Sweatin' Scotty

Tough day today for Scotty in the White House Press Conference!

I almost felt sorry for him. Nah, I shouldn't lie. I loved it.

London Bombing

I've been thinking about the bombing this morning in London in amongst my work and have read some other bloggers comments about it. I think what Billmon expresses in his post comes the closest to how I feel:

The cold blooded murder of Londoners is no more horrifying than the murder or New Yorkers or Madrilenos -- or Baghdadis. But today's target still has a special hold over my emotions. If your mother tongue is English, and you loved stories as much as I did as a child, then London is the city of your imagination, of Mary Poppins and David Copperfield, of London-bridge-is-falling-down and the prince and the pauper. And if you've been there, and visited the places you dreamed about as a boy, and ridden the tube to Picadilly Circus, and climbed the stairs of the Tower of London, and strolled through Hyde Park in the morning fog, then what happened today hurts more than maybe it should, logically.

We are all New Yorkers, we are all Madrilenos, we are all Baghdadis. But I was a Londoner from the time I learned how to read. I know it shouldn't make any difference, but it does.

It really struck me this morning watching TV, look at Yahoo's home page, looking at what other bloggers have said, that what happened in London this morning has been happening in Baghdad now for over two years. Why don't we have the same outrage and the same empathy and the same reaction when it happens in Iraq? I think it is because most of us do not have the same emotional connection to Iraq or its people that we do to Great Britain.

I think Billmon says it in a the positive sense of why he feels a personal connection to London. But the ugly side of that is an inherent inability among humans to NOT feel a connection to other humans we perceive to be different from us. So, for far too many of us Iraqis are just too "other" for us to really feel their pain as they are bombed, day after day, by the same deadly destructive forces that just hit London this morning. Most of us Americans know very little about Iraq, its history, its people or its majority religion. And, besides, they're so brown.

Whenever I hear President Bush talk about how we are fighting the war on terrorism in Iraq so we don't have to fight it at home, I cringe. Doesn't anyone else in this country feel disgusted by that statement that it's okay if Iraqis are dying as long it keeps that ugly mess "over there"? I heard Senator McCain repeat that same disgusting statement this morning on CNN.

This is a ridiculous and morally bankrupt position to hold. It is not right to make Iraqis pay for our problems with Al Qaeda. It is also ridiculous to think that our attacking Iraq has helped keep the terrorism over there as if terrorism is containable and as if Iraq was the problem. We're making innocent people pay for our problem.

The second thing I've been thinking about today is how much the Bush Administration wants us to think that things are really going just swimmingly over in Iraq and how its just the nasty SCLM that is the problem. A group of conservative-leaning broadcasters are even going over there to take a look for themselves so they can tell us the "truth." What strikes me today is the horror we feel about what happened in London. So much so that I've already seen stories speculating that international travel may dip as a result. Who would say things are just great there today? What if this keeps happening, say, once a week in London? Would you actually say things are really pretty great in Wales today and so why are you focusing just on the bad news?

Can you not see that what London has just experienced in ONE DAY is what people in Baghdad have been experiencing since we invaded their county--OVER TWO YEARS? Even worse, they don't even have the everyday comforts that we take for granted and that are still present in London--clean water, sewage, electricity on demand, food to purchase, available gasoline.

And the Iraqis had NOTHING to do with 9/11 any more than any of the people on the buses and trains in London this morning.

May God bless the souls of all who are dying in this horrible cycle of violence.

Judy's goin' to Jail

From WaPo:

A federal judge on Wednesday jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to divulge her source to a grand jury investigating the Bush administration's leak of an undercover CIA operative's name.

"There is still a realistic possibility that confinement might cause her to testify," U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan said.

Miller stood up, hugged her lawyer and was escorted from the courtroom.

More on Marriage

Being the knee-jerk liberal that I am, it wouldn't occur to me that more than a handful of nutcases would actually want women to return to their status held in previous times in our history. And, certainly not elected federal officeholders. But then I be so sadly wrong.

From Rick Santorum's new book, by way of Capitol Buzz, that's exactly what Mr. Santorum seems to be calling for in this laments:

"Many women have told me, and surveys have shown, that they find it easier, more “professionally” gratifying, and certainly more socially affirming, to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children. Think about that for a moment…Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders." (It Takes a Family, 95)

Women, what are you doing thinking that you can have gratifying careers outside the home? That's for your hubby, not you, fer heaven's sake. It's selfish if you want it. It's God's will when your husband wants it. Get with the program.

