Robinson: There are passages in your book in which you just seethe, just seethe, and the people you're angry at are your own colleagues back in Washington—the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense. And you argue that they repeatedly obstructed your efforts to prosecute this war….Give us one example, the trouble you had getting the Apache helicopters. Describe that incident.

General Clark: Well actually the Apaches were suggested to me by the Chairman of the Joint Chief's of Staff, Hugh Shelton.

Robinson: All right.

General Clark: And he said, could you use them? I said, well, yes, I'll take a look at them. It's a basic rule, when you're a commander, and you have a military problem and somebody offers you resources, you try to use those resources. And it's your job as a commander to use them correctly, not to have them destroyed, not to put them in excessive risk, not to misuse them, but, you know, if they're going to offer you the resources, you're going to try to use them. So we took a look at it, I said yes I'd like to use them. He said well just send me in a concept paper. I sent in a concept paper, it was, I think the day before we started the campaign, or two days before we started the campaign. Didn't hear anything for a couple days. I thought I'd get a call back the next day saying okay, got it, you know, you're ready to go. Nothing happened. I--three or four days I called, I said look, you know, what's happening. The Staff said, we don't understand your concept. I said, what don't you understand about the concept, I mean, they take off from friendly territory, they fly over enemy lines, and they use their long range missiles at night against enemy forces in the rear, I mean, that's the doctrine of the Apache. And they've got all the support they need, the Command and Control, I mean, what's not to understand. They said, well, we need more details. So this delayed it--we put in a much more detailed package. This is basic doctrine…

Robinson: And this was after the campaign had already begun?

General Clark: This is after the campaign has begun. This is we're actually in…

Robinson: In battle.

General Clark: …and--and--and their--so finally about seven days into the campaign, I still haven't gotten an answer on this and it just so happens that the Secretary of Defense calls and I talk to the Secretary and as we finish the main reason why he called, I say, Mr. Secretary I need your help on these Apaches. And it's been back there--we're seven days, eight days into the war and I still don't have an answer on them. And he says I don't know anything about it. I said but your staff has it, they're sitting on it back there. So he says, I'll check on that. So two nights later I have a video teleconference. The Army comes up with twenty-four reasons why the Apache shouldn't be used in Kosovo. And they range everything from, gee, you know, they're painted green and they might give people the impression that we're going into a ground war to there's no targets, how could they get over the mountains, the pilots might not be ready to go. I mean, they--they range from soup to nuts. And we eventually did get the Apaches deployed, but not without a lot of delay. And as a result of the video teleconference, the Army pressures caused the task force to grow from about eighteen hundred people to about five thousand five hundred people. As various people suggested to the Army, well aren't you worried about this and don't you need back-up on this, and do you have enough of this--and so what could have been a ten day deployment turned into a thirty day deployment.

Robinson: You write throughout the campaign the Pentagon was distracted by its preference for focusing on North East Asia and the Persian Gulf, part of the National Military Strategy. Let me try putting this construction on it. It occurred to me as I read your book that they treated you as the odd man out because you were the odd man out. All of you had sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Back at the Pentagon, they insisted on focusing on what could become genuine threats to this republic, and there's Clark over there, running an operation that involves chiefly European interests, he's got to get his plans approved by everybody--I mean he's passing stuff to the people from Luxemburg for goodness sake, they've got to clear on stuff before he acts, this is just not a direct threat--it's a side show. In their minds at some level, they're a sideshow. And what I'm suggesting is that in some sense, they were right.

General Clark: Well they were correct in--in a way, in the sense that the U.S. military command structure is really not set up to work with our Allies. And this is continuing to come out today as you continue to hear these sort of leaks of unilateralism coming out of the United States. And there's no doubt about it, people in the Armed Forces believe that we've got the best Armed Forces in the world. We do. Nobody else can hold a candle to us. And so if we bring our allies in, their equipment's inferior, they're probably not as well trained, and, you know, it's a--it's nice to be proud of your own organization, but the simple fact is that for reasons of national strategy and diplomacy and influence in the world and shaping the world the way we want it to be shaped, we have to operate with allies. And the Pentagon command structure was set up fundamentally to operate unilaterally. So there wasn't any way to feed in Allied concerns to the Committee of the Joint Chief's of Staff who sat in judgment on these requests. A lot of discussion during the war about war by committee, and people say, oh, this is bad, you know, there should be a commander in charge, not a war by--and they blamed NATO, but the committee wasn't NATO. The constraints imposed by the Committee of the Joint Chief's of Staff were more worrisome to the conduct of the war then the constraints imposed by having to coordinate with other countries…

Robinson: Second-guessing the…Pentagon?

