Asshole Culture

DAVE "Apolitical" Weigel works the Rolodex:

[Patrick] Beck [the Top Teabagger in Mojave County] wasn't looking forward to the coming "finger-pointing" over this incident, which has definitely claimed the life of a judge, John Roll, who'd been protested over an immigration ruling. "People blame the right for Oklahoma City," said Beck. "People blame the left for the Pentagon being bombed. I don't know this guy who did this, but there are crazy people in all walks of life. One rotten apple does not make a bad batch."

An on and on and on; the first member of the Indiana Congressional delegation to announce he moderately deplored the shooting of Rep. Giffords was Danny Lee Burton. The Arizona Teabaggers are resolute; Weigel himself, their Boswell, is just covering the story. They're all against shooting political opponents in the head. Afterwards. Sorry if the occasional lone nut got the wrong impression.

It's the pathetic remorse of the sniveling habitual drunk who's finally managed to run down an elderly woman in a crosswalk.

And let's be clear about this. I'm not here to say it's Sarah Palin's fault. Quite the opposite. She, and her stupid asshole map, should be seen for what they are. She didn't intend to put Rep. Giffords in some literal crosshairs, and in a better world we'd all admit that.* She didn't cause an "unstable" 22-year-old with a history of run-ins with police to target Giffords, or spray a crowd with semi-automatic weapons fire. Nope. What she did, like any number of others, is help create and perpetuate a society where no one even bothers to ask how an unstable 22-year-old comes to be in possession of a weapon whose only purpose is to kill and maim human beings as efficiently as possible. Because he's an American.

We don't even ask. We don't have to.

So, you know, Mr. Weigel, just fucking spare me. Mr. Other Beck, don't ask "What can we [possibly] do to stop (the worst nutjobs of our 'movement')?" Twenty-four hours before Rep. Gifford took one in the brain Chuckles Krauthammer was blaming the Democratic party for some forty-five-year-old flag burning that still rages in his head. Let's just all play by the same rules for a while and see how we like the change. What Do We Do, Mr. Beck? To begin with, we can stop listening to people who think they can equate domestic right-wing terrorism with a patently hallucinated version of 9/11 and call it square. We can stop listening to people who manage to swallow their deep distress at the virulent sputum which has marked their movement since the beginning right up until the day they're forced to try to distance themselves. We can stop accepting translucent lies just because they're all one side has to hide behind.

What we can do is to expect people who hide behind subsistence hunting and traditional woodcraft while serving as the bagmen for gun nuts and arms traders to eat anything their dog trees. We can stop pretending that "we have enough gun laws on the books". We can stop pretending that dumdum bullets and automatic weapons are an unambiguous Constitutionally-protected right, and that every nutjob steeped in the cold-steel penis-replacement culture is just an unfortunate aberration.

(We can stop this "Oh my god, people on the internets blamed Sarah Palin!" shit, too. In other news, the sun rose in the East sometime this AM.)

As I've said here before, I own guns. I've never fired at anything but a target, in part because there's plenty of food in the supermarket. I don't impugn those who do. I've eaten game on occasion. Let's quit kidding about this. If you'd like to go on being a 2nd Amendment absolutist, do so, but stop hiding from the results.

And no, you ain't responsible for the actions of a nut. You are responsible for not bothering to distance yourself until some of the stink rubbed off on you.

_____________

* Just as, in a better world, she'd had never uttered the phrase "Death panels".

PSA

I'M late in mentioning Jay B.'s Edrosothon only because I wasn't certain there hadn't been some small misunderstanding; the Internet's Best Journal-ist mentioned the loss of a sublet, nothing more. I was more than happy to toss in a paltry handful of coins to a man who'd never go without a beer if he were in want, I were nearby, and he knew I'd said that, but I didn't think it was time to sound a general alarm. And besides, if you waste time here without reading Roy or Scott and s.z. then there's no talking sense to ya.

But the need is real, so go help out if you haven't already. You might've noticed this isn't a just world. You may even have noticed that I seem okay with the concept. And I am, because while Time is Infinite, matter is finite, and thus, I'm sure, we will each of us get the opportunity to pinch David Brooks really hard for every weaselly phrase he utters. That doesn't mean we can't also improve the here and now and unfairly fucked up.

Chuckles

Charles "Merkwürdigeliebe" Krauthammer, "Constitutionalism". January 7

A NOTE on usage: above, an accident of what would, in other circumstances and locations, be called "Style" puts "Constitutionalism" in quotes as the title of a short work of fiction and not, as it no doubt deserves to be, as a mark of elitist mirth. I was just too lazy to bother enclosing single quotes, but let us be clear: "Constitutionalism" is certainly poised to join "reality" and "conservative" as words all Americans should place in quotes automatically.

For decades, Democrats and Republicans fought over who owns the American flag. Now they're fighting over who owns the Constitution.

That's precisely the way a "normal" person, reasonably grounded in "reality", might've begun a small tree-waster on the Republicans' latest political fetish item. It wouldn't be any more accurate--what Democrat is claiming ownership of the thing, as opposed to denying Republican Tea Bagging hegemony?--but it certainly could serve as a standard opener. But how many of them would go on to give you odds? "Democrats and Republicans are at it again." How many would say it without expecting you to supply the eyeroll? The average American might say that as he'd say "Cats and dogs"; Strangelove says it as though it's a boundary dispute his clan is being forced to re-litigate because last time it carelessly left a few opponents merely winged.

The flag debates began during the Vietnam era when leftist radicals made the fatal error of burning it. For decades since, non-suicidal liberals have tried to undo the damage. Demeaningly, and somewhat unfairly, they are forever having to prove their fealty to the flag.

[Praeteritio alert: what human-heartedness we come stocked with does not, obviously, cause us to scruple at calling a wheelchair-bound crypto-Nazi "Merkwürdigeliebe", though not for a cheap laugh, certainly, but because he's earned it in spades. We will, however, refrain from noting here that Krauthammer Went to Canada When Going to Canada Wasn't Cool, but, like so many of his fellow Cryptos, he had plenty of pre-accident opportunities to carry that Flag he's cosseted in into any number of rice paddies during the period, and passed. We refrain from doing so merely because typing it every motherfucking time one of these armchair Rommels starts in with another long-range artillery display--the only sort of fighting any of 'em ever does--is to simply invite Carpel Tunnel.]

