Actually, I'll Take Leighton Meester Over Levi Johnston Any Day...

I'm not linking, but Andrew Sullivan has posted a picture from Levi Johnston's Playgirl photo-shoot. It's an interesting selection, given that Sullivan's returning to regularly-scheduled blogging from his (super-hyped drama-queen) Sarah Palin hiatus. (And that's not to mention Sully's likely boy-crush on Levi.) Robert Stacy McCain's got a report, "Sullivan Promises to be 'Normal' Today" (with the concluding flourish, "DEPORT ANDREW SULLIVAN!").

Actually, I'd rather preoccupy my time with Leighton Meester, who's got her own genuinely-electrifying pictorial in GQ. But note that Huffington Post has a better photo-spread than GQ online. See, "Leighton Meester's GQ Shoot: Lingerie, Spreads Legs."

That shot above, a body-suit legs-wide-open offering, is pretty phenomenal.

Fifty Years Later, Audience Members Recall the Beatles on 'Ed Sullivan Show'

At NYT, "Historic Hysterics: Witnesses to a Really Big Show: The Beatles’ Debut on ‘Ed Sullivan’":

Debbie Gendler, a teenager from Oakland, N.J., had gone to television shows before, taking a seat in the studio audience and clapping dutifully when the “applause” light flashed. But this one was different. There were crowds outside the studio that chilly afternoon in February 1964, hysterical crowds, and a phalanx of police officers blocking the way.

“I kept showing the ticket,” said Ms. Gendler, now Debbie Supnik, “and my mother had to fight to say to this one police officer, ‘She has a legitimate ticket. Let her through and get her in there.’ They walked me, finally, in through the front of the building, past a couple of barricades and girls who were upset that I was being ushered in and who started to pull on me, pull on my jacket.”

Someone inside directed her to a seat in the balcony. It was still early — airtime was more than an hour away. The stage crew was checking the lights and the cameras. “I sat and sat,” she said, “and waited.”

From left, George Harrison, John Lennon, Vincent Precht, Ed Sullivan, Rob Precht, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney.Loose Ends: John, Paul, George, Ringo and MeFEB. 8, 2014
She did not realize it, but she and the rest of that audience were waiting to become witnesses to history: the Beatles’ first live appearance on American television, on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” a variety hour that ranked as one of the top 10 programs in the country for most of its long run...

What a fabulous experience.

More at the link.

And video of the show is here. And the history of it all's at Wikipedia.

Why Andrew Sullivan is the Best Smear-Merchant on the Web

From Patrick Appell's apologia for Andrew Sullivan's debased "Trig Trutherism":

Andrew has an uncanny ability to see important stories before anyone else. He understood the potential of the Iran story before almost any blogger. He saw the discussion that the Tiller murder might provoke the minute he read the news. This sort of insight is a gift, but false positives are hard to let go of. That is the way the human brain is wired.

Actually, that's the way Andrew Sullivan's brain is wired, and perhaps tweaked by HIV-associated dementia. Markos Moultisas is a close second. I wrote about this last summer. See, "Kos and Andrew: Merchants of Hate."

See aso, "Trig Trutherism! Andrew Sullivan Gets a Lifeline - Again!"

Ann Althouse on Andrew Sullivan's Campaign to Destroy Sarah Palin

From Ann Althouse, ""Andrew Sullivan Has Discovered the Michelle Goldberg/Ann Althouse Diavlog." Ann rebuts one of the "lies" of Sarah Palin, alleged by Sullivan:

Calling something like this a lie marks you as someone who's centered not on finding out what is true, but on destroying someone. It doesn't motivate me to go through the rest of the long list systematically to see what each item is about, and it certainly doesn't make me want to look at the list and accept the conclusion that wow, Sarah Palin really is a terrible liar.

Click Memeorandum if you want to see Sullivan's long, long list of Sarah Palin's "lies." As everyone knows, this man is truly sick.

McCain and the Iraq Issue

Will Iraq be a winning election issue for John McCain in November? Ramesh Ponnuru poses things this way:

Senator John McCain blurted out that if he can't convince Americans that our military effort in Iraq is succeeding, he'll lose the election. He then softened his assessment, saying that while his candidacy would not stand or fall on the Iraq question, it would be one of the top issues in the campaign.

I think Senator McCain is wrong. He can win the election even if a narrow majority of the country doubts that the surge is succeeding, and he may lose it even if people think that it is succeeding. (Right now, according to Gallup, 43 percent of Americans believe the surge is improving conditions in Iraq while 35 percent say it is making it worse.)

He is going to have to fight back against misrepresentations of his record. Senator Barack Obama, for example, has said that McCain favors a "100-year war in Iraq." In fact, McCain said that if the violence were to end, it might be possible to maintain a long-term American military presence in Iraq: the same type of presence we have maintained in South Korea, without extending the Korean war for decades.

My guess, though, is that the war will not be the top issue in this election. The big challenge for Senator McCain is not to sell the surge. It isn't even to demonstrate that he can fight a recession. It's to prove that he has answers to the economic concerns that middle-income Americans have, recession or no recession. In particular, he is going to have to make the case that his health-care plan is better than that of his Democratic opponent.

Do you agree that domestic issues are going to decide the 2008 election?

I agree up to a point. His job is to make the case that he'll provide competent and innovative economic, health, and social policy management, while at the same time he must convince the public that the war's too important to leave to a national security novice espousing recklessly ill-considered foreign policy proposals.

The success of the surge is a huge asset to McCain and the GOP, as it innoculates the party from Democratic attacks on war-making incompetence and provides a model for what we need to do in Afghanistan.

The Democratic agenda of retreat is an election year downer. I doubt either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can gain much traction on the issue.

