"Nothing. Nothing. Nothing."

The past two days have presented the spectacle of former Republican chairs of Senate committees acting as if they still owned the place. Yesterday it was James Inhofe of Oklahoma having to be reminded who holds the gavel and who makes the rules. Barbara Boxer was very direct, very pointed, and very accurate - he might have gotten away with such bully-boy tactics before, but the grown-ups were put in charge by the voters, so start acting like an adult, or just leave.

Today it was that egregiously awful Arlen Specter - remember Anita Hill, anyone? - wondering why the Senate Judiciary Committee couldn't just go along with the White House rules; after all, Specter seems to suggest, something seems to be better than nothing. Leahy's response, quoted above, sums up the past six years - nothing, zip, zilch, nada. The United States Senate does not go begging, hat in hand, for favors. It invites testimony, and if those invitations are declined, it demands it under penalty of law. Period. This White House has no more chances left - not with this Congress, not with the American people, not with the world at large. The entire Department of Justice is under a cloud; its integrity, its independence, even the reputations of those USAs still in office are all questionable now because one wonders, exactly what they did to remain in office, what kind of compromises they accepted, what kind of interference they countenanced. Of course, this cloud hovers over not just Justice, but every executive branch office, because the Third World junta running this country thinks it is entitled to do whatever it wants, regardless of law, custom, or the Constitution.

I am glad that Specter made a spectacle of himself, because it is quite clear now, if ever doubt rested in any heads, where he stands. His institutional cowardice, his party pandering - last fall he spoke against the bill that, among other things, gave the AG the power to do what has led to this entire mess - and then, after giving a roaring speech about the destruction of our civil liberties, he voted for the damn thing. Back in the early 1990's, he was in full prosecutor mode, attacking Anita Hill's integrity and veracity, when even a cursory glance at the mountain of evidence would have made it quite clear that her allegations - Clarence Thomas is crude, porn-loving, and sex-obsessed - could be corroborated by any number of people (as was done by the authors of Strange Justice). Specter's spectacle back then was harassing a witness who was reluctant enough to testify about matters no person should have to air in public. Now, he pleads for another freebie for the White House.

No, Arlen. No, James. It is time to recognize and admit that the Republicans lost, and the rules are set by people who are doing things the right way - listening to witnesses, not badgering them; and demanding answers under oath rather than having off-the-record chats, with an agenda set by those being interviewed. We are tired of nothing, and it seems we might get something after all.

Here's hoping.

Gathering of Pathetic Pseudo-Patriots

I am going to do something I once said I would never do - I am going to belittle a group with whom I disagree. My initial intention was simply to ignore them all, for the quite sane reasons that (a) it is an area outside the purview of this blog; and (b) to do so would bring me down to their level. They have gone after Sadly! No, a site I frequent because of its quite hilarious demeaning of right-wing bloggers; specifically, after posting this piece, they DDOS'd them, and have continued to try to shut them down. What was the crime for which the boys from Arkansas were to be silenced? They questioned the veracity of the Gathering of Eagles.

When I first heard about it, I honestly had no idea what it was about, nor did I care all that much. After reading a bit about it here, I realized it was the pathetic attempt by war-supporters to look tough, to associate themselves with something they know nothing about (the military), and to take upon themselves the mantle of downtrodden victim and martyr to true American freedom. That it has all worked out that way, in spades, only shows that these folks are as predictable as sunrise and sunset - you just know it's going to happen every day.

One of Gavin, HTML Mencken, et al.'s little quibbles is an important point - the whole issue of numbers. When Michelle Malkin insists that she has official numbers from the National Park Service, my ears perk up, because I seem to remember, back in the mid-1990's, Congress passing a law keeping the National Park Service from any longer doing counts of protests on the Mall. Was I wrong about that? Had the law changed? If you go back and peruse Sadly!No, you will find that, indeed, the Park Service is prohibited from doing counts of protests. So those "official numbers" are officially a crock of moose shit. Malkin was wise enough to keep changing her story, but the mistake had been made.

I have several question for this gaggle of couch-potato warriors, not the least of which is what, exactly, were they protecting and why? Apparently GoE insisted there was a plot to deface or otherwise attack the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. I honestly cannot imagine a scenario less likely to happen, unless it is the Bush twins joining the military. There are few memorials that are more dearly loved by all Americans who have been there and seen it than that lovely, silent wall. All it takes is one visit, watching as grown men weep uncontrollably as they find the name of a comrade or comrades they left behind; all it takes is to go to the American History Museum and see the small display collection of items that are left each day to remind us that this national memorial is, in essence, a national Gravemarker, a headstone marking our national sorrow at the 54,000 American lives lost to no good end or purpose. Why would anyone attack it?

More pointedly (and, for me, more controversially), is there anything more pathetic, really, than a bunch of out-of-shape, military-wannabes pretending to be a part of something that would destroy them if they actually were there? What I mean, for example, is this, by way of example. Seriously, one wonders what in the world this person is compensating for - his entire page design is like something out of the fantasies of a sophomore in high school, not least including the supposed quotes endorsing said blog that appear at the very top. I hate armchair psychoanalyzing, but something as blatant as this cries out for someone to say, "Why don't you tell me more about your feelings about your father."

While the numbers issue will never be settled, the chest-bearing, pseudo-macho, pseudo-patriotic nonsense spewers have had their fun and gone back to whatever homes and lives they had, I would ask you to click on the link to Sadly!No and view the post that contains screen caps from various GoE sites in which active-duty or former military personnel are photographed and labeled "cowards" - because they were participants in the much larger, much more successful, much more representative anti-war march. It must be so nice to be so unsure of oneself that one can castigate those whom one supposedly is rallying to support.

These people are the very embodiment of pathetic.

"Me me llamo dogface in the banana patch?"*

Linked rightie Goat, he of the Barnyard in rural north-central California (he does have an eye for the beauty of his home) posted this piece that is a rambling endorsement of Mitt Romney for President, and a comment from someone named Honus R., whom Goat refers to as the sheepdog (why the animal epithets?). While Goat's post does cohere, after a fashion (although his opening has no relation to the point of his post), and despite at least one glaring spelling error (it is stalwart, not "stalwert"), he does seem to make a point.

Honus, however, in the comment on said post, rambles over much territory, without ever actually moving from the spot from which he started. He invokes 9/11 (of course), abortion, lumps libertines and socialists in with Democrats (of course) and Republicans (surprise, surprise; apparently the serial divorces amongst the Republican candidates is starting to seep through the thickness), and generally announces his abandonment of politics in favor of missionary work (at least we don't need to worry about one right-wing vote next November) - because the Republicans abandoned conservatism. The post ends with the query, "Know what I mean?"

Actually, Honus, no, I don't. If I did, I would seek treatment.

I must remind people on occasion that stringing words together does not make a sentence; nor does stringing sentences together make a paragraph.

*The title is a reference to one of my favorite bits from Steve Martin's classic album Wild and Crazy Guy when he says, "Whenever you're around a small child, talk wrong. By kindergarten he will say . . . offering the above sentence as the result of the strange result of such adverse conditioning. I have always wanted to use it because it reflects, for me, what is wrong with the Right, to whit, they think that if they put enough words together they have constructed an argument, when all they have done is spouted nonsense, causing the adults to say, with Steve Martin, "What?!? What's that you're saying? Give that kid a special test, get him out of here."

Is The End Nigh?

You know, if you are going to pick a fight, the first thing you should do is have a pretty good idea, beyond mere hope and assertion, that you might actually win. I think it more than ironic, if indeed irony is something that applies in this case, that it may well be the very same Supreme Court that ensconced Boy Wonder in the White House in the first place that could very well be instrumental in his removal from office. Perhaps, were Bush the type to be reflective, he might find some kind of sour humor in it; I doubt whether he shall ever rise above petulant self-pity.

By vowing yesterday to "go to the mat" (does he mean he wants to wrestle Patrick Leahy and John Conyers?; or did he mean "go to the mattresses", a term made famous by Mario Puzo in The Godfather?) to fight subpoenas of White House aides Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, Bush has to know that the invocation of executive privilege in a case such as this is a loser. Even if he doesn't know it, his lawyers should know it, because the Supreme Court, in US v. Nixon was as clear as a September morning that executive privilege was a pretty narrow privilege - limited to issues of national security or great matters of state - and as Nixon's evocation of the privilege was blanket (his attorneys never even thought of making the argument, because they most assuredly would have been laughed out of court), as is Bush's, it seems pretty clear that, should he or Congress (it would seem Bush will go to court first, but accuse the Democrats in Congress of doing so, just like in Florida in 2000) take this to court, he will lose. Should he ignore such an order, impeachment will follow. Should he follow through, and Miers and Rove appear, attorneys in tow, claiming their Fifth Amendment right to protection from self-incrimination, impeachment will follow. Should they testify under oath, perhaps after negotiating a limited immunity deal similar to the one granted Oliver North by the Iran-Contra committee in 1987, their testimony will no doubt lead to . . . you guessed it.