I am grateful, though, for the formulation. Just as the artificial height of the Bush/Cheney administration emboldened the nutjobs to come out of the closet about contraception, one election and thirty years of inexplicable public acclaim grants Krauthammer the courage to reveal a truth: the entire edifice of Faux-Patriotic display is based on a loathing of other people's free speech and a resentment that people who opposed that abominable war bravely said so, instead of lining up to die for the rights of Krauthammer, Bush, Cheney, Quayle, Buchanan, and Gingrich, Abrams, Ailes and Armey, Lieberman, Limbaugh and Lott*, to stay home and honor them.

But, then, who th' fuck argues like this? How long would you stay married to one? The little Flag dance is demeaning (but you have to do it, because Hippies!) and partly unfair, and it's just a symbol (lest someone start asking what I've contributed, exactly), but, you know, Answer my fucking question, Commie!

And don't, by the way, answer in some fashion I recognize as true but can score political points off anyway:

Amazingly, though, some still couldn't get it quite right. During the last presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama, asked why he was not wearing a flag pin, answered that it represented "a substitute" for "true patriotism." Bad move. Months later, Obama quietly beat a retreat and began wearing the flag on his lapel. He does so still.

Despite not being a real American.

Today, the issue is the Constitution. It's a healthier debate because flags are pure symbolism and therefore more likely to evoke pure emotion and ad hominem argument.

Such as the sort that Charles Krauthammer has been making at every opportunity about Obama's lapels, which, with or without flag pin, display his "distain" for "patriotism".

[Now that I think of it, it may just be that every abstract noun Krauthammer uses should be in quotes.]

Americans are in the midst of a great national debate over the power, scope and reach of the government established by that document. The debate was sparked by the current administration's bold push for government expansion - a massive fiscal stimulus, Obamacare, financial regulation and various attempts at controlling the energy economy. This engendered a popular reaction, identified with the Tea Party but in reality far more widespread, calling for a more restrictive vision of government more consistent with the Founders' intent.

Y'know, I'm 57 years old, and I can't remember the last time I ever spoke like that, or wanted to speak like that. The Sui Generis Teabagger shit is beyond belief, or would be, except it's too depressingly familiar coming from the insane asylum known as Movement "Conservatism". I understand it's politics, which in this country means you can expect the sort of honest, thoughtful appraisal you'd get from the average shirtless guy wearing black and gold body paint at Heinz Field some Sunday in January, except that in politics there's money in behaving like a complete loon. I expect lying. I appreciate the effort involved in creating decent spin. So much so that this lazy, self-satisfied, insult to the intelligence of everyone old enough to sound out the words offends me even considering the source.

The same motherfucking 35% of the American public holds this opinion now as held it six years ago--when it remained resolutely silent about the Bush/Cheney budgets--or sixteen years ago, or thirty. It's probably up from the 50s or 60s. So's salmonella.

Call it constitutionalism. In essence, constitutionalism is the intellectual counterpart and spiritual progeny of the "originalism" movement in jurisprudence.

Well, I agree there's no intellectual component to Originalism, but there certainly seems to be a spiritual one. A mean spiritual one.

Judicial "originalists" (led by Antonin Scalia and other notable conservative jurists) insist that legal interpretation be bound by the text of the Constitution as understood by those who wrote it and their contemporaries. Originalism has grown to become the major challenger to the liberal "living Constitution" school, under which high courts are channelers of the spirit of the age, free to create new constitutional principles accordingly.

Feel free at any time to quote the major formulation of Originalism. Oh, wait; on second thought, I've got it right here:

What originalism is to jurisprudence, constitutionalism is to governance:

A bullshit phrase designed to excuse a profoundly paranoid megalomania which can't quite admit its embarrassment at being found out in the 19th century?

a call for restraint rooted in constitutional text. Constitutionalism as a political philosophy represents a reformed, self-regulating conservatism that bases its call for minimalist government - for reining in the willfulness of presidents and legislatures - in the words and meaning of the Constitution.

I'd add "right up to the point where this becomes inconvenient to the corporate cranks and public brigands who presently run this little shell game", but I don't want to spoil it for everybody.

Hence that highly symbolic moment on Thursday when the 112th House of Representatives opened with a reading of the Constitution.

Suitably bowdlerized, of course, lest anyone get the wrong idea about the intent of the Founders.

Remarkably, this had never been done before - perhaps because it had never been so needed.

Perhaps because we used to be governed by what passed for adults.

The reading reflected the feeling, expressed powerfully in the last election, that we had moved far, especially the past two years, from a government constitutionally limited by its enumerated powers to a government constrained only by its perception of social need.

Which is gonna fall first? The whole panoply of Presidential power, of which the War Powers are an instructive example, the concept of Corporate Personhood, or the schedules of narcotic and psychotropic drugs?

The new Republican House will henceforth require, in writing, constitutional grounding for every bill submitted. A fine idea, although I suspect 90 percent of them will simply make a ritual appeal to the "general welfare" clause. Nonetheless, anything that reminds members of Congress that they are not untethered free agents is salutary.

Wait, isn't being tethered to the whims of corporate largess enough?

But still mostly symbolic. The real test of the Republicans' newfound constitutionalism will come in legislating. Will they really cut government spending? Will they really roll back regulations? Earmarks are nothing. Do the Republicans have the courage to go after entitlements as well?

First, I'm sorry, but where exactly is the Importance of Regular Empty Symbolic Gesturing found in the Constitution? I'd look it up myself, but it seems a shame to let your expertise go to waste.

Second, let's rephrase the question: do Republicans have the courage to go after entitlements symbolically? Because if you want a real question, it's this: how long is this crap gonna play when the public begins to realize what sort of ride it's being taken on?

In the interim, the cynics had best tread carefully. Some liberals are already disdaining the new constitutionalism, denigrating the document's relevance and sneering at its public recitation. They sneer at their political peril. In choosing to focus on a majestic document that bears both study and recitation, the reformed conservatism of the Obama era has found itself not just a symbol but an anchor.

Looks lovely on your lapel, by the way.

Look. One: fuck you. Two: I've been saying this for decades now, and I've still got some breath left: What's stopping you? You've had all the answers since 1981, and the real America--not the 5% of shut-ins who watch you on FAUX, or the .05% who sell them that shit for their personal gain--is twenty times the worse for it. How much longer do you think you're going to get away with it? You won a midterm election when you were the Outs. Big fuckin' deal. You didn't win it because you're smart, or because you have any new answers, or because you pledged to read the fucking Constitution; you won because you're better at manipulating these empty symbols than the dog-assed Democrats are. Yours isn't the authority of the great rhetorician or the inspiring commander; it's the authority of the obese mall cop. You aren't America. America believes in cutting taxes and in providing "entitlements". America's on one side only until that side actually does something. Real America thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot and John Boehner is another lyin' politician, except he's made of leather. Real America may be a little slow to grok who's actually stolen its life savings, but don't fucking kid yourself, Chuckles. We ain't tax-cutting our way to jobs, and we're not repealing our way out of the healthcare crisis. Go on whistling God Bless America past the graveyard; it might keep working for you. And if it doesn't there's always the Horst Wessel Song.

