a change of velocity, a shift of atoms, a condensation of molecules, etc.), and since we will then know that the thing actually happened, it will, by definition, be allowed by the laws of physics.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from Stakers," by Mark Ellis.
It would be wrong to take much — anything, really — seriously about a recent editorial in the University of Rhode Island student paper, "Civil union, gay marriage has no place in political arena." However, this part still has me shaking my head the day after reading it, so I thought I'd share my amazement at the apparent miseducation:
While the topic often seems to make candidates uncomfortable, the question should not be one of legality but in reality, not a question at all. The United States is a country founded upon a wealth of freedoms and it is a contradiction to that foundation to allow politicians to decide on an issue of love and companionship. ...As the Vermont Supreme Court passed the burden onto the state legislature, gay couples received a slap in the face. Politicians aren't attempting to work for the benefit of the people they are supposed to be serving, but instead merely appeasing them in order to make it through the next election.
Well, maybe the young editorialist's "miseducation" has less to do with how our government is supposed to work than how socialist liberals are supposed to disguise their thinking.
Damn those representatives for declining to dictate the unadulterated truth to their constituents and choosing, instead, to represent their views. It's a good thing there are judges to straighen out this foolish quirk of democracy!
James Lileks offers a view of a newspaper-business reality pertinent to those who desire to write books for a living of which I've been informed in the past:
I should note that I rarely buy books - I work at a newspaper, which is a cornucopia of free reading material. You cannot imagine the heaps of stuff shoveled from the book room every day. I always want to take young writers to the book room and show them the mountains of books - unread, to say nothing of unreviewed. This is what you're up against. And this doesn't included the sixty billion paperbacks printed every year, half of which are pulped and set to Japan to make toilet paper. That's right: the end result of most American author's labors ends up hanging on a roll in a karoke bar in a Tokyo suburb.But keep writing!
Gee. Thanks a lot.
(Let me preface this post by admitting that I realize that it isn't very polished, does little more than gripe about statistics, and is so narrow of focus that it won't be of much interest to very many readers. However, I suspect that the group in question intends to take a central role as the gay marriage battle moves into Rhode Island, so it may very well prove useful to my side to have some preliminary analysis of the group's data and statistical techniques.)
I had only intended to mention a Providence Journal article about a new advocacy group for homosexuals called Equity Action to make a few minor points. I stress, at the outset, that my intention, here, is to address organizations, not people.
The first minor point is to note that, in contrast to this free advertisement for a fund-seeking organization, I still have yet to see within the paper a single mention of the rallies Massachusetts against gay marriage. The second is to suggest that the data being presented is inevitably skewed, not only by the standard survey disclaimers, such as that people will tend to give the "right" answers for personal questions, but also by the fact that this survey is obviously intended for advocacy purposes, something stated in the instructions of the survey. And the third is to challenge, out of hand, the contention that homosexuals in Rhode Island have any legitimate major complaints, as a group.
But when I began to look at the specifics, mostly out of curiosity, the distortion that I discovered in the study's summary and the Projo article proved so egregious that anything either organization says on this matter ever must be considered suspect in the extreme. The degree to which the authors sought to exaggerate the supposed difficulty of being gay in Rhode Island and to minimize any factors that might suggest that gays are doing just fine is ridiculous.
The summary document (PDF) lumps together all household income between $25,000 and $100,000 in order compare the 70% total for Rhode Islanders in the U.S. Census with 65.8% of the homosexual respondents. Of course, the writers can't do otherwise than admit that homosexuals have higher incomes, but the numbers as presented aren't dramatic given that more than three-quarters of the survey respondents were over 30.
However, whoever put together this particular table, although he or she managed to calculate the raw numbers of people correctly, included the $15–25K data from the Census chart in the $25–100K percentage. Therefore, the <$25K comparison should be 30.1% (Rhode Islanders) versus 12.9% (RI homosexuals); the $25–100K should be 58.5% versus 65.8%; and the >$100K is correct at 11.4% versus 21.4%. Looking at the raw data (PDF) for the homosexual survey, it isn't surprising that the middle income group has significantly more representation toward the higher end than does the public at large.
To be fair, the lumping of that huge income range was likely done, in part, because the categories differ between the two sources by increments of $5,000. That's a fortuitous oversight on the surveyors' part. Similarly, the calculations for the report's table were likely a mistake (although I wonder why the person with the calculator wouldn't notice that he'd added up three rows to get the raw number, but only two to get the percentage), but it's a fortuitous one.
Another area of fortuitous skew is the monogamy number. According to the survey, 53% of respondents say they are currently in monogamous relationships. Of course, once again, the age ranges contribute to this result. It's also worth noting that 3.5% are in straight marriages. And it should also be remembered that the respondents knew the advocacy purpose of the survey. On top of these points, the survey's methodology makes it likely that a significant number of the people in committed relationships who answer this question are, in fact, committed to each other.
But that's all "fun with numbers" analysis. The truly egregious distortion comes into play with the dark side of being gay in Rhode Island. Projo writer Karen Lee Ziner declares:
And yet, the report states, they endure frequent harassment and discrimination -- at work, at school, on the street, in doctors' offices, in public places and in their places of worship. Some have experienced physical violence, or fear it, because of their sexual orientation.
Referring to the press release (PDF) from which she likely got this impression, one notices that the numbers are extremely small for all but the monthly and yearly instances categories, and even here the numbers are all under 23% for monthly and 33% for yearly. One who has already looked at the raw data might also notice that the never column has been dropped from the official table. Here's the never data, with "not applicable" in parentheses:
At work: 47.2% (18.9%)
At school: 16.8% (65.6%)
At home: 64.3% (19.7%)
On the street: 27.9% (6.3%)
At a public establishment: 31.6% (6.2%)
Moreover, the "at school" row of the table is footnoted as "only those who indicated being a student," even though those respondents who answered the question all had some reason for doing so. (Otherwise, they would have selected "not applicable.") The effect? The first number is the press release/summary table, and the second number is the raw data:
More than 1x/day: 6.5% versus 2.0%
Daily: 9.1% versus 2.3%
Weekly: 9.1% versus 2.3%
Monthly: 19.5% versus 5.8%
Yearly: 18.2% versus 5.2%
Not only has the data been selectively presented, but one very important fact was left unsaid: 44.6% of the respondents said that none of the homophobia/harassment was directed at them. 34.7% said only a little was; some, 15.2%; a lot, 3.5%; and all, 2.0%. So a great many of these daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly instances of homophobia and harassment could be off-color jokes, misunderstood comments, or imagined bias.
The press release goes on to claim that "LGBTQ individuals are afraid to reveal their sexual orientations or gender identities even to family members," but one need only look at the accompanying table (noting that the question is being "out," not the reason) to see how ridiculous this claim is. The raw data for "support and acceptance" reveals this even more.