General Clark: Exactly.

Robinson: So what's the lesson?

General Clark: Well the lesson is, I think that we've got to have a new way of looking at the world….This is a time when we should be supporting our allies, helping our friends working to reinforce those that share our values. It should be an opportunity-based strategy rather then a threat- based strategy and we need the chain of command in the armed forces and inside the Pentagon to be able to focus on those opportunities, not just react to threats.

Apparently Deaniacs are still going door to door, even in my small town about 1 hour from Manchester. I arrived home from shopping today to find a large yellow manila envelope in my mailbox. Sealed with a giant Dean campaign sticker, the envelope contained:

*1 DVD titled "Howard Dean for America--Fulfilling the Promise of America"

*1 nicely designed trifold color brochure proclaiming that "This is a campaign to unite and empower Americans . . .to move the insiders out and let the people in!" The brochure features such positive messages as "I know what's wrong with America." My favorite excerpt: "As a medical doctor, I have been trained to diagnose an illness and prescribe the proper treatment. I have frequently applied the same techniques as a Governor."

*2 copies of NH newspaper endorsements (the Sunday Sentinel, whatever that is, and newspapers of the Salmon Press, whatever that is).

*1 page titled "Why Howard Dean is the Best Candidate to Defeat Bush," with lists of his supposed advantages and some old pre-Iowa charts comparing him to other candidates in terms of popularity.

If I weren't an Evil Conservative, I would feel a little sorry for Dean. I think he knows he is in deep quicksand. But at least he's fighting.

One of the more entertaining spectacles of the modern era is the way in which our ruling class so successfully combines barbarism and priggishness. Here are two examples via blogger Scott Burgess. The first, for barbarism, concerns something called the Sonning Prize, which is supposedly awarded for an “outstanding contribution to the advancement of European civilization.” Previous winners have included Winston Churchill, Albert Schweitzer, Niels Bohr, Bertrand Russell and Vaclav Havel. Now they will be joined by Mona Hatoum, a Palestinian artist living in London.

Mr. Burgess has been checking out her oeuvre. Who could not be impressed by efforts such as Roadworks? Burgess quotes one commentator : "By tying a pair of military-type Doc Martens boots to her bare ankles and dragging them behind her in the street, Hatoum created a metaphor for the frustration and helplessness characteristic of the times."

Roll over Raphael.

And then there’s the priggishness, also via the good Mr. Burgess:

A art gallery owned by a local authority in the North of England has removed a 19th century painting because some people might find it "demeaning to animals" and "offensive." The Monkey's Music Lesson depicts a monkey wearing a fez and reading from a musical score. According to the Daily Mail (link not available):

"... the eight gallery trustees decided it and the other [simliar] paintings should be taken down while 'research' is conducted into their origin.Gallery manager Graham Riding said: 'Opinions on such works may have changed and some people now find them demeaning to animals and possibly offensive'."

Burgess notes that the article makes no mention of whether any monkeys have complained as of yet.

But if the simians, a lazy and complacent crew (with seven million years of pathetically slow evolutionary progress behind them, I’m not expecting much) don’t get a move on, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals almost certainly will – so long, that is, as they are not too busy defending the rights of maggots, roaches and ants.

From a reader:

