Loose Canon: July 2004

Continued from page 1

Mr. Sharon, Don't Tear Down that Wall
July 19, 2004 | 3:30 p.m.

The "wall" that the Israelis are building to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers is a security fence that can be removed as the level of safety in the neighborhood improves. Though only about a fourth complete, it already has been highly effective in reducing the number of terrorist murders.

Never mind that. The International Court of Justice in The Hague has ruled that Israel's security barrier violates international law. In a nice touch, the ruling was read by a chief justice from China, which, of course, has such a sterling reputation in the field of human rights.

Though inconvenient--unfortunately so--to a number of Palestinians, the fence is serving a noble purpose: the deterrence of terror. In the last four months, only two Israelis have died in suicide bombings, as compared with 166 Israelis in the same time span during the height of the intifada.

The International Court of Justice's ruling, if obeyed, could cost untold lives, and the thinking behind it is spurious:

"Among the various principles invoked by the International Court of Justice in its highly publicized decision on Israel's security fence," wrote columnist Charles Krauthammer, "is this one: It is a violation of international law for Jews to be living in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. If this sounds absurd to you--Jews have been inhabiting the Old City of Jerusalem since it became their capital 3,000 years ago--it is. And it shows the lengths to which the United Nations and its associate institutions, including this kangaroo court, will go to condemn Israel."

From Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli prime minister and now finance minister: "While the advisory finding by the International Court of Justice last week that Israel's barrier in the West Bank is illegal may be cheered by the terrorists who would kill Israeli civilians, it does not change the fact that none of the arguments against the security fence have any merit...

"In the last four years, Palestinian terrorists have attacked Israel's buses, cafes, discos and pizza shops, murdering 1,000 of our citizens. Despite this unprecedented savagery, the court's 60-page opinion mentions terrorism only twice, and only in citations of Israel's own position on the fence. Because the court's decision makes a mockery of Israel's right to defend itself, the government of Israel will ignore it. Israel will never sacrifice Jewish life on the debased altar of 'international justice.'"

I simply don't understand why so many people are angry about the fence--it fences out terror. If the Palestinians renounce suicide bombings, the fence will come down. It is regrettable that many ordinary Palestinians face hardship brought on by the fence, but until they become, as a whole, good neighbors, the fence is the next best thing.

Of course, it was no surprise that the International Court of Justice ruled against Israel--Israel, after all, is a western-looking nation. As Robert Bork noted in a lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, the international court system is a "battleground, and perhaps the decisive one, in a transnational culture war involving a war which displays the same alignment of forces in all Western nations and in which judges everywhere play the same role."

Bork's "Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges" is a must-read for all who worry about the development of an anti-western international court system.

A Shoo-in for the Martian Vote
July 19, 2004 | 3:30 p.m.

Get ready for a big values fest next week in Bean Town. As columnist David Brooks noted in his Saturday New York Times column, the candidate shares your values: "I know that John Kerry shares my values," Brooks wrote. "I know that John Kerry shares your values. I know that John Kerry shares John Edwards's values, who also, by the way, shares my values. I know they both share your accountant's values, your butcher's values, your mechanic's values. If a Martian showed up from outer space, they'd share its values, too. They're just really into value sharing."

Privacy Matters Less if You're Dead
July 19, 2004 | 3:30 p.m.

The decision not to electronically profile airline passengers is a victory for terrorists. Notes an editorial in the Boston Herald:

"They won. The privacy extremists, weak-kneed airline executives and queasy members of Congress forced the Homeland Security Department to drop a plan to electronically profile all air travelers. And make no mistake about it, this is a huge victory for terrorists, too...

"The so-called CAPPS II plan is built on a computer system in use by the Federal Aviation Administration pre-Sept. 11 to flag suspicious travelers. A passenger could be subject to additional security screening, for example, if he were to buy a one-way ticket or pay in cash."

Sophistry from the L.A. Times: Why Am I Not Surprised?
July 19, 2004 | 3:30 p.m.

One of the favorite tactics of liberals seems to be to try to convince us conservatives that by opposing some outré item on the liberal agenda, we're being untrue to conservative principles.

A recent example from an editorial in the L.A. Times:

"The gay rights movement has protected and expanded freedom for all by getting the government out of our bedrooms. A tempting solution to the gay marriage controversy would be to extend that triumph one more step and get the government out of our marriages. Let churches and other private institutions define marriage however they wish. Gay marriage and traditional marriage would have the same legal status, and yet there would be no official sanction or approval of gay marriage. Both sides would have what they say they want. And what principled conservative could object to this major retrenchment of government authority in our lives?"

