Touching, and Touche-ing

Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring, and if I'm the first person you've heard it from, you need to expand your reading list a bit. Everybody under the sun is blogging about this, and saying essentially the same thing--the fight will be brutal, Democrats are essentially irrelevant to the process, Conservatives are laying down their red lines, abortion will be the sticking point, and Bush has zero incentive to nominate anybody remotely sane. More interestingly, Legal Fiction pines for McConnell (that's not the interesting part), but does a flip and then a reflip on Gonzalez. Neither, I think, will happen, though O'Connor retiring first might give McConnell a new lease on life.

I can't hardly wait for this.

But lo! The administration has announced that Bush won't be naming his nominee for another week! So there's still plenty of time for folks to give O'Connor the respect she deserves, right?

Enter my favorite player in the farce that is to follow, The Family Research Council. Here was their oh-so-respectful statement on O'Connor's tenure on the Court:

Washington, D.C. - Family Research Council thanks Justice O'Connor, the first woman on the United States Supreme Court, for her nearly twenty-four years of public service.

"The Family Research Council often found itself on the opposite side of her most controversial decisions," said Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council.

"This past week Justice O'Connor sided with judicial activists and ruled against the display of the Ten Commandments on public property in two cases before the high court that have offended the values of a great segment of the American public.

"I am confident that President Bush will name a replacement for Justice O'Connor who has the same judicial philosophy as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as he indicated he would in his reelection campaign.

"The public is primed for the fight it will take to confirm a nominee. FRC can motivate significant grassroots support for the President's nominees. We will wage an unprecedented effort for a fair and prompt up or down vote through the mobilization of 20,000 churches across the nation, weekly conference calls in targeted states, the strengthening of the FRC team and activation of grassroots through www.frc.org"

The distilled version: "Thank you, you were an evil activist, let's replace you with someone radically opposed to your judicial philosophy, and we're mobilizing the troops right now to do it!"

Or as John Cole put it regarding a similar statement by James Dobson,

It couldn't be clearer. The statement wasn't "We would like to thank Sandra Day O'Connor for her service and look forward to an opportunity to participate in the debate over her successor," it was "Don't let the door hit you in the ass and bring on the rapture."

How sweet.

Oh, and a brief aside while we're on the subject. O'Connor was a legal pragmatist, while folks like Scalia or Thomas are idealists. As Eugene Volokh put it:

Justice Scalia described his jurisprudence as "The Rule of Law as the Law of Rules."

Justice O'Connor, a pragmatist, saw the work of the law as making law work.

If you believe, as I do, that law should transcend politics, then that is a far more relevant distinction for judges than liberal/conservative. Replacing the Court's foremost pragmatist with a rigid ideologue would constitute a radical shift--even if it appears on the surface to be merely moderate conservative to conservative.

Speaking of, there is an interesting discussion going on about how Democrats should frame O'Connor's tenure. Contra our Republican friends, everyone seems to agree that it should be respectful. The split is between Kevin Drum and Greg Saunders. The former thinks that instead of calling O'Connor a "moderate", we should instead use phrases like "thoughtful conservative." Placing O'Connor as the "center" would shift the judicial playing field way off to the right, hurting Democrats in the long run. The latter thinks that calling O'Connor a "moderate" will serve as a contrast to whomever Bush choices to succeed her--the public is a lot less likely to stand for a conservative replacing a moderate compared to a conservative replacing a conservative.

I fall with Drum, but for different reasons. I think calling O'Connor a "thoughtful conservative" will play out in two ways in the minds of voters. First, as Drum says, it will remind them that she is not us--that is, O'Connor is not the mainstream (which would put Democrats on the left fringe). This is rather believable, after all, most people know that O'Connor was a "swing vote" and thus opposed Democrats at least a fair number of times. But calling her a "thoughtful" conservative shows that Democrats are not opposed to the principle of opposition. It says "yes, we recognize that there are smart, fair, and intelligent conservatives, and we would welcome Bush's nomination of one." In addition to making Bush's (undoubtedly more conservative) choice look extreme ("Why couldn't he nominate someone like O'Connor? She's a conservative, but not like that lunatic Owens/Rogers Brown/Alito!"), it has the added bonus of dovetailing nicely with the "GOP gone power-mad" theme Democrats have been pushing for 2006--Democrats are sensible and looking for consensus, Republicans think that opposing their policies constitutes treason. Hmm...not too far from the truth, actually (at least for some Republicans).

