The Opinionator: 17 September 2007

September 17, 2007, 5:37 pm

Tough Talk on Iran (in French)

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: france, Iran

Ah, what must we Americans do to tamp down raging French bellicosity?

“The world should ‘prepare for war’ with Iran, the French foreign minister has said, significantly escalating tensions over the country’s nuclear program,” reports The Telegraph of London,

“Bernard Kouchner said that while ‘we must negotiate right to the end’ with Iran, if Teheran possessed an atomic weapon it would represent ‘a real danger for the whole world.’ ”

The Dutch blogger Michael van der Galiën is pleased:

One gets the impression that France is finding its old imperial soul back. No, I don’t favor Europe colonizing the world once again, but I do favor a strong and active Europe. We have lived too long in our Kantian paradise, pretending that the entire world is like us. The Americans understand much better that while Europe may live in its Kantian paradise, the world still lives according to the Hobbesian law: it’s all about power. Power is not something to be feared, but to be [pursued] and used.

Blake Hounshell at Foreign Policy magazine’s Passport blog, however, thinks the top man at the Pentagon, Robert Gates, may supply a calming influence. He writes:

I think we know what side of the burgeoning “bomb Iran” discussion Bob Gates is on. Speaking with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, who asked about comments by Gen. David Petraeus about Iranian Revolutionary Guards bases thought to be supplying arms to Shiite militants in Iraq, the U.S. secretary of defense indicated that diplomacy remains the Bush administration’s preferred approach to the Islamic Republic.

That Michael Mukasey">Oh, That Michael Mukasey

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: attorney general, Charles Schumer, Michael Mukasey

Have we had a senatorial change of heart? Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters cites a New York Sun article reporting that Senator Chuck Schumer, head of the judiciary committee, may not support attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey. “Schumer, who had openly championed Mukasey as a ‘consensus candidate’ to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General,” Morissey writes, “suddenly appears unsure.” He continues:

Just two years ago, Schumer pushed Mukasey as a contender for the William Rehnquist seat on the Supreme Court. The liberal group Alliance for Justice joined him in endorsing Mukasey as an alternative to John Roberts …. Bush has managed to strip Schumer of his last pretenses of fairness and honesty, and the Alliance for Justice may be next. Uncle Chuck couldn’t give a fig for “consensus.” He used Mukasey as a club to beat Bush two years ago… Schumer just had his bluff called, and one can expect that the confirmation hearings will feature several Republican committee members read into the record over and over again Schumer’s endorsement of Mukasey for the lifetime appointment.

Jeralynn Merritt at TalkLeft is also bemused:

What’s up with Sen. Charles Schumer? First he touts Mukasey to Bush for both the Supreme Court and the Attorney General’s position, and now he’s promising a tough confirmation hearing and saying Judge Mukasey only has ‘potential’ to be a consensus nominee? … Maybe he should have ascertained the Judge’s positions on these issues before he recommended him for the job.

Merritt may be a proud liberal, but she seems satisfied by the White House choice: “[A]nyone Bush picks for A.G. is going to be a conservative,” she points out. “Mukasey has bucked the government in several cases, and I’ve found nothing to suggest he will be the administration’s water boy. Mukasey is a far better pick than Ted Olson or, for that matter, a career prosecutor who grew up under Ashcroft and Gonzales.”

Note: Jamie Heller at the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog has found some interesting excerpts from articles Mukasey wrote for the Columbia Spectator in the early 1960’s

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Judging Mukasey

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: attorney general, Justice Department

After much speculation that conservative hero and liberal bete noir Ted Olson would be tabbed to replace Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, it seems the Bush administration has chosen a nominee with a far lower profile: Michael B. Mukasey, a former federal judge from New York who has presided over several high-profile terrorism trials.

Deven Desai, an assistant professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, notes that “Judge Mukasey has a curious background.” Writing at Concurring Opinions, Desai continues:

He was a federal prosecutor with Rudy Giuliani and has ties to his campaign, served 19 years on the federal bench, and according to some interviewed by the Washington Post, is not well-known or likely to be favored among conservatives. Perhaps his rejection of the claim that Jose Padilla could be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant, which resulted in the case being transferred to South Carolina, upset some folks. Still as the Post notes, William Kristol of the Weekly Standard has written an editorial defending the choice.

Kristol suggests that even though Judge Mukasey denied the government’s motion in Padilla’s case he will be acceptable to conservatives. …

I can’t say I know enough about the man at this point. As Kristol posited, the right may be choosing someone who will not be challenged (Sen. Schumer of New York seems to like the choice) and do little harm from the right’s view in the year and a quarter left in this administration’s term.

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The Opinionator: 14 September 2007

September 14, 2007, 3:04 pm

Call My Lawyer

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: attorney general, Justice Department

Ted Olson is no Fredo: Matt Cooper, the Washington editor of Portfolio, still thinks Ted Olson, his attorney in the C.I.A. leak case, would be a good attorney general. “I wouldn’t appoint him Attorney General because I’m not a hard-core conservative,” Cooper writes at Capital, his Portfolio blog. “But this president is.” Cooper continues:

And Ted Olson, unlike Alberto Gonzales, is incredibly well qualified, maybe the best qualified person, to take the job under a Republican president. What’s more, he’s right wing but not, I think, reflexively so. After all, he sided with former Associate Attorney General James Comey in that showdown with Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card at John Ashcroft’s hospital room. He’s got a civil libertarian streak; see his work on First Amendment issues. As an experienced litigator, he’s by nature less of an ideologue than a judge or academic.

Senate Democrats, who are threatening to reject Olson if President Bush nominates him for the post, should be careful what they wish for. “[I]f Dems reject him, that’s a bad precedent for their presidencies,” Cooper writes. “They ought to be free to appoint liberals who are as partisan and brilliant as Olson.”

(Cooper made a similar case for Olson in August.)

September 14, 2007, 10:01 am

Not Quite Damned

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: George Bush, Iraq

In a faint-praise-filled editorial titled “The Least Bad Plan,” The Washington Post editorial page gives a cautious thumbs-up to President Bush’s speech last night.

The editorial says that “the president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure — because Iraqi political leaders did not reach the political accords that the sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make possible.”

But it concludes on a supportive note:

Still, there are no easy alternatives to the present policy. In the past we have looked favorably on bipartisan proposals that would change the U.S. mission so as to focus on counterterrorism and training of the Iraqi army, while withdrawing most U.S. combat units. Mr. Bush said he would begin a transition to that reduced posture in December. But according to Gen. Petraeus, Mr. Crocker and the consensus view of U.S. intelligence agencies, if the U.S. counterinsurgency mission were abandoned in the near future, the result would be massive civilian casualties and still-greater turmoil that could spread to neighboring countries.

Mr. Bush’s plan offers, at least, the prospect of extending recent gains against al-Qaeda in Iraq, preventing full-scale sectarian war and allowing Iraqis more time to begin moving toward a new political order. For that reason, it is preferable to a more rapid withdrawal. It’s not necessary to believe the president’s promise that U.S. troops will “return on success” in order to accept the judgment of Mr. Crocker: “Our current course is hard. The alternatives are far worse.”

