Ya know, it's sad that the NY Times considers this Blair punk's plagiarism the worst thing that's happened to NY Times since it came up. I seem to remember "In the gulag, there is also..." and the objectivly evil Walter Duranty--lied about the crimes of the USSR when it was only 20 or 30 years in. When you think about it, if everyone had been Perfectly Clear on what was going on in the USSR, we may have made some different policy decisions--maybe the USSR wouldn't have kept entire regions of the world prisoner for 70 years.

Chimps may have their champions, but when it comes to be considered among the ranks of high IQ tree swingers, Sulawesi crested macaques fail, quite clearly, to make the grade:

“Lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth wanted to test the claim that an infinite number of monkeys given typewriters would create the works of The Bard.

A single computer was placed in a monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo to monitor the literary output of six primates.

But after a month, the Sulawesi crested macaques had only succeeded in partially destroying the machine, using it as a lavatory, and mostly typing the letter "s".”

On the other hand, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that these hapless simian scribblers (Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan) might have a prosperous future ahead of them in the field of performance art.

Derb, that is exactly what I thought you were saying. I enjoy the zoology of conservatism quite a bit -- a bit more than you, I think -- but i also reject prefix conservatism from the left and the right as usually silly. I think 98% of the commentary about "neocons" for example is unhelpful, nonsensisical, ahistorical or paranoid -- or all four. The only adjectives I find more helpful than unhelpful are ones of degree. Very conservative, extremely conservative, not very conservative etc. And even these are usually misapplied by non-conservatives.

[T]here are considerations just as important--indeed, that strike closer to home--than military readiness. When an unprecedented number of women--including single mothers and dual military couples--were deployed to Desert Storm in 1991, a bill was introduced in Congress to prohibit the deployment of parents whose children risked being orphaned. An AP poll at the time found that 64 percent of the public agreed that it was "unacceptable for the United States to send women with young children to the war zone." The war ended before Congress acted, but the public was clearly concerned about the unequal sacrifice faced by the 80,000 children with a single parent, or both parents, in the service. Single custodial parents in the military are disproportionately female, and the public clearly saw a distinction between the sacrifices of mothers and the sacrifices of fathers. Someone must fight our wars, so fathers will inevitably be at risk; but must young mothers be exposed to such danger?

Although single custodial parents are not eligible to enlist, once they are in uniform generous subsidies and accommodating assignment policies can encourage single parenthood. In Ground Zero: The Gender Wars in the Military (1997), feminist author Linda Bird Francke approvingly noted that the military's family benefits make the services "a particular mecca for single parents." In 1989, the Navy had twice as many single parents, proportionately, as the civilian population. Although one study found that the re-enlistment rate for women dropped by 69 percent once they became mothers, for many vulnerable single mothers the military provides a tempting safety net of benefits, including health care and housing.

Stanley, you make the point in your most recent post that “someone has to enforce the prohibitions society decides upon.” Technically speaking, of course, that’s quite right, but your implication seems to be that Bennett should not be singled out for special criticism merely because he was the drug czar. The analogy, I suppose, is that he was just another cop doing his duty. That lets Bennett off the hook far too easily. As a ‘czar’ (a job he appears to have accepted with some relish), Bennett was not just enforcing the rules, but he was setting them too. The drugs laws in this country are cruel, capricious and counterproductive, and Bennett played a part in making them that way. It’s entirely fair to ask him to defend the stance he took (and takes) with regard to those laws, and it’s also perfectly legitimate to ask him why he thinks that gambling should be permitted, but cannabis should not. Despite my own view that both ‘vices’ should be legal, it would be foolish to deny that there are plenty of reasonable (or reasonable-seeming) answers to that question.

It would be interesting to hear which one Bennett chose to give.

Jonah,

I'm horrified by your latest G-File, specifically the question regarding the best episode of the Simpsons. The best episode (and I've made sure to carefully study all of them) is also, coincidentally, one of the most politically conservative:

The one where Homer becomes the head of the Union.