Mark in Mexico has a giant roundup, as does, of course, The Moderate Voice and Scared Monkeys.

Firing Back

I've noted before that I think Dave Kopel's argument in favor of guns for would-be genocide victims is very impressive--and this is coming from a definitive gun-skeptic.

Well, he's at it again, noting the recent gun confiscation round ordered by the Zimbabwe government. But this time, he's got a challenger: PrawfsBlawg guest blogger Kaimi Wenger. She notes that Mormon's had both guns and the right to use them in mid-19th century America, and that did little to stop the rampant anti-Mormon violence that occurred in the era. This strikes pretty close to the heart of Kopel's claims, since he is arguing that as an empirical matter, a disarmed population is a necessity for massive state-sponsored violence against a given ethnic group. The experience of the Mormons isn't true. And by the way, even if you don't buy and/or don't care about anything Wenger is saying, you should read her post anyway. It's a fascinating account of a chapter of American history I knew nothing about--and I consider myself a history buff. She also tells it well.

I'm sure that Kopel would argue that the presence of guns prevented the bloodshed from being worse than it would of--there wasn't, to be sure, a Mormon genocide. It's a good response, but Wenger's post still seems to keep some of its bite. I'm holding off judgment for now, but both sides are making stellar arguments.

UPDATE: Mark of Pseudo-Polymath points me to some more spectacular posts on the subject by Walloworld (see here and here) and Winds of Change. Great stuff all around.

Consuming the Next Generation

Yeah, it's a blatant rip off of Wonkette. Sue me.

In Van Orden v. Perry, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote of the Court's First Amendment jurisprudence that "our cases, Januslike, point in two directions in applying the Establishment Clause." Going off that, Eugene Volokh wonders what other deities could be used in the same "Our cases, ___-like..." form.

He's opened up comments, but my contribution would be in such bad taste that I don't think it would stay there. But here it goes--if I were a lot more crass and a lot more pro-life, I'd say something like this:

Our cases, Cthulhu-like, have slaughtered innumerable unborn children.

But no, I would never say anything like that. Not a chance.

On Civility (Part 1?)

Brian Leiter just noticed my critique of his call to limit civility in public debates. Here was the offending quote:

As we have remarked previously, civility is the greatest gift one can bestow on the creationist conmen, the right-wing liars, and the religious bigots--not to mention the hordes of ignorant blowhards in the blogosphere. To treat their positions with civility is to already legitimate them. The consequence of doing so is now available for all the world to see: the intellectually and morally depraved state of public culture in America today.

In response, I argued that civility was an important part of our civic discourse and should not be tossed away so lightly. I also conceded that there was an outer limit to this position--Hitler, for example, and Leiter pounced:

What always strikes me in debates about "tone" and "civility" is that the critics, without fail, will abandon civility and adopt a harsh tone in the presence of the views that they deem "beyond the pale." Invariably, it turns out that they simply draw the line somewhere else (a good example is here--see the last paragraph, and the second comment), and that what really galls them is not the fact of my harshness and dismissiveness--they are equally capable of that when it comes to, e.g., Noam Chomsky or Ralph Nader or me--but rather that it is directed at the views they've been taught to take seriously, to think are serious, the views they've been led to believe are entitled to respect, even if one disagrees.

The following is the E-mail I sent Professor Leiter in response to his post:

Prof. Leiter,

Recently, you linked to my post which critiqued your call to limit civility in public discourse. I just want to clear up a few things.
[...]
First of all, I'm not among those who "dismiss" either Chomsky or Nader. Indeed, while I identify as a center-leftist (albeit one with some sympathies for radical left legal scholarship, Delgado, MacKinnon et al), Chomsky isn't someone I'd dismiss out of hand (that's not saying I agree with him--I don't--but he certainly doesn't fall into my exception to civility). In other words, I'm not part of the right wing attack machine--not all the critics are coming from that angle.