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"The Opinionator: 14 September 2007" >>

Waiting for the Fed, and Hoping

By FLOYD NORRIS

Published: September 14, 2007

That there is a financial crisis is clear. What is not so clear is whether the medicine in Dr. Ben Bernanke’s bag can do much good.

Next week, the Federal Reserve is expected to make the first cut of the Bernanke era in the federal funds rate. The Wall Street debate is over whether that cut will be just a quarter percentage point, or whether the Fed will show its determination to act by cutting the rate by twice that amount.

That the debate has gotten this far is evidence that the economy now seems much weaker than it did when Mr. Bernanke was testifying to Congress in July, just as the credit squeeze was getting under way. Then, he seemed to think there was no need for any cut at all, despite the crumbling housing market and the growing subprime problems.

A new poll of corporate chief financial officers, taken by Duke University and CFO Magazine, shows a surge in pessimism. Nearly a third of the financial bosses say their companies have been hurt by the credit market turmoil. And few see much benefit from Fed action. Nearly half think a cut of half a percentage point would not help their companies at all, and most of the rest see only a small benefit from such a move.

For many companies, the immediate credit issue is not price, but availability. Can they borrow enough money to get by?

The next part of the crisis may come from a company that is unable to borrow enough money to pay off maturing commercial paper. The Fed can help there, with gentle urging to banks not to be overly tight in their lending standards, and there is reason to hope that the immediate problem will pass with banks taking on a lot more loans.

But even if it does pass, there is the question of where companies will borrow in the future, whether to finance expansions or acquisitions, or just to raise capital if and when their business turns down. The credit markets were wide open just three months ago. Now they are all but shut to companies with speculative-grade ratings.

In the second quarter, the total volume of new junk bonds and leveraged loans averaged $88 billion a month. In August, the figure was $6.6 billion. That is a 93 percent decline.

“For the first time in years the loan market is all but gridlocked,” Standard & Poor’s said this week in its leveraged company commentary. “Demand has withered, forcing arrangers to put the massive calendar of underwritten deals on ice.”

That has happened, it may be noted, with virtually no defaults on corporate loans. But the majority of such loans were financed through securitizations, in which the risk was sliced and diced in ways that enabled most of the money to be put up by investors who bought securities rated AAA, the highest possible rating.

Sometimes those ratings were a bit off. Three weeks ago, one such security still had AAA ratings. But since then Moody’s has cut it twice, and it is now in the nether regions of junk, rated Caa2, with Moody’s warning it could go lower. It’s sort of like going from class valedictorian to remedial reading failure.

That fall is unusual, but instructive. The security in question, called a variable leveraged super senior certificate, was sure to be safe unless the market value of a bunch of AA-rated securities collapsed. Those securities are still rated AA, Moody’s tells me, but their market values have plunged.

“Liquidity in asset-backed markets has dried up,” Merwyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, told Parliament this week, and banks will have to return to their historic roles as financial intermediaries. “That process,” he added, “is likely to be temporary, but it may not be smooth.”

Eventually, perhaps, a safer and more cautious securitization market will develop. In the meantime, banks, and perhaps some institutional investors, will be called upon to finance corporate loans directly. Until some part of that happens, the credit squeeze is on.

Lowering the fed funds rate — the rate at which banks lend to one another — will not hurt. It will make it cheaper for high-quality borrowers to raise money, and some of that will filter down. But it will not address the issues that have caused credit to tighten.

Nor will it get us closer to learning just where prices will settle — whether for homes or companies — in an era when risky loans are no longer easy to come by. This week’s stock market euphoria at the prospect of Fed easing is likely to be temporary.

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Domestic Disturbances: a blog at the NY Times by Judith Warner

September 13, 2007, 6:40 pm

Horned and Scorned

Tags: cuckolds, the clintons, the sarkozys

“A prudent cuckold (and there are many such at Paris), pockets his horns, when he cannot gore with them; and will not add to the triumph of his maker by only butting with them ineffectually.”
– Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, “Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1753-54 ”

One last, lingering thought on France:

It was fascinating to be on the other side of the Atlantic this summer while Americans were chewing over our latest rounds of slimy political sex scandals.

It wasn’t that the sinning, maneuvering and marital posturing of the Larry Craigs and David Vitters received so very much attention. It was, rather, that their stories seemed so dreary, so tawdry and so second-rate compared with the much more dignified and attractive tableau vivant of family disorder exhibited by France’s new president, Nicholas Sarkozy, and first lady, Cécilia.

In case you missed it, Sarkozy last year greatly entertained France by running a campaign in which his wife was almost entirely absent. Cécilia, a former model whom Nicholas first eyed, in his previous incarnation as mayor of the city of Neuilly, while administering the vows that consecrated her last marriage, left him in 2005, eventually showing up – and being photographed – with her lover in New York City.

The Sarkozys ultimately reunited. But life together remained rocky. Cécilia made major headlines once again last May when she pulled a no-show on the night of her husband’s final run-off race against his Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal.

She was rumored not to have voted at all.

Yet by summer, in the press at least, all was forgotten. When I was there, every major magazine featured glowing profiles of the new first lady. They praised her charm, her fashion sense, her break-the-mold modernity.

Could such public forgiving and forgetting of a wanton political wife ever have happened here? And could Americans, like the French, ever elect a cuckold to the presidency?

The question is more relevant than it seems.

I’m thinking, of course — aren’t I always? — of Hillary Clinton.

I spent the end of the summer thinking how remarkable it was that Cécilia’s affair hadn’t sunk Nicholas Sarkozy’s presidential prospects. After all, throughout history, the “cuckold” has typically been viewed as a fool, lacking in wit, power and general masculine wherewithal. It’s believed that the image of a cuckold as horned fool dates back to a legend of European villagers donning horns and parading around to humiliate betrayed husbands.

Although a female version of the word cuckold exists (it’s cuckquean), it’s little used, probably because, as far as the larger sense of the word’s meaning is concerned, there has been no female equivalent of the cuckold. Wronged wives typically have been figures of sympathy, not jest. The difference has stemmed, I think, from the fact that, throughout history, a wife’s infidelity meant that male power and privilege was upended. The natural order of things was usurped.

At least, that’s the way it’s traditionally been.

Sarkozy has made a lot of bold and defiant gestures since winning the election – appointing Socialists to key government posts, vacationing in America – but perhaps one of his boldest, cleverest and most successful has been the fact that, by keeping his head high, standing by his woman and steadfastly, defiantly, professing his love and desire (she is “the only non-negotiable part” of his career, he has said), he has transcended the old role of cuckold. He has instead been something more like a political wife.

As for Hillary – contemplating the Sarkozys this summer drove home to me the gender-bending aspect of her own unfortunate personal history. A formidable woman of real power and prestige, she emerged from the Monica affair much more cuckold than cuckquean. Her husband’s perfidy did, in a sense, disturb the natural order of things; in the post-feminist age, women like Hillary are not supposed to be subject to such indignities.

Hillary has never been, as she herself once put it, “some little woman standing by my man.” Perhaps that’s what made the spectacle of her public humiliation so unique and so unsettling and, ultimately, so unforgivable for the many women who came away from it all despising her.

I think I now understand that particular aspect of the Clinton conundrum in a way I never did before. It comes down to this: nobody likes a cuckold.

