Ad War Update

Gingrich rolls out a 30-minute "Newtfomercial," explaining how he would achieve $2.50/gallon gasoline with "a whole new approach." The soporific seminar will run in "key cities" through Super Tuesday: 

Grace Wyler rolls her eyes: 

The message is clearly one that resonates with Republican voters, but the ad itself is ridiculous. Thirty-second TV hits work for a reason — they get the message across and get the candidate wide exposure. Presumably most TV viewers don't want to be shanghaied into watching candidates pontificate for a half hour.

Back in Michigan, Santorum's Super PAC goes after Romney: 

Read On »

How Romney Became Pro-Life

William Saletan reviews the record:

Romney began his political career as a pro-choicer. In the story he tells, he had an epiphany, a flash of insight, and committed himself thereafter to protecting life. But that isn’t what happened. The real story of Romney’s conversion—a series of tentative, equivocal, and confused shifts, accompanied by a constant rewriting of his past—paints a more accurate picture of who he is. Romney has complex views and a talent for framing them either way, depending on his audience. He values truth, so he makes sure there’s an element of it in everything he says. He can’t stand to break his promises, so he reinterprets them.

Face Of The Day

Ya Kwaza, a silverback gorilla male, stands in his enclosure at the Amneville zoo, eastern France, on February 21, 2012. Ya Kwaza arrived with four other gorillas from other Western zoos as part of a the Endangered Species Programm (EEP) to promote their breeding. By Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP/Getty Images.

The New Homeschoolers, Ctd

Astra Taylor defends homeschooling against Dana Goldstein's attacks. Taylor thinks unschooling is an arena where the left can regain ground long ago ceded to the right: 

Conservatives will continue to appear brave enough to think big, posing bold solutions to society’s problems (charter schools, eliminating teacher tenure, instituting merit pay), while progressives defend the status quo. What intrigues me about the history of radical pedagogy and the unschooling tradition is that its proponents were and are not afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom, to dream of different ways of doing things, to take seriously words like “freedom,” “autonomy,” and “choice”—inspiring and important ideals that have been all but ceded to the political right in recent decades.

Friedersdorf makes related points. Goldstein responds to critics: 

Read On »

Malkin Award Nominee

Tucker Carlson thinks "Iran deserves to be annihilated." His only worry is that oil prices will go up:

Goldblog cringes:

This is the sort of rhetoric that leads to war. I have no doubt this clip will be played over and over again in Tehran by a regime eager to prove that America wants to -- to borrow a phrase -- wipe Iran off the map. It should go without saying that Iran does not "deserve" to be annihilated. 

Why Don't Americans Riot?

Among other reasons:

Previously marginalized groups that once felt they had no other outlet now have more voices in the political process. White flight ceded whole cities – and their governments – to African Americans in the U.S. And this left neighborhood boundaries less contentious, Katz argues, eliminating one of the causes of urban friction. In the 1960s, by contrast, large numbers of African Americans were moving into the city at a time when whites had not yet left.

Ashes To Ashes

Benjamin Dueholm ponders Ash Wednesday:

Not that long ago, contemplating mortality and feeling contrition for grave failings were considered noble pursuits. They were the themes of great literature and popular music alike. In our culture we have come, more often, to view these same experiences as neuroses. Grief is edging closer to being defined as a species of depression. Anxiety over the inevitability of death has become something to be resolved through a process ending in "acceptance," as though being sundered from everyone and everything one loves is the sort of thing one can become good at. 

(Photo: A young woman prays during an Ash Wednesday Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle February 17, 2010 in Washington, DC. By Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Misleading Metaphors

Razib Kahn warns against them:

[B]ad metaphors can do a great disservice to the public understanding of science. The idea of the "evolutionary ladder" perpetuates the myth that evolution is about a steady linear march towards complexity. The militaristic metaphor of the "war on cancer" threatens to undervalue achievements in treatment that fall short of a total cure. The idea of the brain as a computer creates all sorts of misconceptions about how different parts of the brain work, how memories are stored and whether we will ever be able to download or upload our minds. In a field where complex ideas must be conveyed simply but accurately, it couldn’t be more important for science writers to pick the right metaphors.

