Everybody seems to agree that Idaho Senator Larry Craig is “disgusting” (in Mitt Romney’s now famous phrase) but there’s widespread confusion as to why.

  The conventional wisdom suggests that the prime element in his disgrace involves his “hypocrisy” --- Senator Craig opposed same-sex marriage at the same time that he apparently pursued degrading gay behavior in his private life.

   But a simple thought experiment proves that the reprehensible nature of the Senator’s behavior hardly depends on his “hypocrisy” or his political stance. Imagine that he took the opposite position on gay marriage – and all other issues of interest to homosexuals, including extending civil rights and hate crimes “protections” on the basis of sexual orientation. Imagine, in short, that his position on social issues approximated the platform of Dennis Kucinich rather than the platform of Mike Huckabee.

  If this alternate-reality version of Senator Craig – an “enlightened” Senator with a 100% approval rating from the Human Rights Campaign – were to plead guilty for lewd behavior because of soliciting sex from an undercover cop in a Minnesota men’s room, would his behavior count as any more acceptable?

  While die-hard liberals might feel a greater instinct to excuse such conduct from a Democratic Senator who got busted in a bathroom, the public would no doubt express the same revulsion regarding the Solon’s conduct --- even if they didn’t get the chance to mock his plaintive insistence that “I’m not gay.”

  In other words, it’s the very nature of Craig’s behavior (with the Minnesota bust allegedly not the first time he’s engaged in such sleazy activity) that destroyed his career and his dignity –not the contrast between that behavior and his professed defense of the family.

  Consider the example of Oregon Senator Bob Packwood. Yes, he was a Republican, but he was strongly pro-abortion, and widely hailed as the most “enlightened” and “pro-feminist” GOP’er in the Senate. That didn’t help him when it became clear that he had manhandled literally dozens of female visitors to his office—the shame was so great that his career collapsed, even though no one had ever identified Packwood as a “family values” conservative.

   A closer examination of the entire Craig conundrum makes it clear that it’s soliciting sex in men’s rooms that’s inherently disgusting – irresponsible, anti-social, profoundly self-destructive behavior--regardless of the political or religious affiliations of the individual who engages in these practices.

   With this point in clear focus, it’s worth considering the left’s current attempt to discredit all conservatives – or at least all religious conservatives—by dwelling on Larry Craig’s disgrace.

  If the essence of his shame involves his behavior itself, rather than the political positions he may have taken, then the relevant question is: are religious conservatives as a group more likely than members of other groups to pursue (or defend) anonymous sex in bathrooms?

  The answer ought to be obvious. There are at the very least 50 million Americans who proudly identify themselves as “religious conservatives.” The percentage of these people who engage in cheap thrills in public toilets would be very, very small. The percentage of religious conservatives who would defend, or even glamorize, such conduct would be absolutely zero.

   For the sake of contrast, consider the gay male community. Of course, the great majority of homosexual men have never participated in sex acts in rest rooms. But it’s safe to say that the percentage of gay males who have accumulated such experiences would be vastly higher than in any other group in the population. Arrests of heterosexual males or females for public sex in toilets are virtually non-existent. Arrests of homosexual men for such degradation is, however, comparatively common ---creating a current and raging controversy, for instance, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, because of Mayor Naugle’s determination to halt the practice.

  Moreoever, some gay activists and artists even speak out in favor of toilet sex. British playwright Joe Orton proudly described his own participation in such encounters with strangers, and the acclaimed movie about his life (“Prick Up Your Ears”) featured lush, lavishly romantic scenes of homosexual embraces in filthy bathrooms.

   This brings us back to the question of using the Craig case to smear conservatives.

   If it’s the behavior itself, and not the hypocrisy, that makes the soon-to-be-former Idaho Senator disgusting, then only one group should feel discredited and ashamed over this means of “sexual expression”: the only segment of society that practices or justifies restroom encounters with strangers.