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The Opinionator Sept 11-13

September 13, 2007, 2:21 pm

Mash a Smash?

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: debates, Elections 2008, Internet

Who cares if it’s not really a mash-up? The Yahoo!/Huffington Post/Slate forum for the Democratic presidential candidates is now live, and Todd Beeton of MyDD.com thinks it’s pretty good. Beeton writes:

Although not technically a debate, this is one of the best forums we’ve had to hear the views of the candidates if only because each candidate is allowed to delve more deeply than normal into each of only 3 topics. It’s also refreshing to see the “lower tier” candidates given as much time as the front-runners so they can actually be heard for a change. What’s missing, of course, is the opportunity for candidates to clash head-to-head but that hardly happens during the normal debates anyway.

Internet evangelist Jeff Jarvis is, shall we say, less positive. Writing at his BuzzMachine blog, Jarvis calls the forum “a pathetic insult to the voters that is years behind in Internet culture.” He adds:

So we end up with watching Charlie Rose and Bill Maher asking the candidates questions on the usual topics –­ do we have a shortage of this on TV debates? Where’s the interactivity? Well, we get to pick which videos to watch. Oooh, the freedom. It’s like a bad children’s museum: “Here, children, push this button. You won’t do any harm.”

We should be the ones asking the questions. We should be the ones selecting the questions. We should be the ones editing the questions.

Instead, they give us buttons to push. What an insult.

Jarvis proposes a way to make the debate a true mash-up: “For you see, it’s not just about us watching. It’s about us producing and broadcasting.” He elaborates, “Indeed, why not go one step farther and take all the video from all the debates ­ since they are open to our unrestricted reuse ­ and put them together so we can produce and publish the ultimate mashups from the election so far?”

September 13, 2007, 10:00 am

With Friends Like These …

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: conservatives, Fred Thompson

It is an understatement to say that two prominent conservative opinion-slingers are unhappy with Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign rollout. In his Washington Post column, George Will writes:

Fred Thompson’s plunge into the presidential pool — more belly-flop than swan dive — was the strangest product launch since that of New Coke in 1985. Then, the question was: Is this product necessary? A similar question stumped Thompson the day he plunged.

Will then dissects Thompson’s interview with conservative talk-radio host Laura Ingraham about his past support for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. Will writes of Thompson, “His rambling, incoherent explanation was just clear enough to be alarming about what he believes, misremembers and does not know.”

Robert Novak is less unkind but still critical. “Thompson’s late start in itself is not a fatal flaw,” Novak writes in his Chicago Sun-Times column. “Still, it had been conceded in party circles that when he finally became a candidate, his beginning better be memorable. It was not.”

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September 12, 2007, 4:17 pm

Political Mash-Up, Half-Baked

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: debates, Elections 2008, Internet

Tonight’s presidential “mash-up” debate, sponsored by The Huffington Post, Slate and Yahoo! is neither a debate nor a mash-up, complains National Review’s Jim Geraghty at his Campaign Spot blog.

Geraghty links to a Wired story by Sarah Lai Stirland that explains the problem:

Mashups typically involve the combination of two disparate elements — for example, metropolitan crime data and Google maps, or rapper Jay Z’s The Black Album and the Beatles’ The White Album — to make new creations such as chicagocrime.org or Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album.

To that end, Yahoo said as recently as Friday that it would upload the raw footage from the online debate to its own web-based video editing service Jumpcut, to make it easy for the footage to be spliced and diced as citizen editors saw fit. “Users will be able to create their own mashups and post the footage onto their websites afterwards — that’s for the hardcore fans who want to engage with this video,” spokesman Brian Nelson told Wired News.

But on Monday, Nelson called back to say the company had changed its mind. Instead the “mashup page” will only [let] citizens pick and choose which candidates they want to hear from on particular issues, by pointing and clicking on a web interface.

Geraghty concludes, “So in the end, users can… watch 15-minute interviews with the Democratic presidential candidates conducted by PBS host Charlie Rose. Thrilling!”

(Click the following link to read six articles published on the Times op-ed page last month as responses to the question, “What would a real new-media debate look like?”)

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September 12, 2007, 9:50 am

MoveOn’s General Disagreement

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq, netroots

Time magazine political columnist Joe Klein thinks the full-page MoveOn.org advertisement, which referred to “General Betray Us,” in Monday’s New York Times was “morally and politically outrageous.”

“MoveOn has handed the Bush Administration a major victory — at a moment when all attention should be focused on whether we should continue to commit U.S. troops to this disaster,” Klein writes at Swampland, the Time political blog. “Just nauseating.” (Gen. Petraeus hadn’t yet told Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia, that he wasn’t sure whether the Iraq war was making America safer when Klein wrote his blog post.)

Klein thinks the flap over the advertisement will be more than a one-day story. He writes:

Usually the Republicans are the ones who’ve tried to change topics at a crucial Iraq moment…but MoveOn usurped that gambit this time. This is going to put the Democrats on the defensive. They’re going to have to answer questions like the one posed by the odious Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida: Will you disassociate yourselves from this? The Presidential candidates will be asked…and they will have to either disassociate themselves from MoveOn (which the party’s base won’t like) or associate themselves with calling General Petraeus a traitor. And make no mistake: One who betrays us is a traitor.

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September 11, 2007, 3:43 pm

Thompson’s Legal Work for the Libyans

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Fred Thompson

Christopher Orr, a senior editor for The New Republic, is outraged that “more is not being made of the news that, back in 1992 when he was a lawyer/lobbyist, Fred Thompson billed a few hours of work on behalf of two Libyan intelligence agents charged with (and one of them later convicted of) the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.” Orr writes:

Several prominent lobbyists, including Tommy Boggs, turned down overtures to work for Libya on the case, despite offers of a reported $1.5 million retainer. Vicki Reggie Kennedy, wife of Ted, actually resigned a partnership in her law firm over its decision to represent Libya, even though–as far as I can tell–she was never asked to do any work on the case.

But not good ol’ Fred. Not go along to get along, take a dollar where you find it Fred. A couple dozen hours lobbying for abortion rights? Why not? A few more spent helping defend two men accused of a heinous act of terrorism? Heck, if it wasn’t Fred, it’d just be someone else, right?

In a political era in which the cost of a man’s haircut can be treated as though it were a window into his soul, you’d think people would be a little more curious what it says about Fred Thompson that he’d do work–even just 3.3 hours of it–for indicted terrorists.

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September 11, 2007, 9:46 am

A Failure by Any Other Name…

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Iraq

You don’t need to listen to Gen. David Petraeus to know that “the surge has failed, as measured by the president’s and Petraeus’s standards of success,” writes George Will in his Washington Post column. He continues:

Those who today stridently insist that the surge has succeeded also say they are especially supportive of the president, Petraeus and the military generally. But at the beginning of the surge, both Petraeus and the president defined success in a way that took the achievement of success out of America’s hands.

The purpose of the surge, they said, is to buy time — “breathing space,” the president says — for Iraqi political reconciliation. Because progress toward that has been negligible, there is no satisfactory answer to this question: What is the U.S. military mission in Iraq?

