Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Mainstream Progressives

by digby

12 years ago today I remember driving through a wierd other worldly landscape and listening to Rush on the radio the morning after Newt’s big victory. As remains true for most of rural America, his was the only radio station that I could get out there in the middle of nowhere. It was a festival of chest beating and nationalism that brought to mind some unpleasant associations with certain historical figures from the 1930’s. Their arrogance and disdain was on display even as they celebrated their big win — all they could talk about was that the country had rejected the soft and squishy hated liberals.

When I arrived back in LA I was astonished to find that the major media had adopted pretty much the same talking points I’d heard on Rush. Newt Gingrich was not discussed as the dangerous, demagogic fascist he was. Instead, he was being touted as America’s rightful leader. For the first time I fully realized that the press had been co-opted and the American people were not going to be informed that we were entering a new era of sophisticated, ruthless,take-no-prisoners radical Republican politics. Indeed, the press seemed to be reveling in it. It was a very bad day.

Imagine my surprise this morning, twelve years later, as Democrats come back into the majority in the House with a huge, decisive victory and the Senate is poised to tip as well and the press seems to be interpreting this election as a …. repudiation of the soft and squishy hated liberals. (Again, they are taking their cues from Rush Limbaugh who is also spinning the election as a loss for liberals.) The narrative is suspended in amber.

It’s wrong, of course, just as the earlier one was. This election proves that the Democrats are the mainstream political party. We just elected a socialist from Vermont and a former Reagan official from Virginia to the US Senate. We elected a number of Red State conservatives, true, but we are also going to have a Speaker of the House from San Francisco. We cover a broad swathe, ranging from sea to shining sea with only the most conservative old south remaining firmly in the hands of the Republican party. The idea that this is some sort of affirmation of conservatism is laughable. It’s an affirmation of mainstream American values and a rejection of the Republican radicalism this country has been in the grips of for the last 12 years.

And I’m sorry to have to inform all the kewl kidz and insiders, but this is largely due to the re-emergence of an active, vital, progressive base. Despite the fact that we aren’t goosestepping around shouting about our Victory For The Homeland the way the Gingrich Jugend did in 1994, a revolution — not of ideology, but necessity — is underway:

Here’s Rick Perlstein writing in TNR today:

The Democrats have won back the House. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), nearly tripped over himself on the way to the microphone to claim the credit. In fact, while the tidal wave in the House looks like a bit of strategic genius by Emanuel–and pundits are starting to call it that way (Howard Fineman on MSNBC noted that the Democrats even picked up a seat in Kentucky, where the 3rd District candidate was John Yarmuth–“Emanuel’s fourth choice!” Fineman exclaimed, as if in awe of the power possessed by Emanuel’s mere table scraps)–in race after race, it actually represents the apotheosis of forces Emanuel has doubted all long: the netroots.

In two competitive House races in the Bluegrass State, Emanuel’s first choices lost by eleven and nine points. In the 2nd District it was Colonel Mike Weaver, the cofounder of Commonwealth Democrats, a group of conservative Democratic state legislators. In the 4th, it was Ken Lucas, a former congressman whom Robert Novak recently called “moderate conservative” in a column on Emanuel’s “recruiting coup” in coaxing Lucas out of retirement. Both were the kind of candidates Emanuel has favored in his famous nationwide recruiting drive. Yarmuth, meanwhile, was founder of the state’s first alternative newspaper, said things on the campaign trail things like “the No Child Left Behind Act … is a plan deliberately constructed to create ‘failing’ schools,” and called for “a universal health care system in which every citizen has health insurance independent of his or her employment.”

It was a pattern repeated across the country. New Hampshire’s 1st District delivered Carol Shea-Porter, a former social worker who got kicked out of a 2005 Presidential appearance for wearing a T-shirt that said turn your back on bush. That might have been her fifteen minutes of fame–if, last night, she hadn’t defeated two-term Republican incumbent Jeb Bradley. For the chance to face him, however, she had to win a primary against the DCCC’s preferred candidate, Jim Craig–whom Rahm Emanuel liked so much he made the unusual move of contributing $5000 to his primary campaign. Shea-Porter dominated Craig by 20 points–and then was shut out by the DCCC for general election funds.

