SHORTER DAVID BROOKS: Who knew?

COMMENTS seem to be off. For how long I don't know. But don't worry -- even without your constant encouragement, I am always aware that I have THE BEST READERS IN THE UNIVERSE!

(I know these guys claim they do, but they only say it to get suckers to do their research -- and, for all I know, their laundry -- for them. I'm more the giving sort, and I have no compulsion to string along an audience by flattery or fluffery, which is why you chose well to patronize this site, you brilliant, sexy people.)

UPDATE. Fixed!

YOU KNEW THIS WAS COMING (edited). "Well, I have no religious opposition to homosexuality," drawls prairie pundit James Lileks, thumbs fussing with his suspenders. "I think civilized society recognizes that a small percentage of its citizens are drawn to the same sex..."

And then he seems to come out against same-sex marriage -- that's what it looked like to me at first, red-eyed examination. Then it seems like that point was moot, but that gay couples can't be good parents. Then it seems like they could be, but that gay parents -- well, here's an example:

Moms? Any guy can do your job. Dads? Your son or daughter doesn’t need to grow up with a male role model in his or her daily life. It’s the sort of pernicious nonsense that thinks gender is an arbitrary social construct. It’s not enough, apparently, to say that gay couples can be great parents. You have to insist that heterosexual couples have no inherent advantages.

Upon further review, it seems that what the guy doesn't like is an acceptance of gay marriage based on the unavoidable conclusion that gay people can have healthy relationships and happy children, on the grounds that this would make him (i.e., straight people) look like something less than the optimum model of childrearing.

Maybe this is what all those arguments concerning the deleterious effect of gay marriage on straight marriage are really about.

ADDENDUM. When comments come back on, somebody explain this sentence to me: "Just because gay couples can’t be excellent parents doesn’t mean that the inherent nature of the relationship is equal to the inherent nature of heterosexual parenting."

WE'RE A LITTLE SHORT OF FUNDS... Daniel Henninger tells how you, Mr. Citizen, can assist the war effort in Iraq:

The First Marine Expeditionary Force and U.S. Army in Iraq want to equip and upgrade seven defunct Iraqi-owned TV stations in Al Anbar province -- west of Baghdad -- so that average Iraqis have better televised information than the propaganda they get from the notorious Al-Jazeera. If Jim Hake can raise $100,000, his Spirit of America will buy the equipment in the U.S., ship it to the Marines in Iraq and get Iraqi-run TV on the air before the June 30 handover.

Doesn't sound like such a bad idea, but why is this Marine (hopefully aided by what Henninger calls "the coalition of the can-do") compelled to take up a collection for it, rather than can-doing it with government money? Henninger says, to "bypass the slow U.S. procurement bureaucracy." That's nice, we all hate bureaucracy, but isn't the War on Terror a top government priority? If so, why isn't this funded by the cash-glutted Pentagon, rather than a serviceman's tin cup?

I mean, Jesus fucking Christ. The State Department hired a top advertising executive to promote our cause in the Middle East, but they can't jack up a hundred large for a studio and a couple of transmittors?

This sticks in my craw even more than it might have because of a conversation I had recently with a woman whose son was plaguing me to buy raffle tickets for a school fundraiser, the purpose of which was to buy books, paper, and other essentials. The kid goes to a public school. I asked, doesn't the budget cover that? And I was informed that this sort of begging was common; public schools never have enough government green to pay for all the necessities of education.

Even in this era of religious belief in limited government (which, like Christianity, is often invoked and seldom observed), that blows my mind. And now I'm asked to pry open my wallet, not for the widows and orphans whose diminishing share of government funding is a long-standing if bitter reality, but for basic military and educational operations?

What the fuck did I just pay taxes for? Or, maybe more to the point, what the fuck did the wealthiest Americans not just pay taxes for?

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY II. "I think perhaps the most compelling arguments from the pro-[drug]-legalization crowd are long-term ones. But in the short run -- a few years to a decade or two -- there would be a lot more drug addicts as the culture worked out the consequences... we would be making peace with the fact that an irreducible number of people would be permanently enslaved to drugs..." -- Jonah "Kegger!" Goldberg, The Corner.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. "BILL CLINTON JUST TRIED TO KILL ME. Really. I'm serious. Honestly. Talkingpresidents.com Bill Cllinton just fell off a shelf and hit me in my head..." -- Kathryn Jean "In what area are Christians most persistently persecuted?" Lopez, The Corner.