Americans are, and will always be, uncomfortable with “wars of choice” like Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, Will suggests. “What ‘forced’ America to go to war in 2003 — the ‘gathering danger’ of weapons of mass destruction — was fictitious,” he writes. “That is one reason this war will not be fought, at least not by Americans, to the bitter end.” He continues:

The end of the war will, however, be bitter for Americans, partly because the president’s decision to visit Iraq without visiting its capital confirmed the flimsiness of the fallback rationale for the war — the creation of a unified, pluralist Iraq.

After more than four years of war, two questions persist: Is there an Iraq? Are there Iraqis?

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The Opinionator: Sept. 10, 2007

September 10, 2007, 5:10 pm

Really Feel">Tell Us How You Really Feel

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Fred Thompson

Better red than Fred? “Now that Fred Thompson is officially in the race, it is appropriate to say that he is, on the face of it, by far the weakest potential president of the top tier Republicans,” National Review’s Richard Brookhiser writes at The Corner, the magazine’s staff blog. Brookhiser adds:

Fred Thompson came to the offices of National Review some years when he was still in the Senate. I liked him fine. He has done nothing, anywhere, ever. The Hubble Telescope could not find what he has done, because he has not done it.

It would be unwise to put such a man in the White House at this moment in history.

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September 10, 2007, 2:30 pm

Is ‘Equal Time’ Obsolete?

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Fred Thompson, Television

The Wall Street Journal editorial page hopes that Fred Thompson’s presidential bid won’t mean an increase in the size of the royalty checks written to Steven Hill and Dianne Wiest, Thompson’s predecessors on “Law & Order” in the role of the district attorney. “Citing federal requirements that force television broadcasters to give all political candidates equal exposure, NBC has stopped airing reruns of “Law & Order” that feature Fred Thompson,” the Journal editorial notes. “But we were glad to learn that the cable channel TNT, which airs more than 20 “Law & Order” episodes each week, has no plans to follow suit.”

Equal-time regulations should be junked entirely [$], the editorial suggests. “The ostensible justification for equal time provisions is that, in a world of media scarcity, broadcasters need to provide a political platform for everyone on an equal basis, lest one candidate gain an unfair advantage through more exposure.” It continues:

This might have made sense when these rules were written by Congress in the 1930s, but it’s a hard policy to defend in today’s media-saturated world. The sheer volume of media outlets today not only renders these regulations obsolete but also makes fair enforcement all but impossible. Should the FCC ban Netflix and video stores from renting Mr. Thompson’s old films? Or how about monitoring YouTube to make sure the number of Barack Obama video downloads matches Hillary Clinton’s?

As long as the equal time rules live, so will the temptation to expand their scope to cable, satellite television, the Internet and who knows where else. Congress should give them a proper burial.

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September 10, 2007, 10:00 am

Dowd’s Two Cents on Iraq

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: George Bush, Iraq

The chief strategist for President Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004 writes in The Huffington Post that the American public wants the United States to withdraw from Iraq and that “the best leaders are those who trust the will of the public, even if that means changing direction or admitting a mistake.” Matthew Dowd, who previously revealed his dissatisfaction with President Bush in an April interview with The New York Times, writes:

I share these thoughts as neither a Republican nor a Democrat. While I did serve as Chief Strategist for President Bush in the 2004 campaign, I now consider myself an independent and feel it is a good time to offer what I hope you will find is a measured, reflective and objective analysis of where Democrats and Independents and a large portion of Republican voters stand on the Iraq war today.

Dowd lists four statements that he believes sum up public opinion on the war in Iraq: 1) “In the public’s mind, the Iraq War was a mistake, and continuing the status quo is simply continuing on with a mistake”; 2) “The public does not see withdrawal from Iraq as a signal America doesn’t support the troops”; 3) “The public is waiting for leaders from both political parties to stand up to the president and say enough is enough. They would like this situation resolved — and soon — and there is no other solution acceptable to them other than bringing the troops home”; 4) “The war in Iraq is now seen exclusively as a foreign policy concern, and the American public no longer supports the initiative as part of national security. This is in stark contrast to the war’s beginning — at inception, the public perceived it as directly related to fighting terrorism, and thus it was seen as a domestic policy issue connected to homeland security.”

Dowd adds, “I hope this analysis helps bolster the leaders who are ready to stand up for the troops and for the vast majority of Americans in this country. Not only is truth on those leaders’ side, but politics is as well.”

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The Opinionator - September 7, 2007

September 7, 2007, 3:16 pm

Nothing More Than Feelings

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: Elections 2008, polls

Because, apparently, regular polls don’t give vague enough snapshots of Americans’ political opinions, Gallup has now conducted a survey of attitudes on the presidential candidates using a “feeling thermometer” rating scale. “Only one — Barack Obama — stirs up warm feelings in a majority of Americans,” the study found. “However, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and John McCain are all close to Obama in favorability. Clinton’s image is the most polarized of this group: nearly as many Americans say she leaves them cold as say they feel warmly toward her.”

But Joe Gandelman at his “independent thinker’s” blog, The Moderate Voice, points out that “Gallup notes that in getting a nomination these national rankings don’t outline the whole story. What’s important is how candidates are perceived within THEIR OWN party ­ and on that score Ms. Clinton is in good shape. Gandelman continues:

Expect Clinton’s foes ­ within and outside her party ­ to look at this poll material and adjust their campaign’s strategy and tactics accordingly. Most likely Republicans and Democrats will seek to drive up her negatives and perhaps even try to bait her into getting into situations that show her in the worst possible light. On her end, Clinton will have to continue to make the case that she can gain wider support than she has ­ and have it be increasingly evident in poll numbers as primary season unfolds.

Diane Meyer at Respublica, however, feels the real losers are the American people: “What’s mind boggling is the high percentage of people taking the poll who answered “never heard of” in response to Thompson, Biden, Romney, Richardson, Huckabee, and Brownback. Are these people living in a media free zone?”

A “media free zone”? At the risk of losing my paycheck, I’d still like to see Gallup do a “feelings” poll on that concept.

September 7, 2007, 9:00 am

They Don’t Need No Stinking Badges

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: corruption, Hillary Clinton

Patrick Healy at The Times’s Caucus blog has the scoop on the latest Hillary Clinton supporter to find himself in big legal trouble. The twist: it’s not Norman Hsu.

“Among the 11 public officials arrested in an F.B.I. corruption sting in New Jersey today was a leading Democratic supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign in that state, Mayor Samuel Rivera of Passaic,” reports Healy. “Blake Zeff, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, just e-mailed to say that Mayor Rivera stepped down from Mrs. Clinton’s Mayors Council today.”

Lawhawk, one of the Garden State lawyers at A Blog For All, calls it “one of the larger corruption arrests in recent years — and that’s even by New Jersey standards.”

Keven Hayden, founder of the liberal site American Street, blames the media for linking the incident to Clinton, when one of the 11 arested has “loose ties” to the Clinton’s campaign: “These are small potatoes crooks, selling out for far less than the crooks who fed off Jack Abramoff. And what does Clinton have to do with any of it? Not a thing.The corporate media is already sliming her…”

While they argue over the significance of the New Jersey scandal, the prolific conservative blogger Fausta Wertz looks into a trend: “The Busted Clintonistas — a good name for a rock band. Heck, make that a symphonic orchestra: there are 47 individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes. And that doesn’t include the ones still on the lam.”

