A lot of what Ezra Klein writes is too ponderous for me, a truly frightening thought considering he's like 7 years old. (OK, he's like 20, but still.) But here, he's both readable and spot-on:

When Santorum slips and blames emancipated wives, he's actually being the most honest of the bunch. The fundamentalist conception of marriage as a duty demanded by God made perfect sense when it was an obligation imposed by society. Back then, partners were chosen for you, reproduction was required (the upper class would divorce the infertile, the lower class often only married the already-pregnant), and women were locked into the union, lacking both property rights and job opportunities. By allowing childless unions, marriages for love, and female equality, we destroyed traditional marriages. Indeed, it's only once we had watered marriage down to a mere social codification of love that gays and lesbians could even think the institution applicable to them, much less attractive.

Dobson and friends are fighting against a symptom, at least Santorum is going after the root. And that's a much better debate to have. Because what they hate isn't homosexual equality, but the equality that's transformed marriage, the equality that includes women, prizes individual choice, and places limits on sexual determinism. They hate that marriage is now controlled by individuals rather than God, or as He was colloquially known, the Church. Marriage has been taken out of their hands and put into ours, control over it rests with both genders, its purpose and conventions are revised with each union. That's what scares them and, though they think it politically inadvisable, it's what they really want to talk about. We should encourage them.

Heavy stuff for the younger set. Thank goodness at least Kevin Drum is still blogging about Diet Coke.

Not against the Bush administration for asking them to protect the corrupt sources who outed Valerie Plame, oh heavens, no. No, the press is retaliating against the public, refusing to report stories by actual whistle-blowers because the Supreme Court wouldn't let them protect Karl Rove.

Doug Clifton, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, admits that his newspaper has two big stories based on documents leaked from whistle-blowers, but because Judy Miller is not above the law, they refuse to publish them.

"As I write this, two stories of profound importance languish in our hands," Clifton wrote. "The public would be well served to know them, but both are based on documents leaked to us by people who would face deep trouble for having leaked them. Publishing the stories would almost certainly lead to a leak investigation and the ultimate choice: talk or go to jail. Because talking isn't an option and jail is too high a price to pay, these two stories will go untold for now. How many more are out there?"

In other words, the Plain Dealer does not trust the courts to evaluate if the government absolutely must have the information to prosecute a major crime or uproot corruption in the government. Only The Press may decide that, and if frustrated in its desire to be the ultimate arbiter of all secret information, The Press will stop exposing corruption. That'll teach all you nobodies.

Is it worth pointing out that Ohio is the state currently having the biggest GOP corruption scandal, fueled by embarrassing disclosures as more documents keep coming out?

I think it is.

(Via Romenesko.)

Update: Though not from here (no trackback), TalkLeft has picked up this story.

Just heard on CNN (paraphrased):

President Bush and Air Force One will touch down shortly at Andrews AFB, as usual. From there, he will board his Marine One helicopter, and fly directly to the British Embassy in Washington DC, where he will sign the condolence book expressing sympathy for those killed and wounded in yesterday's attack.

Uh...President Bush was in LondonBritain at the time of the attacks. He expressed sympathy in person, both to the public and to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Does he think that it doesn't count unless he does it at home?