Iraqis went to the polls today. You really have to read the story, which is largely about increased Sunni participation at the polls. It is incredible that in a few short years people have committed themselves to resolving differences at the ballot box. Even more incredible that a source like CNN can report this in stride, ho-hum, as if they'd been saying so all along.
One Sunni Arab man strolling through Baghdad, Ali Sabah, 26, told CNN he is looking forward to casting a ballot.
"Gratuitous disparagement of the country he is now privileged to lead." That's how Charles Krauthammer characterizes that Presidential interview with Al-Arabiya. My pop actually called me this morning to compel me to post this column, and he was so right.
Is it "new" to acknowledge Muslim interests and show respect to the Muslim world? Obama doesn't just think so, he said so again to millions in his al-Arabiya interview, insisting on the need to "restore" the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."
Astonishing. In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The two Balkan interventions -- as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) -- were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing?
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if the President had thought to make America's case to a listening audience? I've already objected to the President's longing for the golden days of US-Muslim relations 20-30 years ago, but Krauthammer really lays it out:
And what of that happy U.S.-Muslim relationship that Obama imagines existed "as recently as 20 or 30 years ago" that he has now come to restore? Thirty years ago, 1979, saw the greatest U.S.-Muslim rupture in our 233-year history: Iran's radical Islamic revolution, the seizure of the U.S. Embassy, the 14 months of America held hostage.
This is to say nothing of the Marine barracks massacre of 1983, and the innumerable attacks on U.S. embassies and installations around the world during what Obama now characterizes as the halcyon days of U.S.-Islamic relations.
Krauthammer's also having nothing to do with the idea that America has ever been anti-Muslim:
If Barack Obama wants to say, as he said to al-Arabiya, I have Muslim roots, Muslim family members, have lived in a Muslim country -- implying a special affinity that uniquely positions him to establish good relations -- that's fine. But it is both false and deeply injurious to this country to draw a historical line dividing America under Obama from a benighted past when Islam was supposedly disrespected and demonized.
As in Obama's grand admonition: "We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name." Have "we" been doing that, smearing Islam because of a small minority? George W. Bush went to the Islamic Center in Washington six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the fires of Ground Zero were still smoldering, to declare "Islam is peace," to extend fellowship and friendship to Muslims, to insist that Americans treat them with respect and generosity of spirit.
And America listened. In these seven years since Sept. 11 -- seven years during which thousands of Muslims rioted all over the world (resulting in the death of more than 100) to avenge a bunch of cartoons -- there's not been a single anti-Muslim riot in the United States to avenge the massacre of 3,000 innocents. On the contrary. In its aftermath, we elected our first Muslim member of Congress and our first president of Muslim parentage.
I write to respectfully suggest that, as a sign of bipartisanship, you renominate some of President George W. Bush’s circuit court nominees who were not confirmed prior to the adjournment of the 110th Congress. To do so would echo the bipartisanship President Bush demonstrated when he renominated one of President Clinton’s judicial nominees, Judge Roger Gregory, to a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Do not tell me about anything else Specter did this week. I am trying to have a nice moment here.
The President attempted to enter through a window at the White House today. Which mistake anyone could make and does not make him a dummy. I simply note it so we can all judge if it goes down in his permanent record as this did for another president I could name.
I have my own version of the Fairness Doctrine, you see.
Update: Gateway Pundit reports 1 story on Obama's door folly and 9500 on Bush's.
You may have noticed the President gave an interview to Al-Arabiya recently. In which he said among other things:
my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that.
Eh? That first statement comports with President Bush's view, but I don't think you'll find PR for Muslims in the job description for President of the United States, actually, comb the Constitution as you will. No penumbrae emanate from any amendments, even.
More substantively, however, what on earth can he be thinking of --partnership with the Arab world of 30 years ago? Partnership with Saddam Hussein, perhaps? Fouad Ajami comments in a terrific column:
Take that image of Saddam Hussein, flushed out of his spider hole some five years ago: Americans may have edited it out of their memory, but it shall endure for a long time in Arab consciousness. Rulers can be toppled and brought to account. No wonder the neighboring dictatorships bristled at the sight of that capture, and at his execution three years later.
