A Establishment Clause For All

April 18, 2010 by David Emig | Filed Under Barack Obama, Ethics, Faith, Holidays, Islam, Politics, Religion, Supreme Court, U.S. History, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” 

Amendment One, United States Constitution.  The quoted passage is the Establishment Clause.  The intent of the Framers is to provide the American people the right to practice their own religious beliefs – but also the right of citizens to be free from religion if they so choose.  This is the foundation of one of the cornerstone of our democracy.  It was explained in a letter to the Danbery Baptist Association in 1802.  President Thomas Jefferson writes: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”  In 1812, John Adams wrote, “Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.”  Over a half a century later, Ulysses S. Grant stated, “Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”

The recent federal district decision in Freedom from Religion, et al. vs. Obama, et al. is an important one.  It is the reminder that the government should represent all Americans regardless of religious belief or non-belief, and that the Constitution protects everyone’s rights.  Clearly, the National Day of Prayer promotes the Judeo-Christian practices and beliefs.  It is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, and runs counter to the concept of the separation of church and state supported by Thomas Jefferson.  Over the last half century, the American legal system has endeavored to be neutral regarding endorsement of religion.  Decisions such as Freedom from Religion, are in keeping with these legal precedents established by the Court.

The National Day of Prayer was established in 1952.  Billy Graham, the most respected and popular evangelicals of his era inspired the legislation.  During a six-week evangelical crusade in Washington DC, Rev. Graham spoke about how America had “dropped our pilot, the Lord Jesus Christ, and are sailing blindly on without divine chart or compass, hoping somehow to find our desired haven.  We have certain leaders who are rank materialists, they do not recognize God nor care for Him; they spend their time in one round of parties after another.  The Capital City of our Nation can have a great spiritual awakening, thousands coming to Jesus Christ, but certain leaders have not lifted on eyebrow, nor raised a finger, nor show the slightest bit of concern….  Ladies and gentlemen, I warn you, if this state of affairs continues, the end of course is national shipwreck and ruin.”

In response to this dire religious threat, both houses of Congress introduced legislation to proclaim a National Day of Prayer.  Representative Percy Priest in introducing the legislation said that the country “had been challenged yesterday by the suggestion made on the east steps of the Capitol by Billy Graham that the Congress call the President for the proclamation of a prayer.”  The Senator introducing the bill in the Senate, Absalom Robertson (who was the father to Rev. Pat Robertson) stated that the measure was “against the corrosive forces of communism which seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in an Almighty God on which it is based.”

In 1988, Congress revisited the National Day of Prayer proclamation to specify a specific day.  This is so the faithful could better organize events.  This also placed the National Day of Prayer on another plateau, along such days as Mother’s Day, or Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday.  Senator Strom Thurmond thought having a day set for the National Day of Prayer would help because, “a date that changes each year, it is difficult for religious groups to give advance notice to the many citizens who would like to make plans for their church and community. Maximum participation in the public knowledge of this event could be achieved, if, in addition to its being proclaimed annually, it were established as a specific, annual, calendar day.”  {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, p. 9.}  Codification of a day in federal law would then assist the legislative intent by the government sponsored opportunity of better organization and a larger turn out.

The legislative intent of the National Day of Prayer was underscored by Sen. Jesse Helms who said, “America must return to the spiritual source of her greatness and reclaim her religious heritage. Our prayer should be that—like the Old Testament nation of Israel—Americans would once again ‘humble themselves, and pray, and seek God’s face, and turn from [our] wicked ways’ so that God in heaven will hear and forgive our sins and heal our land.” {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, p. 9.}  Obviously, the legislative effect that the Congress was seeking was the promotion of the Judeo-Christian faith exclusively. 

There were no calls to include other faiths in the legislation, or the actual implementation.  Indeed the ruling in Freedom of Religion documents several incidents of those Christians to wish to claim the National Day of Prayer as their own.   Examples like a coordinator in Bakersfield stating that “”[t]he National Day of Prayer is actually all about the Lord.  So we’re representing the Christian community.” See “The Bakersfield Californian” May 1, 2008.  Or local groups complaining in Tennessee that the National Day of Prayer “mak[es] members of minority religions feel that unless they adhere to Christianity they are unpatriotic.” See “Memphis Commercial Appeal”, May 1, 2008.  Or in Illinois, organizers of a event being criticized after saying that the event is “only about Jesus and Jesus the Savior alone”; although they had “no problems having [members of other religions] participate, though not in speaking roles.” See “Springfield State-Journal Register,” April 30, 2006. Or finally an example in Utah, where a Mormon reader “didn’t think [she] was allowed to participate” because she “pray[s} to the wrong God.” See “Deseret Morning News,” October 20, 2009. {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, pp. 57-59 for entire list.} 

Justice Blackmum (RN appointee) might have shed some additional light on this when he wrote in a concurring opinion: “The mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free government, even if no one is forced to participate. When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs.”  Lee vs. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, at 606, (1992).  Justice O’Connor in County of Allegheny v. ACLU Greater Pittsburgh Chapter (1989) writes, “government cannot endorse the religious practices and beliefs of some citizens without sending a clear message to nonadherents that they are outsiders or less than full members of the political community.”  492 U.S. 573, at 627.  {Quoted from Freedom of Religion, p. 20.}.

For those who believe that the National Day of Prayer is merely a proclaimation without force need to heed the words of Justice Kennedy.  “[T]he lesson that in the hands of government what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce.”  {Lee vs. Weisman at 591-592.}  This of course begs the question…what would a less tolerate government do with a National Day of Prayer?

This ruling by Judge Crabb is only the beginning of the process, that will ultimately take the case to the halls of the United States Supreme Court. The ruling in Freedom from Religion v. Obama he should not be seen as Judeo-Christian religion being relegated to “stepchild” status — (though atheists seem to be orphans in this society.)  It shouldn’t be misinterpreted as “the arrogant absurdity of a court.”  It isn’t code to ban religion.  The ruling is enforcement of the governmental ban against favoring one religion and faith over another.  It is against government sanction or encouragement that must be the responsibility of private churches and your private point of view.  This ruling is evidence that the United States Constitution protects all of our rights, believers and non-believers alike; from the potential theocratic tyranny of a government.  As the front of the Supreme Court building states…

“Equal Justice Under Law.”

The Case For Catastrophic Agnosticism

January 15, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Ethics, Faith, Lifestyle, Media, Religion | 14 Comments 

Here we go again. While the world watches unspeakable horror unfolding in the wake of the beyond-words tragedy in Haiti, and as millions of people sift through the rumble searching for their loved ones and lives, the predictable idiocy of self-anointed neo-prophets is ever present to tell us exactly why God “did” this. As a minister of the gospel (now in my 33rd year) I am deeply offended each and every time some big giant talking theological T.V. head weighs in and speaks for God as some kind of insider heavenly hedge fund trader.

Of course, you know what I am talking about, right? The other night, Televangelist Pat Robertson waxed un-eloquent about the earthquake in Haiti.

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal—ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.

So, there we have it. From the mountain. True story (Pat said so). Take it to the bank. Because the Haitians wanted to get out from under “You know, Napoleon III, or whatever,” God sent a great earthquake to kill tens of thousands.

I have a suggestion for Mr. Robertson and others who seem to just wait for opportunities to step up to insert feet in mouth during moments of inexplicable tragedy. Stop and pray—pray a sort-of Serenity Prayer, one that says:

God, grant me the humility to not try to explain what I don’t know; the courage to bear witness to what I do know; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Personally, in such moments as these, I find myself saying, “I don’t know—I simply don’t know,” when asked by a congregant or man on the street about why things like the earthquake in Haiti happen. Sometimes that answer is met by a look that seems to say, “But I thought you were an expert on God?”

No one is an expert on God. That’s what makes him God and me, not.

It is, of course, understandable to want to know why bad things happen to people, but to try to apply anything other than general observations to specific troubles is an exercise in the worst kind of subjectivity. And when a member of the clergy speaks, doing so with the air of authority, it is a grievous sin to give absurd information. While it is never a good idea for the trumpet to give an uncertain sound, it can be just as bad to blare forth with a certainty unwarranted by facts, wisdom, or revelation.

