While I’ve been away I’ve seen how the story of Kim Davis, the county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, has become the news of the moment, a sort of comical afterbirth to this summer’s historic Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality. The Christian right lauds her as a martyr to religious liberty while the pro-LGBT rights community lambastes her as hypocrite who is herself on her fourth marriage. For myself, I have a hard time taking either line very seriously because Davis’s argument, claim, hill to die on or whatever is so absurd it simply lacks the drama to mean anything more than a solitary ignoramus who will soon be crashed on the rocks of her own ridiculousness.
Last fall I was walking along a Long Island Sound beach with my eight-year old son looking at driftwood. He asked me if we could collect some driftwood to build something with. This was the latest in a series of weeklong summer hobbies. A bit earlier it had been stone working, which had led to several stone chisels still sitting in the garage. But as we were talking something began to take hold of me. We talked about building a model boat. And then, as we talked this over father and son, something turned in my head and I asked myself: if we could build a toy boat maybe we could build a real boat? Nothing grand, mind you. Just something – anything – that could keep a father and son afloat on the water.
The concept is not that complicated. The simplest boat can be not much more than a rectangular box, open on the top, with just a little bit of curve to it to help it move on the water. How hard could it be?
Read MoreA great read on the macho world of “tactical training instructors,” who for a nice fee purport to train, berate, and bullshit you into taking on terrorists and other active shooters on your own.
Tennessee state judge throws equivalent of temper tantrum over Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision: claims he can’t grant divorces any more because it’s not clear what marriage even is.
I take a backseat to no one in thinking Donald Trump is an ignoramus and a buffoon. But the Times, having repeatedly stumbled in its coverage of the Iran deal and politicized foreign policy, should do better than to take Hugh Hewitt’s word for it in judging foreign policy reality. I mean, really? Trump stumbled when he apparently thought Hewitt was referring to the Kurds when he asked him about the Iranian Quds Force and its commander Qasem Soleimani. In isolation, the two words can be easy to mishear. But in context, this tells us what we know, which is that Trump knows virtually nothing about anything happening in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Fiorina gets the Times seal of approval because she’s been tutored in the kind of Movement Conservative bromides Hewitt is tasked to enforce.
The best of the parody Twitter account from “inside” Kentucky clerk Kim Davis’ office.
Smart way to put it, from Steve Schmidt, McCain’s top guy in 2008:
Hugh Hewitt ambushes Trump with foreign policy questions. Trump calls them “gotcha questions.”
Rowan County, Kentucky, issues first same-sex marriage license while defiant clerk languishes in jail.
The contempt proceedings are still underway in Kentucky, but it appears that most of the deputy clerks in Kim Davis’ office have told the judge they will issue same sex marriage licenses. Here’s the latest.