More interesting, however, is the summary's handling of healthcare. It includes a paragraph about the dangers of providers' discrimination, which "results in delayed, infrequently, or avoided use of these services" and leads to "late diagnoses, misdiagnoses and missed opportunities for healing and prevention." Looking at this question in the raw data, however, it isn't difficult to understand why the summary doesn't offer any of the data relevant to this question. Of the 80.9% of respondents who have told some or all healthcare providers about their being homosexual, 12.7% say that their care improved, with only 2.0% saying that it worsened. In contrast, of the 19.1% who haven't mentioned it to a healthcare provider, only 13.5% (2.6% of the total) cited reasons having to do with discrimination or other people finding out.
Now, if some group wants to get together and study Rhode Island's gay community for the purpose of finding out what they actually require, then I wouldn't be inclined to object. This (non-profit) group, however, has the stated purpose of lobbying for civil rights legislation. For a wealthy, largely comfortable segment of the population that has a powerful advocate already in the state's only major newspaper. Using statistics that are either next to useless or incompatible with the "interpretation."
If Rhode Island's busybodies wish to investigate an oppressed minority that feels intimidated, undersupported, and even uncomfortable telling people about the thing that makes them different, they should perform a similar survey among conservatives. We certainly could use a little more representation in this state.
For the benefit of anybody who comes here as a result of the TCS piece, I thought I'd mention that, if the design of this page makes for difficult reading, click "Turn Light On" at the top of the left-hand column.
Frank Gaffney, Jr., makes a suggestion that I'd enthusiastically support:
The president should, instead, feel grateful to the erstwhile head of the Iraq Survey Group, both for his past, courageous public service and for his present candor. And there is no better, or more appropriate, way to express his appreciation than to ask him to replace George Tenet as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).David Kay has, after all, demonstrated once again the qualities of intellect, integrity, and independence that are always desirable in leaders of the U.S. intelligence community, but rarely more necessary than right now. Although he has expressed a view about the status of Saddam's missing weapons programs that is debatable — and may ultimately be proven wrong — the former weapons inspector has certainly said many things that have long needed saying.
Such a move would make valuable statements on many fronts — from accountability for Tenet and the C.I.A., to rewarding the qualities that Gaffney cites, to showing the President to be more concerned with honest results than political considerations. That last point, however, could be merely a matter of appearance, because I'm not as sure as Gaffney about something:
President Bush could be forgiven for feeling annoyed with Dr. Kay. A heated reelection campaign is not exactly the moment any candidate would chose have new turmoil engendered over one of his most controversial decisions.
I've wondered whether there might be more to Kay's resignation than he claimed, particularly if he believes that the proximate Iraqi government will put an effective end to the major period for the WMD search and if he's correct that the job is 85% done. Why not tough it out for a few months, to ensure a continuity of leadership?
Well, in the spring, or whenever that 15% would be wrapped up and the efforts summarized, the election will be much closer, and the primary season will be over. Now, Kay has gotten news that is potentially harmful to the administration out in the open while there's still hope that he's wrong, while the Democrats are still battling each other through rhetoric that they will later mitigate for general consumption, and more importantly, while the President still has time to overcome the obstacle. And if WMDs do show up, then Kay has set the stage for a dramatic revelation, and he has done so without too much personal tarnish.
In this sense, giving Kay Tenet's job would be a justified political reward.
Hey look! A hair club that promises to turn even ordinary-looking men into Bill O'Reilly.
Michael Williams notes some movement among Congressional Republicans to curb spending and writes:
Apparently President Bush's mention of fiscal discipline was more than window-dressing. I hope Republicans will quit doing all the things we castigated the Democrats for when they controlled Congress.
Meanwhile, John Hawkins notes that Republican Congressmen are none too happy about the President's immigration proposal. They're right to be concerned. I can't be the only Republican voter to come to the conclusion that national security concerns make Congress the place in which we ought to express our displeasure.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that the ways in which President Bush is spending taxpayer money will, in the long run, move the country to the right. Perhaps that, of itself, will take an ironic turn in the distant future and result in a smaller government. That would be a long-shot argument, though, and a gamble that the purpose wouldn't be subverted before the effects could manifest.
Moreover, such an objective doesn't justify much more than maintenance of spending. The fact that a cause is worthwhile doesn't mean that the government ought to fund it — let alone continue to increase its funding. Roger Kimball praises (and spins) the President's increased funding of the National Endowment for the Arts by noting the improvements in its activities under Dana Gioia. I'll admit that I'm not constitutionally opposed to there being an NEA, but even Shakespeare's belt can be tightened when there's a war effort during an economy that has not fully recovered.
Father Rob has posted a recent homily of his:
You see, since 1973, in our nation, abortion claims the life of 1 out of every 4 children conceived. One out of four children conceived today will not survive to birth because of abortion. One out of four. And that child, that fourth child, would have been sitting in in that empty chair. That empty chair would have been filled by a child, by a young person, if it hadn't been for abortion.
It's must-read material (which is why many of you have probably already read it). And I think Fr. Rob has come across yet another fantastic effect of the Internet generally and blogging specifically: Not only has this homily attracted the attention of multiple bloggers (I'll be ninth, according to Technorati, but there are surely more) with hundreds and thousands of readers, but by that very attention, it will encourage — challenge — other priests to raise the collective level of preaching, to address important topics memorably, and to find new methods of sharing their messages.
Good work, God's work, Father!
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Recollections of Switzerland," by Christine L. Mullen.
Remember when I expressed my desire for somebody to investigate what David Kay meant by his suggestion that Iraq was more dangerous than we'd thought before the war? Well, some guy named Justin Katz has done some of that investigating in a piece on TechCentralStation.
I don't know whether it's an effect of the media's biased conventional wisdom or what, but I've been surprised at the degree to which some have conceded a new political reality in response to the errors that Kay has suggested. Maybe it's because I supported the toppling of Hussein on humanitarian grounds long before the debate began in earnest, or maybe it's that I always considered any WMDs in his hands to be too many, but it seems to me that anybody who based their support for the war, tentatively or not, on some of the larger stockpile estimates understood neither the argument for war, nor the nature of WMDs, nor the nature of intelligence work. As I argue on TCS, even proof of programs and short-term potential to produce is sufficient justification, because 1) we couldn't maintain sanctions forever, and 2) we just couldn't know whether those programs were implemented to produce.
Even now, and even granting every one of Kay's assessments, remembering the dictator around whom these events took place ought to make any reasonable person wary of declaring the war's premises false. Craig Henry wonders what would have happened to con-artist scientists if Saddam demanded a demonstration. At the very least, it would seem likely that they'd have held some not-insignificant amount of substances.
More fundamentally, we in the public sector ought still to be a bit more circumspect about the information as it filters to us. Indiana University Professor Eric Rasmusen has done some analysis of the likelihood of Kay's claim, with due consideration to the inspector's self interest.
Look, for some reason that I can't fully articulate, I trust Mr. Kay, who seems like a uniquely even-handed government player. He's been pretty open about the limitations of his claims. Nonetheless, unless those claims are restricted to an absense of major production on a nearly industrial scale, the situation in Iraq during the '90s will certainly be an intriguing chapter in the history books — more incredible than fiction. Perhaps the C.I.A. ought to employ Tom Clancy.
