I’m starting to wonder. There have been folks on the right who’ve been insisting since John McCain chose Sarah Palin that liberals are afraid of her and feel a particular need to destroy her; I’ve tended to think that was overstated. Certainly, I think a lot of folks on the left found her particularly galling—for daring to go “off the reservation” and be a successful woman in politics on non-leftist terms (with her strong pro-life position being the main part of that), and for Sen. McCain having had the nerve to pick a woman as his running mate when Barack Obama hadn’t—but I figured it was much more that she represented someone who could actually put the McCain campaign over the top, and therefore was a threat to be destroyed ASAP, by whatever means necessary.Now, though, I’m beginning to think that the voices insisting that liberals hate/fear her specifically may have more of a point than I thought. What has me considering this is a recent post on the media blog for Condé Nast Portfolio on whom the New York Times should hire to replace Bill Kristol if rumors prove true that they’re inclined not to keep him on their op-ed pages. The blogger in question, Jeff Bercovici, is clearly an unapologetic liberal, which is no surprise; what is a surprise is the theme that seems to underlie his suggested alternatives. Of the four names he puts forward, two are Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy—the folks who got caught dissing Gov. Palin on a mike they didn’t know was open. A third is Kathleen Parker, whom he makes a point of labeling as a Palin-hater. Why highlight that unless it’s part of the point, and to be adduced as evidence that she has “the independence of thought that Kristol so glaringly lacks”?Which in turn makes me think that that supposed “lack of independence” on Kristol’s part may be code for “he likes Sarah Palin”; which, if so, is ludicrous, since Kristol was booming Gov. Palin for the slot back when it required incredible independence of thought to even entertain the idea. Which makes me wonder if there isn’t a subtext for replacing Kristol: the Grey Lady is willing to have a conservative columnist or two around if it has to—but one who supports Sarah Palin is just too much. If they’re going to have a conservative columnist, it must at least be a properly elitist Palin-hating conservative.Do I take this as proven? Obviously not. But I’m wondering if there might be something to it . . . and if so, what its significance might be.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
For my wife, the Rome junkie
Google has now added a 3D “Ancient Rome” layer to Google Earth, based off the best scholarship we have; check out this video on it:
Clarification and further comment on double standards
After I put up my post last night on “the double standard of the Left,” frequent commenter and cyberfriend Doug Hagler called me out on a couple things. I posted a response to him in the comments there, but after thinking about it a bit, I decided to post an edited version of that comment on the main page as well.Part of his objection was to the blog to which I linked—or rather, to the commenters on that blog. As I noted, on high-traffic blogs, I don’t read the comments unless I know they’re tightly patrolled (as with, for example, U.S.S. Mariner, or Adam Brickley’s blog), because otherwise, they will uniformly be ugly. (And if you think this just applies to political blogs, spend some time in the sports blogosphere—your eyes will be opened. Republicans vs. Democrats has nothing on Red Sox. vs. Yankees.)More importantly, to point out a double standard on the Left is not to imply anything, positive or negative, about the Right; there’s simply no logical connection there. If there’s one thing I’ve found to hold true about groups of people, it’s that they’re all the same—the same tendencies, good and bad, will tend to emerge in roughly the same proportions unless something specific to the group acts to emphasize or suppress them. As such, do I imagine that being conservative means that one is immune to certain sins? No, certainly not. In this particular case, for instance, I know full well that the Right has its tendencies toward double standards, too. However, I will note that in areas in which the Right tends to get publicly sanctimonious, it usually follows through against its own, even if only because the media won’t let it do otherwise. Where is Mark Foley? Where is Larry Craig? Where is Ted Haggard? The list is not without exception (David Vitter comes to mind; the only explanation I have for his survival is that Louisiana is a different world politically), but neither is it short. When you have a preacher peddling leftist hate, like the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., liberals defend him; by contrast, preachers peddling rightist hate will often find their sharpest critics among evangelicals. Fred Phelps, that malignancy on the body politic, is a classic example.The question with regard to the attack on Mount Hope Church is, are there liberals who will call a spade a spade here, the way evangelicals (and even some fundamentalists) routinely do every time Phelps opens his yap, and denounce this as an intolerant assault on freedom of speech and freedom of religion? And with regard to the Obama campaign’s disabling of protections against credit-card fraud, will the liberals who sermonize about the corrupting influence of money in politics step up and call this what it is—namely, corrupt? The point is not that there’s supposedly some kind of vast left-wing conspiracy—we got enough of that kind of talk in the other direction from the Clintons. The point is, when the Left talks about tolerance, and political ethics, and the the need for campaign-finance reform, and all those things, are those just clubs to use to beat up Republicans? Or are folks on the Left willing to call out their own side on these issues?Certainly, Republicans aren’t perfect in this respect, but there are always GOP pundits and politicians willing to take up that role. The question is, are there leaders and media figures on the Left who will do the same? Or do they only care when it’s Republicans who are guilty?