But see Andrew Sullivan's post on Iraq, where he poses this challenge for McCain:

If McCain is going to give us straight talk - one thing the Bush administration has been completely unable to do - and believes that Iraq should remain a permanently integrated part of a new, expanding American protectorate in the Middle East, then he needs to say so. He needs to be honest about what his goal of turning Iraq into a stable, non-despotic, unified country, permanently occupied by US troops, requires. It will require trillions of dollars, a bare minimum of another decade of occupation, over 100,000 troops (probably more) committed indefinitely, and no lee-way to tackle any major security threats anywhere else on the planet including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, without a draft. Oh, and then there's a need to maintain US public support for the Sisyphean task of nation-building a place where there is no nation, in a place a long way away, where our reward for such an effort will be fathomless contempt and hatred.

Sullivan's attacking an alleged infinite commitment to the Iraqi people and wants McCain to justify it. But Sullivan provides no context: We have military commitments around the globe. Where can we redeploy and reduce in an effort to consolidate our more recent gains in Iraq?

Germany? South Korea?

What percentage of GDP is this "trillion dollars" Sullivan throws out? Is that an accurate figure? Will the costs of an Iraq foreward basing commitment be commensurate with the costs of earlier postwar security guarantees the U.S. has offered after its great conflicts?

These are the questions that McCain is best prepared to answer. Sure, Americans want to focus on domestic issues. They also want to reduce commitments overseas to allow a redirection of attention back home.

Yet, they don't want to lose in Iraq, and they're still concerned about radical Islamist terrorism. The U.S. is not making an unlimited, 1000 year guarantee to the Iraqi people. Putting our ongoing deployment in fiscal and historical context is the challenge for McCain in November.

Thirty-Five Killed as Russia Strikes Ukraine Military Base Near Polish Border (VIDEO)

War is hell. Bloody fucking hell.

At WSJ, "Russian Missiles Strike Ukrainian Military Training Base Near Polish Border":

Attack kills at least 35 and increases risk of war encroaching on NATO territory, after Moscow says arms shipments to Kyiv won’t be tolerated.

A Russian airstrike on a Ukrainian military training center close to the Polish border threw into sharp relief the hazards of the Western push to deliver arms support to Kyiv while avoiding direct conflict with a nuclear adversary.

The airstrike killed 35 people at the facility in Yavoriv about 10 miles from the Polish border early Sunday, far to the west of where the conflict has been concentrated, one day after Moscow warned the West that it would consider arms deliveries to Ukraine as legitimate targets.

A large portion of the military aid from the West—one of the largest transfers of arms in history—passes through Poland into western Ukraine, part of the fine line the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, allies are walking between aiding Ukraine militarily while steering clear of providing troops or enforcing a no-fly zone that Ukraine has called for.

The expansion of Russia’s aggression to a target close to Poland also increases the risk of the war encroaching on NATO territory, which the U.S. has warned would be treated as an attack on the alliance. Any strike on Poland would bring “the full force of the NATO alliance to bear in responding to it,” Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said in an interview Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said more attacks aimed at supply lines and foreign mercenaries supporting Ukraine were in the offing. Armaments supplied to Ukraine by the U.S. and its European allies—especially antitank and antiaircraft weapons—have played an important role in checking the advance of Russian ground troops, who have suffered heavy casualties in the north as they have tried to encircle the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that military aid alone might not be enough to enable Ukraine to fight off Russia’s invasion, and has made increasingly urgent calls for a no-fly zone that would protect the supplies entering the country and the refugees fleeing to neighboring countries.

The U.S. and its European allies have said a no-fly zone that involved other countries’ air forces risks escalating the conflict because it would only be effective if it were empowered to deter Russian planes. The U.S. also last week declined to support a Polish plan to give the U.S. Soviet-built MiG-29 combat jets after the U.S. had broached the prospect of Poland supplying the planes directly to Ukraine.

While the West aids Ukraine, Russia has asked China for military equipment and other assistance for its war effort, according to U.S. officials, who didn’t specify what Russia had requested.

News of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s request for help from Beijing, first reported by the Washington Post, comes as Mr. Sullivan heads to Rome on Monday to meet with a top Chinese official to discuss Ukraine.

Mr. Sullivan spoke on CNN on Sunday of the growing concern inside the Biden administration that Russia might be looking for help in the conflict, though he didn’t acknowledge a specific request from Russia to China.

“We are also watching closely to see the extent to which China actually does provide any form of support, material support or economic support, to Russia,” Mr. Sullivan said. “It is a concern of ours, and we have communicated to Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions.”

In addition to supplying arms, the Biden administration and its allies have shared intelligence with Kyiv and inflicted sweeping economic sanctions against Russia. But they are facing calls from some quarters to do more...

 

Iowa Gay Marriage Ruling Makes End-Run Around State's Voters

I'm looking at the reactions on the left to the ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court allowing gay couples to marry, "Unanimous ruling: Iowa marriage no longer limited to one man, one woman."

So, it's a great day for civil rights? Not exactly:

“Iowa loses,” said Republican Sen. David Johnson of Ocheyedan. “There have been attempts in the past few years to allow Iowans to weigh in on this issue through our constitutional amendment process and it’s been blocked by majority party leadership. That’s why Iowa loses.”

One might think Iowa's leadership would let voters decide the issue at the polls, providing an up or down vote on such a controversial policy.

In a new poll from the University of Iowa, just over a quarter of respondents backed full gay marriage rights:

The random statewide telephone poll of 978 registered voters found that 36.7 percent of Iowans oppose recognition of gay marriage and civil unions. Overall, 26.2 percent of respondents support gay marriage and 27.9 percent oppose gay marriage but support civil unions. The poll was conducted March 23 through March 31. The margin of error is +/-3.1 percent for the full sample.