There seem to be few options left, except perhaps a palace coup, a terrorist attack on Congress (would anyone believe it was really a bunch of terrorists?), or acquiescence in the face of mounting disgust among the American people for the entire criminal enterprise formerly known as the Bush Administration. They could go quietly - as Nixon decided after years of stone-walling; or they can fight it out, lose, and go in a very ugly fashion, but in the end, I do believe we are watching the beginning of the end, not just of Alberto Gonzalez (although good riddance to bad rubbish can never come too soon), but of the entire thing - Bush, Cheney, Rove, the whole lot of them.

Clinton versus Bush

I was waiting for the press conference to end, and felt like an invisible police officer was standing there waving a night-stick, saying, "Nothing to see here, move along." Except for his little non-sequitur about "partisan fishing expeditions" (unlike all the investigations led by Dan Burton, right?), the entire episode was a reminder of how out of touch Bush really is.

I've been thinking, though, about the press reaction. Chris Matthews and Wolf Blitzer were in full man-crush mode over Bush's combative attitude, as if belligerence for its own sake were a virtue, absent any substance. More to the point, I was thinking about a question begged by the past fourteen or so years of our political history: Why the disparate responses to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, especially among our flapping-lip class? I want to set aside strictly partisan considerations for the moment, at least as much as is humanly possible, as well as my own biases (while not a fan of Clinton's by any means, I did vote for him twice, and on balance he was a good, not to say great, President) and look at the two men's histories, both personal and professional, with a question or two to follow.

On the one hand, Bill Clinton was and is an extremely bright (you don't get to be a Rhodes Scholar by reading Cliff's Notes), ambitious, driven man, who is intimately informed on a plethora of issues down to various minutiae of policy-making; he is married to a bright, attractive, successful woman in her own right, holding together a marriage in the most trying of circumstances, raising a daughter through the most difficult period of any child's life while their marriage is under multiple assaults, and said child becomes an accomplished, attractive adult; he manages, as President, to overcome enormous obstacles and force a peace agreement on the Balkans, fight an air war without a single loss of life, and presides over the longest peace-time economic expansion in American history. This President is held in almost universal contempt by the chattering classes.

On the other hand is George W. Bush, a latecomer to politics, a failure at multiple businesses, at which he was placed through his father's connections; a moderate student, albeit at difficult schools, to which he went most likely through legacy acceptance. While never giving details, it is reasonably clear the, perhaps not an alcoholic, Bush certainly ahd an alcohol problem, and perhaps one with nose-candy as well. Placed in office through the intercession of five partisan Supreme Court Justices, he manages to alienate most Americans until the horrific acts of September 11, 2001 galvanize public opinion in his favor. Blessed with one of the canniest and most ruthless political operatives to come down the pike since Erlichman and Haldeman in the person of Karl Rove, Bush manages to retain the Presidency despite a deepening public hostility to a failing occupation of Iraq, and overseeing the most sluggish economy since the days of his father's tenure in the White House. As the Democratic Party regains control of Congress through the abysmal performance of the Republican majority, it is revealed that Bush and Company have operated as if he were the President for Life of a failing or failed African state, and today displays typically indignant posing in the face of more and more evidence that his Administration was, to put it mildly, out of control. What, exactly, is there to like or admire here?

Baptist Non-Ethics (UPDATE with new link)

Courtesy of Right Wing Watch, I found this fun little read at Baptist Press on-line (the sub head reads, "News with a Christian Perspective"). The article summarizes a criticism of the recent NAE statement regarding torture. The criticism? I'll let the critic speak for himself:

An anti-torture statement endorsed by the National Association of Evangelicals “is a moral travesty managing not only to confuse but to harm genuine evangelical witness in the culture,” a Southern Baptist ethics professor said March 15.

“The main problem I have with the NAE declaration is not moral but rational,” Daniel R. Heimbach, professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in a statement to Baptist Press. “While it loudly renounces ‘torture,’ it nowhere -- in 18 pages of posturing -- defines what signers of the document claim so vehemently to reject.”

The NAE, which claims to represent 45,000 evangelical churches but does not include the Southern Baptist Convention, said in the statement approved March 11 that the United States has crossed the “boundaries of what is legally and morally permissible” in the war on terror.

“Our military and intelligence forces have worked diligently to prevent further attacks. But such efforts must not include measures that violate our own core values,” the document, called “An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture: Protecting Human Rights in an Age of Terror,” says.

“The danger of the NAE’s diatribe,” Heimbach noted, “is that it threatens to undermine Christian moral witness in contemporary culture by dividing evangelicals into renouncers and justifiers of nebulous torture -- when no one disagrees with rejecting immorality or defends mistreating fellow human beings made in the image of God.”

Substituting passion for reason, the document causes readers to be either morally confused or moved to join a crusade unrelated to facts, Heimbach said. Instead of pontificating against torture, he said, the drafters would have served the public well to define at what point coercion crosses from moral to immoral.

Evangelicals should rely on long-accepted principles of the just war tradition when attempting to draw a moral line regarding torture, Heimbach said. Those principles include: using no more force than is morally warranted, only using force for proper reasons and no more, only using force when other means are ineffective, only using force when properly authorized, never relying on inherently evil methods, only using force on those involved in violence against us, only using force in ways likely to obtain justified results, only using force with regret, never using force in ways that break promises, and never using force in ways that go beyond the value of the wrong being corrected, Heimbach said.

David Gushee, professor of moral philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., was the principal drafter of the statement, which was produced by the NAE-affiliated Evangelicals for Human Rights. The group of 17 drafters also included Rich Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the NAE; Brian McLaren, founder of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Maryland; and David Neff, editor of Christianity Today.

Cizik told the Associated Press the statement was not a critique of the Bush administration but was meant to let the world know that evangelicals do not support torture.

“There is a perception out there in the Middle East that we’re willing to accept any action in order to fight this war against terrorism,” Cizik told AP. “We are the conservatives -- let there be no mistake on that -- who wholeheartedly support the war against terror, but that does not mean by any means necessary.”

The federal government has a moral obligation to follow international human rights treaties that the United States has endorsed, the statement says.

“As American Christians, we are above all motivated by a desire that our nation’s actions would be consistent with foundational Christian moral norms,” the document says. “We believe that a scrupulous commitment to human rights, among which is the right not to be tortured, is one of these Christian moral convictions.”

Meanwhile, a dialogue on torture is ongoing among leading theologians at evangelicaloutpost.com/torture. The website features responses from Heimbach and R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Mohler, on the website, calls torture “a vital issue of great moral consequence” and says “all citizens bear responsibility to be informed and engaged” concerning the debate.

“I would argue that we cannot condone torture by codifying a list of exceptional situations in which techniques of torture might be legitimately used,” Mohler wrote. “At the same time, I would also argue that we cannot deny that there could exist circumstances in which such uses of torture might be made necessary.”

Heimbach told Baptist Press that evangelicals should support government application of coercive force to non-cooperating prisoners as long as those methods are limited to just war boundaries.

“Evangelicals should also firmly oppose, criticize and renounce the coercive treatment of prisoners in ways that transgress just war boundaries,” Heimbach said. “The NAE declaration on torture is confused and dangerous for failing to identify and apply relevant moral principles, and evangelicals should not support any position that fails to balance rejecting immorality with defining boundaries revealing exactly where right turns to wrong.”

I was going to just excerpt it, but the whole article is such a ridiculously offensive piece od sophistry, I thought it better to just present the whole thing.

I think, waterboarding, threatening with dogs, sexual and religious degradation, stress positions, forced wakefulness for days on end, and "rendition" (sending prisoners to third countries who have no compunction about torturing) all qualify as torture in my book. Again, however, I am a crazy left-wing Christian, so what in the world do I know?

I do hope Roger Williams is spinning in his grave.

UPDATE: The good folks at Faith in Public Life.org have provided a link to this article from Ethics Daily, which does me one better by actually wrestling with this whole piece of nonsense. Of course, one might argue that in so doing they grant it a legitimacy it might not otherwise have, yet the piece is so cutting and dismissive - I have already admitted my patience with this kind of thing is waning quickly - that any thought along those lines disappears quickly. Treat yourself and read a much better refutation than my own rather curt, smart-ass dismissal.

Can't Even Do Scandal Well

Thanks to the monumental efforts of Josh Marshall and the folks at Talking Points Memo all the world now has a link to the House Judiciary Committee Website and all 3000 pages of documents the Department of Justice dumped there last night around 9:00 pm eastern (my assumption is they did so to avoid the morning news cycle; sadly for them, Marshall et al. asked readers to read and highlight those parts they found interesting; Fire Dog Lake has already found some doozies).

I have scanned about 300 pages or so, and the one striking conclusion I have is that the Bush Administration is so inept, they can't even do scandal and cover-up well. It would be one thing if all these e-mails, memoranda, and other documents had been shredded or deleted, as would have been done by any other group of unconscionable persons. Apparently they figured, however, that none of this would come out, and they kept to the letter of the law by preserving these documents which pretty clearly outline how they were planning to sack a bunch of US Attorneys for no reason whatsoever, some of whom continued to express loyalty even after it was clear they were being "pushed out" (in the words of one memo) for no reasons other than crass political ones.