The irony now is obvious: George W. Bush as a force for emancipation in Muslim lands, and Barack Hussein Obama as a messenger of the old, settled ways. Thus the "parochial" man takes abroad a message that Muslims and Arabs did not have tyranny in their DNA, and the man with Muslim and Kenyan and Indonesian fragments in his very life and identity is signaling an acceptance of the established order.
No Republicans supported the "stimulus" bill that just passed the House. Maybe I should remove the scare quotes. It'll stimulate the nanny state alright. Not even one defector after all that presidential wooing?
You know how AIG & Citicorps got in trouble for arranging, respectively, corporate retreats and a new corporate jet while they're being bailed out by us taxpayers? The entire budget is like that. Congress must think we're made of bricks.
Benicio Del Toro got a mite touchy when a reporter for the Washington Times suggested that the essence of Che Guevara's philosophy was not "love."
Del Toro was just out of his depth. Actors start to believe they've researched their parts well after they've read maybe an essay. I mean, c'mon. Asked why he wanted to take the part, he suggests it's for educational purposes:
Not knowing much about the history of Cuba, the history of Che, not being taught anything about it," Mr. del Toro says of his motivation for helping to bring the picture to fruition. "The image that I have or what has been told to me about this character is that he's kind of a cowboy - a bloodthirsty cowboy."
In doing research for the picture, Mr. del Toro was drawn to the writings of Guevara. "First, you start with what he wrote. What Che Guevara wrote. And he was a great writer, he wrote for years, so you start with that," he said.
So he read the whole corpus, which is about hate as the driver of the revolution, and comes up with "Che is love."
Dude, you're an actor! There is no shame in saying, "Because it's a damned juicy part, the stuff careers are made of." It's more honest and more interesting. And then you don't embarrass yourself by saying stuff like this:
Mr. del Toro doesn't deny that Guevara's persona had some darker aspects. "We have to omit a lot of stuff about his life," he said, "but we're not omitting the fact that he's for capital punishment, which is the essence of that."
Yes, support for capital punishment is the essence of evil. That was the problem with Che. Not this:
In his "Message to the Tricontinental," Guevara espoused "hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine."
Not creating the Cuban gulag for those insufficiently revolutionary. (Snorts.)
Interestingly, director Steven Soderbergh is much more aware that Che was not a great guy.
"I don't know that there's any place for a person like me in the society that he was trying to make," the director said. "I'm the poster child for a lot of the [stuff] that he was trying to eradicate."
I didn't see any Protestants at last Thursday's March for Life. I'm sure I literally saw some --it's not as if you can tell by looking. What I mean is I didn't personally see any banners announcing any Protestant-Church-Or-Group for life.
I know from photo essays some were present (Lutherans for Life, Anglicans for Life, eg and Concerned Women for American announced they'd be present), and they were certainly well-represented in speech at the rally prior to the March. (See for example this black pastor challenging Obama to rise to be a great emancipator if he really wishes to be like Lincoln.) Nonetheless, I didn't see anything like the diversity of evangelical groups I'm used to seeing. For that matter I didn't see Atheists for Life and LGBT for Life as I'm accustomed to, either.
I've been wondering why. Since the numbers swelled from the usual 50-75,000 to 200 or even by some accounts 300,000, maybe the Prots were there in the same numbers as always but were dwarfed by Catholics in the crowd this time around. It's possible. But by the very unscientific measure of personal impression, it felt like the evangelical brethren were missing. Tom Hoopes of the Register speculates here, which at least means I'm not imagining things.
I hope it doesn't indicate an abandonment of the pro-life cause by evangelicals. At a dinner I attended last summer a group of thoughtful evangelicals reported the rising generation in their churches very much wants to distance itself from Jerry Falwell & Pat Robertson. Hopefully not by abandoning the movement, but I wonder.