Not only does it have oodles of hilarious union-bashing (the body on the football field, the boy from 1905 that they wall up in the abandoned coke oven, etc.), but you have: -- the opening montage where McBain kills an entire dinner party with a machine gun (including the orchestra, who continue playing during his rampage) -- the evil German dentist ("Why must you turn my office into a house of lies!? Let's look at a book, Ralph, the Big Book of British Smiles...") -- Mr. Burns giving a tour of his house, including a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters ("It was the best of times, it was the BLURST OF TIMES! You stupid monkey!") -- The townspeople commencing looting the instant the power goes out

Good times. :)

Ah well, carry on. By the way, Deep Space Homer would probably make my top five (along with Sherry Bobbins, the X-Files crossover, and Homer becoming a missionary -- why is the word "Jebus" so damn funny?), so I guess I can't be too outraged.

We try harder so our customers don't have to.

Rod, I forgot about the Kirk and Tolkien stuff. My apologies.

As for not being a new movement, that's not the way it's read to me in the past. If it's all about reclaiming the roots of conservatism, that's cool. Why not flip the argument around and claim that mainstream conservatism has strayed in a new direction while "real" conservatism needs to be rekindled? This is the traditional (!) way conservatives hash these sorts of arguments out. In this formulation it certainly reads to me as not only something new and a pushing-off of traditional conservatism, but often a triangulation effort to adopt certain popular leftwing positions and assumptions. Indeed, on that note, I just saw your Crunchy Con reprint in the Utne Reader!

Oh, and by the way, anyone out there who might be worried that I'm hostile to Rod, fear not. Rod's still family.

And Rich wants me to rework my piece and a kazillion of you had something along these lines to tell me in response to today's G-File:

Jonah, if I am not mistaken, the first neighbor was the mean old lady with the hangers. Next came the divorced woman who wore the bandana. She had a daughter (voice by Sarah Gilbert) whom Bart had a crush on. The Bandana lady made an appearance in a later episode, which poked fun at Thelma & Louise.

Or:

The Simpsons' next-door neighbor on the other side of the Simpsons WAS the old lady who sold her home to Ruth Powers...and then Ruth Powers, obviously, up to the Thelma and Louise episode. But recently she showed up and had to explain that she'd been in prison, so...I guess we DON'T know who is in that house now! (I'd started this to tell you it was Ruth, and I'd forgotten. Oh well.)

I'm about to take a nap because I was up most of the night working on the mag piece and woke up early to do CNN. But my short answer on this crunchy con versus metro con thing is pretty straightforward. I think metropolitan conservatism actually describes a real, longstanding cultural distinction among conservatives. I don't think it necessarily describes or seeks to describe a new ideology, cause or movement. Rather, I think urban versus rural is a useful distinction, relied upon by historians, sociogists et al. to describe real differences in sentiment. As I recall Derb's column he was making the point that "blue state" conservatives find common cause and common arguments with "red state" conservatives even if they have different lifestyles.

The crunchy con thing is almost the exact reverse: a "movement" -- real or imagined -- seeking to distinguish itself from mainstream conservatism because of ones lifestyle. Rod's crunchy conservatism claims to be something new, something distinct something which doesn't fit neatly or comfortably under the label conservative (though I note that he now cites the Southern Agrarians as UR-crunchy cons, a point I made originally to demonstrate that what Rod calls crunchy conservatism is in fact not new).

For all of the reasons we hashed out before, I don't buy CCism and I don't really like it. And, if Derb were to do the same thing with his metro-con thing I would reject that too. But as far as I know, Derb still calls himself a plain old conservative and only got into this metropolitan conservatism thing in order to explain himself when severely pressed by a pushy woman. Hardly the begining of the revolution if you ask me. My apologies if I sound too cranky, me very tired.

I'm working on the G-File as we speak. I'm ignoring taunts from bloggers, emailers and the rest so I can get it done. I just finished a piece for the mag. I'm responding to readers fascinating questions. There were hundreds of them. So decided to only answer questions from people named Tood or Janet or who have four or more consecutive consonants in their last name.

It looks to me like one of those photos is at the bottom of the left-hand column on the whitehouse.gov hompage. It would be hard to make a link to this photo any easier to find.

If the White House is as intent on using the Lincoln photos of Bush in a flight suit for publicity as some leftists are claiming why can't I find an easy link to them on www.whitehouse.gov? I wanted to bookmark them for easy inspiration and print one for my "I'm living through one of history's turning points" file.