These findings are similar to Newsweek's survey from last December that found just 31 percent of those polled nationwide supporting a full-blown right to same-sex marriage. Americans are accepting of civil protections for legal same-sex unions. However, they continue to respect the institution of marriage as exclusive to that of one man and one woman.

But what will happen is that gay rights activists will spin the Iowa court ruling as signaling the inevitability of same-sex marriage accross the country? Ben Smith notes this about the language of the court's holding:

It's really a sweeping, total win for the gay-rights side, rejecting any claim that objections to same-sex marriage can be seen as "rational," rejecting a parallel civil union remedy, and pronouncing same-sex marriages and gay and lesbian couples essentially normal.

So, as Andre Agassi used to say, "Image Is Everything."

Gird your loins, conservatives!

**********

UPDATE: Robert Stacy McCain, in "Iowa gay ruling: Power to the elites!", offers an informed response to Andrew Sullivan's gay marriage nihilism:

Andrew Sullivan is as free to marry a woman as I am, and I am prohibited (at least by the laws of my state) from marrying a man just as Sullivan is. We are, therefore, fully equal under the law, the only difference being that he desires to be married to a man and I do not. His desire for legal endorsement of his preference is thwarted, although his civil liberty is uninfringed.

Sullivan may own property, execute contracts, serve on juries, vote, drive, own firearms, etc., the same as anyone. Yet he makes a great show of his martyrdom to homophobia, so as to elicit pity, to qualify for the victim status that is so coveted in contemporary culture. And if you call bullshit on his histrionic display, you are a bigoted homophobe (since Sully arrogates to himself the power to decide who is or is not a homophobe).

Also, here's Ed Whelan at The Corner:

The lawless judicial attack on traditional marriage and on representative government continues. Today the Iowa supreme court ruled unanimously (7-0) that a “state statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.” Amidst the opinion’s 69 pages of blather, there are two key assertions (and they’re nothing more than that):

(1) “[E]qual protection can only be defined by the standards of each generation.” (p. 16)

There's more at the link. John McCormack links to Whelan as well, "Iowa Court Imposes Same-Sex Marriage."

And, via Ben Smith:

Western Iowa Rep. Steve King:

This is an unconstitutional ruling and another example of activist judges molding the Constitution to achieve their personal political ends. Iowa law says that marriage is between one man and one woman. If judges believe the Iowa legislature should grant same sex marriage, they should resign from their positions and run for office, not legislate from the bench.

Now it is the Iowa legislature’s responsibility to pass the Marriage Amendment to the Iowa Constitution, clarifying that marriage is between one man and one woman, to give the power that the Supreme Court has arrogated to itself back to the people of Iowa. Along with a constitutional amendment, the legislature must also enact marriage license residency requirements so that Iowa does not become the gay marriage Mecca due to the Supreme Court’s latest experiment in social engineering.

Cases in False Equivalence: Tea Parties and Iraq

Via Memeorandum, Alex Knapp perfectly demonstrates the left's false equivalencies, "Tea Parties, Going Galt, Iraq, and Delicious Irony":

The folks in the blogosphere largely cheerleading the Tea Parties are the same folks in the blogosphere who cheerleaded the war in Iraq. So apparently, government intervention to the tune of $650 Billion is okay to spend when it comes to an unnecessary war that in no way advances American interests, but not okay when it comes to building bridges, cutting taxes, helping state governments meet budget shortfalls, or making sure that Americans don’t get covered in lava. Gotcha.

Check Knapp's post for more "delicious ironies" of false equivalence. But this line is classic: "At the time, I did support the Iraq invasion, which in hindsight was stupid." Stupid on Iraq, like Andrew Sullivan.

As for the "unnecessity" of Iraq? This is the left's "Big Lie, and it's an old debate, with consequences. As Arthur Borden has noted:

President Bush was right to confront Iraq. While the decision to go to war is in the past and cannot be reversed, the emerging consensus that it was a mistake is not. Unless we can revisit the debate over the invasion, and comprehend President Bush's reasons for removing Saddam Hussein, we will be unprepared to debate policy toward Iran - and potentially ill-equipped to prevent Tehran from achieving the regional domination through weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which we denied Baghdad.

Borden's book lays out this argument in detail: A Better Country: Why America Was Right to Confront Iraq.

See also, Legal Insurrection, "Confused Blogger Hates Tea Parties (Title Changed to "Instalanche Loving Blog Hates Instapundit")."

**********

UPDATE: Interestingly, I cited Andrew Sullivan above as an illustration of the left's total hypocrisy on this - you know, "I supported the war before I was against it" baloney. Well, my sixth sense must be working this morning, as Mr. Sullivan's got a post reiterating Knapp's false equivalencies:

My sense is that it is a delayed reaction in some ways to Bush, and his betrayal of conservatism. For all sorts of reasons, most of the current tea-partiers backed the GOP under Bush and Cheney, although some, to be fair, did complain about some of it. The pent-up frustrations behind conservatism's collapse under Republicans were trumped, however, by the fruits of power, partisan hatred of "the left", defensiveness over the Iraq war and torture, and, above all religious devotion to the Leader. Now that Bush has been removed, the massive damage done, and a pragmatic liberal is trying to sort out the mess in a sane, orderly fashion, they've gone nuts.

There's more at the link, and Memeorandum.

And in case you missed, see last night's post, "Andrew Sullivan: Unrepentant, Still Clinical

Sullivan Waffles! Take Iran Recognition One Day at a Time

In response to the Stephen Walt's realist critique of Andrew Sullivan's call for No Recognition of Ahmadinejad, Sully now says, well, that's just for today. We'll see how we feel about this tomorrow:

My point was about not recognizing now. As to the future, we have to see what it brings. A day is a long time right now in Iranian politics. So let's take this one day at a time for now.

