As long as Obama approves of drone strikes on American citizens, it's OK

Greg Sargent:

Depressingly, Democrats approve of the drone strikes on American citizens by 58-33, and even liberals approve of them, 55-35. Those numbers were provided to me by the Post polling team.

It’s hard to imagine that Dems and liberals would approve of such policies in quite these numbers if they had been authored by George W. Bush.

That's right. I've already written about my angst about President Obama and the way he's gone against my hopes and expectations, where civil liberties are concerned. But Sargent is right: If George W. Bush was commanding drones to assassinate American citizens, the left would be up in arms. But somebody from our tribe is pulling the trigger now, so no big thing, right?

If you trust Obama with that power, liberals, understand: Eventually there will be another Republican president. Maybe not in 2012. But it will happen. Will you trust that president—Rick Santorum, say, or Paul Ryan—to use that power in a way that you also trust? And if not, how do you craft a reasonable rule that gives Obama the go-ahead while leashing President Bachmann? It's probably not possible. If you roll over for Obama, you'll have little standing to complain a few years from now. I certainly won't want to hear it.

Hello, there, reader in Washington D.C.!

Checking my traffic logs, I can't help but notice that somebody in Washington D.C. is apparently going through my archives quite a bit over the last 12 hours.

A sample:

This, of course, makes me feel quite curious. If you're my D.C. reader, feel free to drop me a line!

E-books are not the end of democracy

Ben and I use this week's Scripps Howard column to consider recent comments by novelist Jonathan Franzen. Do e-books signal the end of democracy? My take.

Last year, I read "The Federalist Papers" for the first time. The book is a collection of 200-year-old newspaper essays from Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison -- Founding Fathers all -- explaining and defending the Constitution of the United States. I read almost none of it on paper.

Instead, I read the venerable document on these devices: a netbook, an iPhone, my iPad, a desktop computer and a Kindle. I took notes and made highlights, and many of the ideas I discovered and engaged in that book, on those devices, later became the basis for points I make in this weekly column.

According to Franzen, though, my experience is impossible. According to Franzen, I should've opted to use those devices to play "Angry Birds" instead.

When new technologies come along, old technologies are replaced. It's true that sometimes we lose something of value as a result. I've been an avid reader since I learned how to read; I love bookstores and I love having shelves of books. It makes me sad to see stores like Borders go out of business because times have changed.

Here's another truth: The rise of e-books has opened up worlds of opportunity for writers whose work didn't fit the templates of old-school publishers. A friend of mine, Justin Blessinger, self-published a comic novella at Amazon, because print publishers don't have much use for novellas. More famously, writer Amanda Hocking got rich selling her fantasy novels as e-books -- and only then was signed to a major publisher. Similar stories abound: Publishing has become more egalitarian, and democratic, thanks to e-books.

The Founders didn't need books, exactly, to break away from Britain and create the Constitution -- they needed the ideas contained in those books. E-books are just a new way to create and pass down those ideas.

They're doing the job quite well

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I tried to avoid utopian-type talk in my take; Ben gives in to his dystopian side, basically suggesting us e-book readers will rue our proclivities when the revolution comes and electricity is denied the masses. Less darkly, he also notes that cloud-based reading puts readers at the mercy of the cloud providers. A good objection. Not, at this point, a fatal one for me.

Christine Flowers' confused take on child rape

The Daily News columnist takes it to a new level today, trying to find an avenue through which she can praise the now-late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua while also coming to terms with two grand jury reports that suggest he covered up expansive child sex abuse by priests under his command. Here's the weirdest part of a weird column:

The truth is, Anthony Bevilacqua was no saint. If the grand-jury allegations are true and he transferred known sex offenders to other parishes instead of notifying the police that crimes were occurring on his watch, his conduct was criminal.

Stop right there, Christine, that's great. No need to elabora—

And yet, perhaps it was his sense of propriety - and redemption - that led him to shuffle priests as if they were chess pieces, believing that the interest of the church, the priests and the alleged victims would be better served by silence. It's a concept that doesn't carry much weight in a society that now rewards shouts and exhibitionists, and calls anything less than full exposure a "cover-up."

