Rod Dreher Notes a New Meme

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCIX

In a blog at The Corner today (emphasis in original):

President Bush's support for the Federal Marriage Amendment is now being linked by the media to "The Passion of the Christ," and not in a complimentary way. Exhibit A, from today's Boston Globe, is this analysis excerpted here: But in choosing to wade so deeply into the cultural divide, Bush also gave a nod to the more than 45 percent of Americans who were likely to vote for him anyway — the same people in the evenly divided electorate to whom he reached out in his remarks before the Super Bowl last month, in his NASCAR visit in Florida, and in his expressing interest in seeing "The Passion of the Christ." The Globe connects the dots for you. Being "uncompassionate" (their formulation) about gays is tied to enjoying NASCAR and wanting to see the Jesus movie. The subtext is: "Look at the auto-racing, Jesus-loving gay-bashers and the president who panders to them." Exhibit B is today's hysterical Maureen Dowd screed, which implies that Bush is in league with Jesus-loving, "Passion"-watching gay bashers who secretly harbor a desire to bash Jews. Expect this theme to be repeated ad infinitum from here through November. It's Red vs. Blue all over again — but this time, Blue is going for the jugular.

Here are the cited articles.

First, from today's Boston Globe (brackets in original):

In declaring his support for a constitutional ban on gay marriage, President Bush followed a developing pattern in his campaign — an emphasis on the "conservative" part of his message rather than the "compassionate" aspect he relied so heavily on in the 2000 race.

Bush advisers say that the decision about gay marriage was largely driven by current events and that he probably would have refrained from speaking out so soon if same-sex couples in San Francisco were not getting married and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court wasn't forcing the Legislature to wrestle with the issue.

But in choosing to wade so deeply into the cultural divide, Bush also gave a nod to the more than 45 percent of Americans who were likely to vote for him anyway — the same people in the evenly divided electorate to whom he reached out in his remarks before the Super Bowl last month, in his NASCAR visit in Florida, and in his expressing interest in seeing "The Passion of the Christ."

At this stage of seeking reelection, Bush is clearly focused more on Republicans than the narrow slice of the electorate that is up for grabs — a distinct shift from his approach in 2000.

"You can spend a lot of time and money trying to appeal to that 10 percent of voters who are in the middle, or you can spend it on that 45 percent who are for my team, half of whom don't remember to vote," Grover Norquist, a political analyst and close White House ally, said. "The gay marriage issue doesn't really switch votes. It reminds his voters why they should remember to vote. This speaks to 'the base.'"

In practical terms, Bush's stance toward gay marriage may not do much more than that.

History shows that presidents rarely influence the fate of constitutional-amendment proposals; the Constitution gives them no role in the process at all. It is also a lengthy ordeal that, in this case, will almost certainly last beyond the November elections.

As a result, it is relatively easy for Bush, like presidents in the past, to embrace the idea of a constitutional amendment during election season without having to follow up with any real time investment — or suffer the blame if it passes or fails.

"Presidents really don't have much effect on the amending process," said Richard B. Bernstein, a constitutional historian who is a specialist on that process. "Most presidents play games with the process; it happened a lot in the 1980s and 1990s."

For example, Bernstein said, "Ronald Reagan talked a lot about a balanced-budget amendment, but he never fully committed to making it a reality. The same with [the first] President Bush; he never committed his political capital to that amendment."

Bush has expressed his desire to block attempts to legalize gay marriage for more than a year, and there is little doubt that Bush sincerely opposes an expansion of marriage beyond the union of a man and a woman.

Once the SJC decision came down, followed by the San Francisco mayor's issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples in violation of California law, Bush believed it was urgent for him to step in as a leader, advisers said. Apart from his own moral code, Bush also needed to assure his sometimes-restive conservative supporters, irritated by spiraling federal spending and a growing budget deficit, that he would be willing to take a stand on an issue as important as this. In so doing, he also erased the last grievance that social conservatives held against Bush.

The risk of inaction for Bush, according to Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, was that "when a cultural crisis unfolds without leadership, there becomes a fear that is immobilizing, and that would carry over into the election."

"That fear has turned into energy" among social conservatives, Perkins said.

"The only issue with the base — the religious, conservative base — was, 'When is he going to make this announcement?'" said Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis magazine and an ally of the White House. "Now that it's been made, there aren't any other issues pressing."

At the same time, Hudson said, Bush is "doing something that makes his conservative base very happy, but it comes at the cost of potentially discouraging people in the party coalition who are afraid of this issue or disagree with it," such as moderates and gay Republicans.

