Things I Agree With

First: Barack Obama is one classy guy. It's been a while since I've read such a sincere-seeming put-down.

Second: surprise surprise, there's actually a good piece on the Gonzalez hearings in the NYT. The title is the typical sort of "balanced" trash, but the content is actually quite good. To summarize, there is no conflict between the FISA law and the 2001 Congressional authorization to fight Al Quaeda. FISA stands because the 2001 resolution did not specifically repeal it. This is all a smokescreen, anyway. Bush asked for Congress to amend FISA in the Patriot Act and they said no, so how can he claim now that the 2001 "war" resolution authorized it? What a liar.

Third: I've been avoiding entry into the Muhammad Cartoon Imbroglio of 2006. Some of the conservative blogs have been surprisingly reasonable about the whole thing, which is kind of funny because I'm sort of unreasonable. Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff has it exactly right - those people have a lot of nerve to protest against intolerance when they are busy oppressing their own minorities. No I don't think the cartoons were funny, but in a diverse society we are going to have to live with people saying stupid and tasteless things. We must be willing to overcome our own offense.

Frankly I wish more people would recognize how little separates intolerant fundamentalists in the Muslim world with those we have at home. Have you noticed how quick the religious right in America is to scream "intolerance" or "oppression of Christianity" while at the same time they are eager to impose their views on others? They have no principled adherence to tolerance. They use the word as a rhetorical device when they only ideas they want "tolerated" are their own.

Imagine, if you will, what would happen in the United States if someone made similar cartoons about Jesus. And then tell me how free we are.