The other part of your attack is that I'm being inconsistent--with views I dislike, throw civility out the door, with views you do, of course it must stay. That's one way to interpret it, I suppose (although the extrapolation isn't really fair--where do you warrant that I object to your incivility only because I disagree with it? It is at least possible that I object to incivility in principle, and it's Hitler that is the "exception"). However, I would argue that all rules break down at the margins--every attempt to articulate cohesive sets of philosophical guidelines has found this. The margin--for me--is genocide. That is the end point at which the rules break down. But creating an exception such that I can stand opposition to genocidal policies and their perpetrators is a reflection of the logical extreme of the principle--it doesn't negate the principle
itself.

Steven Pinker caught the dilemma nicely:

"The psychology of taboo is not completely irrational. In maintaining our most precious relationships, it is not enough to say and do the right thing. We have to show that our heart is in the right place and that we don't weigh the costs and benefits of selling out those who trust us. If someone offers to buy your child or your spouse or your vote, the appropriate response is not to think it over or to ask how much. The appropriate response is to refuse even to consider the possibility. Anything less emphatic would betray the awful truth that you don't understand what it means to be a genuine parent or spouse or citizen....Unfortunately, the psychology of taboo is incompatible with the ideal of scholarship, which is that any idea is worth thinking about, if only to determine whether it is wrong."

And a dilemma it is. We all accept that there are certain ideas that should be rejected out of hand--but we simultaneously agree that to do so is not consistent with scholarly norms. It would take a smarter man than I to resolve the problem. But in the mean time, I think we can safely draw a line between Creationists and Nazis. Not because Creationists are right, or even making a reasonable argument. I simply think the rules change from the case of fringe "scientists" to that of advocates of mass murder.

It was the "who" more than the "what" that provoked my post. Thus far, we have managed to keep incivility contained to the very small group of extreme, radical evil. Creationists, for all their faults, are not in this category. I recognize the value of treating them such, but I fear for the Pandora's Box. Letting incivility become the norm, rather than the exception, strikes me as deeply dangerous to
civic cohesion and principled debate.

I hope you continue to read The Debate Link in the future. Leiter Reports has been on my blogroll for some time now--and it will continue to stay there. One disagreement does not a war declaration make. I'm sure we will clash again--indeed, I hope so. I also hope that we can do so in the spirit of discussion and open mindedness that I think we both agree is essential to a functioning polity.

Sincerely,

David Schraub

The Debate Link: http://dsadevil.blogspot.com

Leiter seems to think, contra me, that the civility/incivility line is drawn between the "hard" questions and the "easy" ones. The "hard" questions include complex interpretations of Nietzsche and Foucault. The "easy" ones include "Was the U.S. justified in invading Iraq?" Leiter admits that "those who can't tell the difference between the two kinds of questions" pose problems--but of course, it is a flaw that occurs only in other people. For example, my cultural background relating to genocide has made the question of whether the US was "justified" in invading Iraq a relatively "easy" one, but in the opposite direction of Leiter (whether or not the reasons given for invading were right, proper, or moral is another question, and one I probably fall much closer to Leiter on). Given the intense dispute over the issue, I am inclined to err on the side of humility, and not be so confident in my own convictions that I assume my opponents do not deserve the time of day. I will argue both passionately and respectfully with those who disagree--and hopefully persuade them to my side (and also hopefully be honorable enough to recognize a good point or a flaw in my reasoning when I hear it). I remain unconvinced that Leiter's line is superior--either strategically or morally, than mine.

Leiter also hints that the shouter method is more likely to persuade people than a rational, dispassionate argument. This may be so--indeed, in my more pessimistic moods this constitutes one of my key objections to democracy as a panacea. However, I think that biting into this temptation will put Democrats and Liberals in a battle they cannot win. Subject of a follow up post, perhaps.