Dude, where's my corner? My guess:
Goldberg: Trying to explain to Cosmo why it is not hypocritical to avoid hitting squirrels with the car, just a little inconsistent.
The Derb: Trapped fending off radical libs somewhere in Northern CA
Stuttaford: Saving all his best material for the weekend, and/or chowing down on some marmite.
Dreher: THE GUY DOESN'T WORK HERE ANYMORE, HE'S IN DALLAS NOW, STOP FORCING HIM TO POST TO THE CORNER!
Miller: Rejoicing in the Piston's OT win last night
Ponnuru: Formulating a plan to privatize the lottery
Kurtz: Thinking about how best to configure his "triple posts" (it is well known that Stanley's corner posts come in threes)
Cosmo: Suffering through one of Goldberg's "Hypocrite v. Inconsistent" tirades

Tom from Florida "takes umbrage" at being called innumerate for playing the lottery:

He says he knows that "the odds are about 1 in 23 million...but that it's still fun to bet $5 or so on a long shot," a point echoed by a number of other readers.

Meanwhile, on the subject of governments pushing 'vice', how about state-run liquor stores? Judging by the remarks from a correspondent in Pennsylvania, the ones there sound peculiarly depressing: "high prices, less selection and employees in the Cliff Claven mold."

He promises not to expose the round-the-clock games of caribbean stud poker and pai gow taking place in my basement.

Josh Green of The Washington Monthly got in touch with me and says the transcript I posted below is either wrong or that he misspoke. Green stands by his $8 million dollar net loss assertion as reported in his article.

From a reader:

Hey Jonah,

Don't you dare back down on the tyranny of consistency, the twin of the tyranny of hypocrisy!

This is something that's bugged me for a long time, one of the main causes behind e.g. "Something so ridiculous only an academic could believe it."

One thing that doesn't seem to get mentioned often is the difference between a contradiction and a paradox. A paradox is only a seeming contradiction, based on incomplete knowledge. Take Zeno's paradox, for example, (where the hare can never catch up to the tortoise, because the tortoise will always have moved forward by the time the hare catches up to where he was; related to not being able to cross a room because you are always halving the distance, etc.). The paradox was thought up to prove Xeno's idea that motion and change are mere illusions. We have a contradiction, therefore the premise must be false.

The point, of course, is that apparent contradictions or inconsistencies may only prove a lack of knowledge or understanding (in Zeno's case, of differential calculus).

In philosophy, the idea is to sit in a dark room and understand the universe using reason alone. In science, the idea is to ask "OK, what actually happens" i.e. do an experiment and see what reality says about your ideas. I'll take reality over intellectual consistency any day (although, of course, most scientists are perhaps a bit distant from reality).

Cosmo, that was a joke. The Onion is a parody site.

From the Onion:

Nation's Dogs Dangerously Underpetted, Say Dogs
NEW YORK—At a press conference Monday, representatives of the Association of American Dogs announced that the nation's canines are dangerously underpetted. "Every night, thousands of U.S. dogs go to bed without so much as a scritch behind the ears," AAD president Banjo said. "If this sort of neglect from our masters continues, it could lead to widespread jumping on the furniture." Upon his owner's arrival in the press-conference room, Banjo abruptly ended his speech, frantically barking, leaping, and rolling over on his back in an effort to communicate his need for a vigorous belly rub.

The case of Tony Martin, the British farmer jailed for shooting (and killing) a burglar, is more complex than is sometimes suggested on this side of the Atlantic, but he certainly ought to have been granted parole by now. However, as this report revealed:

“Parole Board lawyers are opposing Mr Martin's early release arguing that burglars are members of the public who need protecting from violent householders.”

In the event, Martin lost his bid for freedom.

I’ve just been going through my e-mails on this topic (too many to reply to individually, alas). Disappointingly, most seem to agree with Ramesh on state lotteries (they are opposed), although a number of the more moderate Ponuru-ites (Ponurians?) would favor competing privatized lotteries (with better odds than the government now offers – worse than the Mob’s apparently). The state would then tax the companies that run the lotteries.

Here’s an interesting comment from a reader in LA:

“It is often said that lotteries are a tax on stupid people, but more accurate is to say that it is a tax on the poorly educated. I view state-sponsored lotteries as a way the government capitalizes on its own failure to educate people properly. Statistics and probability are some of the worst taught subjects in school--if they are even taught at all. For the state governments to fail at teaching this basic subject and then to rake in money because of [this] failure is, in my view, immoral.”