Now doesn't that just prove my point from this morning! "Sullivan's all messed up! Who knows what position he's advocating from moment to moment?"

See also,on Sullivan, "Obama: "Diplomacy With Iran Without Preconditions," and

on Walt, "That 3:00am Phone Call for Mr. Obama.")

Checking Robert Mueller

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ:

Robert Mueller has operated for 19 months as a law unto himself, reminding us of the awesome and destructive powers of special counsels. About the only possible check on Mr. Mueller is a judge who is wise to the tricks of prosecutors and investigators. Good news: That’s what we got this week.

Former national security adviser Mike Flynn a year ago pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Mr. Flynn’s defense team this week filed a sentencing memo to Judge Emmet Sullivan that contained explosive new information about the Flynn-FBI meeting in January 2017.

It was arranged by then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who personally called Mr. Flynn on other business, then suggested he sit down with two agents to clear up the Russia question. Mr. McCabe urged Mr. Flynn to conduct the interview with no lawyer present—to make things easier.

The agents (including the infamous Peter Strzok) showed up within two hours. They had already decided not to inform Mr. Flynn that they had transcripts of his conversations or give him the standard warning against lying to the FBI. They wanted him “relaxed” and “unguarded.” Former Director James Comey this weekend bragged on MSNBC that he would never have “gotten away” with such a move in a more “organized” administration.

The whole thing stinks of entrapment, though the curious question was how the Flynn defense team got the details. The court filing refers to a McCabe memo written the day of the 2017 meeting, as well as an FBI summary—known as a 302—of the Flynn interview. These are among documents congressional Republicans have been fighting to obtain for more than a year, only to be stonewalled by the Justice Department. Now we know why the department didn’t want them public.

They have come to light thanks to a man who knows well how men like Messrs. Mueller and Comey operate: Judge Sullivan. He sits on the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, and as he wrote for the Journal last year, he got a “wake-up call” in 2008 while overseeing the trial of then-Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Judge Sullivan ultimately assigned a lawyer to investigate Justice Department misconduct.

The investigator’s report found prosecutors had engaged in deliberate and repeated ethical violations, withholding key evidence from the defense. It also excoriated the FBI for failing to write up 302s and for omitting key facts from those it did write. The head of the FBI was Mr. Mueller...

Still more.

Kim Strassel's the best. Seriously.

My latest on the Flynn case and Judge Emmet Sullivan---a judge for these prosecutorial times.https://t.co/cVk0aGZQVR via @WSJOpinion

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 14, 2018

1) The information contained in the Flynn defense filing about FBI behavior is pretty concerning, and I encourage folks to read it themselves: https://t.co/hdU7DSx4wv

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 12, 2018

2) Remember, at this time, the FBI's investigation was still secret. Flynn did nothing wrong in contacting the ambassador, and had no reason to believe himself in legal jeopardy. Meanwhile, this was a man with 33 years of exceptional military service.

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 12, 2018

3) A paratrooper, Army Ranger, intelligence officer, three-star-general, and then National Security Adviser. That's a resume that earns you benefit of doubt. FBI had the transcripts of the ambassador conversation and could have just noted that and asked him about it.

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 12, 2018

4) Instead, it looks like they set this up to catch him in a lie. They don't tell him about transcript. They encourage him to do the interview with no lawyer. Also deliberately choose not to give him standard warnings on lying. This is how our law enforcement operates?

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 12, 2018

5) Ask which sounds more likely: That a highly decorated military officer invited FBI officials to his office (with no legal counsel) in order to tell bold-faced lies? Or, as initially reported, he just forgot details of conversation?

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 12, 2018

6) Also worth noting that two FBI officials behind this moment have themselves been fired for misconduct: Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok. Court has cause to throw this whole thing out.

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 12, 2018

This is encouraging news. See our editorial from tonight, The Flynn Entrapment: https://t.co/QvICXkrTnE

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 13, 2018

Andrew Sullivan's Latest Torture Trials Hissy Fit

Andrew Sullivan is a journalist. He's also a classic partisan blogger whose words deserve careful examination and rebuttal on the facts. Here's Sullivan this morning on the Obama administration's decision to withold Defense Department photographs of abuse of detainees:

In what can only be seen as a stunning reversal, the president is now refusing to release photographs that would help prove that the abuse and torture techniques revealed at Abu Ghraib were endemic in the Bush military. I can't help but wonder if this is related to his decision to appoint Stanley McChrystal as the commander of his Afghanistan war and occupation. There is solid evidence that McChrystal played an active part in enabling torture in Iraq, and his activities in charge of many secret special operations almost certainly involved condoning acts that might be illustrated by these photos. The MSM has, of course, failed to mention this in their fawning profiles of McChrystal.

This is a patent falsehood, exacerbated by ideological blindness. The night McChrystal was appointed the Wall Street Journal ran a major report focusing on just the issues Andrew alleges the media has systematically ignored: "Success and Scrutiny Mark General's Career."

Andrew's also freaking out that President Obama's moves toward an effective counterinsurgency operation in Afghan have garnered approving reviews from neoconservatives, including Bill Kristol, Michael Goldfarb and Max Boot. See Andrew's, "Obama, Neocon In Chief."

Note, of course, that the push for torture trials is increasingly understood as a misguided and distracting partisan witch hunt, and the administration's shift to a new COIN strategy in the Afghan war indicates President Obama's seriousness of purpose on the conflict, and he deserves the support of the American people.

Andrew Sullivan is underserving of the attention he gets, and his advocacy for criminalizing the Bush administration's military efforts, and now his excoriation of his man-crush-president, is one more sign that this guy's truly flipped his wig.

See also, "White House Indicates ‘Great Concern’ About Releasing Photos of Detainee Abuse ," and "Obama Reverses on Releasing Photos," via Memeorandum.