Good morning, Mr. Goldberg. My name is [Name withheld] and I've enjoyed your columns for about a year now (also managed to catch your spot on The Daily Show. Keep up the good work). Anyway, just wanted to give a perspective on Wesley Clark from the active-duty side of things. I'm currently a major in the U.S. Air Force (flying special ops helicopters in [withheld], if you're curious) and nothing that Clark has said or done has surprised me in the least. Why? Because he acts just like the vast majority of general officers that it has been my displeasure to deal with during my 16 years in the U.S. military. Generals are, for the most part, a gigantic pain in the ass and we usually accomplish our military objectives despite their chaos-inducing presence. There are a few good generals here and there but most of them are an embarrassment. Here's a couple of reasons why that is so: - Generals are ambitious in the same way that wolverines are aggressive. It's their defining trait. A few years ago, the Army Command and Staff College ask during an informal survey "Would your division's commanding general throw his own mother under a bus if it would get him promoted?" 60% of the majors and colonels replied "Not only yes, hell yes!" I know that running for President pretty much demands a nauseating degree of ambition but this kind of hyper-careerism can't be healthy, in my opinion. - Generals are dull. I don't mean this in the cant-tell-a-good-joke kind of way. I mean the anti-intellectual, zero-curiousity, hasn't-read-a-real-book-in-years kind of dull. Wesley Clark obviously had (and still probably has) no freakin' idea who Michael Moore is or what he stands for. All he knows is that Moore is famous and other Democrats like him. Hell, Clark doesn't even know anything about CAPPS II, the system he was supposedly advocating as a board member! I could go and on on this theme. Take it from me, most generals are as sharp as a bowling ball and Clark is no exception. - Generals are arrogant. Generals truly believe that they are completely right 100% of the time and woe to those underlings who demonstrate that this isn't so. This trait is what makes generals so dangerous. They will ignore sound advice and do the stupidest things imaginable, all because "Well, I'm a general, dammit, I know what I'm doing and. . . ugh, what was the question again?" Generals can be damn near unreasonable when they get their minds made up and it's almost impossible to get them to see an alternative way of doing things. Scary stuff to see in the flesh. Hopefully I'll never have to experience the Wes Clark brand of hubris. - Generals are dishonest. This is a tricky charge to throw out, but it's the sad truth. I've seen more out-and-out lies from general officers than any other people in the military. In a weird way, they are just like professional politicians in this regard. They act like the main character from "Memento", they can't remember a @#$% thing they said or wrote older than 15 minutes ago. If it wasn't so frustrating, it might be funny. Once again, just compare anything Clark says now to anything that came out of his mouth one year ago. Weird, huh? That's all for me. Pet Cosmo for me, take care of yourself and keep up the good fight. The troops are behind you guys at NRO all the way!

[Name/location withheld]

From an email a friend of mine -- who served over there -- sent to Michael Moore:

Dear Mike: In 1999 I was in Bosnia , an American with the UN mission. I got to dig up some bodies of people whom I didn't know. Guess What? You could tell the farmers bodies because their rubber boots don't rot away like the rest of their clothing. The metal wire and 7.62mm shell casings also last. Sometimes the skull is shattered or missing, generally because something big hit it. Ever spend an afternoon in a garbage dump looking for victims of atrocities? You brainless bag of [redacted]. I know hundreds of human beings who are only alive because the US went to war in a faraway place for the simple reason that the American people believe genocide is evil. Now go have yourself a milkshake, [redacted].

From a reader:

My former law partner was a big burly Irishman who was adopted out of a New York City orphange by a Jewish family from South Carolina when he was 10 years old. Other than getting the end of his penis snipped, he thought it a pretty good experience.

While trying a case in Alabama his opposing counsel in closing argument
said, "Mr. Solomon is trying to crucify my client."

Richard responded, "As for the crucifixation, I would remind the jury that
of the three people on the cross that day, two of them were thieves." The
jury agreed.

I like this one:

Mr. Goldberg:

To say Christ was killed by Jews is akin to saying Lincoln was killed by Americans or Gandhi was killed by Indians. Gandhi was killed by Indians because he was an Indian living amongst Indians. It would be difficult for him to be killed by a Papua Guinean. Just a thought.

One Corner reader noted Dean signs gone missing in NH-- But today there was a Dean "people-powered" bus in Milford/Amherst NH, with bundled-up Dean supporters and abundant signage crowding each corner of the central intersection.

In my town, no new Dean signs, but none taken down that I notice, and there a lot here. Someone posted a Kerry sign on my lawn (located at a main town intersection) the day after Iowa. (It went in the trash.)

However, my neighbor, an upscale liberal, former Brit, and former Dean supporter, now laments, "I don't like Kerry and I don't like Dean anymore. There aren't enough candidates!"

Wes Clark didn't have the decency, the wits or the guts (take your pick) to disagree with Michael Moore about calling Bush a deserter. Maybe Clark will disagree with Moore about the war in Kosovo

Here's some of what Moore thought about Clark's proudest moment:

"Dear friends,

As we file our taxes today (procrastinators, all of us), and we sign our names on the bottom line of our 1040 tax forms, perhaps we should ask ourselves if what we are doing is signing a death warrant for people we don't even know. Because each night, for the past three weeks, millions of dollars of bombs and missiles -- that you and I paid for -- are being used to kill people in the former Yugoslavia. That makes you and I culpable in their execution.