Eugene Volokh gets gets my back on the issue of hypocrisy. The least I can do is come to his defense on the charge of statistical illiteracy (shouldn't that be innumeracy?). First of all, even Green admits that it wasn't $8 million out of Bennett's pocket. Rather, Bennett kept gambling his winnings which means the same dollars get counted several times. The relevant admission by Green from MSNBC Tuesday night:

SCARBOROUGH: OK, did he lose $8 million, though? He reported $8 million in losses, but is it minus $8 million?

GREEN: No, no, let's be real clear about that. No, no, let's be clear about that. That is net loss more than $1 million. These gambling records that we've got, they show losses, they show wins. He hit plenty of jackpots, $10,000, $15,000, $40,000, up to $80,000 jackpots. The problem is, is, he'd turn around and he would play them right back.

Keep in mind that slot machines "give back" 97% of the money that's put into them. Over ten years if Bennett parlayed his winnings time and again, it's hardly inconceivable that a "small" amount of money would look like a lot if you took snapshots of it being re-wagered a second, third or fiftieth time.

Here's a useful email from one of several casino execs and gambling experts I've been talking to:

Jonah, a few things worth mentioning that we haven't yet seen mentioned:

Casinos typically track what players put "at risk." The info that was leaked was not what Bennett lost, just what he put at risk. A VIP player, or a "whale" in the industry, is not someone who necessarily loses a lot of money, it's a person that puts a lot of money at risk. (I bet there's a HUGE manhunt going on to find whoever leaked that info.)

Bennett's game, slots, overall pays back in the range of 97% of what's put in. Granted, one big winner can kill the odds for lots of other players by eating up a chunk of that 97%, but it's the high-stakes players that have the best odds of winning and get the highest payback because they are risking more. Bennett is a high-limit slots player, so it's just as conceivable that, over the course of 10 years, he has come out close to even or even made money as it is that he's lost money. It's the low-stakes nickel, dime, quarter players that are the bread and butter in the industry. There's not a lot of money to be made with high-rollers. In fact, when our company stopped courting high-rollers and focused on the mom-and-pop recreational players, we've had record revenues every quarter since, including during this recession that has killed other tourist-dependent industries.

So, my point is, risking $8 million over 10 years does not make him an ultra-huge player and definitely not a compulsive gambler. There are whales that play, and win, that much in one night. Yes, it puts him WAY beyond the mom-and-pops, and definitely in the VIP category with all its perks, but he's far from being the biggest whale out there, or even among the biggest. And what determines how much is "too much"? He appears to have been playing within his means. Again, he likely didn't lose anywhere near $8 million.

Also worth mentioning, some of the strongest gaming markets in the U.S. -- Biloxi, Tunica, Shreveport, Vicksburg -- are thriving in the Bible Belt and were approved by voters.

Something else bothers me. He writes:

As a libertarian, I really don't buy into the "No Guardrails" way of thinking. I don't believe in collective rights (affirmative action, for example), or in collective morality. I think that left to their own devices, people will generally make decisions that are in their own best interests. Let each pursue his own happiness, so long as he doesn't hurt anyone else.

That's fair enough as far as it goes. But for the record, it's simply nonsense to assert that there's something contradictory about being a "moralist" and a "libertarian." A huge chunk of Bennett's "sermonizing" never called for the State to do anything. Rather he believed in shaming people who did shameful things. There's absolutely nothing inconsistent with libertarianism and this position. Hayek was a strong supporter of the influences of culture on individual behavior and I know plenty of libertarians who would argue that the smaller the State gets the more assertive the culture would have to be in policing and shaming errant behavior. Indeed, the glory days of early America are a perfect case in point. The government was strong but local moral codes were very strong. Many early -- and I would guess current -- National Review conservatives argued that the expansion of the State crowded out the ability of other institutions (Burke's "Little Platoons") to police, nudge or otherwise influence individual behavior. If Balko believes libertarianism is about radical individual autonomy, he's hardly alone but he's adhering to a form of libertarianism which will never catch on in this country and never existed in this country -- thank goodness.

CORRECTION: Woops! That should have read "The government was weak but local moral codes were very strong. Many early -- and I would guess current -- National Review conservatives argued that the expansion of the State crowded out the ability of other institutions (Burke's "Little Platoons") to police, nudge or otherwise influence individual behavior."