You know, if you are going to act in an ethically and perhaps legally questionable manner, one would expect consistency. Don't hang onto 3000 pages of email that, among other things, detail how a talking-points narrative of the firings is to be created and held to by all involved personnel. For just one instance, the whole "serves at the pleasure of the President" business was first mentioned in a memo dated November 15, 2006, before the final list of canned attorneys was approved, before a single phone call notifying any of the attorneys of their impending unemployment had been made.

These people are so dumb they manage to hang themselves with a rope strung from the printouts of their own emails. It's one thing to screw up a war, an economy, and the Constitution of the United States; it's takes a special kind of stupid to mess up a good conspiracy like this, but leave it to BushCO. to find a way.

Michael Kinsley Can Shut Up Now

For years he posed as one "from the Left" on CNN's Crossfire, even though he admitted he really wasn't much of a lefty (unlike original Left-host Tom Braden). Now we have evidence that he buys White House spin - indeed propagates it - as he guest blogs on Swampland, here and here. To sum up, Kinsley wonders what all th fuss is about. First, I would direct him to Talking Points Memo, which has done much of the heavy lifting on this story since they first brought it up a couple months ago. They have kept on it, highlighting details, connecting the dots as it were, to show how the Bush Administration sought to politicize the Justice Department in the most crass manner imaginable. That, in the process, they may have interfered with on-going federal corruption investigations is slowly coming to light, especially in re the Carol Lam firing in San Diego. Memo to Michael Kinsley: that's called "obstruction of justice" and happens to be a serious crime.

More specifically, Glenn Greenwald has a piece today that brings up exactly these points, and at the same time shows the utter mendacity of Republicans who keep blaming Clinton for their own corruption, when Clinton did nothing wrong and they continually do everything wrong. The point of this scandal is not the cover-up; it is the act itself that is so heinous. The cover-up just makes things worse; in trying to cover up, they managed to lie to a Congressional committee, so that just adds to the possible crimes.

Kinsley needs to know there are grown-ups who are concerned about this because it is about keeping justice non-partisan; ensuring the integrity of the Department of Justice and its federal prosecutors; specifically ensuring that Karl Rove's dirty little fingers are kept out of this particular piece of pie; and finally, making sure it never happens again. Kinsley's utter lack of seriousness, his almost total cluelessness as to why this story not only won't go away but exactly why it is a big deal should relieve any of us from having to listen to him again.

Memo to Dennis Prager: You Are No Scripture Scholar

First of all, I have to admit, I have no idea who Dennis Prager is, nor do I care all that much. I was led to this little exercise in Biblical exegesis at Front Page Mag via Right Wing Watch (h/t/) and found, in part, the following:

In the view of John Edwards and other Christians on the Left, Jesus would raise taxes, promote single-payer, i.e., socialized, medicine, be pro-choice and advocate same-sex marriage. But most of all, Jesus would be anti-war, opposed to the military and essentially be a pacifist.

This is based largely on one of His most famous statements: "Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

The flaw in interpreting such statements as policy statements on how a nation should behave is that Jesus was speaking about the life of the individual -- the micro -- not about nations and the macro.

This confusion of micro and macro morality not only afflicts the Left, it also afflicts the Right. One example is when religious conservatives equate public and private cursing. While ideally one should refrain from using expletives in private as well as in public, there is no moral comparison between using such words in private conversations and using them in public. One trusts that if a religious conservative overheard a teacher using an expletive in a quiet conversation with one other person, he would not compare such speech to the teacher's using that expletive while teaching a class. The first may be a personal sin, but the second is destructive of society.

Nevertheless it is the Left that is most oblivious to the distinction between the micro and the macro. Its understanding of Jesus is a good example. The Left would have us as a nation put this admonition of Jesus into practice: "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

This is a blog, not a monograph, so I just don't have all the time and space I might want to discuss the utter stupidity and lack of understanding in this piece. So, just a few thoughts. First, simply from the point of view of presenting an argument, Prager offers the straw-man fallacy - he puts words in Edwards' mouth, then tells Edwards' how wrong those words are. Anyone can do it, it can even be fun, and occasionally funny; one doesn't do it if one is attempting to construct an allegedly serious argument.

Second, it would seem from what Prager is arguing here that, rather than Jesus, Prager would take as his guide Otto von Bismarck, who famously stated that no nation could be governed by the Beatitudes. At least we now know who Prager's favorite political philosopher is - the great architect of German reunification through war, one man rule, "blood and iron", and all that.

Third, on the specifics of Prager's attempted exegesis, the distinction he makes up here - what does he mean by "micro" and "macro" anyway? - has no meaning whatsoever. Jesus was speaking of our corporate responsibility and the possibilities inherent in the Christian life for us together. His was a communal ethic, first and foremost - an ethic for those living together. It may or may not be true that those sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels are poor guides for nation-states (as none have ever applied them, one wonders how one can argue the case), but to create a phony distinction that would have been meaningless to the original hearers (or readers) and is meaningless today does nothing to enlighten the text, the supposed reason we do Biblical interpretation in the first place. This is rhetoric - and really awful, poorly reasoned rhetoric at that - and has little relationship to how one reads the Bible.

Finally, at the end of the piece, Prager writes

Jesus was talking about interpersonal relations and noted that in our relations with people in our lives, it is not generally a good idea to hit back.

Now imagine applying this to nations: Should we have said to the Japanese after they attacked Pearl Harbor, "Now that you have attacked us in the West, please also bomb our cities in the East"?

The idea that a country should offer its other cheek to an aggressor is simply immoral, not to mention suicidal. Such thinking renders Jesus and the Christian Bible foolish.

It also shows how hypocritical are the Left's attacks on religious conservatives for taking the Bible literally. It is the Left that engages in a far more dangerous literalism when it applies Jesus' words to national policy. Those on the religious Right who believe that God created the world in six 24-hour days are engaged in, I believe, a completely unnecessary literalism. But it is hardly dangerous. The Left's biblical literalism, however, applying "turn the other cheek" to millions of its own citizens, is fatally dangerous.

Besides literalism, another point of hypocrisy: The Left attacks the religious Right for threatening to replace our democracy with a theocracy that will impose fundamentalist Christianity on the nation. Yet the people who loathe conservatives for using Scripture have no difficulty with those who cite Jesus' words when arguing their positions -- even when citing them incorrectly.

Jesus was no leftist. He was, among other things, a religious Jew who knew and believed his Hebrew Bible, which contains verses such as this one from Psalms: "Those of you who love God must hate evil." That, not offering another city for terrorists to bomb, is likely what Jesus believed.

So . . . Jesus is OK with wanton death and destruction? I suppose I should refrain from citing a thinker with whom I (largely) disagree, but perhaps Prager should read Stanley Hauerwas, whose absolutist position on pacifism relies quite heavily on a rigorous reading of both the Old and New Testaments, and whose credentials as both a Biblical scholar and public ethicist I would put up against a no-name like Prager any day of the week.

Just a hint, Dennis. Don't try to interpret the Bible when you are both ignorant and stupid. It just doesn't work.

And Now For Something Completely Stupid

You know, I was wondering if it would be difficult to find something at Christian News Wire, the on-line news service of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, to make fun of. I went there, and found this in reference to an anti-war rally sponsored by, among others, various groups affiliated with mainline churches. What follows is Mark Tooley's response:

"It is important to note that the march's organizers are not merely opposing U.S. involvement in Iraq. In their promotional literature they advocate 'the principles of pacifism upon which Jesus based his life and ministry.' Quite simply, these groups oppose U.S. military action of any kind, no matter what the circumstances. This is a pacifist rally and an anti-U.S. rally, not an anti-Iraq War rally."

"These 'Christian Peace Witness' organizers employ language about 'reconciliation' and 'understanding,' but they do not explain what to do about genocidal and autocratic regimes that care little for negotiation, save as a ploy to deflect international pressure. Amazingly, some of the march organizers recently returned from a visit with the Iranian president, and quickly accepted his assurances that Iran's radical Islamist regime does not seek nuclear weapons."

"The organizers of 'Christian Peace Witness for Iraq' see the U.S. as the exclusive culprit in all international crises. Their political and spiritual myopia offers nothing constructive to Christians and other people of faith who genuinely seek a peaceful and just world."

"At best, Iran and the United States are seen as equally belligerent in the eyes of the organizers, and America's involvement in Iraq is considered the main source of Iraq's problems. This is a radical over-simplification of the situation that lays all problems at the U.S. doorstep."

I won't bother with this, because, like all the best comedy, it writes itself.

Boy but these people are dumb.

David Broder's Exercise in Typing

David Broder's column in today's Washington Post (free registration needed to read) is a strange exercise in how not to create an argument. On the one hand Broder acknowledges that the Republican Congress's in recent years have been somnolent in their approach to oversight of the Executive Branch; on the other hand he cautions the Democrats to be wary of too much oversight. On the one hand, he says that low-level staffers have run roughshod over the bureaucracy, forcing decisions based on base, crass politics; on the other hand, he calls these "bad decisions" rather than "illegal acts", which they in fact are. Most odd, he argues that the Democratic majority, thin as it is, is finding legislating difficult because of stonewalling Republicans, yet argues that the Democrats must legislate.