I am a principled conservative, and, as a rule I believe in government retrenchment from our lives. But when a minority of the populace is trying to do something as radical as redefine marriage--and that's what the above suggestion would do--it is the principled conservative's obligation to do to oppose it.

Muslim History Buffs
July 19, 2004 | 3:30 p.m.

Ever get the feeling that Islamic jihadists are more interested in history than we are?

While the Crusades seem but yesterday to many of the Islamic faith, most westerners would be hard-put to say who won at the battle of Lepanto. As poet Robert Bove notes:

"It was the greatest naval engagement of its time, one still studied at Annapolis, as are the gargantuan World War II naval battles at Midway and Okinawa. 1571 is one of those dates, like 1492, that the Muslim world remembers and the West tries to bury in the cloying syrup of tolerationism that has gripped even Spanish voters who should know better, March 11, 2004, being the alarm they are struggling to suppress."

G. K. Chesterton, beloved by most right wing Catholics--oddly enough, I find his verbosity annoying--wrote a poem about Lepanto, and Bove praises the American Chesterton Society for bringing out a new edition of Chesterton's work that includes said poem.

"Out" of Their Minds
July 16, 2004 | 4:10 p.m.

If you happen to be gay and are in the closet or planning to reveal your sexual orientation to those near and dear to you at a time and place of your own choosing, then you'd better not work for a conservative member of Congress.

Here's the lead to a piece in yesterday's Washington Post ("Capitol Hill Insiders Irked by Campaign to 'Out' Them") on the sinister campaign to out gay Republicans:

The phone kept ringing in one Capitol Hill office -- hourly, daily, all leading up to yesterday's Senate vote on the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Mike Rogers was on the line again. He knew something very personal about the press secretary of a Republican House member who supports the amendment, and he wanted to tell someone, preferably someone high-ranking, that the man is gay. Rogers cannot understand this. How can someone help articulate the opposition to homosexual unions when he himself is homosexual?

Rogers, a professional fundraiser, has sent around about 10,000 emails "encouraging or perpetrating" outings. He also passed out flyers requesting names of closeted Republicans at the Gay Price March in June.

I won't feign naiveté--a homosexual in the closet is less useful to movement gays and their agenda; being in the closet can also imply reservations about the gay lifestyle. Or not. Whatever it means for an individual, doesn't this person have the right to make a decision without the phone ringing off the hook with Mike Rogers on the other end, wanting to offer your office some very personal information?

Lynden Armstrong, who is quoted in the article, is an openly gay man who has worked for Senator Pete Demenica, a Republican opposed to gay "marriage," since 1995:

"[Armstrong] considers Rogers's campaign a 'personal attack' on gay staffers 'who haven't gotten to the point, emotionally and psychologically, that they feel that they can come out at work.'

"'That is a personal decision,' says Armstrong, 32, sitting in the office with Fox News playing in the background. A native of Fort Sumner, N.M., now living in the District and co-chairing the nonpartisan Senate Staff Caucus, he declines to comment on whether he supports the marriage amendment. His boss voted for it. 'I have to keep in mind that the senator has nothing personal against me or the gay community. He is having to do what he is elected to do--represent his constituents. And New Mexicans, if you look at the polls, are overwhelmingly supportive of the amendment.'"

Martha Got a Bum Deal--But Imagine How Much Worse It'll Be To Be Her Parole Officer
July 16, 2004 | 4:10 p.m.

Last time I checked it wasn't a federal offense to be a rhymes-with-rich. Ooops!

I just checked again and it is--I refer, of course, to Martha Stewart's sentence of five months in prison followed by two years of supervised parole.

I agree with "Spin Sisters" author Myrna Blyth that Stewart is one of your less appealing people--but this shouldn't be enough to send you to the clinker. This is a miscarriage of justice--for Martha and the prison warden.

There He Goes Again
July 16, 2004 | 4:10 p.m.

Swami has chastised Loose Canon for her post yesterday on the goings on at the lavish World AIDS Conference in Bangkok, where the U.S. is constantly bashed despite being the world's biggest financial contributor to the fight against AIDS.

Swami says that LC might learn "why other countries mock the world's biggest donor of AIDS money and medicine--[if] she'd look beyond conservative columnists for answers." To help LC get beyond her ghetto, Swami proffers a report on the AIDS conference in the New York Times.

Two of the complaints against the U.S. seem to be that the administration has adopted a "go it alone" approach by not funneling as much through something called the Global Fund because the fund wasn't dispersing the money in a timely fashion--that sounds pretty reasonable--and that the U.S. didn't send a big enough delegation to Bangkok.