Mental Health Break

A reader writes:

Here's a joyful video of a rollercoaster with no tracks swooping through Buenos Aires. Obviously not real, but smile-inducing all the same.

Update from another reader:

Anybody else find it bit incongruous watching a roller-coaster swooping through Buenos Aires amidst headlines of a horrendous, deadly train derailment in that city today?

We had no idea. We subsequently replaced the MHB, out of respect for the victims, but you can watch the original here if you wish.

Heads Up

I'm on Michael Medved's radio talk show for the next hour. You can listen here.

Why Think Tanks Resist Thinking

Noah Kristula-Green dissects Heritage VP Michael Franc's recent claim that the organization likes "having a coherent world view":

Heritage wants to unify the social conservatives, foreign policy hawks, and free marketers. In politics, there are inevitably issues that divide that coalition (Franc cited immigration as an example). When a tough policy issue comes up, how does Heritage deal with the arguments that may arise? Simple, don't have the arguments (publicly) at all! Work out what the unified position is and stick to it. Whatever you do, don't allow people who may have different points of view to publish papers that disagree with each other, think about how that would make the marketing department's job harder!

And if one of your employees wants to think out loud, fire him!

Did HBO Ruin Television?

Ryan McGee wonders if the channel commonly credited with ushering in TV's "Golden Age" has actually damaged the medium:

HBO has shifted its model to produce televised novels, in which chapters unfold as part and parcel of a larger whole rather than serving the individual piece itself.  Here’s the problem: A television show is not a novel. That’s not to put one above the other. It’s simply meant to illuminate that each piece of art has to accomplish different things. HBO’s apparent lack of awareness of this difference has filtered into its product, and also filtered into the product of nearly every other network as well. 

James Poniewozik counters:

Read On »

"No Book Is Equivalent To Human Life"

In response to violence sparked by the burning of Korans by the US military, Asra Q. Nomani begs fellow Muslims to chill out:

I believe that we, as Muslims, have to change our relationship with the "sacred text" and make it something that we study, think about and critically examine—not "honor" with such blind reverence that we lose our sense of common sense and rationality.

Read On »

Obama Didn't Fail

Chait compares the US recession to other financial crises:

I think that comparison has flaws of its own. But surely it tells us something — it tells us that Obama’s boast that we avoided total disaster is not meaningless. The steps the administration and the Federal Reserve undertook in face of the recession — quantitative easing, some degree of fiscal stimulus, banking bailouts, reorganizing the auto industry rather than letting it collapse in the face of frozen credit markets — prevented the kinds of total disaster that are the norm in the face of this kind of crisis.

To run against Obama, Frum advises the GOP to come up with a, you know, plan for America's future.

(Chart from the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis)

When Does A Difference Become A Diagnosis?

Hanif Kureishi's son, who had trouble with reading and writing, has been diagnosed as dyslexic and dyspraxic. Kureishi asks:

[C]an the inability to do a particular thing be described as a "condition" at all? Would the fact that I can’t do the tango, read music or speak Russian be considered a "condition"? Is it a failure of my development? Am I ill?

Will Wilkinson sympathizes:

I've been diagnosed with a fairly serious case of "adult ADHD," but I am convinced that this is mostly a hand-waving, pseudo-scientific way of saying that my constitution leaves me ill-suited to perform certain tasks under certain conditions. And it turns out that many of the opportunities available to people with my interests and education require performing those tasks under those conditions. This mismatch between these opportunities and my--what's the gee-whiz word?--my neurotype is the problem, not my neurotype per se. There is nothing really wrong with me.

The View From Your Window

Phoenix, Arizona, 12.10 pm

Moore Award Nominee

"So Western media sneak correspondents into Syria illegally, and then expect the Syrian regime to protect them.  If Israel were to see one Western correspondent sneaking into Israel, he/she would be incinerated on the spot," - As'ad Abu Khalil, on the killing of journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik by Syrian shells hitting a media tent in Homs.