Dr. Russell Moore of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary just gave an interview about evangelicals and the pro-life movement. I like his answer to Prof. Kmiec:
Trevin Wax:Should evangelicals should join hands with pro-choice politicians committed to reducing the number of abortions? In other words, is there room for us to work toward reduction of abortions instead of just working toward elimination of abortion?
Russell Moore: I do not believe at all that pro-life Christians should join hands with pro-abortion politicians speaking of “reducing the number of abortions.” This is akin to civil rights activists joining hands with pro-lynching vigilantes in the early twentieth-century America to “reduce the number of lynchings” through better funding of segregated African-American school systems.
Amen.
On a related note, here's a slideshow from the West Coast Walk for Life, which drew 30,000 people --the largest crowd yet for that event-- in San Francisco. In light of the Prop 8 rage, it took even more guts than usual to appear in the pro-life crowd.
John Updike has passed, a writer whose corpus maybe I should begin reading this year. I appreciate his essay On Not Being A Dove; it reminds me there was once a better class of liberal. And I love his 7 Stanzas for Easter. Here's a report from a talk he gave a few years ago on religion in his work.
What John Boehner should have said after the Prez told him, "I won." Everyone in the room won his election, Mr. President. You're not President of Congress.
On a tangentially related note, I like this op-ed from Bill Kristol about it being alright for the GOP not to have an official leader or agenda yet. In Let 1000 Republican Flowers Bloom, he argues the times call for political entrepreneurship, not conformity:
Congressmen used to looking to the White House for guidance or approval--or fearing disapprobation--should show some healthy ambition and unleash their inner policy entrepreneur. Backbenchers need to come forward with heterodox ideas. There should be vigorous debate. Disharmonious disarray is in the short term much less of a danger than a false and stultifying unity.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
Update: Folks have been commenting all day on both the wickedness and foolishness of this remark. See here for an indication.
people are not a drain on the economy. In fact, middle class and wealthy people put far more dollars into the federal government than they receive. So when Nancy Pelosi is talking about people who sap the Treasury she's talking about poor people.
And rich people can afford their own contraception. Poor people ostensibly can't. So what Nancy Pelosi is really saying here is the federal government must give out contraception in order to prevent poor people from reproducing because they're a drain on the economy. Margaret Sanger would be so proud.
That's absolutely correct as far as the logic of the argument goes, but I think something different's going on. First, a short digression.
Two things I never understand. The first is why we Americans think a Ponzi scheme is a bad thing when the biggest Ponzi scheme that exists is our Social Security system. The second is how people who support government safety net programs can also support abortion and birth control. The success of any Ponzi scheme depends upon expansion of the base. Prevent your base from being born and the whole thing collapses. So even if you're a base materialist who thinks of every life including your own as just a clump of tissue, you ought to recognize your interest in having more Americans rather than fewer. That's how we pay for the programs.
But modern liberalism, you see, is all about sex. That is all you need to understand it and every decision it makes. First we protect the promiscuous sex, and we figure out the rest later.
The real reasoning behind Speaker Pelosi's remark is nothing so grand as a scheme to eliminate the poor. Rep. Boehner humiliated the President by publicly calling him on the millions of dollars of contraceptive funding in a recession/depression budget. Which he could not justify. What you have in Gramma's comments is an ex post facto justification.
One of my pet peeves is how "ideology" has evolved into a good thing. Even an eminence like Bill Bennett routinely refers to his "ideology" when he means his principles. Until very recently we all knew the word implied socialism, fascism, communism, or any creed to which a person might cling in spite of evidence.
"Ideology ... is usually taken to mean, a prescriptive doctrine that is not supported by rational argument." [D.D. Raphael, "Problems of Political Philosophy," 1970]
That's why it's a bad thing to be an ideologue. It is very bad to have an ideology rather than principles. A principle admits of being applied to new circumstances through the virtue of prudence. An ideology requires the circumstances to fit it, with death camps and killing fields generally the result.
If you are an ideologue, you are incapable of the virtue of prudence and can't admit a new fact into your closed system. Here, permit me a demonstration. On Friday Anne Kornblut of WaPo penned a column --and editors let her print it-- opining that Caroline Kennedy was "denied" her NY Senate seat because of the glass ceiling.