Colin Powell, in his U.N. presentation, told of Iraq's removing topsoil to hide chemical weapons activity that was performed there. Remember Steven Hatfill? He was one guy under intense scrutiny, and the FBI searched his apartment — which, as I understand, is much smaller than Iraq — multiple times before believing that it was clean. At one point, the theory was that he built a custom box in order to produce anthrax under water!
Are all of Iraq's scuba suits accounted for?
In the final installment of his Davos journal, Jay Nordlinger quotes the somewhat coolly received Vice President Cheney:
Europeans know that their great experiment in building peace, unity, and prosperity cannot survive as a privileged enclave, surrounded on its outskirts by breeding grounds of hatred and fanaticism. The days of looking the other way while despotic regimes trample human rights, rob their nations' wealth, and then excuse their failings by feeding their people a steady diet of anti-Western hatred are over. Nations fail their people if they compromise their values in the hope of achieving stability. Instead, we must seek a higher standard, one that will apply to our friends in the region no less than to our adversaries.
Perhaps it betrays the degree of neocon brainwashing to which I've been subjected, but this strikes me as entirely correct. We can't just sit on our hands within our own borders and allow despots to rise to power beyond them. Tyrants are infamously incapable of sating their hunger for power through mastication of their own people.
Of course, the degree to which this general truth can be stated confidently and pursued as policy owes much to the current state of the world. When another challenge that represents an overriding threat — as the Soviet Union did for so many years — survival will tend to trump principle.
He and his seconders have got my vote for reelection:
With legal assistance from the Thomas More Law Center, South Dakota state Rep. Matt McCaulley introduced a bill last Thursday making abortion a crime unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother. House Bill 1192, which already has the support of a majority in the state house and senate, directly confronts the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which gave women a constitutional right to abort their babies.Rep. McCaulley presented the legislation on the 31st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, saying, "Medical and scientific discoveries over the last 30 years have confirmed that life begins at conception, a question the Roe Court said they could not answer."
(via Victor)
Craig Henry makes a great point:
My question is, how many J-schools focus on what went right and wrong with war reporting in SE Asia? Do any of them discuss how the military victory of Tet '68 was portrayed as a military defeat for the US and why this mistake was made? Do any of them remind students that it was an armored blitzkrieg from NV, not a peasant uprising which doomed Saigon in 1975?
I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of journalism professors continue to believe that Tet was a defeat. More broadly, I don't know that I've ever heard of journalism schools' performing that sort of analysis — although some probably do in certain courses.
Beyond the process of (and building a career in) journalism, most of what one hears has to do with the "ethics of journalism." You know, the sort of would-you-tell-the-soldiers- that-they're-about-to-be-slaughtered kind of ethics.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Lighthouse Keeper," by Ingrid Mathews.
Apologies for the slow start today. I was already busy this week, but other matters have piled on (most of them good things... I'll let you know).
It doesn't help that I've been flooded with that email worm that's going around. (Most notable person whose email has sent it to me thus far: Jonah Goldberg.) It really didn't help that, after a very late night premised on the promise of a sleep-in snow day for my wife, my dog decided it was the ideal morning to pester me to go out earlier than usual and then to bark at the door, yet refuse to come in.
Oh well. I think I'm more or less caught up with myself (if tired), so you can expect posts today, as I take breaks from the day job.
The Timshel Music Song You Should Know this week is "Bittersweet" by Rosin Coven.
"Bittersweet" Rosin Coven, Arthouse Rock
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Jim Miller, who also spotted the abysmal failures of that NPR David Kay interview, linked to a related New York Times article from yesterday. I'm not going to go into the specifics of it, here, because the Times's handling of the interview raises important questions.
The piece is essentially a summary of the interview, and because it appears to have been conducted by Times reporter James Risen, there is nowhere to turn for the original audio or even a transcript. Frankly, I only reluctantly trust anything within that paper's pages that isn't surrounded by quotation marks (and even then, one must be careful). As Roger Simon asks:
Why is not the interview with such an important person on such a key issue published directly without "interpretation" or filtering of what he said, allowing us to draw our own conclusions?
Well, we can guess — remembering that it is an election year. Bill Hobbs's comment focused elsewhere certainly applies to the media treatment of the war from the very first whispers of its possibility:
Having forced Bush to go to the UN - even though it gave President Clinton a pass when he deliberately avoided the UN in the decision to intervene in the Balkans - Congressional Democrats narrowed the focus to Iraq's WMD. Now they complain the war was not justified because, it seems, Iraq had little or no WMD. They may be right about Iraq's WMD, but they are wrong about need to go to war.
Although, according to Scott Ott, Secretary Rumsfeld has apparently had a change of heart.
Reading Jay Nordlinger's annual reports from the elite Davos sip-and-grip is neat. One can imagine him wandering the halls feeling like an infiltrator. Among the insights from the third part of this year's edition is this instance of those mephitic mutual congratulation sessions that one senses are common among the lights of the Left:
At one session, the Saudi ambassador — Prince Turki al-Faisal al-Saud — decries "the occupation of Iraq and Palestine." And at this same session, there is what I can only describe as a Two Minute Hate — although it lasts about ten minutes — against Robert Kilroy-Silk, the BBC commentator who was fired for making what were judged intemperate and intolerable remarks about Islam. In the audience, a man from London arises to say — to brag, really — that he led the effort to get Kilroy-Silk sacked. The moderator of the session, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, responds, "Let me applaud you. It's up to people like you to hold us in the media to account." Patricia Mitchell, the head of PBS in America, heaps yet more praise on him. She also contends that, before 9/11, Americans didn't know anything about Islam. You couldn't find anything on the subject in the media. I wonder what she was reading (or watching).Not to be outdone, Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, says, "Let me express my gratitude" for the Kilroy-Silk antagonist.
Of course, such play acting can quickly run into harsher reality, and I would have liked for Mr. Nordlinger to describe the audience's reaction to this:
To his credit, Lord Carey does happen to mention that it would be nice to have a church in Saudi Arabia, someday. The ambassador responds that if only Christians accepted Mohammad as a prophet, they could come to mosques to pray. What need have they of churches?
I imagine a "tasteful silence."
I'm with Rev. Sensing in my absolute astonishment that Mel Gibson, after so much striving against adversity, would cave so completely (scroll down to the last item in the first cell).
For months, Stanley Kurtz has been personally promising me a major weapon in the battle to preserve marriage, and I think this is it:
MARRIAGE IS SLOWLY DYING IN SCANDINAVIA. A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood. The Nordic family pattern--including gay marriage--is spreading across Europe. And by looking closely at it we can answer the key empirical question underlying the gay marriage debate. Will same-sex marriage undermine the institution of marriage? It already has.More precisely, it has further undermined the institution. The separation of marriage from parenthood was increasing; gay marriage has widened the separation. Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher. Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage, Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.