From a reader:

Jonah,
I never knew you were a New Testament scholar. :-) I'm surprised your Corner Compatriots didn't pick up on this first. Your position on the topic and Bennett's swearing off gambling are 100% consistent with the thesis of Chapter 14 of Paul's letter to the Romans, essentially: For some people, certain things are considered sinful, for others not (e.g., eating meat, worshipping on certain days, etc). The bottom line is that you shouldn't put a stumbling block in front of your brother if he considers your activities sinful. I shouldn't be surprised that since the secular press considers Bennett to a be a religious extremist, they couldn't point out the scriptural consistency in his actions. To be fair, I haven't heard the religious press make this point either.

Here's the "chapter & verse" Romans 14, Verses 13 & 14: Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

Aloha,

From a reader (and political science prof):

"Mr. Goldberg,

Since Aristotle has entered the argument over consistency, you might want to recall the following from his Nichomachean Ethics, Book I, chapter 3 (Ostwald trans.):

'Our disucssion will be adequate if it achieves clarity within the limits of the subject matter. For precision cannot be expected in the treatment of all subjects alike, any more than it can be expected in all manufactured articles. Problems of what is noble and just, which politics examines, present so much variety and irregularity that some people believe that they exist only by convention and not by nature.'

A few readers object:

"JG--
I don't have any personal problem with your position on consistency, but you have to realize that it makes you a moral relativist and a practitioner of situational ethics, both of which, I thought, were typical liberal vices?"

And another reader:

Aristotle's law of non-contradiction is roughly "it is not the case that something can be and cannot be at the same time". All of us observe this principle tacitly every day in all our interactions. Why, then, is inconsistency "ok" with respect to the principles that undergird social, moral, and political judgments? The position you defend begins to sound like relativism, or deconstructionism.

My response: It's true, it seems to me, as a matter of ontology that something cannot "be and not be" at the same time. But as a matter of human experience it also seems to me that this is entirely possible that something can appear to be and not be at the same time. I agree that if we have perfect knowledge of the universe and all its workings, it would be unforgivable to be inconsistent. But if we had such knowledge we would be God. Indeed, God is probably perfectly consistent but because we do not have the knowledge he has his ways often seem "mysterious," as the saying goes. To say that different courses need different horses doesn't mean one is a deconstructionist or moral relativist or a nihilist. It merely means that one is a realist.

The postmodern crowd seems to argue that since we can't know every thing we can't know anything -- and that's idiotic. We make judgements, we apply principles and go where the facts lead us. One reason we may seem inconsistent on one principle is simply that another principle takes precedence. For example, I think as a matter of principle one shouldn't lie. But if a friend on his deathbed asks me in abject despair, "Is there any hope?" I might lie to him because the principle of honesty takes a back seat to the principle of decency. Also, a lot of alleged inconsistencies are inconsistencies at the micro-level and fine at the macro-level. Killing someone in order to stop mass killing strikes many liberals as inconsistent. The short answer to that charge is, "So what?" I'm sure you already know the long answer.

The overwhelming public opinion on this subject suggests that what is at stake is not a competition of arguments, but a matter of basic human decency. Sadly, it's these moments of deepest tragedy that reveal most starkly how vapid and absurd some of the "arguments" are on the other side. If more of us had a better grasp of the fact that this is a constant and ongoing tragedy, they might not be able to pull them off so much of the time.

In the battle over legislation, there is no weapon as powerful as a victim. With the killing of Laci Peterson, the proponents of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act have one.

Seems I've hit a nerve out there. I can't spend all day on this, but let me explain. I said consistency is important. But it's not everything. For example, the Left tried to make conservatives apply their standards for toppling Iraq to North Korea. Consistency says we should use military force to topple both dictatorships. But reality gets in the way. North Korea is a different place, with different capabilities and toppling it would have different consequences. The Left was perfectly within its rights to say hawks were inconsistent. And hawks were perfectly within our rights to say, "yes, but for good reason." That's all I meant. See the piece I linked to for more if you like.

Norah Vincent of the LA Times (Reg Req'd) is another liberal who asserts that gambling is a sin and then imposes that conclusion into Bill Bennett's consciousness in order to call him a hypocrite -- despite the fact that his own Church doesn't consider it a sin. But I don't how many more times I can address the disingenuousness of this point. Rather I would like to address on assertion she makes:

The problem is that Bennett and Goldberg are not libertarians. They're hellfire conservatives, and hellfire conservatives tend not to believe that a generalized right to privacy exists in the Constitution, much less that harmless acts are protected by it. For far-right conservatives to defend Bennett's gambling in libertarian terms as a "harmless act" — one that doesn't starve the wife and kids — is disingenuous to say the least because it sidesteps the most important criterion by which such a conservative defines harm. That is, of course, sin.

