Author Archives: Rob Harrison

Obama administration ticks off Brits . . . again

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. . . Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be the administration that was so in tune with the international community that they’d make us popular around the world again?  So far, it doesn’t seem to be working, at least where the UK is concerned; Barack Obama has been doing a good job of ticking off our (historically) closest and most reliable ally since his second month in office, and now his (overmatched) press secretary, Robert Gibbs, has just made matters worse.  Apparently Gibbs didn’t know that deliberately antagonizing Fleet Street is a bad idea, or he wouldn’t have said this:

“I want to speak generally about some of reports I’ve witnessed over the past few years in the British media and in some ways I’m surprised it filtered down,” Gibbs said.

“Let’s just say that if I wanted to look up, if I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper,” he continued.

“If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not sure that would be the first stack of clips I picked up.”

Mind you, that arrogant, petulant little tantrum was in response to a single article in theTelegraph.  One article, and he can’t take the heat.  I hate to see what Gibbs would do if his boss ever had to take the volume of abuse, calumny, and slander that Sarah Palin gets.

Not only does this not speak well about Gibbs’ emotional maturity and ability to deal with criticism (and perhaps that of his boss, for that matter), it says very bad things about his judgment.  Actually, what it suggests is that he’s gotten so accustomed to the craven, supine submission of the OSM that he takes that as his due, and thinks everyone should cower before him likewise.  He reminds me rather of Prince Rabadash, actually:

Then Rabadash rolled his eyes and spread out his mouth into a horrible, long mirthless grin like a shark, and wagged his ears up and down (anyone can learn how to do this if they take the trouble). He had always found this very effective in Calormen. The bravest had trembled when he made these faces, and ordinary people had fallen to the floor, and sensitive people had often fainted. But what Rabadash hadn’t realized is that it is very easy to frighten people who know you can have them boiled alive the moment you give the word. The grimaces didn’t look at all alarming in Archenland; indeed Lucy only thought Rabadash was going to be sick.

Unfortunately for Rabadash Gibbs, the British press are the Archenlanders in this scenario, and they aren’t about to be cowed, as the Telegraph‘s James Delingpole made abundantly clear with this response to Gibbs’ comments:

Your treatment not just of the British media but of Britain generally smacks of a risible ineptitude. First, you let President Obama send back the Winston Churchill bust. Then, you insult our visiting prime minister with a dismally low-key reception (worthy of a minor African head of state, not your closest and most loyal ally) and shoddy gifts (those DVDs). Then you compound the insult by having one of your monkeys declare, Chicago-politics-style, “There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.” OK so we know Obama’s not much interested in foreign affairs and has a special loathing for Britain because it roughed up his Kenyan granddad during the Mau Mau insurrection. But don’t you realise, that one of your jobs as his press secretary is to make out like he loves us so much even his underpants have a union flag on them? . . .

We know we’re not angels. We know we can go over the top sometimes. But unfortunately that’s a much bigger problem for you than it is for us. You see, while a lot of your mainstream media will hold fire on stories which they think may reflect poorly on your wondrous Obamamessiah—what his half-brother has been up to, say—we have fewer qualms about telling it like it is. So far, you’ve had a pretty easy ride. . . . But just you wait till we start showing our teeth. . . .

A lot of Americans know this. They appreciate our irreverence. They enjoy our frank criticisms of all the myriad areas where Obama is getting it so badly wrong—everything from his disastrous cap and trade measures, to his brutal treatment of Chrysler dealerships which didn’t support him, to his pork barrelling, to his failure to do anything that looks remotely like rescuing the US economy. That’s why they come to read us online: because they can and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

If Delingpole opted to hit the press secretary and his administration low, Nile Gardiner decided to swing high:

Can you imagine Gibbs making these remarks about The New York Times or The Washington Post, or NBC, ABC or CBS? This would never happen. The British press, especially the Telegraph, has been singled out because they frequently publish articles critical of the Obama administration and are not afraid to take on the status quo in Washington. Increasingly, millions of Americans are turning to online UK news websites for cutting edge reports on American politics and U.S. foreign policy that the mainstream media refuses to cover in the States, especially if it is unflattering to the Obama White House.

