Don’t Want McCain? Blame the Evangelicals
February 18, 2008
Ed Morrissey has a nice write-up and commentary on a Dan Gilgoff article about how evangelicals (not individually, but the evangelical movement in general) are to blame for McCain being the Republican nominee this year.
I certainly don’t know everything there is about politics but I honestly feel that Mitt Romney was the best that the Republicans had to offer this year. My prediction is that the Republicans will get crushed in November, thus opening the door for a Romney run in 2012. We’ll see … eventually.
Theocratic Rule
February 17, 2008
Ed Morrissey wonders about the government’s role in the saving of American souls.
“People mocked Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney for their religious backgrounds often during the presidential campaigns, but at least they never claimed to be on a mission to save the souls of Americans through government action. Oh, people accused them of wanting to do so — to impose Southern Baptist or Mormon theology on an America that wants relentless secularism, but in point of fact both men gave stirring speeches on how their faith informs them personally but not their governance.
One campaign really has explicitly claimed to be on such a mission, however. Michelle Obama gave a speech at UCLA earlier this month in which she told supporters that her husband was the only man who could fix American souls — if we elect him President first.”
I always find it amazing how fickle people can be. There’s a sentiment of, “If my candidate is doing it, it’s great. If the other guy is doing it, though, ridicule him.” Check out the rest of it, as well as the comments.
Mormons and the Political Limelight
February 15, 2008
I’m kind of bummed that Mitt Romney didn’t win the Republican nomination. I really don’t like McCain or Huckabee. I don’t like Clinton or Obama. The only person I really liked apart from Romney was Thompson and that sure didn’t turn out so well. So, I was reading this evening about how Romney’s candidacy affected, and was affected by, the LDS Church.
Before Romney ran, Mormons thought they were generally accepted in the mainstream, especially after their previous success in the world spotlight: the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics.
Yet, in November, half of respondents to an Associated Press-Yahoo poll said they had some problems supporting a Mormon presidential candidate. Among white evangelicals, more than half expressed reservations about backing a Latter-day Saint.
“I was surprised at the level of intensity and sometimes flat out animosity,” said Lowell C. Brown, a Los Angeles attorney who is Mormon. “I had no idea. I’m in my 50s, I’ve been a Mormon all my life, I’ve lived in L.A. for 25 years, and it floored me.”
Seeing as how I live in Utah, I didn’t exactly witness any of the anti-Mormon, anti-Romney sentiment. That said, I couldn’t believe it when I read some blog comments like, “I’ll never trust a Mormon.” I’ll admit that it was little depressing. I certainly hope that all of the effort that we (collectively) put forth to be good people and do what’s right isn’t for naught.
About the Peoples’ Business …
February 13, 2008
According to sources:
Roger Clemens told Yankees teammate Andy Pettitte nearly 10 years ago that he used human growth hormone, Pettitte said in a sworn affidavit to Congress.
With historically low approval ratings, THIS is what Congress decides to spend its time on!? Get on with the business of running the danged country, fer cryin’ out loud!
Little Justin
February 23, 2007
I received this email today:
“One day a fourth grade teacher asked her students what their fathers did for a living. All the typical answers came up, fireman, mechanic, businessman, salesman, doctor, lawyer. However, little Justin was being uncharacteristically quiet, so when the teacher prodded him about his father he replied, “My father’s an exotic dancer in a gay cabaret. He takes off all his clothes in front of other men and they put money in his underwear. Sometimes, if the offer is really good, he will go home with one of customers and stay all night for money.” The teacher was obviously shaken by this statement, so she hurriedly set the other kids to work on some exercises. Then she took little Justin aside and asked him, “Is that really true about your father?” “No.”, Justin said, “He works for the Democratic National Committee helping Hillary Clinton run to be our next President, but I was too embarrassed to say that in front of the other kids.”
On Illegal Immigration
July 18, 2006
A bunch of states have pending bills that toughen penalties for different immigration violations, etc. There are number of them, but a couple stick out to me:
In Colorado, new legislation requires employers to show that new hires are in the country legally and makes it a felony for an illegal to vote.
and
… New Hampshire requires proof of citizenship to register to vote.
One of the great things about citizenship in the United States is that it comes with the right to vote. We citizens have the right to determine our destiny by voicing our opinion on a ballot. The idea that there may be some who disagree with this, and say that it shouldn’t be a felony to vote illegally, or that you shouldn’t need to provide proof that you’re a citizen to register to vote, is repugnant to me.
The Zarqawi Legacy
June 8, 2006
Human Events Online has a write-up about the final atrocities of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the latest big-name terrorist to meet his maker at the hands of the United States Armed Forces.
If you are looking for the legacy of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, do not look in the concrete rubble of so-called safe house in Baqubah that became his final resting place. Instead, look less than 10 miles to the west, on the side of the road in the desert town of Hadid, for a pile of cardboard banana boxes.
Some of the heads still had their blindfolds on. Iraqi police are still attempting to identify the murdered men.
Critics of President Bush and U.S. foreign policy say that the world isn’t a safer place with Zarqawi dead. I say, “It may not be, but it sure is a better place.”
Bush’s Historical Perspective
June 5, 2006
President Bush knows his history.
Two weeks ago, I pointed out that we live in something close to the best of times, with record worldwide economic growth and at a low point in armed conflict in the world. Yet Americans are in a sour mood, a mood that may be explained by the lack of a sense of history. The military struggle in Iraq (nearly 2,500 military deaths) is spoken of in as dire terms as Vietnam (58,219), Korea (54,246) or World War II (405,399). We bemoan the cruel injustice of $3 a gallon for gas in a country where three-quarters of people classified as poor have air conditioning and microwave ovens. We complain about a tide of immigration that is, per U.S. resident, running at one-third the rate of 99 years ago.
George W. Bush has a better sense of history.
On Iran and Uranium
June 3, 2006
The New York Times is running a story about President Bush and Secretary of State Rice and how they are dealing with Iran’s enrichment of Uranium. It’s actually quite interesting.
On a Tuesday afternoon two months ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat down to a small lunch in President Bush’s private dining room behind the Oval Office and delivered grim news to her boss: Their coalition against Iran was at risk of falling apart.
A meeting she had attended in Berlin days earlier with European foreign ministers had been a disaster, she reported, according to participants in the discussion. Iran was neatly exploiting divisions among the Europeans and Russia, and speeding ahead with its enrichment of uranium. The president grimaced, one aide said, “with a look that said, ‘O.K., team, what’s the answer?’ ”
That question touched off a closely held two-month effort to reach a drastically different strategy, one articulated in a single sentence that Ms. Rice wrote in a private memo to the president. It broached the idea that the United States end its nearly three-decade-long policy against negotiating directly with Iran.
As much as the media makes President Bush out to be either stupid or evil (and sometimes both), one needs to admit that being the president of the United States is certainly not an easy job. Sometimes, one needs to change path in midstride. The problem is that, no matter what President Bush does, he’s going to lose the media war.
On Mormons and Republicanism
June 3, 2006
The New York Times also has a story on how much support President Bush has in the state of Utah.
Here in what may be the reddest city in the reddest of states, where Democrats sometimes gather like lost souls at the one Starbucks, most people are standing by President Bush.
When he gives a speech that angers voters or brings ridicule from other parts of the country, people here pick up different messages. They might break with Mr. Bush on the war in Iraq or on illegal immigration, but not with the man himself.
Basically, if a Republican president can’t keep his support strong in Utah, he’s in for a LOT of trouble nationally. Utah is the only state in the nation in which Bush won every county in each of his two elections. I think that says a lot about how red the red state is.