   It requires twisted logic indeed to try to use the appropriate public revulsion with this degeneracy to try to attack social conservatives as a movement, when they never condone, and very rarely practice, such sad and despicable behavior.

  Meanwhile, one can only hope that the unfortunate Larry Craig will ultimately seek and receive the help and healing he very obviously needs.

Mother Teresa – The Scandal of her Faith

 by Dr. Anthony Lilles
Academic Dean
St. John Vianney Theological Seminary
Denver, Colorado

Whenever someone harshly criticizes a great person, they usually reveal to us more about themselves and their own culture than they actually do about the person they think they understand. This is difficult not to see in Christopher Hitchens’s article, Teresa, Bright and Dark. Although a very intelligent critic of her life, this author betrays a misunderstanding of her faith in general and a bias against her community of faith in particular. Both his bias and his misunderstanding completely color his interpretation of her experience -- for him, she is as pathetic as the Church she promoted. This, however, was not what Mother Teresa saw or experienced in the Catholic Church. Instead, her letters show she entrusted the deepest searching of her heart to those in the Church whom she believed could help her remain faithful, even while she felt such faithfulness impossible. In so doing, she witnesses to dimensions of the Christian faith that contemporary thinkers cannot quite grasp, dimensions of faith our western culture needs to rediscover today more than ever.

Before providing alternative interpretation of her faith and of the Catholic Church, we note here that Hitchens not only has a bias against the Catholic Church and Mother Teresa's life of faith, he also has a peculiar notion of faith, one that reduces faith to some sort of dangerous hysteria. In all likelihood, such a view would be validated by many people who believe themselves to be religious but in fact are irrational. Pope Benedict attempted to address this last year in his address at Regensberg. With this religious irrationality, perhaps because of it, there is a contemporary prejudice that sees faith only in terms of an emotional experience, or else some kind of head trip. Hitchens's interpretation of Teresa's faith suggests that he too shares in this prejudice. Further investigation into his notion of faith would be required, however, before one could determine what exactly he thinks faith is. But whatever he thinks it is, it is not what Christians have in mind when they live out their faith.
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... Walter Jenkins, the aide Lyndon B. Johnson called "my vice president in charge of everything." Jenkins was arrested in October 1964 for having sex in the men's room of the Washington YMCA.

You know that when a campaign puts the words, “Yes, we’re serious” in a campaign e-mail, it’s gonna be good.

Mitt Romney’s create-your-own-ad contest is exactly the kind of online innovation I’ve been waiting for out of the Republican candidates for President. The winning ad gets a real, live media buy. In other words, supporters are co-creating something of actual value and importance to the campaign. That’s meaningful, and supporters get that.

Lots of user-generated content contests fail because the sponsor tries to create an incentive that exists only in the online parallel universe. Users sense the second-class treatment, and yawn. This is gutsier because they’re putting real dollars behind it (hopefully it won’t be just a phantom buy), and after MoveOn’s Hitler ads, the quintessential example of bad user generated content, it’s particularly bold.

The JumpCut platform will help the campaigns manage the flow, and give even average users the chance to edit a video. The production values and complexity of the winning video probably won’t match what the TV admakers can put together. But does it matter? Wasn’t the great thing about “The Pitch,” the best campaign video of 2004, the fact that it was understated — effectively a bunch of photos stitched together? (See if you can remember the narrator.)

Plus, as has been pointed out before with user-generated contests like this, the genius is not what happens with the winner, but how the also-rans take pride in their videos and spread them through their personal networks. This is a creative way to spread the Romney message with hundreds of small videos distributed throughout the Web.

I don’t know if Romney is anywhere close to Hillary Clinton’s one million e-mail addresses, but it’s creative stuff like this that shows me that Romney has the warewithal and creativity to catch up. It should be no surprise to anyone that I buy into the Trippi theory of insane Democratic competition on the Web redounding to the benefit of (probably) Hillary. The relevant bit starts at 2:15, but the crack right before about the GOP candidates and YouTube was depressingly (if temporarily) prescient:

I’ve had some issues with Romney, but his supporters are right to point out that his superior organization is a point in his favor when going up against the brutal Clinton machine. It’s something savvy Republican primary voters have a right to evaluate, and this year, the Web is going to be a huge component of that organization, because we will be outraised by $100 million or more if our campaigns only start thinking about building lists and engaging online on February 6th.