Robert Gibbs’ completely unwarranted rant against the British press is an absolute disgrace, and the President should disown his views. An unreserved apology by Gibbs is also in order.

For all its talk of “raising America’s standing” in the world after the Bush years, the Obama administration is doing a spectacularly bad job of reaching out to its allies. Unfortunately this is the new face of America’s public diplomacy, which will only serve to alienate public opinion across the Atlantic. Congratulations Gibbs—you’ve just made an enemy out of the entire British media, quite an achievement for the man in charge of selling the President’s message.

Even given Gibbs’ previously established (low) standard of competence, this is a most remarkable fiasco; but the most remarkable thing is that no one at the White House seems to recognize it as such.  Barring a groveling apology from the administration to the British media (and Britain more generally), I think we’ll have to conclude that the solipsism and self-absorption of this administration is so great that they really honestly don’t see the harm in antagonizing the Brits.  If that’s in fact the case, it’s going to come back and bite them in the end.  Badly.

Front-line leadership vs. rear-echelon dithering

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So North Korea is testing nuclear warheads and long-range missiles—and announcing that they will no longer abide by the armistice that ended the Korean War—and so far, Sarah Palin is sounding more presidential about it than Barack Obama.  Maybe back during the campaign when she stressed the significance of Alaska’s position on the front line of America’s defenses as support for her readiness to deal with foreign policy, she wasn’t just talking through her hat; whether it’s the fact that Alaska is now in range of a North Korean nuke or not, she certainly seems to have more of a grasp of the strategic realities here than the president does, even when limited to 140 characters:

More N Korea nuke tests: why consider US missile program cuts now? AK military program helps secure US. Now is NOT time to cut our defense.

Check out this good read on N. Korea that sheds light on need for strong US defense tools & economic sanctions. http://tinyurl.com/oaf2rm

Must Read: Here’s link to article concerning N.Korea’s missile range & progress.http://tinyurl.com/kre9lh

Yet as North Korea accelerates its pattern of provocations, the governor of Alaska may be standing firm, but the Obama administration can’t even make up its mind whether Kim Jong-Il is a threat; they may declare that “The United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state,” but they don’t seem willing to do anything more than “respond to the threat with ‘the strongest possible adjectives.’”  The situation is critical, but the White House seems to want nothing more than for North Korea to recede back below the threshold of public consciousness so they can get back to more important things (like rescinding some of the restrictions on lobbyists that President Obama announced with such self-righteous, self-aggrandizing fanfare back in January).  “Speak softly and carry a big teleprompter,” indeed.

By the Power of the Spirit

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(Ezekiel 36:23-28; Acts 2:1-4, Galatians 5:16-26)

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned a conversation we had around our table at the presbytery’s leadership training event. Rick and Sue and I were sitting that morning with, among other people, one of the co-executives of our synod, who made a most interesting comment. We were talking about the difference between the experience of the people of God in the Old Testament and ours today, that we have the Spirit of God where they did not, and this chap noted that we often don’t want to talk about that, or even think about that. I think, as I said before, that our reluctance is driven in large part by fear—our fear of letting go, giving up our sense of control over our lives and letting the Spirit lead us—and that’s unfortunate. It’s unfortunate because it keeps us from experiencing the full reality of our redemption and our new life in Christ, part of which is being set free from fear; we wind up living as if we had no more power than anyone else in this world, but a higher standard to live up to. That makes trying to be Christian a painful slog, rather than the easy yoke and the life of joy and peace that Christ promises us.

Unfortunately, this is an area in which our tradition isn’t a great help to us; as a pastor I knew in college put it one time, Presbyterians believe in doing things “decently and in order,” and forget that when Paul uses those words, he’s talking about the proper place of prophecy and tongues in worship. The idea is that there needs to be a balance, so that the church doesn’t descend into emotionalism and chaos, on the one hand, but there’s room for the Spirit to move, on the other. I think a lot of times people who aren’t Pentecostal or charismatic look at those churches and just see emotionalism and chaos—and sometimes they’re right, to be sure; I’ve endured services like that—and overreact in the other direction, shutting off the Spirit. We don’t have a very good feel for the middle ground, because we don’t have a very clear idea of why we need the Holy Spirit; we have this vague idea that the Spirit is supposed to make people jump up and down, fall over, and say things we don’t understand, and maybe that frightens us, and we really don’t understand the Spirit’s work beyond that. Those sorts of manifestations are particular signs of the Spirit’s presence and activity, but in most cases they aren’t the point of the Spirit’s presence and activity; in focusing on them, we miss the forest for the trees.