The word “agnostic” literally means, “I don’t know,” and sometimes that’s the best we can do.

But sadly, too many people—especially some who should know better—decide to play the part of Job’s wacky “friends,” explaining it all, the whys and wherefores of trial and triumph. Having suggested a prayer for Pat Robertson, et al, I now have a text. It comes from that very Book of Job, near the end, when reality is starting to make sense to the suffering man.

Job answered: “I’m speechless, in awe—words fail me. I should never have opened my mouth! I’ve talked too much, way too much. I’m ready to shut up and listen.”
 Job 40:3-5 (“The Message”)

Some might wonder about the fact that there were cases back in Bible times, where calamity would come to a city or region as a clear indicator of God’s displeasure. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh, and even determined captivity in Babylon for the children of Israel. But what must be noticed is that these things never happened without ample warning—complete with undeniable specificity—and merciful opportunity to repent (change their ways).

In fact, in the case of Nineveh, he sent Jonah, a Jewish prophet, with the judgment message, one that included a timeline—in 40 days the city would perish. Jonah was a complicated man, who initially ran from the job. And no one was more surprised than he was when the city bathed itself in warning-driven waters of remission prompting the Lord to stay the city’s execution.

Of course, Jonah wasn’t a happy camper. He wanted the city to burn. The scenario that unfolded before his eyes—one of a faith-driven cultural renewal—didn’t please him at all. And when I hear those who profess faith purporting to explain why God “did it” when bad things happen, I also pick up a hint of Jonah: “They deserve what they got.”

But, some might counter, didn’t Jeremiah preach a message of judgment? Yes. And he wept all the while. There is a vast difference between weeping and the saying of “Amen!” (Which means “so be it” or “I agree” or, in some cases it seems, “see, I told you so!”). There is not a dime’s worth of difference between what Pat Robertson recently said and the ravings of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Both preachers presumed to pronounce judgment; only the reasons and regions were different.

And both preachers crossed the line between fair and foul, wisdom and folly, truth and conjecture, and authentic witness and abusive demagoguery.

I have no direct line from God as to why bad things happen, nor does any other preacher today—liberal or conservative. When tragedy comes I don’t ask “why?” —I ask “what for?” And I try to help people through pain. And out of it. The Good Samaritan didn’t launch into a theological or philosophical journey to figure out how such a bad thing could happen to the man on the road, he simply poured in the oil and the wine.

That’s what all people of faith should be doing right now. We don’t know why it happened, but we know what we should do—find a way to help.

The Fertile Crescent

November 13, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Cold War, Culture, Domestic issues, Economic issues, Ethics, Faith, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Military, National Security, Religion, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

Every time I read, view, or hear the latest attempt to portray Nidal Malik Hasan as a “loner” or “victim of racism” or “psychotic” – or (this may be my favorite) someone suffering from something called “PRE-traumatic stress disorder,” I am torn between the desire to scream or laugh. My internal conflict increases when I hear Chicago Mayor Daley suggest the problem is that Americans love guns too much.

And then there’s the granddaddy of all recent rhetorical absurdities when Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey uttered the incredibly clueless thought: “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.”

Can someone explain to me how the death of 14 (one of the victims was pregnant) can be trumped by the importance of a particular political agenda? The General should include a very real apology in his resignation letter.

It would be funny if not for the fact that it is all so dangerously sad. As I take it all in, it’s like the ghost of Groucho Marx is sitting on one of my shoulders making me smile at the outrageousness of such comments with his famous, “Who are you going to believe? Me? Or your own eyes?” This is all balanced by the difficult to ignore presence of the ghost of Gen. George S. Patton, who sits on the other shoulder and regularly fills that ear (this would be the right ear, by the way – in every sense of that word) with words I am not completely able to translate in this column.

Psychologists use the term “denial” to describe a way some people interpret reality. This manifests itself in denying something ever actually happened, or that it happened but it wasn’t to big of a deal (the “isolated event” approach), or even in something called “projection” which admits that something has indeed happened, but deflects blame and responsibility. We are a nation in official and pervasive denial.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis (c. 1962), if an American soldier would have opened fire on his comrades while wearing a Che Guevera T-shirt and yelling, “Long Live Lenin, Khruschev, and Castro,” it is doubtful that the guy’s communist sympathies would have been dismissed as irrelevant and peripheral. The commies were the enemy. And, if an investigation into his background would have yielded clues to his political feelings and fanaticism, there is no doubt that the case would have been a slam-dunk. And those who should have picked up on his radicalism before the awful fact would have been held accountable.

In fact, if some white-hooded fool were to open fire on a group today in the name of a fiery cross and a virulent racist perversion of certain passages in the Christian Bible, it is unlikely that such a terrorist would have any apologists reluctant to tie what he did to what he believed. Religious violence, be it of the cross or crescent, is always worthy of condemnation and contempt.

But when it comes to Islamism, the various contortions some use to distance what a Jihadist did from the ideology that so-obviously informed his actions are very difficult to watch.

Of course, I very much understand the complexities of this issue. We are a free society and among the most precious of those freedoms is that of religion. But as with another vital right – the freedom of speech – there are clear limits. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. And religious liberty notwithstanding, you cannot advocate the violent overturning of our constitutional way of life in this country in the name of any God.

Anyone, therefore, who embraces Sharia law and believes that it should become the code of a new America, should be disqualified from serving in the military. At any rate – how can they really take the required oath? Clearly one day long ago, the Fort Hood terrorist said:

I, Nidal Malik Hasan, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

We are told “officially” that there are 3,572 Muslims in our military ranks. Although it’s interesting to note that The American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council has that number much higher, in fact, four times higher – at more than 15,000. What do they know that those in the barracks don’t?

Some might want to counter that bad things have been done – violently so – in this country and the world throughout history, in the name of my religion – Christianity. And, sadly, I must confess that this has been the case, on occasion. But it has never been the norm. And those who do such stuff certainly don’t get their instructions from Christian doctrine.

To get from the teachings of Jesus to murderous evil requires a tortured, twisted, ignorant, and monumentally long journey. Yes, people have done bad things in Christ’s name – but in doing so they have, in effect, denied him.

Some ideologies, however, are much more friendly to the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. For example, when it comes to economic theory, you are hard pressed to find any possible pathway from Milton Friedman’s monetary ideas to killing a bunch of people. On the other hand, when you take a look at the writings of Karl Marx (no relation to Groucho), history has shown that the distance from theory to bloodshed is not all that far. In fact, Marxism and violence are close cousins because you really have to force people to turn from self-interest – all for their own good, of course.

The thing that too many in our nation are simply ignoring is that when it comes to Islam, as opposed to any other religious idea extant, the journey from ideology to what happened at Fort Hood is also not a very long one. For any Christian to become so radicalized as to open fire people in the name of his or her religion would require a virtual repudiation of the faith. Could it happen? Sure – anything can happen. And if it did, the mainstream media in this country would have no qualms about wrapping the deed around the doctrine.

But the quantifiable fact is that such things really don’t happen with Christians the way they do with Muslims. And even when certain violent acts by professed Christians, such as the killing of a doctor who has performed abortions, make the news, usually among the first and loudest expressions of condemnation and outrage are from Christians.

Does anyone hear all that many Muslim voices condemning Hasan?

Much has been made of the fact that the Fort Hood Jihadist/Terrorist was harassed for his beliefs. First, let me be clear – I think it is wrong, un-American, and certainly un-Christian to at all persecute someone for what is believed and practiced in the context of our Constitutional freedoms. And when it comes to Christians – who have known the pain of persecution throughout the centuries – there is no Biblical mandate for a follower of Jesus to ever persecute another human being. If fact, in our way of thinking, and from the wonderful Jewish scriptures that inform our faith, we are ever admonished to love neighbor as self.