It certainly is an important piece, and anybody with interest in any facet of this debate ought to read it in its entirety. Apart from directing people to the essay, there doesn't appear to be much to say about it — at least until the opposition reacts. However, I do want to note a paragraph of particular interest to me, given my faith:
Yet the pattern is spreading unevenly. And scholars agree that cultural tradition plays a central role in determining whether a given country moves toward the Nordic family system. Religion is a key variable. A 2002 study by the Max Planck Institute, for example, concluded that countries with the lowest rates of family dissolution and out-of-wedlock births are "strongly dominated by the Catholic confession." The same study found that in countries with high levels of family dissolution, religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, had little influence.
Lane Core noted in a comment to this post that "only the Catholic Church is able to give a consistent, coherent response to pro-homosexual 'marriage' arguments." Obviously, I would insist that a consistent, coherent response can made within the boundaries of our secular government system without reference to religion. However, expanding to the full depth of the issue for individuals, beyond how the society ought to be structured and into how people should live their lives, Lane's point is much like Kurtz's: the dissolution of such institutions as marriage occurs through a sort of mutual orbit of cause and effect, where effect causes the next step to be easier to take, and the previous state more difficult to reclaim. The Catholic Church — in a way that will inevitably frustrate somebody on any given topic — reacts to culture slowly, mostly because it is rooted in thousands of years of theologically privileged tradition.
Of course, the Church, almost by definition, is also relatively well organized, as indicated by this rally that I would have attended, were it not for the duties of a birthday-girl's father. Eight hundred "protestors" may not seem like a lot, but in this area, and overlapping with the March for Life, it is.
Unfortunately, I mightn't have thought to read up on it if the local talk radio guy didn't promote his 5:00 discussion of the topic as I drove to the post office, because the Providence Journal printed not a word about it... that I can find. But even more infuriating than that silence, is the picture with which the Fall River Herald accompanied one story and with which it greeted visitors to its main page:
That's a blatant propaganda choice. It relates perfectly to something that Tim Graham said in the Corner today, when seeking to explain the limited coverage of the March for Life:
The March for Life is not strident and Dean-screamy from the podium, but solemn and prayerful and mourning. That would clash with their media profile of pro-lifers are violent haters.
At least the Boston Globe managed to close out its piece with this sentiment:
At the Worcester rally, Laurie Letourneau, founder of Mass Voices For Traditional Marriage, said that gay-marriage opponents "won't stand still." Before the two-hour rally began, Letourneau ripped a sign out of the hands of an audience member that said "No Homos Need Apply.""We're not trying to denigrate anybody," Letourneau told the assembly. "This is about love, not about hate."
(The Herald doesn't identify the woman in the picture, but I think it might be this same woman.)
As the night closes in over Rhode Island, I just wanted to write a note to let y'all know that I have a number of items about which to blog, but various things keep draining my time, including a two-year-old's birthday, a teacher-wife's school open house, various work-related matters, and a couple noteworthy events — big deals in my little world — that I'll let you know about when they come to pass. (And having to personally transcribe the David Kay interview didn't help me to get my schedule under control.)
So, stuff will appear in this space throughout the night and on into tomorrow.
Meanwhile, if you receive suspicious emails with zip attachments — don't open them!
PROEM:
Since Glenn Reynolds has paid me the compliment of linking to this post, bringing hoards of people here for the first time, I thought I'd note that, if you find that the page design makes for difficult reading, you can click "Turn Light On" at the top of the left-hand column for a lighter layout that will scroll with the text.
Glenn Reynolds notes Bryan Preston's efforts to make sense of what appear to be contradictory statements by ex-weapons inspector David Kay.
Kay told the Telegraph that some materials — not stockpiles, but perhaps substances and "some components of Saddam's WMD programme" — likely made their way to Syria. On the other hand, AP writer Scott Lindlaw summarizes David Kay speaking to NPR as follows:
U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, says the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now believes Saddam Hussein had no such arms."I don't think they exist," David Kay said Sunday. "The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist - we've got to deal with that difference and understand why."
What initially struck me was that Kay's statement is in the present tense, while Lindlaw's characterization is in the past tense. Having listened to the actual NPR interview, by Liane Hansen, from which the AP article draws, I think it equally significant that Lindlaw emphasizes "no such arms." Kay is, here, talking about stockpiles, which is a term that he uses deliberately throughout the interview with reference to the lack of evidence:
One has to be cautious in this regard. Because of the breakdown in social and political order at the end of the war and rioting and looting continued unchecked for at least two months, we're going to be left with ambiguity as to what we've found.My summary view based on what I've seen is that we are very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons. I don't think they exist. But that's my personal view based on the evidence as of when I left. The search is going to go on, and indeed, one shouldn't be surprised in Iraq by surprises. You continue to be surprised by what you find. I personally think we're going to find program activities, and some of them are quite substantial, as in the missile area. We're not going to find large stockpiles.
Of course, one could spin this to say that Kay probably believes that the weapons could have been there but have been moved, perhaps to Syria. Unfortunately, that's not the picture that Kay paints in totality. What he's saying is that Iraq clearly had weapons programs, some of which could have been made to bear fruit on short order, but that after the first Gulf War, Iraq did not engage in large-scale production of WMDs. Again, he emphasizes the scale that he is ruling out, and it's important to remember that most (if not all) previous claims of certainty had to do with stockpiles produced before the first war.
I've argued before that we who supported the war have no reason to back down if programs turn out to be all that can be proven, and they've already been proven. As for weapons, when asked why his statements differ somewhat from those of Vice President Cheney, Kay emphasizes that ambiguity will always exist:
I think we're both looking at what is an enigma from slightly different positions. Based on what I've seen there, my conclusion is they had not resumed large-scale production. There is uncertainty; that's one of the reasons it's important that inspections continue, and I look forward to Charlie Duelfur, who I know well and have a great deal of respect for, leading those inspections now so that we can come to a consensus view. My warning to the American public though is that there is always going to be some ambiguity here. The failure to establish security at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, allowing the looting to continue, meant the records had been destroyed and had been destroyed forever and can't be put back together again.
More than that, he suggests that, focusing on the WMD component of the argument, the President and the nation as a whole were justified in going to war on the basis of the information that was available. His admonition is that we must understand why our intelligence failed in order to fix it:
I actually think the intelligence community owes the President [an explanation], rather than the President owing the American people. We have to remember that this view of Iraq was held during the Clinton administration and didn't change in the Bush administration. It is not a political "got you" issue; it is a serious issue of how you could come to a conclusion that is not matched by the future. It's not unusual — I remind you — as you well know, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the intelligence estimate was that there were no nuclear weapons in Cuba. We learned only afterwards, and as former Secretary of Defense McNamara said in the recent movie, The Fog of War, two societies came within seconds of destroying each other based on a misperception of what reality was. Often estimates are different than reality. The important thing is when they differ to understand why. This is not a political issue. It's a fundamental issue of national security.