Andrew Sullivan and Gaza

Andrew Sullivan, as far as I'm concerned, long ago went over to the dark side. So I find it interesting that Yaacov Lozowick (who is a new blogger to me) is suggesting that Sullivan's new to peddling some serious moral equivalence. From Lozowick:

For those of you who are interested in such things (if you're not, that's also fine): Andrew Sullivan is crossing over to the anti-Israel camp. He has made larger changes in the past, as he moved from supporting George Bush to drawing his information from Juan Cole, but when it came to Israel, he's been alright. No longer. He's wavering hard, and it's pretty clear which side he's going to fall to once he stops wavering.

He's not wavering, actually, but see Noah Pollak's post for a explanation of what this is all about (via Memeorandum).

More on Tea Parties: We The People

I know I'm a bit late getting to this "We The People" video, but I'm getting excited about the Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party rallies, so here goes:

Plus, Dan Riehl's got a post up hammering Andrew Sullivan, so there's further incentive, "Sullivan's Errant Tea Party Shot." Dan's breaks down Sullivan's dumb attack on the Tea Party movement, but this passage is the best:

Somewhere between Iraq and that either very hard, or very soft place that has become Andrew Sullivan's head, there's really only one issue that matters to him any more - gay marriage. And that's fine, really. Everyone needs a good cause.

Myanmar Invasion: What Responsibility to Protect?

Since I've noted a couple of times how I've seen little advocacy on the left for regime change Myanmar, it's only fair that I note some attention to the issue.

Andrew Sullivan's got a post on George Packers's article at the New Yorker, "Should Burma Be Saved From Itself?"

Sullivan adds this:

A brief, decisive international effort to reach the starving and sick seems important to me. If it helps demystify this vile regime, great. But in its demonstration of humanity, it is also a great way for the US to enhance its soft power in the developing world. People remember who saved them. And sometimes, a bottle of water can mean a lifetime of gratitude. Bonus Burma blog here.

Sullivan's a shifty ideologue. He's something of a post-conservative Obama-backer, and here he sounds like a neocon!

But a look around the web sees little more of Sullivan's boosterism, at least among "liberal internationalists."

Here's Democracy Arsenal suggesting Burma can't be a case of the world community's "responsibility to protect":

Afraid I can't go along with Mark Goldberg on the Burma situation as a test of the Responsibility to Protect. I worry that a showdown over the principle of national sovereignty could undercut, rather than promote, the process by which R2P takes hold as an international norm. Which raises the question of how that process will work and where it stands. [I owe thanks to Stanley Foundation colleagues Keith Porter and (occasional DA guest) Michael Schiffer for forcing me to think about this.]

Actually, I look at this not as an opportunity to assert R2P, but rather as an indication of how far we still have to go. Ask yourself this: how do you rate the chances of getting into Burma via a Security Council showdown over intervening militarily without the junta's consent (Chapter VII) versus forms of pressure short of the assertion of an international responsibility to intervene? There has been a lot of important progress in chipping away at the sovereignty shield, but R2P doesn't enjoy nearly enough international support for us to simply insist that it be followed.

How far we still have to go? So much for liberal humanitarianism?

Notice the strained legalistic language in Democracy Arsenal's post, which can be translated into something like this:

Nope, no regime change Burma, not while President Bush is in power, as we're implacably opposed to this administration's regime change doctrine. Better to wait until the Democratic Party takes over the White House next year, then we can have Samantha Power - who rejoined Barack Obama's campaign in the fall - address the United Nations making the case for humanitarian intervention on the latest outbreak of ethnic cleansing in the Congo or Sudan, or on the next natural disaster in South Asia or the Pacific.

In other words, tens of thousands could die daily, around the world, while the "liberal internationalist" community twiddles its thumbs.

Yep, we can see the same tendency in Matthew Yglesias's recent post rebuking outside intervention in Burma:

At the end of the day, great power conflict ... will do immense humanitarian damage to the world and avoiding it should be a very high priority. Does that mean we should do nothing? No, it doesn't, it means American officials (and, indeed, civil society figures) should keep pushing the international community to move to a world where something like the Responsibility to Protect has some force in the real world. But it has to be done in a reasonable consensual way that tries to stitch together America and its traditional allies with new emerging powers in various regions ...

Well, actually, it does mean doing nothing.

The leftist "internationalists" will sit around, waiting for some "global norm" to develop - apparently emerging magically out of some kind of ethereal "international legitimacy" - before the nations of the world mount some decisive effort to help the diseased and starving.

For more on this, see my post, "Liberal Internationalism and Regime Change Myanmar."

Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan: American Power Called It!

I'm scooping AOSHQ by months!

Check out Ace's post, "Inevitable: True Conservative Andrew Sullivan Praises 'Continued Evolution of Charles Johnson'."

But from American Power back in May, "Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan: Separated at Birth?":

And here's Andrew Sullivan's fine words in praise of Little Green Footballs:

The pioneer of the anti-Jihadist blog, Little Green Footballs, is repulsed by some of the developments on the populist, racist right. He's right to be; and has the courage to say so. For that he is subjected to the usual mau-mauing. Check out his blog. It's an Yglesias Award in motion.

I think it's fair to say that LGF's now gone completely to the other side. Is there anyone out there still aguing to the contrary? LGF Founding Bloggers was quite fair to Charles in a post the other day, "LGF Delinks Pajamas Media!." And my friend Michael van der Galien has long resisted throwing Charles under the bus (see, "Civil War Raging in the Right-Wing Blogosphere") But hey, the evidence is pretty overwhelming by now. The dude's cracked.

The Hateful Ideology and Rhetoric of Homosexual Rights

I get some mean and nasty homosexuals at my college. And to think, it's been 10 years since Proposition 8. Maybe a deep backlash is setting in, and none too soon.