Not all Emanuel’s losing recruits were beaten in primaries. Some were beaten in the general election. Christine Jennings, a banker and former Republican gunning for Katherine Harris’s former House seat lost in a squeaker to conservative Republican Vern Buchanan. Dan Seals, a black moderate in the Barack Obama mold who criticized the Democratic Party even in speeches to Democratic crowds, lost to the Republican incumbent in Emanuel’s backyard, Illinois’s 10th District–as did the DCCC’s most talked-about recruit, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois’s 6th. Emanuel poured as astonishing $3 million into her campaign. It bought her a three-point defeat. Activists say the money would have been better spent on all the promising candidates to whom Rahm wouldn’t give the time of day.

Many of them won anyway. John Hall is poised to become the Democrats’ version of Sonny Bono–a former environmental and anti-nuclear activist and co-author of the hit 1970s hit “Still the One,” he just won New York’s 19th District House seat. Chris Carney, now heading to Washington to represent Pennsylvania’s 10th, beat beleaguered incumbent (and alleged-strangler) Don Sherwood. “Until Carney was ahead by double digits,” complained Howie Klein of DownWithTyranny, a blog that backed his candidacy, “Rahm wouldn’t take his phone calls.” Larry Kissell, a high school social studies teacher, is, as of this writing, in a statistical dead heat with an incumbent Republican from of all places, North Carolina. Says Klein: “If Rahm had a little bit of foresight to see this guy was for real, and to see that he was a candidate who could have won, a little bit of money would have made all the difference for him.”

Still, Kissell didn’t go into battle unarmed. The thing all these successful candidates share in common is backing by the same dirty-necked bloggers and netroots activists that pundits have been calling the political kiss of death. Yarmuth, Shea-Porter, Hall, and Kissel–in addition to Democratic pickups Jerry McNerney in California, Joe Sestak and (perhaps) Lois Murphy in Pennsylvania, Bruce Braley in Iowa, Kirstin Gillibrand in New York, and Senators-elect Jon Tester of Montana, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio–were all beneficiaries of a PAC called Blue America, a joint project of the blogs Firedoglake, DownWithTyranny, and Crooks & Liars. “Most of the candidates we support come directly from our readers,” Klein says.

Some of their chosen beneficiaries were hopeless and remained so. The bloggers say that’s the risk you take when you’re trying to build a party infrastructure for the long term. Others were hopeless, however, only until the netroots-types got their mitts on them. When Klein decided that all Larry Kissell needed was a boost, he remembered how radio guys used to use long gas lines as promotional opportunities. Together, they arrived at an idea: Kissell would subsidize the sale gas at a filling station in his North Carolina district at the price it sold for when the incumbent had entered office–$1.22 a gallon. A line of cars soon stretched down the thoroughfare. The unknown Democrat was suddenly all over TV, shaking hands and pitching a hard Democratic message. He started inching up in the polls.

By the end of October, he was doing so well that Emanuel, finally smelling the pickup opportunity, added Kissell to DCCC’s “Red to Blue” fund-raising program. Emanuel had been too preoccupied to notice Kissell, Howie Klein complains: He already had a darling North Carolina candidate: Heath Shuler (who also won his election last night). But Shuler “won’t even commit to voting for Pelosi,” Klein groused. He “probably tossed a coin to decide if he was going to run as a Republican in Tennessee or a Democratic in North Carolina.”

The bloggers, blunt as they may be, think they have a better plan for building a lasting Democratic majority. Last night’s results suggest the rest of us should start taking it seriously.