O, Swami, Swami, AIDS is not fought by sending people to conferences to rub shoulders with Rupert Everett, Oprah, Richard Gere, and Ashley Judd, all of whom were making the scene--I mean fighting AIDS--in Bangkok.

The New York Times piece also says that Europe is a bigger financial contributor to the AIDS battle, adding, "Humanitarian and church groups also want credit, and the money that goes with it."

And the money that goes with it? That sounds a little like receiving, which of course is blessed in its own way.

And what about the least expensive way to fight AIDS--sexual fidelity?

Asked about this approach, Rupert Everett said that it would be "kind of criminal."

From conservative columnist Jim Pinkerton's latest dispatch from Bangkok:

"Yet way beyond dilettantes such as Everett and [Rep. Barbara] Lee, most AIDS professionals seem equally dead-set against abstinence. Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UN AIDS, one of the hosts of the Bangkok conference, declared, 'No country has been successful in bringing down the prevalence of AIDS without a strong condom promotion component--that's a fact.' Then, warming to his topic--and homing in on his true target--he vented against the Vatican, which has raised various objections to condoms, including the blunt reality that they sometimes fail. 'It is not acceptable to make statements like Cardinal Trujillo [Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family], that condoms spread HIV, because it puts people's lives at risk. There is no competency in the church about the quality of materials, and effectiveness--that's our job.' Piot might just as easily have said, 'Everyone is welcome to be part of the AIDS debate, except those heretics who disagree with us on matters of core doctrine!'"

They're Not Swingers
July 16, 2004 | 4:10 p.m.

Will "Fahrenheit 9/11," "Outfoxed," and "The Control Room," the documentary that offers an approving take on the anti-America Arab network Al-Jazeera help convince more people about the evils of George Bush?

Are they effective as propaganda?

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Steven Zeitchik, an editor at Publishers Weekly, argues:

"[T]o call these films propaganda is also to misunderstand them. They don't seek to convince the unconvinced or herd the untamed. They aim directly at the sheep. Little wonder that the main means of distributing 'Outfoxed' is through house parties organized by MoveOn.org, the group whose Bush-bashing is at least as bald-faced as anything on Fox. Call them flockumentaries, movies people attend en masse, to nestle together in easy confirmation of their most cherished beliefs--to learn, really, what they already know."

More Clear-Cut Than the Kerry Question?
July 16, 2004 | 4:10 p.m.

From a Catholic News Service piece:

"Father Aldo Buonaiuto, director of an 'emergency help line' that assists young people wanting to get out of satanic cults, expressed alarm this week at the growth of Satanism, which has created a 'market' for consecrated hosts in Italy.

"In statements published in the Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, Buonaiuto explained that 'a proliferation of cults exists which practice black masses, with the profanation of consecrated hosts, rape, and torture.' He added, 'We know of cases of consensual vampirism, and also the assaulting of young people who have been drugged in the course of ritualistic orgies.'"

Christian Toe Rings?
July 15, 2004 | 5:17 p.m.

Are you tired of seeing those downer crosses and yucky old stained glass windows depicting scenes from the life of Christ whenever you set foot in a church?

Why not a T-shirt that says "I Mosh For Jesus" instead? I have no idea what "moshing" is but that's what was on the T-shirt of a young man in John Leland's report on young evangelicals in the New York Times. The piece reported on the movement away from traditional churches and towards alternative churches or pop culture expressions of faith.

It's too late to get the Times piece free online, but a report on teen culture and alternative Christianity by Stephanie Kang from the Wall Street Journal is still available. Kang focused on some of the merchandise available:

"From tank tops to toe rings, secular fashion with a Christian message is pushing into the mainstream and grabbing the attention of finicky teens and others with a sixth sense for fads. Madonna, who is devoted to a form of Jewish mysticism, has been spotted wearing a 'Mary Is My Homegirl' T-shirt. So has Pamela Anderson.... 'You don't have to be hard-core Christian to think Jesus is my homeboy,' said Samantha Lee, a 19-year-old who bought a shirt so emblazoned at the Steve Madden store in Beverly Hills, Calif., after seeing it in magazines."

I can think of a lot of worse for a teenager to be doing on Friday night than watching "Joan of Arcadia," the show in which Amber Tamblyn plays a high-school girl to whom God talks. But there are troubling aspects of these alternative expressions of Christianity.

One young man told the Times reporter that the current "generation is discontent with dead religion ..." Youths today "don't want to show up on Sunday, sing two hymns, hear a sermon, and go home ..." He added that "the Bible says we're supposed to die for this thing. If I'm going to do that, this has to be worth something..."

