Article VI Blog

This morning at First Things‘ “On The Square” blog, editor Joe Carter attempted to use his recent reading of William F. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale” to excoriate the current state of the conservative movement.  Before I launch into my critique, I must first plead guilty to Carter’s initial charge that few have read the book – I have not.  I will work very hard here to limit my critique to Carter’s post and not the underlying book.  I have today ordered the book and you can rest assured it will move to the top of the reading list when it arrives.

I want to address Carter’s comment on three levels:

There is a big difference between the university and the conservative political movement.

Carter seems to think that arguments Buckley applied to Yale University somehow apply with equal force and reason to a political movement:

God and Man is a polemic with a simple, inflammatory proposal: Because Yale actively undermines the students’ faith in Christianity and the free market, the alumni should withhold financial support from the university. The corollary was obvious: Yale should do something about these professors.

[...]

How remarkable that the thesis of a book that helped launch the conservative movement could, less than half a century later, be completely repudiated by people who claim to be the author’s intellectual heirs. But that is not quite true. It would be more accurate to say that they repudiated only part of it. They’ve foolishly discarded Buckley’s emphasis on Christianity but retained, as they should, his love of free enterprise.

A university is intended to be both an educational and an ideological institution.  One reason universities are founded is to preserve and expand an ideology, and in some cases a religion.  Our government is designed to be without inherent ideology, and it certainly is not purposed to preserve any particular ideology or faith.   It is intended instead to be the battlefield on which ideologies compete and to preserve the rules of that battle so that it does not result in the abuses and failings that the Founders had seen in the colonial era.  Our nation is an experiment to find out if those of differing ideologies can exist as a nation and have that nation continue to function well.

One cannot simply assume the same roles and purposes for a university and our government.  That our government did, for a lengthy period of time, serve to preserve and promote a specific Christian ideology is a function not of the government itself, but of the citizenry it serves.  The fact of the matter is that the specific Christian ideology that the government did preserve for all those years won, over and over, the battle the government was designed to host.  Simply put, most Americans subscribed to the Christian ideology that the government preserved and promoted.  They also managed to apply pressure by many means – some of which Carter rightly names – to their ideological opponents not to fight back

That simply is no longer the case.  Polling shows that most people still claim an adherence to Christianity in one form or another, but what it means to be Christian has grown expansive and those that do not claim to be have become increasingly adept at fighting on the governmental battlefield.  Which brings me to the second level I want to address.

The failures of faith that Carter rightly points out are better laid at the feet of the church than at a political movement.

Carter seemingly makes this point himself:

Buckley understood that Truth not only does not always trump falsehood, but it can never win unless it is promulgated.

Indeed, Christianity must be promulgated, over and over and over again – but that is not, nor was it ever, the job of government.  Such promulgation is, however, the job of the church and the university that Buckley was battling for in his book.  The fact that Christianity’s authority in public debate has waned so lays at the feet of the church failing to maintain it as the prevailing ideology of the land.

The church has done so in many ways, and this blog is not the appropriate place for me to air my many criticisms of how the Christian church generally has abandoned its duties in this age.  However, among those abandonments is the large scale abandonment of responsibility for education.  My own alma mater gave up its church foundations many decades before I attended – Why did the church let that happen?

Politics, the necessary first step of governance in our nation, demands the building of a coalition sufficiently large to prevail at the polls.  If that coalition is to be exclusively, or even predominantly, of the Christian ideology then it is up to the church and its many arms like the university to see to it that there are enough people holding that ideology to constitute a majority.  The fact that such a majority cannot be pulled together now means the church has fallen down on that job.

The question becomes what to do in light of the current political realities.  You see, the fact is that as our ideological opponents continue to get better at the battle, they are using their increasing political power to remove our opportunities to even enter into the debate.  Whereas we historically applied pressure in many social and educational ways to suppress opposition, they appear unafraid to use the power of law to completely eliminate opposition.  If those in politics and governance that adhere to our Christian ideology must remain meek about that ideology in order to build the necessary coalitions, then so they must to even have the opportunity to preserve our ability to fight back.

But those in politics and governance should not be fighting alone.  As they fight to preserve our access to the battleground, we should be working to promulgate our Christian ideology – different fronts and varied battle plans, but the same war.  They can only do their job if we do ours.

Veiling personal attacks makes them no less personal.