WaPo seriously wants us to think that Kennedy lost a seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton and soon to be filled by Kristen Gillibrand out of sexism. Yes, dears.
Don't get me wrong, divisive isn't necessarily bad in a leader, and I have no problem with his telling GOP leaders, "I won." Very reminiscent of Bush's "I have political capital and I'm going to use it." If you take a firm stand, people are going to disagree and the only way not to divide people is to have no positions or to be so murky about what they are that people can't oppose you. But let's not talk smack.
Gotta side with the "pro" if only because the "con" is so stuck in the ironic distance of nihilism he can't recognize honest appreciation. To wit:
take "Piano Man." You can hear Joel's contempt, both for the losers at the bar he's left behind in his stellar schlock stardom and for the "entertainer-loser" (the proto-B.J.) who plays for them. Even the self-contempt he imputes to the "piano man" rings false.
Um, contempt? I think he's just painting a scene we all recognize --and affectionately, at that. I think honest affection is what characterizes most of Joel's hits. (Although I'll concede the critic Capt. Jack and any political commentary songs.)
I'm not going to stick my neck out for Joel as High Art, but the real reason the rock critics dislike him is that affectionate quality and -- let the record show this is what really sinks him-- because he makes an effort to make his lyrics rhyme. Rhyme = unhip in the art world, just ask our inaugural poet.
I also have to agree with "pro" because the defender understands "Only the Good Die Young." Many earnest good people I know find the song offensive and anti-Catholic --and so does our critic:
Contempt for the Catholic religion. I know: It's spirited if anti-spiritual, but, still ... I've heard some Catholic girls opine on its most famous line ("Catholic girls start much too late"), and they ain't buyin' it.
Gimme a break. The song is about lust and pays Catholic girls a high compliment as the chief obstacles to same. The teenage boy always insults what he can't have. The lyric is fox and the grapes, not a rant. Our Billy Joel defender gets it:
He calls “Only the Good Die Young” a screen against Catholicism, which it was if all you’d read were the op-ed columns. The song is a story about lust, principally; and its obstacles, incidentally.
Besides, you can't be sad listening to Root Beer Rag.
B16 lifted the excommunications of four Lefevrist bishops today. No comment until I understand the move (two of those bishops strike me as nutters).
Fr. Z. has a helpful Q & A for folks like me who don't know what this actually means: bottom line is that little has changed in the status of the SSPX with respect to Rome. There's no reunion yet, only a generous move on the Holy Father's part to stimulate movement.
If this is one of the first acts of President Obama, with all due respect, it seems to me that the path towards disappointment will have been very short
Or as "Md. Mommy" put it rather memorably in a combox
I guess brown won't be stickin' around.*
Update:One fifth of the world's pregnancies ends in abortion. One third of European pregnancies ends in abortion. President Obama thinks we can do better: and, in time of financial crisis, is a budget priority. Shouldn't Planned Parenthood be among those tightening its belt?
In addition to the EO overturning Mexico City, the proposed Obama budget restores hundreds of millions of dollars to UNFPA to fund China's one-child policy (which money we're probably borrowing from China in the first place!) and hundreds of millions so clinics here can give out free contraceptives and be reimbursed for them with our tax dollars.
Apparently we'll be tightening our belts around our ankles.
The number being tossed around for today's crowd is 180,000. For perspective, in years when Obama isn't inaugurated, the crowd is 50-75,000 depending on the weather. More tomorrow, when I can find my camera cord and upload some photos.
Update 2: Did he or didn't he? White House doesn't list it, but FOX is reporting he did indeed reverse Mexico City today. If he did, so much for transparency in government. Will show you a screen capture of whitehouse.gov later. Removing brackets again.
Update: In spite of multiple published reports he would, the President did not in fact reverse Mexico City today. Everyone expects he will get around to it, but for 24 more hours, I'm grateful. So we must ignore what's in brackets for the time being
President Obama will make his first major foreign policy move today by having America fund the aborting of the brown peoples of the world --on your dime, and for the enrichment of the fatcats at Planned Parenthood and its international counterpart.