Then, to close it all out he notes the following:

Fulfilling that promise, later in the week the House passed a series of bills that stripped some of the secrecy from executive branch documents and decisions.

The most important measure strengthened the Freedom of Information Act, reasserting the principle that the public should have access to official documents, provided national security is protected. Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, had issued a ruling that allowed agencies and departments to sequester information unless they were compelled to make it public -- placing the burden on the inquirer, not the bureaucracy.

Other bills passed by the House last week expand access to papers in presidential libraries and provide additional protection for "whistle-blowers," including government scientists and contractors who report improper activities.

The Democratic sponsors said that this accountability offensive is exactly what people voted for in November, meeting what Waxman termed "the public's call for fundamental reform."

Accountability is certainly important, but Democrats must know that people were really voting for action on Iraq, health care, immigration, energy and a few other problems. Investigations are useful, but only legislation on big issues changes lives.

So the Democrats should legislate, which he sites them as having done. Yet, they are not legislating enough . . . They should pass laws that effect people's lives, which they are trying to do (making the government transparent to all Americans would seem to effect the way people relate to their elected officials; then again, I'm a crazy left-wing Christian, so what do I know), but are stymied by obstructionist Republicans, which is also noted by Broder.

After a bit of thought, I just wonder - what, exactly was the point of this column by the alleged Dean of Political Reporters?

On Truth

Note: I have tried to keep the philosophical nonsense to a minimum on this blog, because it is dull as dishwater. I have been inspired, however, and inspiration is a horrible thing. If you have no interest in philosophy, you are welcome to keep scrolling, although I think you might find what I have to say provocative, even if you aren't of a philosophical bent. Also, I was going to quote from Parmenides' poem directly, but I can't find my copy of the Penguin Press book on the pre-Socratics. Dammit.

Over at Pomomusings Adam Walker-Cleavland asks about truth. I answered, but I want to give a more full answer here. Sitting in the background of this post are philosophers as varied as the pre-Socratic Parmenides, the American post-modernist Richard Rorty, the German philosopher of science Kurt Hubner, the Austrian-born, British-based philosopher of science Karl Popper, and many others.

Parmenides wrote two poems long ago - one called "The Way of Truth", the other, "The Way of Opinion". In the former, he argued that truth, being unitary, was essentially a dimensionless point; indeed, that reality, being truth, was a dimensionless point. In the latter poem, he argued that our perception of reality, limited as it is, is incapable of perceiving the truth that can only be grasped by the human mind; arguing from appearances, what we know from experience, leads only to false opinions.

Plato and Aristotle, essentially, wrote extensive commentaries on Paremnides, Plato taking issue with the simplicity of his vision, Aristotle actually agreeing, but arguing the matter was a bit more complex. Since that time, few philosophers have been as radical in their view of the nature of truth. Few have grasped the fact that, if one begins with the proposition that "truth" is singular, complete in and of itself, and eternal, it leads inexorably to the idea that all that is, in reality, is a dimensionless point, formless and uniform.

While we have moved far beyond Parmenides in the millenia that have followed him, his essential point is one I take to be inarguable. If one takes the position that "truth" is unitary, universal, and eternal, then the very idea of multiple true statements about the way the world is, is unthinkable. If truth is unitary, it is unitary. Otherwise, there is no such thing as truth. We in the west are inheritors of a tradition that views truth as unitary, but only in the sense that single statements about states of affairs exist as true; one cannot hold equally valid, yet opposing, views on a state of affairs and insist both are true. This is what is known as the correspondence theory of truth; our statements about matters of fact must have a certain verifiable relationship to the matters of fact of which they speak. On this basis rests much of our science, both physical and social, and our law.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the correspondence theory of truth is bunk. What appears to be a theory of truth is merely a way of describing how we talk about discrete matters of fact. Facts are not truth, merely unique events that can be plotted on a graph, telling us the spatio-temporal relations among a variety of physical instances. X was standing at such-and-such longitude and latitude at a certain moment in time - this is a fact, but it is not true, because it refers to nothing eternal, only to an instance of time.

What this means for science, of course, is that when we say it is "true", what we really mean is that is factual; it relates our understanding of the relationships among a certain number of facts, positing various ways in which these relationships cohere. These are not "true"; scientific theories, rather than being true, are only assumed to be not proven decisively untrue yet. As long as they work, they are the best way we have of understanding relationships among matters of fact.

Personally, I agree with Richard Rorty that questions of truth are not so much wrong-headed as uninteresting. Because "reality" is opaque to language - because many of our arguments over the truth-value of science are, in essence, arguments over words about reality, not reality itself - and because there is no meta-lingusitic judge to which all can appeal for the correctness of one's view, we end up arguing over definitions. More interesting are the ways we figure out, through language, story, and our readings of various texts, how to live in the world. There is nothing special about "truth", nothing talismanic, nothing final, nothing ultimate to the view that, if we grasp the truth, we have a hold of something that definitively addresses all sorts of matters.

As a Christian, of course, there is the matter of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel proclaiming, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me." Pilate's question to Jesus, "What is truth?", during the "trial scene" of the Fourth Gospel, needs to be understood in this light, as well as Jesus' refusal to answer verbally - what you see is what you get, in other words.

As a Christian, I do not believe "truth" is something human beings are capable of grasping; rather, I believe human beings are grasped by the truth, and live within it as a life-changing reality, indefinable yet nonetheless transforming. This living, indeed never-dying reality - how does one define what is by its very definition beyond description? - is what we call faith. It, like truth, is a mystery, but one within which we live, and through which we hope, and by which we love. There is no definition of truth; there is only the living in and through it, allowing Jesus' silence to echo in our own in the face of the ineffable.

Scandal Fatigue? Not Even Close . . .

Saturdays are, besides being a day off for yours truly, usually time off for the Washington nonsense machine. The better websites, run as businesses, are closed (Media Matters, Faith in Public Life; Think Progress runs only a smattering of stories). People are recovering from hangovers from Friday night parties, in Washington in New York, trying to digest all the nonsense and outrage from the previous week, wondering which shoe will drop next (how many feet can a Presidential Administration have?).

For myself, I am enjoying some well-earned Tom Waits time (buy Orphans: Brawlers, Ballers, and Bastards if you haven't yet; he's in top form as always), the sun is shining, my St. Bernard is sleeping at the top of the stairs as my kids play. I had all sorts of plans for a boring post no one would read or comment on (it's still coming), and then . . .

. . . I ran across this story at Alternet.org, commenting on the MSM cricket-chirping in response to a Seymour Hersch article about what is essentially a money-laundering and financing racket run out of the VP's office, some of said money going to groups with ties to Al Qaeda. The opening of the Alternet piece needs to be read to be believed:

Let me see if I've got this straight.

Perhaps two years ago, an "informal" meeting of "veterans" of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal -- holding positions in the Bush administration -- was convened by Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams. Discussed were the "lessons learned" from that labyrinthine, secret, and illegal arms-for-money-for-arms deal involving the Israelis, the Iranians, the Saudis, and the Contras of Nicaragua, among others -- and meant to evade the Boland Amendment, a congressionally passed attempt to outlaw Reagan administration assistance to the anti-communist Contras.

In terms of getting around Congress, the Iran-Contra vets concluded, the complex operation had been a success -- and would have worked far better if the CIA and the military had been kept out of the loop and the whole thing had been run out of the Vice President's office.

Subsequently, some of those conspirators, once again with the financial support and help of the Saudis (and probably the Israelis and the Brits), began running a similar operation, aimed at avoiding congressional scrutiny or public accountability of any sort, out of Vice President Cheney's office. They dipped into "black pools of money," possibly stolen from the billions of Iraqi oil dollars that have never been accounted for since the American occupation began.

Some of these funds, as well as Saudi ones, were evidently funneled through the embattled, Sunni-dominated Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to the sort of Sunni jihadi groups ("some sympathetic to al-Qaeda") whose members might normally fear ending up in Guantanamo and to a group, or groups, associated with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

Just a few comments. First, this is Sy Hersch, whose first Pulitzer was for breaking the My Lai story. In the early 1980's he wrote "the Kissinger anti-memoir", The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. His reporting in The New Yorker in recent years has been spot on, from debunking the whole Niger story to his initial report on the Office of Special Plans and its end-run around the CIA to the plans for war on Iran. There is little he has gotten wrong; he is a hard-working journalist of the old-school.

Second, the fact that Eliot Abrams had his career revived by Bush should have had everyone up in arms, because this is a man who has nothing but contempt for the rule of law, for the separation of powers, for Congress, and a Junior G-man love of comic book-style intrigue. Only an amateur would have loved the Iran-Contra business, as convoluted and silly (not to mention illegal) as it was. His felonious fingers should be no where near a lever of power, not even the transmission lever of a car, because he is not to be trusted under any circumstances. He should have run out of chances with the American people in 1987.

