Recently in Government Category

NPR asked me to do a short memo to the president-elect. I chose to do it on the dog he should choose... and why. Check it out.

John McCain's band of white advisers had best take a stroll down the lane of African-American oratorical history before they launch their next anti-Obama missive. [This is not to suggest that there is anything racial about McCain's ad. I'm sure that his color blind associates aren't even aware that Sen. Obama has more melanin than Sen. McCain.]

McCain's new web ad, "The One" mocks Obama's grand, seemingly arrogant oratory.

The problem with it is that it simultaneously mocks generations of African-American oratory. As my friend Patton Dodd pointed out to me, would the fact that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., filled his speeches with grand rhetorical flourishes make us doubt his ability to lead? I'm wondering what the ad meisters would do with this "arrogance"

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Or consider Barbara Jordan. Should her 1976 convention speech, one of the greatest political speeches in American history, have caused people to doubt her leadership ability simply because she said,

There is something special about tonight. What is different? What is Special? I, Barbara Jordan, am a keynote speaker.

A lot of years passed since 1832, and during that time it would have been most unusual for any national political party to ask that a Barbara Jordan deliver a keynote address...but tonight here I am. And I feel that notwithstanding the past that my presence here is one additional bit of evidence that the American Dream need not forever be deferred.

By the McCain camp's standards, every great speaker should be disqualified from public office simply because they refer to themselves in the personal pronoun and because they use rhetorical flourishes. Perhaps this gives an insight into who McCain is considering for his VP pick - someone who utterly boring in their public addresses... Al Gore.

How different are they? Really? James Dobson and Barack Obama?

On the face of it there is little, save their shared humanity, that seems to unite the two men. From their skin color to their positions on abortion, gay marriage, poverty, the role of government, from their views on the separation of church and state to their positions on the Iraq War, the men are about as far apart as men can get.

But appearances are deceiving. The men are actually very, very similar. (And this goes beyond their common love of basketball).

Both men see their religious faith as one of their primary political weapons. They take that faith and move in opposite directions, but their philosophy, their spirituality is very similar.

Dr. Dobson attacked Sen. Obama for having a flawed view - a deliberately skewed view - of Biblical theology "deliberately distorting the Bible," "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," "willfully trying to confuse people," and having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution." Obama responded by saying Dobson either hadn't read his speech (at a Sojourners event on poverty) or was just trying to score political points.

That back and forth, however, is simply the exchange of men who long ago decided that their faith was a tool for material ends.

It is a common mistake, a common temptation - the temptation to take the very hard work of the spiritual life - living humbly, loving your enemies, putting others first, forgiving always - and replace it with the easy work of politics - the promise that this policy or plan will bring about a sort of spiritual nirvana.

That is what unites Obama and Dobson. That they take those politics in different directions is incidental.

Two things of note.

First, John DiIulio is back. In the 1990s, DiIulio emerged as one of the most consequential voices in public policy. Articles like this one and this one and this one and scores of others challenged the status quo and changed social policy.

After his time in the Bush White House, however, he stepped back from the public life just a bit. He continued to teach his beloved students and to roll up his sleeves to work on the ground with prisoners kids and in New Orleans and across Philly. His articles, however, were less frequent.

That is changing. His recent article on Hillary and Huckabee, his new book, and this piece for the Wall Street Journal are emphatic statements that John DiIulio is back in the public arena of debate and that is wonderful, wonderful news.

Now, his new article on Faith-Based in the Wall Street Journal:

Philadelphia might just have easily been a city where faith-based initiatives petered out. The city is run by a Democratic mayor -- John F. Street -- and is in a state that is becoming solidly Democratic. Pennsylvania has come up blue in a string of presidential elections stretching back to 1992. And last year, voters ousted Sen. Rick Santorum, a Christian conservative Republican. He lost his bid for a third term, in part, because he failed to win support in Philadelphia's suburbs.

But the rejection of Republican Christian politicians doesn't mean rejection of a faith-based approach to social problems. A 2006 study, "The Other Philadelphia Story," by University of Pennsylvania researcher Ram A. Cnaan, found that religious fervor for providing social services remains vibrant.

His researchers gathered information (often visiting) from nearly all of the city's 2,120 congregations. They confirmed previous estimates that these congregations supply services that would cost the city at least a quarter-billion dollars a year to provide. These services include food pantries, drug and alcohol prevention programs, homeless shelters, health screening, day care, crime watch, anti-violence programs, welfare-to-work programs....

...Ironically, the biggest obstacles that remain for faith-based organizations receiving government funding are now in Washington. Some of those obstacles are within the Bush White House, where some gun-shy staffers are intent on placating libertarian activists who blame the president and spending for the GOP's recent woes, and the faith-based initiative as one reason for runaway spending.