(It isn’t just the cult of Rahm. I heard Chris Matthews try to make the case last night that Chuck Shumer went out and found a guy who used to be in the Reagan administration and another guy with a crew cut to run against the Republicans. Surprisingly, both Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert corrected him and pointed out that Webb and Tester were both opposed by Shumer in their primaries and won in spite of him. Matthews was surprised. He couldn’t fathom that these two he-men hadn’t been chosen by the conservative establishment but rather had emerged through the grassroots.)

In an pollster post-mortem today, Chuck Todd said the Democratic Party has become a big tent party by accident. That is not the case. The fact is that over the last few years a rather imagination-limited, but well-funded, establishment waited for a chance to exploit Republican weakness as 9/11 began to fade, while a practical, visionary activist wing emerged to build a new political landscape. This is anything but an accident. It’s been in the works since at least 1998 as the netroots kept the truth about Republicans alive while the media were writhing together in orgiastic Clinton/Gore loathing and Bush sycophancy. There would have been no big victory last night without it.

And regardless of our pragmatism, make no mistake: real fighting progressives are once again active players in this game, coming in with money and energy and ideas. As Perlstein’s piece shows, this new group of energized progressives are not children, 60’s hippies or fools. We are not asking for a seat at the table. We’re not begging for a voice. Neither are we crazed ideological revolutionaries in the Gingrichian mold. We’re simply progressive American citizens who are taking our seat and demanding our say after 12 long years of being shunted aside as if we have no place in this party or this country.

They can have their bizarroworld interpretations of events and they can crown a new crop of “boy geniuses” who played nicely by GOP rules. It doesn’t matter. The Republican Revolution is dead. And the mainstream, progressive Democratic majority is silent no more.

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Take Two

by tristero

My last post was, to many of you, a bit of a muddle. Sorry. Briefly,

1. Bush should exercise the powers of the president, but not be permitted to exert extra-presidential authority, as he has done, to this nation’s detriment. No more torture. No more warrantless wiretaps. No more wars. No more undermining scientific advisors and rewriting science reports. No more tax-payer paid propaganda. No more handouts to the super-rich. And so on.

2. Bush must be confronted directly and vigorously whenever he continues to behave like a dictator instead of a president.

3. Bush will continue to test the limits. How far will he and the rightwing Republicans go to usurp power they shouldn’t have? The near-confrontation between two different law enforcment groups over Schiavo perpetrated by (Jeb) Bush should give you an idea of how far these maniacs are prepared to take things.

4. As we all know, Bush is at least as stupid and impulsive as his brother.

5. This means that Congress must not only be strong, but smart in confronting Bush, as he could, intentionally or through sheer stupidity move the situation to a major crisis that would make the Saturday Night Massacre look like a party.

6. No one sane should wish for that level of crisis. It may feel good to say, “let’s go for it, bring it on, George” but the truth is that the kind of confrontation (Jeb) Bush perpetrated over Schiavo was insane and a dreadful catastrophe was averted because cooler heads than the Bush brothers prevailed. No one – not you, not I – wants to see that happen on the federal level. Nor is it necessary for Congress to let Bush push things that far in a successful struggle to contain him.

7. Provided the Congress is not only strong in confronting Bush, but very smart at doing so as well.

A lot of us are furious with Bush and can’t wait to investigate and where crimes have been committed, punish. Me, too. And no doubt, there will be ample opportunity for him to pull more crap. However, as he is confronted and checked, and the ongoing Constitutional crisis (since the 2000 election theft) becomes even more blatant, our quite justified anger will be less useful than a healthy dose of cold, calculated, well-reasoned, and forceful tactics.

Again, Congress must be smart where Bush is stupid. Thoughtful where Bush goes with his gut. Consistent where Bush is impulsive. And Immovable in the face of a powerful, unstable, and deeply obsessive child/man who should never have been president.

Confronting The Rogue President

by tristero

If you think Republicans took the day off in 2000, 20002, and 2004, think again. Get up off your asses. Here we go:

What is the most important issue facing the country that the Democrats must tackle? The rogue presidency of George W. Bush.