If any of you folks have heard me talk about sin at any great length let alone raise the specter of firey damnation in the pits of Hell, please let me know. If, on the other hand, you do not consider me to be a "Hellfire conservative" please let her know.

"Liberal cosmopolitanism is like the dirty ring in the bathtub left over from international socialism."

I've long thought consistency was overrated. That doesn't mean it's not important, but it's not everything either. I seem to recall reading that Edmund Burke defended different aspects of the British Constitution on different grounds, and the subsidiary defenses contradicted each other (If someone could send me the exact citation I'd appreciate it). I generally see the world, culture etc as far too complex to demand consistency of principle in every situation. The second canon of Kirk's Six Canon's of Conservative Thought is an "Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems;"

Marxism is consistent on every point, or at least Marxists think it is. That doesn't make Marxism any more right. In fact, it makes it more consistently wrong.

When Andrew and others demand consistency from conservatives that's a perfectly defensible position. But that doesn't mean conservative inconsistency makes us wrong, it just means we have to defend our inconsistency better.

Stan's right: Derb's column is a wonderful piece of writing. I particularly appreciate that he didn't fall for the trap of calling himself a "cosmopolitan conservative" which would open him to all sorts of critiques. Cosmopolitan, remember, means "citizen of the world." It stems from Diogenes who explained he wasn't a citizen of any particular state or city but loyal to the entire world. I think this explains the central difference between citified conservatives and citified liberals. The conservatives still have localized attachments -- to the community, to the region, to the nation. Citified liberals all too often are cosmopolitan in their outlook. They appeal to the United Nations or fret about the plight of a person or a frog in Southeast Asia as much as they do about the person or frog in their own backyard. This split -- between cosmopolitan liberals and metropolitan conservatives -- goes a long way, I think, to explaining a lot of arguments today. Though certainly not all of them. As for the split between metropolitan conservatives and rural conservatives, I've never resorted to Greek plays, as Derb does, to explain it. I've always thought of it as city mice versus country mice. But that's neither here nor there.

From a reader:

The National Gambling Impact Study admitted it could not say gambling - especially casino gambling - led to increased crime, bankruptcy, domestic abuse, suicide, and divorce. The report stated numerous times, the need for more studies before a proper conclusion could be drawn.

As a longtime Las Vegas resident, I don’t believe it does. Do people move to this town, burn through their money and bottom out? Yes they do, just like people all over the country do, for all kinds of reasons. Only now, we’re talking about gambling. And, gambling’s naughty. So all the other naughty things in the world are going to show up and hang out with gambling. Because, he’s cool. A little dangerous, but cool. Only once his gang is here, they’ll bugger your bank account and things much worse. Believe me, they’re wrong. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, sitting here in a debtors’ prison cell down in the bowels of the Bellagio.

As for the e-mailer, always place a wary eye on someone who claims to “love” a person they don’t know. Respect? Yeah, that’s fine. But, love? Unrequited love? That’s better left to the stalkers.

A disgusting ruling asserts that fetuses are body parts no different than skin or hair which can be shed.

Naomi Wolf was on the Ali G show and HBO is refusing to run the interview. Funny how Maureen Dowd missed this yesterday too. Here's the full story from Ananova:

Feminist writer Naomi Wolf has reportedly called in lawyers after being the victim of a spoof interview with Ali G.

She claims she was used for racist humour, after the comic accosted her at a hotel in New York for his new US chat show.

It is thought Wolf was furious when Ali - alias Sacha Baron Cohen - boasted to her that he called his girlfriend, Julie, bitch in bed.

And he got her to rap: "Yo, yo, don't be sexist, I'll let you ride in my Lexus."

He then asked the author - who writes women's rights books - if females would ever fly airliners.

She said they already did, and he said: "No, not the people who hand out the peanuts, but sitting in the pilot's seat."

Ali also joked that if women were given equal rights at work, "they'll want them at home".

US network HBO has decided not to screen the interview, according to The Sun.