Replying specifically to the Times piece, evangelical Christian Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries writes:

"That's obviously true. What's not as obvious is how playing basketball after church or worshiping in a coffee house brings us any closer to that kind of sacrificial faith and the hard demands of the Gospel."

Of these alternative churches, Colson notes:

"Their goals are to create a model church that conforms to the individual's needs and expectations, rather than the other way around. In other words, people demand a church that will tell them what's in it for them.

"But this isn't what the magisterial reformers had in mind when they spoke of the 'marks of the church': preaching the Gospel, rightly administering the sacraments, and exercising church discipline. It was John Calvin, not a renaissance pope, who wrote that God desires His children to grow into maturity 'solely under the education of the [visible] church.'"

Loose Canon much prefers Renaissance popes (talk about good taste!) to Jean Calvin, but she, too, worries about a creeping creedless Christianity.

Nero Hero?
July 15, 2004 | 5:17 p.m.

A Beliefnet member chastised Loose Canon for her willingness that the Senate amend the Constitution to ban gay "marriage." Believe me, I don't take amending the Constitution lightly.

But I agree with columnist William Murchison, who notes in the Washington Times today that marriage is "an institution older than the Constitution and never before considered open-ended except maybe in Las Vegas."

Even the pagans were shocked when the Emperor Nero, heretofore not considered a role model, married a man. Yes, I am in favor of amending the Constitution in this case.

The conservative Family Research Council has an interesting map that shows how senators from every state voted on yesterday's defeated, at least for now, Federal Marriage Amendment, which described marriage as being only the union of a man and a woman.

The Washington Post hosted an interesting online chat on the subject yesterday with Matthew Spalding of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Among other things, Spalding said:

"This question is not about civil rights, it is about defending marriage. It is not about discrimination, but protecting a social institution that is widely recognized as being crucial to social stability and the family. Congress passed the federal DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] overwhelmingly in 1996. It was signed by President Bill Clinton. Were they all--including Clinton--bigots?

"Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by definition define societal boundaries and limits; that is what this amendment does. In doing so, it recognizes the great importance of marriage and family and the right of children to have a mother and father. The last amendment to the Constitution dealt with Congressional pay raises. I think marriage is at least as important."

Still, They'll Take Our Money...
July 15, 2004 | 5:17 p.m.

Columnist James K. Glassman has been attending the international conference on AIDS in Bangkok:

This city of glorious Buddhist temples and gigantic traffic jams is hosting 20,000 delegates from 160 countries--along with celebs like Ashley Judd, Richard Gere, Oprah Winfrey and Rupert Everett--at the 15th international conference to fight AIDS.

But, as usual at these global extravaganzas, the real agenda is kick the United States in the butt.

Never mind that U.S. taxpayers will provide more money this year to fight AIDS than the governments of the rest of the world combined. Never mind that U.S. research and development has given the world the drugs that now prevent a diagnosis of HIV infection from becoming a death sentence.

Loose Canon is wondering if the President of Uganda is on the Do Not Invite list after what he had to say about fighting AIDS. Here's a report from Catholic World News:

President Yoweri Museveni, whose country is the lone success story against AIDS in Africa with an official pro-abstinence policy, said abstinence works every time it is tried. "I look at condoms as an improvisation, not a solution," Museveni told delegates on the second day of the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok. Instead, he called for "optimal relationships based on love and trust instead of institutionalized mistrust, which is what the condom is all about.

Uganda officially promotes an ABC model--Abstinence, Being faithful, and only after that, Condoms--to combat AIDS, an approach supported by the US government, which is sending billions of dollars to Africa to fight AIDS. Official figures show that only six percent of Uganda's 26.5 million people are infected, compared to 30 percent in the 1980s.

Who's Your Daddy?
July 15, 2004 | 5:17 p.m.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is not too keen on the idea of young Ron Prescott, wayward son of our 40th president, addressing the Democratic convention:

Ron Reagan will be speaking solely because of his name and because, by implication, he is articulating his dead father's convictions. Maybe he is--I would like to think so--but there is no way of knowing where Ronald Reagan would have stood on stem cell research. He was not, to say the least, a rigorous thinker and might well have wound up in Bush's corner. Who knows?

What I do know is that Ron Reagan is going to speak at the Democratic National Convention because his name is Ron Reagan. He is not a famous Democrat and he is not a well-known ethicist or medical researcher. He will be there just to stick it to the GOP and Bush and to suggest, as do the selfish when they would rather golf than attend a funeral, that they have the permission of the deceased. There's a term for this sort of thing.

Loose Canon is no more able to speak for our late president than his annoying son, but I will just say that Ronald Reagan was a stalwart of the pro-life movement, which came into prominence partly by being a crucial part of his coalition.