And here's where Ms. Hansen drops the ball completely as a journalist. Having stated that he believes it was reasonable, before the war, to characterize the threat as imminent, Kay offers this intriguing statement:
I must say, I actually think what we learned during the inspections made Iraq a more dangerous place potentially than in fact we thought it was even before the war.
You can listen for yourself (it's at 11:50 in the streaming audio), but to my ear, Ms. Hansen's stutter and redirect back to "imminent" have the sound of a woman ushering one boyfriend out of a room in which another hides. What that stutter indicates — symbolizes — is that the ambiguity is certain to be exacerbated, even nourished, by the media, as the primary source is skewed and all subsequent coverage pushes the story closer and closer to what the reporters want it to be.
That, at least, is not surprising. But I'd sure like somebody to investigate what Kay meant.
ADDENDUM:
One thing that gave me a chuckle. Asked about the possibility of writing a book, Kay once again emphasized that it would be about the intelligence issues that he believes to be so important. Then he said, "I'm not doing a Paul O'Neill."
I went to print out an entry from this blog, yesterday, and I noticed that, while the sidebar printed in its entirety, the actual content ran off the first page and never reappeared. Therefore, I've created printer-friendly versions.
On any individual entry page, click "Printer friendly version," and there you go: Dust in the Light readable the old fashioned way.
(As always, please let me know if you encounter any glitches.)
Did you know that a Canadian dollar is called a "loonie"? As in: "The rising loonie is helping to slow inflation." Or, better: "You get more loonies for your dollar in Canada."
Ramesh Ponnuru highlights something that I've noticed in the various polls regarding gay marriage:
They find 58 percent opposition to the amendment, and 38 percent support, when the alternative of letting each state decide is presented. That's a noteworthy result. It tells us, for one thing, which argument opponents of an amendment are likely to find most effective. But to frame the alternatives in this way is not to ask a neutral question. It is to take sides in the debate. FMA proponents, for the most part, say that the whole reason an amendment is required is that a state-by-state approach is not a real-world alternative.
This is one of the reasons that I believe opposition to gay marriage will increase in tandem with public discussion and understanding of the circumstances and exigencies. As citizens come to understand that there isn't some phantom solution that would "leave it up to the states," support for the amendment will approach the level of the large majority of Americans that opposes gay marriage.
This, as Mr. Ponnuru suggests, is why activists such as Andrew Sullivan are hammering the idea that an amendment is "for ever" and misreading it in the most extreme way possible. I also suspect it's why media types are having apparent difficulty finding anybody able to argue against legalized gay marriage without recourse to religion (deliberately turning them away?). After all, if the issue is presented in the realistic terms — entirely within civil discussion of our secular government — of an amendment versus judicial imposition of gay marriage, people will be less likely to choose the vague option of "some other way."
Murky waters are clearly in the interest of gay marriage's proponents, and contrary to assertions to the contrary and proclaimed trends, time is not on their side. This, ultimately, is why I lean toward the hopeful side in reaction to President Bush's comment on the topic in his State of the Union. Even if he's attempting to keep one foot on the imaginary compromise, he framed the issue in terms of the two feasible choices.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from The Toonijuk," by Bill Goetzinger.
Although I'm always grateful and impressed whenever companies contact me to thank but no thank me for submitting my résumé for consideration, it's still a bit of a jab in the gut.
Such is the professional world. Recoup. Move forward.
In the spirit of moving forward, I've added some pictures of things I've designed in the recent past, but that I hadn't added to my online portfolio because I didn't yet have a plan for the major site redesign. If you're interested, I've added two new sets of page images to the books page, a couple of ads to the "promotional" page, and some new pictures to the illustration page.
As always: if you're looking to hire somebody like me, I'm available for the position.
I've been remiss in not saying anything about the March for Life and related happenings. For the most part, I haven't had anything to add to what I've seen elsewhere, particularly since I'm so busy and stressed. But to remedy my negligence somewhat, herewith is a piece of mine that is no longer online in full (because it's in the Just Thinking book).
Quality Inspectors to Make Rounds
by Justin KatzNew York, June 3, 2012 — The New York chapter of Defenders of Ensured Termination Healthcare will host a skewer barbecue at City Hall this Saturday to celebrate the mayor's decision to require Abortion Quality Inspectors in all ob-gyn medical facilities.
"We believe that doctors that ask patients who want to exercise their option of choice to seek the procedure elsewhere put those women at risk of receiving substandard medical care," says Kathy Quillit, executive director of DETH. She adds, "And the recently passed law requiring all doctors to provide abortion care is not enough on its own. Who knows what these fanatic doctors might do?"
To safeguard against "medical activism," Abortion Quality Inspectors will be licensed to carry firearms while protecting patients' right to safe and comfortable abortions. The move comes after some doctors refused to comply with city requirements that they learn and provide unwanted-pregnancy termination procedures.
The policy will go into effect on July 1, the ten year anniversary of the inauguration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to make abortion training mandatory for all New York City medical students. At that time, many students opted to take advantage of a "conscience clause," and still others declined to offer the procedure even though they had been well trained in it.
Not everybody agrees with the latest measure. One conservative agitator, who asked to remain anonymous, citing "fear for my family," says, "This is why I believe that people on the Left know they are wrong. Rather than offer scholarships to like-minded med-students or campaign to encourage women to patronize certain doctors, they'd rather just force the medical profession to acquiesce to their pro-choice demands."
"I was in the first class that was no longer allowed to choose not to participate in abortion training," says Dr. Christian Hashart, referring to the 2007 change in policy to allow only ordained religious medical students to opt out of mandatory abortion studies. "Frankly, I've tried to talk more than a few women out of aborting their children," he says.
Dr. Hashart is especially concerned about the infringement on patients' privacy once a Quality Inspector must be present during all of his patient-doctor consultations. Ms. Quillit justifies the move, saying, "It can be very harmful to women to hear an opinion from a respected doctor that is contrary to their own choice."
Safety is the central concern, according to the Abortion Quality Inspector General, Frank Lee Hitmynn. "We require all firearms to be turned in before Quality Inspectors leave the premises. We also require that all weapons be visible throughout the course of the day to make sure that the doctors don't get any funny ideas."
I wrote this piece in July 2002 and have been unable to locate Dr. Hashart for further comment since.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "from Ambushed," by Anne DuBose Joslin.
I have to admit that I was happily surprised to be in such agreement with a Glenn Reynolds column about teen sex:
Perhaps if teen-agers were encouraged to take on adult responsibilities and win status and recognition in constructive ways, they'd probably start acting more like citizens, and less like a leisure class, with all the vices that have historically attended leisure classes.If teen-agers weren't infantilized in so many other ways, they'd have a better base of judgment and self-respect, and could make better decisions about when they were ready to have sex and be more responsible about precautions and consequences when the time came.