Bush freed brown peoples on three continents; Obama pays to abort them: it's a change, alright. Alas, not one that expresses or engenders any hope.
The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology
Human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm (spermatazoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to produce a single cell—a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.
Declaration of Independence
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Abraham Lincoln, Letter to H.L. Pierce
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.
[Update: Actually, contrary to published reports, he didn't do it...yet. Update 2 Or that he did. Whatever.]
With the news that President Obama's first foreign policy move will be the decision to promote and fund abortions for non-American babies (by his expected repeal of the Mexico City policy tomorrow), Mr. W. points out this is something of an American tradition: withdrawing recognition of the human rights of entire classes of people two days after an inauguration.
The Dred Scott decision came down two days after the Buchanan inaugural (yet Buchanan alluded to the decision in his inaugural address, which was why Lincoln always said the fix was in).
Roe v. Wade came down two days after Nixon's 2nd inaugural.
Every day is a battle between freedom and tyranny. And every generation finds its way to besmirch the spotless creed by trampling on the rights of others in the name of freedom.
The worst thing about setting the drinking age at 21 is not that it's stupid or unconstitutional, but the message it sends. Since 18-yr-olds can vote, it suggests whether or not to have a beer is a more important decision than who will lead the country. Instapundit links to this on the topic.
The agency came under fire in 2002 for turning a blind eye to wide-scale sexual abuse of West African refugee children by its own aid workers and peacekeepers.
UN workers from nine countries - including Britain and India - were accused of sexually exploiting children in dozens of refugee camps in war-torn Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the internal report found.
Actually there's been quite a bit of this since then. Gateway Pundit keeps track:
FOX news is now reporting the repeal of the Mexico City policy will come tomorrow, during the March for Life. What then becomes of the story that Obama doesn't want to repeat the Clinton mistake of pushing the social agenda too quickly? What becomes of the CW that Obama is sensitive and won't thumb the eyes of his political opponents?
I expect to have more to say on this topic when and if it actually happens.
I have been to the mountaintop! A left-handed person elected in my lifetime.
President Obama's first act of office was to proclaim the traditional National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation. It's nice.
As I take the sacred oath of the highest office in the land, I am humbled by the responsibility placed upon my shoulders, renewed by the courage and decency of the American people, and fortified by my faith in an awesome God.
We are in the midst of a season of trial. Our Nation is being tested, and our people know great uncertainty. Yet the story of America is one of renewal in the face of adversity, reconciliation in a time of discord, and we know that there is a purpose for everything under heaven.
On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright -- it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.
So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Followed by the boilerplate common to all such proclamations.
His first executive orders today froze his staff's salaries, instructed federal agencies to comply more readily with Freedom of Information requests (a good move!), and lengthened the time public officials must spend in the private sector before they can be lobbyists. All good or unobjectionable moves.
I caught Rush griping that the salary freeze is merely symbolic. And? Symbolism is important. I am laboring mightily not to become like an Air America host and be unable to recognize anything harmless, wholesome or good in my political opponents.
We're all braced for the reversal of the Mexico City policy. Expected it today, but as of 4pm it hasn't come. For another 24 hours I'm grateful.
The politics of change seems like politics of old, just more expensive. Deficit spending will no longer be called "mortgaging our children’s future.” It will now be referred to as “investment.” Pork-barrel spending will be called “stimulus,” earmarks will be called “targeted stimulus,” and welfare checks will be called "tax cuts."
Hey, look, the market just dropped 300 points– I’m sorry, "made a 300 point correction."
Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson gave the invocation at the pre-Inaugural event at the Lincoln Memorial on Martin Luther King Jr. day. Listen to it and I think you will have no further questions about why the Episcopal Church might be failing in our country. Among other dubious items he prays for the nation to be blessed with the "gift of anger." Which I think we might already have in abundance; he may as well have prayed for the gift of obesity. He managed to make the prayer mostly about gay rights --returning to the theme three times. He did get one thing right, though. He prayed for us to understand that President Obama is a man and not the Messiah. I didn't get the impression the crowd liked hearing that, though.
