Constitution v. Common Sense

Charles Blow of the New York Times is concerned that "Too much of the debate [over Islam in America] seems to be centered around the sensitivities of terrorists a world away.... But...," he writes, "we are a country in which the construction of a building and the destruction of a book are rights extended to all, even if opposed by most."

Over & above the false equivalency Blow tries to establish between building a cultural center & destroying a holy text, the Constant Weader thinks he misses the underlying point of the discussion:

So what you're saying, I guess, is that the "debate" over the Rev. Cap'n. Crunch and his Koran-torching plans is all about the Constitution.

No, it isn't. Nobody is saying the Koran burning is unconstitutional. It is a common-sense issue. Over in Afghanistan, we're busy bombing innocent Muslims & pretending it's all just an accident & besides, we're doing it for their own goods. Burning their holy book is not just blowing them to bits; it's blowing their fundamental(ist) principles to bits. It's worse than saying, "Kaboom! Whoops, sorry, you're just collateral damage." It means, "Everything about you is abhorrent." The latter is, of course, what many Americans, including the Rev. Cap'n. Crunch, believe.

We all thought it was laughable when George W. Bush, after shooting & bombing his way across two countries, said, "They hate us for our freedom." But, as with many stupid remarks, there is a grain of truth in that one. (a) They hate us because while we exercise our own freedoms, we impinge upon their's. Big-time. (b) They don't "get" our freedoms. The majority of Muslims live in countries where there's no such thing as a bill of rights or freedom of expression. If you want to do something stupid, the government says you can't. If you think of doing something stupid & know the government will lock you up or kill you for it, you don't do it. So the idea that the U.S. government can stand by & allow an American to do something stupid means to most Muslims that the government is cool with the stupid thing. Otherwise, they'd stop it.

Add to that -- few fundamentalists are smart. Some, like the Osama bin Laden gang, are shrewd. But, like the Ever-so-Rev. Jones, they are not good at nuance & they don't get irony. If you think you can explain the concepts underlying the bill of rights to the Taliban, just try it out on a few American high-school dropouts first. See how far you get.

Now, it's true that most American Christians would not put a target on your head if you burned a Bible in front of their church. But some would. They would especially do so if you were a Muslim or a Jew.

Similarly, most Muslims would not put a target on your head if you burned a copy of the Koran. They might despise you, they might feel sorry for you because you were so stupid, but they would let it go. The Muslims who stand up & take notice of stunts like those of Terry Jones are (a) folks who aren't very smart, & (b) folks who are whipped into frenzies by men with political agendas. Consider them the Muslim world's version of the tea party, if you will. It is completely unfair to paint Muslims with a broad brushstroke. Saying, "Muslims believe..." is as unfair as saying, "Americans torched the Koran." No, a couple of nuts did (or planned to do) that.

As for our own vaunted tolerance of bookburning, it was not so long ago that Poppy Bush came out in favor of a Constitutional amendment prohibiting the burning of the American flag. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who is no dope, has said he thought the Constitution already allowed a law against flag-burning. George Stephanopoulos questioned Barack Obama's patriotism because Obama didn't include a flag pin in his campaign uniform. (Why is it all right, I wonder, to burn a cross but not the flag?) We are not a tolerant nation. We take inanimate symbols way too seriously & read way too much into them. So if uneducated Muslims do the same, this Biblical rejoinder should suffice: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Voter Malaise -- Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?

Bob Herbert writes that "voters do not feel that the administration and Congress have delivered the fundamental change they were seeking when they swept President Obama and huge Democratic majorities into office nearly two years ago." He argues that "The Democrats are facing an election debacle because they did not respond adequately to their constituents’ most dire needs."

The Times Troll-ops buried my response again, so here it is:

While I am in fundamental agreement with you, the fact is that the Democratic leadership in the Senate was always working from a position of weakness. When they were trying to push through the stimulus bill, Norm Coleman was still holding Al Franken hostage & Arlen Specter was still a Republican. The President hit on that theme in his press conference today. As Ezra Klein pointed out the other day, the shape of the stimulus bill would have been much different if the Party of No had not been almost universally united against it. (In the end, no Republican House member & only three Republican Senators voted for it.) Not only were the Ladies from Maine busily watering down the bill, so did every Democrat with "an agenda."

So it isn't as if Barack Obama & Harry Reid could have waved magic wands & put together a package that would have saved substantially more jobs. The amazing Nancy Pelosi, who had a healthy majority in the House, did of course hold her cats together. We should all be grateful to her.

It was also Pelosi who salvaged what was left of healthcare legislation (according to published reports). And more to your point, it was she (among the leadership) who first heeded the warnings of columnists like you that the Democrats had better get on the jobs, jobs, jobs bandwagon.

Unfortunately, they're still just barely hanging onto the side of the wagon. So many Democrats are willing to sacrifice both jobs & entitlement programs in the name of cutting the deficit, while expressing a willingness to vote instead to increase it by extending tax cuts to the wealthy. Instead of cleaving to these Republican chimera, which will not win them a single vote, Democrats MUST return to the party's basic principles.

The country depends on the Democrats. That, by itself, is a frightening thing. The alternative, of course, would be a disaster.

Man Pants!

Gail Collins writes about the strange views & campaign of Delaware's tea party favorite Christine O'Donnell, who is challenging long-time Rep. Mike Castle for the Republican Senate nomination. CW: Collins' column is really worth a read, especially if you want a good look at the kind of candidate Sarah Palin backs against the preferred candidate of her own party.

The Constant Weader is three-for-three with the Times Troll-ops today (buried or lost altogether), so here's what I had to say about candidate O'Donnell:

What is exceptionally creepy about O'Donnell's attack ad against Mike Castle is that she actually copied it, nearly word-for-word except for the appropriate name changes, from one of Sharron Angle's ads against Harry Reid. Imagine having two Sharron Angles in the Senate, one a clone of the other.

     Here's O'Donnell's ad attacking Castle:

     Here's Angle's ad attacking Reid:

Some Republicans may be glad to hear about O'Donnell's important stance on masturbation. This was also a concern of Justice Scalia's, and he said so in his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark case that struck down Texas' sodomy law & has been (as Scalia feared) instrumental in advancing gay rights.

O'Donnell doesn't seem to be much into gay rights, either. Just as O'Donnell's new best friend Sarah Palin called a gay journalist "impotent" and "limp" after he wrote an unfavorable article about her, O'Donnell has taken to questioning Mike Castle's masculinity. Apparently some of O'Donnell's backers have said Castle was gay (oh, my!). O'Donnell herself responded to an FEC Complaint filed against her by the Republican party by saying

You know, these are the kind of cheap, underhanded, un-manly tactics that we've come to expect from Obama's favorite Republican, Mike Castle. You know, I released a statement today, saying Mike this is not a bake-off, get your man-pants on.

Here's the audio. The money quote begins at about 2:50 min. in:

Isn't that just the kind of language we want to hear on the Senate floor? It's great to have true candidates of the people, and not all of us people are well-spoken. But shouldn't we expect more from our candidates? There is something, after all, to be said for decorum.

Update: and once again, Karen Garcia hits it out of the park. See her Comment (#4) here.