By the way, the Republicans are missing a beat if they don't get the real Reagan son, the adopted one who honors his father's beliefs, to speak at the convention.

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, and Adam and Steve
July 14, 2004 | 3:20 p.m.

As he dreams of a picnic basket to celebrate Bastille Day, that commemoration of a particularly French method of dealing with dissent, Monsieur Le Swami can't resist a nasty swipe at those of us who oppose gay "marriage."

This is how he mocks President Bush for daring to oppose single-sex "marriage" when Osama bin Laden is still at large: "Osama is kinda sorta dangerous, but Adam-and-Steve are bigtime terrorists."

No, Swamster, Adam-and-Steve aren't terrorists. But I do think that we kinda sorta ought to think long and hard before we, as a society, go where no society (save a few particularly decadent places in Old Europe that are engaged in social experiments that have yet to be fully assessed) has ever been.

Almost as simplistic as Swami, the Washington Post described the proposed anti-gay "marriage" constitutional amendment that has been postponed until after the election as requiring senators "to take a public stand on a question of deep principle: Are they willing to warp the entire American constitutional structure to prevent people who love one another from marrying?"

A more reflective editorial in the Wall Street Journal notes that "just about everybody is skirting a genuine debate [on the issue]." The Journal advocates letting the public decide but admits that activists often find a way to thwart the will of the people:

"In 2000, 70% of [voters in the state of Nebraska] approved a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman and prohibiting civil unions or domestic partnerships.

"If activists really believed in leaving this to the states, it's pretty clear Nebraskans have spoken. But this state amendment is being challenged by the ACLU, which hopes to get a federal judge to throw it out. The state's attorney general testified in Congress that he expects the state to lose."

An insightful piece on Beliefnet suggests that there has been less groundswell against allowing gays to marry each other than one might imagine because the religious right has yet to get itself energized on the issue; initially it also took them awhile to become organized on the abortion front.

Michael Moore's Latest Outrage: Why Am I Not Surprised?
July 14, 2004 | 3:20 p.m.

One of the emblematic scenes in Michael Moore's Bush-bashing "Fahrenheit 9/11" featured the grieving fiancée of Air Force Major Greg Stone, who died in Iraq, kissing her hand and placing it his coffin. The burial took place last year at Arlington National Cemetery.

But Moore omitted a salient fact about Major Stone--he was "a total Republican," according to his family, and a supporter of the Iraq war. The family says they have no idea how Moore came by the video.

"We are furious that Greg was in that casket and cannot defend himself," Kandi Gallagher, Stone's aunt, told the Washington Times, adding, "My sister, Greg's mother, is just beside herself. She is furious. She called [Moore] a 'maggot that eats off the dead.'"

Stone died in March 2003, killed by a grenade reportedly thrown into his tent by Sgt. Hasan K. Akbar, who is on trial for murder.

Those Sneaky Rich Guys
July 14, 2004 | 3:20 p.m.

The Democrats are running the two rich guys who say they will raise taxes on the rich. This makes us wonder: How much do John Kerry and John Edwards kick into the IRS kitty?

The Wall Street Journal looked into the matter, and found that, while neither appears to have done anything illegal (and both Loose Canon and the WSJ applaud keeping all you can), the two proponents of higher taxes for the rich are personally "not wild about" paying taxes.

Edwards has spoken frequently of the need to provide health care for all, "but that didn't stop him from using a clever tax dodge to avoid paying $591,000 into the Medicare system." Kerry's taxes are less complicated because he's not as rich, though he's able to live like the very rich because of his marriage.

Teresa Heinz Kerry's finances are a closed book because she hasn't released her income taxes, though the paper notes that she has no doubt sheltered a great deal of her income from taxes--that's all legal, but it's something only the rich, who can afford the best tax lawyers, are able to do.

Notes the Journal:

"[W]hen John Kerry and John Edwards say that they want to tax the wealthiest Americans, let's be clear about what they really mean. They want to tax the most productive people at higher marginal rates and close loopholes for corporations, while they themselves dodge taxes by exploiting loopholes they plan to preserve."

The Fugitive Friar
July 14, 2004 | 3:20 p.m.

The Dallas Morning News continues its shocking reports on Catholic priests who have been accused of molesting children but who manage to evade the law.

Franciscan friar Gerald Chumick, whose story is told in a recent installment, however, isn't just an accused molester:

"Franciscan friar Gerald Chumik is an admitted child molester. He has been a fugitive from his native Canada for 14 years.

"Church and state alike know where he is: living in a picturesque religious complex overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara, Calif.