Keep them productively engaged, and they won't be reproductive without engagement. (Ouch! Sorry 'bout that; it just popped out.) The dynamic is so powerful that one can observe it among the same group of teenagers in different places. The kids ringing up my pizza on a Friday night entirely lack the air of malice that hovers over probably some of the same kids as they saunter around town.
It doesn't even have to be work; hobbies and projects like making digital movies or music or even blogging could fill the void. It seems to me that, when people talk about children "growing up too soon," it generally speaks to their facing hardships before they're prepared. In contrast, I think what Glenn is talking about is allowing them to take on some of the responsibilities of adulthood before they have the dire consequences of adulthood.
(I'll tell you whether this is easier said than done in about fourteen years.)
Well, here're the last 15 tier 4 CDs. Please bid.
Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes
Vivaldi, The Four Seasons
Various, Album Network, Tune Up 29 (2 CD)
Various, Classic CD 11
Soundtrack, Faraway, So Close
Soundtrack, Hair
Various, Heck on Wheels Vol. 2
Soundtrack, Honeymoon in Vegas
Various, One in Spirit
Various, Psychedelic Mind Trip
Various, Rock Goes to the Movies in Dreams
Various, 70s Greatest Rock Hits Vol. 3: High Times
Various, 70s Greatest Rock Hits Vol. 6: FM Hits
Various, 70s Greatest Rock Hits Vol. 12: #1 Groups
Soundtrack, Until the End of the World
The Marriage Debate blog noted the latest development in a story that reached only the periphery of my current-events awareness when it first broke because I wasn't paying as much attention then:
In the first case in the nation that recognized a couple who entered into a Vermont civil union as spouses outside that state, Lambda Legal today asked an appeals court to uphold an earlier ruling that a gay man in New York is a legal spouse and able to sue St. Vincent's Hospital for medical negligence leading to his longtime partner's death.
I've given this story a bit of extra consideration not only because it is rooted in a pain with which anybody who cares about anybody can easily empathize, but also because multiple angles of the gay marriage debate and larger judicial problems come into play. The strands, suffice to say, of this ball in which emotion, morality, civil rights, religion, the role of the judiciary, and the sexual demands of the post-Sixties culture all tangle are difficult to unravel.
For an example of threads tying themselves together in unexpected ways, consider the difficulty that this case presents to somebody who opposes gay marriage, yet is by nature compassionate. Beyond forcing the Vermont civil unions in the first place, the American judiciary's loose — cut, paste, and blur — standard for precedent exerts its weight exactly where we might seek to rest a balanced, respectful conclusion. The court forces us to argue the cold, bad-guy side of a heartrending story because exceptions cannot be made without a high risk of their becoming the rule. By the same token, the case illustrates why a constitutional amendment is so necessary.
If precedent were more context-sensitive, then it would be possible to argue that, within this narrow set of circumstances, civil unions ought to act as marriages. (I'll address this suggestion in an addendum.) In the initial ruling (PDF), Nassau County Supreme Court Justice John P. Dunne explicitly left open the applicability of his reasoning to other areas in which marital policy intersects with the law, and considering the extent to which Dunne drew on such cases in other areas (e.g., rent-controlled housing) as well as the extent to which he makes use of selective precedent, there can be little doubt that he has flung open the door.
In one emotionally charged case — with an ideal plaintiff and particularly unforeseeable tragedy catalyzing the lawsuit — lie myriad angles through which gay marriage can become law by way of the judiciary. That this is so is a prima facie consequence of the magnitude of what the judge's logic has accomplished: not only is Vermont's civil union law imported to New York, but it is equated with marriage — all in one swoop.
The most direct way in which this case will become legal inclusion of homosexuals in marriage is that the court's reasoning will simply be copied as precedent for a less emotional issue. The court called a homosexual partner a "spouse"; therefore, the law says that such partners count as spouses, whatever the circumstances.
A more subtle path to the same end, including the direct precedent or not, emerges from Dunne's having rested his decision on New York's standards for handling the common-law marriages of other states. Considering that the couple was not from Vermont, merely going there for the purpose of marriage, the judiciary has invented a way around any and all New York marriage laws — at least for homosexuals.
At the most restrictive, gay couples would have to "honeymoon" in a state with civil union laws, enacting their union while there. At its most permissive, the state of New York will essentially have created "common-law marriage" for gays in every state — even states, such as Vermont and New York, that do not recognize heterosexual common-law marriages.
For one thing, Dunne has ignored the fact that common-law marriage isn't the sort of thing that can be established over a weekend. Moreover, revealing the tangled net that the American judiciary is casting to capture this cause, the Massachusetts Supreme Court was forced to admit that the opposite-sex definition of marriage derived from common-law and to assert the right to change it. Now, on the strength of New York's previous handling of common-law marriages from states that recognized them, Dunne writes:
Raum [a previous case that established an inconvenient, and thus "notwithstanding," precedent] held that the wrongful death statute excludes unmarried heterosexual partners to the same extent that it excludes unmarried homosexual partners, and therefore it does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Plaintiff cannot be categorized as an "unmarried" partner, rather he is like a common law partner, recognized in New York as a spouse because lawfully recognized in a sister state. To withhold recognition from one joined under the Vermont statute on the grounds that it is not a marriage, when it requires all the same formatlities as New York, and at the same time to extend recognition to a common law "marriage" of a sister state, does not withhold benefits equally from homosexuals and heterosexuals.
In this way, it comes about that homosexual couples are required to be treated as if they are married because all of the precedent that restricts heterosexual relationships like theirs does not apply to them. They are "married" because Vermont has set up a civil arrangement that is not marriage. They are entitled, for reason of equal protection, to be treated like married couples because unmarried heterosexuals in both their home state and the state of their civil union are not treated like married couples.
The shadow through which the judge slips is the difference, in the eyes of the law, between marriage and civil unions. If Vermont recognized common-law marriage to the exclusion of homosexuals, then it would be plain that civil unions and common-law marriages are not equivalent in either Vermont or, therefore, New York. Dunne takes the fact that the relevant categories are marriage, civil union, and nothing as reason to equate civil unions to a form of marriage that Vermont does not offer. (Legally speaking, it is important to note, marriage and common-law marriage are not really different forms of marriage, but merely different ways of entering into marriage.)
Another implication of this backward approach to requiring gay marriage to be portable is, obviously, that the Defense of Marriage Act was a waste of time and paper. Dunne dismissively concludes that "New York's public policy does not preclude recognition of a same-sex union entered into in a sister state." Therefore, because the state's judiciary, in the person of John Dunne, is accepting the gay marriage, the "government" is not being "required to give effect to" the marriage law of another state. Rather, the tacit argument goes, New York is opting to do so. Under its own laws it... requires said recognition.
Beyond the slippery methodology, with state courts' making a habit of citing each other's rulings, Dunne's logic will act as precedent, and this sentence will surely come into play:
It is unclear by what authority the Congress may suspend or limit the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, and the constitutionality of DOMA has been put in doubt.