ENOUGH. Jonah Goldberg and Richard Brookhiser take time out from destroying the country to talk about what a shit George Bernard Shaw was.

I'm all for the marketplace of ideas, but when the gap in talent between yourself and your subject approaches seven light-years, you should just shut the hell up.

THE STORY OF G.I. JIM. Air Raid Marshal Lileks, treating the pop culture industry as his personal Target, demands a 9/11 movie. Not the crappy TV movie he already got -- a big budget production like Wake Island or The Passion of the Christ.

Of course Hollywood is too evil and traitorous to make such a film, so maybe Jimbo and a couple of his buddies should do it in the backyard with some of that technology he's always creaming over. I can see it now:

The door swings open like at the beginning of The Searchers, revealing an idyll of well-fertilized lawns, gas grills, and Volvos. But something is amiss. In the distance, a column of smoke rises.

JAMES strides into frame and silently surveys the column. In the background his entertainment center is tuned to seventeen news feeds and an old episode of Hoppity Hooper. All but the latter show talking heads, each telling Americans that the attack they have just witnessed is "America's fault," and that, in protest of our even existing as a free society, all network anchorpersons would start wearing Soviet flag pins.

JAMES' fist clenches; his rock-hard abs quiver. Wiping the Bisquick from her hands with her apron, WHATSHERNAME rushes to his side.

WHATSHERNAME: James, you're only one man! What can you do about it?

JAMES: What can any man do who cares about his country? I'ma write me a column!

He strides with grim determination to the staircase. Little GNAT looks up at him.

GNAT: Daddy, I made potty.

JAMES freezes, smiles, ruffles her hair.

JAMES: That's my girl. (quietly, to WHATSHERNAME) Hide her in the tool shed till I get back.

And wait'll you see when the posse catches up with Michael Moore!

HOUSECLEANING. I cleaned up a few of the blogrollees:

Whiskey Bar had a dead link, and Billmon's too hot right now to have me steering potential converts into a blind alley.

Duly noted also is Kevin Drum's move to Washington Monthly, where in a world gone mad he clings tenaciously to that tiny, flooded islet known as the moderate position.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING WHAT PRESS CONFERENCE THEY WERE WATCHING...

...This guy is the most sincere man I have ever seen hold public office and I will tell you guys I have met and known a lot. This is an asset that speaks to the heart and soul. It carries more weight then any flowery words could ever do. These are traits that wear well with people. It is not rooted in first impressions, but in lasting impressions. My impressions of this man will permeate my soul my entire life. I never expect these impressions to be exceeded by any other public figure. He is my Reagan, my Churchill, my FDR, my JFK, my Lincoln, or my whatever. He is a once in a lifetime. He is a gem, he is a godsend, one day more people will know and understand what gift we have been given.

    -- Roger L. Simon commentor "Samuel"

...that question can best be answered by Morpheus: there is no press conference.

The brainwashed we can pity. The paid operatives just roil our contempt. "No one should be fooled by the way he stumbled through some of his answers," cautioned John Podhoretz. "Bush knew exactly what he was doing..." I'll say he did -- the dazed look on his face last night clearly showed that he knew he wasn't making much sense. But with spin doctor/journalists like he's got, why should he care? If Bush came out eating a rat, Podhoretz would tell us how such displays of machismo endear the President to his people.

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Bush is Churchill.

CHIVALRY. Some of you may remember the outrage Ted Rall generated with his ungenerous treatment of 9/11 widows ("bug," "ignorant little rant," "ugly, nonsensical," "evasive, gutless, dirt-eating," etc).

