So much for "Open Hearts, etc"

The United Methodist Church is about to fulfill the typographical prediction to become the Untied Methodist Church. The Judicial Council (a Supreme Court analog in this denomination whose polity emulates the political structure of the United States) handed down two rulings on the weekend that ought to give pause for thought to any UM’s who are still exercising that faculty. In a split decision, the Council overturned a lower court ruling and stripped out lesbian Beth Stroud of her ministerial orders. Actually, this should not have come as a surprise. The UMC is so boxed into its own legalisms these days that the Judicial Council could hardly do anything else.

Much more disturbing is the second decision, also thankfully split. In essence, the Council in its wisdom determined that the pastor of a local congregation could legally refuse to admit into membership gay and lesbian people. It’s nothing less than license for a new witch hunt in the denomination. Unfortunately, nothing in current UM process permits a change until the 2008 General Conference, and given the sorry state of Methodism, that change seems very unlikely to happen.

The decision certainly puts the lie to the denomination’s PR campaign called (disingenuously) “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.” I was an active United Methodist and denominational employee for more than 10 years, but I clearly am now explicitly unwelcome there. I’m angry and saddened, and I also believe that God is certainly weeping just now.

The only bright note here is the courageous dissent of Susan Henry-Crowe, dean of the chapel and religious life at Emory University:

I dissent with my colleagues on Decision 1032. This decision compromises the historic understanding that the Church is open to all. The Judicial Council cannot interpret something that is not stated in the Discipline [the denominational book of statutes and ordinances]. Nothing in the Discipline gives pastors discretion to exclude persons presenting themselves for membership in the Church.

Wow.

I’m supposed to be writing a paper, but I decided to take a few minutes’ break and scan some of my favorite non-political, non-news blogs.

We can discuss Fitzmas/Fitznukkah later. For now, please go watch this terrific Sarah McLachlan music video. I just spotted it on Dylan’s Grace Notes, and have to agree with her: “best. music video. ever.”

"Forrest Gump from the Dark Side"

That’s how Stephen Pizzo describes George Bush in “The Real George W. Bush”. I think this is my favorite part:

Either way, Bush is finished as a force in American politics.

But this is good, too:

It’s a moment new to America — a leader who needs to be led, and now unled. And the world is watching. It’s as if the police had come and dragged Edgar Bergin offstage in the middle of a show, leaving Charlie McCarthy, wide-eyed, mouth agape and slumped alone on his stool.

Enjoy. Newswise, you’ve got nothing better to do: we already knew Harriet Miers was a goner, and Fitzmas has been delayed at least another day.

But speaking of Fitzmas, Paul Begala has some sharp insights into the life of a White House staff under fire, at TPMCafe:

Mr. Bush would do well to augment his current staff, a C-Team if ever there was one, with some stronger characters. But to read the Bush-Miers correspondence is to gain a disturbing insight into Mr. Bush’s personality: he likes having his ass kissed. Ms. Miers’ cards and letters to the then-Governor of Texas belong in the Brown-Nosers Hall of Fame. You can be sure the younger and less experienced Bush White House aides are even more obsequious. The last thing this President wants is the first thing he needs: someone to slap his spoiled, pampered, trust-funded, plutocratic, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life cheek and make him face the reality of his foul-ups.

And so they wait. And they sniff the royal throne. They tell the Beloved Leader he’s the victim of a partisan plot (although how the Bush CIA, which referred the Plame case for prosecution, became ground zero of Democratic liberalism escapes me). They assure him all is well. But all is not well. People are looking over their shoulders. The smart ones have stopped taking notes in meetings. The very smart ones have stopped using email for all but the most pedestrian communications. And the smartest ones have already obtained outside counsel.

Now, to veer completely off-topic — Back in August that “Mars Spectacular” email from 2003 started circulating again. Fact is, the closest passage that will occur in our lifetime took place in 2003, but this weekend will be the next closest opposition until 2018.

Speaking of emails that never die, do all of your friends’ friends a favor: when they send you the warning about how Swiffer Wet Jet cleaning fluid killed a neighbor’s 5-year old German Shepherd, send them this link.

Yellow cake

Back in early 2003, Seymour Hersh reported on the deep suspicions raised by the forged “yellow cake documents” that led to the infamous “16 words” that found their way into Bush’s State of the Union address. That story ended with these words:

On March 14th, Senator Jay Rockefeller, of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally asked Robert Mueller, the F.B.I. director, to investigate the forged documents. Rockefeller had voted for the resolution authorizing force last fall. Now he wrote to Mueller, “There is a possibility that the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq.” He urged the F.B.I. to ascertain the source of the documents, the skill-level of the forgery, the motives of those responsible, and “why the intelligence community did not recognize the documents were fabricated.” A Rockefeller aide told me that the F.B.I. had promised to look into it.

