A couple of points from the National Review
Browsing through this month's National Review here at the library, I came across a couple of interesting points I hadn't thought of before in exactly that way.
The first one is of the "duh!" category: Valarie Plame wasn't an undercover operative, but in fact a mere analyst. David Corn- a close personal friend of Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson- blew a "cover" that didn't exist in the process of falsely accusing Robert Novak of blowing that same non-existent cover (Novak only described Plame- accurately- as an "operative;" the totally false "undercover" part was apparently Corn's own invention).
Not to worry, though; neither Corn nor Novak broke any laws. It isn't against the law to identify someone as simply a CIA employee- information about Plame which was (as Novak pointed out over and over again) available to anyone with access to a copy of Who's Who.
So tell me again: what was that whole Plamegate affair about, anyway... and why is Scooter Libby on trial?
BTW, that article Wilson, Plame's husband, wrote pooh-poohing Bush administration claims about Saddam Hussein's pursuit of yellow cake uranium in Niger was in fact inaccurate- the President's claim was, in fact, substantially accurate- and not exactly the damning indictment Wilson himself and the MSM would have us believe, and was replete with inaccurate statements and information (besides its denial of the administration's claims about Saddam's pursuit of yellowcake). Wilson's inquiry seems to have been extremely sloppy, haphazard, and superficial. Supposedly the Bush administration "outed" a CIA employee whose status as such was a matter of public record in retaliation for a sloppy and inaccurate article whose faults were serious enough to render it credible only to the most partisan opponents of the administration to begin with.
Well, the most partisan opponents of the administration and the MSM- as if that weren't redundant! Could Joe Wilson perhaps have an exaggerated notion of his own significance, and could the MSM be just a tad too eager to "get" the Bush administration for their own good? Irony fully intended in both these questions!
Second point: Those of us who are concerned that homosexuals (and others who are in close relationships with those to whom they are not blood relatives and to whom they cannot legally be married) be able to have those people extended the highest level of accessibility while visiting them in the hospital, inherit their money, be the beneficiaries of their insurance policies, and other such privileges which really ought to have more to do with emotional than legal relationships need not allow that concern to deter us from opposing gay "marriage" and domestic partnership relationships. There is a way of addressing those concerns which does not detract from the special legal status of marriage (heterosexual marriage, of course, is by definition the only kind there is; marriage is a pre-political institution which antedates the State, and which the State cannot redefine to suit its own purposes)which does not amount to legal encouragement of fornication (homosexual or heterosexual), and which rights similar injustices against people with altogether uncontroversial relationships (grandparents and grandchildren, for example, or close friends who are the only surviving loved ones of the elderly).
It is simply this: Allow such things, as a matter of law, to be settled by private contract without even getting into the matter of whether the two people in question are sleeping together, or presumed to be doing so.
In other words, extend such privileges on the bases of interpersonal significance, without even getting into the issue of whether or not a sexual relationship presumably exists.
It really isn't that hard- and it would accomplish the legitimate aims of domestic partnership arrangements without giving social sanction or legal standing to the relationships which occasion them. It would simply make the nature of the relationship a private matter, totally undefined by the law.
The first one is of the "duh!" category: Valarie Plame wasn't an undercover operative, but in fact a mere analyst. David Corn- a close personal friend of Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson- blew a "cover" that didn't exist in the process of falsely accusing Robert Novak of blowing that same non-existent cover (Novak only described Plame- accurately- as an "operative;" the totally false "undercover" part was apparently Corn's own invention).
Not to worry, though; neither Corn nor Novak broke any laws. It isn't against the law to identify someone as simply a CIA employee- information about Plame which was (as Novak pointed out over and over again) available to anyone with access to a copy of Who's Who.
So tell me again: what was that whole Plamegate affair about, anyway... and why is Scooter Libby on trial?
BTW, that article Wilson, Plame's husband, wrote pooh-poohing Bush administration claims about Saddam Hussein's pursuit of yellow cake uranium in Niger was in fact inaccurate- the President's claim was, in fact, substantially accurate- and not exactly the damning indictment Wilson himself and the MSM would have us believe, and was replete with inaccurate statements and information (besides its denial of the administration's claims about Saddam's pursuit of yellowcake). Wilson's inquiry seems to have been extremely sloppy, haphazard, and superficial. Supposedly the Bush administration "outed" a CIA employee whose status as such was a matter of public record in retaliation for a sloppy and inaccurate article whose faults were serious enough to render it credible only to the most partisan opponents of the administration to begin with.
Well, the most partisan opponents of the administration and the MSM- as if that weren't redundant! Could Joe Wilson perhaps have an exaggerated notion of his own significance, and could the MSM be just a tad too eager to "get" the Bush administration for their own good? Irony fully intended in both these questions!
Second point: Those of us who are concerned that homosexuals (and others who are in close relationships with those to whom they are not blood relatives and to whom they cannot legally be married) be able to have those people extended the highest level of accessibility while visiting them in the hospital, inherit their money, be the beneficiaries of their insurance policies, and other such privileges which really ought to have more to do with emotional than legal relationships need not allow that concern to deter us from opposing gay "marriage" and domestic partnership relationships. There is a way of addressing those concerns which does not detract from the special legal status of marriage (heterosexual marriage, of course, is by definition the only kind there is; marriage is a pre-political institution which antedates the State, and which the State cannot redefine to suit its own purposes)which does not amount to legal encouragement of fornication (homosexual or heterosexual), and which rights similar injustices against people with altogether uncontroversial relationships (grandparents and grandchildren, for example, or close friends who are the only surviving loved ones of the elderly).
It is simply this: Allow such things, as a matter of law, to be settled by private contract without even getting into the matter of whether the two people in question are sleeping together, or presumed to be doing so.
In other words, extend such privileges on the bases of interpersonal significance, without even getting into the issue of whether or not a sexual relationship presumably exists.
It really isn't that hard- and it would accomplish the legitimate aims of domestic partnership arrangements without giving social sanction or legal standing to the relationships which occasion them. It would simply make the nature of the relationship a private matter, totally undefined by the law.
Comments
Yet for some reason, you hardly ever hear the idea mentioned, and it never seems to gain traction. Sadly.