Chemical Counseling

Brian Earp defends the idea that some couples should take neurochemical "love drugs" to prevent divorce:

In the case of marriages generally, the individuals involved have voluntarily placed themselves under a mutual oath to stick together "for better or worse" and "until death do us part." The relevant duty is simply to honor that marital commitment, by every reasonable effort, instead of abandoning it too easily when things go "worse." As love drugs become safely and cheaply available, and if side-effects or other complications could be minimized, then using them might, in some cases, fall into the bubble of "every reasonable effort."

Ecstasy (MDMA) was used in part for marital therapy almost as soon as it was discovered. Some studies have shown clear benefits for the depressed, and those suffering from PTSD. I favor its decriminalization and intensified research on its possible medical benefits. But the pursuit of happiness in America does not seem that high on either party's agenda, does it?

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

I really hope you will air a dissenting view on this topic that comes from actual firsthand public health experience in the context of legalized prostitution in Europe, rather than some inane moralizing or ideology. I don't often see this issue discussed in a way that reflects the reality I observed in a few locations in the EU. As someone who has worked as a volunteer with prostitutes in a loose medical capacity (alongside a wife working in a fully professional medical capacity), both in countries where it is legal, as well as in some with illegal brothels, I think that a rational appraisal of the evidence would make you rethink your unequivocal statement that you see "absolutely no reason it should not be legal." 

First, let me say that I lean relatively libertarian regarding social issues, favor legalization of pot and other drugs on the less destructive end of the spectrum, and in pure theory can see the case for prostitution as a valid economic activity when good faith consent exists.  However, reality does not bear out the claim that it has been made (or maybe even can be made) much less of a hellish situation for the women involved

In short: In countries with both legalized and illegal prostitution, even in Europe, most of the women/girls are trafficked to begin with.  Period. 

Read On »

Santorum's Base

Consists mostly of Christianists:

[I]n January Santorum was the preferred choice of only about 20 percent of respondents who both strongly oppose gay marriage and think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.  When these exact same individuals were re-interviewed last week, though, more than 50 percent of them now preferred the former Pennsylvania Senator.  Meanwhile, the display reveals only a slight uptick in his standing from January to February among more socially liberal and moderate Republican primary voters.  All told, then, the evidence strongly suggests that moral conservatives sparked the Santorum surge.

What I find somewhat infuriating in the language of the linked poll is the notion that wanting to recriminalize all abortion in every state and end all civil unions/marriages for gay couples is somehow "conservative." It would be radically opposed to the state of affairs that has existed in this country for decades. Opposing marriage equality can be called many things, but "socially conservative" is simply not one of them. When you favor weakening the social signals that encourage commitment, responsibility, family integration and stability, you are not socially conservative. You are, in fact, advocating the kind of social signal that deems a small minority of society outside of and beneath all moral norms.

The Hounding Of Pat Buchanan, Ctd

PM Carpenter, who disagrees with Buchanan about almost everything, thinks MSNBC was wrong to fire him:

What I want to hear -- what I need to hear -- is whatever incisive stuff the other guys are thinking. And Pat Buchanan, on MSNBC, was that lone voice. Now, even he is gone, which only further exacerbates cable networks' mindless polarization and further weakens mutual enlightenment.

Alyssa Rosenberg differs:

Sunlight is the best disinfectant only if the ideas at hand have actual traction and need to be dislodged. Nobody takes seriously the ideas that Jerry Sandusky’s alleged abuse and rape of children has any connection to marriage equality for gay couples, or that Anders Brevik, the Norway terrorist, has the right worldview. Their credibility has nowhere to go but up, and lending someone a seat at the table confers some of that credibility, even if it’s only to acknowledge that the idea has power that’s dangerous.

My take on Buchanan's firing here. Dissents here. A rare departure from the dozens and dozens of other dissents:

Read On »

Can Santorum Beat Obama?

