From a reader:

You have an interesting take on God and morality because it is completely contrary to the ideals of God and morality I and millions of people in America believe in.

Probably, because you've been so influenced by the National Review's
Catholic hardliners, you seem to believe that abortion and only abortion
matters. You question Kerry's God talk because he says he is opposed to
abortion but won't legislate against it. That's a fair criticism.

My God and morality--as opposed to the Opus Dei version parroted by your
colleagues--also says capital punishment is immoral (esepcially executing
children), that poverty is immoral, that unjust war is immoral. Based on
those principles, a president who relished in having the highest execution
rate as governor while professing faith and waging an unjust war based on
crumbling evidence is incredibly immoral. The fact that more people live in
poverty today then they did four days ago seems like another strike to my
God and my morality.

So, let's be honest. Bush courting religious voters while shaming God is as
reprehensible as Kerry arguing social justice while backing abortion. In
fact, it's more immoral and vile.

Last one:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

Sounds like your Georgetown correspondent has been reading John Rawls
and a curious inversion of Nietzsche--Nietzsche despised the
untermenschen priests who create religion as a way to keep down the
strong blond beasts; our Georgetownian seems to think binding the beast
is a good idea. He identifies precisely why I don't trust atheists: the
only reason he will support my freedom is his self-interest, and I have
rather less confidence than he does that his perception of his
self-interest won't change someday to accomodate enslaving me. I rely
for my freedom on those who believe that freedom is God-given, and will
not take it away no matter how advantageous they would find the prospect.

From another reader;

Jonah, To hell with self-interest! I'm a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania and cringed when reading the Georgetown student's derivation of morality from self-interest. Self-interest does not account for any of the most important things in life. Why do soldiers die for their country? Why would anyone die for anything, if self-interest reigned? A parent for a child? A husband for a wife? Sane people will acknowledge that these actions are "good". But they glorify a radical rejection of self-interest for a higher purpose. As your first correspondent correctly pointed out, morality cannot be explained without reference to an Absolute -- i.e., God. You cannot say, `this is good' and `that is bad' without implicitly relying on a standard of perfect goodness. Suppose you just bought a $100 pair of Gucci shoes. You're walking along and see a child drowning in a lake. You don't have time to take off your shoes, and they'll be ruined if you jump in. Do you jump in, save the child, and lose your hundred bucks? or do you continue walking, let the child drown, and preserve your investment? Self-interest seems to suggest the latter. Conscience, on the other hand, demands the former. The self-interest theory may sometimes account for why we don't do bad things. But it doesn't account for why we do good things. It doesn't account for charity at all. Morality often involves an overcoming of self-interest. Moral reality doesn't point backward to our socio-historical development; it points upward to a higher, greater purpose that gives meaning to life. It is a purpose worth living and dying for. (You should read Prof. Peter Kreeft's "A Refutation of Moral Relativism". It's short and sweet.) [Name withheld]

From a reader:

Jonah: The folks at Georgetown must be mighty proud. They've got a student who has already figured out the linchpin of human civilization just two months into his freshman year. It's hard to know where to begin addressing someone possessed of such airtight intellectual self-sufficiency. I think the Apostle Paul has your freshman pegged, though: "Professing to be wise, they became fools" (Rom 1:22). I'm sure the more learned and articulate Corner theologians can do a better job with this kid than I, but it seems to me that his argument about self-interest proves nothing. If you define it broadly enough, anything can be said to be done out of self-interest. For me, the salient point is that God challenges His people to define self-interest in a new way, apart from secular standards of morality. If I act according to self-interest as God defines it, I will inevitably act against self-interest as the secular world defines it. That we have continually failed to live up to God's standard throughout history is clearly right and just as clearly irrelevant in determining the existence of a divine moral standard. Thanks for your writing.

Bush up by 6% according to Newsweek. But to be perfectly honest, I've thought Newsweek is the single most unreliable national poll on any issue since I started paying attention during the Clinton impeachment. But, while I doubt the size of the lead I find the directoon of the trend pretty encouraging.

Meanwhile, the Washington Postdaily tracking poll has Bush up 3 after two days of a tie.

From a reader:

I'm a freshman at Georgetown, and this is a favorite topic of study for me; how morality, and things such as rights for human beings, arise assuming that there is no supreme being, and that humans have no inherent value from their existence, no moreso than an animal.

The linchpin is self-interest.

Everyone does, for better or for worse, what they believe is in their own self-interest. However, us being more advanced cereberally than animals, we've discovered that forming social covenants (i.e. government) that cause us to pledge to respect, in a variety of ways, the self-interest of others, is in all of our self-interests. Because, given the uncertainty of the future, even if we're strong today, we could be weak tomorrow -- or given our biological urge to procreate and pass on our genetic code, our offspring generations from now could be opporessed by those who are stronger in the future, if we do not form a society to protect their freedoms.

And thus, from self-interest, are derived concepts such as Fairness, Equality, Liberty, and Freedom.