For its part, the New York case undermines DOMA both on the basis of treating civil unions as marriage without calling them such, and by making ambiguous to the point of inapplicability the idea of "required to give effect." Meanwhile, the California legislature has illustrated that New York's lack of a "mini DOMA" was not the decisive factor.
By a one-vote-majority party-line vote, that legislature has passed a domestic partnership law (in effect in 2005) that will equate those arrangements with marriage, despite the majority demand of the people that marriage be defined as between a man and a woman. So, even in states that have explicitly declared marriage to be limited to heterosexuals, civil-unions-gay-marriages-whatevers can be construed to grant all of the rights of marriage and, therefore, to be marriage.
Thus, in every state, in every area in which marriage touches on public life, most of which are personal and carry a great deal of emotion, activists will leverage the courts to push through their agenda. Where possible, they will push legislatures to create "marriage-like" unions that can then be moved across borders and transformed into relationships between "spouses."
The only means of stopping this avalanche mid-roll in such a way as to ensure that the decision to change the definition of marriage falls to the majority of our society is through constitutional amendment confirming the opposite-sex requirement and barring other civil arrangements from being treated as marriage-that-isn't-marriage. Without such a move, taken in full, there isn't even the plausible possibility of each state "experimenting" with such compromise measures as civil unions.
ADDENDUM:
This case also shows why civil unions cannot, under equal protection, be limited to homosexuals or even, properly, members of the same sex or exclude close family members. If the logic — and emotional hook — is the degree of interdependence and commitment, there is really no reason to limit the benefits to gay couples.
In an emotional case akin to the one facing the courts of New York, would we discriminate against, say, heterosexual friends of opposite sex who were emotionally and financially reliant on each other merely because they were "just friends"? (That is, on the basis of their sexual orientation.) Or what about family members who are in the same situation?
Such argument is probably moot, anyway — what with judges taking the approach that their burden is to fit their preference into the law rather than judging what the law actually states.
Maureen Dowd is a walking, writing argument for government regulation of supposedly respectable opinionistas. Fortunately, she's not a very good argument for anything.
So bad has she become — such an outright joke — that she's now mocking herself, albeit perhaps not (yet) consciously. How else to explain a delusional column titled "Riding the Crazy Train"? How else to explain the fact that "ombudsman" is the final word of the piece? She's like a con artist whose deeply buried conscience is inspiring risks with the hope of being caught.
She even provided a perfect, obvious, and easily checkable example of her M.O.:
You wonder how many votes he scared off with that testosterone festival: the taunting message, the self-righteous geographic litany of support? The Philippines. Thailand. Italy. Spain. Poland. Denmark. Bulgaria. Ukraine. Romania. The Netherlands. Norway. El Salvador.Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?
The litany that the President actually offered was:
Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries
It could not have been other than a conscious choice that she skipped the first four and Hungary. In other words, she knows that she's hawking (perhaps believing) a distorted view. The message is unmistakable: "I don't care about reality."
One might suggest that the New York Times joins her in the additional statement: "I don't care about the truth."
ADDENDUM:
Following the trackback link to this post leads to a useful illustration by Citizen Smash for Ms. Dowd's and others' benefit — a map of Europe making the distinction between the Coalition of the Willing and Old Europe. Somehow, I think Ms. Dowd's view of Europe is more akin to this.
I'm busy working, but I wanted to offer a quick review of two statements from the State of the Union last night because I've noticed that misunderstandings abound. The first, and most common (no links needed, just look around), is in response to this:
I signed this measure proudly, and any attempt to limit the choices of our seniors, or to take away their prescription drug coverage under Medicare, will meet my veto.
On its own, this looks like an attempt to split the middle, warning folks on the left who wish to edit out the freemarket components and folks on the right who wish to nix the thing altogether. As John Miller notes, there aren't many people in the latter category. Combine that truth with the fact that the previous paragraph dealt with the freemarket/choice aspect:
Under this reform, senior citizens will be able to keep their Medicare just as it is, or they can choose a Medicare plan that fits them best -- just as you, as members of Congress, can choose an insurance plan that meets your needs. And starting this year, millions of Americans will be able to save money tax-free for their medical expenses in a health savings account.
And it looks as if the veto warning was pretty strongly against those who would reform the reforms out of existence — with a nod in the other direction for the sake of a uniter-not-divider tone.
The second misunderstanding has to do with probably the oddest part of the entire speech:
To help children make right choices, they need good examples. Athletics play such an important role in our society, but, unfortunately, some in professional sports are not setting much of an example. The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football, and other sports is dangerous, and it sends the wrong message -- that there are shortcuts to accomplishment, and that performance is more important than character. So tonight I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough, and to get rid of steroids now.
In response, Jeff Jarvis asks, "What the hell is the government doing getting involved in sports and steroids?" Well, the government isn't "getting involved" with them; the President just used his giant megaphone to encourage the sports industry to do something about steroids because... well, for whatever reason Bush had for doing that.
Well, I made it a full three weeks before my first career-related panic attack of the year. I'm not exaggerating when I say that, careerwise, I'm completely lost — staggering around the alleys of the economy like a vocational vagabond, spread too thinly, with too many interests and no reason to pursue any one with particular vigor, because there's little variation in lack of apparent opportunity, yet clinging to each like a worn bit of cloth in the dead of winter. More and more regularly, I've found myself lurking by the entrance of St. Jude's Home for the Uselessly Talented.
I'm going back to the drawing board with the Flash site. I just wasn't translating the vision with which I began into a final design, and it may be the case that I have to do some self-training before I'm able to do so. Perhaps a whole new concept is in order. We'll see. Meanwhile, my attempts to restart the piano playing are slipping (I've always found it more difficult to motivate myself to practice without a real piano, for some reason), and a delayed Web design means a delay in a return to writing my next book.
Well, such is life, particularly when full-time employment doing anything remotely similar to one's interests and/or well paying becomes like fruit to Tantalus, when one's family still lives in a shack, and when one has another child on the way. It is best, of course, to concentrate on that which is going well, but somebody must be aware of the looming dangers, and being that somebody in my house, I'm allowed to vent, no?
I began the year with three weeks of irrational optimism. With effort on my part, it will return, but there's a very real possibility that this could be the Year of the Second Breakdown. (Then again, the Year of the First Breakdown brought the first steps toward conversion.)
Stay tuned.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Sustenance," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Providence Journal offers a view into the living room of the most famous Bush-supporting Rhode Islander:
On Friday, Ashley's father, Thomas, received a phone call from the president's speechwriter. Pearson, a truck driver, called Ashley up from the basement."He said I'm in big trouble," the tall and thin fifth grader said. "I didn't believe him."
Her dad broke the news: President Bush liked her letter so much, he planned to read it in his State of the Union address on national television. The family was stunned. ...
Ashley wrote the letter right after the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"I wanted to make sure that the troops got notice that I was proud of them and so were my friends," she said. "I thanked President Bush for doing the right decision for going to war. I sometimes think war is wrong, but he did the right decision because we could have been killed."