Kudos to Team Romney. Now let’s see the Rudy, Fred, et al. counter, and start a spiral of online competition that will make the eventual nominee stronger.

If you hate creepy-crawlies, you might want to avoid Lake Tawakoni State Park where a 200-yard stretch along a nature trail has been blanketed by a sprawling spider web that has engulfed seven large trees, dozens of bushes and even the weedy ground.

But if you hate mosquitoes, you might just love this bizarre web.

"At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland," said park superintendent Donna Garde. "Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs."

HH: Now General, yesterday, I don’t know if you’ve read Thomas P.M. Barnett’s The Pentagon’s New Map, but he comes on frequently, Pentagon strategist and briefer, and he said look, the Shia and the Sunni have just got to go at each other, there’s got to be a bloodletting, it’s Saudi Arabia versus Iran in Iraq, and we ought to get out of their way, and let the killing go until they’re tired of it. That’s kind of a fatalist and almost a nihilistic approach. What’s your reaction to that, General? 

JS: I don’t think that’s…I don’t think that’s necessary. My dealings with the Iraqi people here is that there are many, many well educated, reasonable, middle of the road people who want to come to a political settlement to the differences here between the different political parties, the different sects that are here in Iraq. And I do not believe there needs to be any kind of bloodbath in Iraq to solve inter-religious or inter-sect problems here in Iraq. 

From Christopher Hitchens (Dr. Barnett approvingly cited Hitchens' take on the three wars in Iraq):

HH: I know, we disagree. I want to get to the key, though, of Dr. Barnett’s argument, which is repeated a lot, which is only a diplomatic solution will work, and we’ve got to force Iran to come bargain with us and with the Saudis, who are representing the Sunni fundamentalist… 

CH: Yes. 

HH: Do you see any evidence that Iran wants to bargain with us on that kind of a grand scale to settle our differences and get about the partitioning of power in the Middle East? 

CH: No, I see no such evidence. I mean, I think that all the evidence is that the Iranian mullahs, for some insane reason of their own, hugely overestimating, I think, their own strength in a confrontation, are looking for a fight on several fronts, not just in Iraq, but in Lebanon, where they’ve been trying to detonate again a fragile but very defensible and very honorable non-sectarian government, in Syria, where they’re the insurance of the only remaining and very weak and discredited Baathist dictatorship, on the international front by sending death squads to commit acts of terrorism in foreign cities as far away as Argentina, and London, and of course, in the very grand overarching scheme of things, at the UN and at the European Union, not minding being caught flagrantly lying about every agreement they’ve ever signed on nuclear matters, quite extraordinary. They seem to be looking for a fight.  

HH: President Sarkozy said we are rapidly approaching, this week, either an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran. Do you agree with his assessment? 

CH: Well, I must say I think that the logic of that is very, very hard to impeach.  Yes, we’ve either got to say all right, we give it up, we give it up all over our attempts to negotiate with them, to bribe them, to give them inducements, to allow in proper inspections, to stop lying and cheating, that all of that, the whole wage of international law, this time run by the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Authority, not by the Defense Department or the CIA, by the way, in case that counts, that all of that’s worthless, that we simply allow an outlaw regime to acquire apocalyptic weapons when it displays a messianic ideology, an ideology of ultimate destruction, not just of Israel, but the whole world. Its leaders claim to believe that their messiah’s return is imminent. People like that shouldn’t have apocalyptic weaponry.  

HH: Would any attempt to do that, just to throw in the towel, yield any result appreciably different than what we got in ’37, ’38 and ’39, when we tried it with a different fascist regime? Would they be bought off, Christopher Hitchens? 