Pastor Rick Warren'sinaugural invocation is drawing mixed reviews. I thought it was fitting (video here for as long as the link lasts), and I liked his asking forgiveness for our nation's sins.
we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around when yellow will be mellow when the red man can get ahead, man and when white will embrace what is right.
That makes me chuckle. It's just the rhyme leading him, not malicious intent. But it is an indicator of the state of free speech in our nation. A black man can speak incautiously without lasting harm to his reputation; a white man cannot.
Incidentally, WSJ had an interesting piece last week on the history of inaugural prayer. Until relatively recently, there used to be multiple benedictions --one each from a priest, a pastor and a rabbi--and sometimes an orthodox priest to boot.
On the occasion of your inauguration as the Forty-fourth president of the United States of America I offer cordial good wishes, together with the assurance of my prayers that the Almighty God will grant you unfailing wisdom and strength in the exercise of your high responsibilities.
Under your leadership may the American people continue to find in their impressive religious and political heritage the spiritual values and ethical principles needed to cooperate in the building of a truly just and free society, marked by respect for the dignity, equality and rights of each of its members, especially the poor, the outcast and those who have no voice.
At a time when so many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world yearn for liberation from the scourge of poverty, hunger and violence, I pray that you will be confirmed in your resolve to promote understanding, cooperation and peace among the nations, so that all may share in the banquet of life which God wills to set for the whole human family (cf. Isaiah 25:6-7). Upon you and your family, and upon all the American people, I willingly invoke the Lord’s blessings of joy and peace.
Always the refreshing voice of calm and reason in the midst of hysteria. And always with the twinkle in your eye and the impish grin. Thank you for your service, sir.
ninme's got a lovely farewell to both Bush & Cheney --independently of the fact she links to me several times.
Oh, lawdy. At the end they pledge to "be the President's servant."
You know what would be useful for Hollywood to pledge and would actually help the country? How 'bout pledge to make movies that don't make Americans seem like corrupt, libidinous, gun-totin', ignorant cretins in the eyes of the rest of the world?
PS: Remember when WaPo referred to evangelicals as "easily led"? Anyone volunteering to be a servant of the President isn't fit to be free.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural address is one of the most anticipated speeches in decades, with many expecting his words to be chiseled into marble some day.
Gee, fellas, what's the hurry? The man's so eloquent, I'm sure we'll have scads of speeches to choose from when we get around to chiseling. Not that chiseled marble is the ultimate test of eloquence necessarily. Plus, it does your man no favors to raise expectations.
I'm keeping my powder dry with respect to Mr. Obama, figuring we should neither praise nor blame him before he actually does something. As President.
George Weigel concludes his column (see the previous post) on the Bush legacy with a thanks for his Christian witness:
I should like to thank him for his unapologetic confession of Christian faith, and for his testimony to the importance that prayer plays in his life. And I should like to thank him for not giving a hoot about the mockery that such a witness draws.
I will always love and admire Bush because as the Leader of the Free World he never missed an opportunity to stand with "the least of these." Can you think of anyone more forgotten and less important in the eyes of our culture than the unborn, African AIDS & malaria patients, Afghan women, Sunni & Shiite Muslims, immigrants, dissidents of tyrannical nations, the wounded and grieving parents of fallen soldiers? Nobody really cares about any of those folks --the media can't even be bothered to report their plight when it doesn't suit their own purposes to do so. Not so George Bush. Here's a little pictorial reminder of the man's perpetual commitment to the dignity of the human person.
His first serious public act --and his first address to the nation as President-- was refusing to allow federal funding for experiments on human embryos. Here's my list of everything he did to build a culture of life in eight years --which doesn't include a few things he's done since, including clarifying conscience rules for medical professionals and declaring Sanctity of Human Life Day. This baby was a frozen embryo rescued by Operation Snowflake. Bush invited the group to the White House for a photo op to help the rest of us see what we are advocating when we support embryonic stem cell research.