Douthat doubts it:

[T]he former senator has the instincts of an activist, rather than of a president or statesman. Whether the topic is social issues or foreign policy, his zeal exceeds his prudence, and as a result his career is littered with debating society provocations (referencing “man-on-dog” sex in an argument about gay marriage, using his doomed 2006 Senate bid to educate Pennsylvanians on the evils of Hugo Chavez, etc.) that have won him far more enemies than friends. His passion for ideas and argument often does him credit, but in a national campaign it would probably do him in.

I will, of course, be live-blogging the Arizona debate tonight. I'll also be on Michael Medved's radio talk show from 4 - 5 pm. Somehow, I suspect Santorum may come up.

The Moral Scandal Of Rick Santorum And "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Here's Rich Lowry, defending Santorum yesterday:

Although his critics will never credit him for it, Santorum’s social conservatism brings with it an unstinting devotion to human dignity, a touchstone for the former senator. The latest position for which he’s taking incoming is his opposition to a government mandate for insurance coverage of prenatal testing often used to identify handicapped babies who are subsequently aborted.

Here are the torture techniques Santorum aggressively defends and told Senator John McCain he didn't understand:

Using dogs to terrorize prisoners; stripping detainees naked and hooding them; isolating people in windowless cells for weeks and even months on end; freezing prisoners to near-death and reviving them and repeating the hypothermia; contorting prisoners into stress positions that create unbearable pain in the muscles and joints; cramming prisoners into upright coffins in painful positions with minimal air; near-drowning, on a waterboard, of human beings—in one case 183 times—even after they have cooperated with interrogators.

Here is a specific case conducted at Camp Nama directly under the authority of Stanley McChrystal:

[One prisoner] was stripped naked, put in the mud and sprayed with the hose, with very cold hoses, in February. At night it was very cold. They sprayed the cold hose and he was completely naked in the mud, you know, and everything. [Then] he was taken out of the mud and put next to an air conditioner. It was extremely cold, freezing, and he was put back in the mud and sprayed. This happened all night. Everybody knew about it. People walked in, the sergeant major and so forth, everybody knew what was going on, and I was just one of them, kind of walking back and forth seeing [that] this is how they do things.

It seems to me that no politician who has aggressively defended these core violations of human dignity can be described as someone for whom human dignity is a "touchstone" of his worldview. The effrontery is not that of the media; the effrontery is from Santorum when he lectured John McCain that McCain

doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative.

In that very defense - in Santorum's own description of what he is defending - he is defending the "breaking" of a human person, made in the image of God. He is defending a core, absolute evil. Let us concede for the sake of argument that these are "enhanced interrogation techniques" and not "torture", as Santorum insists. There is no meaningful difference between the two whatsoever from a Catholic perspective, and Santorum's public positioning as an avowedly Catholic politician, while defending and promoting an absolute evil, is a true and immense moral scandal - in the Church's sense of the word. No one should be giving the impression that the Catholic church defends "enhanced interrogation techniques". This is from the Catechism: 

Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity...

Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely. Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. 

Notice there is a bar even on "moral violence" on or "frightening" prisoners. Santorum's own moral distinction between "breaking" human beings by EITs and "torture" does not exist in international law or Catholic doctrine.

I conscientiously dissent from the Magisterium on marriage equality, contraception, and women and married priests. But I publicly acknowledge that I am dissenting and this is not the hierarchy's view and that I am not representing the Magisterium. Santorum, it seems to me, needs to be just as explicit in his statement that he dissents from his own church on the question of the inviolable dignity of the human person. He is advocating crimes "deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles". He is proposing to "break" a human person, without even due process. He is standing as the publicly Catholic foe of human dignity.

And notice that, unlike, say, allowing contraception or gay marriage in a free society, the government that Santorum proposes to lead is directly involved in such activities. A lawmaker who allows free contraception in health insurance can only be accused of indirectly causing sin to occur; but a president who authorizes the abuse and torture of human beings is directly, intimately involved with that decision and bears full moral responsibility for it. 