Anyone who thinks this will be easy or pleasant needs to get to a certified physician, fast. Nevertheless, the path to staunching the blood in Iraq and America’s shameful complicity in it, the path to preventing possible nuclear war with Iran, the path to reversing the evisceration of the Constitution — all these and so many more converge at the flat feet of the Worst President Ever. And it will not be easy to rein him in.

I think it’s a pretty safe bet, even for William Bennett, that Bush will try to precipitate a constitutional crisis over the limits of presidential power (from his standpoint, none) in the next two years. Having lived through Watergate, and remembering how terrifying (even if eventually, exhilirating) it was, I am personally dreading it. Imagine how the Dems in Congress feel.

So let us make this clear to them:

If George Bush wants to continue to wreck America, then there is no way anyone in Congress with a modicum of self-respect and love of country should let him get away with it.

That’s easy to say, but what if it means a dangerous constitutional crisis?

Don’t answer right away, folks. Stop. Think.

The standard cliche American response to these kinds of challenges is an instantaneous, adrenaline-fueled shout of, “Bring it on!” The intense desire to engage the enemy, mano a mano, to stop all the pussy-footing, and let’s get down to it! We can win this thing! Plans? Plans??! I don’t need no stinkin’ plans! I’m right, I’ll win and I’ll just let the weak plan what happens then.

And we know how well that works. So step 1 in the post 11/07/06 world is for Dems and liberals not to act like drooling violent morons – because we’re not, and anyway, it never works outside a Stallone movie – and think this through. To paraphrase Susan Sontag, we know we’re strong. We are going to have to be smart.

In order to confront an out of control, delusional, and ruthless president, the Democrats are going to have to be in control, levelheaded, and prepared to do whatever it takes.

What does “whatever it takes” mean? Well, has everyone forgotten what happened during Schiavo?

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted – but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge’s order, The Miami Herald has learned.

Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.

For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called “a showdown.”

In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.

…

…agencies answering directly to Gov. Jeb Bush had planned to use a wrinkle in Florida law that would have allowed them to legally get around the judge’s order. The exception in the law allows public agencies to freeze a judge’s order whenever an agency appeals it.

…

Participants in the high-stakes test of wills, who spoke with The Herald on the condition of anonymity, said they believed the standoff could ultimately have led to a constitutional crisis and a confrontation between dueling lawmen.

“There were two sets of law enforcement officers facing off, waiting for the other to blink,” said one official with knowledge of Thursday morning’s activities.

In jest, one official said local police discussed “whether we had enough officers to hold off the National Guard.”

Some jest. Anyway, that’s what “whatever it takes” means. The risk of an armed confrontation between different parts of the federal government.

Now, don’t just say, “Fine with me, he wants it, it’s his fault, let’s stop talking about it and go for it!” Think about what that means. And the consequences of what could have happened had the (Jeb) Bush guys not backed down during Schiavo.

Most importantly, forget about thinking you have the courage to risk that kind of confrontation. You don’t. I don’t. No one does. Even if it shows beyond a doubt how far the Bush administration is prepared to go, the bizarre Schiavo confrontation was an incredibly stupid mistake. And we are all goddammed lucky it didn’t get worse.

No. Think about how we can stop Bush, who is at least as stupid and impulsive as his brother, from provoking another armed confrontation, this time at the national level. And still get him to behave like a president and not Rufus T. Firefly.

It’s not easy, but it has to be done. it is quite possible to confront and stop Bush while also not provoking a repeat of Schiavo.

Bush will start testing the new Congress as soon as he can. He will claim the power to do something beyond the normal range of the Executive, and it will be nothing anyone should make a constitutional crisis over. Congress will let him get away with it. Why go to the mat over something relatively trivial – like phone records, say, of calls between Jeff Gannon and the White House to see where Gannon received the inside info about the Plame case?