Finally, Carter’s previously quoted sentence:

How remarkable that the thesis of a book that helped launch the conservative movement could, less than half a century later, be completely repudiated by people who claim to be the author’s intellectual heirs.

cannot be interpreted as anything else than a direct swipe at the good people of National Review – the magazine started by Buckley.  The magazine is known for its fiscal conservatism, but its faith is equally apparent.  It is ironic that Carter’s post appeared on the same day as NRO editor Kathryn Jean Lopez’s “God and Women at Harvard” appeared at that site.  K-Lo’s interview with a female Harvard grad entering a convent is quite spiritually uplifting and does not in any way shy from being a bold pronouncement of faith.

Carter comes dangerously close to calling into the question the genuineness of the faith of those at NRO and those that agree with them.   What political issues one considers most important and the political strategies one employs to carry the day simply is a not a measure  of one’s commitment to his or her religion – any more than it would be reasonable to say that the Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl under Tony Dungy because of his very vocal commitment to his faith while they lost under Jim Caldwell because he was not so loud about his.

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Peggy Noonan pens an insightful piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning at the end of a week when our government has crammed enormous amounts of nonsense down our throats against our will:

The biggest political change in my lifetime is that Americans no longer assume that their children will have it better than they did. This is a huge break with the past, with assumptions and traditions that shaped us.

The country I was born into was a country that had existed steadily, for almost two centuries, as a nation in which everyone thought—wherever they were from, whatever their circumstances—that their children would have better lives than they did. That was what kept people pulling their boots on in the morning after the first weary pause: My kids will have it better. They’ll be richer or more educated, they’ll have a better job or a better house, they’ll take a step up in terms of rank, class or status. America always claimed to be, and meant to be, a nation that made little of class. But America is human. “The richest family in town,” they said, admiringly. Read Booth Tarkington on turn-of-the-last-century Indiana. It’s all about trying to rise.

[...]

When the adults of a great nation feel long-term pessimism, it only makes matters worse when those in authority take actions that reveal their detachment from the concerns—even from the essential nature—of their fellow citizens. And it makes those citizens feel powerless.

Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combination.

Th whole piece is fascinating, you should read the whole thing.  It set me wondering if the huge increase in people staying with their parents well past the age where my generation did is not evidence of same.  Frankly, I don’t blame the kids, but I have always wondered why the parents make it so easy on them.  But this piece I think explains it – parents no longer think they are releasing their kids into something good.  The parents no longer have faith that if they let the kids go, the failure will be small and the success big.  Hence the kids stay in the basement and play video games well into their 20’s and even their 30’s.

But here is the real insight that I had while reading this – government has never been the source of hope in this nation – the lack of it has.  More specifically the freedom of religion that we have enjoyed has provided hope unlike any other place on earth or time in history.  There is nothing I know of that can provide hope in people save a sense that there is an Almighty in control.  Part of the great American civic religion is that while we disagree on the specifics of the Almighty, we know there is one and that He has our destiny well in hand.

And yet, we live in an age when our courts tell us that religion causes harm.  We live in an age where expressions of that hope when rooted in the Almighty are forbidden from public view.  And worst of all, those of us that share a sense of a benevolent and hope-inducing Almighty turn on each other in our civil debates because in the pessimism and powerlessness that we feel, we feel that we must fight someone – and in doing so we only make the situation worse.

Moreover, in the pessimism and powerlessness we feel, religious people turn to government for hope rather than realizing that we hold the solution in our own hands.  Rather than build a soup kitchen, we lobby for more food stamps.   Rather than build a shelter, we lobby for “affordable housing” laws.  Rather than spread the hope that our faith should give us, we wallow in our hopelessness.

But I am not yet ready to abandon my hope, for I cling tightly to the Almighty as I understand Him – and I hope you do to.  The road back to a hope filled nation is not straight, short nor simple.  It involves reforming both government and religion.  I know it starts by uniting in our hopefulness despite our differences in understanding that hope’s source.  I know that someday we will have to resolve those differences, but today is not that day.  Today we fight together for a nation where we can resolve those differences rather than have them resolved for us.

What say you?  Comment moderation is off for the weekend.

Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for his link and comments on the same article.

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It seems to be “Mormons  and the Presidency” week in the Utah press – likely because Huntsman is sniffing about.  It started with the Deseret News piece we examined Monday.   SLC TV station KSL followed up by talking to some actual experts on the subject that were pretty smart.  But SLTrib blogger Glen Warchol really takes the cake.  In our analysis Monday we drew a comparison between Romney and Huntsman and their approaches to religion.   Our case was that Huntsman was running away from his faith and Romney had never wavered.

