Here’s some encouraging news, from a Web site that monitors Iran’s democratic opposition:

“Reports from across Iran are stating about the massive welcoming of President George W. Bush’s inaugural speech and his promise of helping to bring down the last outposts of tyranny. Millions of Iranians have been reported as having stayed home, on Thursday night which is their usual W. end and outgoing night, in order to see or hear the Presidential speech and the comments made by the Los Angeles based Iranian satellite TV and radio networks, such as, NITV or KRSI. The speech and its package of hope have been, since late yesterday night and this morning, the main topics of most Iranians’ conversations during their familial and friendly gatherings, in the collective taxis and buses, as well as, among groups of young Iranians who gather outside the cities on the Fridays. Many were seen showing the ‘V’ sign or their raised fists. Talks were focused on steps that need to be taken in order to use the first time ever favorable International condition.”

My own view is that a successful democracy in Iraq, and more speeches like the inaugural, may be just as effective as military threats in the next few years in bringing the mullahs to heel.

The Circle Closes

The somewhat hideous sight of Jewish cultural critics rhapsodizing about the brilliance of Mel Gibson’s pornographic “Passion” was perhaps merely the logical consequence of the degeneration of the American right. But this piece strikes me as a new nadir. Money quotes from right-wing Rabbi Daniel Lapin:

“You’d have to be a recent immigrant from Outer Mongolia not to know of the role that people with Jewish names play in the coarsening of our culture. Almost every American knows this. It is just that most gentiles are too polite to mention it … The sad fact is that through Jewish actors, playwrights, and producers, the Berlin stage of Weimar Germany linked Jews and deviant sexuality in all its sordid manifestations just as surely as Broadway does today. Much of the filth in American entertainment today parallels that of Germany between the wars.”

Yes, the man knows these were the exact sentiments expressed by Adolf Hitler. He even quotes the Fuhrer. He simply believes that Hitler had a point. When Jews peddle filth, they’re asking for it. The piece of entartete Kunst [i.e., degenerate art] that Rabbi Lapin is repelled by? “Meet the Fockers.” I kid you not.

Spellings and Buster

I didn’t really take Margaret Spellings’s attack on PBS’s Buster very seriously at first. But the more you read about it, the more egregious it is. The series in question takes the bunny Buster across many states and introduces him to many different types of families and backgrounds. From the New York Times yesterday:

“One episode featured a family with five children, living in a trailer in Virginia, all sharing one room. In another, Buster visits a Mormon family in Utah. He has dropped in on fundamentalist Christians and Muslims as well as American Indians and Hmong. He has shown the lives of children who have only one parent, and those who live with grandparents.”

This strikes me as pretty diverse – and certainly exposes children to situations that are not the nuclear family. So why is it okay to present a single parent or no parents but not two gay parents? If Mormons are portrayed, why not gays? Why should young children be exposed to the tenets of Christian fundamentalism but not even learn a simple fact about life in Vermont? The lesbian couple are not front and center in the piece; they are background. They are Americans. And, according to the Bush administration, they must be airbrushed out of the country. Not a good sign.

Alberto Gonzales On What ‘Humane’ Means

More details from Alberto Gonzales’s written responses to the Senate. Human rights lawyer Marty Lederman is on the case. Here’s my favorite part of Mr. Lederman’s analysis:

“I’ve wondered how Secretary Rumsfeld, General Counsel Haynes, and other high-ranking DoD officials could have determined – as they did – that techniques such as waterboarding, forced nudity, threatening the death of family members, use of dogs to induce stress, etc., could possibly be lawful in light of (i) the Uniform Code of Military Justice; (ii) the prohibition in Article 16 of the Convention on Torture against cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and (iii) the President’s February 2002 directive that the Armed Forces treat all detainees ‘humanely.’

Well, we still don’t know why the UCMJ doesn’t apply. But we learned from Judge Gonzales’s earlier responses that the administration does not think Article 16 applies in American facilities overseas (such as Guantanamo). And now we learn why the president’s “humaneness” directive is no obstacle to the use of such grotesque techniques. Judge Gonzales writes that “the term ‘humanely’ has no precise legal definition,” but that, “[a]s a policy matter, I would define humane treatment as a basic level of decent treatment that includes such things as food, shelter, clothing and medical care. I understand that the United States is providing this level of treatment for all detainees.”

So “humane” care can also mean near drowning, use of electric shocks, beating to a pulp, hooding, and rape – as long as the victim has shelter, food, clothing, and medical care. Well, scratch the clothing. We keep our prisoners naked these days. And the medical care is often needed just to keep the prisoners from dying at the hands of American soldiers. Alas, that didn’t stop over 30 inmates across the war theater from expiring in suspicious circumstances. Anyway, it’s just a useful definition of “compassionate conservatism.” Pummel someone’s head in and then hang him from the ceiling. Just give him a sandwich later.

Mr. Sullivan writes every day for www.andrewsullivan.com.