Did you personally know any of the people who were killed in the village of Pristina (capitol of Kosovo) last week? Had they ever done anything to harm you? How about the children who were blown to bits in the building in Prizren? Had they ever threatened you in any way to cause you to have to kill them in self-defense? Perhaps you had met the people who were incinerated by us on the train to Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Can you tell me why you would want to take their lives?

I'm sorry to personalize it in this way, but this slaughter is being conducted in your name and mine, and I'll tell you, this is blood I don't want on my hands. We will all have to answer for this some day, and I would like to be able to say that I did not sit by silently while this was being done, and that I did whatever I could to stop it as soon as possible....

"....Now, it is time for all of us to stop Clinton and his disgusting, hypocritical fellow democrats who support him in this war. It is amazing to watch all these "liberal" congress members line up behind the President. In a way, I'm glad it's happening, if only to show the American people there is little difference between the Democrats and the usually war-loving Republicans. Aren't you getting a kick watching the Pat Buchanans and the Henry Hydes sounding like pacifists! These politicians can change stripes at the drop of a hat (or bomb) because, ultimately, they are the same animal, participants in a one-party system that tries to fool the people by going by two names ("Democrat" and "Republican").

Please call or write your member of Congress, send a letter to the editor, let the Democrats know we have had it with the whole lot of them. This is OUR country, not theirs and the corporate interests they really represent. It's time to start taking it back.

Each cruise missile that is launched could have built a dozen schools or hired another hundred teachers or provided health care to a thousand people. Those millions of dollars could have been spent saving lives and educating children. Every night, Clinton isn't just bombing Yugoslavia, he's bombing you.

Yours, Michael Moore

So, questions for Michael Moore fans: Is Wes Clark a war criminal toady of that "disgusting" Bill Clinton? Or, is Michael Moore a craven opportunist willing to endorse the architect of a "slaughter" of women and children?

Questions for Wes Clark fans: What does it say about Clark that he's willing to boast, as he did last night, that he has "the support of a man like Michael Moore." Or, has Clark simply not "looked into the facts" surrounding Kosovo enough to decide whether Moore is right or not?

A reader writes:

Jonah, isn't it as absurd for Jews to hold Christians collectively responsible for the murderous actions of medieval Christians - regardless of their reasoning - as it would be for Christians to hold Jews collectively responsible for killing Jesus?

I mean, if a Jew does that, he is tacitly accepting the medieval Christians' argument holding him accountable.

It's ludicrous, of course, in both cases. And in any event, Jesus came to die. No Crucifixion, no Resurrection, no salvation for mankind.

Me: I think that's all perfectly legitimate. I would only say two things. First, I don't think I'm "blaming" any Christians today of anything, at least not in the context of this discussion. Second, I think intergenerational guilt is a terrible and sinful concept and I don't believe in it (nor does Judaism, by the way, contrary to what I may have implied earlier). But institutions live longer than people and therefor institutions need to account for their behavior in previous eras. I think the Catholic Church has largely done that. But I do think it had the responsibility to do so, even if Catholics living today are individually blameless for anything Catholics did a thousand years ago.

I love this Clark blames Brit thing. It dovetails nicely with a discussion I heard on NPR this afternoon while driving downtown. Diane Riehm and her callers were deeply vexed that God permits Fox News to exist.

It all reminds me of an essay John Podhoretz wrote a long time ago in which he recounted a story about applying for job at Time magazine. The editor quizzed John about whether, as a conservative, he could keep his ideology in check writing for a journalistic enterprise like Time. If I remember correctly, John replied of course, but have you ever asked liberal journalists if they could check their ideology in the same way? She hadn't.

There is this amazing congnitive dissonance among liberals which says that liberals can be honest brokers but conservatives cannot. Time, Newsweek, ABC, CBS, etc etc etc etc etc etc, are rife with writers and editors who've worked for prominent Democratic politicians or for expressly liberal magazines like Mother Jones, the New Republic, Washington Monthly etc. And yet to suggest that their biases might influence their coverage is considered a right-wing bugaboo. But when conservatives commit journalism it's supposed to be obvious that they are incapable of playing it straight.