The SLTrib’s opposition to Mormonism in general and Romney in particular is no secret. Peggy Fletcher Stack’s work for that paper is exceptional in its coverage of Mormonism and she appears truly neutral on the candidates, but she also appears token at the paper.  So it is unsurprising that their blogger would try to spin the story, but some things are just ridiculous:

The 2012 presidential election’s wandering in the wilderness has begun in earnest and Utah has two potential candidates in high weeds wrestling with a special challenge — they’re Mormons. But Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman Jr. are taking different approaches to downplay their long, proud Mormon heritages.

According to the Deseret News, Mitt Romney, who was slammed by conservative Christians despite his openness in explaining his religious beliefs, is going to duck the question and hope for the best.

Romney is going to “downplay” and “duck” “despite his openness?”  Can anyone figure that out for me?  Here’s my best guess – pure political spin.  Warchol is hoping that you will walk away with the words “downplay” and “duck” stuck in your mind and that will form your opinion of Romney instead of the actual facts, which by his oxymoronic formulation he can claim he has reported.  That’s spin at its finest (worst?).

Being a blog post, partisanship is expected, even when paper branded, so we cannot really bust his chops for media bias here, but spin is simply abominable.   If you oppose someone, you should have the honesty to simply do so straightforwardly and directly.  And the backhanded use of religion as the attack weapon of choice, well…let’s call it “Huckesque” and leave it at that.

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John and I feel somewhat validated – but not at all surprised – by this report of a scholar’s analysis of Romney and religion in the 2008 presidential election cycle.

The paper, entitled “Mitt Romney’s Religion: A Five Factor Model for Analysis of Media Representation of Mormon Identity,” appeared in the May issue of The Journal of Media and Religion. This paragraph will bring a smile to those who’ve followed this blog for a while:

For many, the combination of Mormonism and Romney’s ‘flip-flops’ on many hot-button issues gave reason to oppose him. Conservative activist Brian Camenker’s report on Romney’s shifting positions gave ammunition to conservatives to withdraw support from Romney. Vanderbilt University researchers found Romney’s flip-flopper label was an easy cover for anti-Mormonism. In the end, it was the rise of Huckabee and the political primaries in the evangelical-dominated South that derailed Romney’s bid for the presidency. For many, Romney’s run represented a misguided attempt to curry the favor of evangelicals.

That almost makes me think Professor Baker is also a regular reader here. (Seriously, with this paper she has moved to the top of my list of “People I’d Like to Have Lunch With.”)

Here is the article abstract from The Journal of Media and Religion (it costs $30 to see the entire piece):

Mitt Romney’s religion accounted for 50% of all religion-related presidential primary campaign stories in 2007, and 30% of Romney’s total media coverage focused on his Mormon faith. This article reviews that coverage and considers it within the larger historical context of the complex relationship between media and Mormonism throughout the 180-year history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A factorial model (the first in the area of Mormon Media Studies) is proposed by which to document and analyze the wider societal influences that are reflected in media representation of Mormon identity. The model’s 5 factors include the media, the Mormons, other religions, secular influences, and politics/government. The model assumes an interrelationship among the five factors. Factor influence and relationships among factors vary according to time, issue, and circumstance. The model relates to informational (not entertainment) media. Suggestions are made for application of the model to academic studies.

As I jokingly note above, we documented and analyzed all of this as it occurred.  If you’re interested and want to save $30, be sure to read our “Telling The Story” series for our version of this same tale, minus the Smoot comparisons, which we examined in our five-part series reviewing and commenting on Kathleen Flake’s book “The Politics of American Religious Identity.”  You may recall that Flake’s book was about the Smoot seating hearings.  You can find our posts about that here - here – here – here and here.

John Jumps On Board…

..Because The Huckabee “boomlet” has become a “Boom?!”

In the words of Jacob McCandles when confronted with rumors of his death: “Not hardly.“  Here’s how this went down.  Huckabee did Fox News Sunday last Sunday.  If you read the transcript, this is what he says:

I haven’t closed the door. I think that would be foolish on my part, especially when poll after poll shows that there is strong sentiment out there. I end up leading a lot of the polls. I’m the Republican that clearly, at this point, does better against Obama than any other Republican. You know, I’m not totally unaware of that.