"But nobody, it seems, has been willing to order him to go home and face justice..."

Scoundrel Time at the Democratic Convention
July 13, 2004 | 1:00 p.m.

The body of former president Ronald wasn't cold in the grave before Reagan's disloyal son, Ron Prescott Reagan, a liberal who once said on the air that he had voted for Ralph Nader, began popping up on "Hardball" and elsewhere to try and prevent George W. Bush from claiming the mantle of Reagan.

Loose Canon disagrees with the Washington Post that young Ron's--one thinks of him as a kid, even though chronologically, he's not--decision to address the Democratic convention in prime time is a "public relations coup" for the Democrats.

This may be regarded as a coup in Georgetown, and from Woods Hole in Massachusetts to trendy Jackson Hole in Wyoming. But in between, nobody in his right mind thinks that the man whose 13th commandment was never to speak ill of a Republican would regard his son's actions as a fitting addition to his legacy. This means that Republicans must emphasize they are the heirs of Ronald Reagan--we owe it to the Gipper.

Robert Novak's column yesterday is a must read for those of us who love the Gipper. It includes excerpts from William F. Buckley's letter to Ron Reagan about his recent behavior, which seems much worse for the Reagan legacy than Patti's posing for Playboy.

Ron Reagan isn't the only new best friend who could prove problematic for the Democrats. Read Roll Call Executive Editor Mort Kondracke's "Edwards, Kerry Smile While Moore and Gore Stoke 'Bush Hatred'" which deals with the "coalition of the wild-eyed" that hates Bush so intensely and which has been embraced by the Dems.

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said on TV a few weeks ago that Republicans should be sporting buttons that say "Win Another One for the Gipper."

Where can I get one?

"Our Man in Niger"
July 13, 2004 | 1:00 p.m.

Speaking of scoundrels, another one seems to have gotten his comeuppance.

In a National Review piece, Clifford May writes:

"But now Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV--he of the Hermes ties and Jaguar convertibles--has been thoroughly discredited. Last week's bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded that it is he who has been telling lies."

Compassionate Careerists: Fighting AIDS with Five Star Dining (for the AIDS Workers)
July 13, 2004 | 1:00 p.m.

The tourists--oops! AIDS bureaucrats--were royally feted at the World AIDS Conference in Bangkok. "Yes, yes, fighting AIDS is important," writes columnist Jim Pinkerton of TechCentralStation, "the Thais seem to say. But all AIDS-fighting all the time makes Johannes and Johanna--as usual, Nordics are enormously over-represented here--into dull boys and girls."

"If the situation is this dire," Pinkerton continues, "shouldn't every penny be used to help the dying and the at-risk-of-dying? Well, that's one way of looking at the AIDS crisis. But another way of looking at AIDS is to say, in effect, that yes, people are dying, but yes also, that's a great way to make a living -- indeed, to live rather well. Am I being too cynical?"

Pinkerton notes that one only needs to "walk around Washington DC, or New York City, or Geneva--the three capitals of international do-goodery--to see that lots of folks are doing well by doing good."

But who can begrudge hardworking members of the AIDS community a little relaxation? Something more sinister is at work here, however. Writes Pinkerton: "[T]he real story of this conference: the emerging anti-AIDS agenda is about the whittling away--even the wiping out entirely--of all patents on all AIDS drugs. That is, making free drugs for all poor people, starting with AIDS. And then, activists hope, the progressive march will trample over patents covering tuberculosis and malaria drugs. And after that, in this bright new world, maybe all drugs should be 'open-sourced.'"

This may sound idealistic, but you can't just order companies to continue producing new medicines to save lives after the patents have been confiscated by the government. Ultimately, it is the sick who will suffer the consequences of what was dreamed up in Bangkok.

"Confiscation is usually a one-shot deal," writes Pinkerton, "because those who get confiscated tend to wise up after that; if the lunch must be free, the baker and the butcher stop offering it....What's Thai for 'killing the goose that laid the golden eggs'? And by eggs, I'm referring not only to corporate profits, shareholder value, and jobs. I'm thinking also of the medicines that could save our lives."

We Were Right to Go to War
July 13, 2004 | 1:00 p.m.

Are any of my fellow hawks feeling ready to throw in the towel in the face of a media onslaught that seeks to make you forget that Saddam Hussein was not a nice man? Michael Barone of US News & World Report has written a terrific piece on appeasement--which in the short run always appears a "more conciliatory, thoughtful, nuanced way to deal with terrorists"--that should be required reading for registered voters:

"It's impossible to know exactly what Kerry would do as president or what Bush would do in a second term," writes Barone. "But Kerry seems far more inclined toward appeasement, as Clinton was.