From a Marine chaplain:

Famous Christian hymn, by Bernard of Clairvaux (12th century), set to its modern harmony by Bach - O Sacred Head, Now Wounded - has always informed my understanding of collective guilt in regards to Jesus' crucifixion, especially the 2nd verse:

What thou, my Lord, hast suffered

Was all for sinners' gain;

Mine, mine was the transgression,

But thine the deadly pain.

Lo, here I fall, my saviour!

'Tis I deserve thy place.

Look on me with thy favour,

Vouchsafe to me thy grace.

(tr. From German by J. W. Alexander approx. 1840)

That line - "Mine, mine was the transgression..." - gets me every time I sing it around Good Friday/Passover.

From a pastor in the United Presbyterian Church:

Jonah-
Concerning your post on this scripture reference and the subject of guilt for Christ's crucifixion, there are a couple of things worth mentioning.
1. The words of the crowd must be tied not only to Jesus' fate, but to the fate of Barabbas. If we are to imagine a crowd (at least some of whom are gathered to hear of and possibly influence the selection of the prisoner who would receive paschal amnesty), and realize that they are confronted with the choice of Jesus or Barabbas, it seems likely that any faltering on the part of the crowd would be influenced by their leaders - which is what Matthew's account makes clear.
2. Even if there is a symbolism that the crowd's response reflects the response of an even greater majority of the nation, Matthew undoubtedly knew that all the first disciples of Jesus were Jews. It is only when Matthew's gospel is read not as a description of Jesus' trial, but of later church-synogogue relations that it can be forced into the framework of anti-Semitism.
3. Because the first disciples, and indeed the entire nascent church are ethnically Jewish, the kind of opprobrium which is found directed at various Jewish people (whether leaders or crowds) must be seen to be in line with the writings of the prophets in the Old Testament. In the prophets the people are both the object of compassionate pleading and virulent warnings.
4. Finally (and yes, I owe you an aoplogy for making this "couple of things" into four points), about the words themselves: they may well be not simply a double-entendre, but a triple-entendre. The Christian message is that all who are guilty before the Living God of and complicit in the death of his Son (meaning all of us without exception), still may have the prospect of being forgiven and transformed by what Christ accomplished on the cross.

This has been a rather long note. Thanks for reading. Thanks for your columns and Corner postings

I saw this in the Washington Times [yesterday]--shows the Republicans don't get it either. I have seen this and a number of other commercials--I was not particularly impressed with this commercial (I doubt many independent and democratic Iowans were either)--it is just one big stereotype rant. The commercial, I think that did Dean in (as if he needed much help) was one that Kerry ran showing a widow who speaks to the camera about raising several children alone (after her husband died of cancer) on income of $28K per year. The tag is that I support Kerry because he does not believe that raising taxes on the middle class is the answer.

This commercial was perfect for him--it does not say he's a tax cutter (though based on some analysis I have seen, there are those that infer this) nor does it directly say he's going to raise taxes or that he is opposed to tax cuts (which I believe he is inferring)--so he nails Dean as a tax and spend democrat (he's been railing against the Bush tax cuts incessantly) and does not alienate those that are opposed to tax cuts. Very clever and I think extremely effective. So the folks below got it part right-- advertising helped--but not the ad they are giving credit.

My 2 cents.

From: Joaquin Navarro-Valls [e-mail address deleted]
Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2003 6:06 AM
To: Steve McEveety
Subject: R: RE: Jewish Week article by Eric Greenberg

Dear Steve,
I don't think it would be wide to argue with any small thing on this topic. The piece on the WSY [Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal piece initially reporting the papal quote--RD] was something and it remains "the" point on our position. Nobody can deny it. So keep mentioning it as the autorized point of reference. I would try to make the words "It is as it was" the leit motive in any discusion on the film. Repeat the words again and again and again Happy new year,
Joaquin

Interesting:

Jonah -

Let me add one interesting fact to the deluge of opinion that you're undoubtedly receiving already. St. John Chrysostom, who is generally regarded as one of the more antisemitic of the Church Fathers, denied that the guilt of the Crucifixion extended either to later generations of Jews or to all Jews of Jesus's own generation. In his Homilies on Matthew 86, he wrote:

When they [the Jews] saw the judge [Pilate] washing his hands, and saying, "I am innocent," they cried out "His blood be on us, and on our children." Then at length when they had given sentence against themselves, he yielded that all should be done.

See here too their great madness. For passion and wicked desire are like this. They suffer not men to see anything of what is right. For be it that ye curse yourselves; why do you draw down the curse upon your children also?