_____________
* Need we go on?

Reagantots

William Saletan, "Boehner's Brakes: Will John Boehner's House rules screw up the GOP?" January 6

REAGANTOT, n. 1. An American, or Canadian (see Brooks, David; Frum, David) who came to majority during the administration of Ronald Wilson "Dutch", "Gipper", "Great Communicator", "Republican #1", "The Quipmeister", "Mr. Brain Bubbles", "Ol' Carrot Top" Reagan, or during its penumbra in the early Bush I years, or who reached the stage of Compulsory Current Events Studies in his secondary education during that period, and who, in the interim, has evinced no sign of ever having noticed the yawning chasm between the actual results of Reagan's policies--i.e., the incredible downward spiral of that self-same "America" ever since "Morning", all, or essentially all of the Reagantot's adult life--and the risibly transparent fabrications of his legion of hagiographers. 2. A subset of that group whose unending and inexplicable fealty to a set of thirty-year-old bumpersticker slogans neither Reagan nor his, and their, party ever felt themselves personally constrained by, nor obliged to defend, in public, where the potential cost to one's career, income, or avoidance of military service exceeded zero, appears to be more than passingly related to an adolescence/young adulthood subsumed by resentment at the Hippie/Stoner/"Freebird"/Ridgemont High popular culture which may have then dominated teenaged society in whatever section of the Prairie the budding young Reagantot inhabited, and whose enactors enjoyed things such as sex, drugs, physical activity, the ability to drive, and freedom from accordion lessons he could only dream of (see Brooks, David; Frum, David; Reynolds, Glenn). Whether the resultant confusion of the sartorial and pharmaceutical choices of the popular 80s teen with the stereotypical media image of the 60s counterculturist, and subsequent unthinking, almost visceral reaction to the social and political movements the 1950s and 60s, is purely the result of hormonal mazement and permanent sexual juvenility, or the later realization that a solid career could be obtained by changing "Those punks who stuffed me in my locker in 1982" to "Liberal Democrats", is still a matter of debate. 3. By extension, someone who exhibits the characteristics of the Reagantot without meeting the chronology exactly, but is suspected of having undergone a delayed adolescence or some earlier "Freebird"-related trauma. See entries at Lileks, James and Anachronism, Mildly Amusing the First Twenty Times We Heard It.

Boehner's rules won't help the House do the people's will. They won't help it accomplish anything else, either. They'll gum up the works. Which is bad news if you're a Republican activist. But it's good news if you're an old-fashioned conservative.

Saletan certainly doesn't consider himself one, just someone who's eager to make common cause with any person or group promising to bollox up the legislative process, either intentionally or though the flagrant insanity of his core principles, thus paving the way for a permanent tax rate which should ensure the National Parks become open to condo developers within a decade. This will leave time for the House to hammer out the details of that Abortion compromise Saletan worked out, plus, with any luck, a new war or two he can support for its first fifteen minutes, assuring a lifetime of employment on one of Slate's annual "What We Got Wrong" roundtables.

This is the philosophy Boehner captured in his criticism of efficiency and fast legislating. When people are unhappy, as they are in this recession, there's tremendous pressure on politicians to do something. Sometimes what they do helps. But sometimes it makes things worse. A Republican activist looks at the last two years and thinks: "What a mess. A Democratic spending spree and a health-care monstrosity. Let's move fast and undo their mistakes." A conservative looks at the last decade and thinks: "What a mess. An unnecessary war, a Republican spending spree, a Democratic spending spree, and a health-care monstrosity. Let's slow down before we make another mistake."

In his speech, Boehner asserted that last November, "the people voted to end business as usual" in Washington. Maybe so, but Boehner's rules would go further. They would end business altogether. That's why I doubt he'll stick with them. But for the country's sake, I hope he does.

Look at the Reagantotage at work here: Government is axiomatically the Problem (which The Gipper was fond of announcing too, right up to the point where he got hold of its Purse); spending is always bad; legislation is always abstruse, inept, time-consuming, and monstrously expensive, unless we get another superfluous aircraft carrier or unneeded bomber program we can name after Reagan out of it.

How does one get there? Privilege? Indolence? Or by absorbing that cheap partisanship at a tender age, when one was too young to understand it was merely intended to hoodwink enough working Americans into giving the wealthy a permanent governing supermajority? Even supposing that Saletan approves because it will play havoc with the sort of Republican legislation he's not particularly interested in, the sort that doesn't invade wombs or other countries, this is like praying for salmonella so you won't have to eat your vegetables.

These are not your issues, oh Spawn of Reagan. You're making mouths in a glass. You're Mickey Rooney aping every new car or fedora Clark Gable ever purchased. It's just like you do not remember a time when American women did not have a Constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy, one which was continually under threat, yet you act as though that right has shifted the ground you used to trod. It's bullshit. Reform of the most overpriced and least effective health care system in the First World, which was at least twenty years overdue, is the only mutherfuggin' social legislation enacted in your lifetime, which has seen thirty years of the social net being slashed while Defense budgets go up and up and up. It's at least argued that public health care will reduce costs; the alternative view now seems to be that it will unfairly, and unAmericanly, deprive the insurance companies their chance to complete the skinning of the public the banks have so nobly advanced. A goddam year ago this same Boehner-led Republican party was promising to propose its own legislation to address the problem; funny how once the political wind shifted (cough cough) that problem disappeared.

Honest to god, man; Lileks is still being oppressed by his mother's shag carpeting. Take note. Middle age really is beyond the time when you should start thinking about problems as problems, even if you truly don't believe they're solvable. If your personal bottom line is more important to you that the fate of 95% of your fellow citizens, may I suggest that it's also a great time to consider a second, more fitting career? Online sports betting, say. Or meat processing.

I Can Keep This Up As Long As You Can

David Leonhardt, "Daniels Campaign Rewrite v. 6.0". January 4

REGULAR readers may have begun to suspect that there are aspects of daily life, or "life", and popular "culture", that I simply cannot understand. That attitude is often ascribed to some philosophical quirk or emotional deficit, or to the increasingly Not With It-ness of galloping old age, but mostly by people who are hopelessly ensnared in the culture and whose testimony is therefore suspect. I find my objections practical, personal, and completely reasonable, although, of course, this is precisely the sort of thing I would say.