It seems to me that Santorum can and should be free to defend this evil as he sees fit. But his defense of torture is far, far more scandalous to the Catholic church than any liberal Catholic politician's views on, say, same-sex marriage or contraception. It is he who has made his faith integral to his public life. Yet he defends the equivalent of crucifixion for prisoners under his potential command.

When, one wonders, will Catholics hear a letter from the pulpit on the vital question of torture - and the support for it from a leading Catholic candidate for the presidency?

Ask Me Anything: Favorite Gay-Themed Film?

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com Video archive here.

Quote For The Day

"I was basically pro-choice all my life, until I ran for Congress," - Rick Santorum, in a 1995 interview.

Yglesias Award Nominee

"It’s almost impossible to overstate how important tone and countenance are when it comes to social issues. There is a great deal to be said for those who care about the cultural condition of American society. But the arguments on behalf of moral truth need to be made in ways that are winsome, in a manner that is meant to persuade. What this means, in part, is the person making the arguments needs to radiate some measure of grace and tolerance rather than condemnation and zeal ...

Read On »

A Poem For Ash Wednesday

From the greatest of all poems about the subject, and a passage that is, to me, an integral part of my doubt-infused faith, and its resistance to fundamentalist certainty:

Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

A Syrian Third Way

Marc Lynch summarizes his new report [pdf] outlining a strategy for toppling Assad without war:

[T]he time for negotiations with the top levels of the Assad regime has passed, and if they refuse to engage immediately then they should be moved towards indictment at the International Criminal Court.  A real choice should be given to lower level state officials, who should understand that their window is rapidly closing to defect or be indicted.  Targeted sanctions should increase the pressure on the top of the regime.  The Friends of Syria group should coordinate international activity, and every possible international forum should be mobilized to isolate and shame the Syrian regime. 

But pressure is not enough.  Efforts should be stepped up to reach out to the broad base of the regime's remaining political support and to persuade them to take a frightening, risky leap into the unknown of a transition.

Ed Husain and Shadi Hamid debate whether any military steps could make things better there. Jonathan Spyer reports from Syria on the difficulties in engaging with the armed rebels:

Read On »

Sexual Sorting, Ctd

A reader gets real:

I'm a guy. Which means that, almost by definition in my nearly 50 years of life, I'm a pig. I want that super sexy, skinny, perfect-skin young beauty (preferably about the age of 16 - which is perfectly legal where I live, just so you know). What I have is anything but; she's fat; she has acne; she has PCOS, which means among other things a horrid smell if she isn't exceptionally regular about bathing, her hair is thin near to the point of balding and, of course, we can never have children.

But what a grown man, as opposed to a child, realizes is that what he wants is not necessarily what he needs.

Read On »

What We Get Wrong About Animals

Common "facts" debunked:

Follow-up on the daddy long legs here.

How Vets Save Humans

Francois Meslin explains why animal illnesses are serious threats to human wellbeing:

[E]ffective control and prevention often needs to be targeted at the animal reservoir rather than the people, while the budgets for such diseases (if there is a budget at all) rests with the human health services. Human health protection thus must include or even depend on the veterinary sector, which is itself relatively underfunded (budgets for human health promotion usually end up in Ministries of Health). Thus, these problems often fall between the cracks of responsibility.

Will High Gas Prices Doom Obama?

Not directly, according to Bradford Plumer. But if oil prices trigger a recession, that will damage Obama:

[T]here’s ample reason to worry that surging oil prices could whack the U.S. economy. Higher gas prices at the pump tend to mean that consumers are sending more of their dollars overseas, leaving them with less money to spend on goods and services here at home. The Energy Information Administration estimates that a $20 increase in the price of a barrel of oil causes U.S. GDP to decline 0.4 percentage points.

So the real question is whether gas prices will crimp the broader recovery.

(Chart from Gas Buddy)

Is Science Reshaping Politics?

Yes, says Ronald Bailey, reviewing Jonathan Moreno's new book:

Contemporary biopolitics, Moreno argues, is disrupting the conventional left/right ideological categories. On one side stands an uneasy "bioconservative" alliance of moralizing neoconservatives and egalitarian left-wingers who fear that the new biotechnologies threaten human dignity and human equality. On the other side are "bioprogressives" who welcome the new advancements for their capacity to confer greater freedom to flourish. 