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"The Opinionator - September 7, 2007" >>

Domestic Disturbances: A blog at the NY Times by Judith Warner

September 6, 2007, 9:50 pm

Slummy, Yummy . . . or Dummy?

Tags: france, school, Yummy Mummy

When you arrive, she will already be there. Well-coiffed, but not too well. Suntanned, but not too tan. Chic, but not too chic. Hanging off each arm she’ll have a perfect child, with a new backpack and a pretty, excited smile … begins the editor’s note in the current back-to-school edition of French Elle.

Naturally, she will have already done everything necessary so that her son is with the “right” third grade teacher. Naturally, she will already have told the lunchroom lady about her daughter’s problem with fish…. You, on the other hand, will grow even paler under your non-tan. Because, of course, you did not have the time to buy new backpacks, nor to attempt the slightest lobbying campaign for good teachers …

I do not usually read women’s magazines like Elle when I am in France. I prefer the newsweeklies and, for a special treat, the French People-substitute, Paris Match. (All Ségo/Sarko, all the time.)

But this summer was special. I went to France not just on vacation, not just to reconnect with the place where my children were born and I put down the first roots of my adult life, but on assignment. I wanted to research how to be a Yummy Mummy.

A Yummy Mummy, in case you’re not familiar with the phrase, is the term used in Britain for moms (mums) who are soignée. Trim and fashionable, well-turned-out and groomed, equipped with the latest must-have bags and shoes, widely smiling, insouciant, skilled in home decoration, furniture restoration, competitive skiing, dressage, and … well, they’re not really all that. I am indulging in a little bit of wish-fulfilling projection.

Indulge me.

You see, I’ve never actually met a Yummy Mummy. I’ve read about them in the British press; I spent a good bit of imaginary time in the company of one earlier this summer, when I read Fiona Neill’s hilarious new “mum lit” import, “Slummy Mummy.”

Reading “Slummy Mummy,” the account of an unbelievably spacey, slatternly, careless and careworn stay-at-home mum, made me acutely aware of my own borderline slumminess. It awoke in me a desire for yumminess.

But lacking the time or money to put into being truly yummy (“Come on now,” you are saying, “even if you did have the time or the money you wouldn’t waste it on such shallow, narcissistic consumerism.” You are wrong.), I decided to go for the next best thing, and use my vacation time to study my French sisters for how to ape the grace, style, joie de vivre and simple, seemingly effortless chic for which they are famous.

(“Ugh!” American expats in France are now snorting. “You’ve been reading too much Mireille Guiliano!” And they would be right.)

In fact, for the past nearly seven years since the moving truck closed its doors on the rue St. Dominique and we left Paris for Washington, I have spent, I see now, far too much time nourishing the fantasy that motherhood in France is lived more prettily, more graciously, more calmly, happily and romantically than on this side of the Atlantic.

I maintained this belief even after “Perfect Madness” was published in France last summer and women there told me that there was a lot in my portrait of the anxious, self-doubting, self-effacing, guilt-ridden, sexless American culture of motherhood that they could relate to. I didn’t believe them. I figured they didn’t know how good they had it, with their five-week vacations, multi-month paid maternity leaves, government-subsidized nannies, 35-hour work week, guaranteed right to part time work, free public schooling for three-year-olds – all things that freed up plenty of time and money for vacations in the sun, exercise, dinners out, séduction and other vectors of yumminess. It was all so taken for granted by them that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

But this year, for the first time, I saw it. Trawling for vestiges of yumminess among women who, like me, were now pushing middle age, I was confronted time and again by the yuckiness – the stress and mess and sense of too-muchedness — that so many of us know all too well in the United States. My friends, overwhelmingly, were kind of worn out.

They now all have children who are in the equivalent of middle and high school – far past the golden period of parental leaves and charming preschools that I remember from my time living among them. They’re facing an increased gap between the very best public schools and the mediocre mass. They’re seeing an increased tendency (in government-subsidized private schools) to kick out kids who don’t perform well enough to guarantee the school a 100 percent success rate on the baccalaureate exams.

There’s an increased sense of urgency to get into the very best colleges; there’s a sense that only top-level math and science studies can lead to admission to the best colleges; there’s a sense that the job market is being flooded by young talent from China, India and the rest of Europe; a sense that the fruits of success are being distributed more and more narrowly, that the gap between the rich and everyone else is being dug more and more deeply and that you have to do absolutely everything you can, from the earliest possible age, to guarantee your child a slice of the shrinking pie of prosperity.

The atmosphere of dogged competition provides fertile terrain for the Mommy Wars. (In the café, it’s with a heavy heart that you drop a third chocolate into your too-strong espresso and sit across from her, as she drinks an herb tea without sugar and finishes filling out the sign-up sheet for Wednesday afternoon swim lessons, Elle concludes. But be assured … The psychiatrists – no idiots – are already rubbing their hands. They know that, soon, in the privacy of their offices, it will be the children of the perfect mothers who will have the most to tell them.) The atmosphere fires all-too-familiar domestic wars. (“He does nothing around the house but criticize me when things go wrong,” one friend confided in me.)

Even vacation – always so precious – has now been compromised. By kids sitting at the dining room table doing remedial math. Or heading back early to attend pre-term class prep. Or taking off for an intensive language program or to meet a learning “coach,” or for a last-ditch attempt to find a place in a new school after all the neighborhood schools said no.

“You don’t understand what it’s like here,” a stay-at-home friend told me, one chilly late afternoon in Paris, as we sat outdoors drinking tea.

Seven years earlier, I’d interviewed her, also over tea, as she’d neared the end of her third maternity leave. I was writing an article on French mothers’ workplace advantages. Shortly after the article was published, she’d returned to work to find she’d been moved to an intellectually stultifying, more “family-friendly” position. “Petits-fours and seduction,” she’d e-mailed me. And she’d quit.

“It’s total madness,” she said.

I shifted in my seat, shivered, and stirred my tea.

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"Domestic Disturbances: A blog at the NY Times by Judith Warner" >>

The Opinionator - September 6, 2007

September 6, 2007, 4:11 pm

Partisanship Travels Abroad

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: Democrats, dennis kucinich, George Bush

President Bush got in a little swipe at Congress during his swing through Australia yesterday, and Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, the influential Chicago Democrat, quickly fired off a nasty letter to the White House. In the letter, published on The Tribune Co.’s The Swamp, Emmanuel calls the president’s remark a “false and gratuitous shot” and writes:

It has long been the custom that members of Congress do not go overseas and criticize the president ­ that partisanship ends at the water’s edge. But reading today’s accounts of the President’s remarks in Australia, it is clear he has a different view. Asked about the lack of political progress in Iraq, the President said Iraq’s Parliament had passed 60 laws, and added, “It’s more than our legislature passed.”

But Emmanuel must not have been following the doings of his colleague and presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who is currently visiting Syria: In the Jerusalem Post, Kucinich is quoted as saying, “I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation … I don’t want to bless that occupation with my presence … I will not do it.” The Post reports, “Kucinich, who accused the Bush administration of policies that have destabilized the Mideast, met with Syrian President Bashar Assad during his visit to Damascus. He said Assad was receptive to his ideas of ‘strength through peace.’ ”

The conservative Don Surber, writing on his blog at The Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail, has some advice for Emmanuel. He writes:

We shall see how serious Emanuel is about this water’s edge business. Emanuel heads the Democratic congressional efforts.

