Glenn Beck and Fox and John Birch

The state of political discourse.  Noting here that this man’s viewer ratings have gone very high very rapidly.

Quote of the day – “Christians over the edge” category

From Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council on the Vermont state legislature’s vote to overturn the governor’s veto on same-sex marriage…

“Same-sex ‘marriage’ is a movement driven by wealthy homosexual activists and a liberal elite determined to destroy not only the institution of marriage, but democracy as well. Time and again, we see when citizens have the opportunity to vote at the ballot box, they consistently opt to support traditional marriage,” said Perkins.

“The vote today by the D.C. City Council was a direct affront to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The radical Left wants to destroy the traditional union of one man and one woman across the country and they will not rest until they do so.

This isn’t merely homophobic, though it certainly is that.  It demonstrates a seriously paranoid vision of the motivations and goals of people who think differently from Perkins.  But it’s also philosophically incoherent.  The duly-elected members of the legislature of Vermont had overwhelmingly passed this bill, then the governor vetoed it, and then that veto was overridden by the legislature.  So who is functioning so as to “overturn democracy” here?

Update: the DC city council today voted unanimously to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.

We expect Perkins will allude to this End of Days sign.

Torture

Part two of Mark Danner’s extraordinary commentary on the Red Cross torture report

New York Review of Books

This got me crying

Introduced by Andrew Sullivan as follows:

There is, mercifully, more to humanity than Cheney’s sadism and panic. From Antwerp’s rail station, take it away, Julie Andrews!

Once again, thank you Andrew.