Forgotten But Not Gone

I didn't actually watch Bush's speech, though I did run through the written text of it. Standard boilerplate, nothing too flashy. Oxblog gives his insta-reaction to it. Key quote: "Is it me, or does Bush sound a little defensive? Remember, that comment is coming from someone who agrees with 99% of what Bush is saying."

What caught my eye, though, was that Mr. Adnesik apparently thought Bush was going to speak on Darfur. I looked for it--nada. One might be inclined to give Bush the benefit of the doubt on this--Darfur relates only tangentially to the War on Terror (and even less so given this administration's statecentric bias). However, it has been months since I have heard a peep about Darfur from any major political or media figure. It appears it has entirely dropped off the radar screen.

It is very rare that Bush has the attention of all the news networks like this. Had he used this moment to definitively state "not on my watch," it might not have moved the US to action--but it may have struck a blow against the apathetic indifference to genocide that is currently hovering over the American populace. The news media has already decided that Darfur has lost its shock value (apparently genocide only is meaningful to America for as long as it continues to strike our conscience. Out of sight, out of mind). Those who have not already been convinced of the need for action let their eyes glaze over when they read the few tenacious voices which still speak on the subject. There are so few people who America has to at least hear, if not listen to. The President is one. Are there others?

The dying continue to wait in vain for their champion...who will rise to answer their call?

Religious Heckler's Veto

I'm still in the process of organizing my thoughts on the Van Orden and McCreary cases, so this post isn't a direct commentary on them. Rather, I wanted to opine on a critique Eugene Volokh (cross-posted to SCOTUSblog) had of the court justifying striking down the display of the 10 commandments on the grounds it was "divisive." He argues that empirically, the court's striking down of state-sanctioned religious displays has caused more divisiveness than the display itself. Ergo, the Court's logic gets hoisted by its own petard, if it really cared about ending religious strife, it would not hand down rulings that go against the sentiments of the religious majority.

It's a crafty argument, but, like Sanford Levinson, I still think it's wrong. It seems to me that such a position is the equivalent of a religious "heckler's veto." If we accept that governmental religious displays do cause some amount of religious division (leaving aside whether it is more or less than that in the aftermath of a court case), then the problem is that religious persons are reacting badly (dividing) over the court's refusal to allow them to divide. Any controversial case is going to promote some negative reactions--backlash is predictable when the court sides with the minority over the deeply held views of the majority. However, to vest the majority with this sort of power would to strip the court of its status as a counter-majoritarian check. If minority rights can be ignored whenever the majority cries loud enough, the "rights," so to speak, become non-existent. Professor Volokh's formulation echoes eerily of claims by southern racists that the court's decisions fostered more racial strife than if they had just left well enough alone. True or not, it really doesn't follow that the cause of racial tranquility would have been furthered had Brown never been decided. Indeed, one could argue that in virtually any case where an unpopular minority is granted protections that prevent the majority from acting as it otherwise would, the amount of outcry that follows the opinion would outweigh the outcry before it. This is simple mathematics--there are more members of the majority than the minority, and thus more persons to be aggrieved when their side loses. However, in the long term, reconciliation and stability are served in a community that makes tolerance its modus operandi, not a benevolent exception (I want to stress, by the way, that I am not casting any negative motivations upon the good Professor. Indeed, he specifically disclaimed that he was offering any sort of "vision" of First Amendment jurisprudence. I'm merely following the argumentative path he lays out to, what seems to me, its logical conclusion).

The other objection I have to Professor Volokh is that I think that, in the short-term at least, religious strife will be enhanced regardless of which side the Court rules for--so long as the court takes the case. This is because of the structure of our system--it's called "adversarial" for a reason. Court cases take things out of the realm of political debate, with all of its compromises, alliances, and shifting principles, and distill it down to simple X v. Y. Obviously, Courts can and do often craft compromise rulings, but the overarching framework is one of winners and losers (or sometimes, partial winners and partial losers).