I think I have a fairly complete understanding of the process of fashion, say: the restlessness of creativity, the attraction and staling rate of the New, the desire to define oneself as both unique and as belonging, the contempt for the familiar, the child's view of the world's, and especially his parents', stasis, and the rock-steady birth rate of the Sucker. I celebrate that in all its messy glory. What I don't get are the particulars. I don't get eye makeup trends for the last decade. I don't understand why some talent-free careerist with a cooking show or a network hosting gig has a hairdo swiped from Stiv Bators. Or, rather, I do; what I don't understand is why the public sits still for it. I don't understand why millions of otherwise normal-seeming adults flock to buy trendy eyeglasses which flatter something south of 10% of 'em, and make even those look like their faces have a sidebar. At some point this stuff stops being about a moment's perception, and starts getting graded on an absolute scale; there's a clear distinction between Groucho Marx and Fidel Castro. There's geek chic, and then there's lining up to be dunned for your ovine behavior. I understood why Elvis Costello wanted to look like a cracked Buddy Holly. What I don't understand is why Seth at the Floor Covering Counter at Lowe's wants to look like the love child of Melina Mercouri and John Lydon.

Or, rather, I do; I just don't understand why he has to be so goddam enthusiastic about linoleum at the same time.

Similarly, I understand the impetus behind these endless mass-market rewrites of Mitch Daniels' campaign bio--the modern Economic Republican is simply the medicine show tout or itinerant driveway resealer with a bigger vocabulary--but I don't get what these people imagine they're seeing in the mirror every morning.

At this point I've lost track of the thing. I do recall that the seams were already showing when the National Review climbed on in the spring of '09, which, I don't believe coincidentally, was about the time Mitch resurfaced after his '08 landslide, meaning the point at which the Daniels campaign decided everyone had forgotten all the lies he'd told about his record during the campaign. Either that, or it was time to start slapping new labels on the old bottles for the 2012 roll-out; Mitch certainly saw the timing of the Iraq War Victory Parade in 2002 from up close. I know we've mentioned it before, but it's instructive to note the subtle changes and Stalinesque photoshopping the story has undergone. It began with the huckster's tout of his "balanced" budget, the roaring success of his Toll Road sell-off, his brilliant Randian privatization schemes, and his superhuman tax cutting abilities; now that the Surplus he intended to run on is owed three times over the the Federal government, the Toll Road proceeds turn out to be stacked on a couple of pallets in an INDOT warehouse somewhere, awaiting the conclusion of Mitch's term so the next governor can find the money to actually build something with them, the $1 B privatization of the Family and Social Services Agency has turned out to be the biggest boondoggle in the state since the Michigan Road bankrupted it in 1837, and some scalawag somewhere pointed out that a 17% increase in sales taxes--to the second highest rate in the nation--does actually qualify as raising taxes, it's time to find a little different focus, or a new set of lies for the old one. So let's see how the thing is playing today:

Of all the Republicans talking about the deficit these days, Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, has arguably the most credibility.

Well, I'll grant you: none of the others has ever overseen such a colossal reversal of the Federal deficit.

Mr. Daniels, who took office in 2005, has reduced the number of state workers by 18 percent and held spending growth below inflation. He has raised the sales tax to help make up for a property tax cut. Largely as a result, Indiana finds itself in better fiscal shape than many other states.

It is a mere accident of history that the Bard did not write "First we kill all the economists."

Here's an interesting little note. In case you haven't been following the story, that "property tax cut" was the end result of a serious fucking mishandling of the property tax situation in Indiana by one Mitchell Elias Daniels and his legislative henchmen in 2005. The courts struck down Indiana's generations-old property tax arrangement in 1999 (or '98; I disremember exactly); 2005 was the last time the General Assembly could address the issue before the new ruling took effect. He, and it, did nothing, because doing something would have required addressing a serious budgetary issue in a serious fashion, not preening for the cameras. As a result, property taxes in many areas went through the roof. This was followed by an orchestrated astroturf anti-tax campaign, centered on the Old Money section of Indianapolis. (The event was covered like an approaching Category 5 hurricane by local teleprompter readers, who haven't mentioned the topic since; particularly when it was announced, sotto voce, that somehow homeowners are reaping four whole percent of the resultant tax break. This did not result in any more protests.) The pre-fab outrage just happened to fixate on the Democratic, or "Democratic" mayor of Indianapolis, Bart Petersmythe, perhaps the one politician in the area who'd had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Petersmythe was the leading "Democratic" contender to knock the hugely unpopular Daniels out of the Governor's Mansion, or, as the lovely Cheri Daniels refers to it, That Dump, except he's never lived there. As a result Petersmythe lost to Marine Lt. Col. Gomer F. Ballard, the Human Bell Jar, and Daniels won reelection over a woman who, it turns out, was legally comatose.

So now this was An Issue, meaning there was no way it could be solved rationally, or reasonably; instead Low Property Taxes have become enshrined as a Constitutional guarantee, the anti-tax procedure which has stood California state government in such good stead for so many years. And sales taxes--the most regressive tax of all, naturally--rise to make up the difference.

Freedom! Except they don't; there's a nearly two-year period when Indiana tax revenues fall short of predictions, because we've managed to eliminate stability from the equation. The shortfall sparks a 20% across the board cut in state government which, if anything, is the single reason why someone can say "Mr. Daniels has reduced the number of state workers by 18 percent", though, to be honest with you, it's the first time I've heard that one trotted out. Maybe it's taken Team Daniels this long to come up with a positive spin for "He cost the state 20% in revenues over a 20-month period through cheap political grandstanding and a lack of courage". I mean, it's not like he campaigned in 2005 on cutting one-fifth of the state's workforce in the teeth of an awful economy.

(Y'know, I can't quite understand why the ability to subtract is held in such high esteem. There's not a whole lot of distinction between Republicans and Democrats in Indiana, not that that bucks a national trend or anything. Indiana Democrats, given the cards Daniels holds, would probably have protected education, somewhat; that's the only difference between the last Democratic-controlled House budget and the solidly Republican Senate one. They might've solved the Property Tax Crisis more reasonably, and without the Constitutional B&D routine, but no party bucks abject stupidity for long. So Indiana cuts services. News flash. It's like congratulating the conductor because the strings and woodwinds were all playing the same tune. That it was done means nothing. How is the question.)