Mickey D's Great Step Forward, Ctd

A reader writes:

The five-year phase-out of gestation crates will be an improvement, but the situation for pigs will still be dire. As Mark Bittman said in the article you linked to: "sows will still be raised in what can only be called industrial conditions..." From having their tails and testicles hacked off without anesthesia, to living in extremely crowded factories with acrid air, to sleeping on hard concrete (they love making themselves soft beds) and having sores all over their bodies as a result, to being transported to slaughter in crowded trucks and arriving injured, dehydrated and hungry, to horribly painful slaughter, including sometimes being dunked into "scalding tanks" fully conscience. (You can see the scalding process here. Other abuses here and [above].)

Yes, eliminating gestation crates is a positive, but if anyone thinks it is, therefore, somehow okay to use these products, then this could lead to even more suffering for these highly intelligent, social beings.

Can You Patent A Recipe?

No:

The real question in regard to these matters is not, at bottom, legal, but rather moral. Even though there almost certainly is no legal recourse available against someone who steals (again in the ordinary sense of that word) a published recipe by rewording it and passing it off as original, or, worse yet, publishes someone else’s unpublished recipe while claiming to be its creator, there is no reason not to—in fact, this is about social etiquette rather than criminal law—treat such actions as a form of theft.

The Birth Of Muscle Culture

Paul Solotaroff traces it:

[I]f you were born anytime after the release of Conan the Barbarian in 1982, it may shock you to learn that as late as the 1970s, Americans were repelled by the sight of brawn.

Read On »

The Future Is Bright

According to Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotlerpovety:

[P]overty has been reduced more in the past 50 years than in the previous 500. One major reason is the abundance of information-and-communication technology. According to research done at the London School of Business, adding ten cell phones per hundred people raises GDP by .6 percent. To quote technology write Nicholas Sullivan on this matter: “extrapolating from UN figures on poverty reduction (1 percent GDP growth results in a 2 percent poverty reduction), that.0.6 percent growth would cut poverty by roughly 1.2 percent. Given 4 billion people in poverty, that means with every 10 new phones per 100 people, 48 million people graduate from poverty.”

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish, Andrew blasted Santorum's social radicalism, marveled at Mitt's tree pandering, guffawed at Romney scion Craig's ridiculous tumblr, caught Craig red-handed treating a fish in his father's Seam(us)-ful footsteps (reup here), and conjectured about what Shelly was playing at. We launched the Romney caption contest (winner above with runners-up here), sized up Mitt's light war chest, tracked the anti-Santorum backlash from one prominent Romney backer, debunked the Catholic vote myth, defended SuperPACs, and worried about a brokered convention. Ad War Update here.

Andrew also thought deeply about how the closet's tyranny shaped Whitney Houston's life, doubled down on his defense of Pat Buchanan (follow-up here), was disgusted by American soldiers burning a Koran, and pondered the results of our Urtak poll on the US reaction to a potential Iran war. We grabbed reax to the Greek deal, debated parallels between Iraq in 2002 and Iran in 2012, spotted some lobbying on the topic in Congress, figured out how many nukes we needed, projected that Obama's drone wars would bring some grim consequences, and got concerned that indefinite detention would last as long as al-Qaeda did.

Jeremy Lin revealed the differences between American and Chinese professional sports culture, the US got older sans immigrants, homeschooling swung left, and the Prop 8 case developed. America choked on red tape, Finland's intense teacher education paid off, photographing the recession was a huge task, and the Heavy Press Program made our military technology. A statistician predicted crime, cognitive enhancement created ethical conundrums, the chicken matrix aimed at taking animal welfare out of food farming, and gibbons were dicks. Chart of the Day here, AAA here, Quotes for the Day here and here, VFYW Contest Winner here, VFYW here, FOTD here, and MHB here.

- Z.B.