Capitol Buzz has more quotes if you can stomach it.

The So-Called Traditional Marriage

In the debate about allowing same-sex marriage, I'm always annoyed by the arguments that include references to "traditional marriage" or say that same-sex marriage will undermine a 5,000 year old tradition, as if heterosexual marriage has been static throughout that entire period.

What strikes me about that type of argument is the focus on the form, rather than the function. If all you can see is the man and the woman, then, yes, marriage has been very static over the centuries. But if you look at the function and the rules surrounding marriage, then you must conclude that marriage has been an ever-evolving insitution.

There's a great op-ed piece in today's NY Times written by Stephanie Coontz. Coontz is the author of the recently published book "Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage." I heard her interviewed on Terry Gross and recommend listening to that interview in you are interested in this topic. Here's most of today's piece:

The first step down the road to gay and lesbian marriage took place 200 years ago, when Enlightenment thinkers raised the radical idea that parents and the state should not dictate who married whom, and when the American Revolution encouraged people to engage in "the pursuit of happiness," including marrying for love. Almost immediately, some thinkers, including Jeremy Bentham and the Marquis de Condorcet, began to argue that same-sex love should not be a crime.

Same-sex marriage, however, remained unimaginable because marriage had two traditional functions that were inapplicable to gays and lesbians. First, marriage allowed families to increase their household labor force by having children. Throughout much of history, upper-class men divorced their wives if their marriage did not produce children, while peasants often wouldn't marry until a premarital pregnancy confirmed the woman's fertility. But the advent of birth control in the 19th century permitted married couples to decide not to have children, while assisted reproduction in the 20th century allowed infertile couples to have them. This eroded the traditional argument that marriage must be between a man and a woman who were able to procreate.

In addition, traditional marriage imposed a strict division of labor by gender and mandated unequal power relations between men and women. "Husband and wife are one," said the law in both England and America, from early medieval days until the late 19th century, "and that one is the husband."

This law of "coverture" was supposed to reflect the command of God and the essential nature of humans. It stipulated that a wife could not enter into legal contracts or own property on her own. In 1863, a New York court warned that giving wives independent property rights would "sow the seeds of perpetual discord," potentially dooming marriage.

Even after coverture had lost its legal force, courts, legislators and the public still cleaved to the belief that marriage required husbands and wives to play totally different domestic roles. In 1958, the New York Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to the traditional legal view that wives (unlike husbands) couldn't sue for loss of the personal services, including housekeeping and the sexual attentions, of their spouses. The judges reasoned that only wives were expected to provide such personal services anyway.

As late as the 1970's, many American states retained "head and master" laws, giving the husband final say over where the family lived and other household decisions. According to the legal definition of marriage, the man was required to support the family, while the woman was obligated to keep house, nurture children, and provide sex. Not until the 1980's did most states criminalize marital rape. Prevailing opinion held that when a bride said, "I do," she was legally committed to say, "I will" for the rest of her married life.

I am old enough to remember the howls of protest with which some defenders of traditional marriage greeted the gradual dismantling of these traditions. At the time, I thought that the far-right opponents of marital equality were wrong to predict that this would lead to the unraveling of marriage. As it turned out, they had a point.

Giving married women an independent legal existence did not destroy heterosexual marriage. And allowing husbands and wives to construct their marriages around reciprocal duties and negotiated roles - where a wife can choose to be the main breadwinner and a husband can stay home with the children- was an immense boon to many couples. But these changes in the definition and practice of marriage opened the door for gay and lesbian couples to argue that they were now equally qualified to participate in it.

Marriage has been in a constant state of evolution since the dawn of the Stone Age. In the process it has become more flexible, but also more optional. Many people may not like the direction these changes have taken in recent years. But it is simply magical thinking to believe that by banning gay and lesbian marriage, we will turn back the clock.

Plame in a Nutshell

Digby has the Plame story down to its essence:

In Hollywood, screewriters and readers are asked to distill the plot into a single sentence called a logline. Here's the logline for the Plame Scandal:

Karl Rove and others in the White House exposed an undercover CIA agent in order to cover up their lies about Iraq.