Read Andrew "Milky Loads" Sullivan, at New York Magazine:

Andrew Sullivan: Since achieving marriage rights, there’s been a radicalization of the gay rights movement’s ideology and rhetoric https://t.co/naGSy5UjH4

— New York Magazine (@NYMag) January 28, 2018

"The sewer of most of Twitter is now so rank that even addicts have begun to realize that they are sinking in oceans of shitholery."

https://t.co/emm9BvPYSw via @intelligencer

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) January 26, 2018

"Social media has turned journalism into junk, has promoted addictive addlement in our brains, is wrecking our democracy, and slowly replacing life with pseudo-life."

https://t.co/emm9BvPYSw via @intelligencer

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) January 26, 2018

Deficits and Deceit: Barack Obama's Stimulus

Andrew Sullivan, responding to Jim Manzi, goes off on the GOP in his latest hissy fit, "If The Right Were Intellectually Honest ...":

The GOP has passed what amounts to a spending and tax-cutting and borrowing stimulus package every year since George W. Bush came to office. They have added tens of trillions to future liabilities and they turned a surplus into a trillion dollar deficit - all in a time of growth. They then pick the one moment when demand is collapsing in an alarming spiral to argue that fiscal conservatism is non-negotiable. I mean: seriously.

The bad faith and refusal to be accountable for their own conduct for the last eight years is simply inescapable. There is no reason for the GOP to have done what they have done for the last eight years and to say what they are saying now except pure, cynical partisanship, and a desire to wound and damage the new presidency. The rest is transparent cant.

Sullivan is literally the last person in American politics who should be lecturing others on intellectual honesty. As Fausta notes today, "I stopped reading Sully a while ago when I got overwhelmed by his rhetoric. Simple as that ... His writing has become more bizarre with time, particularly when it comes to his shameful and embarrasing attacks on Sarah Palin’s children."

As for the Democrats and the stimulus, not only is Sullivan hypcritical, he's disastrously wrong, as the Wall Street Journal indicates:

The bill will mark the largest single-year increase in domestic federal spending since World War II; it will send the budget deficit to heights not seen in 60 years; and it will establish a new and much higher spending baseline for years to come. Combine this new spending, and the borrowing it will require, with the trillions of dollars still needed for the banking system, and we are about to test the outer limits of our national balance sheet.

The editors are actually hammering the "three amigos" of GOP bipartisanship, Senators Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter.

But the larger message here is Democratic hypocrisy and fundamental dishonesty. The last few weeks have seen this country's most sustained political fearmonering campaign in history. Where FDR said we have nothing to fear but fear itself, Barack Obama deliberately sows fears to hoodwink the public, stifle dissent, and bludgeon the opposition. It's amazing, but in less than a month, the most severe warnings from last year against Democratic-socialist authoritarianism are coming true. I know many folks on the right were willing to give the new president the benefit of the doubt, myself included. The crisis is real, folks readily acknowledged, and calls for post-partisan transformation are endlessly attractive, like a leggy brunette in a mini-skirt on a Friday night. But any inkling of bipartisanship long ago went out the window with the appointment of Rahm "The Knife" Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff (and his erswhile colleagues in the Democratic majority).

The news this week shows that Judd Gregg's withdrawal as treasury secretary-designee follows his being duped into joining the administration as a cover for bipartisan comity on economic policy, and the realization that the White House was in fact pushing a lie on seeking cooperation across the aisle (see William Kristol on Rahm's Census Burear power grab, for example). Indeed, amid renewed calls to repeal the Bush tax cuts, it won't be long until we see the Democrats foisting off new rounds of government expansion, what James Pethokoukis calls "Son of Stimulus," in the months and years ahead of Democratic-socialist government.

I'm sure Andrew Sullivan's down with that.

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UPDATE: I just found Dan McLaughlin essay, "Barack Obama’s Gift To Conservatives," which provides a nice affirmation of Pethokoukis' point on the growth of Democratic-socialism:

Obama and the Democrats have now committed themselves irrevocably to massive growth in government spending, and the odds are that they are not done there, as we are likely to see the ghosts of economic liberalism past and of Eurosocialism present come knocking: more marginal tax hikes, a government takeover of health care, protectionism, massive new regulations, measures to tip the labor-management balance towards unions, restrictions on energy production, you name it. No serious adult can believe that any of this will help the economy; Obama, by always talking about “saving” rather than creating jobs, seems to imply that he, too, recognizes that he can’t promise any improvements. Indeed, liberal economic policy has never been about enabling growth so much as assuming it will happen and fighting over how to divide the spoils. Republicans and conservatives can feel secure in their opposition to these economic policies because we know they don’t work.

So there you have it: Obama and the Democrats, by ramming the ’stimulus’ bill through on a party-line basis and bulldozing Republican opposition, have taken ownership of old-time Big Government liberalism; they have surrendered to Republicans the very issues that divided the GOP and attracted moderate swing voters to the Democratic banner; they have energized and galvanized their opponents; they have discarded the pretense of bipartisanship; and they have, in the end, lashed themselves to the mast of policies that are proven not to work. The only thing the stimulus bill will stimulate is conservatism.

Andrew Sullivan's Anti-Mormon Bigotry

There's never any consistency to Andrew Sullivan. But that's to be expected from a man who may well be suffering from HIV-related dimentia. Here's a guy, after the passage of California's Proposition 8, who told anti-Mormon rioters to "chill." He's also recently written that his passion for gay-blogging arises not out of "a sense of victimhood." But on the Obama administration's recent defense of the federal DOMA, Sullivan sent this tweet:

This is typical for Sullivan's extremist attacks on "Christianists."