Third, every time in the past three weeks a story comes out on some nefarious, illegal, and dunder-headed action by the Bush Administration, the entire story-cycle goes something like this:
-Tony Snow laughs it off, and the WH press corps laugh with him
-More detailed information becomes available, and the question become more heated; Snow does his "No Comment" dance, and the MSM make fun of conspiracy-mongers on the Internet
-Even more detailed information comes to light, and everyone starts to say, "Hey, there might be something there."
-Congress holds a hearing to reveal the fact that everyone's worst fears are in fact the case; Bush acts indignant, and rumors swirl about this or that fall-guy taking the heat

In other words, I believe this story because every single time an accusation of wrong-doing is made against the Bush Administration, it has proven to be not only correct, but in fact much worse than was initially suspected. Of course, as a kind of background to all this, one wonders why anyone, journalist or not, listens to anything these people say, because, as Digby originally said, and I have repeated, these people lie as easily as they breathe; one just knows that if they say "black", reality is white. Worse, I honestly believe they are incapable of telling the truth; this is like the first truly sociopathic institution in American history (much worse than Nixon, because the press hated Nixon; I think the press genuinely like Bush, something that is beyond my capability to imagine).

I think this is one of those stories that will simmer on the back burner until some vital piece of information is corroborated by a member of the mainstream press, and then - BOOM! - Eliot Abrams takes another fall, this time for Dick Cheney, rather than Ronald Reagan. Of course, with so much on their plate, one wonders if Congress will consider this worth looking into; but, and this needs to be said, the criminality of this Administration knows no bounds.

More Frothing From the Right over Pete Stark

As an update to my post yesterday in re the Concerned Women of America expressing their displeasure over Rep. Pete Stark's avowal of atheism, Right Wing Watch brings us news of another corner of the whackoverse heard from. This time, it is something called the Traditional Values Coalition, which upped the ante by not only reporting the story, but lying about it. So much for traditional values . . .

You know, these so-called right-wing Christians, who seem to have no problem with illegal wars and occupations without end, torture, "extraordinary rendition", illegal detention, multiple abuses of power, neglect of wounded soldiers and veterans, the fraying of the social and civil fabric of American life are upset because a long-term member of Congress says, "Hey, I'm an atheist, and the world is still spinning." I wonder what, exactly, are the values in the American tradition these people are trying to uphold. Or is it perhaps the case that, like Communists who call their countries The Democratic Republic of . . . when in fact it is neither democratic nor a republic in the traditional sense, these people are flapping their gums in some Orwellian fashion? What is the answer to all this?

Does E. J. Dionne Read My Blog?

Faith in Public Life.org reprints an op-ed from E. J. Dionne that says what I have been saying all along in re the changing nature of the public positions of evangelicals. The first paragraph of Dionne's piece is the most important, as it sums up a point I wish to drive home to readers:

Evangelical Protestantism in the United States is going through a New Reformation that is disentangling a great religious movement from a partisan political machine. This historic change will require liberals and conservatives alike to abandon their sometimes narrow views of who evangelicals are.(emphasis added)

There has been an "awakening" of sorts among liberals to what has come to be called "Dominionist" rhetoric among the Christian Right - I had never heard the term, and I am still unclear as to what it means (although I am sure someone will tell me) - as if it were something new. I happen to have a book (is that surprising?) called The Farther Shores of American Politics, detailing both the left and right fringes. The book, published in 1972, has an entire chapter dedicated to the Christian Right, and names that appear there, including Billy James Hargis (he of Campus Crusade for Christ fame), are among those who also were among the early movers and shakers in the late 1970's as the Christian Right awoke from its long slumber (most scholars date its retreat from public life to the Scopes' Monkey Trial). Much of the rhetoric, many of the goals, indeed even the tactics of the movement as it became more "mainstream" remained unchanged from its days as a marginalized, fringe movement through the 1950's and 1960's. In fact, reading the chapter today shows how little has changed, at least among the old guard - those who tried to unseat Cizik from his position as policy director from the NAE.

As the NAE changes, recognizing the reality that evangelicals have a devotion to issues that transcend the "traditional" ones of abortion and gay rights, the screeching one hears is as much the cry of those who know their time in power is just about up as it is a serious debate over the direction evangelicals should take in pursuing their public charge. Noting that neither Cizik nor the NAE have abandoned their pro-life position, but in fact are seeing their pro-life position as encompassing much more than "protecting the unborn" (something many have been saying for two decades, but that is another matter). They are placing their public position within a much broader context, which Cizik calls "creation care". The name is neither here nor there; it is the fact that a new generation of evangelicals sees itself as committed less to transforming American society and culture than to working within traditional political structures for specific policy goals that have both broad public support as well as are consistent with their rhetoric in favor of life.

Evangelicals are a complicated lot, and some who are lumped in with them are not nor have ever been true "evangelicals" as historians of Christianity understand the term. The recognition that there is something uniquely evangelical about the pursuit of an agenda that expands beyond very narrow partisan ones opens up the movement to a broader public, and offers opportunities for coalitions that transcend heretofore traditional ideas of what is conservative and what is liberal.

These changes are welcome and long overdue. I find the sudden furrowing of brows over "Dominionist" rhetoric quite funny, because it has been there all along, and at the very moment the evangelical movement is changing, and the more strident elements of it are becoming marginalized, there is this sudden fear of "theocracy". I can only say to this, "Hogwash". The reality is much more interesting, and for progressives opens up all sorts of opportunities for coalitions to move the country in interesting directions, provided we recognize that such coalitions are over issues, and we not try to create a Democratic version of what has been the Republican indenture of the Christian Right for a generation.

"I am sullied - no more."

This is one of those things one knows about in some abstract kind of way, but the plethora of reports on various deaths from snipers, IEDs, etc., kind of keep such information on the downlow, as the young people say. Thanks to Erudite Redneck (with a tip of the cowboy hat), I came across this as Editor and Publisher about the suicide of an Army Colonel in Iraq in 2005. The suicide note, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, reads in part:

"Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name]—You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff—no msn [mission] support and you don’t care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied—no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more.

"Trust is essential—I don’t know who trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it."

The story goes on to say that the Colonel was a full professor at West Point whose dissertation in philosophy was on the concept of honor.

The name redacted at the top is most likely that of our current Iraqi commander, Gen. Petraeus.

I hope this tormented man's shade haunts Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and every single war-blogger, 101st Chariborner, member of the mainstream media who whored for this war, and, of course, our Commander-in-Chief, until the day they all die and are forgotten by history.

UPDATE: Alternet.org has more.

Someone Tell Sam Harris his 15 Minutes Are Long Over

Faith in Public Life.org reprints an op-ed from the LA Times written by self-promoting God-denier Sam Harris. I have written before about Harris, specifically here and here. In the first link above, concerning an interview at Alternet, in which Harris admitted his belief in reincarnation, ESP, and vocally supported the torture of Muslims (indeed, he voiced his support for torture with the claim that it "is proven to work", something it most emphatically has not been), I wrote the following:

It should be obvious that [Harris] simply has no idea what he is talking about, on any level, and has no moral compass whatsoever, rational or otherwise. His concern is not with the damage religion has done to humanity, because it is quite clear he doesn't care about real people - why advocate torture if he cares about human life and well-being? No, he cares about Sam Harris. He is, it would seem, an unthinking, unreflective, ignorant self-promoter, basking in the limelight provided by outrageous and unsubstantiated claims and argument with neither merit nor support in evidence. He is now revealed as a believer in some of the silliest ideas imaginable, ideas with no more (or less) support in "evidence" than the resurrection of Jesus, the divine authority of the Mosaic law, or the divine authorship of the Q'uran. I am not saying that ESP and reincarnation do not exist (actually, I am; I believe in neither, and the fact that both are matters of "belief" should already lead us well on the way to questioning the basis of Harris' attacks on religion), but rather that they are no more supported by evidence than any other wild claim. They are matter of belief, not verifiable evidence. I suppose consistency is too much to ask of some people, but I am unsurprised by the fact that, rather than the deep, serious thinker he claims to be, Harris is now outed as a shallow, unserious person in love with his new celebrity status. The fact that he tries to distance himself from his own beliefs in interviews show that he is a celebrity, not an intellectual.

Like the proverbial bad penny, or a herpes infection, Harris is back, writing in regards to "religious moderates". Far from considering him a threat to the faith, I consider him a joke of monumental proportions, as the above quote shows; as the title of the latter-linked post has it, I also think him silly, fanatical, and cowardly, the last because he attempted, in a follow-up to the Alternet interview, to disavow the very things he has both written and spoken about that he does believe.

Like Richard Dawkins, whose The God Delusion is a recycling of better arguments and better understanding by Bertrand Russell (Why I Am Not a Christian is the best atheist manifesto I have ever read; Dawkins adds nothing to Russell, and subtracts quite a bit), Harris offers nothing in his works but the idea that "religion" is very bad. Unlike Dawkins, who seems to somehow equate all religion with theistic faiths, Harris is at least clear-headed enough to mention Islam and Judaism (although he has always failed to mention his own pet-faith, Buddhism) in the list of religions in need of social euthanasia. The problem, of course, is that neither Harris nor Dawkins have a clue of the thing about which they write. I can listen to atheist arguments, and I will give heed to serious arguments; neither Dawkins nor Harris offer them, and by his own actions and in his own words, Harris has shown himself to be a cowardly hypocrite, wishing for nothing less than to be taken seriously precisely as he has no business being.