Legacy-minded loyalists of the president, however, need to keep in mind that on children's health insurance, preschool education and other issues, Mr. Bush risks giving historians reason to see "compassionate conservatism" as nothing more than anti-government conservatism in religious drag.

Amen.

A former soldier, a Christian, continues the conversation on waterboarding and the Christian conscience:

For me, there are some fundamental challenges that national security issues present to a Christian world-view. Being a former citizen soldier, I have already been forced to reconcile my personal belief system with the implications of Just War Theory in order to, in good conscience, participate in the mechanics of war. However, my reconciliation was not a blending of Caesar and Christ – it was, in fact, the clear separation of the two. Natural law drove me to participate in our military while spiritual law has brought me closer to God in the midst of living in this world. Here are some the radical sayings of Christ:

* Matt 5:21-22 – Harboring angry against another is on par with murder
* 1 Jn 3:15 – Hatred is on par with murder
* Matt 5:38–39 -- Don't resist evil-doers and even turn the other cheek
* Matt 5:43-44 -- Love your enemies which includes doing good to them
* Rom 12:19-21 -- Don't avenge yourselves, leave that up to God
* 1Pe 2:21-23 -- Remember Christ's example – He did not revile his torturers
* Matt 18:21-22 – Forgive multiple offenses from the same person (70 times 7)

Try writing the Sermon on the Mount into the National Defense plan. Clear enough, right? One of the provisions of natural law is the protection men from each other, but the ultimate aim is for mankind to reconcile with the entirety of the spiritual laws which Christ promised to put in our hearts. In my pragmatic view, the day the lion and lamb are led by a child will be the first day I will be willing to abolish the provisions of natural law and trust the universal goodness of mankind. Yet personally, I am responsible to implement the spiritual laws where possible.

To be clear on my position though, both Christ's radical sayings as well as the principles of natural law are incongruous with any policies of fear or implemented by the civilized West.

An intense article about Blackwater and its founder Erik Prince in the newly-remodeled version of Newsweek. Prince's casual mingling of his Christian faith with his "private security firm" has always struck me as just a little bit odd. I try...

A year ago, when Tempting Faith was published, one of the things that received a lot of attention was my call for evangelicals to "fast" from politics. Here is a snippet: I'm not talking about a permanent retreat from politics....

After saying it was sticking by the policy to only allow "approved" religious books in prisons, it seems the government has changed its mind: After the details of the removal became widely known this month, Republican lawmakers, liberal Christians and...

You really can find absolutely anything on the Web. Anything. For instance, an entry entitled "Why I Have a Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" . The writer, Sally Kohn, begins: I know I'm a Jewish lesbian and he'd probably have...

I've posted my last email to Hanna Rosin over at Slate. It has been a wonderful exchange and I look forward to her final response later today. Here is part of what I had to say. To read it all,...

This one is beyond puzzling. The Bureau of Prisons has assembled a list of "acceptable" religions books. That means that in prisons across America libraries are being stripped of religious texts not on the approved list. You couldn't have sold...

Did the South Korean government go too far in negotiating for the release of the hostages? Talk about a hard case. Everyone should be celebrating the release of those men and women. How truly, truly wonderful. At the same time,...

Over the past few months as people asked the question, "Why hasn't Gonzales resigned yet?" the answer I kept hearing was two words long, "Karl Rove." The White House fear was that if Gonzales left all the Democrats firepower would...

Long article in yesterday's NYT Sunday Magazine on how the West's march towards rational secularism is stopped dead in its tracks by the political fundamentalism of radical Islam. A little more than two centuries ago we began to believe that...

Pete Wehner, once Mike Gerson's deputy in the White House, and a friend of colleague of Mike's (and mine) since the early 1990s writes a fact-based response to Matt Scully's piece attacking Gerson at National Review Online. Wehner, someone singled...

Steve Jobs couldn't be much more loyal to the Democratic Party. A review of his giving finds more than $250,000 going to Democratic candidates. He did give $1,000 to a Republican once... in 1982. Karl Rove couldn't be much more...

More on "In God We Trust" on our currency. John E. points out: American presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt strongly disapproved of the idea of evoking God within the context of a "cheap" political motto. In a letter to William...

An email is making its way back around about the new dollar coins - not that anyone really knows we have the coins or cares that we do - omitting "In God We Trust" from them: Subject: DO NOT ACCEPT...

Is the complete mess of the Republican party any clearer than with the fact that all of these men who are trying to compete for votes and attention - and are really trying to mobilize the completely disinterested conservative Christian...