"[Career diplomat] Richard Holbrooke, who would like to be Kerry's secretary of state, notes that Clinton was cheered in Ireland for his "peace process," while Bush was greeted with angry demonstrations there. But the British cheered Neville Chamberlain when he returned from Munich with 'peace in our time' in 1938. A year later, they thought very differently."

The Vatican: Who's in Charge?
July 13, 2004 | 1:00 p.m.

With the pope aging and ailing, is the Vatican on automatic pilot? (Do I mean Automatic Pilot?) "John Paul's declining health marks a change in degree, not in kind, in how the Vatican operates," writes Vatican correspondent John Allen in an excellent piece in the National Catholic Reporter, a publication LC doesn't often praise.

Allen notes that the Vatican is "highly compartmentalized" with different dicasteries--central groups such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or various tribunals--working in relative isolation. This hasn't changed.

But there is an effect of having an elderly pope who is frail. "As a papacy nears its end," reports Allen, "there are two camps within the Curia. There are those who realize their service will end with this pope, and are anxious to complete their unfinished business. This camp will seem increasingly hard-line. The other camp would like to continue under a future pontificate. Since it is impossible to anticipate what the next pope will be like, it is safer not to burn bridges. This camp will seem increasingly open to compromise.

"Normally these tendencies towards independence are held in check by the Secretariat of State. By all accounts, however, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the current Secretary of State, is more interested in Italian politics and international relations than in the minutiae of ecclesiastical administration, meaning that he is often content to leave the dicasteries to their business."

Is There a Doctor in the House?
July 13, 2004 | 1:00 p.m.

Columnist Mona Charen has a good piece about why the slow-talking trial lawyer might actually have made life more difficult for Americans having babies:

"Edwards specialized in medical malpractice cases," writes Charen. "The abuse of tort law in medicine has contributed to medical inflation (which Democrats then turn around and decry). Because doctors are spooked by the possibility of lawsuits, they order millions of dollars of unnecessary tests and procedures every year. And in some fields, like obstetrics, many doctors are bailing out altogether because the cost of malpractice insurance is so prohibitive. There are sections of this country where it is now impossible to find an obstetrician."

"Urged by Right"
July 12, 2004 | 4:30 p.m.

The New York Times reports that, "urged by [the] right," President Bush is "escalating" his support for the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage that the Senate takes up this week. Unable to look beyond the immediate politics of the issue, the Times notes that the president's support for the amendment was "voiced in a campaign appearance" on Friday.

Can anybody imagine how utterly bizarre a debate about men and men or women and women marrying each other would have seemed at any other time in the history of our country? In the history of mankind (pardon the expression), excluding some kooky countries in the upper reaches of decadent Old Europe?

"This marriage norm," Maggie Gallagher has noted in the Weekly Standard, "is embedded in Jewish and Christian (not to mention Muslim and Hindu) thought. It is also embedded in human biology--not just the facts of reproduction, but the hard-wired realities of gender difference that marriage is designed to help bridge. This ancient and powerful conception of marriage, grounded equally in faith and reason, won't just fade away."

Proponents of gay "marriage" have compared bans against it to laws against interracial marriages. This is a false comparison--there is no deep religious underpinning to strictures against interracial marriage, quite the contrary--but the comparison may have profound influence on what happens to the state of marriage:

"If favoring the traditional understanding of marriage is analogous to favoring racism," writes Gallagher, "then churches, faith-based organizations, and schools that continue to teach that marriage is exclusively the union of a man and a woman will eventually face penalties in the public square...

"[A]s a group of five legal scholars recently noted in an opinion for the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, if the courts actually equate laws defining marriage as the union of husband and wife with laws barring interracial marriage, then single-sex marriage statutes seriously threaten the ability of organizations adhering to traditional marriage to hold broadcasting licenses, have their colleges accredited by public bodies, or secure tax-exempt status for their schools and charities."

You might want to read about the president's radio address Saturday on marriage.

Second Lady Lynne Cheney, whose daughter Mary is a lesbian, on the other hand, believes that it's an issue for the states. Gay "marriage" advocate Andrew Sullivan says "thanks, Lynne" and praises her for "sticking to federalist principle."

I urge you to read what the aforementioned Maggie Gallagher has to say about the states-rights approach to marriage. While you're at it, Gallagher has a reply in another piece to those who say that government should not be in involved in the issue of marriage. She turned to an earlier marriage crisis:

"When the United States refused to admit Utah to the Union unless it rejected polygamy in the late 19th century, lawmakers and judges agreed: Marriage was not just a private taste or a values issue or even a religious issue, it was one of the handful of core social institutions that make limited government, and a constitutional republic, possible," Gallagher noted.