And it doesn't end there, of course; much of the savings at the state level have come from sloughing off responsibilities, often unfunded, on cities and counties, a result of Mitch Daniels having operated in permanent campaign mode since 2005. Our reward is not just to hear the bleating about his record, which was designed all along to trade sense and stability for good PR heading into 2012. It's to hear it while knowing that it's been achieved by cutting through the meat of state education, now in line for a good boning as a Republican-controlled legislature has to come up with that $1 billion in phony surplus to hand over to the Feds, because we've been playing with borrowed money. It's to hear this shit about a man who nearly destroyed Indiana's social services by "privatizing" them to his political cronies, who's just signed us on for a 30 year natural gas crapshoot no one else would touch, who's laid the groundwork for Indiana to become the Prairie California. It's to hear "better off than many other states" and to know that's a rewrite of 2008's "better of than all surrounding states", which was a spurious claim then and is now simply untenable. It's to hear about a Budget Hawk who somehow fails to spot the biggest tax increase East of the Mississippi in the last decade, or that red ledger entry of $1 billion plus.

It's to know, finally, that some people just can't get enough of the Reagan Myth, no matter how many times they hear the punchline. And that some of 'em work for the New York Times.

It Is Indisputable That Ronald Reagan Put More Crazy People On The Streets Than All Other Presidents Combined, Vol. MCCVI

Ross Douthat, "Twenty Right-To-Life Buzzwords In Search of a Comprehensible Position". January 2

BRAVE Indiana blogger Doug Masson brings us word of Indiana Senate Bill 50, which would require a pregnant woman seeking to terminate a pregnancy to undergo an ultrasound at least 18 hours prior, to listen to the audio of the heartbeat, if any, and to receive a copy, presumably on her choice of DVD or Blu-Ray. This follows the late attempt to force abortion providers to inform potential clients that fetuses feel pain, because a bunch of small-town Republican big-shots say it does, and the more recent attempt to require every reproductive center to be blessed by a priest. I'm thinking the next desperate attempt to keep Negroes from voting interfere with a Constitutionally-protected right will be mandatory baby books, or abortion showers. Or perhaps requiring the woman to bring in a designated Fetus Jar, made in the USA.

This comes on the heels of Ross Douthat's return from Holiday, four days and a hod or two of bricks short of an Epiphany. It takes exactly one article ("The") before Ross mentions American Entertainment, which is "conservative" for "I got nothin'"; it's 105 more to "Juno" and "Knocked Up", which qualifies as restraint. (Incidentally: I'm a 57-year-old curmudgeon. A pack of specially-trained wolverines could not drag me into a movie starring anyone named "Seth", let alone listen to someone who uses one to launch a rhetorical point. I happened to see two minutes of Juno on the teevee, one minute and fifty-five seconds of which can be accounted for by my paralytic stupefaction at what I was seeing, that is to say, hearing. Th' fuck? Anybody trotting out the goddam synopsis of that piece of overripe tripe for political purposes should be forced to quote ten minutes of the dialog first. From memory. )

And, y'know what? I'm tired. I've been fighting Mitch Daniels' New Improved Bureau of Motor Vehicles for a week now, during which period I've made four trips to the place. Now that he doesn't need any votes the place has reverted, except that the computer system is much faster. The computer system was purchased by the last Democratic administration, which apparently had someone spec the thing, elicit competitive bids, and select the best deal. The Daniels administration tech selections have involved asking which member of the Inner Circle is next up on Gravy Servin' Duty. (Presently, we just can't seem to get the Unemployment Insurance website working right. Imagine that. Imagine how long it would take to get fixed if it also handled tee times.)

So, look, Ross-boy, and th' rest of ya: if you don't have any more arguments, shut up and ban abortion. Period. Simple. Up-or-down vote on a Constitutional amendment. No fudging. No weaseling. Abortion is murder. Mothers and doctors go to prison. No rape exceptions, no incest exceptions, none of this Bill Saletan Compromise of 1850 shit. Do it. Starting now, until it's finished. Full rights for blastocysts from the moment of fertilization.

No more warm fuzzy stories of upper-class white women who'll do anything for a baby short of adopting a non-white one with emotional difficulties. No more solutions that ignore half the equation; no more pretending that your moral objection doesn't include contraception. No more Fundraising Without End. Action.

Ladies And Gentlemen, The Next President Of The United States

FIRST: posting may be light last week.

For one thing, I did get to go swimming with my Poor Wife, which I don't do often enough. She's a wonder. A former competitive swimmer. It must've been what watching DiMaggio play centerfield was like. I was an athlete, too, but I'm all angles and elbows and herks and jerks and exaggerated topspin; she's pure sinuous efficiency. Darlin', let's do it again sometime soon. Assuming you haven't given up checking this place for updates.

And I had to spend a lot of time acquiring shit, is what. My First iPod--I feel like I've really entered the 90s now--the 2GB, $45 4th Generation Shuffle in what Apple describes as "orange" but which turns out to be more like Schwinn Metallic Gold. Target still had the same three in stock it had on Xmas eve, when I just happened to peek in, and Silver seemed more imminently losable than even its sisters, and the Green was, well, that fucking Green I've been sick of since the actual 90s.

I hadn't looked in on the 24th with the intention of buying one; my relationship with gizmos these days requires they justify their existence with huge amounts of storage. So I'd said to myself I'd buy only whichever Generationally-Adjusted Pod it is tops 120 GB, and I wouldn't buy that one because it was too expensive for its gizmo status. And then the other night I was riding the exercise bike, and the teevee selection was even more dismal than expected, so I plugged the headphones into iTunes, and a suitably uptempo mix, and it was a really good experience. So I decided that mobile tunes outdoors might be an improvement over listening to my own horrible gasping sounds.

You habitués of a later century may have already realized that this means I had to sync the thing, and that this would probably amount to one of those interminable recountings of vexatious modern inconveniences. And you're right.

Suffice it to say I went through the litany of Apple's troubleshooting solutions twice before the thing appeared, with no warning or evident action from me, where it was supposed to have been all along; that the list included de-installing (what is commonly known, for some reason of which "literacy" can be ruled out of consideration, as uninstalling) iTunes, which process included my managing to create a duplicate copy of nearly every piece of music in my library, pegging two back-up drives in the process, and which I then spent an entire day getting rid of, in part because my duplicate file removing software would allow automatic selection of only the originals, not the duplicates, which all have a "1" or "2" after their names, and you don't wanna know what paroxysms of OCD that sort of thing leads to around here.