The Christian response to persecution is never to be that of reactive violence. The Apostle Peter gave instruction near the end of his life on this matter:

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. – I Peter 3:13-16 (NIV)

Gentleness, respect, hope, and love – these are the watchwords of the follower of Jesus. But there is no “turn the other cheek” stuff in Islam. And at some point people in this country need to stop ignoring the obvious.

So I respect my Muslim neighbors and want them to be treated justly. This means, when there is peace, community, love of law, love of country, all will be well. And when these values are violently violated there must be justice of another kind – to punish evil, especially the egregious wickedness of terrorist murder.

But I also, taking another cue from Jesus, must be “wise as a serpent,” and this means I need to be aware that certain ideologies are more fertile when it comes to hate and violence. And, like it or not, they – and those who espouse such teachings – need to be watched very carefully.

Too many people have been looking the other way in America. It’s time to focus.

Sing For Your Supper

September 28, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Art, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Election 2012, Ethics, Obama administration | 1 Comment 

The Washington Times ran a strong editorial yesterday —”Unanswered questions for the NEA“— on a story  that is sufficiently confusing to have resulted in its being relegated to B-sections and the blogosphere.

The Times‘ editors manage to make both its outline and its significance clear:

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman and the White House finally responded to a controversial effort by political appointees of both the White House and the NEA to “leverage” government funding of the arts into cultural support for the administration’s legislative agenda.

This is the short version of the Obama administration’s position: Nothing bad happened. The rogue employee who didn’t do anything bad has been relieved of his duties (and has now resigned). In an effort to make sure that the same “nothing bad” never happens again, the administration has distributed a memo and provided some new training on how not to do “nothing bad.”

The facts are simple and public. During the transition, President Obama’s top arts adviser made it clear that his ambition was for the arts to become an integral part of the West Wing. After the inauguration, meetings of artists and political activists at the White House explicitly discussed how to keep the arts community in campaign mode to back Mr. Obama’s legislative agenda. An NEA grants official, Mario Garcia Durham, was at one such meeting for which the attendee list is public.

As those meetings occurred, Yosi Sergant, a key cog in the Obama campaign’s outreach to artists, was transferred from a position at the White House to a position as the communications director of the NEA. When the grant spigots opened at the NEA, more than $2 million went directly into the coffers of arts organizations (and their members) attending these meetings and publicly backing elements of the administration agenda.

Does that prove laws have been broken? Of course not. The worst appearances can be completely innocent. However, the administration’s assertions that Mr. Sergant acted alone (“unilaterally and without … approval or authorization” in Mr. Landesman’s words) and that the administration’s efforts were “completely unrelated” to grant-making are at odds with the facts. The public deserves more than bland reassurances.

A full investigation by both Congress and the NEA inspector general is the only way to bring this story to a close. Answers to these questions would be only a start:

c What was an NEA grants official doing at a White House political meeting? What other grants officials have been meeting with White House political officials?

c So far we know about a handful of conference calls last month and White House meetings last spring. Is this the full extent of the coordination between the White House political staff and the NEA?

c Has the grant-making process been compromised by politics? How were the brand-new stimulus grants insulated from politics? Were any of the safeguards circumvented?

c On the same day that Americans for the Arts, a lobbying organization that also runs a partisan Democratic political action committee, endorsed the key elements of the Obama health care plan, the president of the group met with Mr. Landesman, the new NEA chief. What happened at that meeting?

c Why was activist Yosi Sergant transferred from the White House to the NEA? Who made the decision?

From Day One of this story, Mr. Sergant’s statements, the NEA’s official statements and Mr. Landesman’s statements have been riddled with falsehoods and bluster. There’s no reason to take anything the NEA has said so far at face value.

The Washington Post, Disgraced

July 2, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Ethics, News media | 1 Comment 

There are some alternate titles that came to mind as I prepared to write this, but since some of TNN’s readers are employees of the Washington Post – some of very long standing indeed – I thought it best to go with the least abrasive one that I thought of.

Even so, it’s rather dismaying to write this.

This morning, Politico.com reported on the contents of a flyer received by a lobbyist in the health-care field. Parts of the flyer read as follows:

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate. Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders …

“Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama Administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less. …

“Offered at $25,000 per sponsor, per Salon. Maximum of two sponsors per Salon. Underwriters’ CEO or Executive Director participates in the discussion. Underwriters appreciatively acknowledged in printed invitations and at the dinner. Annual series sponsorship of 11 Salons offered at $250,000 … Hosts and Discussion Leaders … Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post … An exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done. … A Washington Post Salon … July 21, 2009 6:30 p.m.”

That “salon” has been called off, along with all its planned successors, by Ms. Weymouth after Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli issued a memo stating that his newsroom would not participate in the project in any way, and after a storm of shocked and angry responses from news sites, blogs, and Twitterers in the media everywhere.

(Though there was quite a bit of humor among the Tweets, some quite pointed. A sample, with my comments in brackets:

For a mere $10K, Tom Sietsema will finally review Mrs.K’s in Silver Spring. [You'd have to live a half-mile from Mrs. K's, like I do, to really get that one.]

For only $10,000 the WaPo will review your stimulus package and they won’t mention that it promotes socialism! [No guesses about which Washington paper that Twitterer would cancel his or her subscription to, given a choice.]

WaPo is the new DC Madam. Let’s see her client list. [Later in the week I will look at one name that, seemingly, might be included on such a list. Hint: that name has been the subject of a dozen of my previous posts.]

For $500K, Charles Krauthammer will write a series of columns advocating war with a country of your choosing. [How about 25 gees to argue the case for war with Moldova?]

Ta-Nehisi Coates is among a host of former Post writers expressing their reactions to the news. He says, among other things:

I’m sure in the coming days we will find out that this was the brainchild of Weymouth or one of the other suits that have little if anything to do with the daily news operation. But that’s what makes it so reckless and irresponsible. With one poorly-worded flier they have left their editorial staff vulnerable to questioning as to whether sponsors will have an influence on their reporting, questions that no reporter who is simply doing their job should ever have to face. I have a great deal of sympathy for the Post’s editorial department and I applaud their response. But someone upstairs should have to answer for this[....]

But who will answer for it? Who ombuds the ombudsperson, so to speak?

The Hard Irony of High Expectations

June 12, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Congress, Ethics, Obama administration | Leave a Comment 

Here’s a troubling and intriguing story that might otherwise have been buried on the back pages, little noticed, and soon forgotten.

But these are the still the early days of an administration that both claims and proclaims the moral high ground, so this apparently cynical little exercise of business as usual already has some serious legs — and seems to be sprouting more of them by the hour.

Byron York broke it today in the Washington Examiner under the headline “What’s behind Obama’s sudden attempt to fire the AmeriCorps inspector general?”

There are a number of unanswered questions today about President Obama’s abrupt decision to fire the inspector general of the AmeriCorps program, Gerald Walpin. Obama sent letters to House and Senate leaders yesterday informing them that he was firing Walpin, effective 30 days from the date of the letters.

“It is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General,” the president wrote. “That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector General.”

The 30 day requirement is important because last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act, which was designed to strengthen protections for IGs, who have the responsibility of investigating allegations of waste, fraud and abuse within federal agencies, against interference by political appointees or the White House. Part of the Act was a requirement that the president give Congress 30 days’ notice before dismissing an IG. One of the co-sponsors of the Act was then-Sen. Barack Obama.

The Act also requires the president to outline the cause for his decision to remove an IG. Beyond saying that he did not have the “fullest confidence” in Walpin, Obama gave no reason for his action.

There are two big questions about the president’s actions. One, why did he decide to fire Walpin? And two, did he abide by the law that he himself co-sponsored?

Suffice it to say that the attempts so far to defang the story (from White House Counsel Greg Craig, and  Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform Norman Eisen), have only managed to raise more questions than they have answered.

At least one thing is settled conclusively by this story with its fascinating trail of Updates: Print journalism as we have known it is already obsolete and, before too long, will be deader than a doornail.

Elizabeth Edwards Talks To Oprah Winfrey

May 8, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Ethics, Media, News media | Leave a Comment 

Yesterday, Elizabeth Edwards appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show to discuss her new book, Resilience, and the ongoing saga of her husband John’s fall from the pinnacle of Democratic politics and its effect on his family.