On an empirical level, it would appear that the strife comes in when religion is pushed out by legal decree. But the history of religion clause litigation suggests this perception is skewed. Since the past 40 years have given strict separationists far more victories than defeats, if it is just legal decisions that cause strife, it might appear that it is strict separation that is the cause. Furthermore, since there are few cases that seek to add religion where it was absent, the inverted scenario cannot be tested. However (and this is just a sentiment I get), it seems to me that when religious groups win, the result is not tranquility at all; rather, Christian groups see the rulings as green lights for a more aggressive pursuit of their interests. This is just as "divisive" as when they lose and claim victimization. Hence, I disagree with, e.g., Listless Lawyer when he claims that "religious divisiveness" (and the culture wars in general) are products of the courts--or more accurately, the opinions and rulings of those courts. Instead, the courts are merely the most high profile (and high stakes venue) where these battles are played out.

Such a view is pessimistic on my part, because it offers little hope for short-term reconciliation in the culture war. If religious groups win, they press the attack, if they lose, they cry prejudice and counter-attack. Either way, the division remains--a product of a legal system which encourages participants to view themselves as combatants (and which, especially in constitutional law, is uniquely high stakes, winner-take-all).

I would continue to argue, though, that it is unfair to blame the victims of state-sponsored religious messages for the refusal of the religious majority to abide by or accept the constitution. Such a view turns constitutional law on its head--minorities, especially those who have little political support to begin with, already have enough trouble getting on the judiciary's radar screen, to be shackled with an inherent disadvantage from the start would make a mockery of the protections our bill of rights purports to afford. As Justice O'Connor so eloquently put it, we "don't count heads" when it comes to constitutional rights.

The Benefit of Context

Wow. It's amazing how Karl Rove gets worse with context. Here's my "favorite" part:

Conservatives believe in lower taxes; liberals believe in higher taxes. We want few regulations; they want more. Conservatives measure the effectiveness of government programs by results; liberals measure the effectiveness of government programs by inputs. We believe in curbing the size of government; they believe in expanding the size of government. Conservatives believe in making America a less litigious society; liberals believe in making America a more litigious society. We believe in accountability and parental choice in education; they don't. Conservatives believe in advancing what Pope John Paul II called a "culture of life"; liberals believe there is an absolute unlimited right to abortion.

Umm...what? Maybe once upon a time this was true. Today...not so much. Conservatives do favor lower taxes, I'll give them that. But they don't have much else. Meanwhile, liberals have, since Clinton and his third way, proven themselves to be more zealous in advocating governmental reform and accountability. Hillary Clinton has come out in favor of common-sense abortion policies--not knee-jerk crackdowns or reflexive claims to choice. And when a member of the Bush administration tells me that Republicans are interested in shrinking government, well, my response is the same as Dan Drezner's: "Spin Better!"

Do they have anything besides pathetic attacks? Shameful slanders? Bald-faced lies? I don't think they do. The benefit of context shows that this quote...wasn't out of context. It was indicative of all that is the modern GOP.

Balloon Juice tips me off.

The General and the Tactician

Note the difference. When a political tactician, for example, Karl Rove, talks about war, he can only frame it in political terms. There is no sense that we need to unify, or that there may be many different strategies to achieving the same goal. There is only one route--a political attack on (political) enemies. Thus, we get this hideous statement by Mr. Rove, which claims that the liberal response to 9/11 was to offer "therapy" to terrorists. Obviously, Rove would rather not talk about the unanimous save one decision to give the President authority to prosecute war in Afghanistan, or the decision of many Democrats to support the war in Iraq, or the aggressive Democratic support for the Department of Homeland Defense and the 9/11 commission (both opposed by Bush). Because to the political tactician, the war on terror comes second to the war on Democrats.

This is unfortunately the state of our terrorism discourse in America--mountains on demonizing political opponents, precious little on defeating terrorism. The latest absurd manifestation of this was Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham's (R-CA) argument in favor of the anti-flag burning amendment, which ran like this (link: Balloon Juice):

Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center. Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment."

That's funny, because my guess would have been that if we could talk to those now-dead men and women, they'd be more likely to say "stop focusing on stupid sh-- and make our country safer."

On the flip side, while our elected officials can't see past the latest attempt for a smear job, at least our generals still occassionally talk straight. So, contra "Last Throes" Cheney, General John Abizaid testified before Congress and admitted that the Iraq insurgency is not, in fact, weakening. Who to trust, who to trust. Such a toughie, this is.