In truth, the work of the Holy Spirit in and among us is far broader and deeper and more important than just the flashy stuff. There’s a reason that God’s final solution to his people’s unbelieving disobedience is, “I will put my Spirit in you”; there’s a reason that the conclusion of Christ’s work and the birth of the church as the new Israel is the fulfillment of that promise, as the Spirit is poured out on all of Jesus’ disciples. Everything that we say is true about life in Christ is true in us and for us because of the Holy Spirit; it’s the Spirit who unites us with Christ and holds us in the presence of God. It’s the Spirit of God who makes all things possible. Take out your Bibles, or pull out the Bible there under the pew in front of you, and let’s look at some of this reality.

First off, look at what Jesus says in John 14:26: “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” Wait a minute—didn’t Jesus teach them all sorts of things? Yes, but remember, they never really understood—they didn’t get it; they couldn’t. It was only when the Spirit came to remind them of everything Jesus had said and to teach them what it all meant that it actually made sense to them. That’s why Paul talks in Ephesians 3 about “the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.”

Reformed types like to talk about “the perspicuity of Scripture”—the idea that anyone can read it and understand it, you don’t need a priest to tell you what the Bible means—which is good, sort of. Certainly, you don’t need a priest, but that’s not because Scripture is all so easy that a child could understand it, or that any unbeliever who picks up the Bible is immediately going to see Jesus. No, Scripture is clear because the Holy Spirit speaks through it and makes it clear to us; it is by the Spirit’s light that we understand, and that we see that this word contains the living Word, Jesus Christ.

Next, take a look at John 3:5-6: “Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.’” Jesus says this as he’s explaining to Nicodemus why he said, “You must be born again”; it’s the Spirit who accomplishes this by uniting us to Christ in his death and resurrection, as Paul says in Romans 6:3-7: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” It is by the work of the Holy Spirit that the death of Christ on the cross becomes for us and that the new life of his resurrection becomes ours, so that we become sharers in his kingdom; it is the Spirit who unites us to Christ as members of his body.

This means that we have fellowship with God—which is to say, he has made us his friends and invited us into his presence—as John says in 1 John 1:3; this is why, a little later on in that letter, in 3:1, John writes, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God—and that is what we are.” And then again in verse 24, John says, “Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: we know it by the Spirit he gave us.” It is the Spirit who brings us into this fellowship with God, and who is the sign of that fellowship—who is the proof that God lives in us, and that we are alive in him. It’s through the Spirit that we have access to God in prayer, and through him (as Paul says in Romans 5:5) that God has poured out his love in our hearts.

Something else Paul says is that the Spirit is our assurance that God will be faithful to give us all that he has promised—he describes the Spirit as the deposit that guarantees our inheritance. In 2 Corinthians 5, he writes, “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling . . . so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” Then again in Ephesians 1:13-14, he says, “You also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.” Last week, of course, I focused on that last phrase, but here, take a look at how the Spirit is described: he is the seal of our salvation, the one who signifies that we are in Christ, and the guarantee that we will receive the inheritance God has promised. He is our assurance that we are saved, and that our salvation is sure.

I could go on like this—the Spirit is the one who gives us the abilities and talents we have, so that we may use them for his glory and the work of his kingdom on earth, something Paul talks about in several places; the Spirit prays in and for us, Paul says in Romans 8:26-27, according to the will of God, “with groanings too deep for words”; the Spirit inspires us to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to others, something we see a great deal in the book of Acts. I had originally thought to use these last few weeks to do a sermon series on the Holy Spirit, but there just weren’t enough Sundays to do a full series justice, if we started looking into these various things in detail. Maybe next year we’ll come back to that. 

For the moment, I hope you’re beginning to see how the Spirit is involved in every part of our lives as Christians, and how everything that we affirm is true by the Spirit’s work; and in particular, if you’ll look at Galatians 5, that the end goal of the Spirit’s work in us is transformation. The Spirit prods us to grow, and that growth produces fruit, and that fruit is the seed of further growth in our lives by the power of the Spirit, and so over time we are changed; and the more we change, the more we become like Christ, and the more our hearts are prepared for that day when we will stand in his presence and see him face to face.