Unless he is an insincere, cheapshot-taking charlatan, Emanuel will withdraw all party help for Kucinich’s re-election bid to Congress and run a candidate against Kucinich in the Ohio Democratic Primary.

That is how Republicans handle their problems — right under the bus they go. Just ask Larry Craig.

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September 6, 2007, 8:10 am

The Man Who Wasn’t There

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: debates, Fred Thompson, Republicans

So who made the biggest impression at the big Fox News Republican presidential debate? The guy who didn’t show up, of course.

Jennifer Rubin at The American Spectator online feels that Fred Thompson’s team had a bumpy start:

Some days are just bad days. Todd Harris, Communications Director for Thompson, will have better ones than today … it was raining on Thompson over at NRO earlier. Now they dump more cold water, pointing to comments from Rush and more Fox coverage. Far be it for me to be the voice of restraint (or maybe I’m a contrarian at heart) but it’s all either wiped away in a week by a fabulous start or everyone shakes their heads and says: “Wes Clark.” It will have much more to do with what he says, the crowds he gets, and the energy he shows than anything that happened today. (Unless of course, this is not the end of the departures or all these disgruntled ex-Fredheads keep talking.)

John Podhoretz at The Corner sees a similar frosty welcome. “The Fox News debate began with a message from Fergus Cullen, the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican party, ‘Campaigns should be about more than 30 second ads,’ he said. Then he said something about how the candidates have worked hard over the past months to meet voters. Has the New Hampshire Republican party declared war on Fred Thompson?”

Meanwhile, Eric Kleefeld at TPM election central is gleefully checking up on the new candidate’s other problems: “Jim Mills, who only weeks ago left his position as a high-ranking Fox News producer in order to join Thompson’s communications team, has left the campaign. After about a month in the Thompson camp, Mills has been replaced by former Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Karen Hanretty and Bush 2004 communications staffer Jeff Sadowsky.”

It’s enough to warm the heart of any liberal loyalist, or at least of Jeralyn Merritt, writing at Talkleft:

“The other candidates have an 8 month lead on him and more money. I don’t think any Republican candidate has warmed the hearts and minds of voters. Not that I’m complaining.”

No, Jeralyn, the complaints seem to be coming from the right this morning.

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"The Opinionator - September 6, 2007" >>

The Opinionator - September 4 - 5 2007

September 5, 2007, 1:07 pm

Those Arrests in Germany

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: Germany, muslims, terrorism

Well, no sooner do I bring up concerns over Muslim assimilation in Europe than, as if on cue, the German authorities say they have discovered a more serious home-grown threat: two German converts to Islam (along with one Turkish resident of Germany) have been arrested for allegedly
“planning major terrorist attacks against several sites frequented by Americans, including the busy United States air base at Ramstein and the Frankfurt international airport.”

As of now the details are sketchy, but that won’t stop the Internet opinionizing. Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters has some cautious speculation:

This follows the Danish action to quash a terror plot in Copenhagen yesterday. These events are probably unconnected in the pragmatic sense, but symbolically may be another story. With the anniversary of 9/11 coming next week, terrorist cells would aim for a spectacular attack even without central coordination. It’s also possible that they are connected to al-Qaeda in a more direct fashion, and since these men got captured alive in both instances, we may get good intel on whatever connections they have.

John Cole at Balloon Juice feels the appropriate response is sarcasm. “Time to invade, since there apparently is a terrorism problem in Germany,” he writes. “Let’s bring freedom and democracy to Germany as we fight them over there instead of over here and do for Germany what we did for Iraq!”

While Ron Beasley at Middle Earth Journal finds a comparison instructive: “It sounds like this may have been a real one - unlike the phony ones the U.S. has been able to ‘break up.’ And they managed to do it with out ignoring 800 years of legal tradition and turning their country into a police state.”

So does Andrew Sullivan, although with a bit more gravitas:

Congrats to the Germans. Some obvious points: these men are educated, two of three are German nationals, all seem to have been trained not in Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan, but in Pakistan, a putative ally. It is hard to see how the Iraq war - whether a failure or a success - would have any impact on this tiny cell’s attempt at mass murder in the name of God. This is simply the religious violence we have to contend with for the indefinite future. All we can do is what the Germans did: keep up surveillance (with protections against abuse), and run as many to ground as we can.

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September 5, 2007, 9:13 am

Just How Are Muslims Integrating in Europe?

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: Europe, Immigration, integration, muslims

The European immigration debate received its latest coal to the fire in the form of an analysis of British data by four researchers at the private Instititute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany. (Download the PDF file here.)

The study found that “Muslims integrate less and more slowly than non-Muslims.” It continues:

A Muslim born in the UK and having spent there more than 50 years shows a comparable level of probability of having a strong religious identity than a non-Muslim just arrived in the country. Furthermore, Muslims seem to follow a different integration pattern than other ethnic and religious minorities. Specifically, high levels of income as well as high on-the-job qualifications increase the Muslims’ sense of identity. We also find no evidence that segregated neighborhoods breed intense religious and cultural identities for ethnic minorities, especially for Muslims. This result casts doubts on the foundations of the integration policies in Europe.

Michael van der Galiën, the prolific young Dutch blogger, is concerned but also sees some wiggle room in the data. “The researchers did not ask what national identity the immigrants identify with, they solely focused on ‘the importance of religion, attitude towards inter-marriage, and the importance of racial composition in schools,’ ” he notes at The Van Der Galiën Gazette.

“Therefore, the researchers admit that ‘it is very well possible that integration in terms of national identity […] follows a very different pattern than the integration in terms of attitude towards religion, marriage, and schooling, which is what we attempt to measure here.’ Other research has, indeed, indicated that when talking about national identities, Muslim immigrants do follow a more normal pattern.”

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September 4, 2007, 6:01 pm

Big Brother is Routine-Screening You

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: Health Care, John Edwards

Just as we were trying to decide whether John Edwards’s health care proposal would force us to visit the doctor, Britain’s minority Conservative Party is toying with the opposite idea.

“In a bid to ease spiralling levels of obesity and other health concerns, a Tory panel said certain treatments should be denied to patients who refuse to co-operate with health professionals and live healthier lifestyles,” reports the Evening Standard of London. “And those who do manage to improve their general health by losing weight and quitting smoking, for example, would receive ‘Health Miles’ cards. Points earned could then be used to pay for health-related products such as gym membership and fresh vegetables.”

Blogging lawprof Ann Althouse is, naturally, not impressed:

I’m picturing a whole weird future where we trade in government-granted points. Just tell me what you want me to do to get them and what I can buy with them. The parties could compete. One candidate says we should get points for having sex and writing blog posts and lets us spend them at ecologically correct resorts and restaurants that serve organic food. The other candidate is offering points for abstaining from sex and reading didactic books and lets us spend them on vitamins and memory foam beds. It will be endlessly engrossing, and after a while, you won’t even be able to remember what you actually like or want anymore.