Of course, Generals don't always give you the straight and narrow. We've seen plenty of bobbing and weaving from the military over torture and Guantanamo, among other things (though that pales in comparison to the spin job our elected officials give it, IE, Rep. Duncan "Chicken or Fish" Hunter (R-CA). But since it is their people who are dying, Generals are far less happy about being forced to toe an inaccurate spin line when the on the ground reality says something different. For the tacticians on the right, every outcome is a winner--if we win the war, they're the hawks who supported the troops, if we lose, Democrats were the traitors who undermined them. Since the outcome doesn't matter, they can gleefully assault liberals as a whole, without any thought to how their claims measure up to reality.

And Thus We Have Our Predicament

Perhaps more than anything else, this story illustrates the predicament Israel finds itself in when trying to fight terrorism:

A badly burned Palestinian woman was alternately defiant and tearful Monday after Israeli soldiers caught her trying to enter Israel with 22 pounds of explosives hidden on her body.

The woman, who suffered serious burns on her hands, feet and neck in a kitchen explosion five months ago, had been granted permission to cross into Israel from the Gaza Strip for medical treatment when she raised the suspicion of soldiers at the Erez checkpoint.

Video released by the military showed 21-year-old Wafa al-Biss taking off articles of clothing on the orders of soldiers searching for explosives, and rubbing her disfigured neck with her burned hands and screaming.

The military said she tried to blow up the explosives Monday but failed and was not injured.

The layers of difficulty present here are astounding. As the article says, something caught the soldiers interest, that led them to conduct a search. These sorts of hunches, however, are not sure bets. Imagine, for a moment, if the soldiers had guessed wrong. What would have been in the news, instead, would be stories about how Israeli soldiers strip-searched a burn victim on her way to humanitarian treatment. The world would have gone nuts. Israel knows this, and I bet money the soldiers know it too, which makes them politically brave as well militarily so.

The worst part is that Palestinian terror groups can continue to try to pierce Israeli defenses in this manner. Their use of Red Crescent trucks as arms smugglers is well documented, this is just the next logical step. If they are really clever, they will send alot of decoy persons into Israel with nothing on that at all, and reap the international backlash that occurs when folks in France see a poor, defenseless, burn victim being searched by the IDF. Then, when Israel begins to relent, they can sneak in real bombers under the net. To the media, it's "just another" suicide attack, to Israel it's another 20 dead teenagers, and to Hamas it's a successful tactic.

As long as the lens isn't cast on terrorist groups, showcasing the brutality of their terror and not giving them cover of political legitimacy, such tactics will continue to be used, and used successfully. This attack may have been foiled, but I fear in that respect it may have been the aberration, not the norm.

Link, Sullivan by way of Cole.

Rejecting the Quran

As anybody who has watched a courtroom drama knows, prior to testifying witnesses swear to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" while placing their right hand on the Bible. If the witness does not believe in God, then he can choose simply to raise his right hand and say an oath. Kind of quaint, really, but it's a nice tradition.

In North Carolina, a local Islamic group offered to donate some Qurans to the region's courts so that Muslims could swear on them instead of the Bible. And how did the judges respond? By rejecting the overture and proclaiming that an "oath on the Quran is not a lawful oath under our law."

I would say that such an action is blatantly unconstitutional, but North Carolina is in the 4th Circuit--the circuit perhaps most hostile to non-Christian religious freedom claims. I'm not sure this is any more outrageous than the anti-Wiccan policy the 4th Circuit upheld in Simpson v. Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors (exclusion of Wiccans and only Wiccans from giving a county's legislative prayer is permissible because a "divine
appeal [must] be wide-ranging, tying its legitimacy to common religious ground" in order to be constitutional under the first amendment), so this policy may yet survive. It need not even be said how this will affect our reputation with Muslims who already are sympathetic to portrayals of America as an anti-Muslim nation.