Nevertheless, the lover of man, though they acted with so much madness, both against themselves, and against their children, so far from confirming their sentence upon their children, confirmed it not even on them, but from the one and from the other received those that repented, and counts them worthy of good things beyond number. For indeed even Paul was of them, and the thousands that believed in Jerusalem; for, "thou seest it is said, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe." And if some continued in their sin, to themselves let them impute their punishment. [emphasis added]

For further discussion of this and other points relating to Christian antisemitism, see http://stromata.tripod.com/id245_february_9_2002.htm

Best wishes,

Two emails:

Jonah,

I grew up in a Protestant, Bible-believing home, and consider myself an evangelical, born-again Christian. I have attended Presbyterian churches, Baptist churches, Evangelical Free churches, Community churches, Bible churches, and I attended a Baptist elementary school, and a Baptist high school. I have NEVER heard any anti-Semitic remarks from anyone in any of these churches. In fact, we are very pro-Israel, as all the churches I have ever attended have been.

Any Christian mad at the Jews for crucifying Christ is ignorant. Sure, the Jewish leaders had Jesus crucified with the help of Pilate and the Romans, but the good guys in the story are Jewish, too. Jesus was a Jew; his disciples were Jewish; most of the people he dealt with in the gospels were Jewish. It defies logic to be a Christian and be anti-Semitic.

And...

Jonah,
Please hear from a learned Southern Baptist that neither you nor your daughter should bear any guilt for Christ's execution. And I can tell you that I have NEVER heard one word from a pastor, preacher, Sunday School teacher, lay person or evangelist -- nobody -- that even hinted at blaming
the Jews -- meaning you and others -- for Christ's death.
Blaming you or any Jew for that would be like cursing Payton Manning today for his father's fourth quarter interception in 1976.
With that said, I think the ADL isn't being sincere with this movie. To continue with the football analogy, they're not trying to protect Payton (the Jews of today). Instead they're moving the blame from the Saints QB (The Jews) to the Saints coach (the Romans.)
The Romans were indeed in control of the government, but they allowed the Jews to carry on with their religious beliefs and customs. And it was the Jewish sect of the pious, prideful Pharisees who plotted against Jesus and arranged for his arrest and death. The Romans were interested in parties and power, not religious squabbling, so to appease the Pharisees they carried out the request that Jesus be executed for blasphemy.
To the Romans, it was just another execution. To the Jews, it was the elimination of a rabble rouser who was taking away their power and questioning their authority. The Romans allowed to Pharisees to call their own play, and the Pharisees fumbled -- the messiah they were waiting for was right in their midst, and they were too blind to see it.
I understand your individual worry, as a Jewish man, that the movie could incite some idiot to say something mean to your daughter. But the ADA isn't trying to protect you daughter -- it's trying to re-write history.

ABC has supposedly found that while a majority of Americans reject gay marriage, they also reject a constitutional amendment to ban it. Now it would not surprise me if the public were to reject an amendment as a radical step. I was surprised when the New York Times, last month, found 55 percent support for an amendment. But ABC's polling is seriously misleading.

They find 58 percent opposition to the amendment, and 38 percent support, when the alternative of letting each state decide is presented. That's a noteworthy result. It tells us, for one thing, which argument opponents of an amendment are likely to find most effective. But to frame the alternatives in this way is not to ask a neutral question. It is to take sides in the debate. FMA proponents, for the most part, say that the whole reason an amendment is required is that a state-by-state approach is not a real-world alternative. Presumably the answer would come out differently if the alternative to FMA was the national imposition of gay marriage by the federal and state judiciaries. According to FMA proponents, that's what the alternative is.

ABC says that the results depend on the wording of the question and presents some other polling organization's wording and results. But it makes it sound as though its question is superior--since it has given information about the alternatives, unlike the Times--and doesn't even hint at the existence of the problem I just described. ABC also cites a Pew Center poll, just as misleading, that frames the alternatives as an amendment and a non-constitutional prohibition on gay marriage. On the stated argument of the FMAers, mere statutes will not survive a campaign of judicial activism--and that's why their preferred constitutional amendment is needed.

From the AP:

Democratic Candidates Reveal Childhood Nicknames

POSTED: 8:52 a.m. EST January 23, 2004
Pinky is out. But Spanky is still in the running -- as are the Johnnys and Dennis the Menace.

The Democratic presidential contenders are revealing their school kid nicknames.