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September 4, 2007, 2:25 pm

The Goldsmith Standard

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: jack goldsmith, Justice Department

Talk about advance publicity: five days before it hits the newsstands, a profile of the former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith in The New York Times Magazine is already the talk of the Internet. The author, Jeffrey Rosen, tells of conversations in which Goldsmith “recounted how, from his first weeks on the job, he fought vigorously against an expansive view of executive power championed by officials in the White House.”

“If there’s a villain in Jack Goldsmith’s account of his time in the Justice Department, it’s David Addington, Dick Cheney’s legal alter ego,” reports Spencer Ackerman at TPM Muckraker.

“Addington, who became the vice president’s chief of staff after Scooter Libby resigned following his indictment, served as Cheney’s eyes and ears in the legal battles within the administration over warrantless surveillance, coercive interrogations and indefinite detentions. His style of argument, as recounted by Goldsmith, isn’t exactly a subtle one.”

Lefty bloggers aren’t the only ones impressed. “For those with an interest in the development of legal opinions related to counter-terrorism efforts, including the infamous ‘torture memos,’ the article is a must read,” notes Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve law professor who writes at The Volokh Conspiracy. He continues:

Among other things, it discusses Goldsmith’s decision to withdraw some of the controversial memoranda. Goldsmith apparently withdrew more OLC legal opinions than any of his predecessors, including others related to the “War on Terror.” Goldsmith comes off very well in the article, as well he should. From what I understand of the internal debates on these issues, Goldsmith (and his deputy, Patrick Philbin) remained true to their conservative legal principles while resisting pressure to adopt ends-oriented conclusions in their legal analyses. The Administration could have used more political appointees like them throughout the Justice Department.

One mixed review: Marty Lederman, a Georgetown law professor who, like Goldsmith, served at the Office of Legal Council under President Bush, writes at the Balkinization blog that although he admires most of Goldsmith’s stands, “there are some points on which we disagree.”

One such point is the effect of Jack’s brave December 2003 repudiation of [Justice Department official] John Yoo’s March 2003 opinion. Yoo’s opinion had given a green light to the Pentagon to use “enhanced” interrogation techniques, and to ignore legal constraints such as the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Jack recounts (Rosen’s words) that ‘he could immediately tell the Defense Department to stop relying on the March opinion, since he was confident that it was not needed to justify the 24 interrogation techniques the department was actually using, including two called ‘Fear Up Harsh’ and ‘Pride and Ego Down,’ which were designed to make subjects nervous without crossing the line into coercion.”

Jack is referring here to the 24 techniques listed in Rumsfeld’s April 16, 2003 memo. Had the Pentagon complied with that memo to the letter, we would have largely avoided all of the atrocities that occurred in interrogation rooms in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003.

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September 4, 2007, 8:20 am

State of the Union Endorsements

By Tobin Harshaw

Tags: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, unions

For those who managed to enjoy an actual holiday on Labor Day, here’s the the big news on the Democratic side of election ‘08: John Edwards snagged the endorsements of the United Steelworkers and United Mine Workers unions. Mike Allen at The Politico calls it a “surprise announcement” that “gives Edwards the largest bloc of formal labor support among the Democratic presidential candidates.” Well, surprising or not, will it be enough to keep Edwards competitive?

“The Steelworkers are particularly significant,” says Karen Tumulty at Time’s Swampland. “Not only are they the nation’s largest private-sector industrial union, but they also are major players in Iowa Democratic politics.”

“If Edwards can win Iowa, union support will be essential in later-voting states such as Michigan and Ohio, where the auto workers are strong, and Pennsylvania, where the steelworkers are a major presence,” writes John Nichols at The Nation.

“And if he gets the Service Employees, he will enjoy a boost boost in California, where the union is a powerful political force in the Los Angeles area and beyond.”

The Atlantic’s Matt Yglesias doesn’t seem surprised, but he is a bit bemused by the Machinists union’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton last week. “I found this kind of puzzling,” he writes. “Word on the street was that they did this because they think she’s going to win, and they wanted to endorse the winner. That makes some sense to me, but if that’s what you’re going to do then it really seems like you need to do a better job of pretending that’s not why you did it. Sending the message the machinists sent — ‘we think you’re not the best choice on the merits, but we’ll support you anyway because we’re desperate for access’ — seems designed to minimize the union’s leverage. It seems to me that if your union likes Edwards but thinks Clinton is going to win, then the right thing to do is to stay neutral.”

A logical take, perhaps, but it seems that anyone looking for much neutrality in this election cycle is going to be gravely disappointed.

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"The Opinionator - September 4 - 5 2007" >>

The Opinionator: A blog at the NY Times by Tobin Harshaw & Chris Suellentrop

August 31, 2007, 6:16 pm

How Conservatives and Gays Can Get Along

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Gay Rights

Writing at the blog of the Independent Gay Forum, Jonathan Rauch (the author of “Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America”) links to an op-ed by Steve Lonegan, the Republican mayor of Bogota, N.J., that was published August 19 in The Record.

Rauch excerpts part of Lonegan’s op-ed:

Historically, gay Americans have struggled for the freedom to live their lives the way they choose in order to pursue happiness. This is the American Dream, the cornerstone of conservative thinking, and it is these principles that make the increasingly influential gay community the conservative movement’s natural ally.

Rauch comments, “Sadly, it is just about impossible to imagine any nationally prominent Republican, gay or straight, make that statement ­as opposed to the kind of statement Sen. Larry Craig made (‘I am not gay’).”

Lonegan’s op-ed was written in response to “the passing of a constituent, friend and fellow conservative who also happened to be gay.” In it, he proposes a bargain to be struck among religious conservatives and gay Americans: “Gays shouldn’t expect government to foist acceptance of their lifestyle on others; religious conservatives shouldn’t expect gays to abandon an integral part of their being.” Lonegan also writes:

Barry Goldwater once remarked that government cannot pass laws to “make people like each other.” His words still ring true today. Labeling people “homophobes” or “bigots” if they refuse to accept the entire gay agenda creates political fractures that work against individual liberties and serve to keep gay voters in the Democratic Party’s political ghetto.

The Republican Party must reestablish its commitment to the rights of the individual while respecting the moral code of one subset and upholding the freedom of another.

August 31, 2007, 10:13 am

The ‘He Never Proposed’ Defense

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Gay Rights, Larry Craig

Conservatives have begun making a few limited defenses of Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho. Writing at The Corner, National Review’s staff blog, Jonah Goldberg says “Craig’s (alleged) behavior is terrible” but not hypocritical, despite the senator’s voting record on gay marriage and other issues. Goldberg writes:

I’d like someone to walk very slowly through the argument that it’s hypocritical to A) indulge in anonymous gay sex in seedy locations and B) oppose gay marriage. Last I checked, the common definition of hypocrisy involves saying one thing and doing another. Well, Craig wasn’t trying to marry anybody in stall #3 was he?

Goldberg adds, “That being anti-gay marriage and anti-gay are synonymous is a entirely a political argument that people are confusing for a philosophical truth.”

The real hypocrites in this scandal are the Republican senators who have called for Craig’s resignation but not for the resignation of Sen. David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, who admitted to using the services of an escort: “from any social-conservative calculus (or at least my social-conservative calculus) prostitution has to be considered a greater social evil than cruising for gay sex in bathrooms,” Douthat writes.