Good Sign

I know that a lot of Jewish voters were ambivalent on Governor Dean in the 2004 primaries, because he seemed tepid in his support of Israel. His base of supporters, drawing from the left edge of the party, made this threat even more pronounced. So I was very pleased to see his prompt condemnation of anti-Semitic bigotry at one of his events.

Balloon Juice gives the heads up. And this is also a sign, however timid, that Dean also will be able to resist the inevitable calls for an immediate Iraq withdrawal. Though I'm not willing to bank on that yet.

Out of Action

Where has this type of Republican gone? Former Missouri Senator John Danforth penned a simply spectacular editorial in the New York Times. An excerpt:

People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.

Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.

But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.

When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.

When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.

We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.

Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.
[...]
In the decade since I left the Senate, American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that I know God's will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility.

By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God's work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today's politics.

Political Animal gets the nod. It is a tragedy that someone like Danforth probably couldn't even get out of a Republican primary these days, let alone become the respected statesman that he is today.

Sirens' Call

That about sums up the situation Democrats are faced with right about now. Legal Fiction talks about the gathering "perfect storm" about to hit the Bush administration. One important issue he gets into is on Iraq, and I think this issue particularly poses risks to the Donkey:

[S]upport for Iraq is dropping fast. Personally, I don't favor setting timetables for withdrawing or even withdrawing at this point. Civil war would be too horrific. But dear Lord, we really have the tiger by the ears here. We can't win without more troops, as this NYT article shows in painful detail. Yet, we are unwilling to send in more troops. The military is hemorrhaging recruits. The insurgency is gaining. We have 130,000 troops trying to patrol 24 million - and the coalition is pulling out. At this rate, we will lose the war. And at this point, we have absolutely no strategy other than hoping that the insurgency will stop. And the American people are beginning to sense it - at the very same time the DSM hit the news.

I agree with Publius--we can't withdraw now, the civil war would be catastrophic and the US would be permanently crippled in its democratization efforts (no, I don't think we are permanently crippled already). But there's a bind here for Democrats. On the one hand, I think it must be awfully tempting to jump back on the "bash Iraq" train. After all, the GOP has no credibility on the matter any more, and the growing insurgency (oh I'm sorry, I meant to write "last throes") is demoralizing both the general public and the military at large. Frankly, to say post-war Iraq is a failure that can be laid at Bush's feet is not an exaggeration, and its pretty tough to tell Democrats not to take the fat target sitting in front of them.

Furthermore, the normal factors that would check Democrats from drinking the withdrawal koolaid don't seem to be operating here. The thing Democrats fear more than anything else, especially after the fiascos of '02/04, is to be tagged as soft on the military. So aside from the firebrands, they tend to shy away from overt positions which suggest they don't care about security. It's important to note, however, that unless there is a substantial paradigm shift in American politics, the left can never get beyond "neutral" on this issue. Recall the period leading up to the last election. Democrats had supported wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, supported the 9/11 commission (Bush opposed), wrote legislation authorizing the Department of Homeland Security (Bush opposed), and pushed for billions of dollars in additional national security funding (Bush opposed, successful). By any objective stance, the Democrats, as a party (as opposed to John Doe Dean Volunteer), were more pro-security than the GOP. Yet the Dems reaped no benefits, indeed, the prevailing conception was that they were weak, spineless, and wussy. At some point, Democrats are going to decide that being pro-security isn't gaining them any political benefits, and that will make the Peacenik wing of the party far more powerful.

The other problem is that even if the Democrats aren't ready to abandon the pro-security stance outright, the issue of Iraq is so hot right now it might even prove to be a disadvantage if they vow to stay the course. Normally, the only risk Democrats face from being too tough on security is a few Michael Moore lookalikes voting for Nader. This is annoying, but outside something crazy like confused Jews in Florida, it isn't likely to be fatal. But right now, it isn't just the left who wants to see us get out, it's the mainstream of the political spectrum that is becoming disenchanted, and the Democrats cannot afford to let the center vent its anger on endangered incumbents. Ironically enough, Bush's weakening stature may help the GOP here, because Republican candidates won't feel as compelled to toe the party line and might start to murmur about getting out themselves. Since GOP foreign policy roots lie more heavily within the Realist School than the Neo-Conservative one, this is not too far-fetched.