Since Mr. Bush took office, U.S. development aid to Africa has tripled, funding for HIV programs has vaulted from less than $1 billion to more than $6 billion per year and garment exports from Africa to the United States, fueled by special trade deals, increased sevenfold, according to U.S. statistics.
He's estimated to have saved 10 million lives with his programs to fight AIDS & malaria, and his trade deals tied to anti-corruption programs have lifted countless more into a more human way of life, with hope for a better future. The greatest threat to the poor is corruption, and Bush took it on.
Honestly, do you think anyone in the West before George Bush gave a fig for Muslims in the Middle East? The attitude of most of us as militant thugs march through the streets of our major cities is a collective yawn. As long as they stick to their ghettos and stay out of sight, we're perfectly happy to let them beat up on each other. That's our official, enlightened, UN policy towards Muslims: nothing can be done, they're all crazy.
Bush, on the other hand, believed in them. Yes the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq were about US security. But sticking it out when Iraq went poorly required more than commitment to our safety --it required also a belief that the Iraqi people would rise up to be free. Bush gave them a chance no one else was willing to. Bush was willing to lose his reputation on behalf of these people. The press, which fancies itself the champion of the oppressed, was not.
The beaten women of Afghanistan not only voted for the first time, they took seats in Parliament! Not content, Bush also sent the First Lady there repeatedly to champion the rights of women, keeping the eyes of the world on the region so they couldn't go back.
He was a champion of freedom for Latin America. His Millennium Challenge Account, like the Pepfar program that tied trade to transparency and reform, was a boon for little people. This is what he said in a speech before the Hispanic Chamber:
social justice requires economies that make it possible for workers to provide for their families and to rise in society. For too long and in too many places, opportunity in Latin America has been determined by the accident of birth rather than by the application of talents and initiative. In his many writings, Pope John Paul II spoke eloquently about creating systems that respect the dignity of work and the right to private initiative. Latin America needs capitalism for the campesino, a true capitalism that allows people who start from nothing to rise as far as their skills and their hard work can take them.
You may or may not have liked his immigration policy, but I admire his effort to make legal immigrants feel welcome and to make them into Americans. Here he is at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast, which he always took as an occasion to honor hispanic soldiers, highlight hispanic service in faith-based institutions, and to call attention to dissidents in Spanish-speaking nations.
It's essential that the United States always remember, in our great comfort that we always remember that there are those who want their freedom just like we have our freedom. One of those men is Juan Carlos Gonzales Leiva. He's a lawyer and human rights activist on the island of Cuba. Juan Carlos was unjustly jailed for more than two years by the Cuban regime because he supported a dissident journalist. While he was imprisoned, his cane and his dark glasses were confiscated -- which was especially cruel, because Juan Carlos is blind. The guards took away his Braille Bible. But they could not take away his spirit. Today, Juan Carlos is no longer in jail, but he remains under the surveillance of the Cuban government. Juan Carlos continues his important fight for human rights in Cuba, and the United States must always stand squarely with those who struggle for their human rights against tyranny. And today we're honored that his hermano is with us...
He always made time for grieving families, meeting with more than 500 of them and writing to each one personally. He spent more than 500 hours visiting wounded soldiers and having them to the White House. He was kind to his enemies. Here's he's giving a hand to Sen. Byrd, who has always said such ugly and self-righteous things about him.
He danced with the Georgians & Liberians. He cried with the grieving. He even made time for a picture with a little old lady just because her kids put a sign up where his motorcade would pass.
And did any of us even once hear him complain about his vile treatment? Or say anything other than that it was a "joy" an honor and a privilege to serve us?
Christianity is not a get out of stupid free card. History will judge the wisdom of this or that of his policies. But that we as a people should have failed to recognize the great goodness of this man who has been a relentless champion of human dignity and freedom everywhere --especially that of everyone who "doesn't matter"-- is to our everlasting shame. I take comfort that some Americans appreciated him.
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Iraqis went to the polls today. You really have to read the story, which is largely about increased Sunni participation at the polls. It is incredible that in a few short years people have committed themselves to resolving differences at the ballot box. Even more incredible that a source like CNN can report this in stride, ho-hum, as if they'd been saying so all along.