See also, William Jacobson, "Anti-Mormonism Again In Gay Marriage Debate."
Related Hypocrisy: Frank Rich, "The Obama Haters’ Silent Enablers," via Memeorandum. And don't miss Dan Riehl's response, "Frank Rich In The New Pravda Times."

Conor Friedersdorf: Avoidance, Obfuscation, Prevarication

Unless I see some serious engagement on some of the points I've raised, this should be may last post in the current debate over Conor Friedersdorf. I will keep my eye open for some of the more egregious claims Mr. Friederdorf is wont to make in his future blogging; but there will be no further iterations in the current controversy in the absence of new information or responses. Mostly, it's simply not worth my time. Why engage if folks are too lazy or too self-absorbed to even attempt a rebuttal to the points I've raised? There's some current roiling on the right, and this is good, but some of those engaged in it are not acting in good faith, and that really defeats the purpose of it all.

Frankly, I'm not particularly invested in Mr. Friedersdorf. He's not a class intellect, and his writing is both arrogant and pedantic. I'm interested in ideas. As I've noted, Mr. Friedersdorf has made some generally off-the-wall arguments on some key public policy issues. He's also embarked on a personal jihad against Mark Levin, who is currently the #1 bestselling conservative author in the country. That kind of personalization of political difference is itself worthy of rebuttal. And as a number of my good friends have joined the exchange, I thought I might behoove myself to throw them some support.

I've responded to Mr. Friedersdorf with a number of detailed posts (here, here, here, and here). All of these essays are detailed and substantive. Mr. Friedersdorf's silence in engaging them goes beyond disrespect. Frankly, as is the case with Mark Thompson and E.D. Kain, it's most likely that Mr. Friedersdorf is simply overwhelmed by superior firepower; and rather than further expose the superficiality of his intellect, he adopts a variety of coping techniques: avoidance, obfuscation, and prevarication are the first tactics that come to mind.

Readers can check Mr. Friederdorf's comments to the links above. Let me first note the most recent for some flavor:

Look man, if you want me to address your arguments, just state one clearly enough for me to respond!

This response fits with any of the tactics I mentioned above, although I'd add the noun "dishonest" as well. Readers might check my search of "Conor Friedersdorf" posts. All the argument I've made are "clear" and compelling. That Mr. Friedersdorf chooses not to engage them simply confirms his penchant toward avoidance and more.

I actually wrote on Mr. Friedersdorf's essay attacking "war on terror hawks." As I said at the time, Mr. Friederdorf "equates the actions of one lone wacko with those of an international terrorist network that's responsible for the 9/11 attacks, as well as a number of other terrorist atrocities around the world in recent decades."

Mr. Friederdorf has never responded to this substantive, AND APPARENTLY CLEAR, point. He did retreat to denial, of course. But he has not systematically defended his argument that conservatives should treat suspected abortion killers just like captured Islamofascist jihadis - that is, he suggests conservatives should support waterboarding for both. It's not possible to pose a hypothetical like this a priori if the proponent of the scenario doesn't in fact see the two categories of antagonists ("combatants") in equivalent terms.

In fact, Mr. Friedersdorf claimed that he "did not equate" the actions of the abortion murder suspect to global terrorist barbarians. He then demanded that I explain what "leads you to believe otherwise." And so I did, here:

At your original post I cited weeks ago, "A Question for War on Terror Hawks," you assert moral equivalencies between a lone U.S. murder suspect and the untold number of violent jihadists within the global terrorist network - including many, of course, who were captured on the battlefield and held as enemy combatants in a real war on terrorism. Your post, as it proposes partisan payback for the robust anti-terror policies of the Bush years, basically endorses an Obama administration policy of declaring domestic anti-abortion terrorists as identical enemy combatants; you also deploy taunting language in saying, "I wonder how 'War on Terror Hawks' would react" if President Obama had the "prerogative to order the waterboarding of the uncharged, untried detainees." The scenario is not simply a hypothetical. It's transparent advocacy in furtherance of ideological retribution. Most of all, your post is dishonest hackery, and your defense of it is peurile idiocy.

To this, Mr. Friederdorf DID NOT ALLEGE vagueness on my part. Indeed, he asserted that my argument - offered in good faith at his request - was "a paranoid theory."

I'm not prone to paranoia, actually, so there's little to make of Mr. Friedersdorf's comment other than a one-off bit of snark. It is a good example, however, of my point above, which is that Mr. Friedersdorf resorts to avoidance, obfuscation, and prevarication when confronted with superior argumentation.

And that's actually kind of sad for him. The man clearly hopes to make an intellectual contribution of some sort. But as we see here, he's flummoxed with a case that deploys inferential logic as a matter of straightforward argumentation. It's simply not that complicated, much less unclear. So why no response from Mr. Friedersdorf? He rebuked me for not defending my original post, and then he turns and panics when I stand up to him. Readers can see why I question this man's capabilities.

But that's not all. I offered a detailed and highly reasoned argument in my essay, "Neoclassicons." Mr. Friedersdorf appears to be among a number of bloggers seeking to claim the mantle of today's "genuine conservatives." As I noted at the post, "From Conor Friederdorf to David Frum, to Daniel Larison to Andrew Sullivan, and then E.D. Kain, there's a movement afoot that wants desperately to be "conservative," but one that is failing miserably."

Once again, Mr. Friedersdorf refused to respond. He did make some lame, and completely irrelevant, points about how he'd been "defending Rod Dreher," as if dropping some names of people not even tangentially related to the discussion might possibly be considered a rebuttal. Mr. Friedersdorf apparently does that thing quite a bit, so we shouldn't be surprised.