But they shouldn’t tolerate any attempt to exceed the powers of the presidency, not matter how seemingly unimportant. Because Bush will, as he has repeatedly done, raise the stakes until he is able to grab the power he really wants and is met only with a demoralized and cowed opposition.

Reality will be far messier than any what ifs. But this is what I think the position should be for the new Congress. Bush can, and will execute the duties of the office of the president but Congress should let him get away with nothing that exceeds the power of his office. No matter what he does or threatens to do.

Bush thinks he’s king. It is high time to inform him that he holds a far greater office and he cannot be permitted to demean that office by acting like a mere king.

And while Congress is reining him in, they must be smart about it, find a way to prevent Bush from exceeding any of his powers while, at the same time, foiling Bush’s desire to stage Gunfight at the OK Corral in Washington, DC, with live ammo.

It’s not gonna be easy…

Dear Preznit Quackenbush

by tristero

Dear Preznit Quackenbush,

You poor guy. To get you used to the new reality, my brilliant, beautiful daughter thought you might like to play this simulation of what the next two years will be like.

And me, I thought you could do with a little music:

Love,

tristero

Goodbye, Rick!

by tristero

It’s a zero sum kind of a universe. Such good news for the US Senate and the country – Rick Santorum will no longer stink up the chamber with his sulphurous emissions.

Unfortunately, Santorum now has a lot of time on his hands to pursue the floppy-eared objects of his desire.

Do they make chastity belts for dogs?

Big News!

by digby

Oh my god. I can’t believe it. I never expected this. Britney Spears filed for divorce today.

Ok, I’m going to channel Heidi Klum at this moment and say to Rick Santorum, Mike DeWine and Lincoln Chafee: You’re AÖut!

Seriously folks, this is an historic night. The first woman speaker of the House was elected tonight — the most powerful female in American history. That is an awesome thing even if she is from the seventh circle of hell San Francisco.

More on all this tomorrow. Right now, I’m going to drink some expensive champagne. (It’s not only election day — it’s my anniversary!)

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Early Heads Up, But Not About The Election

by tristero

Everyone will want to read, should it get online, and it should, Max Rodenbeck’s article, “How Terrible Is It?” in The New York Review of Books.

Essentially, the answer, based on expert analysis by terrorism scholars and Rodenbeck’s study of Bush Administration documents, is that the issues are more complicated than the simplistic public discourse in the US can manage to explain. Furthermore, without minimizing the threat from terrorists in the slightest, the article makes it quite clear that the threat was manageable without the hysteria Bush and Co. generated. In fact, their “bone-headed” response unquestionably made the situation more of a mess than it was or had to be.

I was also happy to see confirmed my opinion that nuclear terrorism is a cause, of course, for concern, but that Perle’s loopy panic on the subject is quite uncalled-for.

Now, back to your election obsessing!

Spinning The Ratfuck

by digby

Wolf Blitzer: Let me talk a little bit with you about some of the reported glitches coing up in voting. Democrats are already charging the Republicans are engagin in some dirty tricks out there and they’re complaining about some of the activity especially some of those so-called robo calls that have gone out from the national republican campaing committee.

I want to give you a change to respond to the charge that your side is engaging in dirty politics.

Ken Mehlman:I’m not familiar with that Wolf. I thin that my goal is to get more Republicans and more Democrats and more independents. Everyone who is watching this show, I don’t care what your politics are, I want you to go out and vote.

Know this Wolf, in 04, we know two things. First, Democrats produced a playbook that they gave to everyone of their state parties. They said “if there’s not intimidation, allege that there is.”

Secondly, in 04 there were two states and it was Democrats who were involved— in Ohio it was about misleading voterrs about where they should vote and when they should vote and in Florida it was about threatening and harrassing people who wanted to hand out flyers at the polls. In Wisconsin we know that it was actually criminal activity, slashing tires of people who wanted to go to the polls.