At which point the MSM and leftie blogs went ape – The Hill – HuffPo – Politics Daily – The Fix – USAToday – one very right wing outlet sounded the trumpets – News Max.  His home town paper was a bit less impressed.

Let’s analyze what’s really happening here.  Fox commentator Huckabee appears on FNS in a short segment.  That sounds more like a promotional appearance than a serious interview to me.  The idea was to generate some heat for Huckabee’s show and based on the coverage, I think they got it.  Secondly, Huckabee is prone to exaggerated claims.  He still claims to have finished “second” in the 2008 primary race despite the fact the delegate count, and his speaking slot at the convention, clearly indicate to the contrary, even though he stayed in the race far longer than the actual second place finisher – Romney.

Huckabee is a media guy now – he has speaking fees to maintain, and his bread-and-butter constituency is not what it used to be.  The Huckster needs the possibility of a run to continue to make a living.  And of course, the MSM and non-team players are always willing to stir the pot on our side.

There’s a lot of coverage here, but no meat on the bones.  Call me when Huck’s fundraising gets better and he loses at least 60 pounds, until then its all posturing for ratings and fees.

UPDATE (7 hours after initial publication) – Told ya so! I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet….  Back to the initial post.

And Speaking of Lefties Doing Some Pot Stirring…

What do you think Marc Ambinder is up to with this piece?  [Lowell interjects:  I do not like his suggestion that Iowa and New Hampshire just be allowed to go ahead with their February primaries.   Why should those two quirky, small states, whose voting is so easily manipulated, be allowed to set the tone for the entire campaign?]

Mormon Stuff…

This is silly, and discriminatory – CNBC covering “Mormon” business.  Most business school graduates prefer to hire grads of the same business school,  Nothing to see here.

This is just great read.  Would that other forms of Christianity were as open minded.

Here’s another one with idiot commenters.  Why someone has to turn that story into a religio-political comment is beyond.

General Religion Stuff…

This is so utterly simplistic as to be annoying.  (In fact it is self-contradictory, but it is not worth the effort to demonstrate that fully here.)  One can judge a candidate’s character, or stance on issues, without reference to religion.  Religion does indeed influence those things, but it is not wholly determinative.  When you drag religion into it, it indeed starts to get about “us” and “them” instead of about the issues at hand.  And that leads to unnecessary conflict.

Posted in Candidate Qualifications, Electability, News Media Bias, Political Strategy, Religious Bigotry, Telling The Story, The Speech | 3 Comments » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

The Canadians Think …

… the time is ripe.  And so, we should dive right in to the possibles.

Palin Ascendant?

Well, she did get herself a Newsweek cover.  GetReligion did not think much of the piece.  I have to agree, it was one of those MSM pieces that looks at religious people kind of like they are lined up at the sideshow on the midway at a state fair, you know – freaks.  But there are three things apparent from the coverage.

For one, the sharp knives are out when it comes to evangelicals in general.  Frankly, the Newsweek piece is tame by comparison.  But there is a reason the knives are out.  Palin is an effective leader of a certain segment of people.  Identifying too closely with  that bunch pretty well concedes an actually POTUS candidacy, but it does make her an important political force, and ally.  Which is the second point.  Palin is simply not playing the game to run – but she may become the de facto voice of the religious right, which will prove very interesting as misogynist tendencies of our most fundamentalist religious relatives will become all too apparent.  I would not be at all surprised to see the Huckster play the gender card.  (BTW, the Huckster’s follower’s seem to have moved themselves into a very strange place.  Huckabee as fiscal conservative? I don’t think so.)  Since Huckabee seems to covet the that spokesperson role, and has shown a tendency to get nasty when things get tough, it would not surprise me.

But the final point supports the second.  All POTUS roads on the Republican side keep leading to Romney.  The extensive comment stream on this Allahpundit post on Palin’s stance on legalization of pot leads to a discussion of Mormonism and, or course, Romney.  Amazing, but let’s follow the lead.

Romney and His Faith

I find it fascinating that as Romney works very hard for Nikki Haley in South Carolina, she is getting attacked on religion, not unlike he did last time around.  What’s fascinating is that Haley is conventionally Christian – but ethnically of Hindu extraction, which is what is cited when the rumors fly.  This makes it clear.  In South Carolina at least, you can save the arguments about genuine religious differences and worldviews and all the rest.  It’s just old fashioned bigotry.