In a way, this is a masterful stroke by President Bush. Even his blunder is going to aid him politically, as it places Democrats in an impossible situation, with a political opportunity they can't pass up that will invariably lead to geopolitical consequences they can't escape the blame for. Of course, its a dark victory, because it comes in the wake of Bush's greatest failure on his highest profile project. But it's always seemed like Bush cared more about hurting Democrats than helping the country anyway.

Happy Birthday!

This blog turned one year old yesterday. Helluva milestone. I've been blessed to have such insightful readers, and to have had the support of the blogosphere as I've engaged in this project. Though I've slacked off over the last week, I've tried to maintain a quality site, and hope that I have succeeded at least to some degree.

Thank you all very much for reading. Hope to see again soon!

PS: Bought an X-Box with my new found wealth from the job. So blogging will be even more sporadic as I rot my mind away. But I swear I'll still be posting. I've gotten emotionally attached.

Federal Review

So the last chapter in the Schiavo case (hopefully) has come to a close. Her brain damage was irreversable and completely deprived her of any consciousness.

GOP Senators were unrepentant:

"My concern was for due process, and due process is not a medical issue," said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.). Asked whether he had any regrets, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who visited Schiavo at the hospice in her last days, responded, "None whatsoever." He added: "If a state court decides to take the life of someone, there should be a federal review."

How I wish Estoppel was a legitimate political argument. "If a state court decides to take the life of someone, there should be a federal review"? Next time Santorum and his buddies want to railroad someone through death row, throw that back at them.

And yes, I know that death row inmates do invariably get federal appeals. Too often, they are as cursory as, well, the review Schiavo got. Since presumably Santorum is not satisfied with the results of said hearing, I think it is fair to assume he wants a higher standard of review for Death Penalty inmates as well.

Spotted

On the DC Metro, Metro Center Station, this advertisement for West Virginia tourism. It shows an ATVer, riding through clearly rugged terrain.

"More dirty laundry than a judicial nominee."

Obviously, they know their audience.

Worst of All Worlds

Balloon Juice tells us that the Representative who brought you "Freedom Fries" and "Freedom Toast," our little jabs at the French for not supporting the war in Iraq, has decided the troops need to come home.

Guys like this are the worst of all worlds. Throwing out petty, demagogic insults in the runup to the war, but as soon as we need to stiffen some spines and get to work, he wants to cut and run. At least Kerry's ambivalence was tempered by his insistence that we get the job done.

Office Space

Tragically, you'll have to go elsewhere for all your Michael Jackson needs. I'm going to be blogging on a reduced schedule (though I won't be stopping entirely), at least for the next couple days. The job is quite interesting, but very stressful. Hopefully, when I've got some time to acclimate, I'll come back to normal.

Try to live on without me.

Oh-Bama!

Oh yeah. He's still got it. If you don't want to read the whole thing, Obsidian Wings cuts it down to the best parts. But it truly is inspirational to read.

Okay, I'll give you a little taste:

Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn't much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government—divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on.

In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it—Social Darwinism—every man or woman for him or herself. It's a tempting idea, because it doesn't require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford—tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job—life isn't fair. It let's us say to the child who was born into poverty—pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life's lottery, that we're the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: "You're fired!"

But there is a problem. It won’t work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it's been government research and investment that made the railways possible and the internet possible. It's been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we're all in it together and everybody's got a shot at opportunity. That’s what’s produced our unrivaled political stability.

Masterful. I greatly anticipate the day I see him moving into Pennsylvania Avenue.

Before and After

So tommorow I get to start my new job! I doubt I'll be doing any job-blogging--there probably won't be any interesting stories anyway. But at least it gives me something to do from 9-5:30 besides posting here.

As for why I haven't been posting this weekend--I've been rereading the old X-Wing series books that had been hiding out in my basement. You ever had a really odd urge to read/find/do something from way back when? I presume that was what came over me when I was scouring boxes at 4 AM Friday night, looking for them.

And yes, they are as much fun to read as they were back in junior high. Some things never change.