It was thoroughly painful to watch, not least when, following 50 agonizing minutes in which his wife spoke of her struggle to come to grips with the scandal involving Rielle Hunter (whose name she asked Oprah not to speak) and of her continuing fight against cancer, it came time for John Edwards to almost nonchalantly show the talk-show host around his family’s palatial home, pointing out the basketball court where “Barack and me” tested their hoops skills.

Rebecca Traister of Salon.com, a self-confessed habitual Oprah-watcher from childhood, says that this was the first Oprah show that ever made her cry; an understandable reaction.

But as cathartic as the appearance might have been for Ms. Edwards, it is also true that the very act of going on national television to express her anger at “that woman,” and to declare that she did not see how “it” (as she called Rielle Hunter’s daughter Frances Quinn) could make any difference in her own life (whether or not it turned out that John Edwards fathered the girl), produces more problems for her husband, as Roger Simon says at Politico.com.

Almost as soon as the interview was taped, the report came from the National Enquirer (which has consistently broken stories about the affair later confirmed by the mainstream press) that Ms. Hunter has decided to seek a DNA sample from John Edwards to establish Francis’s paternity – a sample that Edwards told a nationwide TV audience last year he would be thoroughly willing to provide. (At the time, Ms. Hunter was declining to seek a paternity test.)

But less important than what that test might establish are the questions surrounding the strange and complex directions in which money moved from 2006 to 2008 between Edwards’s campaign, various nonprofits murkily associated with it, and Ms. Hunter. (And, perhaps, other individuals.) As Scott Whitlock points out at Newsbusters.org, apart from some determined newspapers and TV and radio stations in North Carolina, the national media have paid much less attention to that side of the story than to the personal drama involved.

But (as the Chicago Tribune’s site observed today) if the current Federal investigation finds some genuine fire amid the financial smokescreens, and the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential candidate ends up facing a ten-year prison sentence, it would not happen because he fathered a child out of wedlock.

Rude Awakening, or The Edwards Zone Redux

May 5, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Ethics, News media, Nixonland Nitpicks, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Senate | 1 Comment 

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” — Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire Of Louis Napoleon (1851)

Most of what Marx said has been proven wrong by history, but that quote still holds up with a vengeance. The opening pages of Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland describe vividly the days in which Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, having seemingly vanquished the forces of the Right for all eternity, was on the verge of ushering in a second Era Of Good Feelings (as defined by Democrats and seconded by Rockefeller Republicans) when the Watts riots gave the nation a brutal slap on the face and ushered in a series of violent and chaotic events that brought about the resurgence of conservatism.

In much the same way, as President Obama’s first 100 days closed last Wednesday with Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democrats and David Souter’s notifying the White House of his planned retirement, the stage seemed set for the final triumph of liberalism for this century, if not millennium. All that was needed was for Al Franken’s smirk to materialize in one chair in the Senate, and all would be well.

But alas, in the preceding weeks, a distant rumble of things to come could be heard. Early last month Knopf published How It Ended, the collected stories of Jay McInerney. best known for Bright Lights, Big City. This volume garnered its author the best reviews of his career. And, in some of these, it was mentioned that one of the tales in the book, “Penelope On The Pond,” imagined Alison Poole, the heroine of McInerney’s 1988 novel Story Of My Life, as a discarded mistress of a presidential candidate, biding her time in a quiet cabin somewhere in the Rockies. The reviews further noted that McInerney has often acknowledged that Alison Poole was based on Rielle Hunter.

Rielle Hunter? Wasn’t she involved with that guy who had the most famous hairdo in politics before Rod Blagojevich came along? Didn’t he once run for Vice President or something? What was his name, um…Edwards, John Edwards, right?

Yes, John Edwards, who, in the eight months since I last posted about him, heeded the bidding of the Democratic establishment and faded into the woodwork, appearing in public only at University of North Carolina basketball games, while Rielle Hunter, the mother of an infant girl whose precocious head of hair somehow brought him to mind, was banished from her mansion in Santa Barbara (after the death of her benefactor and Edwards’s finance chairman for his 2008 presidential run, Fred Baron, in October) and exiled to a modest house in South Orange, New Jersey. It seemed a sure thing that neither would be heard from again.

But that was before it was reported that Elizabeth Edwards, the terminally ill wife of the ex-Senator, was about to publish a new book, Resilience, in which she discusses her husband’s affair. And before the Raleigh News and Observer, which has quietly followed the ins and outs of the Edwards scandal ever since the onetime Veep-presumptive bamboozled the paper’s executive editor into killing an article about his affair in late 2007 (by denying it and claiming that such a story would cause needless suffering to his wife), informed America last Sunday that a Federal investigation into the financing of his 2008 campaign was now underway.

Yes, like the most evil genie imaginable, the Edwards Zone, with all its many mysteries involving campaign operatives with a taste for high-stakes gambling (and a propensity to claim parentage of babies whom they then completely ignore), trial lawyers who send their private planes on round trips from Texas to make hour-long stopovers in Caribbean islands noted for offshore banking, and nonprofit foundations that manage to channel millions to LLCs that abruptly vanish, has come back.

In a column to appear in tomorrow’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd articulates the frustration that many liberals in the media must feel. It’s been long understood that John Edwards’s narcissism was close to uncontrollable; it took all the weight of the Democratic establishment to prevent him from touring college campuses last fall and to quietly go back to the Tar Heel State.

But what drives Elizabeth Edwards to go on Oprah Winfrey’s show, as she did today (for a taping that will be broadcast on Thursday), to speculate on how much or how little young Frances Quinn Hunter resembles the man who might have been a heartbeat away from the Oval Office if a few thousand votes had gone the other way in Ohio four and a half years ago? What is going to happen when Andrew Young (not the venerated lieutenant of Martin Luther King and former UN Ambassador, but the aforementioned operative) goes before a grand jury and is asked to explain why his own mother told a reporter she does not believe his claim, made through a lawyer, that he fathered Rielle Hunter’s daughter? Or when such a body ponders the question of why the chartered plane carrying Ms. Hunter and her daughter from California to the US Virgin Islands would make a quick stop in Mobile, Alabama, to acquire a passport for the infant – a passport not needed for travel to those islands, but necessary for, say, a visit to the Grand Turks and Caicos, to which the aforementioned private jet traveled for an hour during Ms. Hunter’s sojourn?

Last year, I wrote a dozen posts on this subject, and posed the questions that I think need to be raised by diligent Federal prosecutors to a grand jury. Some more have arisen, notably regarding the three million or so dollars donated to a nonprofit affiliated with Edwards by Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon, the 98-year-old heiress who, until now, has been best known for providing her nation with the beautiful landscaping design that the South Lawn of the White House has had since the Kennedy Administration. (The nonprofit then paid an equivalent sum to an LLC – with the same address as the nonprofit, and which vanished from the records at the same time the nonprofit closed up shop in 2008 – for “consulting” work.)

If the Democrats have any luck, sullying Ms. Mellon’s legacy of Camelot will be the worst that John Edwards will do to the liberal tradition. But I have the feeling that there’s a considerable chance that the true dimensions of the events involving Edwards and his associates between 2006 and 2008 will  emerge, little by little. The question is how many journalists will follow the lead of the News and Observer (and some other North Carolina media) in looking into the scarifying revelations in the heart of….the Edwards Zone.

Mr. Obama’s Enchanted And Selective Righteousness

May 1, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Ethics, History, Intelligence, News media, Obama administration, Republican Party, Terrorism, UK Politics, War on Terror | 3 Comments 

It was some enchanted event. While Dr. Seuss-like journalists lobbed sophomoric softballs President Obama’s way last Wednesday night, Mr. I-Never-Met-A-Teleprompter-I-Didn’t-Need managed to unintentionally juxtapose two polarizing issues in an ironic and upside down way. He was right about what he said. But answer “B” better fits question “A,” and vice versa.