(It's interesting, by the way--I've owned Macs since the late 80s, and I've long since resigned myself to the fact that my expertise with the Operating System, such as it was, vanished with OSX, never to return; I'm trapped in a world now where I know just enough not to risk fucking with command lines, but where I'd rather live in a cave than inhale next to an Apple Genius--that the beloved Apple of Woz the Phreaker could only become a mass-market success story by turning into some 21st century version of DOS. I accept that Progress, or "Progress", might dictate that I have to jump through flaming fucking hoops of flame to uninstall something, but fucking iTunes is the goddam stupidest, buggiest, most counter-intuitive piece of software I can ever remember dealing with, and "counter-intuitive" ought to be, as it once was, the biggest insult you can aim at Mac software. No wonder it captured the Market. You can't do anything with it. Gathering knowledge about it requires the same dedication the Leakeys exhibited in East Africa. And command of many of the same processes. And this is because it's designed to Do Things For You. It's beyond me how no one has seemed to notice this, how the Through the Looking Glass tenures of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have influenced an entire culture to do the opposite of what it says it will do, then lie about the results to even things up. Funny how so many people who're silent about that helped spread the fear that the Clinton administration would lead impressionable young people to enjoy oral sex.)

Speaking of politics, Indiana Economic Mage and Winner of the Best Toy Governor category Mitch Daniels has regifted Hoosiers with a $2.6 B* coal gasification plant that nobody in his right mind wanted.

It's the latest in a series of brilliant Let's Have People Who Aren't Born Yet Amortize Our Loans schemes. Essentially, the state of Indiana--that is, the taxpayers and ratepayers of Indiana--have agreed--through their wise counselors--to buy the natural gas produced by the plant for the next thirty years, and sell it on the open market. Which would, as of this writing, result in a 42.3% loss.

Not to worry, says the Mighty Atom; the price of natural gas is bound to go up. And when it does, the state'll be sitting on a goldmine. And he'll be sitting on a beach in the Cayman Islands.

The state's guarantee will allow Leucadia National Corp. to obtain the loans necessary to build the plant. Which it couldn't obtain otherwise on accounta it's a risky crackpot scheme no bank would touch.

In other words, the Perfect Instrument of the Invisible Hand pounded this thing into paste. So cue Mitch Daniels. It's Play-Doh time.

Daniels bristles at the critics. He said they overlook the new jobs the plant and mines would bring to the area's distressed economy.

"You either care about the poor people of southwest Indiana or you don't," he said. "My goal from the beginning has been to bring some jobs and hope to the poorest part of the state."

Seems like we could buy and stockpile coal, then. For a decade, not a lifetime. Then when the price of natural gas reached the point where Leucadia National Corp. (NYSE: LUK; net income -$2.535 billion in 2008, total assets $5.198 billion) can build its own goddam gasification plant, the way Ayn Rand intended, we'll be ready to sell at a good rate and tidy profit.

Granted, I don't have any experience wrecking the national economy in just eighteen months at OMB. So maybe I've missed something. But if so, it's not that smell.

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* corected

PSA

WORLD O' Crap, which is directly responsible for the existence of this blog, but does really good work otherwise, can presently be found at that link, and not the one on my blogroll which I'll get around to correcting with my usual alacrity.

Although, Really, You Can't Beat A Good "Fuck"

ROY carries on without me linking to The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English. The comments are well worth your time.

It got me thinking about Beauty, perhaps as a way not to think about the plethora of Year End Lists, the palimpsests of Feature pages and Entertainment sections of our vestigial daily papers. It reminded me that the old Book of Lists had Somebody or Other's list of Most Beautiful Words in English, and ever' last one of 'em was something stereotypically (or quintessentially) beautiful itself: rainbow, say, or duckling, or some such shit. (Okay, I scrabbled up our copy. The list is Wilfred J. Funk's):

chimes

dawn

golden

hush

lullaby

luminous

melody

mist

murmuring

tranquil

Murmur is lovely, and luminous, but the rest of the list is more likely to induce a diabetic coma. And I'd forgotten it was paired with a list of Worst-Sounding English Words, from a 1946 poll of the National Association of Teachers of Speech, which suffers from the reverse:

cacophony

crunch

flatulent

gripe

jazz

phlegmatic

plump

plutocrat

sap

treachery

And I like flatulent and plump, but if you're going to quote me please do so in context.

What makes a word beautiful? I'm the only semi-musical member of my extended family--you're onto second cousins before you can find someone else who can sing on key--so maybe it's my lack of ear training, but I've gotta go with function over form on this one. I spent an entire afternoon in shear * bliss when I first ran into "oleaginous" (that it was used to describe Confederate Attorney General Judah P. Benjamin was just a lagniappe.) I've been trying without success for the last twenty years to free ruderal from the bonds of Botany. Some of you might've noticed that I think incontinent is the most indispensable word in English (or, at least, in the political lexicon). Is pinguid less lissome than languid?

I like (I said at Roy's) marl as a verb, and purl as an adjective. I don't know where I picked up maze; I thought I was just shortening amazed until I looked and found it was Obsolete. I like anything obsolete. I have no idea why you'd stick with truncation while trucature remains, hanging by the slimmest of threads. I like all words which condemn women whose sexuality trespassed on the divine right of males: strumpet, slattern, trollop (and the related trull!) and especially, for some reason, demirep. Similarly, catamite just provokes almost unquenchable mirth. I'll pass on dame, generally, and broad everywhere, but skirt I like, and an unknown actress on Turner Classics will get me to ask my Poor Wife "Who's the twist?" I like spoor, too; it's like a literary version of "snail trail".

Women should have tresses, of raven or russet, and more should be found in russet, or buckram, or gingham, but not bucolically.

I like gormless, feckless, and aperçu, but I can never quite remember what they mean. Rebarbative and incondite I should use more often. I can never figure out how to fit plerophory in, which causes me to overuse apodictic.

Numbles are the entrails of a deer, and fewmet its excrement. Freshlets are the edible entrails of an animal, which must be consumed soon after butchering. They were once known in the trade as Variety Meats, which is probably the worst euphemism of all time not coined by a Reagan administration official.

Corbels, dentils, and soffits. Just so my Poor Wife can laugh at my complete architectural illiteracy. Insouciant. Laodicean. Replevin. I'm fond of galloping and congenital in the medical sense, as in, "Boy, his galloping Andy Rooneyitis is totally flaring today."

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* UPDATE: shear not corrected, per Brandon in comments, on the grounds that it should be preserved for all times. Plus, you know, intentional mistakes in Persian rugs an' stuff. Not that God's keeping Her Eye on this blog for signs of excessive pride.