And note two things about that: first, this is the Spirit’s work, not ours. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control—these are the things that ought to characterize us as Christians, but we can’t live a life filled with these qualities in our own strength. Some of them we can teach ourselves if we try really hard—self-control, for instance—but only at the expense of other things, and some of them are beyond our ability to do by force of will. Peace might be the best example of that. Trying to work on all eight of them at once would simply be too much for us, even for those with the strongest wills, and it would inevitably fail, in one way or another. To live this kind of life, we must live by the Spirit, and let the Spirit produce these qualities and virtues in us by his power.

Second, part of this is not gratifying the desires of the flesh. This means that yes, there is a moral component to living by the Spirit—there are those in the church who insist that God can’t possibly want us to live up to any standards of behavior that we don’t like, particularly when it comes to sexual morality, but that simply isn’t true—but it goes beyond what we think of as morality, because again, this isn’t just a matter of outward behavior. As Paul makes clear, this is about a complete change of perspective and orientation, giving up the orientation that we’ve learned from the world and accepting a whole new orientation that points us toward God. It’s about not merely resisting the desires of the flesh, but surrendering them to God and allowing his Spirit to give us new desires; it’s about letting God teach us by his Spirit to want what he wants for our lives.

So then, if this is God’s work in us, and nothing we can do in our own strength, what’s our part in it? Are we called to do nothing? No; our part is to cooperate with what God is doing in our lives. The most important thing we can do is simply to make this a priority, to put time with God first on our to-do list. The Spirit is always at work in us, whatever we may be doing, but some of the things we do are more congenial to that than others—and of course, when we choose to sin, we’re deliberately working against his work in us. It’s important, if we want to grow in our faith, to make time to pray, and read Scripture, and think—to spend time intentionally focused on God, intentionally opening our minds and our hearts to hear his voice and listen to what he has to say.

Wow . . . liberal writer takes hatchet to Barack Obama

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I can’t say I’ve ever been very aware of Ted Rall, but apparently he’s a syndicated columnist and editorial cartoonist of some significance; apparently he’s also an atheist and very liberal, but apparently willing to call out Democrats if he thinks they have it coming, rather than take the party line as a straightjacket.  I think he does a remarkable job of proving that with this column (HT:  Mark Hemingway):

We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.

From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now—before he drags us further into the abyss.

My oh my.  I’m not sure any conservatives have dared to cut loose with a broadside like that (and if they had, they would have been torn to shreds for it by the OSM); to read this coming from a liberal is nothing short of amazing.  But then, I think the issue that provoked him to this point is one on which liberals and conservatives should agree, and unite in opposing the White House:

I refer here to Obama’s plan for “preventive detentions.” If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in “prolonged detention.” Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama’s shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK. . . .

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people’s lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can’t control, what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime”—contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.

He’s right about that; this proposal would be exactly the sort of banana-republic behavior I’ve been worrying about (as in this post) ever since the campaign, given some of the tactics we saw from Barack Obama and his flunkies then.  In truth, the whole idea here is profoundlyilliberal, and really rather hard to explain.  Either President Obama is one of those folks who has a sneaking hidden admiration for totalitarian techniques (something more common on the Left than one would think, as we saw with Code Pink and other leftist organizations when they snuggled up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), or else this is his solution to the dilemma he faces.  After all, if he’s committed to giving captured terrorists the same rights as any American, and giving them the rights Americans have now would be a threat to national security, what else is he going to do?

The question is, will people go along with it?  Not if Rall has anything to say about it, we won’t—and again, it’s hard to argue with his point:

Locking up people who haven’t done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to “preventive detention” is an outrage. That the president of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.

Rall is here addressing the issue of terrorism, but this is in fact a much broader concern and temptation in jurisprudence, perhaps especially with regard to sexual predators—if preventive detention ever becomes a reality in the American criminal-justice system, it won’t be long before the clamor arises to have it applied to violent rapists; there are more than a few people even now who think it would be perfectly appropriate to pre-emptively imprison folks like that until they’re too frail to feed themselves.  (Science fiction plays with this theme at various points; the apotheosis of this would of course be Philip K. Dick’s 1956 short story “The Minority Report,” and the 2002 film based on it, with his concept of the “Precrime” unit that identifies and arrests criminals before they commit their crimes.)

