Tuesday Open Thread [1.14.14]

Joe Klein has what he says is the “Last Word” on Benghazi. Oh Joe. Conservatives are still talking about Vince Foster. So we will be talking about Benghazi in 2034.

[A] recent extensive report in the NY Times found no organized attempt by Al Qaeda to attack the consulate. And now we have this, from the latest budget deal:

Despite the concern over security after the 2012 attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, the spending bill earmarks less to embassy security, construction and maintenance than it allotted for fiscal 2013 — $2.67 billion, down by $224 million.

I mean, if the neoconservatives are so concerned about the safety of U.S. diplomats, why don’t they put their money where their mouths are?

James Chastek, a Catholic writer, talks about what it might have been like if the Theofascists actually won the Culture War.

Christians occasionally daydream about winning the culture over for Christ. But this would mean that belief in Christ would be policed and encouraged in the same way that our current cultural beliefs are: by manipulation of the levers of power to control spoils, intimidate dissent, and coin new taboo words and thoughtcrimes that can immediately condemn without argument and persuade without reason. Any teacher is impressed by the degree to which cultural doctrines are thoroughly and universally believed and flawlessly applied in all particular situations; and they are not merely mouthed by children who, though really skeptical of what they are saying, mouth the words anyway. They really believe all that stuff – they even see it as self-evident. Is that how I want someone to believe in Christ? Would I feel better if I could just silence dissent with a taboo word or the confidence that the thoughtcriminal would lose his job?

Indeed. It is not Christian to want to win the Culture War, for then you will never know if the people actually have faith and believe in Jesus or are only doing so because a fascist government is forcing them to.

Charlie Cook on whether Chris Christie was the frontrunner of the Republicans in 2016:

“Christie indeed sat at the top of some of the polls that lay out a long laundry list of every imaginable contender (as well as some who are harder to imagine), but does that make him the front-runner? I think not.”

“Think for a moment who makes up the Republican Party, and most specifically the part of the GOP base that dominates the presidential nomination process. Think about the people they seriously considered for their party’s presidential nomination last time around. Think Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich. Now, quickly, think Christie. Now think Sesame Street: ‘One of these things is not like the others; one of these things just doesn’t belong.’ It’s laughable that the party that has previously seriously considered some fairly inconceivable candidates as worthy of the GOP nomination would suddenly reverse course and head over to a center-right candidate such as Christie.”