Why the 44th President is doomed
No, I didn’t say “Why Barack Obama is doomed”; I don’t think his policy appointments and decisions will help the economic situation any, but I’m not suggesting that John McCain would have had the winning economic strategy. Rather, the point is that there isn’t a winning economic strategy at this point—the forces in play are just too big. Read Michael Lewis’ excellent piece in Condé Nast Portfolio to understand why. It’s long, but well worth it; remember, this is the guy who first identified the roots of the problem 20 years ago in his book Liar’s Poker, returning to autopsy the patient who died of the cancer he originally diagnosed. Trust me, read the whole thing—read it to the end; it will blow your mind. Then read the accompanying article on why there won’t be a recovery for a while yet, despite what the optimists say, and reflect on the fact that presidents always get blamed when bad things happen, whether it’s their fault or not. (George W. Bush can point to the mishandling of Katrina by Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin, for which he took pretty much all the blame outside of Louisiana; granted, Michael Brown and FEMA also did a very poor job, but the hit President Bush’s popularity took had far more to do with matters under their control than with things for which he was actually responsible. The only upside for Republicans is that this did lead the people of Louisiana to elect Bobby Jindal the next time around.) The Oval Office is going to be a rough place to be in 2010, and would be no matter who was sitting in it, for reasons which in large part will have nothing to do with its occupant. (At least on the economic side; when it comes to foreign policy, that’s another matter.)HT: Baseball Crank
The bottom line on this campaign
is that I ended up thinking a lot less of both the final candidates when it finished than I did when they first started running.Oddly enough, the opposite is true of Hillary Clinton.(I still think she’s a political opportunist, etc.; but I have to admire the spirit and resiliency she showed, even if it was in the service of raw, vindictive ambition. The negative things that she displayed during this campaign didn’t surprise me any, but we also, I think, saw some really positive aspects to her that I at least hadn’t seen before.)
Too little, too late
After sitting sphinx-like as his senior staff impugned Sarah Palin’s intelligence and character, John McCain finally opened his mouth—and this is the best he was willing to do? I’m sorry, Senator, but that’s just plain pathetic. To wait so long to say anything, and then not to address any of the specific lies floating around out there or call out any of the liars from behind their curtain of anonymity—especially given his vigorous defense of Barack Obama against attacks he deemed inappropriate—to fail to defend her against false charges given how hard she worked for you and how badly she was pummeled by your opponents for supporting your cause . . . that’s purely dishonorable. There is no other word for it.
The double standard of the Left, in full force
as seen in two very different ways. For one, the Obama campaign has officially gotten away with fraud, which isn’t surprising. What’s rather more surprising is that they’re still getting away with it. Check out Gateway Pundit for the thorough rundown of how the Obama organization has been enabling—and is continuing to enable—significant credit-card fraud in order to fill their coffers. They will, of course, not be audited or investigated—that sort of thing is only for Republicans.For another, my prayers go out to the folks at Mount Hope Church in Lansing, MI who were assaulted—there is no other word for it—by a radical gay group this past Sunday. I know that church, slightly; I’ve never attended there (though I’ve driven by it many times), but we’ve known people who attended there, and know it by reputation. It’s a good church, and didn’t deserve this attack. Don’t expect the MSM to decry the intolerance of their attackers, though—again, that sort of thing is only for Republicans.