All of this leads Rall to a remarkably strong statement:

Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed George W. Bush, I won’t follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.

Now, the conclusion that President Bush was a terrible leader is Rall’s, not mine; I don’t happen to think he was.  I do, however, think that all too many Republicans fell into line behind him when we shouldn’t have out of political calculation (calculation which, ultimately, proved incorrect, as that behavior turned out to be unwise politically as well as philosophically).  I also don’t think it correct or fair to call President Obama “a monster”—that’s hysterical hyperbole of the worst sort.

The man’s a politician, nothing more and nothing less—though to be specific, he’s a Chicago politician, which is about the most cynical and manipulative sort our country has—and if there’s “something rotten inside him,” well, there’s something rotten inside each and every one of us.  Traditionally, it’s called sin, though I would imagine that as an atheist, Rall doesn’t think he’s supposed to believe in it.  And yet, it’s there all the same, in Barack Obama no less than in anyone else.

And that, I suspect, is the reason for Rall’s harshness in going after the president:  Barack Obama was supposed to be better, and so far (and here I agree with Rall completely) he’s been worse.  What you hear in this scream of rage is, I think, the anguished fury of severe disillusionment, as it has become apparent that Candidate Obama played the Left the same way he played everyone else.  Such political principles and impulses as he has are hard-left, that much is clear, but (as with Bill Clinton) they are secondary to the main goal of gaining, maintaining, and extending power.  If it suits his particular sort of Realpolitik to keep his promises, then he’ll keep them; if it doesn’t, he won’t; and if he can duck responsibility for not keeping them, or keeping them, or (if most advantageous) for addressing an issue at all, he’ll do that, too.

The political lesson of Ted Rall’s column (apart from its message) is this:  the true believers aren’t going to stand for that very long.  E. J. Dionne, in recognizing (and celebrating!) the fact that President Obama and his administration have been quite deliberately selling different stories to different ideological groups as a tactic for advancing his agenda and isolating conservatives, worried a little that the president might overreach, and that it might not ultimately work:

But establishments have a habit of becoming too confident in their ability to manipulate people and events, and too certain of their own moral righteousness. Obama’s political and substantive gifts are undeniable. What he needs to realize are the limits of his own mastery.

Dionne is correct in his concerns; and given the case of Ted Rall, I suspect that this approach ultimately won’t work, that the president will find that his mastery is ultimately too limited to pull off what he’s attempting.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

—Abraham Lincoln (attributed)

Another Alaskan energy solution

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While drilling in ANWR is on the shelf with this administration, Investor’s Business Daily points out that another potential Alaskan energy source has turned out to be far more significant than first thought:

Back in July, when IBD first interviewed the then-little-known governor, [Sarah] Palin emphasized developing Alaska’s Chukchi Sea resources. . . .

At the time, it was thought that Chukchi’s waters northwest of Alaska’s landmass held 30 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

Today, Science magazine reports that the U.S. Geological Survey now finds it holds more than anyone thought—1.6 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas, or 30% of the world’s supply and 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, 4% of the global conventional resources.

That’s enough U.S. energy to achieve self-sufficiency and never worry about it as a national security question again.

Of course, as with ANWR, there are those who will object, claiming environmental reasons; but here, the calculus is a bit different.  Leaving aside the strong proven safety and environmental record of our offshore drilling operations, the fact is that this isn’t a choice between drilling in the Chukchi Sea or not drilling there.  As the IBD points out, Russia also has territorial rights in the Chukchi Sea, and they won’t be restrained by our environmental niceties—they’re bound to drill there whether we do or not.  The question, rather, is this:  do we want Russia to take all that oil and natural gas, or do we want to take our fair share?

HT:  Ron Devito

The Obama administration strong-arming continues

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A few weeks ago I posted on reports that the White House had intervened with some of Chrysler’s creditors to force them to give up their rights for the benefit of the UAW, changing the rules after the fact to pay off a political debt; I got a couple responses from liberals saying, in essence, “What’s the problem here?”  I posted at greater length answering that question, though I got no comments that time.  Now, in the parallel situation with GM, even the Washington Post has been forced to take notice of the rancid favoritism being shown by the White House,

declaring,

GM’s new owner (the Obama administration) should stop bullying the company’s bondholders. . . .