The Hounding Of Pat Buchanan, Ctd

A reader writes:

This may have been brought to your attention but why not send it in. It's a passage from Hunter S. Thompson's "The Great Shark Hunt":

Crazy? Tex Colson? Never in Hell. "He's the meanest man in American politics," says Nixon's speechwriter Pat Buchanan, smiling lazily over the edge of a beer can beside the pool outside his Watergate apartment. Buchanan is one of the few people in the Nixon administration with a sense of humor. He is so far to the right that he dismisses Tex Colson as a "Massachusetts liberal."

But for some reason, Buchanan is also one of the few people -- perhaps the only one -- on Nixon's staff, who has friends at the other end of the political spectrum. At one point during the campaign I mentioned Buchanan at McGovern Headquarters, for some reason, and Rick Sterns, perhaps the most hardline left-bent ideologue on McGovern's staff, sort of chuckled and said, "Oh yeah, we're pretty good friends. Pat's the only one of those bastards over there with any principles." When I mentioned this to another McGovern staffer, he snapped: "Yeah, maybe so. . . like Josef Goebbels had principles."

What is it we need more of in our discourse? More intellectual backbone? Less sanctimony? Where the hell should I start? I’m not sure, but silencing Buchanan isn’t a step in the right direction.

(Photo: Wiki, from 1969)

The New Kremlinology, Ctd

[No: orange. Yes: blue.]

We had 20,000 responses to our Urtak poll from the other day on how to read the latest NYT piece about the Israel-Iran gathering storm. The results are here. A majority of you thinks Israel is serious about an attack, that Netanyahu is using the NYT to pressure Obama to do it himself, but that, in the end, Obama will not back such an attack unless sanctions have truly been shown to have failed. But one reader caught a nuance worth noting:

One sentence -- specifically, one phrase -- stood out to me in the NYT piece:

Assuming it does not use a nuclear device, Israel has American-made GBU-28 5,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs that could damage such hardened targets, although it is unclear how far down they can go.

This is the first time I've seen the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent mentioned in this debate.  Consider the following in that light:

Should the United States get involved — or decide to strike on its own — military analysts said that the Pentagon had the ability to launch big strikes with bombers, stealth aircraft and cruise missiles, followed up by drones that could carry out damage assessments to help direct further strikes.

I've re-read the article a couple of times, and I still come away with the same impression: short of a nuclear blast, Israel is unsure whether they can achieve their goal, whereas the US would be perfectly capable of pulling it off with conventional weapons.  It looks as though they've taken a page from the Nixon playbook -- though Nixon used this strategy to intimidate the US' adversaries, whereas Israel seems intent on using it to intimidate one of its allies.

I worry that this situation can so easily get out of control with this kind of brinksmanship, and today, we are seeing an increasingly jittery Tehran regime make more threatening noises about pre-emption in the same manner as Israel. Both countries are now assassinating each others' citizens. But I hope and pray that Obama stays calm and calls Bibi's bluff. If Israel refuses to allow sanctions to take their course, and wants to succeed militarily, then it can always use its nukes. How the world would react would be Israel's crisis to cope with - not ours'. And we should adamantly disown the attack as Eisenhower did in 1956, and end all military aid.

One modest proposal for the MSM in these stories. When referring to Iran's attempt to procure enough material for one nuclear warhead, stories should also mention that Israel already possesses somewhere in the region of 200, has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and holds a nuclear monopoly in the region. Context matters.

Chart Of The Day

Despite recent cost increases, Dave Gilson isn't sure that the presidency is overpriced:

[C]ampaign costs have underperformed against real GDP growth: Since 1932, the GDP grew more than 1,700 percent, while real campaign costs grew around 1,360 percent. 

Kevin Drum adds:

What's fascinating, to me, isn't that the costs of presidential campaigns have skyrocketed so much, but that they haven't. Until very, very recently, that is. From 1964 all the way through 2000, the cost of presidential campaigns was pretty stable, ranging around $300-600 million in inflation-adjusted terms. It was only in 2004 and 2008 that costs suddenly went through the roof.