I hope Democrats won’t do it again, but the fact is you’ve already seen some questionable activity. In Heather Wilson’s district, New Mexico 1, Republican precincts where people tried to vote, they were turned away because there weren’t enough ballots. As of earlier today, the Democratic county clerk hadn’t rectified that problem. I hope that’s fixed.

Rick Santorum held a press conference earlier today where he pointed out that a lot of the rural parts of that state, his supporters, were having a lot of problems working with the voting machines.

In Montana, we saw the same thing the Democrats did in 04, where people were misled about where and how to participate.

So, I hope we don’t have that problem.

Both parties’ goals ought to be more people participating, more people having confidence in the system, and more people being able to participate in a way they know their vote won’t be cancelled out by someone playing shenanigans. I don’t think people ought to cry wolf for the sake of gaining politically, particularly if they’ve been the ones, as they were in 04, who were engaged in inappropriate actions.

Wolf: Alright. I think all of hope that these elections today go very smoothly, as smoothly as possible but we’ve been reporeting there have been some problems, some glitches, some long lines, have already been reported. We’re going to watch this very, very closely here at CNN.

Yeah, I’ll bet.

I don’t know if my prediction is going to come true, but it looks to me as if they are at least giving themselves the option.

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Monitoring The Dirty Tricks

by digby

Two unbiased observers, Joe Scarborough and Michael Smerconish, just pointed out that it’s sickening to see Democrats whining about election irregularities when they do exactly the same thing, even worse. Like in Philadelphia where they are allegedly “mining votes” left and right as we speak. Or New Jersey where they have rigged the voting machines.

The one thing Republicans unbiased observers can’t bear is Democratic hypocrisy and election stealing. This is why it’s good that Laura Ingraham told her listeners to crank call the Democratic Voter protection hotline. They’ve got to stop the madness by any means necessary.

Earlier David Gergen pointed out that if the Democrats win this election, even if it’s a huge win, it won’t be because anyone wants them in power or even likes them. (How could they? They’re Democrats.) This, of course, is completely different than the 1994 Republican Revolution which was a national affirmation of conservative ideals.

Oh, and FYI, heavy turnout always favors Republicans.

You can feel the foundations of the status quo crumbling and all the panicked insiders looking around frantically for purchase.

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The Theocracy Movement: Redefining Marriage Exclusively As Religious Sacrament

by tristero

We’re gonna have a little fun along the way in this post, maybe even a few yucks as we ponder a few of the ideas surrounding the opposition to gay marriage. But the subject isn’t funny in the slightest. Not in the slightest. And opposing gay marriage, that’s only part of what makes it so awful. I apologize up front for the length.

In responding to David Klinghoffer’s defense of evangelical condemnation of same sex relationships in the wake of the Haggard affair, Jonah Lehrer notes several blatant flaws. Among the more bizarre is Klinghoffer’s argument that assumes a priori that a desire to have sexual intimacy with a person of your own gender is “just another temptation to be denied.” In fact, Klinghoffer goes so far as to compare the irresistible lust of woman for woman to – I’m not making this up, people, I am not that imaginative – the alluring scent of pepperoni pizza to an observant Jew.

Hmm…well… Yes, it’s true, and I’ll be the first to admit it. Certain limitations make it impossible for me absolutely to confirm that indeed sapphic desire is not like a near-uncontrollable urge to stuff your face with a high calorie, high cholesterol convenience food topped with cured pig parts (their exact provenance you don’t want to know) which your religion forbids you from eating. But I really, really, doubt it.

Now here’s another argument David makes. But this one isn’t silly. This one’s ominous, once you start to look at it for a minute:

This is why gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. When the awe in which people once held matrimony is diluted, by treating it as a man-made and thus amendable institution rather than a divinely determined one, heterosexuals find sexual sins of all sorts harder to resist.

Ok. I’m gonna ignore debuking David’s logic here ’cause it’s simply too obvious. It’s the notion of marriage as a “divinely determined” institution that is deeply troubling, the assumption David tosses off as a patently obvious given while on the way to the “therefore” part of his logical assertion. Let’s think about that a bit.