Here’s what I don’t get:  Why, if you are trying to say good things about Romney do you have to bring up ‘Twilight’ and Mormons?  Of course, sarcasm is a distinct possibility in this piece, but if it really is designed to be supportive, then it is like handing ammo to the enemy.  Romney’s credentials speak for themselves – LOUDLY.  He does not need comparisons to superhero romantic vampires, loosely based on Mormon community, to make the point.  Give it a rest.

Apparently the CJCLDS’ Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR) is playing the role of the Mormon anti-defamation league.  They are, in my opinion, a great information source and their work to dispel misconception and misunderstanding is excellent – but politics is a bare-knuckle game.  Their effort is perfect for a church based effort.  But there needs to be something extra-ecclesiastical that can play hardball.

The Others

Pawlenty keeps working hard, but just is not attracting attention save from the political geek crowd.

The Daniels boomlet continues here and here, while dying here.  Like we said last week – he has blown the audition.

I do not know whether to laugh or be outraged.

Religious/Political Philosophy

Noted Godblogger Scot McKnight notes that the average Evangelical is not as political as the press would have us think.  I disagree, the average Evangelical is politically fickle, but they are engaged.  They are chasing after something unattainable.  Which is what makes this Ross Douthat piece on “political romanticism” really interesting.  Douthat is using the term “political romantic,” the definition of which he borrows from David Runciman:

What he most resembles, to an almost uncanny degree, is a particular kind of political romantic, as described by Carl Schmitt in his 1919 book Political Romanticism.

For Schmitt, political romantics are driven not by the quest for pseudo-religious certainty, but by the search for excitement, for the romance of what he calls ‘the occasion’. They want something, anything, to happen, so that they can feel themselves to be at the heart of things. As a result, political romantics often lead complicated double lives, moving between different versions of themselves, experimenting with alternative personae. ‘Reversing one’s position between several realities and playing them off against one another belongs to the nature of the romantic situation,’ Schmitt writes. Political romantics are ostensibly self-sufficient yet also have a desperate need for human comradeship…

They are both using this term to describe and argue with Christopher Hitchens and the ardent atheist crowd, but I have to tell you, when I read it so many Evangelicals came to my mind.  They are, after all, tearing Iowa apart.  Based largely on idealistic romanticism, not political practicality.  Look for the 2012 effects of the religious battles in Iowa to be that serious contenders sit it out.  Iowa is proving once again to be an outlier, not a trendsetter.

Which is why, in part, the standard “attack the religious person” formula David Brody as delineated, is effective even inside Evangelicalism.  Being serious about things, including politics, matters.  Its not a search for the next romantic high.  Fortunately, even a leftie like Marc Ambinder wonders if we are not turning more rational.

General Religious/Political Headlines

• Baptists’ Large Military Presence Colors Gay Debate
• Proposition 8 case over gay marriage reaches arguments – just remember, it ain’t over for a long time.
• Pastor tests IRS by endorsing candidate
• Abortion Strains Religious-Government Aid Coalition
• Runoff splits Bob Jones leaders

Lowell adds . . .

Describing Twilight as loosely based on Mormon community is a new one to me. And I am qualified to comment: I’m a Mormon and the father of a 13 year-old girl who has seen all the movies and read all the books. (I’ve only done so once; she’s read and seen them multiple times.) Folks, there is nothing in those stories that is even distantly reminiscent of Mormonism, except for the young couple’s sexual abstinence (something that the reviewers regularly mock). Mr. Quigley’s admitted speculation in that regard is just laughable.

John, I think you should laugh about this one. Mr. Karger’s effort is simply offbeat (but brilliant) marketing. After this is all over the only difference he will have made is in the size of his client roster.

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…When it comes to POTUS 2012.

Between last week’s “Super Tuesday” of off-year primaries and a couple of rumored 2012 hopefuls making a play, there was far more political news than one might normally expect.  The analysis of how the major players came out in terms of endorsements, etc. was expected, but what was not was that Indiana governor Mitch Daniels tested the waters with the press – in the form of a Weekly Standard cover story, and a WSJ Op-Ed.  I have found this a bit surprising.  I grew up in Indiana and it is a bit of a place apart.  What plays there just usually does not work in the rest of the nation – and I think the commentary from the rest of the week bears me out.