I feel bad the LA Times gave him column inches to resuscitate his flagging public profile, and in a column so devoid of moral, intellectual, or historical understanding it would be given an "F" by most college professors in an undergraduate course. On the other hand, it does remind us all why he should be devoutly ignored.

I'm Concerned About Concerned Women of America (CWA)

Over at Right Wing Watch.org comes this little snippet in re Rep. Pete Stark's announcement that he is a non-theistic Unitarian:

"It is unfortunate in a society that is going down the path of godlessness and making right wrong and wrong right, that we continue down this path by celebrating one member of Congress who denies that God exists altogether," Concerned Women for America Director of Legislative Relations Mike Mears told Cybercast News Service.

"The founding fathers ... founded this country on godly principles," Mears said. "Fifty-one of the 56 signers [of the Declaration of Independence] had a Christian worldview and [Stark] wants to change that and celebrate - basically - godlessness."

…

"I think a Christian worldview is proper for a politician to have," he said. "I want them to be looking outside of themselves for answers to big issues."

Of course, the business about the Founders is historically inaccurate, but that has never stopped those on the right from repeating it. As for godly principles, could they perhaps explain the "no religious test for office" clause?

I thought not.

What exactly is a "Christian worldview" anyway?

So many question. So few answers. So much nonsense. So little thought . . . or understanding . . . or respect for the Constitution.

Just a note; the Director of Legislative Relations for Concerned Women of America is a man.

Finally, it is apparent that "concern" is enough to make these ladies feel they should be taken seriously. Sadly, I do not.

This Fall Guy Should Be a Domino

Over at MyDD.com, is this piece on the efforts to set up Alberto Gonzalez as the designated fall-guy for the US Attorney purge. One of the points made is that, as each scandal uncovered in recent weeks moves closer to the White House, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find someone expendable to throw to the wolves; Gonzalez is a long-time Bush aide, and served as White House counsel before becoming AG (Attorney General, not Alberto Gonzalez, which has always been his name . . . as far as we know; with this crew, they might even lie about that). The problem, of course, is that there is now a paper-and-electronic trail that leads to Karl "Turdblossom" Rove, and with the Senate Judiciary Committee making noises about subpoenas for Rove, having Gonzalez' head served on a platter will in all likelihood not suffice. There are too many of Rove's fat, dirty fingerprints all over this entire falderol to satisfy anyone but hardcore Bush-backers with a shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic. Acquiescing to a change in the PATRIOT Act reauthorization to rescind the ability of the AG to appoint USA's without Senate approval will not be enough. Indeed, little short of Rove doing a perp walk will, I believe, shut down our criminal-in-chief.

Like most bullies, the Bush Administration thought it could toss a bone or two if trouble arose, getting rid of obvious deadwood when the fire got really hot. That worked with a supine Congress and a press dedicated to preserving all things Bush. The evidence, however, is mounting that these folks are not just criminally incompetent, but purposely, positively corrupt, with Rove being the chief instigator behind so much of what is wrong. Ultimate responsibility, of course, rests with the doofus in the Oval Office, but never underestimate Rove's uniquely foul stamp on pretty much everything that has been awful about the past five-plus years.

When Gonzalez goes, I have serious doubts he will go quietly; I expect things may just get interesting in the next few days and weeks, as first the Senate demands Rove testify, and second as Gonzalez leaves office, Sampson-like pulling the entire temple down around him as he is cut loose by the President he has served so faithfully - even authoring a memo supporting torture, calling the Geneva accords "quaint" - for all these years. While I hate to make predictions, that is mine: Gonzalez will bring down Rove, who in turn will turn fed's evidence against BushCo. Then, things might get REALLY interesting.

Digby is Right, As Usual

For years, I have been lamenting the abysmal lack of knowledge about everything from fundamental Bible skills to basic facts of church history to more detailed understandings of church teachings among the faithful. I have complained, even to the ear of a United Methodist Bishop or two, that the church's fundamental failing over the past generation was pedagogical; we simply weren't teaching Christians what they ought to know. I had a professor in seminary who insisted that the laity not only couldn't "get" what it is we learn, they wouldn't, and we needed to spoon-feed the faithful watered-down bits. I fought that attitude then, and I find it egregiously elitist and condescending now, precisely because that very ignorance feeds the kind of mindlessness we see on the Christian right.


Digby highlights a story on CNN that addresses this very issue. After quoting from the transcript, Digby writes the following:

I agree that it's a little bit odd that the vast majority of people in a country that prides itself as the most religious in the world can't name the writers of the gospel, but really, whose fault is that? The last I heard, there were tens of thousands of churches in this country. Is it too much to ask that they be in charge of religious instruction? Isn't that their specialty?

I know that many of the conservative mega-churches spend most of their time instructing their parishoners on Republican politics and holding Christian rock extravaganzas so they don't have time for actual religious teaching. Understood. But maybe they could send their kids to the mainline and liberal churches once a month so they can get some actual Bible teachings. With all the pressure on public schools to find a way to teach biology that doesn't offend the Christian Right, they just don't have the resources to spend on special classes about Biblical references in pop songs and presidents 'n stuff.

I'm sure there are many churches that would be happy to accomodate those who want their kids (or themselves) to learn about religion.

As always, Digby is right on the money, and all I can say is, keep preaching.

Deadhead On Target

Among Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-VT) many outstanding qualities is his devotion to The Grateful Dead. How can anyone not like a guy who wears tie-dye, spends hours at a time with seriously chemicalled-up fellow-revelers digging extremely loud party music, and can still stare down a criminal administration? I mean, seriously, the fact that he is a Deadhead is like icing on the cake; you just know he's the coolest.

So here's Leahy today in an interview:

“Frankly, I don’t care whether [White House Counsel Fred Fielding] says he’s going to allow people or not. We’ll subpoena the people we want,” Leahy said. “If they want to defy the subpoena, then you get into a stonewall situation I suspect they don’t want to have.” Asked whether he’ll subpoena Rove, Leahy answered, “Yes. He can appear voluntarily if he wants. If he doesn’t, I will subpoena him.”

"Frankly, I don't care . . ." That's all it takes to show the Administration what happens when the VP tells you to "Go fuck yourself" on the floor of the United States Senate.

May the Four Winds Roll you Safely Home*, Senator.

From "Franklin's Tower", lyrics by Robert Hunter

This Is What Reading the Bible Can Do

Note: I have to give a very large tip of the hat to Faith in Public Life.org for doing the leg (o perhaps finger) work of compiling links to articles of interest to religious progressives - Christian, Jewish, and Muslim - creating a one-stop shopping center for those of us interested but with limited time. I have been using this source since the summer, although I have sadly neglected it for the past couple months as I pursued other interests. I feel like I have come home, as each day I have found something of interest there. Whether one is religious or not, I think it wise to spend just a few minutes perusing the resources and information available there. Thus ends my commercial for FIPL.

Faith in Public Life.org reprints an article from Zack Exley at In These Times (please read the entire article) on a growing movement - one of which I was only dimly aware - of radical, indeed "revolutionary" evangelicalism. For our purposes, I wish to highlight the following paragraph from Exley's article:

Could the shift in focus from personal salvation to the building of the "kingdom of Heaven" be the inevitable result of the long rise of "back to the Bible" fundamentalism? Tens of millions of American Christians are not only reading the Bible, but getting together in groups and studying it -- studying the historical context in which the authors wrote, the nuances of the original Greek and Hebrew, and the issues raised by translation and conflicting source texts.

Isn't it fascinating that actually reading the Bible leads people to understand "values" in completely novel ways? Isn't it interesting that "leaders" are upset with these groups who actually read the Bible and come to different conclusions? Thus the dangers of letting people read the Bible, rather than just listening to sermons by people who claim authority to tell them what's in the Bible, a lesson these "leaders" might have remembered had they known the history of the Reformation . . .

I do not know enough about this movement, its teachings, or its variants, to judge it competently, but, like the rising Green awareness among evangelicals, it shows that the Evangelical movement in the US is not about theocracy, or anti-intellectualism, but at its best, is inclusive, radical in its demands (in the best sense of the word), and offers adherents a way to live their faith life in a way that is for others rather than against medical procedures or loving commitments. I do believe this needs more looking into. . .

Alone With God

Glenn Greenwald discusses a recent gathering of neo-cons with Pres. Bush and highlights the fact that the President feels satisfied with himself because he trusts that God and history shall redeem him. I know little about the historian who was the "seminar leader" (for lack of a better word to describe the luncheon), although the guest list, including Gertrude Himmelfarb, Kate O'Bierne, and Mona Charen, is indicative of the kind of people Bush likes to surround himself with - namely, sycophantic, mindless "journalists" who have been giving bad advice and offering nonsensical opinions for far too long for anyone's good. Be that as it may, I find it interesting that Bush is relying upon one God and one pagan muse to redeem his sorry administration, because I do think that neither one will offer much help.