After answering the predictable torture question: “I would not torture in a jail; I would not torture with a pail,” the president later was asked about the issue of abortion. He gave what could only be called a “tortured” response (pun intended). He spoke of how those on the pro-choice side of the issue “make a mistake when they – if they suggest – and I don’t want to create straw men here, but I think there are some who suggest that this is simply an issue about women’s freedom and there’s (sic) no other considerations.” He went on to describe the matter as “an issue people have to wrestle with” and that it is a “moral issue and an ethical issue.”

Or it might be called a case of selective righteousness.

He’s clear cut and dogmatic on the correctness of his view about not using “enhanced interrogation techniques” even in circumstances that might obtain life saving information from really, really bad people. But he’s “aw-shucks-it’s-a-real-toughie” about ending the life of the most innocent and precious.

He’s got his upside downs all mixed up.

As he talked about the torture issue, President Obama waxed reflective and cited an article he had recently read quoting Winston Churchill during the ferocity of the blitz as saying, “We don’t torture.” The president suggested that “Churchill understood – you start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s – what’s best in people. It corrodes the character of a country.”

“Well” – as Ronald Reagan might say while flashing his contagious grin – “There you go again, Mr. President.” Articles and blogs can make good reading (this one, for example), but I suggest that Mr. Obama might be better off spending some time with an actual full-length biography of the rotund Briton. Presumably he’d have to dispatch an aid to a bookstore for such a volume. Likely all Churchill references in the White House during his predecessor’s administration have been sent back to London in a crate marked, “Churchill Bust and Books – Yes, We Don’t Need.”

You see, while Mr. Churchill may have uttered a choice opinion or two on torture, he was known to change his mind on occasion (even his party). He also could wrap the truth in a riddle or enigma. Bear in mind that he was the guy who said famously, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” The kind of war being waged in the 1940s was vastly different from our current experience. In other words, ticking time bomb analogies don’t really work when looking at back then. The bombs were always ticking – and falling. Duh.

Yet, there is evidence that, in fact, torture did go on as part of the British World War Two effort. There is the story, for example, of The London Cage, a special operation run by MI19 (they were tasked with getting vital information from prisoners of war), housed at the posh Kensington Palace Gardens. Written reports based on information in the National Archives across the pond tell of more than 3,500 men being “processed” through the highly secretive “torture center,” even while Churchill was opining against torture.

How intense were interrogations in the “cage?” One written complaint found in the archives – from a German journalist who had also spent sometime under Gestapo “supervision” – talked about how much better he was treated by the German police. Do the math.

What is interesting though, is that Winston Churchill was the consummate warrior who regularly expressed a willingness to do what was needed to win a battle or war. Another example of his “whatever it takes” approach was when he, filled with fear that the Germans were working on a biological weapon, tried to persuade Uncle Sam to develop an extensive germ warfare program in 1942.

Churchill also contemplated the idea of trying to bring the war to an end in 1944 via bombs that would release anthrax, only to be disabused of the notion by his generals. And, of course, there is the strange case of Rudolph Hess, Hitler’s crony, who jumped out of a plane over Scotland on a mysterious mission, only to be rebuffed by the Prime Minister who quipped, “Hess or no Hess, I’m going to watch the Marx Brothers.”

How cool was he?

Later though, Churchill – who desired to keep Hess’ presence and purpose away from a surprisingly powerful “peace party” – one that sought to oust him from 10 Downing Street – had Hess locked up for the duration of the war. Think: Gitmo for one.

Therefore, Mr. Obama quoting Winston Churchill to try to bolster his argument is akin to George W. Bush citing Ward Churchill to defend his record.

As Charles Krauthammer writes, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” – while certainly something that makes all decent people uncomfortable – can and should be permissible under two narrowly specific circumstances: the proverbial “ticking bomb,” and to glean information that will save lives. To take this option off the table is at best naïve and at worst foolish. At any rate, whatever Churchill said about torture, does anyone at all acquainted with the history of those days really believe he meant it – or that his enemies believed him?

President Obama has it all backwards. The taking of innocent human life via abortion should be the black and white moral issue that helps define national righteousness. It’s torture that should be “rare, but legal.” This would make for a better and safer world.

Helmet Head, Meet Printed Page

March 2, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Ethics, Media | Leave a Comment 

Word came this afternoon that impeached former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, after visits to several New York publishers a few weeks back produced “interest” but not much in the way of offers, has now contracted with Michael Viner’s Beverly Hills-based Phoenix Books to write a volume describing the process by which he decided to fill President Obama’s vacant seat in the Senate.

Viner, who early on made his mark as the mastermind behind the Incredible Bongo Band (which had a minor hit in the bell-bottom era with “Bongo Rock” but is nowadays best known for its cover version of the Shadows’s “Apache,” one of the most sampled tracks in hip-hop history) has been in the book business for about two decades. In the 1990s with his first company, Dove Audio, he pioneered the books-on-tape market, and earned a considerable sum publishing ink-on-paper volumes such as You’ll Never Make Love In This Town Again and seemingly countless volumes on the O.J. Simpson case.

After O.J.’s acquittal, Dove’s fortunes declined, and Viner moved on to found another company, New Millennium. New Millennium scored comparatively few bestsellers and went out of business in 2004, but Viner, undaunted, reemerged with Phoenix in 2006, and since then has specialized in the kind of list he’s always preferred – heavy on exercise and diet titles, showbiz biographies, and books by or about current headliners. (Phoenix just published the first book about Bernie Madoff, penned in a matter of weeks by Gerald and Deborah Strober, who in years past specialized in oral histories of such figures as Queen Elizabeth, JFK, Ronald Reagan, and, yes, RN.)

Blago’s spokesman says his boss went with Phoenix for a six-figure sum (nothing more specific given, but I have the feeling it was closer to 100 gees than 999) because the publisher promised he could tell his story “without any restrictions over content.” Could this translate to hair-raising revelations about our 44th Chief Executive’s days in Springfield? We should know before too long.

Meanwhile, Blago’s appointee to the Senate continues to amaze political veterans. It really seems as if Sen. Roland Burris, if not exactly made of the kind of Teflon that observers used to credit to President Reagan, is as thoroughly resilient as a crate of Super Balls.  Last week, I noted that the senior gentleman from Illinois, Dick Durbin, had asked his junior counterpart if he’d considered resigning after recent revelations regarding his contacts with Blagojevich’s associates before his appointment, and Burris answered in the negative. This afternoon, an AP article quotes Durbin thus:

“Well let me tell you, Sen. Burris’s vote still counts in the Senate. And it’s an important vote. He has helped us move forward President Obama’s agenda and I believe he will continue to do that so we’ll work together on this.”

But is this the tune we’ll hear next week? Or when (or if) Al Franken gets into the Senate?  The suspense continues.

Burris: Not Budging

February 24, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Ethics, Obama administration, Republican Party, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

When I made my first post in December concerning then-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate seat vacated by President Obama upon his election, I noted that Burris, a former Illinois Attorney General, had a respectable record by the standards of Illinois politics, or, at any rate, Chicago politics.

Since then, Burris’s reputation has taken a tumble.  In early January, he spoke before a committee of the Illinois legislature looking into Blagojevich’s reasons for selecting him.  At that time, he told the committee there was no real quid pro quo involved in being chosen.  When asked if he had talked to the governor or anyone associated with him, Burris mentioned a conversation with Blagojevich’s chief of staff Lon Monk.   This testimony proved helpful in breaking down resistance to the seating of Burris from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; Illinois’s other Senator, Dick Durbin;  and Obama himself.

Then, earlier this month, Burris submitted an affadavit intended to clear up some points about his testimony.  Among the points it cleared up was that Burris had actually talked to several of Blagojevich’s associates in the weeks before his selection, including the governor’s brother (and finance chairman).  And then, last week, Burris acknowledged that, when asked if he could raise money on the governor’s behalf after Blago’s arrest, he had made some calls, though he found no one willing to help.