The two Johns -- Sens. Kerry and Edwards -- went by Johnny.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, then and now, was Joe.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was called "H" as a kid.

Al Sharpton's buddies used to call him Spanky from the old "Little Rascals."

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich says he was known as Dennis the Menace.

Former Gen. Wesley Clark now goes by Wes, but says he didn't have a nickname.

And U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, who dropped out of the race this week, was called Pinky.

Another:

If the Jews are blamed for Christ's crucifixion, shouldn't they also deserve our prayer for being the instrument of God's will for our salvation? Without the crucifixion, the Lamb wouldn't have been sacrificed and the gates of heaven would remain closed. Seems to me, the ultimate sin of deicide had to occur--it had been foretold and foreshadowed hundreds of years before in Isaiah and the Psalms. In all fairness, the thought of a Jew claiming that the awesome God of the Theophany on Mt. Sinai and other OT scenes could possibly be contained in a human form, when the non-Levite, & unpurified Uzzah had been struck dead merely for touching the Ark of the Covenant as he tried to prevent its fall was gut-wrenchingly blasphemous in the extreme, as was the eating of His Flesh and drinking of His Blood. Jesus allowed most of His disciples to walk away when they couldn't accept that teaching, and even asked Peter and the Apostles if they were going to leave also. How many Christians now find it hard to believe that He meant what He said in John 6 because it tests the limits of human understanding, or that He meant what He said about divorce, or that life begins at conception? (The command against abortion is found in the Didache, which is an ancient document containing the teachings of the Apostles themselves.) Secondly, if some Jews, the Sanhedrin in particular, deserve the blame for plotting Christ's death, they also deserve our abundant gratitude as well. Christ, the apostles, St. Paul, and the original converts to Christianity in Jerusalem were all Jews, and spread the Gospel at the cost of many, if not most of their lives. As for intergenerational culpability, we Christians committed our own atrocities against the Jews through the ages. It seems to me that every recitation of the Lord's Prayer should make us eager to forgive and forget them, just as we need and desire God's forgiveness! Christians are the heirs of the Jews, grafted onto the vine of which we are now also the branches--the vine which is God and whose branches are God's Chosen people.

Lots of email like this one:

As an evangelical Christian, it is my understanding that what made Christ's death on the cross necessary was the sin of mankind. He died as the ultimate atonement for EVERYONE's sin, and through his sacrifice it is possible for humans to have a restored relationship with God. That God used the Roman government and the complicity of the Jewish leaders to accomplish Jesus' death does not make these two groups any more culpable than anyone else. For any Christian leader, past or present, to promote the view that Christ's death was the "fault" of the Jews is to miss the point. We're all culpable, individually and corporately. He died to save us all.

The purpose of the Passion is most definitely to reignite the notion of collective guilt. However, the collective group responsible is a lot bigger than the Jews or the Romans. It is all of us. John 3:16 says that God loved the world enough to give His Son for it. Romans 5:6 says that just at the right time while all of us were completely powerless to save ourselves Christ died for the ungodly. If the Passion assists in reigniting the notion that each and every one of us individually and collectively was sufficient cause and reason for the suffering and death of Christ, then it has done its job.

Well, I guess I should have anticipated this. Yes, Matthew 27:25 has the infamous passage in which the Jewish crowd declares "His blood be upon us." I did know that. What I didn't know is that the entire argument hinges on this one passage. Or at least that's what people are telling me. Again, surely not every Jew was in that crowd, right? Anyway, here's an interesting essay a reader tipped me off to. And here's an email from a friend of mine:

Hey, Jonah. I'm sure you're getting a million emails answering this, but the reason the stigma of having killed Jesus is thought to carry onto Jews of every generation is the point in Matthew (I think it's like 27:25) where the Jews apparently called out "Let his [Jesus's] blood be upon us and on our children." This quatation is also largely behind the medieval blood libel (that Jews drank the blood of young Christian children) and the accusation that Jews desecrated the Host, and is a large part of why so many anti-semitic incidents in Europe (pogroms in the East, massacres and forced conversions of Jews in small towns in the West) took place around Easter.

Hope you're having a great morning!

So I'm reading about the whole Mel Gibson Vs. "The Jews" thing again. I stopped for a while because, without seeing the movie, and having heard all sides, it just didn't seem worth it to follow which version of the film was being screened where.

