Brian Beutler alterts me to Jonah Goldberg’s curious proclamation that “realism, properly understood, demands that we pay some respect to the idea of promoting democracy.” Interested to find out what Jonah meant, I clicked through and found:

Andy may not have liked all of the democracy-mongering in defense of the Iraq invasion, but the case for regime change would be beyond impossible without appeals to America’s sense of decency and, yes, mission. There’s a lot of unrealistic realism on display out there when people talk about how we should have — and could have — destroyed the Saddam regime and then walked away. It’s a seductive position, but I have a hard time seeing America or Congress supporting that or being able to stay on the sidelines as America-induced chaos took-over in post-Saddam Iraq.

Now it’s probably true that it would have been politically unrealistic to try to sell the war in pure realist terms, but it’s also true that that’s now what “realism” means in this context. In foreign policy terms “realism” isn’t just an adjective meaning the same thing as “practical,” it’s a school of thought with defined tenets including, notably, the view that the internal political organization of states is irrelevant to international relations.

You’ve probably read this on some other blog already by now, but it seems Harry Reid has decided to further raise the stakes in the Iraq standoff. The structure of the situation is that the Senate was slated to consider the authorization bill for the Defense Department. Democrats want to attach an amendment to the bill that would provide a framework for withdrawal from Iraq. The GOP is using the filibuster to prevent a vote on this amendment. Now Reid is saying that he’s going to pull the whole Pentagon authorization bill from the floor and just move on to other subjects unless the Republicans allow a vote.

It’s worth keeping in mind that even if the GOP backs down eventually and an amended bill passes congress, Bush is likely to simply do what he did with the war supplemental — veto the bill and then accuse the Democrats of refusing to fund “the troops” unless they pass an un-amended bill. To make a long story short, the country is still many, many Republican defections away from a point where congress will be able to end the war without the cooperation of a less stubborn president.

Sometimes I think we might need to keep abstinence-only sex education around just for the sake of the hilarious analogies. Ann Friedman brings us the news of the comically named Eric Love of the East Texas Abstinence Program. The New York Times explains that he runs a Virginity Rules program (and, indeed, it’s almost as fun as sex) which includes the following delightful analogy:

To make the point, Mr. Love grabbed a tape dispenser and snapped off two fresh pieces. He slapped them to his filing cabinet and the floor; they trapped dirt, lint, a small metal bolt. “Now when it comes time for them to get married, the marriage pulls apart so easily,” he said, trying to unite the grimy strips. “Why? Because they gave the stickiness away.”

By the same token, if gay tape comes to live in your house all the rest of the tape will suddenly lose its adhesive properties. That’s why even though there are gay bars, there’s no such thing as a gay tape shop. Everyone understands that we need to preserve the sanctity of tape.

Photo by Flickr user RileyRoxx used under a Creative Commons license