This bombshell moved both the Chicago Tribune and Washington Post to publish editorials calling for Burris to resign.  These appeared nearly a week ago, and so far the junior Senator from the Land of Lincoln has proven as stubborn about such a suggestion as he was when he appeared on Capitol Hill last month and insisted on taking his seat.

This afternoon, Burris met with Durbin.  The senior Senator asked if he would consider resigning, and Burris replied that he had no plans to do so and also indicated that he would not rule out a campaign for a full term come 2010.  Back in Springfield, innumerable officeholders on both sides of the aisle, from Democratic Governor Pat Quinn on down, are calling for Burris to step down. But it appears that he is as determined as ever to keep adding to the credits etched on his now-famous “Trailblazer” mausoleum.

,At the moment, it appears unlikely that Burris can be budged if he doesn’t want to do the budging.  In the nearly 150 years since several Southern senators were expelled from the chamber for supporting the Confederacy, only one member of the upper chamber has come close to being so ejected: Harrison Williams, who, convicted in the Abscam scandal, resigned shortly before a planned vote to remove him in 1982.  There’s also the fact that if Burris leaves, pressure on Quinn to call a special election to fill the vacancy – an election which could quite likely put a Republican in the seat – will be overwhelming.  Therefore, the chances seem good that Burris has nearly two more years to go on Capitol Hill.

Are Better Angels All Socialists?

February 20, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Economic issues, Ethics, Faith, Lifestyle, Money, Religion, economy | Leave a Comment 

G. K. Chesterton used to say that the idea of “original sin” was “a fact as practical as potatoes” and “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.”

As the nation-at-large wrestles with monumental problems, there are many who advocate strategies that rely on what is often referred to liberally as “the essential goodness of people.” The idea being that given a fair choice and level playing field people will generally do the right thing.

As Dr. Phil might ask: “How’s that working for you?”

I certainly believe people can rise up and do good things following what President Barack Obama, quoting Abraham Lincoln, is fond of calling our “better angels.” But the truth is that the default position of human behavior actually falls short of the ideal. Various forms of theology explain this propensity in terms of “original sin” or “total depravity” – that we are wired with a spiritual-genetic flaw.

In other words, the very suggestion of the existence of “better angels” in our nature implies other “less-than-better angels” – putting it mildly; or maybe “fallen angels.” The mention of better begs the question: “Better than what?”

Some people will dismiss this kind of thinking as puritanical. But it’s sort of like a paraphrase of that old Marxist line (Groucho, not Karl): Are you going to believe them or your own two eyes? Empirical evidence abounds that people tend to follow paths of least resistance and worse.

We are in this mess now because many people either made unwise choices (rejecting personal responsibility or deferred gratification), or they were manipulated and deceived by predators. Others on a certain street in lower Manhattan exploited everything. All of this while Barney Frank kept an eye on things. Clearly, any angels in attendance weren’t of the “better” variety.

People harm and take advantage of others because it is part of human nature. People pollute the planet because it is part of human nature. People lie, cheat, steal, and commit adultery, because humans (all of us) are sinners. And sometimes a toxic storm is at work in a life and monsters emerge to do despicable things. We are tempted to call them insane, and maybe they are by some psychological standard, but they are also very depraved.

All sins great and small flow from the same polluted human nature stream, whether they are grave and life destroying in our eyes or relatively excusable in today’s “I-did-it-because-I-am-a-victim” world. The lack of integrity that leads some to break a vital covenant and others to commit abhorrent crimes are connected to the same ugly ancestral disorder.

For example, we are witnessing a surge in bank foreclosures and people are losing homes. What is being little noticed though, is that while it is true some have lost jobs and can’t pay, there are cases where some who really could pay have stopped making payments and are deciding to walk away unless the government makes it easier for them. The home is now “less attractive” than it once was as an investment. Some are walking away only because they are upside down – not because they really can’t pay.

Stay tuned taxpayers. Keep your eyes on the funds and mechanisms as they become available to help people catch up on, or renegotiate, mortgages. I predict that some people will still simply choose to walk away, in spite of help available, because their homes just won’t be worth it in their eyes. In many cases, it may be more about the value of a home than the ability to pay.

Won’t it be interesting if money to help some people “stay in their homes” winds up going unused because, when it comes right down to it, they don’t really want to stay after all? Is being behind on payments the big problem (certainly it is for some), or is being upside down the big deal? There is a difference between catching up and getting out from under.

Upside down may be becoming an excuse to move from inside out.

In many places there is a scenario called “buy and bail.” This is where someone buys a new – cheaper – home, while still in the original dwelling. Then once the deal is done – they walk away from the first, more expensive home. Admittedly, this practice is not widespread now, largely because some states have cracked down on it.

What we do know is this, when homes go empty for whatever reason it hurts everyone who is trying to really play by the rules and keep their word. Upside down/walk away homes on an already depressed market contribute to the downward spiral of home values and prices – damaging those who believe that when they signed the mortgage they made not only a financial commitment, but a moral one as well.

If liberal-bail-out-advocates really believe in the “greater good” and “spreading the wealth,” they might want to consider that the wealth they want to redistribute is actually disappearing because of the “help” they are providing. People who made bad choices in the first place are being encouraged to continue doing things that hurt everyone. How is this about the greater good?

While we are trying to figure all this out, we meet a lady named Nadya Suleman. She recently gave birth to eight children. She’s been all over the news and now we hear she is looking at a new million-dollar-plus-pad for her growing family. I haven’t figured out whether she is a caricature or a metaphor. Maybe she’s both.

Of course, the Suleman story is objectionable and infuriating to us on so many levels because she clearly seems to be deranged. Or maybe she is just depraved. Maybe she is a manipulative, scheming, deceiver, who is thinking only of self. I am not trying to bash the lady – that line is really too long.

After all, if OctoMom, as she has been dubbed, is indeed trying to “work the system” with the mother of all scams (literally), is she really all that different from many others right now? I’m talking about those who are already slowing down on the personal responsibility side of things because we have a cool new government in place ready to stimulate all of us. Nadya Suleman may be more like the not-too-distant future of America than we might care or dare to admit.

Here’s where “original sin” comes in. Like it or not, we all bear a moral-DNA similarity to OctoMom, in the sense that we have this natural propensity to be selfish and deceitful. It is only as this part of us is restrained (by law, fear, inspiration, or love) or transformed (by grace – or, if you prefer, “a higher power”), that we can function in any effective social-contract sense.

Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky said, “If there is no God, everything is permissible.”

There is a lot of talk these days about America becoming socialist and more like Europe. What needs to be noticed is that these trends not only have to do with the size and role of government, but also speak about a culture moving toward dominant secularism and sterile religion.

I ate at a restaurant the other day in Manhattan. It was in a beautiful building that had once been a thriving church. It was a church; now it is an eatery. Then I thought about how so many of the churches in Europe function basically as museums, if at all. Is this where we are headed?

One of the basic differences between socialism and capitalism as they manifest themselves in social, cultural, political, and even religious senses, is that the former believes in the essential goodness of humanity. On the other hand, capitalism tends to be more realistic about basic human nature and works to channel that “self-interest” in ways that can lead to something better for everyone.

Of course, human nature is at fault in runaway capitalism and the excesses of a few can be detrimental to many. This is why very few conservatives these days advocate a radical form of laissez-faire capitalism. Human nature will take advantage and there have to be times of balance, judgment, adjustment, and reckoning.

Somebody does have to watch the store. But the store should be privately owned.

The thing Americans need to be thinking through these days is, however, what system has a better overall record? Is it really better in France, Sweden, or Denmark than America today? Do we really want to admire nations where people surrender significantly more than half of what they earn to a government in exchange for state-run services that are chronically insufficient, incompetent, and impersonal?

If so, then we need to be fair and concede that, as Pogo might have put it, we have met Nadya Suleman and she is our future.

“Abuse Of Power” Questioned

January 31, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Ethics, History, National Archives, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Watergate | 1 Comment 

The New York Times site has just posted a very thought-provoking article (to appear in tomorrow’s edition) about recent charges by several historians that Abuse Of Power, the 1997 volume of transcripts of White House tape conversations transcribed and edited by University of Wisconsin professor emeritus Stanley I. Kutler, presents a garbled and in some cases inaccurate version of what was said on the recordings, especially where John W. Dean’s role in Watergate is concerned.