But here's the thing which I still don't get. Let's say "The Jews" were responsible for the crucifixion to some significant extent. Obviously, even if you want to blame "The Jews" you can't blame them 100% since it was the Romans who gustily did the actual torturing and killing. But let's say "The Jews" do in fact deserve a fair share of the blame.

(I'm posing this all as a hypothetical, by the way, precisely because I don't want to get into the weeds on the debate on what the Gospels say or don't say about who should get the blame. It's interesting, but irrelevant to my confusion.)

So let's just say "The Jews" of 2,000 years ago were indicted co-conspirators in the death of Jesus.

So what? I'm not being disrespectful. I'm actually curious: Where in Christian theology does it say that guilt should be carried on for dozens of generations? It seems to me that inheriting the sins of your forefathers runs quite contrary to my understanding of Christianity. Under Jewish theology, on the other hand, I can see where such tribal notions could endure. But where does the doctrine of intergenerational guilt come from in Christianity?

Please note: I don't mean to say that Christians today believe in intergenerational guilt. But some clearly did in the past, right? And some in all likelihood do today. I mean that's why so many Jewish groups are concerned about "The Passion" in the first place -- because they fear it will reignite notions of collective guilt.

And if, say, my daughter can be held responsible for Jesus' plight, why can't Italians? I suppose it's because Italians are now Christians. But the point remains.

Anyway, I'm actually just curious to know on what grounds Christian theologians in the past justified blaming people who were born a thousand or more years after the Crucifixion for the crimes of their forefathers, especially when even in the Dark Ages it should have been clear that not every single Jewish contemporary of Jesus supported the Crucifixion or had even heard of Jesus. So presumably blaming their descendents would be a bit unfair.

Because I suspect that this post will elicit a lot of email, I'd really like to ask that only people with some significant expertise on the subject send me email. It's very hard for me to handle the flow on these sorts of discussions (remember the whole brouhaha on the alleged power of group prayer?), but I would hate to stop doing these things simply to avoid the on-rush of email.

For a couple weeks at least now on my ride to work on NH rt 128 in Windham there has been a huge Dean for America sign. At least 4 feet tall and 8 feet wide. That sign was gone this morning.

Also at the 93 overpass on NH rt 102 there has always been people holding signs for various candidates as far back as this summer. Last week it was all Clark, yesteday clark, kerry and there were some bused in Deaniacs. this am all clark and kerry. no sign of Deaniacs, not even a faint smell of VT kind buds and patcholi oil.

I did not watch the debate last night. but this is an interesting thing to witness. obviously my ride to work does not indicate the entire state's frame of mind, but combined with new ARG numbers it looks like Dean is done on Wednesday morning (not necessarily a newsflash).

Mr. Derbyshire thinks it'd be cool to work Riemann's name into the NRO motto. Having read his book, I think it'd be better to add another term from it: "The Critical Line." You know, "This is NRO, The Critical Line." Get J.E. Jones to use his Darth Vader voice a-la CNN. The problem is, that the zeros of zeta of s are on the critical line, and I can see some wag saying the same about the NRO staff.

Will be on around 8:30ish AM EST.

Here's the AP headline: "Poll Hints Support for Iraq Policy Strong"

Here's the first paragraph:

"WASHINGTON -- Public support for the war in Iraq remains strong, with almost two-thirds of the American public saying that going to war was the right decision, a poll out Thursday found."

That's a pretty strong hint isn't it?

(nod to lucianne.com)

"In this Ziploc bag, Ladies and Gentlemen, are veal bones. They have been roasted for two hours at a low heat, cracked with a mallet and simmered for another hour in a tender jus of thyme, shallot, butter, white wine, water, with just a touch of sea salt. These bones, and the fragrant liquid they yielded, are, I need hardly spell out, an affront to every American woman who has ever peeled a small, hard stock cube out of its silver wrapping and thrown it into the risotto hoping that somehow it will give the dish an Italianate flavor.

"Ladies, I know. Until Martha Stewart erupted on the national scene some 20 years ago, would any of you have felt bad about using stock cubes? Would you have apologized to your guests, and felt compelled to say, with a little shrug, 'Well, it's not how Martha Stewart would have done it, but . . .' Would you? No, you would not. Without Miss Gracious-Living-Guru-Stewart to make you feel inadequate, you would have fed your guests risotto flavored with prefabricated, mass-marketed, cow-spine-derived, MSG-laden stock cubes and, members of the Jury, they would have been happy to eat it! Yeeeaaargh!