While the Obama administration has been playing hardball with bondholders, it has been more than happy to play nice with the United Auto Workers. How else to explain why a retiree health-care fund controlled by the UAW is slated to get a 39 percent equity stake in GM for its remaining $10 billion in claims while bondholders are being pressured to take a 10 percent stake for their $27 billion?

I realize that liberals don’t see anything wrong with this—after all, it’s a liberal Democratic president funneling money to a liberal organization that’s practically a wing of the Democratic party—but I can just imagine the ear-splitting shrieks we’d be hearing about “the rule of law” and “undue influence” and “political thuggery” if a Republican administration had tried anything of this sort.

Nor is this the end of the administration’s blatant manipulation of the process.  Last week, I took note briefly of a case in Florida where a Dodge dealer in Florida had his dealership taken away from him without due process for no good reason whatsoever; now it comes out that there’s reason to suspect partisan manipulation in Chrysler’s dealership structure.  A blogger named Doug Ross writes,

A cursory review by that person showed that many of the Chrysler dealers on the closing list were heavy Republican donors.

To quickly review the situation, I took all dealer owners whose names appeared more than once in the list. And, of those who contributed to political campaigns, every single one had donated almost exclusively to GOP candidates. While this isn’t an exhaustive review, it does have some ominous implications if it can be verified. . . .

I have thus far found only a single Obama donor (and a minor one at that: $200 from Jeffrey Hunter of Waco, Texas) on the closing list.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal rightly notes that “Ross’s evidence is suggestive, not conclusive. It does not appear that anyone has yet conducted a complete analysis of Chrysler dealers’ political contributions “; but it’s mighty suggestive indeed, especially as it fits right in with an emerging pattern.  But then, as Taranto says, “Political intervention in private business is an invitation for the most brazen sort of corruption.”

Love without truth is dead (and vice versa)

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And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

—Ephesians 4:11-16 (ESV)

Philip over at The Thinklings has an excellent post up from yesterday entitled “Love Without Truth Isn’t Love At All”; I agree with him wholeheartedly and commend it to your attention.  I believe his point is a critically important one, and one which has been largely lost not only in our culture but in much of the church in this country, in large part because we’ve lost sight of Paul’s definition of spiritual maturity—and perhaps, in many cases, of any concept of spiritual maturity at all, or at least of any sense that it’s something to be greatly desired.

That’s our loss, because Paul is right (and so is Philip):  love cannot exist without truth—and of equal importance, neither can truth exist without love, and we’ve largely lost sight of that, too.  When Paul characterizes spiritual maturity as a matter of “speaking the truth in love,” he gives us what seems to me to be one of the most luminous statements in Scripture, capturing the way Christ calls us to live in one single, balanced phrase.  We are called to speak the truth in love as a way of life, compromising neither, setting neither above the other, and for good reason: neither can exist in its pure state without the other.

Love without truth decays, because true love seeks only what is best for the beloved; when truth is taken out, whether because the truth seems too hard, too painful, too inconvenient, too much work, too risky, too unpleasant, or what have you, the heart of love is gone, for it is seeking, in one way or another, its own perceived benefit. It may believe that it’s trying to spare the other person unnecessary pain, or something of that sort, but in reality it’s trying to spare itself; and that way leads the decline of love into the mere sentimentality which declares, “Love is blind.” No, love has its eyes wide open, because love is founded on truth. It’s precisely the fact that Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and exactly whom he was doing it for, with no illusions as to our worthiness or anything else, that made his death on the cross an act of love. Had he been blind to all that, it would have been worthless.

At the same time, truth without love also decays. It’s not just the words we say that make our statements true or false, it’s how we say them, and in what spirit; which is why it’s possible for us to combine true statements in such a way that those who hear us will draw a false conclusion. Without love, truth hardens, growing cold and brittle, like a coal removed from the fire; to say that God hates sin is to speak truth, but to say it without love is to give the very distinct impression that he hates sinners, too, which is most decidedly not true. Indeed, to grasp the truth that God hates sin without also understanding that he is love and that he loves all whom he has made is very likely to come to believe that God hates sinners.