Several of his political advisers believe strongly that it is just as important, if not more so, to appeal to the Republican base than to potential swing voters, who make up no more than 10 percent of the electorate, or as little as 4 percent.

Advisers also say his focus on Republicans is essential as a counterweight to energized Democrats and to begin rallying supporters to turn out and vote. Advisers say the key is to have more Republicans at the polls than Democrats, which alone would win the race for Bush regardless of how many independents or last-minute deciders there are.

"This is a marathon, not a sprint," one Bush adviser said of the president's decision to home in on conservatives at this stage of the campaign. As for moderates and swing voters, the adviser said, "There will be plenty of time for that."

In the past, presidents have had almost no impact on the constitutional-amendment process, which tends to be driven more by advocacy groups and members of Congress.

President Carter got some credit for embracing the Equal Rights Amendment, to give women full legal equality, which eventually failed. His role, however, was apparently not much greater than that of his wife, Rosalyn, who signed a resolution endorsing ERA's passage. "The impetus came more from the women's movement, working with their friends in Congress," not Carter, said Sylvia Law, a New York University professor of constitutional law.

Perhaps the only president to move an amendment forward was Abraham Lincoln, who led the way for the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. "He was really involved in getting it through Congress, really exerting pressure," noted Daniel Farber, a constitutional historian and law professor at Boalt Hall, the law school at the University of California.

But even Lincoln was not involved in the process of drafting the changes, a measure of how unimportant a president's stamp of approval can be.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Second, the "hysterical" "screed" by Maureen Dowd at NYT today (ellipsis in original).

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Mel Gibson and George W. Bush are courting bigotry in the name of sanctity.

The moviemaker wants to promote "The Passion of the Christ" and the president wants to prevent the passion of the gays.

Opening on two screens: W.'s stigmatizing as political strategy and Mel's stigmata as marketing strategy.

Mr. Gibson, who told Diane Sawyer that he was inspired to make the movie after suffering through addictions, found the ultimate 12-step program: the Stations of the Cross.

I went to the first show of "The Passion" at the Loews on 84th Street and Broadway; it was about a quarter filled. This is not, as you may have read, a popcorn movie. In Latin and Aramaic with English subtitles, it's two gory hours of Jesus getting flayed by brutish Romans at the behest of heartless Jews.

Perhaps fittingly for a production that licensed a jeweler to sell $12.99 nail necklaces (what's next? crown-of-thorns prom tiaras?), "The Passion" has the cartoonish violence of a Sergio Leone Western. You might even call it a spaghetti crucifixion, "A Fistful of Nails."

Writing in The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor, scorns it as "a repulsive, masochistic fantasy, a sacred snuff film" that uses "classically anti-Semitic images."

I went with a Jewish pal, who tried to stay sanguine. "The Jews may have killed Jesus," he said. "But they also gave us `Easter Parade.' "

The movie's message, as Jesus says, is that you must love not only those who love you, but more importantly those who hate you.

So presumably you should come out of the theater suffused with charity toward your fellow man.

But this is a Mel Gibson film, so you come out wanting to kick somebody's teeth in.

In "Braveheart" and "The Patriot," his other emotionally manipulative historical epics, you came out wanting to swing an ax into the skull of the nearest Englishman. Here, you want to kick in some Jewish and Roman teeth. And since the Romans have melted into history...

Like Mr. Gibson, Mr. Bush is whipping up intolerance but calling it a sacred cause.

At first, the preacher-in-chief resisted conservative calls for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. He felt, as Jesus put it in the Gibson script (otherwise known as the Gospels), "If it is possible, let this chalice pass from me."

But under pressure from the Christian right, he grabbed the chalice with both hands and swigged — seeking to set a precedent in codifying discrimination in the Constitution, a document that in the past has been amended to correct discrimination by giving fuller citizenship rights to blacks, women and young people.

If the president is truly concerned about preserving the sanctity of marriage, as one of my readers suggested, why not make divorce illegal and stone adulterers?

Our soldiers are being killed in Iraq; Osama's still on the loose; jobs are being exported all over the world; the deficit has reached biblical proportions.

And our president is worrying about Mars and marriage?

When reporters tried to pin down White House spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday on why gay marriage is threatening, he spouted a bunch of gobbledygook about "the fabric of society" and civilization.

The pols keep arguing that institutions can't be changed when, in fact, they change all the time. Haven't they ever heard of the institution of slavery?