Back Home Again

SOMEBODY has to say it: Indiana Lt. Governor Becky "GED" Skillman shocked the five people who were paying attention to Hoosier politics this week (and apparently couldn't see an approaching train if it were fifteen feet up the track) by announcing she wouldn't be seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination for 2012, because a recent health exam had uncovered a "minor problem" which has caused her to reevaluate her life, specifically those energies which would have to be directed toward a strenuous campaign.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that my internet reputation rests, in equal measure, on my fellow-feeling and concern with public health issues. So my immediate concern was that Skillman had caught whatever non-specific, career-altering but not debilitating in any fashion, photogenic, Hollywood-type anonymous disease that felled Steve Buyer's wife right before the House was going to start looking into that college scholarship program of his, the one that didn't provide any college scholarships. Someone should probably call the CDC. And despite the fact that I wouldn't bet on sunup on a politician's say-so, and I'd give serious consideration to the odds against were he a member of the Daniels administration, I certainly wish Lt. Governor Skillman a fair breeze at her back as she transitions into a contemplative Golden Age and whatever sinecure the Daniels Presidential campaign lined up for her in exchange for clearing out so that Mike "Choirboy" Pence might take the hint and run for Governor. Which would, coincidentally, I'm sure, free Daniels of the difficulties involved in winning his party's Presidential nomination while being the second-most popular candidate in his own state, though it won't do anything for his uphill battle to become the shortest US President since the widespread eradication of rickets.

I was a little surprised they didn't throw in a free set of steak knives. Maybe they aren't quite the entrepreneurs they pretend to be.

The announcement was greeted, everywhere but Chez Riley, with a sort of unspoken skepticism. It wouldn't have been heard had it been spoken, anyway, for all the half-felt expressions of concern for her well-being which might have something to do with the fact that an entire state living on unemployment checks will be footing the bill for her care for the rest of her life. But there was enough skepticism just under the surface to force a second day of the Skillman Farewell Tour yesterday, in which she answered questions just slightly more pointed than previous with empty phraseology just slightly more detailed than the day before. A recent surgery turned up, as did reassurances that she was, indeed, fit enough to continue her duties as Lt. Governor, whatever those may be. So we dodged a bullet there. Neither, of course, answered the actual questions, the ones which weren't being asked, so everybody either went home happy or hit the open bar the Defunct Stillman Campaign had set up, and then went home happy.

The skepticism pantomime was fitting, in that it was directed towards a woman no one familiar with a broad outline of Indiana politics could have seriously imagined was going to be Our Next Governor. Skillman had no Indiana constituency; she certainly hasn't been a presence in the Daniels administration, which only got around to letting her cut the actual ceremonial ribbons marking the creation of vaporjobs this year, once the Daniels Presidential Campaign Committee * decided he didn't need to feign podunkitude anymore. I guess it's possible they wanted to keep him away from making (up) any more inflated jobs creation claims, but that would require a recognition of the dictionary definition of integrity. Trust me, they ain't got it.

Skillman got the nod because Daniels was running against a war hero whose Lt. Governor was a woman. Since the Daniels campaign was unable to manufacture the first ** they opted to neutralize the second, and Skillman was the highest ranking Indiana Republican woman at the time. Daniels--god, you really wanna play poker with the guy; he thinks bluffing and lying are the same skill--was clearly about as comfortable with the choice as he was wolfing down battered pig anus and boiled pig feed at the State Fair.

So the impish among us are now deprived of watching Mitch decide just how much skin he was willing to risk in a contested primary, particularly if his campaign's wet dream of Choirboy Pence suddenly developing a focus on state issues, rather than his larger calling to help instigate Armageddon, both economically and militarily, for which he is almost uniquely qualified among potential Republican presidential hopefuls. And, of course, local pundits have either entirely missed the point, or are actively assisting the Daniels gang in urging Pence to pick up some much-needed executive experience on the taxpayer dime.

To my knowledge no one in the Pence camp has said a word about him wanted to be governor, but it's been hanging out there like an unmated sock on a clothesline ever since the Daniels campaign brought it up. Stranger and stupider things have happened, at least twice, but for all of Pence's bucolic Christian certitude it's difficult to imagine he's missed the fact that the next governor of Indiana will spend a lot of time ducking the brickbats thrown at the long-term results of Danielsism. Meanwhile, a run for President now--however doomed--might garner a Veep nomination for a Teabagging Christer, and would make a fine springboard into 2016. No local pundit seems even slightly interested in considering Daniels Nixonian approach to any and all political opponents, or, well, anything but the CW. But maybe they're just waiting for Mitch to make up his mind about running.

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* For the record, "Daniels Presidential Campaign Committee" is synonymous with "Daniels administration" or "Mitch Daniels". Like en-vel-ope and ahn-vel-ope, it's just a question of stress.

**At that point. Considering what they've gotten away with since, don't be surprised to find Swiftboaters For Giving Mitch Daniels the Bronze Star pop up in teevee ads sometime this fall.

Tapdancing

Justin Miller, "Why Barbour's Civil Rights Remarks May Not Kill a White House Run". December 21

MY Poor Wife must've had the controls last night. I wasn't really paying attention. All I know's that we were suddenly watching John King on CNN, and I got to hear Ed Rollins tell all seven viewers that Robert Byrd was a Klansman.

I'm sure I realized this before, but it was last night which codified it for me: you know the news packagers really believe an issue is about race when the African-American guy on the panel looks less like Lester Holt and more like he used to be with De La Soul.

That would be Obama pollster Cornell Belcher, who I guess did a good job under the circumstances, the circumstances being that you can't go on national teevee, or even CNN, and say that it's entirely possible that racist things keep coming out of Haley Barbour's mouth because he's a racist.

Read the transcript if you want to see how such matters are dealt with, or in case you'd like to be reminded that a country which once built iron steeds and tamed wild rivers now specializes in periodic packaging redesign. Rollins "brought Haley Barbour to Washington, and knows there's not an insensitive bone in his body". King "has known him a long time", which makes Barbour's remarks a puzzlement (though this is in reply to Rollins saying "there's no better politician in America than Haley Barbour", which is either the worst compliment or the most subtle insult anyone's ever been paid, as well as the most succinct debunking of American Exceptionalism I've ever read, so we're left wondering whether King was puzzled by the racist content or by Barbour's ham-fistedness in having let it drop in print). Belcher waited on him at table as a young man, and presumably was satisfied with the tip. Maybe you should have recused yourselves. The real puzzlement is why Barbour declined the invitation to be guest of honor at this High Tea. If it's going to be out of bounds to speculate on Barbour's personal "racial insensitivity" then personal testimonials are irrelevant. The standard disclaimers mean about as much as those "Not responsible for damaged windshields" signs on the backs of gravel trucks. They're meaningless. They're patently meaningless. They're intended to fool enough of the terminally credulous to help keep expenses down.