Yup, David is saying that if Ted Haggard married you, you’re married. But if instead, you went to the Justice of the Peace, a nice little old woman who’s lived with her pepperoni pizza – sorry, I meant her partner, I got confused – for 30 years and raised three kids, if she marries you in a civil ceremony, you’re not married. Why? Being exclusively “secular,” there’s been no “divine determination,” that’s why. But, what’s exactly meant by “no divine determination?”

Well, it can only mean “not by Pastor Haggard or some other cleric” because what else could it mean? Two people can’t just go off and get “married in the eyes of God” without someone pious third party agreeing that yes, God was looking. Otherwise, who’s to say, other than the couple themselves, that God really was looking? That couple may not be as pious as they should be. They can’t themselves determine divine imprimatur.

And that someone else, who could that be? Someone like a priest or a rabbi. It certainly can’t be merely some possibly atheist clerk in a government office, even if she’s straight because… What’s her religion? If she’s not in good with God, then there you are, the marriage has not been divinely determined. (Okay, may not be. As you’ll see, it hardly matters ’cause marriage licensing is only one part of it.)

This is bad enough. But the implications of what David is saying are far more worrisome. He is challenging the basic principles upon which the United States government rests. He is asserting that the United States is actually a theocracy ruled by divine law, that the US has forgotten that it must adhere to divine law, and it must stop pretending that it is a civil, i.e., secular, government. Especially when it comes to such vital issues as marriage, which is clearly “divinely determined.”

But the Declaration of Independence is extremely clear; the power of the American government resides in the people, not in some kind of divine will. The binding agreement of marriage did not descend from God. And even if it had, the Declaration asserts that the legal power for that agreement resides not with God but with the people.

Therefore a couple married in a civil ceremony is deemed married in the eyes of American society. The divine determination? That’s between the couple and God (or not, depending upon their beliefs). It’s optional, as far as the American government is concerned. And thank God for that.

Therefore, the laws that govern marriage most certainly can be changed to enable any two people that love each other to get married in the eyes of the US government. If the people so choose. (And, of course, sooner or later they will. And I hope I live to see it.)

Stepping back for a moment to the larger picture, there is nothing that says American conservatism, as a political philosophy, must embrace the overthrow of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. However, today’s Republican party, dependent upon religious nuts for political support, have created a kind of radical conservative worldview, paradoxical as that sounds, as opposed to the older reactionary one.

David’s little tucked away assumption actually is a radical assault on bedrock American political philosophy. And I assure you, he and and his pals know it.

I’d also like to note one final thing about David Klinghoffer’s worldview, which was glossed over.

For the sake of argument, let us grant that the only genuine marriages are not civil marriages but only those that are “divinely determined,” i.e. religious. Well, there’s a huge question here that Klinghoffer sidesteps: Whose religion?.

Surely, David realizes this problem. An in his book*, David provides numerous sophisticated theological arguments to postulate the basic, and eventually real, unity by the people of the Book. No, I haven’t read David’s book, but here is some of Commentary’s description in their careful review of his ideas**:

Rather than thinking of their respective faiths as related but rival systems, [Klinghoffer] believes that the time has come for them to realize they are in the same boat; whatever their doctrinal differences, they are engaged in promoting the same truths, defending the same values, and worshiping the same God.

Not exactly an original observation, but it’s not exactly a trivial one, either, especially when combined with David’s extraordinary ability to synthesize and extrapolate. Here is Klinghoffer himself describing how the three religions are essentially one:

Being a “kingdom of priests” [as the Bible commands Israel to be] means ministering to others in a priestly role, for who can claim to be a priest if he has no congregation? God’s instruction to the Jews at the moment of the revelation of the Torah was to serve the congregation of humanity, bringing the knowledge of the Lord to them. It would seem that the Christian church now plays the role of congregation … with the Jews serving in the ministerial position. Christians and Muslims alike know of the God of Abraham only because they met him in the Bible…. It served God’s purposes that there be a unique religion [Christianity], acknowledging Him, for the people who spread out from Europe. It was not Judaism. It departs from Judaism in many ways. But in revering the God of Israel it contains the seeds for an ultimate reunification of the people [of the earth] in God’s service.