The government should not be trying to legislate what's sacred.

When Bushes get in trouble, they look around for a politically advantageous bogeyman. Lee Atwater tried to make Americans shudder over the prospect of Willie Horton arriving on their doorstep; and now Karl Rove wants Americans to shudder at the prospect of a lesbian — Dick Cheney's daughter Mary, say — setting up housekeeping next door with her "wife."

When it comes to the Bushes' willingness to stir up base instincts of the base, it is as it was.

As the Max von Sydow character said in Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters," while watching a TV evangelist appealing for money: "If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Do these articles trouble you, Faithful Reader? Did you expect those folks to do otherwise? Surely, not by now.

But perhaps I should remind you about Core's Law of Old Media:

We see the Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode partly because America's liberals believe their own lying propaganda.

Seriously. Learn to enjoy these kinds of things now. And think of all the fun you're going to have come November. :-)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/26/04 10:04:35 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Media.

A Series of Articles You Will Not See at NYT

Cybercast News Service covers Manuel Miranda.

First, an article last Friday:

The former Republican counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee has told CNSNews.com that the quest for money, more than liberal political ideology, is what drives the most effective special interest groups — abortion lobbyists, trial lawyers and labor unions — fighting against President Bush's conservative judicial nominees.

"What would be truly shocking to the American people is the profit motive that is involved," Manuel Miranda said.

Miranda resigned under pressure from Democrats angry that he read memos on a shared government computer detailing Democratic senators' and liberal activists' plans to derail those nominees.

He told CNSNews.com Wednesday — during the first in-depth interview since his resignation — that the abortion industry and trial lawyers are behind the most powerful efforts to keep conservative jurists off the federal bench....

Second, another article, this Monday (quoted ellipsis in original):

Democrats have compared Manuel Miranda to, perhaps, the most famous political burglars in American history. But the former Senate Judiciary Committee GOP counsel told CNSNews.com last week — in the first in-depth interview since his resignation — that he did nothing wrong by reading Democrats' strategy memos, stored on a government computer shared by Republicans. More importantly, he believes the focus of the investigation into the memos is misplaced.

Miranda, who resigned from his job with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) earlier this month, credits committee Democrats and their allied liberal special interest groups with "a very clever move ... to create this impression that there was another 'Washington leak' investigation when, in fact, there was no leak." ....

Next, Miranda's resignation letter (emphasis in original):

(Editor's Note: The following is the February 9, 2004 letter by Manuel Miranda, announcing his departure as counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist)

Today I announce my departure as Counsel to the Senate Majority Leader, Dr. Bill Frist. I have departed so as not to distract the Leader from pursuing a needed legislative agenda for the American people. My departure will also allow me to speak freely and seek to return the focus of the Democrat documents investigation where it should have stayed — on the substance of the Democrat documents themselves and the abuse of the public trust that they spell out, both the few that are public and the many that remain unpublished and are now in the possession of the Sergeant at Arms....

Last, an article this Tuesday:

The former Republican counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee is "disappointed" that Republican senators have not defended him more forcefully for uncovering Democrat memos laying out plans to derail President Bush's judicial nominees. Manuel Miranda said he has done nothing wrong and believes he deserves an apology from his accusers.

"My first reaction was disappointment in men who I had raised up as heroes," Miranda told CNSNews.com, referring to the Republican leaders he formerly served. He seemed especially hurt by the reaction of his former supervisor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

"I certainly do not fault him for having an investigation to determine whether or not there was a hacking," Miranda said. "The fault lies in doing it in such a way that it was allowed to distract from the substance of the memos and doing it in such a way as to suggest that the disclosure to the public of these documents was wrong." ....

Now, I'll grant you, maybe I haven't done it right; but my search reveals that the New York Times has published a grand total of two articles that so much as mention Manuel Miranda.

Don't you think it's strange, Faithful Reader, that NYT isn't squawking about racism here? I mean, an Hispanic was sacked by the Republicans! Besides, don't you think this is the sort of story that NYT would usually be all over? I mean, an Hispanic was sacked by the Republicans! Moreover, if "conservative" publications ignored a story like this, don't you think NYT would accuse them of collusion in racism? I mean, an Hispanic was sacked by the Republicans!

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/26/04 09:36:17 PM
Categorized as Media & Political.

John Kerry's Rhetoric Communist?

Former Romanian spy chief says anti-war spiel like Kerry's in 1971 came originally from the Kremlin.