CH: No, it doesn’t seem to me that they do. I mean, look, these are people who have publicly, with really incredibly little protest, arrested four or five senior American citizens of Iranian descent, returning peacefully to their own country to have discussions, arrested them, framed them up, tortured them, forced confessions out of them on television, behaved in the most barbaric manner, with no cost. The Canadian-Iranian journalist, recently a woman was beaten to death in prison, and the Canadian government’s appeals to have the head of the Iranian Secret Police arrested when he traveled were met with no response at all. It’s outrageous that we don’t band together against this international gangster regime.  

And from Dr. Kimberly Kagan, who authored a just-published comprehensive assessment of Iran's actions in Iraq:

HH: I want to test a couple of theories off against both your researches and your experience when you were visiting Iraq, Dr. Kagan. I had Thomas P.M. Barnett on yesterday, and Dr. Barnett, of course, the author of The Pentagon’s New Map, is of a couple of opinions, one of which is that look, we’re in the middle of a conflict between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, and they’re going to have to go at it with each other, and there’s an inevitable clash here that’s going to cost hundreds of thousands of casualties, minimum, and it’s just got to happen, maybe we’d be best to get out of the way. Your assessment of that? 

KK: First of all, as a military historian, I would have to say that there’s no such thing as inevitability within a conflict. One of the things we learn about war is how much chance and decision making plays in the outcome of any particular diplomatic or military negotiation. That said, the point is that within Iraq, I think that we have a much more complicated situation, and the one thing I’m sure of is that U.S. forces were to withdraw prematurely, then we would see a rise in sectarian conflict, and a rise in regional intervention within the state of Iraq. And so I think actually that U.S. forces, working with the government of Iraq, are preventing rather than promoting conflict between Iraq and its neighbors. 

HH: Now let me ask you about Dr. Barnett’s second proposition, which is that George Bush has failed to do that which could have been done to bring Iran into serious peace negotiations. When I finished reading your piece today at the Weekly Standard, I concluded, as I had previous, there’s just no evidence that they want to genuinely negotiate with us. Am I wrong? 

KK: You are correct. The U.S. embassy within Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, have conducted diplomatic talks with the Iranians, both at the end of May, and also at the end of July. And although it is certainly worthwhile to engage in certain kinds of discussions to find out what Iranian aims are, it seems as though the Iranians have not actually admitted that they are supporting violent activities and militia groups within Iraq, despite the evidence that Ryan Crocker and others have presented to them. And so that really indicates that they do not seem to be willing to negotiate on this point, but rather are looking toward the diplomatic talks as some way of circumventing having a real discussion.  

Dr. Barnett wrote "the debate is getting so dysfunctional on our end: all name calling and cries of traitor if you discuss our options in anything less than totally unconditional terms (to be against Bush is to hate America and its military and be a surrender monkey)."  While the reverse of that sort of extreme and useless rhetoric certainly goes on in some precincts on the left, that isn't what is going on here, and I don't think I have seen any such charge laid against Dr. Barnett from any of the key analysts of the center-right.  I do think Dr. Barnett's recommendations concerning Iran and Iraq --his professional analysis-- looks like the appeasement policies of the 1930s towards Germany.  Those policies were not put forward by "traitors" or "surrender monkeys," but by profoundly wrong British patriots who raised their hopes above the evidence above them, and thought the sacrifice of various populations a necessary evil. 

It seems to me that the question President Sarkozy out forward --"an Iranian bomb or bombing Iran"-- is the key question of the next two years.  Keeping it front and center is the job of journalists.  The job of analysts is to persuade the government and influential policy makers of the right steps to take, and that persuasion often takes place through the media and those journalists interested in the question. Though Dr. Barnett has persuaded me of quite a lot in our past conversations, he is far from doing so on the questions of what to do next vis-a-vis Iraq and Iran. 

I hope he'll  be back next week to try again.  Off to the Lone Star State....