Ashley's mom took a deep breath as the rhythm of the president's words signaled the speech was coming to a close.
What a thrilling and hopeful scene. Thank you, Ashley.
Oh, you'll hear more analysis than you want of the President's speech, so I'm not going to contribute to that avalanche, here, except for two points:
1) Regarding marriage, the President came out for an amendment more strongly than I'd expected, but not as strongly as he could have. He seems to be intent on putting the ball in the court of the judiciary and advertising the fact that it's there, but I'm not sure why. It almost gives the feeling that there's more going on behind the scenes — such as (to be paranoid) direct cooperation among judges — than the average citizen realizes.
It's more likely that he wants to ensure that any action he supports will represent a forced hand not only factually, but politically. I'm not sure when President Bush intends to kick his support into gear, or what he expects to be the trigger. Is he waiting for some word from Massachusetts? Will he swoop in upon the first court to transport a Massachusetts gay marriage to another state? Will that leave time? I don't know the answers to these or many other questions, but I kinda sorta got the feeling that the President had something in mind and wasn't just spouting hopes to keep his social conservative base in his camp. We'll see.
2) The Democrats offered a fabulous example of why they're in trouble, with slim chances of a recovery. Until they don't feel compelled to keep their seats when a Republican President lists all of the signs that Americans' financial lives are improving, they will continue to lose their connection to those Americans.
Just so Craig Henry doesn't feel himself alone in his dirty little secret, I empathize with this confession:
I know that conservatives are supposed to be excited that Dennis Miller is pro-Bush and that Arnold won in California. But to tell you the truth, i'd swap both of them for a half dozen candidates willing to log the miles and endure the mockery while they carried the conservative message into (currently) inhospitable areas.
Even if he is talking about Kucinich.
Arguably, Miller and Arnold bring select conservative views into about the most inhospitable area of American society, but the emphasis is entirely different than with the quality that Craig is lauding. Arnold ran for office because he believed he had a shot at winning; Miller has found himself a brand new audience — and solidified a base that he already held. Kucinich knew he would lose and thought his (loony) beliefs sufficiently important to run on them anyway.
Patrick Sweeney writes on politicians and religion:
If these men and women are sincere in their claims to believe and profess the Catholic faith, then they acknowledge that at the end of this life they face neither a poll nor the Supreme Court but another judge.
It seems to me that evil has won the game when the one inadmissible factor in a decision is a leader's religious belief. (Of course, God is often cited, but only with the tacit understanding that His approval isn't decisive — or even more than a public endorsement.) Consider this JFK statement that Patrick quotes:
Whatever issue may come before me as President--on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject--I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates.
How could it ever be possible for defying God to be in the national interest? And in what is your conscience rooted if not your religious belief? This is the sleight of hand whereby a politician builds an illusion of morality into a fundamentally amoral policy.
A President could certainly follow the rules of his office without reference to his faith inasmuch as the decisions require no judgment. But Americans don't want a President to be a paperpusher, an automaton; they want him to be a leader.
It speaks ill of our system of government that those who run for office have such difficulty saying what is so obviously appropriate and inescapable:
I will administer my position within the bounds and structures of my office, but when my duties require me to apply moral judgment, I will follow those religious dictates by which I've formed my conscience. However, where it is not given to me, in my public role, to express my conscience, I will concede what I believe to be right for the greater good of the rule of law and the blessing that is our representative democracy.
The whole thing — politics and government, that is — is hardly worth serious comment, though. None of it means anything, and all such declarations and promises are applied only as convenient... for the most part.
Michael Williams notes that billions of Saddam's dollars found their way to Syria and says:
That money rightfully belongs to the American people, and should be immediately claimed as spoils of war and used to pay Halliburton to develop Iraq's oil fields and build a giant pipeline to Texas through the center of the earth.
Wonder how many people out there wouldn't realize that Michael's kidding — probably about the same number who thought Dean's defeat speech erudite and inspiring.
The Timshel Music Song You Should Know this week is "Too Good to Be True" by me.
"Too Good to Be True" Justin Katz, Pop/Rock
Stream (HiFi) Download
I can't take it anymore. I've been laughing so hard my stomach hurts, and I want to personally thank Howard Dean for making my Tuesday morning so enjoyable.
Can't wait to hear Rush, today. [Rush wasn't as good as I expected. — JK]
ADDENDUM:
Stop. No, no, stop! As you poke around the Internet, see if you can keep from laughing every time you see that another columnist has spelled out — in all caps — Howard Dean's who-left-the-plunger-in-the-toilet yell.
ADDENDUM II:
Uh-oh. Is Dean a trendsetter?
"Howard's non-syllabic verbal flourish put his opponents on notice and set a new standard for statesman-like oratory," said the unnamed official. "During the foreign policy segment of tonight's address, the President will cut loose with a Dean-like jurassic screech that will set your hair on end. I've heard him do it in rehearsal, and it will definitely tell the terrorists that America is a force to be reckoned with. Our Commander-in-Chief is one tough velociraptor."
David Kupelian explored the dark side of our culture in a two part series:
Remember in the classic, biblical epic films of the 1950s, how Sodom and Gomorrah were portrayed? Drunken men with multiple piercings and bright red robes, with one loose woman under each arm, cavorting in orgiastic revelry against a background of annoying, mosquito-like music? Maybe a bone through the nose as well? Hollywood took pains to depict these lost souls in the most debauched and irredeemable manner — to justify their subsequent destruction with fire and brimstone as punishment for their great sinfulness.Guess what? Those Hollywood depictions don't even begin to capture the shocking reality of what is going on right here in America's culture today — I mean, they're not even close.
Lord help us. I think I know of ten righteous people... I think.
Kupelian prescribes home schooling as one method to raise children well amidst the madness. Parents must make their own decisions, but as tempting as home schooling is, I'm not yet convinced that it is for the ultimate good of the children or the society. (But then, I've always been a bit of a brawler.) At any rate, there is reason for hope exactly where it mightn't be expected:
Today's youth rebellion is not only against failing parents, but against the entire adult society — against the children of the 1960s cultural revolution who grew up to become their parents. Unfortunately, many of us never shook off the transforming effects of that national trauma, which birthed the "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" youth counterculture, the leftist hate-America movement, the women's liberation movement and overriding all, of course, the sexual revolution.
By this point in the second part, Kupelian clearly means "youth rebellion" to indicate children's taking their culture to the next level of depravity. That's not the whole story, however. Some number of those children of the children of the Sixties are rebelling toward morality. In that respect, Kupelian is absolutely correct that proper culture is going to have to reassert itself as a subculture, first. But that doesn't mean that those who would initiate the subculture ought to disengage themselves into caverns of home schools and secret living-room gatherings.
Now that the blog is redesigned and will do me for at least another year and a half, I'm back to trying to crank out the first Flash version of timshelarts.com, and I've gotten it to a point at which I'm not embarrassed to show it. So, if you've got a Flash player and relatively good bandwidth,