By now, I’m sure the parallels between David’s worldview and some of the more apocalyptic utopian ideas of the evangelicals is clear. In fact, Klinghoffer’s borrowings of Christian evangelical tropes makes his description of the meta-religion sound something like a pepperoni knish. (I couldn’t resist, sorry.)

And now, let’s take David’s breathtaking vision of one super-religion that potentially re-unites all of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and apply it to that pesky question of exactly whose religion is the real divine determinant of marriage. It’s easy. Obviously, anyone married as a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim is married.

Well, I’m gonna not argue Talmud with David Klinghoffer, I wouldn’t know where to begin. But I certainly know bullshit when I read it and his ideas sure as hell stink to high heaven.

First of all, there is a big “No Duh!” Klinghoffer simply cannot escape.

The notion of some kind of transcendent, reunited (!!!) uber-religion of the Book is, in the real world of our lifetimes and our children and their children and so on, utterly preposterous in and of itself – Protestants are still killing Catholics the last I checked, and no one in America can figure out what the Shia’s got against the Sunnis, and Jews: reform Jews aren’t considered Jews by certain powerful sects in Israel.

One unified religion with one God? So, um, what, exactly is the Holy Spirit, David? Chopped liver? Back here on planet Earth, religious belief is eclectic and highly contentious. And “reunited?” Religious belief was eclectic and highly contentious in Jesus’ time, too, fer crissakes. And in the time of his disciples.

And underneath David’s bullshit, dig we must. And we find that the question “whose religion?” wasn’t met with an answer. It just slid and slipped down the drain.

How about Buddhists? Are they married? What about Hindus? What about Pastafarians (disciples of the Flying Spaghetti Monster)? Look at the excerpt from David’s book. These minor religions – as we all know, there really aren’t too many Hindus around – they don’t figure in David’s raputurous vision at all.

And that’s the reason, David, why there is civil marriage in America and I thank God there is.

So that one religion can’t “determine” which other religions have the blessing of the Divine for a marriage and which don’t. Because once you start redefining marriage,*** you have established one religion over all others, namely the religion that the state decrees has the right to marry you.

And that’s not a good thing, David.

Trust me, if marriage is ever redefined as sacred, the folks who do so? They ain’t gonna buy your Jewish “priesthood” crap. Not for one fucking second. You think, it’s gonna be like, “Step aside, Pat Robertson! Here comes the real priest to lead the Christian congregations of the world. Sound the shofars! It’s… Rabbi Klinghoffer!

Uh-huh. Pepperoni pizza will sprout wings long before that day.

Okay. No more ridicule. This is serious:

When you play with American theocracy, David Klinghoffer, you are playing with fire. And I mean that literally, my friend and you know what I’m talking about. So, I’d read that Talmud again if I were you. And read it carefully.

Something tells me you will find nothing in there that requires Jews to construct an elaborate intellectual structure to support their own annihilation. But that is exactly what you are encouraging when you start asserting that civil institutions are in fact, religious ones. Back off, sir. What you’re talking about really is not good for the Jews.

Forgive him, Father. He knows not what he is doing.

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*Please don’t get me started on the title. I could rant on for days at how many awful assumptions it contains.

**If the review gives an inaccurate precis, I’d appreciate a detailed description of exactly how from David himself. Otherwise, I willl assume at least rough accuracy, which is confirmed by a later quote from the book itself.

*** That’s right, Klinghoffer and his colleagues are the ones redefining marriage, as an exclusively religious institution. I am defending the institution of marriage as the traditional civil institution it has been since the Revolution.