The article includes quotes from an irritated Professor Kutler, who wants to know if his critics are waiting “for me to get in my sackcloth and my ashes,” and Dean, who dismisses as revisionism the arguments of historians such as Peter Klingman and Joan Hoff that Abuse Of Power misrepresents his role.

The most damning statements in the article are from Frederick J. Graboske, who once was the supervisory archivist at the National Archives in charge of processing the tapes, and who charges that Professor Kutler has “changed the original evidence”:

“I spent 12 years listening to the tapes,” [Graboski] said, contending that no one could mistake the evening and morning recordings [referring to two conversations between RN and Dean on March 16, 1973] as being part of the same conversation. “I don’t know why he did it, but what he did was deliberate.”

He added: “I did work with Stanley. I’m sorry that it has come to this.”

Ill Winds Blow No Good

January 28, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Culture, Ethics, Faith, History, In Memoriam, Money, Music, Perfect Songs | Leave a Comment 

OK — the Co-operative Group has a long, distinguished, and principled history since its founding in 1863. Sure — it’s green and enlightened. No doubt — it can see you sustainably through from cradle to grave.

But it is now complicit in an indignity of almost unimaginable proportions — in which it will be aided and abetted by the most unlikely co-conspirator.

The bad news is reported in today’s Daily Telegraph.  Read it and weep:

In a commercial tie-up that might shock Dylan fans almost as much as his famous switch from acoustic to electric, he has agreed the use of the track in a new ad for the Co-operative Group.

The ad campaign is the culmination of a two-year rebranding exercise by the group, which runs funeral, travel and legal services as well as a chain of supermarkets.

It is the first time Dylan has allowed one of his recordings to be used for an advert in the UK.

The philosophical questions the 1960s protest anthem poses about war, peace and freedom and the fuzzy, vaguely optimistic refrain it gives in response – “the answer is blowin’ in the wind” – made it a favourite of civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protests in the 1960s and 70s.

Blowin’ In The Wind was originally released in 1963 on the album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and Rolling Stone magazine put it 14th on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

The Co-op runs its business according to ethical guidelines on environmental impact, fair trade and social responsibility, and a spokesman for Dylan’s record label, Columbia, said this influenced his decision to approve the use of the song.

As of today, 28 January 2009, we have the answer to the age old question: Is nothing sacred?

The answer is: No.

Now is the time for your tears.

The Senate Has Little Or No Choice

January 9, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Ethics | Leave a Comment 

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the state’s secretary of state can’t block Roland Burris’s appointment to the U.S. Senate, but the impeached governor’s decision is likely to stand, barring a controversial move by the Senate Democrats  not to seat him.

(Hat Tip: Powerline)

Leon Panetta, Jack Bauer, And The Bad Guys

January 9, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Barack Obama, Book Review, Cold War, Ethics, History, Intelligence, Obama administration, Terrorism, U.S. History, War on Terror | 1 Comment 

This weekend, Jack Bauer returns to save all things great and small during the latest fictional crisis to be played out over one agonizingly long day. No doubt he will be the same old Jack, not a man known for subtlety or nuance. Bullets will fly, some bombs will explode, while others tick away, and the good guys will ultimately prevail.

In a strange and ironic juxtaposition, as faithful viewers begin another seasonal journey with 24, a real-life drama is unfolding, one that involves the appointment of someone who represents ideas as un-like Jack Bauer as possible. President-Elect Barack Obama is tapping old Washington hand Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Panetta is, by all accounts, an able manager and savvy politician – both qualities will certainly help him in this new role. But many have raised questions – serious ones (and not all by Republicans) – about his qualifications for this unique role. I hear the Secretary of Commerce position is open once again, wouldn’t a manager do well there? There is a difference between management and leadership.

It doesn’t take a mind reader to discern that Mr. Obama is determined to tame the CIA and bend it to his will and vision. Not all of his appointments have demonstrated the kind of change he campaigned about, but this one surely does. He is taking a cue from his hero, John F. Kennedy – specifically the JFK who tried to clean the spy house after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Goodbye, Allen Dulles the espionage expert, and hello, John McCone the efficient manager.

Panetta is the new McCone.

The only thing the Leon Panetta appointment and Jack Bauer have in common is the lack-of-subtlety thing. A signal is being sent to the nation and nations. A kinder-gentler sheriff is in town. No more ugly stuff – certainly no hint of torture. And GITMO? Well, we’re going to shut that bad place down and bring its residents to our mainland – maybe even a backyard near you.

Americans are decent people. We understandably flinch and recoil at violence. We deplore senseless killing. We cannot even begin to grasp the fanatical insanity of our Islamist enemies.

But the mistake often made is to assume that others – in places far away and vastly different – think and feel as we do. We regularly and all too predictably underestimate the wickedness and bloodthirsty nature of those who would just as soon wipe us off the face of the planet as look at us. Too many think that people are all basically reasonable and we just need to find some common ground.

Lyndon Johnson used to speculate that if only he could sit down with Ho Chi Minh and promise him some kind of Tennessee Valley Authority-like public works initiative for Vietnam that the communist leader would make peace. But LBJ missed the point that some people are wired differently – especially those who use actual wires tied to bombs.

It is a monumental mistake for anyone on our side to think for a moment that there is any point or place of accommodation that will bring peace, when those we are fighting have a ferocious and fanatical passion for our complete demise.

So – when we telegraph our punches (or better, pull the punch) by putting someone in charge of our major intelligence arm who has long indicated there are some things we will not do in this war, we need to understand that our enemies are not going to be impressed with our “humanity.” Instead, they will know that they have gained an important upper hand in their struggle.

Torture is an ugly word. It is unpleasant and decent people abhor the very idea of it. But, if it is permissible and considered as a necessary evil by a just society to kill terrorists, to bomb them, to send missiles their way, and to otherwise fight them with cruel might, why is torture, under certain circumstances, where we draw the “moral” line?

Years ago, when then heavyweight boxing champ, Muhammad Ali, refused the draft and was stripped of his title, comedian George Carlin (not yet famous) appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and mocked the pugilist. He suggested, humorously, that there was some inconsistency in a case where a man was claiming to be a pacifist who regularly beat people up for a living.

We can’t have it both ways in this current international climate. We can’t profess to fight a war on terror – using violent means. We can’t target enemy leaders for death, launch missiles, or drop bombs to kill terrorists, but say at the same time that we won’t rough up a “detainee” to obtain vital life-saving information. The Panetta appointment is, in effect, a public indication that the new sheriff in town will – as Sean Connery put it in the movie, The Untouchables – be bringing a knife to a gun- fight.

Of course, intelligence work is a murky business. But it is a necessary evil in war. Many are drawing parallels between our times and 1929, when the wheels fell off the economy en route to the Great Depression. There is, however, another interesting comparison between then and now. That year, Henry Stimson – Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of State – shut down a spy operation while uttering the famous and naïve words: “Gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s mail.”

It’s a pretty good thing we grew out of that notion – considering what unfolded during the ensuing decades. Stimson meant well, in trying to “civilize” a business that is inherently uncivilized – war. But the time for such tenderness is after the battle is won, not when guns are blazing.

Torture is certainly horrific. But is it at times necessary – in at least some forms? Henry Kissinger once said, “Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”

It would seem that the important factor is context – in other words, a case-by-case approach is the best way to make such moral judgments. For example, no decent human being would consider torture for the sake of torture (getting sadistic pleasure from inflicting pain) to be morally acceptable under any circumstances. And, even in cases where authorities used torture to obtain a confession in a criminal proceeding – that would be inappropriate and of bounds.

But how about when a “detainee” is believed (strongly believed) to have important information – the kind that, if known, would save the lives of civilians or military personnel?

Former Chief of CIA Counterintelligence, James M. Olson, has written an excellent book about all of this – one every American concerned about this issue should read. In Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying, he traces the history of espionage back to the days of the Bible and beyond. With an intelligence career that included assignments in Moscow, Vienna, and Mexico City during the Cold War, he knew first hand of the challenges and issues of conscience spy work involves.