Rust, baby dolphins and baby whales never sleep

I'm having insomnia and not enough sleep of late and this makes me tired just reading it:

Sleep-deprived mothers of newborn babies should spare a thought for bottlenose dolphins and killer whales.

A study has shown the young of those two species do not sleep at all during the first month of life. They are active 24 hours a day -- and their mothers have learned to cope.

"Somehow these seafaring mammals have found a way to cope with sleep deprivation, facilitating rather than hindering a crucial phase of development for their offspring," Dr Jerome Siegel, a neuroscientist at the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA), said in a statement.

Siegel and his colleagues said the developmental pattern they discovered in the dolphins and whales is different from all other mammals.

As the calves of both species grow, their sleep gradually increases to adult levels.

"Their bodies have found a way to cope, offering evidence that sleep isn't necessary for development and raising the question of whether humans and other mammals have untapped physiological potential for coping without sleep," Siegel said.

The scientists, who reported the findings in the journal Nature, believe the newborns' lack of sleep has several advantages. Their constant movement reduces the danger from predators and helps maintain their body temperature until they develop greater mass and blubber.

It also enables them to swim to the surface frequently to breathe and helps their body and brain to develop.

The scientists observed two adult killer whales and their calves at SeaWorld in San Diego, California and four dolphins and their offspring at the Utrish Marine Mammal Research Station in the Black Sea region of Russia for five months after birth.

ABC Reality Show Pulled

Saw this on Yahoo. The last line was what got me.

"Welcome to the Neighborhood," an ABC reality series that pushes hot buttons of racism and anti-homosexuality, was pulled by the network before its debut. The program had drawn criticism from groups claiming it risked fostering prejudice.

In a statement Wednesday, ABC acknowledged the delicate nature of the series in which families asked to pick a new neighbor are made to expose and overcome their biases.

"Welcome to the Neighborhood" demonstrates what happens when people are forced to "confront preconceived notions of what makes a good neighbor," the network said.

"However, the fact that true change only happens over time made the episodic nature of this series challenging, and given the sensitivity of the subject matter in early episodes we have decided not to air the series at this time."

The six-episode show, which was to debut July 10, follows three families in Austin, Texas, who are given the chance to choose a new neighbor for a house on their street.

Each family initially wants someone similar to them — white and conservative.

Instead, they must choose from families that are black, Hispanic and Asian; two gay white men who've adopted a black child; a couple covered in tattoos and piercings; a couple who met at the woman's initiation as a witch; and a poor white family.

In the early episodes, one man makes a crack about the number of children piling out of the Hispanic family's car and displays of affection between the gay men provoke disgust.

The series' producers had said it was intended to promote a healthy and open debate about prejudice and people's fear of differences.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, after viewing the series, expressed strong concerns.

While it ultimately carries a valuable message about diversity and acceptance, those watching the first episodes could be left thinking discrimination is "not that big a deal," GLAAD spokesman Damon Romine said Wednesday.

"Regardless of how things turn out at the end of the last show, it's dangerous to let intolerance and bigotry go unchallenged for weeks at a time," he said, adding that GLAAD hopes a revised version might air.

Before ABC announced its decision, the Family Research Council said it was worried evangelicals would be made to appear judgmental and foolish.
(emphasis added)

Gosh, that would be a shock wouldn't it? Evangelicals appearing judgmental and foolish. See the Terry Schiavo circus. See this related item on Crooks and Liars.

Bush's Actual Speech vs. Scottie's Prediction

I was in the car this afternoon and heard Dave Ross do a commentary on CBS Radio on Scott McClellan's gaggle yesterday. He played clips of Scottie saying repeatedly that Bush's speech tonight at Ft. Bragg would be very specific and new.

So I went to the White House website to see the transcript of the press conference and here's a portion of it:

...Tomorrow, the President will also talk about the strategy for success. He will talk in a very specific way about the way forward. There is a clear path to victory. It is a two-track strategy: there is the military and political track. On the military front, it's important to continue training and equipping the Iraqi security forces so that they're able to defend themselves, and then our troops can return home with the honor that they deserve. And then there is the political track. The Iraqi people are showing that they're determined to build a free and democratic and peaceful future, and we must continue to do all we can to support them as they build a lasting democracy.