I shall leave God for a moment and concentrate upon history for a moment. can history redeem those thought irrevocably lost? Almost certainly. Consider Harry Truman, long thought to be a dismal failure. With David McCullough's biography, and a spate of scholarly studies, we find the haberdasher's time to be less bad than we once thought, although Truman's failings - his tendency toward extreme partisanship, his ward-heeler's approach to Presidential appointments that led to scandal (much the same as with Bush) - are still plain for all to see. Yet Truman benefits from something Bush lacks - Dean Acheson, George Marshall, Arthur Vandenberg, and Clark Clifford. In other words, Truman surrounded himself with advisers and informal assistants, both Republican and Democratic, who were among the best in our nation's history. Name a Bush appointee who is on a level with Truman's Secretary of the Interior, let alone his Secretaries of State (Jimmy Byrnes, who had to leave office due to incipient schizophrenia; retired Gen. George C. Marshall; Dean Acheson).

Despite his many political failings, Truman was, by all accounts, a cranky but otherwise likable fellow. Bush, on the other hand, from all that I've read, is irascible, temperamental, and not a "people person". The idea of George W. Bush being able to plow a straight furrow with a mule-drawn plow after retiring from the Presidency (would he wear his Andover or Yale tie?) is beyond my comprehension.

History redeems those who have redemptive qualities. Otherwise, it takes a look at the record, public and private, and renders its verdict. Indeed, the frequent recollection of the restoration of Truman and his Administrative legacy is cited because of comparative uniqueness (although Ronald Reagan's Presidency is apparently undergoing a similar re-evaluation). This particular kind of lightning rarely strikes the same office twice in the same century.

As for resting comfortably in the arms of the Almighty, all I can say is this - just because one feels one is free from sin before God does not mean that everything we do is either divinely ordained or approved by heaven. Indeed, one would hope for just a tad bit of humility before the Throne; Bush, apparently, doesn't quite understand the fact that God tends to love the sinner but hate the sin. George W. Bush may wind up in heaven - of that I am completely incompetent to judge (except in the case of Henry Kissinger) - but one wonders about the crowd waiting to greet him who might have a question or two for him, you know all those American service personnel, Iraqis, and sundry others who are dead as a direct result of decisions he has made. This may sound facetious, but I am quite serious; Bush needs to remember, should he be capable of doing so, that we are known by our fruits, and thousands of dead bodies in an ill-conceived, justified-by-lies, most likely illegal war are hardly a chalk mark in his favor, and there might be some who would question the soundness of his judgment and Christian commitment as he stands, metaphorically, before all those graves (it would have to be metaphorically, as he tends to not go to service funerals).

Perhaps, alone with God, Bush feels at peace. I do hope that, even once in the past four years, he has thought about the thousands who even now rest in peace with that same God, and that such thoughts brings a drop of sweat to his brow.

The Press is Befuddled on Religion

Note: There is a point I wish to make in what follows, and it is quite simple, viz., the press treatment of various religious leaders and issues is usually quite wide of the mark, displays a glaring ignorance of both the issues and personalities involved, and sometimes is colored by biases. If what follows is unclear, perhaps it is because I am trying too hard, or my comparisons don't work in such a small space. Or, maybe I'm just wrong. Here we go.

Over at Faith in Public Life.org, is a reprint of an article from the Lower Hudson Journal News, written by Gary Stern, reporting on a speech by Michael Cromartie of The Ethics and Public Policy Center to a group of evangelicals. A couple things in the article jumped out at me. The first quote is one I have used in private conversations regarding the political activity of right-wing Christians, now echoed by one of those very persons:

"Evangelicals must be careful that in their pursuit of political victories they not lose their very soul," [Cromartie] said.

Indeed, such caution is long overdue; coming from as prominent a leader of the movement as Cromartie is heartening because it is the exact caution all Christians must have as they enter the political arena.

Another point that jumped out at me was Cromartie's dismissal of Jerry Falwell as "leader" of the evangelical movement. He claimed that only Tim Russert listened to and took Falwell seriously. While this statement is certainly hyperbole, it does make an important point, one the recent NAE meeting in Minneapolis highlighted, i.e., that older "leaders" of the movement, themselves rarely clergy (Richard Viguerie, the founder and namer of "The Moral Majority", James Dobson, and Timothy LaHaye - among the movers and shakers behind the scenes of the Christian Right - are none of them clergy; Pat Robertson surrendered his credentials when he sought the Presidential nomination in 1988), are being replaced by a younger generation motivated by a broader concern than just abortion and the so-called culture wars. Including torture, climate change, social and racial justice among a list of evangelical political priorities shows the movement is not so much going away as it is changing with the times.

The press, however, is a bit behind the curve, as it were. Kevin Phillips book from this past summer, American Theocracy and Chris Hedges' American Fascists both work under the same premise - that the Christian right has an agenda that is a danger to American democratic and republican virtues and values.

Well, duh, as the kids would say.

That alarm has been sounded for over a quarter century, and only now are people starting to take notice? I would cry if not for laughing so hard because, at the very moment the movement is changing, becoming more complex, less amenable to simple, and simplistic, rhetoric and party political pressure, suddenly, "The Christians are coming!" is all the rage. Had people taken these folks seriously a generation ago, we might have saved ourselves a whole lot of trouble in the mean time, but they were ignored or lampooned (it is easy to do, after all), and they built whole networks of political power, some of which, like The Christian Coalition, were quite effective for a time (the Christian Coalition, like its many predecessors, is dying a silent but long delayed death after its brief year or two in the sun after the 1994 elections).

I insist that Hedges and Phillips have come to the party just a bit too late to be taken seriously; I also think that the fact Dobson, et al.'s spurning by the NAE is a sign (if any more were needed) that the Christian Right, as we have known it since roughly 1979 or so, is dead, and a new, much more complex politically active evangelical community, no longer single-issue, no longer reliably partisan, is in the works. One wonders when the press will get on that bandwagon?

Watching As It All Falls Apart

There is only one political story out there today, and it is the US Attorney purge. The clock is ticking down for Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, and, from all reports, he did himself no favors at his press conference this afternoon. I think Sen. Leahy's comments, that he is "shocked" that members of the Bush Administration lied to his committee sound a bit like Claude Rains in Casablanca, as these folk are institutionally incapable of telling the truth, but that is neither here nor there. More to the point is the simple fact that, the entire edifice of this group of unindicted co-conspirators against the American people is crumbling, only a few rats remain on board the ship, and the only fans they seem to have are members of the press, who still insist, despite mountains of evidence, on giving them the benefit of the doubt.

When I first read a small blurb over at Talking Points Memo about the firing of United States Attorneys, I thought, "Interesting, but hardly anything anyone is interested in." Sadly, I was sounding a bit like members of the press - the American people are much too dim to understand something as complex as the sacking of federal prosecutors, no matter how egregious it may turn out to be. I must eat the plate of crow I have served myself, because it now turns out that this is about as big a deal as Richard Nixon firing Archibald Cox, or Ronald Reagan selling arms to Iran, then taking the profits and giving them to American-supported, drug-running terrorists in Nicaragua (after Oliver North took his cut for a home security fence; a finders fee, one assumes). The press recognize this exactly for what it is - meddling in non-political legal affairs for crass, even base, political motives is about as low as one can go. Manipulation of the legal system is something Mafiosi do, which is why it arouses such disgust among most Americans. It is thuggery, pure and simple.

While one wonders whether or not the "I" word might start to become spoken a bit more loudly, not just whispered among a few, there is no doubt that the carefully constructed facade, a kind of Potemkin Village of competence, even arrogance, is now down, and what is revealed is a sordid, indeed fetid, pile of rat-infested buildings, paint peeling, roof leaking - kind of like Building 18 at Walter Reed Army Hopsital. . . .

My friend and frequent visitor Democracy Lover is annoyed that articles of impeachment haven't already been served, and while I understand his frustration, I also recognize the necessity on the part of Democrats in Congress to exercise caution. I remarked to him that, considering the multiple disadvantages Democrats operate under, some of them of their own doing, it is remarkable the amount of information that is coming to light in just two short months since they took over Congress. While the USA purge is a recent development, one doubts that much of what has already come to light would have surfaced had Republicans maintained control of the legislature. It is remarkable, really, how, with just a little push here, a nudge there, we have lifted the bed skirt and all sorts of horrid dust kitties have become visible. Were the Democratic majorities larger, and the Democrats themselves a bit less timid, we might actually be well on the way to ridding ourselves of this odious group once and for all. Just remember, kiddies, should Bush and Cheney fall, third in line for the Presidency is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, so not only might we be seeing a change of Administration sooner rather than later, we might see a change of party, and a change of gender as well.

We now see, as the dust from this travesty rises then settles around us, how important elections are.

