Katherine R

Gay marriage, ctd.

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First, I may have been mistaken about Baker. The general counsel of the Massachusetts Bar Association thinks the ruling does not allow civil unions as a solution, via the NY Times: “The court essentially stayed its order for six months “to give the Legislature a chance to respond to regulation of same-gender marriage in terms … Read more

Gay marriage decision

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Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court has finally decided their gay marriage case. AP story here. The headline is somewhat misleading; they leave the remedy to the legislature with a 180 day deadline, much like the Baker court in Vermont. This is probably bad for Dean’s campaign. I don’t care. It’s the right thing to do, and … Read more

The Energy Bill

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Here is what my friendly neighborhood environmental lawyers have to say about the Energy Bill. At least it doesn’t include this provision. As far as I know. While I think liberal diagnoses of Bush as the “Worst. President Ever”* are exaggerated (or at least premature), my guess is he will have the worst environmental record … Read more

Spinmeister hat ON

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One of the Democrats’ main critiques of Bush’s foreign policy is “unilateralism.” I have a suggestion for a better word to use: isolation. Not isolationism, but isolation.

Three problems with “Unilateralism”:
1) It is technically not true, as a reporter can point out by asking “What about England”? Denouncing “bilateralism” doesn’t work as well.
2) It is very wonky sounding.
3) It will not automatically be regarded as bad–“We’re not letting the French be the boss of us.”

Instead, you phrase it in these terms:

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Sometimes the best defense is a good defense

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Esteemed co-blogger von just wrote: “We know the Bush plan: all offense, all defense, all the time.” I disagree. If anything, I’d characterize it as “all offense, no defense.” The administration has consistently neglected ways of protecting us from terrorism that do much more, in the short run, to keep us safe than invading Iraq–that … Read more

Clark on Rwanda

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As a follow up to my post Saturday about the Democrats and genocide, I’ve found some quotes from Clark. From the Meet the Press transcript that von just linked to: “But I’d been on the Joint Staff, Tim, when we sat by and we let happen the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda, hacked to … Read more

Young people today

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Two unrelated items: 1. This young marine and adopted New Yorker is just a wonderful writer. Read it. 2. I watched Howard Dean’s speech at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner last night (right after they auctioned off Tom Harkin’s tie and passed around buckets to raise money–politics is so unbelievably hokey sometimes.) It was a slightly … Read more

Identity Crisis

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to prove I can write a short post: According to this survey, I am Charles Kennedy. My British relative approves. According to this one, I am “red” Ken Livingstone, which he says is “all right, if you don’t mind being completely f—— insane.” According to this, I write like a man. (It’s not close, either.) … Read more

Another cheery topic

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There’s an interesting interview with the director of Amnesty International in Salon today. It’s mainly a critique of the anti-war movement (or at least its most visible members). But rather than start Iraq Debate Round 8072 I want to discuss these lines from the interview: “Certainly I have argued within Amnesty that in the face … Read more

Selective Prosecution

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This is ridiculous. The Justice Department is prosecuting Greenpeace for boarding a ship to protest illegal trade of mahogany. What Greenpeace did was illegal, and they were arrested by the Coast Guard, as is routine in a non-violent civil disobedience protest like this one. What is not routine is that: 1) the Justice department is … Read more

from the left…

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Hi. I’m Katherine , host #2. The liberal one. I try not to froth at the mouth, and to paraphrase my mother, I don’t hate Bush, I just hate the way he’s acting. I’ve been volunteering for the Howard Dean campaign on and off since last March, which should give an idea of both my … Read more