More moral clarity from the right fringe

Another little gem courtesy of Roger Ailes, who now joins the blogroll: Wesley Puden, the Rev. Mr. Moon’s tame editor, has some thoughts on the sodomy case now before the Supreme Court, and about a British move to create a legal marriage-substitute available to gay couples. Roger wonders how Andrew Sullivan, with his sharp nose for anything that looks like gay-baiting on the left, feels about writing for a paper whose editor compares his love life to that of people who do it with sheep?

But this raises a broader question. The Washington Times is more or less the official newspaper of Republican Washington, used for Administration leaks, spin, and trial balloons, and actively praised by Republican officials. It’s edited by a bunch of bigots (Robert Stacy McCain, the assistant national editor, is a member of the neo-Confederate League of the South) and owned by a convicted felon with close ties to a foreign intelligence service. Is this really a tolerable situation? Will no Republican speak out against it? And if not, isn’t it time for Democrats to start to make a fuss about it?

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com