You will find a new Dorothy Rabinowitz piece at right-wing redoubt OpinionJournal, entitled, "The 9/11 Widows: Americans are Beginning to Tire of Them" and treating thus a group of WTC survivors who have spoken unfavorably about the President:

The venerable status accorded this group of widows comes as no surprise given our times, an age quick to confer both celebrity and authority on those who have suffered. As the experience of the Jersey Girls shows, that authority isn't necessarily limited to matters moral or spiritual. All that the widows have had to say -- including wisdom mind-numbingly obvious, or obviously false and irrelevant -- on the failures of this or that government agency... has been received by most of the media and members of Congress with utmost wonder and admiration. They had become prosecutors and investigators, unearthing clues and connections related to 9/11, with, we're regularly informed, unrivalled dedication and skill.

Surely James Lileks, Little Green Footballs, Tim Blair, Aaron Rantberg, et alia, will rise to these 9/11 widows' defense?

Chirp. Chirp.

QUICK TAKE. The opening statement was clear on the Iraq plan, and also contained the information, which really needed to be spoken aloud in a very public way, that the plan has no clear ending: June 30 is a waystation, after which we may (read: probably will) still be in Iraq ("our military commitment will continue... coalition military forces... protect their government... Our commitment will not end June 30th"). It helped Bush that he was able to surround this truth with expressions of support for the military and their families, a sense of a widespread and nefarious threat (Jerusalem, Bali, Madrid, etc.), several references to the United Nations, and compound sentences clearly not of his own devising.

This doesn't work so well when people are asking impertinent questions. I don't know if anyone was really expecting Bush to apologize or admit mistakes about 9/11, but he seemed awfully dodgy when they asked him about it, with his endless inklings and war footings. Also, if only the threat of terrorist mischief, not the presence of weapons of mass destruction, were reason enough for dislodging Saddam, why not just dismiss the subject forthrightly, rather than speculate on a possible second turkey farm in Iraq?

He finished by saying the American people knew that he meant what he said -- which seems like a way of excusing his ragged public speaking skills as proof of his sincerity. But you don't have to be slick (as in Willie) to seem as if you're hiding something. Doubling back, inane repetition, and off-topic answers can also signal prevarication. If I were advising the President, I'd tell him to butch it up.

COME, LET US REASON TOGETHER. So much strife, so much misunderstanding. Surely Red and Blue can agree on something? Well, yes. Andrew Stuttaford is quite right to approve the bird Rheingold Beer flipped at Mayor Bloomberg and his smoking ban.

I haven't had a Rheingold in a while, and remember it tasting like chilled lighter fluid, but I reckon I owe it another chance.

IN HIS DARK, DRAFTY SKULL A TINY EMBER GLEAMED. "Part of what is happening in Iraq seems to be an understandable nationalist reaction to being governed by a foreign occupying power." -- Rich Lowry, National Review.

NEW FISH, SAME OLD BARREL. I understand this nut is somebody's idea of a deep thinker. Let us see.

"We know who most of America's enemies are," writes Michele Catalano. "Now there is a new group to add to that list: the anti-war crowd."

Her proof points regarding the beliefs and behaviors of the "anti-war crowd" are taken from one fairly mild paragraph by Ted Rall, and a couple of possibly authentic protest signs. Thin gruel indeed, but so far as she's concerned these demonstrate that all Americans who doubt the wisdom of our Iraq adventure "support the taking of American hostages, the killing of American soldiers and, by proxy, the jihad against America."

Then she laments the polarization of our country.

Then she says she wants to drive a wooden stake through a protester's eye socket.

Gary, does A Small Victory qualify as one of those "foaming at the mouth" sites that are supposed to lie beneath our notice? If not, why not?

HIS WAR. At first glance I was ready to give Roger L. Simon credit for coming out strongly in favor of war with Iran. At a time when even the most bellicose warbloggers concentrate on spinning the Iraq debacle ("All is well!"), how refreshing to see one of them pushing for a second front.

Alas, upon closer inspection Simon's petition is for something more modest:

And I'm not talking about all out war. I'm talking about keeping the issue on the front burner, forcing those in authority to take a militant stand against the mullahs [of Iran].

In other words, let's get all the bloggers to make a lot of noise about the Iranian threat, and the result may be a "militant stand." (As opposed to what -- our current entante cordiale?)

We also learn from Simon that partisan bickering is bad, and that everything is the Democrats' fault. He can say that, you see, because he's a Democrat, for some reason that no one remembers.