Radley Balko offers a very thoughtful critique of me and my defense of Bennett. He dug up one of my favorite editorials from the Wall Street Journal to do it. You should read the whole piece, especially since I've got to walk Cosmo and don't have time to go into it in detail right now. But here's an excerpt and a short response will follow:

Here, it would seem, is the ultimate test for cultural conservatives to prove that "No Guardrails" isn't a partisan excuse to snipe at Hollywood and academic liberals, but rather is a serious commentary on the importance of elitist example-setting.

They failed. With a few notable exceptions from religious right advocacy groups, conservative pundits generally rushed to Bennett's aid. Most, in fact, outright dismissed "No Guardrails" thinking as it applies to Bennett, and instead actually embraced the very type of "elites are allowed to sin, because they can afford to" excuses the Wall Street Journal was so critical of.

National Review's Jonah Goldberg is a fine example, both because of the way he so articulately laid out this position, but also because of his unofficial position as a mouthpiece for younger conservatives.

"Bennett can afford his sins, too," Goldberg writes. "But just as a glutton would be a moral fool to champion gluttony to someone with a heart condition, Bennett understands that a gambler would be a moral fool to champion gambling to people who cannot afford it."

In other words, Bennett — as a rich man and an elite — is subject to a different set of rules than are the common folk. He can gamble all he likes, because he's rich, so long as he doesn't recommend the practice to those less fortunate.

And yes, that in fact is my position. It's not how I would articulate it, but yes I believe we should hold to higher standards in public than we do in private. Hollywood elites would bother me much, much less if they didn't try to rationalize their personal behavior as good for everybody. Queer theorists wouldn't bother me very much if they applied their theory out of sight. Libertarians have a problem understanding or accepting that the public commons requires public self-restraint. We have a tragedy of the commons in moral terms when each person selfishly and egotistically insists that his or her own morals and lifestyle would be good for everybody. As I've quoted Burke saying a million times, mankind learns at the school of examples and will learn from no other. Well, examples must be public, not private, for people to learn from them.

I know my implied -- and expressed -- elitism and anti-populism bothers a lot of people. So be it, I'm always ready to have that argument. I'm sure my position will force me into uncomfortable arguments someetimes, including alas inconsistent ones. But as I've written before consistency is often a red-herring.

Again Bennett gambled too much -- though it's looking more and more that the $8 million number is a gross distortion, Josh Green admitted the other night that Bennett's losses were closer to $1 million. But Bennett didn't flaunt his gambling, he didn't celebrate it, he didn't advocate it for others. Indeed, Green's indictment is that Bennett's in the wrong for gambling in secret. Anyway I could go on, but Cosmo's chuffing at me.

Disturbed British novelist Margaret Drabble has lost her mind. She admits she is consumed by hatred for America over what it "has done to Iraq." The old bird actually prefers the Saddam government, which did this to its people. An excerpt, from the very fine reporting of the NYT's John F. Burns:

His fear is understandable. This building was equipped with torture contraptions that included a sarcophagus, with long nails pointing inward from every surface, including the lid, so victims could be punctured and suffocated.

Another device, witnesses said, was a metal framework designed to clamp over a prisoner's body, with footrests at the bottom, rings at the shoulders and attachment points for power cables, so the victim could be hoisted and subjected to electric shocks.

Saddam perpetrated sarcophagi with long nails pointing inward for use on political prisoners; America inflicts (says Drabble) Coca-Cola. She prefers the former. I'm not making this up. "My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease," she writes, in a coquettish appeal for some sweet lovin' from that beefy Donald Rumsfeld.

Andrew, that's all fine and good and fair. But all of these arguments you and others make about pot v. gambling, individual freedom etc. are all legitimate. But they don't go to whether Bennett's a hypocrite. They go to whether he's wrong or right. Imagine I honestly think stealing avocados isn't theft, but I tell the world not to steal other kinds of produce. If I get caught stealing avocados, I would be a thief and an idiot, but I wouldn't be a hypocrite. Being wrong about gambling -- if he is wrong -- doesn't make Bennett a fraud, it makes him wrong. But for some reason this culture has a real problem saying people are wrong, but thinks it's easy to call people hypocrites. Worse, our culture thinks it's worse to be a hypocrite than to be wrong.

Just got back from Mr. Derbyshire's book signing in SF. He seemed very well received by the audience and big kudos to him for willingly identifying himself as a Republican in this town. He even indulged my request to inscribe "Math is Hard" into my copy of the book, a la Malibu Stacy. Take care and keep up the great work. Perhaps sometime I'll subscribe.