I have a strong reaction in favor of the marriage amendment, whether it can pass or not, but I hate talking about this subject in general. As somebody who spent her jaded youth in New Orleans's French Quarter and used to accompany friends to the gay bars, I'm the opposite of those who say they're "personally opposed" to abortion but refuse to legislate against killing the innocent. I don't give a hoot and a holler what people do privately or discreetly, but I'm not sure society can withstand the erosion of a bedrock institution.

Welcome to Satyricon, folks.

Piety and Politics
July 12, 2004 | 4:30 p.m.

In an article headlined "Bush's God," former Labor Secretary Robert Reich predicts that the battle of our century is not between the West and Islamic terrorists but between "those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority...between those who believe in science, reason and logic and those who believe that truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma."

In a piece in Sunday's L.A. Times, Charlotte Allen replies:

"Bush's religiosity frightens the Reichs of this world not because it promises theocratic tyranny, but because it speaks to a specific world view shared by millions of other Americans. If Bush happened to invoke Jesus in the name of, say, abortion rights or nuclear disarmament, we would not be hearing lectures from intellectuals on the dangers of religion."

Is Islam Above Reproach?
A law that would make the vilification of Islam a crime has been proposed in England. Proponents of the legislation seem to regard criticizing religion as the same as racism. Even Loose Canon, a Catholic, believes that Bob Jones University has the right to its strange opinion that Catholicism is diabolical or some such nonsense. I'm even glad that Robert Reich can criticize religion (though I note he seems more critical of my religion than of either Islam or its terrorist-affiliates).

Daily Telegraph writer Will Cummins argues that Islam should not be legally above reproach:

"To argue that Islam should have special protection because it is a 'religion' while Marxism or Conservatism are 'merely philosophies' is equally specious. All that divides a religion from a secular ideology is something whose existence-- supernatural support--is disputed by adherents of the latter. To privilege supernatural belief-systems by law would be to impose the view of the faithful about this on everyone, the situation that prevailed in the Middle Ages. This time, it is Islam, not Christianity, that New Labour wants to impose on Christendom."

And here's a thought from Mr. Cummins on which I'd like to hear the opinion of liberals:

"A society in which one cannot revile a religion and its members is one in which there are limits to the human spirit."

LC, whose religion is constantly reviled by the supposedly educated, nevertheless concurs.

Bum Advice from Father Joe?
July 12, 2004 | 4:30 p.m.

A confessional book is certainly capable of raising questions about the life of the confessee. New York Times public editor Dan Okrent devoted his entire column yesterday to the question of whether his paper was correct in publishing accusations that Tony Hendra, author of a best selling book, "Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul," had failed to reveal one of his sins in the book. Jessica Hendra charged that her father had molested her.

I'd come down on the side that the paper did the right thing--a book about one's sins makes the sins of the author fair game. Unlike Swami, I haven't read "Father Joe."

But there were some things that raised red flags in the reviews. Was Father Joe giving young Tony, who'd been sent to the priest by the husband of an older woman with whom the lad was involved, the best possible advice?

Catholic writer Mark Gavreau Judge seems to think that young Tony got some bum advice. In the book, Father Joe tells Tony that sex is "almost a sacrament."

Writes Judge: "Hendra, shocked, asks if the priest is saying that sex is a sacrament. 'Don't tell the abbot!' Fr. Joe replies. Hendra presses on, demanding to know if Fr. Joe is claiming that sex is not a sin. Fr. Joe answers: Sex is a sin less often than we're led to believe. It's all a question of context. If you have sex to hurt or exploit another, or to take pleasure only for me, me, me, and not return as much or more to your lover...then it becomes sinful...We must take the fear out of sex as well.

"One would have to hire the staff of Playboy magazine and Dr. Joceyln Elders to come up with sentiments that more aptly summarize where we've gone wrong sexually. For Fr. Joe, sex is at once holy in and of itself--no need to get God involved--and coldly utilitarian...

"And what a tragedy that the sex-ed utilitarians are helping to destroy one of the last grand freedoms and adventures postmodern man has left. Losing our fear of sex, as Fr. Joe advises, is like seeing one of those behind-the-scene specials about your favorite movie: once you know how every trick is done, you can't watch the film with the same thrill anymore, and even begin doubting any film's ability to transport you."

Judge is also critical of the glowing review of "Father Joe" by Andrew Sullivan, whom LC admires on many but not all (!) subjects, in the New York Times.

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