Ion Mihai Pacepa writes at NRO today:

Part of Senator John Kerry's appeal to a certain segment of Americans is his Vietnam-veteran status coupled with his antiwar activism during that period. On April 12, 1971, [sic; actually, April 22] Kerry told the U.S. Congress that American soldiers claimed to him that they had, "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned on the power, cut off limbs, blew up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan."

The exact sources of that assertion should be tracked down. Kerry also ought to be asked who, exactly, told him any such thing, and what it was, exactly, that they said they did in Vietnam. Statutes of limitation now protect these individuals from prosecution for any such admissions. Or did Senator Kerry merely hear allegations of that sort as hearsay bandied about by members of antiwar groups (much of which has since been discredited)? To me, this assertion sounds exactly like the disinformation line that the Soviets were sowing worldwide throughout the Vietnam era. KGB priority number one at that time was to damage American power, judgment, and credibility. One of its favorite tools was the fabrication of such evidence as photographs and "news reports" about invented American war atrocities. These tales were purveyed in KGB-operated magazines that would then flack them to reputable news organizations. Often enough, they would be picked up. News organizations are notoriously sloppy about verifying their sources. All in all, it was amazingly easy for Soviet-bloc spy organizations to fake many such reports and spread them around the free world.

As a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet satellite of Romania, I produced the very same vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word for word and planted it in leftist movements throughout Europe. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov managed our anti-Vietnam War operation. He often bragged about having damaged the U.S. foreign-policy consensus, poisoned domestic debate in the U.S., and built a credibility gap between America and European public opinion through our disinformation operations. Vietnam was, he once told me, "our most significant success." ....

Is it red-baiting when an (ex-)Red does it?

P.S. See also Arafat Needs to Go.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/26/04 01:18:35 PM
Categorized as John Kerry & Political.

Terri's Fight Continues

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/26/04 06:55:46 AM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

A New Anglican Difficulties

See this delightful conversation, at The Telegraph, Feb. 24, with Anglican canon chancellor Edward Norman, who will be joining the Catholic Church later this year:

"My new book is not actually a criticism of the Church of England," says Canon Edward Norman, chancellor of York Minster, choosing his words with donnish precision.

Is he serious? Two minutes later, he declares: "There is a big hole at the centre of Anglicanism — its authority. I don't think it's a Church; it's more of a religious society." This is the most hurtful criticism that one can make of any Church: to say that it is not a Church.

In fact, his book, Anglican Difficulties: A New Syllabus of Errors, is one of the most ferocious assaults ever launched on the Church of England. It is all the more deadly because its author is not a traditionalist quote-merchant, but a leading Church intellectual....

See John Henry Newman's "Anglican Difficulties":

• Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching;
• A Letter Addressed to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on Occasion of His Eirenicon; and,
• A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.

(Thanks, Christopher.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/26/04 06:41:03 AM
Categorized as Religious.

"For Better or for Worse?"

Mary Ann Glendon writes an article that goes hand in hand with "Humpty Dumpty Logic", at OpinionJournal yesterday:

.... If these social experiments go forward, moreover, the rights of children will be impaired. Same-sex marriage will constitute a public, official endorsement of the following extraordinary claims made by the Massachusetts judges in the Goodridge case: that marriage is mainly an arrangement for the benefit of adults; that children do not need both a mother and a father; and that alternative family forms are just as good as a husband and wife raising kids together. It would be tragic if, just when the country is beginning to take stock of the havoc those erroneous ideas have already wrought in the lives of American children, we should now freeze them into constitutional law. That philosophy of marriage, moreover, is what our children and grandchildren will be taught in school. They will be required to discuss marriage in those terms. Ordinary words like husband and wife will be replaced by partner and spouse. In marriage-preparation and sex-education classes, children will have to be taught about homosexual sex. Parents who complain will be branded as homophobes and their children will suffer.

Religious freedom, too, is at stake. As much as one may wish to live and let live, the experience in other countries reveals that once these arrangements become law, there will be no live-and-let-live policy for those who differ. Gay-marriage proponents use the language of openness, tolerance and diversity, yet one foreseeable effect of their success will be to usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination the likes of which we have rarely seen before. Every person and every religion that disagrees will be labeled as bigoted and openly discriminated against. The ax [sic] will fall most heavily on religious persons and groups that don't go along. Religious institutions will be hit with lawsuits if they refuse to compromise their principles....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/26/04 06:24:44 AM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.