The Italian La Republicca has virtually confirmed Rockefeller’s suspicions; read Laura Rozen’s summary of the scoop. (And, as usual, see Josh Marshall, too.)

2000.

Another shameful “landmark” in the war on Iraq.

By all means, read Sen. Patrick Leahy’s eloquent words from the Senate floor today.

We know today that President Bush decided to invade Iraq without evidence to support the use of force and well before Congress passed the resolution giving him the authority to do so - authority he did not even believe he needed - despite the Constitution which invests in the Congress the power to declare war. Twenty-three Senators voted against that resolution, and I was proud to be one of them.

We know today that the motivation for a plan to attack Iraq, hatched by a handful of political operatives, had taken hold within the White House even before 9/11, and without any connection to the war on terrorism that came later.

We know that the key public justifications for the war - to stop Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons and supporting al Qaeda - were based on faulty intelligence and outright distortions and have been thoroughly discredited. United Nations weapons inspectors, who were dismissed by the White House as naïve and ineffective, turned out to have gathered far better information with a tiny fraction of the budget than our own intelligence agencies.

And we know that the insurgency is continuing to grow along with American casualties - 1,999 killed and at least 15,220 wounded, as of yesterday - despite the same old light at the end of the tunnel assertions and clichés by the White House and top officials in the Pentagon.

The sad but inescapable truth, which the President either does not see or refuses to believe or admit, is that the Iraqi insurgency has steadily grown, in part because of our presence there.

(Photo from America’s Library)

Rosa Parks, 1913-2005

Is it Fitzmas Eve?

I’ve just started scanning the Washington Note on my daily blog “rounds” and, today, find two very tantalizing items. See this one and this one. (I don’t want to ruin the suspense.)

Get your pricey NYT columnists for free at Truthout.org

You just have to wait a day or so… Kristof has a good one on the tragic consequences of Bush’s UN Population Fund “policy” (and yes, call Kristof “naive” when he suggests it at the end of the column). And Frank Rich —

We don’t yet know whether Lewis (Scooter) Libby or Karl Rove has committed a crime, but the more we learn about their desperate efforts to take down a bit player like Joseph Wilson, the more we learn about the real secret they wanted to protect: the “why” of the war.

— makes a nice companion piece to the NYT feature on the rationale for the war:

The dispute over the rationale for the war has led to upheaval in the intelligence agencies, left Democrats divided about how aggressively to break with the White House and exposed deep rifts in the administration and among Republicans.

The combatants’ intensity was underscored this week in a speech by Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin L. Powell while he was secretary of state, who complained of a “cabal” between Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld when it came to Iraq and other national security issues and of a “real dysfunctionality” in the administration’s foreign policy team.

The intensity could be further inflamed by comments from Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser during the administration of Mr. Bush’s father, in the coming edition of The New Yorker that are a reminder of how the breach over Iraq had its roots in competing views of foreign policy that extend well back into the last century.

Mr. Scowcroft, a self-described realist who prides himself on seeing what could go wrong in any course of action, argues against what he characterizes as the utopian view of neoconservatives within the administration that toppling Saddam Hussein would open the door to democracy throughout the Middle East. He also suggests that Mr. Cheney is a man much changed, and not for the better, from the policy maker he worked with closely during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

Mr. Scowcroft has long expressed reservations about the current White House’s foreign policy approach and about the Iraq war in particular, but his comments could further exacerbate divisions among Republicans, especially to the degree that they are seen as reflecting the views of his close friend, the first President Bush.

“The real anomaly in the administration is Cheney,” Mr. Scowcroft told Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker. “I consider Cheney a good friend - I’ve known him for 30 years. But Dick Cheney I don’t know anymore.”

I picked up the New Yorker today and will share more of that interview when I finish it.

The NY Daily News has a story on Mr. Congeniality’s celebrated and worsening temper. The stress of fabricating the case for an unjust war is really taking a toll on him.

(Meanwhile, another blogging soldier trying to make sense of the war has been officially silenced.)

Middle class relative to what?

I clicked on the link for this interview because the teaser mentioned Jon Katz and dogs, and I like both subjects. Yes, I was a little startled to see that the interviewer was Tucker Carlson - a man I really can’t bear - but I soldiered on. And good ol’ Tucker didn’t disappoint:

CARLSON: I think most Americans like middle class people hate telling the housekeeper what to do, right, I mean, famously? I think a lot of Americans feel bad about training a dog or being too harsh with the dog. It seems so old-fashioned and kind of mean.

Setting aside the silver-tongued syntax for now, I’m just curious: how many middle class families do you know that have a housekeeper?

Et tu, Tar-zhay?

Sorry, little bro’. If Target is going to keep activist pharmacists in their employ, the Christmas gift card will have to come from elsewhere.