My main thesis at "Neoclassicons," in any case, is that these folks are not "conservative." I especially indicated that Andrew Sullivan - who is the ideological lodestar for these people - is not a conservative. Hardly anyone would situate Sullivan on the right of the ideological spectrum nowadays. Andrew's colleague at The Atlantic places him at "the center right." And even liberals now think of Sullivan as one of their own.

And this is the key thing in all of this: Mr. Friedersdorf seems to think that the most important intellectual developments today are taking place on the left of the political spectrum. This fact helps explain Mr. Friedsdorf's jihad against Mark Levin. The latter, as I noted, is the hottest thinker in conservative politics today. Levin's Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto is essential reading for anyone who's seriously thinking about the future direction of the American right. And Mr. Friedersdorf is attacking him?

It takes no great leap of imagination to see that not only is Mark Levin threatening to Conor Friedersdorf, but also that Mr. Friedersdorf's attack on him are less about ideology and more about self-promotion. "Hey, if I attack Mark Levin I can score some points with the Andrew Sullivan and the left-libertarians."

That's really all there is to it. As I've shown in this post, which is now a lot longer and more detailed that I'd anticipaed, Conor Friedersdorf is an essentially dishonest man with an inflated sense of self-importance. I can hardly be more clear in saying this, but be that as it may, I'm not expecting a response to the arguments I've made in any case. Mr. Friedersdorf doesn't have it in him, and in all of his recent slurs, he's mostly out to gain attention for himself rather than debate those who really do care about the movement.

I've enabled comment moderation. I won't be publishing Mr. Friedersdorf's drive-by snarks here. If he responds with a post at either of his blogs, I'll reply in kind if they are substantive - and if in fact they move the debate forward.

Otherwise, I'm moving on ...

Soldier Stephen Hill Honors America: Gay Progressive Hate-Mongers, Not So Much

Okay, let's put some things in perspective.

As I reported last night, there were literally just a couple people who booed at soldier Stephen Hill, according to Sarah Rumpf, who was on hand and responded to the controversy on Twitter. And Sarah expanded on her tweet with a full blog report, "The Truth About the Booing at the Debate," where she indicates:

The debate included video questions that were submitted on YouTube, and one came from a soldier serving in Iraq who is gay and asked about the candidates' opinions on don't ask don't tell. There was audible booing after his question...however, please note that it was not the crowd booing. It was only one or two people.

I was at the debate, in the audience on the right hand side about halfway back (here's my tweet of the video screen that was right in front of us). The person who booed was just a few rows in front of us. The booing got an immediate and angry reaction from nearly everyone sitting around him, who hissed and shushed at him. Lots of loud gasps, "Shhhh!" "No!" "Shut up, you idiot!" etc.

So, not only was it just "one or two people," their boos were immediately repudiated by those sitting nearby.

Now, this episode is getting a lot of attention online, and as is usual with progressive extremists, the commentary is both dishonest and hysterical. Excitable Andrew Sullivan is particularly over the top, at "The Anger Builds." Sullivan's post is ugly on a number of counts. He attempts to slur the GOP as "a religion." He attacks Rick Santorum's comments as a "despicable lie." And he claims that "Republicans don't actually deep down care for the troops, if that means gay troops. Their constant posturing military patriotism has its limits." And on top of that:

The shocking silence on the stage - the fact that no one challenged this outrage - also tells me that this kind of slur is not regarded as a big deal. When it came to it, even Santorum couldn't sanction firing all those servicemembers who are now proudly out. But that's because he was forced to focus not on his own Thomist abstractions, but on an actual person. Throughout Republican debates, gays are discussed as if we are never in the audience, never actually part of the society, never fully part of families, never worthy of even a scintilla of respect. When you boo a servicemember solely because he's gay, you are saying he is beneath contempt, that nothing he does or has done can counterweigh the vileness of his sexual orientation.

This is completely decontextualized and patently absurd. Not only do we have Sarah Rumpf's first hand report of the audience reaction to the (one or two) boos, but it turns out that Rick Santorum didn't even hear them. He's interviewed by Megyn Kelly at the clip. She correctly observes that there were just a couple of people who booed, and Santorum responds that he didn't hear booing, and "when you're in that kind of environment, you're sort of focusing on the question and formulating your answer..." And Santorum repeatedly notes that "this man is serving our country" and he thanks him for his service.

So, contrary to Andrew Sullivan, it's simply not true that Republicans deem gay soldiers "never worthy of even a scintilla of respect." If Santorum is to be faulted, it's simply that he didn't acknowledge the soldier for his service. But that's a question of Santorum's personal decorum, and upon reflection, he clearly regrets how he came off and has corrected the record in his interview with Megyn Kelly. But what's key is the progressive left's willfully false attacks on Republicans. David Nir does the same thing at Daily Kos, "In face of boos for gay soldier, Republicans stay silent." And Greg Sargent attacks Republicans along these lines while fully cognizant that the outrage is bogus:

It would obviously be unfair to use this episode to tar all Republicans. Some, to their credit, have already registered their dismay about what happened. Even audience members reacted badly and told the hecklers to shut up. But it’s perfectly fair to see it as representative of the caliber of the candidates that stood on the stage last night.

No, it would not be fair, for the reasons that Rick Santorum indicates. The debate environment is basically a high stakes performance. The boos might not have registered with the candidates. And they likely were trying to anticipate the line of questioning and the direction of the debate rather than the appropriate salute to a soldier who submitted a question via YouTube. That's not fair, perhaps, but it's a long way from indicating that the Republican Party is filled with hordes of anti-gay bigots whose "posturing military patriotism has its limits." The truth is, as I've pointed out many times, the gay progressive left is a hate-cult powered by intolerance of difference. What bigotry we learned out this episode came from those on the radical left. And the outrage is especially rich in Andrew Sullivan's case, considering he's probably the last person who should be lecturing others on "gay sexual misconduct."