Douthat criticizes “the unfortunate extent to which socially-conservative politicians have focused their fire on gays, because opposing gay rights was for a long time an 80-20 issue for the Right (though no longer), while studiously ignoring the various beams in heterosexuals’ eyes.”

Douthat concludes that “[i]t’s a hard pattern to break, but the G.O.P. could find worse places to start than making sure that Vitter shares whatever political fate awaits Larry Craig.”

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August 30, 2007, 3:36 pm

Novak: I Knew It Was You, Fredo

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Alberto Gonzales

Now he tells us! Seven years after his first meeting with Alberto Gonzales, Robert Novak relays the news that “several Republican senators” believed in 2001 “that Gonzales was not qualified for a senior government position.” Novak writes in his Washington Post column:

I met Gonzales for the first time in 2001 when, along with other conservative journalists, I went to the White House for a background briefing on the new president’s judicial nominations by presidential counsel Gonzales. I was stunned by the incoherence of the briefer. After checking with several Republican senators, I received the same verdict. Their judgment was that Gonzales was not qualified for a senior government position.

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August 30, 2007, 9:58 am

Craig’s Next Move

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Larry Craig

In its third consecutive daily editorial about Senator Larry Craig, the Idaho Statesman editorial page asks Craig to resign.

“It is difficult and unpleasant to call on Idaho’s senior senator to end a career in public service. We don’t do this casually, or unanimously,” the editorial states. It continues:

However, we cannot abide an elected official who didn’t disclose a lewd conduct arrest until the story broke 77 days later — a lie by omission and a violation of the public trust. We cannot believe Craig can effectively serve Idaho, under the shadow of his guilty plea on a lesser charge of disorderly conduct. We cannot afford, as a state with but four congressional representatives, to have a senator who merely provides fodder for bloggers and late-night talk show hosts.

“Worse still, Craig’s credibility has eroded within the power structure in Washington, D.C.,” the editorial argues, later adding, “He will no longer be a spokesman for his causes, from immigration reform to seeking federal dollars for Idaho projects. He will always be seen — even if no one is so coarse as to say it — as that senator involved in that weird arrest at an airport restroom renowned as a pickup spot for anonymous sex.”

Even if Craig’s public image is now “an incomplete caricature,” by staying in office “he is contemplating a future that just doesn’t exist,” the editorial says. “The longer it takes for him to face the facts, the longer the interests of Idaho are marginalized.”

Craig has responded to the stories about his arrest by “operating from a defensive state of denial,” the editorial says. It adds, “If Craig wishes to keep his secrets, he may do so as a former U.S. senator.”

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The Opinionator - August 29, 2007

August 29, 2007, 4:59 pm

Harriet Miers, the Sequel

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: worth a click

• Harriet Miers, the next attorney general? Kevin Shay, guest-blogging for Daniel Radosh at Radosh’s blog, says Miers’s nomination is foreordained: “I mean, it works on so many levels,” Shay, a former Web editor for McSweeney’s, writes. “A) It passes the SPM test: Can you imagine a Stupider Possible Move? I didn’t think so. That’s always been a reliable predictor of this administration’s actions. B) It’s a great way to spit in the face of the hardcore 27% of voters who still inexplicably support you. C) She’s owed.”

• Was “The Simpsons Movie” actually a searing family drama? Ezra Klein explains:

  It was a film during which the lead female character realized her husband was a senseless brute who would always put his happiness before her own, and where her son realized the father was an abusive drunk who was continually denying him the emotional support and family environment he needed. And unlike in most [Simpsons] episodes, both characters recognized these truths fully, and abandoned Homer to begin new lives elsewhere. And shortly thereafter, both took him back, tossing away their opportunities for personal growth and fulfillment despite there being no evidence of an enduring change in their tormentor’s psyche. It was a tremendous demonstration of the self-destructive mentality of the abused, and in that, quite unsettling.

• Annals of things you can’t make up: The American Prospect’s Garance Franke-Ruta, writing on her personal blog, TheGarance.com, digs through the case history of sexual solicitation in public restrooms. Her best discovery is the name of an Idaho decision that “ruled that (solo) masturbation within an enclosed restroom stall was constitutionally protected behavior as the individual within the stall had a reasonable expectation of privacy within the stall.” The case: State v. Limberhand.

  As commenter Matt Zeitlin observes in the post’s discussion thread, “Guys, let’s not lose sight of what’s important here, the dude’s name was Limberhand! Maybe it’s the 17 year old boy in me, but how can everyone not find this [gut-bustingly] hilarious?”

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August 29, 2007, 12:18 pm

Louisiana Calling

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Hurricane Katrina

On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrinia, the editorial page of The New Orleans Times-Picayune headlines its lead editorial, “Treat us fairly, Mr. President.”

“Nobody wants to have to compete for disaster relief,” the editorial begins. “But that is what Louisianians have had to do in the two years since Hurricane Katrina struck.” It continues:

Despite massive destruction caused by the failure of the federal government’s levees during Katrina, despite the torment caused by FEMA’s slow response to the disaster, despite being hit by a second powerful hurricane less than a month later, Louisiana has had to plead to be treated fairly by our leaders in Washington.

“Louisiana’s losses were dramatically higher than any other state’s and thus deserving of greater compensation,” the editorial later adds. “In reality, Mississippi has gotten a larger share of federal aid.” It explains:

Louisiana had three times more damaged homes and seven times more severely damaged homes than Mississippi. Universities in this state had three times as many students displaced and had four times the losses of Mississippi’s campuses. Louisiana fisheries suffered almost 75 percent of the damage done by Katrina, and our hospitals lost 97 percent of the hospital beds closed by the storm.

Yet in every case, Mississippi ended up with a disproportionate share of aid. Housing grants, for instance: Mississippi got $5.5 billion in Community Development Block Grant money for its 61,000 damaged homes. Louisiana, with 204,000 damaged homes, got $10.4 billion. If the aid were given out proportionately, this state would have gotten twice that much.

“All Louisiana wants is to be treated fairly. But that hasn’t happened,” the editorial later adds. It also says, “The people of Louisiana are no less deserving of disaster aid because their representatives are newer to Congress or because some of the people we trusted to lead us turned out to be scoundrels.”

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August 29, 2007, 9:22 am

No Private Idaho

By Chris Suellentrop

Tags: Larry Craig

In its second editorial about Sen. Larry Craig, the Idaho Statesman editorial page remains unsatisfied with Craig’s explanation of what exactly happened in that men’s room: “Craig shed little new light Tuesday on his arrest and guilty plea; he did not provide Idahoans with the full account they deserve.”

Noting Craig’s “rhetoric and record on social and gay-rights issues,” the editorial says that “Craig’s political mess is one of his own making.” It continues:

And the least of Craig’s problems may be with the gay-rights activists who have taken to the blogosphere to call him a hypocrite. A bigger problem may be with the Idaho social conservatives who have been among the quickest to call for his resignation.

And when politicians try to turn social and sexual issues into fair political game, they invite scrutiny of their behavior. Craig did not establish these rules of political engagement, but he operated under them.

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