Jonathan Bernstein believes that campaign finance regulations kept campaigns relatively cheap:

Read On »

Gibbons Are Jerks

A reader responds to yesterday's MHB:

That was a gibbon - those guys get grudges! I used to volunteer at the Minnesota Zoo. I would be dropped off early and was allowed to wander around before I had to start working, and before the zoo was officially open. That meant I was frequently the only person around while I wandered and some animals (like the dolphins) were happy to see me, while others (like the gibbons) were NOT.

One young male gibbon really fixated on me and did all he could to launch a similar attack, but he was just too far away. (The gibbons were on an island with a large moat.) He'd chase me and yell at me and generally try to convey his deep hatred.

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Prop 8 Update

A useful primer of today's development from one of the very best gay journalists out there, Chris Geidner.

The Greater Israel Lobby And Yet Another War

Bob Wright connects some dots:

According to Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now, the resolution got 15 Democratic supporters only "after days of intense AIPAC lobbying, particularly of what some consider 'vulnerable' Democrats (vulnerable in terms of being in races where their pro-Israel credentials are being challenged by the candidate running against them)." What's more, even as AIPAC was playing this hardball, the bill's sponsors still had to tone down some particularly threatening language in the resolution. But, even so, the resolution defines keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapons "capability" as being in America's "vital national interest," which is generally taken as synonymous with "worth war."

How Many Nukes Do We Need?

A recent AP article reported the Obama administration was considering cutting our nuclear arsenal to 300 weapons. James Traub isn't buying it. Adam Weinstein argues that 300 would probably be enough:

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Face Of The Day

A man sits alone as families arrive at Latimer Square Service ahead of the one year Christchurch earthquake anniversary on February 22, 2012 in Christchurch, New Zealand. A 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the South Island's largest city on February 22, 2011, killing 185 people and severely damaging the city and surrounding suburbs. By Martin Hunter/Getty Images.

There Is No "Catholic Vote"

Ed Kilgore shows that Catholic views on issues like contraception, abortion and marriage equality are almost indistinguishable from other voters: 

The idea that Catholics no longer behave self-consciously as “Catholics” on hot-button issues reflects the broader reality that they have become hard to distinguish from other Americans in their political behavior. And so whatever happens between the White House and the Bishops, it’s not likely to change the reality that the “Catholic vote” looks just like America. 

Will Romney Have To Pull Out His Checkbook?

Nate Silver inspects the candidate's fundraising efforts:

Unless Mr. Romney’s fund-raising pace picks up or he wraps up the nomination fairly quickly, he might need to consider self-financing, as he did in 2008. But that decision could carry some risk. Voters may be reluctant to contribute to a campaign once it looks like the candidate is willing to foot the bill himself, and such a decision could play into unfavorable narratives about Mr. Romney and his wealth. 

Ad War Update: "Is This Dude Serious?"

Romney's "wingman" targets Santorum in Michigan: 

Sam Stein spotlights Romney and Paul's peculiar friendship: 

So far this campaign cycle, the two candidates have had an informal alliance, with neither of them ever really threatening the other. Paul memorably declined to join the chorus in criticizing Romney's tenure at Bain Capital. Romney, in return, has heaped praise on Paul's influence over the GOP platform on all facets, save foreign policy. The New York Times reported last week on the friendship that has developed between Romney and Paul, dating back to their 2008 runs for the White House. Now, it appears, Paul is going to help drive down Santorum's climbing poll numbers in Michigan, to Romney's benefit.

Paul Waldman addresses the substance of the ad: 

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The Permanence Of Indefinite Detention

Benjamin Wittes thinks indefinite detention will last until al-Qaeda no longer exists:

As long as the United States is fighting the Taliban, it has the authority to detain members of the Taliban. As long as the United States is fighting Al Qaeda or groups that are functionally part of or co-belligerent with Al Qaeda members, it has the authority to detain members of Al Qaeda. And when either conflict can meaningfully be said to be over, detention authority will end with it–just as detention authority did, in fact, end in Iraq.

Mary Dudziak counters.