Now serving in a key academic post at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, he teaches about intelligence and national security issues.

In the book, Mr. Olson describes various scenarios – some involving the potential use of methods considered by some to be torturous. He has interviewed leaders from several walks of life – from intelligence agents, to clergymen, to professors, even someone from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – and chronicles their opinions.

Torture is just one of many methodologies Olson analyzes – others include: journalism cover, homosexual blackmail, kidnapping, truth serum, missionary cover, feeding a drug habit, bogus websites and chat rooms, – even plagiarizing a Ph.D. Dissertation. For anyone interested in the moral implications of intelligence work in a dangerous world, Fair Play is a must-read (originally published in 2006, it is now out in paperback).

Olson concedes “spying is a dirty business,” but asks: “Should we put all our trust in overt sources of information, diplomacy, and the peaceful arts – and hope are enemies will not take advantage of us?”

At a time when a highly and fanatically motivated enemy is watching and waiting to strike at the heart of all we hold dear, Mr. Obama seems to be sending the clear, unmistakable, and potentially ominous signal that the CIA is an entity to be managed and tempered.

I am sure radical Islamists worldwide are going to be very impressed. But I find myself earnestly hoping that we keep a few guys like Jack Bauer around – just in case.

Blago Fights And Wins

January 7, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under American Politics, Congress, Ethics | Leave a Comment 

Roland Burris, an ethical, respected, professional, and experienced politician appears to be on his way to be seated in the U.S. Senate.

Team Of Rivals, Minus One

January 4, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Ethics, Obama administration, Obama family, UN | Leave a Comment 

This afternoon New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, President-elect Obama’s onetime competitor in the 2008 primaries and the P-E’s choice for Secretary of Commerce, announced that he was withdrawing his name from consideration. This came after reports in recent weeks that a Federal grand jury is looking into a situation in which a California company, CDR Financial Products, received contracts from the state government of New Mexico totaling almost $1.5 million after making contributions to three political action committees formed to assist Richardson’s campaigns.

Richardson’s relationship with the President-elect was bound to be awkward no matter what; such political visibility as he has on a national scale is due mainly to his close association with the Clinton Administration, in which he served, successively, as perhaps the most undistinguished UN Ambassador since the post was created, and as Secretary of Energy, in which position he accused scientist Wen Ho Lee of espionage, a charge he later had to admit was unfounded (and which resulted in Lee’s receiving a substantial legal settlement).

As a candidate in the 2008 race, Richardson accomplished little except to postpone his withdrawal from it until the day after the New Hampshire primary, which was probably the factor that kept Obama from defeating Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Granite State and wrapping up the nomination on Super Tuesday.

Ever since Richardson was elected to govern the Land of Enchantment (to use the motto on New Mexican license plates), reports have circulated of somewhat dubious doings in that state’s executive branch. With Congress convening tomorrow and the President-elect arriving today to take up residence in the historic Hay-Adams Hotel for the next week and a half, it may be that Obama’s transition team concluded that between investigative reporters looking into the CDR case, and the questions that would probably be raised at Richardson’s confirmation hearings, it was best to decide now whether to fish or cut bait.

With Richardson’s withdrawal comes the question of who to nominate as Commerce Secretary-designate. Obama has one Hispanic American left in his proposed Cabinet, outgoing Colorado Senator Ken Salazar at Interior, so he is not politically required to find another to replace Richardson.

As it happens, while I was writing my previous post referring to the protracted contest between Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken, more votes were tallied in the recount. These ballots, disputed though many of them may be, still manage to raise the comedian-humorist’s lead to a little over 220, and make it very likely that the Senate Democratic leadership will try to seat Franken sometime this week, once the recount is finished and assuming the lead holds. If that happens, and if Sen. Harry Reid and his cohorts in the upper chamber can reach some kind of rapprochement regarding Illinois’s Roland Burris that would permit him to be seated, then the Democratic majority in the upper chamber would stand at 59 for the time being. Might it be worth Obama’s while to look into the notion of putting either of Maine’s liberal Republican senators into the Commerce spot, permitting that state’s Democratic governor to appoint a replacement and secure the magic number of 60?

Obama has to be aware that it’s not the best start to a new era in governance to have a Cabinet controversy before one’s Cabinet choices have even come before the Senate for confirmation, or to have a pitched battle within one’s party over an appointee to the Senate who is unlikely to remain there for more than a year or so. No doubt he has a lot on his plate already, what with selecting a puppy and getting the young’uns settled in a new school, but he surely knows the above issues just can’t wait until after Inauguration Day to be resolved.

Blagojevich’s Choice

December 30, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Ethics, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

During the last month we’ve heard a lot of talk about the stupidity of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich as illustrated in his musings as recorded by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, and in his statements and actions since being arrested as a result of what those recordings captured for posterity.

But his selection of former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to replace President-elect Obama in the United States Senate is a very canny one, which forces his opponents to either reject his action and risk alienating an important segment of the Democratic electorate, or grudgingly accept it, which would, of course, strengthen his position overall.

Under normal circumstances, the Burris choice would be commended in all Democratic circles – a 71-year-old African-American, with a pretty presentable ethical record at least by Illinois standards, replacing another African-American in the Senate, for the first time in American history.

But, of course, the circumstances are far from normal. Senate majority leader Harry Reid is threatening not to seat Burris. It is still unclear just how this can be managed. I cannot recall an instance, from the last century at least, in which a sitting Senator, or one elected to the body or nominated to it by a governor or legislature, was not seated. Just over 40 years ago the House of Representatives refused to seat Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. until a committee’s investigation of his ethics as an officeholder was completed. In that case a special election was called, which Powell won, and he was seated anyway. But Burris has been charged with no offense.

(It is worth mentioning that when the House refused to seat Powell he challenged the action in court; in 1969 the Supreme Court, deciding Powell vs. McCormack, indicated that while Congress had the power to expel a member already sitting in the body, it might not have the power to peremptorily refuse to seat a person who had been elected or appointed to the House or Senate. But the point does not appear to be settled.)

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White has said he will refuse the certification necessary in order to send Burris to Capitol Hill, but, again, no reason is being given other than that the person nominating Burris is under a criminal investigation.  The Illinois House has passed a resolution implementing proceedings to impeach Blagojevich, but until the governor actually is convicted and removed from office, it would seem no more impossible for him to nominate a person to serve in the Senate, pursuant to his constitutionally specified duties, than it is for him to sign bills into law – as he has been doing since his arrest, with no one arguing that such an action is null and void.

Although the President-elect made it clear that he was on the side of the Senate leadership in this matter, it may be a risky position for him to take. What reaction there has been so far from prominent African-American figures  suggests that at least some of them are reluctant to have Burris rejected point-blank. There is, after all, no guarantee that another African-American will be elected to the Senate in 2010 – and there have been only five to sit in that chamber in this country’s history. Future developments may take some unexpected turns.

Pat Buchanan On Mark Felt’s Passing

December 24, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Ethics, News media, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Watergate | 1 Comment 

At MSNBC.com yesterday, Nixon White House advisor and speechwriter, and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan offered his assessment of the career of W. Mark Felt, the self-identified “Deep Throat” who died last week.  He observes:

Indeed, if what Felt did was honorable, why did he lie and deny it repeatedly when asked if he was leaking to the [Washington] Post? Why did he lie in his memoir in 1979, when, well into retirement, he emphatically denied he was Deep Throat? Was Felt so noble he could save our republic, yet refuse, to the point of lying in his memoirs, to take any credit?

Answer: Felt knew what he did was dishonorable, corrupt—and unnecessary. For honest FBI agents were steadily making progress toward proving that higher-ups at CREEP were involved in aiding those caught in the Watergate break-in.

Felt had another reason for lying about his role as snitch for the Post. Former colleagues would be disgusted, for his was not only a breach of law, but of faith and trust, a dishonoring of his oath as an FBI agent.

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