The reason for this is that God is truth, and God is love, and neither truth nor love has any meaning or reality apart from him; and thus to sever one from the other is to sever both from their source. What’s left is something very much akin to cut flowers: they may retain their beauty, and they can be kept alive for a little while, but they’re dying. To have either truth or love, we must have both.

On this blog in history: February 10-21, 2008

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A clear-eyed view of the Middle East
On how the situation there didn’t look like the media made it look (and still doesn’t).

Two cheers for political polarization
Has political polarization actually improved our public life?  There’s good reason to think so.

Abiding in the light
On disagreeing like Christ.

Inconvenient truth?
I think there are several very good reasons to reduce pollution, but the alleged scientific case for anthropogenic global warming still doesn’t hold water.

The value of experience
James Buchanan vs. Abraham Lincoln.

Is Judge Sotomayor the best conservatives could hope for?

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On reflection, I think so.  It was obvious from the beginning that Barack Obama was going to pick a woman to replace David Souter, which of course meant a liberal woman.  While there were rumblings that he might name a non-judge such as Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm or Homeland Security Secretary (and former Arizona governor) Janet Napolitano to the vacancy, the smart betting seemed to have it going to one of three people:  Solicitor General Elena Kagan (the former dean of Harvard Law School), Judge Sonia Sotomayor, and Judge Diane Wood.  Of the three, the most talked-about leading up to the nomination was Judge Wood, which made perfect sense to me since she’s the one who worried me the most; I don’t really want any of these folks on the Court, but given the likely options, I was hoping vaguely for Solicitor General Kagan, who seems to me to be the most reasonable of them.

As for Judge Sotomayor, she’s not only hard-left, she’s also a comparative lightweight (not that she’s not a very bright woman, just that she’s not in the same ballpark as, say, Diane Wood, or Antonin Scalia) and so when she was announced as President Obama’s pick, I was more than a little non-plussed; sure, she’s qualified, but hardly the best-qualified nominee, even off that very short list.  Her record at the 2nd Circuit Court is uninspiring, to say the least, as Ed Morrissey notes:

The current court, including Souter, has already heard oral arguments on [Ricci v. Destefano]. They should rule on this before the end of their current session, which will come next month. If they overturn Sotomayor, that will emphasize both her incorrect decision on the merits as well as a lack of intellectual curiosity, an issue raised by her colleague Judge Cabranes.

A reversal on Ricci will raise the issue of the several reversals Sotomayor has received over her 11 years on the 2nd Circuit (the Washington Times says she bats .400 at the Supreme Court—not a confidence builder). The Supreme Court has reversed her at least four times already, at least one of those a unanimous 8-0 reversal, which makes her look either more liberal than anyone currently on the court or less competent. One of the times the court upheld Sotomayor, the majority scolded her for misrepresenting the statute in her opinion.

So why did President Obama choose her?  Part of it was no doubt the identity-politics aspect of naming the first Hispanic to the court, along with the third woman.  Part of it may well have been that he thought she was a safer nominee.  It will almost certainly take Democratic defections to sustain a filibuster, which isn’t at all likely under normal conditions, but there’s been the suggestion that Judge Wood’s recent record on national-security issues was a red flag; the recent refusal by the Senate to support the closure of the Guantanamo detention center suggests that if Judge Wood’s views on national security worried the Blue Dog Democrats enough, a successful filibuster might be possible.  Judge Sotomayor might lack the sheer intellectual firepower of Judge Wood, but she’ll be an equally reliable liberal vote and the identity politics works in her favor.  Since the president will have a reasonable shot at filling three slots on the court over the course of this term, it appears he decided to take a safer and more politically appealing course for his first shot.

Now, this isn’t to say that Judge Sotomayor has no baggage; she does, and particularly the following remarks:

All of the legal defense funds out there, they’re looking for people with Court of Appeals experience. Because it is—Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don’t “make law,” I know. [audience laughter] Okay, I know. I know. I’m not promoting it, and I’m not advocating it. I’m, you know. [audience laughter] Having said that, the Court of Appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating. Its interpretation, its application.