(Rollins, by the way, goes 32 whole words between bringing up Byrd's Klan membership and the declaration that "I wouldn't want to be held accountable for everything I did in 1982", the date of Barbour's youthful indiscretion with a watermelon. Y'know, back when we didn't understand that racism was wrong. "We" here, of course, meaning "the Reagan administration".)

It ain't a question of Haley Barbour's inner life, nor the rosy tint of his nostalgia goggles. The point is that a man born into the Jim Crow South on the eve of the the brave struggle and the brutal repression of the Civil Rights movement can reach political prominence, and summit seven decades, without it making much of an impact on his thinking. And that's the nice way to put it, avoiding speculation on just what he imagined his Presidential campaign stood to gain by another round of racist code words.

But yes, by all means, What does this mean for his Presidential aspirations, Mr. Miller?

What the Mississippi governor said is damaging, but it's not disqualifying for a potential presidential bid.

The scandal is missing four elements that help kill political careers.

How 'bout it's missing one? It didn't occur in a party that really objects to this sort of thing?

First, there's no audio or video of Barbour's remark.

See Lott, Chester Trent.

Second, the scandal isn't timely. Simply put: Barbour made his gaffe before possibly announcing he'll run for president, well before the GOP primary season, and literally years before the general election. Time will help voters forget about this ugly event and let Barbour reintroduce himself.

Yes, and voters have particularly short memories when it comes to issues the mass-market media starts discounting the minute they happen.

In addition, Barbour was talking about his opinion of civil rights as a young man more than 40 years ago. Should he choose to ask the country to vote for him, Barbour can tell a story of redemption: Admit the error of his youth (the sin), apologize (repent), and demonstrate how he's a different, better man that he was (reach salvation).

Or the youthful indiscretions of, what? nine months ago, when he said slavery didn't amount to diddly?

Third, the story doesn't have legs -- yet. The remarks have set off a fishing expedition by journalists and political hacks to find more damaging history about Barbour and race. Until and unless more dirt is found, this will be a stain on Barbour's reputation but he may escape being characterized as a racist. (That looks less likely now that we've discovered a racist joke he made in 1982 and see that he has a fuzzy memory of his history with blacks.)

Jeez, never let wholly contradictory information brought to light by anyone who could use Google spoil a perfectly good bullet point.

Fourth, there's no offended GOP primary voting constituency. Would Barbour lose the support of all those black Republicans or veteran civil-rights marchers? Some cultural moderates may be turned off by him, but it's hard to argue that lay Republicans would never consider voting for him now. Beltway derision certainly doesn't hurt a Republican running for his party's nomination -- in fact, it almost always helps among the base that loves candidates who are hated by the media, e.g. Sarah Palin.

Y'know, it's one thing to accept this as a truism; it's quite another to behave as though it were Truth.

We don't know if Barbour will run for president. It may turn out this gaffe hurts the GOP more than Barbour in a way: Republicans across the board will now be asked what they think of Barbour's remarks, and then Rand Paul's about the Civil Rights Act, and then Bob McDonnell's "Confederate History Month" proclamation that left out slavery, and so on. Each time a Republican steps in it over race, the GOP's stereotype hardens as an old, white, insensitive -- even intolerant -- party that looks and sounds less like the generation of Americans who'll vote more and more in decades to come.

Ah, so you did remember the Confederate History Month deal while you were typing up #3.

Y'know, that's what we said about Reagan thirty years ago. I sincerely doubt that racism is the exclusive province of the elderly, though I'm handicapped in my assessment by not being invited to power lunches featuring that incredibly diverse stable of Atlantic columnists. Regardless, I don't think Barbour even has to be "the best politician in America" to've tumbled onto the idea that racist dog whistles will connect with the intended audience while our nation's political pundits do another "Hey, did anybody hear anything unpleasant? I didn't" routine.

I Can Haz Rum And Lash Now, Too?

IT made my day this last Saturday to hear Maine Senator Olympia Snowe place the blame for two-hundred-fifty years of sodomitic obsession in the military, including the last seventy of reliance on faux-science declaring the mental and religious disturbances of wealthy white European males to be the baseline for Normalcy, on the "repugnant" DADT compromise of 1993. Snowe--who is known as a Centrist to Beltway insider publications like The Hill, as it saves them typing "a Republican who votes against the ACU on some major subcategory of legislative issues" over and over--had, as we all know, worked tirelessly for the repeal of this moral excrescence ever since the previous Wednesday afternoon. Take that, you Clinton-era compromise of the principles of equality and fair place all Americans hold dear, save the lunatics of my own party!

Of course it should come as no surprise that Snowe clung tenaciously to the moral high ground she summited only after somebody counted the votes for her--she is, after all, a Centrist--but I have to admit that even I was taken aback, for a moment, by the irony- accuracy- and ethics-free attempts to blame the whole thing on Bill Clinton. The AP story which thudded on my doorstep Sunday along with the rest of the worthless Indianapolis Racist Beacon was accompanied by a headline celebrating the end of the "17-year ban on openly gay troops", as though Pork Chop Hill had been held by the Pink Triangle Brigade, or the Rough Riders were, well, the Openly Rough Riders.

It's like blaming Jim Crow laws on the Kennedy Justice Department.

DADT--certainly no one's idea of a perfect piece of legislation--has, at least, the distinction of being a prime example of the sort of compromise legislation the horrible leftist activists who hold the Democratic party in sway were being lectured about just a week ago; the Paleolithic attitudes toward sexual orientation it supposedly engendered are alive and well and living like wet rot in the platform of the Republican party. None of this came through the coverage. Just Olympia Snowe's brave stance after only fifteen years in the Senate and the reassurances of the Joint Chiefs.

It is worth noting that the present law--until the current pending legislation replaces it--makes homosexuality grounds for discharge, but sexual activity between members of the same gender is not, provided one can prove that one is not homosexual. It might also be noted that what is actually being repealed is the Pentagon's PR response to the gay and lesbian rights movement of the 1970s, when it stepped up efforts to expel gays as a sop to the officer corps' political beliefs, the way women were not permitted in combat until our desire to smack around every tenth-rate country that sass-mouthed us made it necessary to look the other way, and the way the Air Force Academy is now the third largest evangelical mega-church west of St. Louis. So, too, might we mention the faux-science which helped make all this possible, in the 1940s, by declaring homosexuality a form of psychopathy, an attitude which continues officially to this moment. The military, like the Republican party, has a long history of looking the other way about actual sodomy; its principled opposition to homosexuality as a concept dates merely to the opportunity to oppose The Left in retaliation for its being right about incontinent military adventurism and perpetual world-war funding levels. Not that I was expecting Olympia Snowe to bring that up.