The work of holiness
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised,
barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.—Colossians 3:5-17 (ESV)I said yesterday that the bad news is that we’re all sinners, and that we’ll never win free of that in this life. That’s the bad news of the law, for which the good news is Jesus Christ; and for those of us who bow to him as Lord, though we may never know complete freedom from sin this side of eternity, we don’t have to just give up and give in, either. God’s grace is at work in us, setting us free from sin, and while that work is unfinished, he never fails of his purposes. No matter how bad we might be (or might have been) or how holy we think we are now, no matter how old and set in our ways or how young and callow, God is at work in us, and he calls us to work with him, to align our efforts with his. Paul lays out two parts to that in this passage. First he says, all these things that belong to this fallen world and to your old selves, put them to death. It’s much the same thing he says in Romans 8:13, where he writes, “If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”This isn’t something we can accomplish in our own strength; our own efforts need to be a part of it, and there’s an important place for spiritual disciplines such as prayer, worship, and silence, but it’s only by the power of the Spirit of God that we can make any real progress in dealing with our sin. The goal is the complete rooting-out and destruction of sin in our lives; we’ll never reach it in this life, but it’s nevertheless the goal toward which we work. It’s an ongoing struggle against the sin in our lives, to weaken and starve it, so that through loss of strength and lack of food, it dies away little by little, losing its ability to draw us into sinful actions. This requires us to know our own sinfulness, to be aware of the ways in which our sin tricks us and overcomes us, if we are to fight against it intelligently; and it requires constant vigilance—but then, as the Irish politician and writer Edmund Burke noted, that’s always the price of true freedom.Along with this, Paul says, “Change your clothes!” The image here is of the old self with its sinful practices as a suit of clothes we wear, and of the new self, which is from God, as another suit of clothes. The more we come to appreciate the new life God has given us, the more we learn to see the old self, those old clothes, for the dirty things they are. Imagine coming home after some fiasco, soaked to the skin, cold to the bone, covered in mud and filth, and taking a long, hot shower, or perhaps a long, hot bath; when you’re warm and clean, are you going to put those clothes back on? And yet that, in a sense, is just what we do whenever we turn back to sin: we’ve been washed clean, and yet we put the filth of the old self back on. Paul says, “Don’t do that—put on the habits of your new life in Christ.”If we put these two commands together, we get a complete picture. As we work to put to death the inward reality of sin, we are also to be at work stripping ourselves of our sinful habits, which are rooted in that inward reality, and replacing them with new ones. For the things we need to set aside, Paul points on the one hand to the disordered desires which lead us to pursue the pleasures and things of the world instead of God, and on the other, to the destructive passions, and the destructive language that goes with them; put those aside, he says, take them off and get rid of them. In their place, clothe yourselves with a new way of living, one which is marked by compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and a forgiving spirit. These words describe an attitude that doesn’t give way to rage when one is done wrong but chooses to show grace, and is willing to waive one’s rights for the good of others, even when they don’t deserve it. The ultimate example of this is Jesus, who at times spoke quite sternly to the Jewish leaders who had set themselves against him, yet died on the cross for them, with a prayer for their forgiveness on his lips. Just so, says Paul, we should bear with one another and forgive one another just as Christ has forgiven us.Of course, it would be very easy to take these things and turn them into just another legalistic religion, just another way of putting faith in our own ability to be good enough—just work hard enough at being compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, and forgiving, and you’ll please God. But look what Paul says next: clothe yourself with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. In other words, these virtues aren’t individual things to be worked on individually and to be accomplished by stern effort—they’re supposed to be the fruit of the love of God and the peace of Christ in our lives. When are we not compassionate, kind, humble, and so on? When we don’t love the people we’re dealing with, or when we’re not at peace—when we’re in conflict within ourselves, when we’re in conflict with those around us, when we’re anxious, when we feel the weight of our own lives resting on our shoulders. But if we open ourselves up to the love of God—because love, too, is not something we do in our own strength; love comes from God, it’s his gift to us and his work in our lives—and let him fill us with his peace, then these virtues are the result.
For those who served, and serve
I am the son of two Navy veterans, the nephew of a third, and the godson of a fourth. One of the earliest things I remember clearly was the time in second grade when I got to go on a Tiger Cruise—they flew us out to Honolulu where we met the carrier as it returned home at the end of the cruise, then we rode the ship back to its homeport in Alameda. I grew up around petty officers and former POWs. When one of our college students here described her chagrin at asking a friend if she would be living “on base” this year—and her friend’s complete incomprehension—I laughed, because I know that one; my freshman year in college was the first time I had ever lived anywhere outside that frame of reference.In short, as I’ve said before, I’m a Navy brat; for me, “veterans” aren’t people I read about, they’re faces I remember, faces of people I know and love. They are the people without whom we would all be speaking German, or Russian—or, someday, Arabic—but they’re also the people for whom we give thanks every time we see them that they came home, and those we remember who never did. They are my family, and the friends of my family, those who taught and cared for my parents and those my parents taught and for whom they cared in their turn. They are the defenders of our national freedom, and they stand before and around us to lay their blood, toil, tears and sweat at the feet of this country to keep us safe; and for me, and for many like me, their sacrifice and their gift is not merely abstract, it’s personal. May we never forget what they have done for all of us; may we never fail to honor their service; may we never cease in giving them the support they deserve.Dad, Mom, Uncle Bill, Auntie Barb, all of you: thank you.Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.—John 15:13
Sarah Palin in her own words
The biggest problem for Gov. Palin going forward is the number of people out there who are against her because of who they wrongly believe her to be. Unfortunately, there are a lot of influential folks, including media types, who see it as in their best interest to reinforce those false images; fortunately, all she has to do to overcome them is to get her own message out, to be herself where the nation can see her, so that people can see for themselves that the ideas they have are not in fact true.That’s why her interview with KTUU-2 in Anchorage and the Anchorage Daily News has popped up in the national media, and why she has a number of national interviews lined up, beginning with this one with Greta Van Susteren which aired yesterday. It’s amazing how happy she is to talk with the media when she doesn’t have someone else setting her interview schedule, isn’t it?Video below the jump of Gov. Palin’s interviews with Van Susteren and Matt Lauer.