Dispensationalism and AIPAC - Strange Bedfellows Indeed

Thanks to Alternet.org, I managed to read this article at the American Prospect's online edition. The piece is a great criticism of AIPAC's flirtation with some of the more ludicrous parts of the American polity. The invitation to John Hagee is both unsurprising and, to those who may not understand some of the distinctions in American religious history, a bit shocking. Hagee, along with other more prominent religious conservatives such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are certainly supporters of the state of Israel. The problem is, they do not support it because it is "the only democracy in the Middle East", or "our only friend in a sea of enemies", or any of the other nonsense they may spout. They support Israel as an historical means to an eschatological end - the second coming. They thoroughly believe, and show their ignorance of the history of Zionism by doing so, that the creation of the modern nation-state of Israel, combined with the hoped-for rebuilding of the Temple, are all divinely ordained signs of the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

Hagee, unlike the Baptist Falwell or Assembly of God Robertson, is a very special kind of Christian. He is a dispensationalist. Dispensationalism in not new, but its development in the United States has been more thorough, and mainstreamed more readily, than in earlier periods of church history. Most can date the idea of dispensationalism to the late-medieval mystic Joachim of Fiore, who wrote of the different ages, or dispensations, of the Triune God. First was the Old Testament, which was the dispensation of the Father; then came the age of the Son, from the resurrection until the present moment. Joachim believed that soon, with the coming of anti-Christ and the tribulation of the faithful, would dawn the age of the Spirit, in which, after the struggle, human beings would live in direct communion with God, who would rule the world in peace.

Living in an ahistorical age (at least as we would understand the term) Fiore did not have access to certain understandings that dispensationalists have. Also, his reading of Scripture, while odd, was never considered heretical. Joachim inspired many Christians and non through the ages (read Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium for a good introduction, plus essays by Ernst Bloch and Jurgen Moltmann), not least of whom included Karl Marx. Only with American Christianity, with its deep fervor, its pretension to serious enquiry, and its fervent spirituality (combined with our native prejudice, still with us in a variety of forms even now that we are in fact the New Israel) did it really take hold.

One of the first tenets of this idea is that the entire Bible is prophetic, not just certain books or types of writings. "Prophecy" here is not understood as the Israelites or early church understood it, as a communication from the LORD concerning justice and grace, but rather in the popular way as "prediction". Dispensationalists, then, do not read the Bible literally; they could hardly be fundamentalists, because they are constantly scouring the Bible for ways of interpreting scripture in light of their belief that the entire collection of writings is an encoded message concerning the Second Coming of Christ.

John Hagee is typical of dispensationalists, with his charts and graphs, his dire predictions of megadeaths and glorious returns - what any of this has to do with Christianity I am not sure, and even less with "supporting Israel". That AIPAC would allow someone like him in the room shows they have neither scruples nor moral sense; they don't even recognize an enemy in the gates when they see it. Let me be clear. Hagee does not support Israel qua Israel, but rather as the historic means to the theological end of the world, and most of the human race, including Jews. One of the hallmarks of dispensationalists is their firm belief that the author of the apocalypse was right on target when he said that the number of the saved from the final tribulation would be 144,000; that's a whole lot of dead bodies, cast into the fiery pit and locked away for all eternity. There is little of grace and much desire and blood lust here.

Sources

I have been blogging now for about ten months (my previous blog, which died an ignominious death, is best forgotten; I think I am even going to remove it from my blogroll, as much of it is an embarrassment now), and I think it is high time that I took a step back and gave a little overview of some of the intellectual sources upon which I draw for my political and theological views. This may or may not be interesting, but I do feel it is important, as it gives those who come here an idea of why it is I say the things I say, and why I do not say some things people either might expect me to say or say thing people might not expect.

First, it is important to note that, intellectually speaking, there are three period in my life that shaped me more than any other. First, the period of my first year-and-a-half at Wesley Theological Seminary, where I studied systematic theology, opened me up to whole new arenas of thought, theological and philosophical, that I had not even known existed. Here, I was exposed to Jurgen Moltmann, James Cone, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and, of course, Karl Barth. I was also exposed, for the first time, to the writings of Richard Rorty and Ernst Bloch, two very different kinds of philosophers.

The second period, which corresponded to the end of my seminary career and the beginning of my married life, the spring of 1993, was the revelation I was granted by reading Isaiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity. Moreso than any other single thing I have ever read - and I would include the Bible in this - Berlin's book opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about thinking. It also introduced me to Herder and Vico (Hamann is difficult to find in translation these days, and as I don't read German, this third source of Berlin's is still elusive).

Finally, the third period, from the fall of 1994 through the spring of 1997, was the period when I first read Thomas Kuhn. First was The Copernican Revolution, followed quickly by The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. From there, I turned to Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton, the writings of Rudolf Carnap (especially A Logical Syntax of Language), Herbert Marcuse' One Dimentsional Man, Plato and Aristotle, St. Thomas, Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (I have since read several of the University of Indiana reprints of various lectures of Heidegger's but I have yet to see the new translation of B&T), Immanuel Kant (again; you can't do seminary properly without reading Kant), Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Alisdaire MacIntyre.

This list is hardly exhaustive, and it doesn't at all cover the volumes I have read since, nor does it tell the uninitiated about the content of what I have read. These volumes, however, are the spring, the source from which I start much of my thinking. I try not to belong to any "school" of thought, and I would hardly call my appropriation of any of these works uncritical. Some of them are highly critical; some, to be honest, gave voice in a systematic and clear way to unformed and nascent ideas of my own. All of them have fed me in a variety of ways, and still do, as I occasionally turn to one or another of them for solace, comfort, and even new insight (if you don't reread a really big book, then you're not trying to learn, but just showing off; the exception, of course, is Barth, whose 13 volume, yet still incomplete, Church Dogmatics I hope to finish before I shuffle off this mortal coil, but only on a first pass).

Three Month Old Puppies and Bloggers - They Both Whine

I do believe that Duncan is feeling a bit upset by some of the comments made about him. Over here at his site, Eschaton, he not only repeats both his goals and his surprise at his success - after many years and much hard work - he also links to the whiny bloggers who just want to have him, or Kos, or somebody to link to them. I have spent a bit of time reflecting the past few weeks on just what it is I do (and I think one last post on this topic is all that is warranted), and just to be clear, my feelings mirror Duncan's right down the line.

I originally started this whole thing as an intellectual outlet, and it has morphed into a hobby - a daily "thing I do", and I have fun, exchange jokes, notes, views, even the occasional insult, but mostly I just enjoy myself as I very publicly (even though my public is small:) ) try to work through what it is I feel about various issues and topics. I have no illusions about either my insight or the perspicacity of my intellect; I do the best with what I've got, and trust that others will call me out when I make an ass of myself. I will admit that I was inordinately proud of getting notice in slate.com, as I posted yesterday (who wouldn't, unless one was called a total failure and wanker of the first order?), but, such notice is really beside the point. I still just do what I do, and if anyone listens, great. If not, well, this is more about me than you, isn't it?

Like Duncan, I have no idea what "success" would look like, because, to be honest, just blogging everyday feels successful. I have an outlet for my intellectual and political views, I have one or two people who feel moved enough comment, keeping me honest, and I have a tiny voice in our national conversation - the last being all I ever wanted anyway. All those who just want to be linked to FDL, or whatever the site might be - they are looking for attention, not based on merit or hard work, but by basking in the glow of true success stories. Like the nobody who attaches him- or herself to a famous person in the vain hope of reflected glory, there is something more than a little parasitic about the whole thing.

In other words, shut up and blog!

Just Another Cost of Doing Business

Over at my good friend Erudite Redneck's blog, I posted a comment on a thread concerning the decision by Halliburton to relocate its corporate headquarters from Houston, TX to the Port of Dubai. ER, as he is known to all who visit, is a bit, shall we say, upset over the idea of Halliburton, which derives the vast bulk of its revenue from government contracts with the US, moving offshore. Me, I have no problem with any business moving anywhere they want to - just another hole in the facade of sovereignty that should force the global community, at some point, to gather enough will to actually do something about predatory business practices that has teeth.

Anyway, in a spur of the moment thought, I offered the idea that, should any corporation seek to relocate outside the borders of the US, an expatriate exit tax should accrue. For publicly traded businesses, the amount would be, say 25% of the amortized value of of its common and preferred stock. For privately held companies, it would be 30% of the average gross revenues for the previous five years. Please note I say "gross receipts" not "revenue"; so, if a corporation only makes a 1% return, well, it's not personal, it's just business.

Another part of such expat legislation would be the rescinding of all contracts with the US government, pending review and re-approval by Congress. All expat corporations would now be treated like any other foreign own business, and be limited in the type of contracts it would apply for. Any security clearances granted to employees and managers would be rescinded, and approval would be limited to those personal who live and work in the US, with all the restrictions upon information transfer that already exist within legislation governing security issues.

You want to move overseas? Fine. The Unites States created you, through the action of a state legislature approving your articles of incorporation. We protected you from liability, offered you a place to grow your business, increase your profits and revenue in a well-ordered, low-regulation atmosphere. Should you decide to leave, you must consider the consequences of such an action as just another business expense.

My First National Press Clip!

Yesterday, I used "the google" to see who might be mentioning me, and how. I do this about once a month, just to kind of track my progress through the intertubes. I know I could use Technorati, but I find using a search engine much more enlightening. Low and behold, I saw my name, and my blog title, and I had to blink because the URL was slate.com. I clicked the link . . . and found this column. Please notice that I am mentioned before Andrew Sullivan (as I blow on my fingernails, polishing them on my shirt). I will leave to others to gage how I was used, and if I was represented fairly. Right now, I just feel like basking in the attention (bask, bask, bask).