Ed Morrisey was a bit impressed:

In 2012, it will be all about executive competence, not charisma or soaring rhetoric in service to silly platitudes.

Yeah, but there are others in the hunt that fit that much better and are much better known.  Ross Douthat tried to make Daniels and his wife look like the anti-Gores.  At “the Atlantic,” Chris Good thought he might be more wet blanket than contender.

But the Weekly Standard piece reveals that Daniels may have missed the essential lesson of the 2008 primary season.  While social conservatives, Evangelicals – whatever descriptor you want to use - may not be able to get who they want elected, they sure as heck can stop someone from getting the job.  Daniels seems to have great evangelical cred (from the Weekly Standard piece):

Daniels is pro-life himself, and he gets high marks from conservative religious groups in his state. He serves as an elder at the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church, in inner-city Indianapolis, which he’s attended for 50 years. In 1998, with a few other couples from Tabernacle and a nearby Baptist congregation, he and his wife founded a “Christ-centered” school, The Oaks Academy, in a downtown neighborhood the local cops called “Dodge City.” It’s flourishing now with 315 mostly poor kids who pursue a classical education: Latin from third grade on, logic in middle school, rhetoric in eighth grade, an emphasis throughout on the treasures of Western Civilization. “It’s the most important thing I’ve ever been involved in,” he told me. His social-conservative credentials are solid.

In fact, I happen to think those are marvelous evangelical credentials if for no other reason than during the adult portion of my life in Indianapolis I was also a member of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church, or “Tab” as we liked to call it, and yes, I know Gov. Daniels.  But where he blew things was this one:

And then, he says, the next president, whoever he is, “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while,” until the economic issues are resolved.

Charles Mitchell at EFM said:

But if you’ve watched any of our cultural battles in recent years, you will know this: Even if our side calls a truce, the other side won’t.

Ramesh Ponnuru said:

The condition of the country seemed more parlous in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many people worried that the country was ungovernable. (The fact that we hadn’t had a full two-term presidency in 20 years contributed to this sense.) We seemed to be slipping behind the Soviets both in territory and even morale. We were bewildered about stagflation and going through a deeper recession than the one we have now.

Under the circumstances, it made perfect sense for Ronald Reagan not to make the social issues his top priority. But he neither softened his positions on them nor declared a truce.

The American Conservative was unimpressed.  Allahpundit points out that Daniels was hammered by both Tony Perkins and, unsurprisingly actually, Mike Huckabee.  (Huckabee, by the way, wants to make sure he does not slip into total anonymity by pointing out he still might run again.)  The American Spectator agreed with Ramesh.  And David Brody says:

But if Daniels decides to run, some comments he made recently about social issues may come back to haunt him.

Daniels has a lot to offer the nation.  Up until this point, I saw him as a very possible Veep candidate, but he just blew that.  Given Romney’s problems with the social conservative/Evangelical crowd, he cannot afford to be associated with something like this.  This really amounts to little more than a poor choice of words on Daniels part, but it was a very poor choice at precisely the wrong time and on precisely the wrong subject.  Daniels put that in a very Hoosier way, and like I said what plays in Indiana often does not play elsewhere.  Daniels may yet run, but I have never known a Hoosier that could two-step well enough to get out of a mess like this.

All this, while the other charisma-challenged name, Tim Pawlenty, keeps stroking.

And yes, in that earlier paragraph, I presumptuously assumed Romney as the front runner.  That’s because…

…Things Are Looking Up for Romney

Nancy French at EFM has a wonderful anecdote. (Congrats to the Frenches on that new baby!)

Romney himself went to work on Obama in a USAToday op-ed:

Has it come to this again? The president is meeting with his oil spill experts, he crudely tells us, so that he knows “whose ass to kick.” We have become accustomed to his management style — target a scapegoat, assign blame and go on the attack. To win health care legislation, he vilified insurance executives; to escape bankruptcy law for General Motors, he demonized senior lenders; to take the focus from the excesses of government, he castigated business meetings in Las Vegas; and to deflect responsibility for the deepening and lengthening downturn, he blames Wall Street and George W. Bush. But what may make good politics does not make good leadership. And when a crisis is upon us, America wants a leader, not a politician.

That piece garnered him some great coverage.  He also won the most recent polling in Iowa.  But some people at the paper that ran the poll think the results are “hinky.”  There is some interesting analysis of the poll in that, but the absence of Huckabee’s name from the poll does not render the results invalid, it just says a lot about Huckabee – despite his protests registered earlier.