Do you know, I sometimes get the most frightful feeling that maintaining one of these weblogs is rather a waste of time.

GROOVY HATE FUCK. As I've said before, I am always puzzled by those articles in which conservatives talk about what morons their liberal friends are. If these guys think so little of liberals, why do they hang out with them? Now, thanks to Andrew Sullivan, at last I have it figured out: for sex.

...Her heroes are Ted Kennedy and Hillary. (not Sir Edmund) We share everything in common except politics. I am able to accept and understand her values while not agreeing with them, but am perplexed by her difficulty with mine. She is like the robot on the old Lost In Space TV show. When I explain rationally that I do not think that Rush Limbaugh is 'evil', and that perhaps Al Qaeda might better illustrate that concept, she starts spinning around and yammers "It does not compute, It does not compute".... This is causing her no end of confusion. She is actually having dinner with and making love to one of "THEM".

I'll agree she's confused if she sees a future with a guy (I assume it's a guy -- he punctuates like one) who talks about her like that.

JIMBO'S PROGRESS. I've been too busy to post much. Also I figured, if you didn't want to buy my porn bumper sticker, the hell with you. But I'll be keeping an eye on Lileks for you. Days after he was fascinated by a man in a dress, he discovered, thanks to The New Criterion, that the "rot" of moral relativism goes back to Guy deMaupassant at least -- possibly further!

Maybe soon Lileks will put himself, Gnat, Jasper, and Whatshername on a raft and head down to the Mosquito Coast in search of moral certainties. That is, if he can take his iPod with him.

Well, Easter is the season of hope!

CONSERVATIVE POPULISM IN A NUTSHELL: Daniel Henninger tells us to go see The Passion, which he hasn't seen ("sounds a bit too much for me").

NEVER MIND ALL THAT -- HOWELL RAINES WAS A SOUTHERN LIBERAL! The New York Post outdoes itself today. No, not in that "Headless Body in Topless Bar" way -- the Murdoch rag hasn't shown that kind of brio in decades. I mean that its function as a Republican Party propaganda vehicle has seldom been so self-evident. It would seem the editors, finding the testimony of Condi Rice something of a wash (no bombshell revelations, no Joseph Welch moments), saw in the neutrality of the event a fine canvas upon which to paint a fantasy.

"THE LADY IS A CHAMP," cries the cover, "Tough Condi wins raves." The "raves" to which this refers might be the ones coming from the Post's own headline editors, who are egregiously eager to pump up our impression of the Security Advisor's performance. For example, while the news analysis of Deborah Orin is actually less doggedly spun than usual, it appears under the headline, "As 'great' as W knew she'd be," and the banner spread, "RICE THRIVES IN THE COOKER." We are also shown a large picture of Bob Kerrey appearing to reel from a head wound in a who's-hot-who's-not roundup called "Grading panel's partisan leanings."

The prize, however, goes to "SHE'S CAN-DO CONDI," the oddly titled report by Dan Kadison on the findings of five people hauled in off the street to give impressions of Rice's testimony. They are described as a "politically diverse" group of New Yorkers, comprising two Republicans, two Democrats, and two "Independents." (In New York City voter registration, by the way, Democrats outnumber Republicans five to one, and the last Republican Presidential candidate to carry the City was, I believe, Calvin Coolidge.) Highlights of the group's praise for Can-Do Condi: "She was blatantly evasive at times, but at other times just pretty honest." "I thought her opening statement was great, [as were] the questions and responses." "She was pretty much what I expected." Wow! When's the ticker-tape parade?

The Post is usually beneath notice, but it seemed instructive to note the howlingly obvious agenda of a large American newspaper that is not the New York Times. The Post has a greater circulation than the Chicago Sun-Times or the Miami Herald. It is, however, unable to survive on the quarters it collects from willing customers, and so must be sustained by funding from its publisher, the international villain Rupert Murdoch. This largesse permits the Post to daily pour its right-wing bilge into the same sluices served by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, et alia, and thence down into the American mainstream, which has grown so brackish and distasteful after years of such pollution that its friends scarcely recognize it, and only the most desperate or deluded try to refresh themselves by its waters.

Meanwhile some people are complaining that Bob Kerrey is on TV.