So the President looks forward to speaking to the American people tomorrow night. You will hear from him in much greater detail, but I wanted to give you a little bit of a preview to begin with. And with that, I'll be glad to go to your questions.

Q Scott, are there new details in the strategy for success? Is there a new direction, or is the President basically summing up what he has said before?

MR. McCLELLAN: As I said, this is a new speech. And the President will be talking in a very specific way about the strategy for succeeding in Iraq. And he will talk about the two-track strategy that we have in place. He touched on it a little bit last week; he's touched on it in -- many times over recent weeks. But this is going to be the President talking about it in a very specific way, about where we are for succeeding and where we are in implementing that strategy.

Q Well, I guess what I'm asking is, are people going to hear things they haven't heard the President say before? Are there new details?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think many Americans have not heard much of what the President has to say tomorrow night. And the American people are rightly concerned about where we are in Iraq. That's a top priority for this country; it's a top priority for the President of the United States. The American people want to see our troops return home, but I think they understand the importance of succeeding in Iraq. And the President will talk about that in his remarks. I think we all want to see the troops come home sooner than later, and the way to get our troops home is to complete the mission.

Our troops, as General Abizaid was talking about over the weekend, understand the importance of the mission that they are working to complete. This is critical to winning the war on terrorism. A free Iraq will deal a major blow to the terrorists and their ideology of hatred and oppression.

Q The question is, is there a new direction, though, or not?

MR. McCLELLAN: You're going to hear from the President tomorrow night. I think we have a clear strategy for success. He's going to be talking in a very specific way about what that strategy is. It's an opportunity for the American people to hear about the strategy. We've all seen on the TV screens the images of bloodshed and violence. They are disturbing. The President is disturbed by those images. The terrorists have inflicted great suffering. There have been tremendous sacrifices. But the cause for which we are in Iraq is an important one, and there is great progress being made on the ground.

(emphasis added)

So what new stuff was in the speech? Here's what commentators have to say about the speech:

Dana Milbank in the Washington Post:

The speech offered little new in the way of policy or strategy but instead reframed an argument that Bush and his advisers believe has not been presented adequately to most Americans.

The Washington Post's editorial reaction:

Mr. Bush's account of his strategy for Iraq, which has remained virtually unchanged in the past year, doesn't answer the worrying questions raised by these facts. How will the insurgency be contained during the considerable time it will take to prepare Iraqi troops? How will the Army and Marines manage years more of heavy deployments while addressing their recruitment problems? And how will continued heavy spending on the war affect the federal budget and domestic priorities? The president's evasion of the hardest facts about Iraq is coupled with a reluctance to candidly describe the likely price of success -- though Mr. Bush did make an appeal last night for military service.

The New York Times editorial response:

We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks. We had hoped that he would seize the moment to tell the nation how he will define victory, and to give Americans a specific sense of how he intends to reach that goal - beyond repeating the same wishful scenario that he has been describing since the invasion.

Sadly, Mr. Bush wasted his opportunity last night, giving a speech that only answered questions no one was asking. He told the nation, again and again, that a stable and democratic Iraq would be worth American sacrifices, while the nation was wondering whether American sacrifices could actually produce a stable and democratic Iraq.

I personally find it very difficult to listen to George Bush for very long. I find the dissonance between his facial and body language and his words to be distracting. I find his cadence to be irritating. When he gives his smirk, I cringe. But tonight's speech was just plain boring to me. Too much of the same blah blah blah September 11 blah blah freedom.

I rarely go there, but I did get curious and looked to see what Powerline had to say. Not surprisingly, they liked it, but even they said nothing new:

Excellent Speech

Clear, confident, substantive. There was nothing in it that we and our readers didn't already know, but the message is one that many rarely hear. And the networks all carried it after all. That's good; President Bush nearly always does well when people see him, instead of seeing Democrats talking about him, as they will on the evening news.

The only thing I thought was odd was the unnatural quiet in the hall. It was like the audience at a Presidential debate, which has been cautioned not to express approval or disapproval. Only at the end, apparently, were the soldiers permitted to applaud.

The touch of emotion at the end was genuine and powerful. His appeal to Americans' pride and determination resonated, no doubt, with many who haven't spent much time understanding the strategic underpinnings of the conflict.