Meanwhile in general religion and politics news…

It seems that once again, the Mormons and the Baptists find they have a lot in common.  In this case, both churches find themselves heavily internally divided on the issue of illegal immigration.  You know how we talk about the fact that the Founding Fathers left religion on the governmental sidelines so we could unite as a nation.  Sometimes a church needs to handle a political issue in the same way.  I am wondering if this is not one of those cases.

USAToday ran a brief and relatively uninformative piece of a clash of religious and medical ethics.  The piece raises an issue that I think will be one of the most important political/religious issues for the next administration and Congress.  There is little doubt that Obamacare will have to be significantly revamped – repeal is a near legislative impossibility, but it will HAVE to be reworked to avoid national insolvency.   And while the the fiscal issues associated with that program are horrifying, equally horrifying is the social engineering it enables.  The clash of ethics (putting it mildly) and restriction of freedom that will result from a single third party payer system could easily tear the country apart.  Watch that space.

Finally, one of my Presbyterian brethren points out how uncivil discourse from the religious Left can be – all in the name of civility.

Lowell adds . . .

We saw an interesting news media development over the weekend, one that raises questions about both MSM bias and the MSM’s double standard when covering itself.  Here’s the item, from Mike Allen’s Playbook for last Sunday (all emphasis is in the original):

EDWIN CHEN, Bloomberg White House correspondent and outgoing White House Correspondents’ Association president, announced his resignation from Bloomberg News on Friday, a day after presiding over his final WHCA board meeting. Ed e-mails: “My regret over leaving one of the world’s largest — and certainly the most ambitious — news organizations is offset by a sense of urgency in resuming doing the Lord’s work, particularly after the BP oil spill. That debacle was a divine signal to redouble my efforts to help clean up the environment, help America kick its petroleum addiction, and help public officials find the wisdom and courage to do the right thing to combat climate change before it’s too late. So, I’m returning to the Natural Resources Defense Council (in Washington), soon to be reachable at: EChen(at)nrdc.org.” Ed, an L.A. Times alumnus, starts at NRDC on June 21. His title will be the same as during his previous stint there — “federal communications director” (“media strategery,” he quips). After covering President Bush, Ed went to NRDC from March 2006 to January 2007. “This time is forever,” he vows.

Wow.  Where to begin?  Mike Allen loves to talk about MSM insiders, of course – read him any day of the week and you’ll see references to birthdays, weddings and new babies for people you’ve never heard of, but who are Allen’s friends.  Here we have an uncritical, chirpy report about a guy (Ed Chen) who apparently came straight from the hard-core environmentalist group NRDC to be Bloomberg’s White House correspondent.  Now, having passed through the revolving door, he’s back at NRDC.

Doesn’t this job history cause you to raise at least one eyebrow, even slightly?  But Mike Allen, a left-of-center journalist himself, seems to think it is just great.  This is interesting, but not surprising; listen to Allen when he’s on the Hugh Hewitt show and you will see his political views pretty clearly.

But for this blog’s purposes, I found Chen’s unabashed reference to NRDC as “the Lord’s work” fascinating.  Even more interesting is his apparent sincerity:  He sees the BP oil spill as “a divine signal to redouble [his] efforts to help clean up the environment.”  What if a Fox News reporter had said something similar about returning to his old gig as a PR flack for the National Rifle Association?  Do you have any doubt about how that job change would have been portrayed?

A revolving door to liberal causes, and a blind, insight-free double standard for faith talk and expressed religious motivations.  An unassisted double play for Mike Allen.  Knowing that about Allen, you won’t be surprised about the juxtaposition of these two paragraphs in the June 14 Playbook:

ROMNEY ATTACKS — The Columbian of Vancouver, Wash., via Morning Score: “Delivering the keynote address at the [Washington state GOP] convention, Romney accused Obama of a grievous failure of leadership in dealing with the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. ‘He is totally out of his depth in dealing with a crisis,’ Romney said. Instead of calling on experts from oil companies and academia around the world to help control the spill, he said, Obama ‘hasn’t even met with the president of BP. Instead, he’s trying to figure out who to blame.’”

–“Morning” Joe Scarborough: “No one’s going to be able to play this. … Republicans who blame Obama look genuinely stupid.

Allen seems like a decent, sincere reporter, but I doubt he even notices his own biases.

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