Oh, hell.

Maybe Bevilacqua really did believe that stuff. It does not redound to his credit.

The idea that child rape should be reported, so that authorities can prosecute it, is not the product of reality-show television culture—is not a sign that our society has become frivolous and flighty. It's an idea born of the idea that children are innocent, deserve our protection, and that forcing sex on them—or on anybody, child or not—is a criminal act, among the very worst acts it is possible to commit.

Child rape is against the law. It is also a sin.

There is nothing honorable about shielding priests from prosecution. There is nothing honorable about putting families at risk—families that rely on your authority and guidance!—in order to protect the interests of the church. And if a "sense of propriety" kept Bevilacqua from taking other, better, actions, then that "sense of propriety" was twisted into a criminal—evil—series of actions.

Flowers is so eager to stick it to liberals that she is sometimes incapable of simply calling a wrong thing wrong. She makes excuses for the cover-up of child rape. How sad. How wrong. So let's be clear: Anthony Bevilacqua died a disgraced man. That disgrace was well-deserved.

School choice, Catholic schools, gay parents, and Archbishop Chaput

I meant to make mention of Ronnie Polanecsky's excellent column yesterday in the Daily News, pointing out that while Archbishop Charles Chaput is pushing for a state law that would, essentially, direct taxpayer money to Philadelphia's Catholic schools, his subordinates are also making it virtually impossible for Catholic families to choose which Catholic school they want to attend. His notion of "school choice" then, is one in which the church gets to choose—not you.

Since Chaput seems to be putting his muscle behind this effort, though, I feel it's important to point out something: Chaput was the archbishop in Denver when a Catholic school there rejected a student because that student had two mommies.

Now: I don't like that, but that's certainly the right of a church-affiliated private school.

But I also don't really want my tax dollars to subsidize discrimination against my gay neighbors, either.

If Chaput can promise that Catholic schools will take any student—basically, if Catholic schools will take any student that public schools take, and respect their rights to conscience like any public school would—I might sign on to his efforts: I wouldn't mind have some options beyond Philadelphia's public schools. But I don't think Chaput can or will do so—Catholic organizations are increasingly abandoning public service rather than have to serve or recognize the rights of gays. I don't begrudge them that choice: They have to obey their own consciences. I don't choose, however, to subsidize the Catholic conscience with public money.

The Inquirer's weird obit for Cardinal Bevilacqua

Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua died Tuesday night. I arrived in Philadelphia in 2008, after he'd retired, yet his name has been regularly in the news the entire time I've been here. Why? Because he was running the archdiocese when it apparently kept a lid on child molestation accusation. As the Philadelphia Inquirer's obit notes, "In September 2005, after a 40-month grand jury investigation into clergy sex abuse in the archdiocese, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office issued a report excoriating Cardinals Bevilacqua and Krol for systematically allowing hundreds of abuser priests to go unpunished and ignoring the victims."

But aside from an oblique reference to governing the archdiocese during a time of "crisis," the Inquirer's obit doesn't explicitly reference the sex abuse scandal until the 12th paragraph.

It's an odd choice. But to be fair, it appears to be one that the Inquirer makes regularly: It's recent news story announcing Joe Paterno's death made no direct reference to the Jerry Sandusky scandal until the sixth paragraph.

Whenever a public figure endures a major scandal, it's often said of him: "Well he did a lot of good things, but his role in Watergate will always be in the first paragraph of his obituary." It's perhaps unfortunate for Richard Nixon that he didn't die in Philadelphia—his resignation might've been omitted entirely from the Inquirer's obit.

In defense of Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney may indeed have unkind feelings about America's poor, but I don't think this quote is proof of that:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Romney told CNN. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

This isn't a "screw the poor" moment. Romney is clearly saying that the safety net has covered the poor, so he wants to focus on getting the middle class moving again. It may be awkwardly phrased, but it's actually a pretty Clintonesque formulation.

Now: It's not been so long since Romney's campaign had great fun taking a quote from President Obama wildly out of context, so if this new quote dogs him in the campaign, it'll be hard to be sympathetic. But an honest evaluation of his comments doesn't really come out quite as anti-poor as it initially seems.