Category: Politics

You must condemn X. You must condemn Y.

“Islam is proven evil by the failure of mainstream Islam to condemn terrorism.” (Never mind that this is untrue to begin with.)

The problem is fairly obvious; the question is how to get ouf of the trap. How do we avoid falling into the belief that failure to condemn implies approval? Everyone does it.

Heck, I’ll take a shot at this one.

First off: media whore is a pejorative term. Yes? Yes.

Second: Erick Erickson didn’t call Cindy Sheehan a whore. He did call her a media whore. We can hopefully pretty much stop pretending he didn’t mean to be insulting, right?

Third: if there’s something wrong with Cindy Sheehan using her access to media outlets to promote a particular commercial or ideological message, then there are a lot of people from all sides of the political spectrum who ought to be condemned.

What the Redstate folks are really saying is that they disapprove of her message; however, they’ve chosen to attack the person instead of what she’s saying. There’s a bit of subtext implying she shouldn’t have access to media outlets, but that’s a pretty profoundly unappetizing bit of subtext, so you won’t see it stated clearly. It’s always difficult to say “we don’t believe she should have a platform.”

Robin Cook died Saturday. I’m… sadder than I can really express. So, for the third time, I’ll link to his March 18th anti-war speech, which only becomes more prescient with each revelation about the Iraq War.

What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops.

The longer that I have served in this place, the greater the respect I have for the good sense and collective wisdom of the British people.

On Iraq, I believe that the prevailing mood of the British people is sound. They do not doubt that Saddam is a brutal dictator, but they are not persuaded that he is a clear and present danger to Britain.

They want inspections to be given a chance, and they suspect that they are being pushed too quickly into conflict by a US Administration with an agenda of its own.

Hopefully nobody actually listens to me about politics.

I kinda think McCain’s busy running for President. Frist was too, but now he’s out of it; he needed that religious right support and he failed them. The field’s fairly wide open now.

The hard right hates it. Tacitus, as is often the case, is fairly sensible.

Note: the cloture vote for the current debate on Priscilla Owens’ judicial nomination is scheduled for Tuesday. Barring a compromise over the weekend, the cloture vote will fail and Senator Frist will begin declaring the Senate rules on filibusters unconstitutional.

The compromise is very unlikely. The key religious right lobby wants all the controversial judges confirmed, and a compromise would result in some rejections. We’ll find out, I dunno, Tuesday or Wednesday? One of those. We’ll find out then whether or not 50 Senators will vote to eliminate the judicial filibuster.

Ladies and gentlemen, Iraq has a government. Took a while, but they got there. I’m happy about that.

I find myself concerned that Chalabi is the acting oil minister, since he’s not exactly a beacon of shining moral integrity. I’m also rather bemused that the Prime Minister is the acting defense minister. Having the head of state also be the head of the armed forces has not traditionally been a sign of democratic process, but at least it’s temporary.

Ah, yes, temporary ministers. What happened is this: they couldn’t agree on who got the important ministerial posts, so they made them acting posts for the time being. They will get filled in over the course of the next couple of weeks. It’s the right decision, as Iraq can’t go without a government any longer.

On to the constitution.

We’re a step closer to the showdown on judicial filibusters. I kinda figured Harry Reid would force the issue.

The short version of what’s going on: you can prevent a vote from occurring in the Senate by filibustering it. It requires 60 votes to end a filibuster. Senator Frist is threatening to change the Senate rules in order to require only 50 votes to end a filibuster. However, changing Senate rules has always taken a 2/3rds majority vote. How’s Frist gonna get around that?

Well, he’s going to raise a point of order arguing that the filibuster is unconstitutional because it prevents the Senate’s Constitutional duty to advise and consent on judicial nominations. That point of order will go to the Senate’s presiding officer, who will be Cheney. Cheney will then say “You’re right,” and the vote to end the filibuster will take place.

However, Senate precedent says that Cheney can’t make the decision on constitutionality; rather, it should go to a Senate vote, which is itself subject to filibuster. And of course the Democrats would filibuster it. So Cheney has to break precedent and make a ruling. It’s fair to note that this does not break Senate rules, but Senate precedent is not unimportant either.

If you want the detailed look at this, start here and go on to this, this, this, this, this, and this. There are more posts in that series, but those are the ones that address Constitutional and Senate rules issues rather than arguing about the value of the filibuster itself and the meaning of “advise and consent.” Which are interesting questions, but not as relevant to this post.

Eric Rudolph has made his statement. Read it carefully; understand what lies behind it. Look past the claim that he’s only upset about abortion. He asserts that he only kills government agents because they defend abortion; recognize that a few paragraphs later he’s talking about his plans to kill government agents investigating the bombing of a gay club. Take note of his hatred for the Olympics. Consider his xenophobia.

Most people who say things like “Practiced by consenting adults within the confines of their own private lives, homosexuality is not a threat to society” are not going to go out and bomb nightclubs. But that kind of language provides easy cover for the fanatics who do. Or, more commonly, for the fanatics who beat people up for wearing buttons with a pink triangle on them. Most people who say things like “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior” aren’t going to go out and plot a murder. However, that kind of language provides cover — and encouragement — for people who do want judges dead.

Rudolph has a point; most countries, including own own, do arise from revolution of one form or another. Sometimes it’s necessary. The proof of the pudding is in the causes for which the revolutionary fights.

Hallo, Eschaton readers! Thanks for dropping by, hope you find the carpets to your liking, and so on. I’m writing more about culture and film these days than I used to, because I’m fairly burned out on politics, but you’ll still find the occasional political post if you happen to stick around. Also: hope you like Asian cinema.

Hm. Back then, I was not so subtly making the point that Eric Rudolph was a terrorist and wondering why Fox News would forgive those who supported him. The point still holds. I’m pretty gratified to see CNN calling it like it is today:

Rudolph was a follower of the white supremacist Christian Identity movement, but investigators have never ascribed a motive for the attacks.

Deborah Rudolph, the suspect’s former sister-in-law, said she believes he was driven by an animus toward the government and minorities.

Fox News is at least running the accurate AP story. I’m pleased to see coverage of this on the front page of the major news web sites. Rudolph will be making a statement about his motivations at some point; I think that’s going to be the thing that really needs coverage, because it’s a window into the minds of our own domestic terrorists.

Now, that’s pretty close to being a government. Good news.

It’ll be interesting to see who winds up in the cabinet. More specifically, it’ll be interesting to see who gets to be the oil minister. The Kurds want it, but they probably got the right to have their own independent army (people keep saying militia. It’s got tanks and artillery; it’s an army in my book), so maybe they gave up the ministry. And what happens to Kirkuk?