That line came from a 2005 panel discussion at Duke; I think Michael Eden is right to say from this that “Sotomayor clearly acknowledges her view, even as she recognizes how radical and wrong it is, and therefore says the pro forma things to cover [herself].”  The other much-quoted passage of her thought will likely be this one, from a 2001 speech at Berkeley:

I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that—it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. . . .

Our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor [Martha] Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

From this, one can see why some Republicans are talking filibuster; but barring the unforeseen, it won’t work.  They wouldn’t keep Maine in the fold on filibustering Judge Sotomayor, and these sorts of issues aren’t going to cause mass Senate defections.  Aside from discovering that she’s five years in arrears on her taxes, or something like that, Judge Sotomayor will be Justice Sotomayor as soon as the appointed time arrives.

And for that, I think the GOP should be grateful; if they did somehow manage to block her nomination, I believe they’d end up regretting it.  As a matter of pure Realpolitik, Barack Obama is going to put a liberal in that seat and that’s all there is to it; the only question is whatkind of liberal he’ll put there.  Given that, I think the party and its leaders need to listen very carefully to Jonathan Turley’s complaints about the nomination (video below):

You know, we are not selecting a house pet. We’re selecting a Supreme Court justice and as an academic I have a certain bias. And that is does she have the intellectual throw weight to make a difference on the court? And I have to tell you the optics are better than the opinions in this case. I’ve read a couple of dozen of her opinions. They don’t speak well to her being a nominee on the Supreme Court. . . . I think that a lot of academics are a little bit disappointed. I am in the sense that Diane Wood, Harold Koh, were not the ultimate people to prevail. These are people that are blazingly brilliant. They would have brought to the court intellects that would frame in the conceptual way. . . .

I’ve read roughly about 30 of these opinions. She has a much larger library of opinions. But they are notable in one thing and that it’s a lack of depth. There’s nothing particularly profound in her past decisions. She’s been a judge a long time. That’s opposed to people like Judge Wood on the 7th Circuit and she was viewed as a real intellectual powerhouse. You really can’t read the opinions of this nominee and say, “Oh yeah, this person is a natural choice for the Supreme Court.” . . . I have to say that liberals obviously are enjoying rightfully a certain short term elation with this twofer, a woman and a Latina, being put on the court. But in terms of long term satisfaction she does not naturally suggest that she is going to be the equal of Scalia and I think that was the model for liberals. They wanted someone who would shape the intellectual foundations of the court. Her past opinions do not suggest that she is like that. . . .

Ultimately questions about empathy and temperament are less important than whether this person is going to have a profound impact to help shape the court and this nominee really doesn’t have a history to suggest that.

Dr. Turley is unhappy because in his estimation, Justice Sotomayor is unlikely to be anything but a vote on the Court.  She’ll be a reliable leftist vote, to be sure, but she will probably have little effect on the votes of her colleagues—a point which is supported by how unpersuasive they’ve tended to find her reasoning as it’s come to them in her opinions from the 2nd Circuit.  President Obama had the chance to nominate a liberal who would not only be a vote, but would influence the overall direction of the court; as far as we can tell at this point (which is, admittedly, never as far as we think it is), Sonia Sotomayor will not be that kind of justice.  For that, Republicans should be thankful—and should hope that somehow the political climate changes enough between now and the next Supreme Court vacancy that the president will have to nominate someone more moderate.

And in that hope, this nomination may well be useful.  The concerns about Judge Sotomayor won’t be enough to create Democratic opposition, but they may help the GOP make its case to the electorate, as Ed Morrissey argues:

The Republicans have an opportunity with Sotomayor that doesn’t involve knocking her off the court. They have an opportunity to use the hearings to show Sotomayor as a routine appellate jurist with a spotty record who got elevated to this position as an act of political hackery by a President who couldn’t care less about his responsibilities to find the best and brightest for the job. Like many of Obama’s other appointments, it demonstrates a lack of executive talent and intellectual curiosity on his part. This appointment makes an argument for more Republicans in the Senate after the midterms, if for no other reason than to force Obama to start putting a little effort in making his nominations.

Taken all in all, as a conservative, I don’t like the pick, but I think it could and should have been a lot worse.  Given that elections have consequences, and wipeouts have big consequences, that’s practically the best-case scenario.