First Thoughts: Prop 8 may stand

[updated with links]
The Los Angeles Times has read the tea leaves from today's oral arguments before the California Supreme Court. The reporters' conclusion is that the justices appear ready to uphold the ban on same-sex marriage, at the same time that they may also allow the 18,000 couples who married before Prop 8 passed to stay married.

After all of today's breathless live blogging and Twittering on the hearing, however, no one will know anything for certain until the court issues its ruling. That may take up to 90 days.

Stay tuned.
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Andrew Sullivan provided a list of links to a range of blogger thoughts on the day's events.

Iraq: "A war of imperial conquest gone bad"

By Diane Silver

Former Los Angeles Times Baghdad Bureau Chief Borzou Daragahi says he doubts the surge will work. His comments in an upcoming C-Span interview paint a portrait of a disastrous war.

(W)hat it’s turned into in the eyes of many people in the Middle East is a war of imperial conquest gone bad, done poorly. At least the Romans granted their captives citizenship and brought them into the fold and brought stability to the lands that they conquered.

And I think, in the Arab world – and this is a really disastrous thing, they basically view this is as, you know, the Americans came in and they destroyed an Arab country. And I don’t think they’ll ever forgive us for that...

Iraqis are rather hostile and feel humiliated. And that's the key thing that maybe some of our policymakers don't understand. The presence of the U.S. soldiers is very humiliating to the Iraqis. "

Once again: Think about how you would feel if a foreign country invaded the United States and occupied, oh, say Kansas or New York of Ohio for four years. Would you want to be occupied?