People operate in their own self-interest regardless of a revelatory standard. As an agnostic nontheist who was not raised in Christianity, the contrast between the revelation of Jesus imparted in the New Testament (Where Jesus' words seem more akin to Buddhism than anything else) and the actions of his followers over the past two thousand years is... staggering, to say the least.

The world is as we know it today largely based on the actions of billions of people, over the course of history, all working according to their own self-interest as best they've understood it.

We have a standard of morality in the world, and while not perfect, it's a damn good one. But we have six thousand years of human thought to thank for it -- not a supernatural deity.

From a reader:

I find myself in agreement with a lot of your article. However, let me just say how I believe liberal Democrats would rebut your argument: They would say that opposition to abortion, particularly opposition to abortion during the very early stages of pregnancy, is based entirely on faith -- that is, that the vast majority of pro-lifers view the unborn child as having a soul, while others look at scientific evidence and ponder whether the unborn child should constitute life in a legal sense. Anti-slavery, anti-poverty measures, and equal rights, on the other hand, are not just based on Christianity or other religious beliefs; they're part of an appeal to "social justice" (abstract, I know) and are universally accepted as good. I would take issue with this type of argument, because I don't think you can just say something is "morally right" if you don't acknowledge where that morality came from (God.) But it is the distinction that Democrats like Kerry would draw between abortion and the other issues you mentioned.

So, Teresa has deigned to release exactly two pages of her tax return. Turn to, um, page 10, (the story is, ahem, tucked away below the fold) of the New York Times for details of what is missing:

“Nothing about the trusts that benefit Mrs. Heinz Kerry herself and her three sons was disclosed.”

Why not? These trusts are, wrote the New York Times, “believed to be worth about a billion dollars.” That’s not exactly an immaterial amount when it concerns a possible First Lady, a woman who, we must assume, has some influence on her husband.

No details of her charitable donations were disclosed.

Again, why not? Were some of those donations to causes that might be politically embarrassing, or were they perhaps to organizations that have supported, directly or indirectly, her husband or his campaign?

If these suggestions are unfair, they should be easy enough for Teresa to refute. All it would take is full disclosure of those returns. How about it, Teresa?

From a reader:

Your logical construction as always is dead on here with Kerry and his faith.

You are without doubt my favorite pundit, needs saying cause now I'm gonna rip you on this one bud.

You would rather drop a bowling ball on your foot rather than admit that a higher power than homo sapien sapiens is required for morality to even exist. If this world is an accident and life the same then there is NO morality. It's all just choices. I read dozens of perfectly logical points from you totally in denial of this while being internally consistent otherwise.

However you repeatedly try to add a dash of morality to your very pretty, tight, and concise logic thus often ruining them, because, you have not thought that, the morality you are trying to add can only come from said higher power and we must all agree on what said higher power has or has not told us about whatever your issue is. Yet you try to add it in ala carte and without mentioning what references or lack thereof from this creator(s) you are referring to.

You ask the folks to accept that say murder is wrong without backing why. This may sound dumb but the fact of the matter is that is utterly unacceptable to appeal to this morality in a vacuum. You, Jonah Goldberg do this ENDLESSLY. I agree vast majorities of us accept my example here as morally wrong but even in the example of murder, let alone when you try to add morality to vastly grayer issues, it strikes me as tremendously weak in this day and age of the 10 commandments being barred from court rooms and suit after suit from atheists trying to keep even the word God from being mentioned on the street, that you see fit to not show where your moral arguments are based.

You would NEVER find it acceptable if you were talking about economics to leave loose ends unsupported. You would NEVER find it acceptable if you were making arguments about the relative merits of which Simpson’s season is the best. You would NEVER find it acceptable if you were making logical statements concerning any major issue of our time.

Please, please, please quit appealing to something called morality without backing up what you are saying. The problem is of course what it has been for all of human history. If you make an appeal based on the creator of the universe you may get hugely different interpretations of whether the communications you are speaking of are from the true God(s) or even if we agree there are being correctly interpreted by you.

The thing that gets me you would never do this if we were discussing Locke. You would mention the passage, give it context, and make statements concerning their meaning in the modern world.

You NEVER do this with morality because you know the pitfalls and just want a sharp looking, sweet smelling garnish for your dishes, and don't want to spend all day slaving for it.

In the words of David Alan Grier to Jim Carrey playing you and me in the car trying to sing R.E.S.P.E.C.T.:

For God’s sake, STOP IT!

There was one reference in a New York Times piece on the Christian left that was too good not to repeat as an example of the lazy assumptions that saturate (if assumptions can saturate), the paper of Walter Duranty. The article includes quotes from a Reverend Jim Wallis. He’s described as the convener and president of an organization by the name of Call to Renewal. Now, Call to Renewal does what it does, and people will have different views as to how benign it is, but note how the Times uncritically describes it as “a group committed to reducing poverty.”

No word, however, where Call to Renewal stands on apple pie.

UPDATE: It should be Ridge Watch. These days the TSA is part of Tom Ridge's empire. Apologies for the error.

Four years ago, the French government paid to set up a museum in the town of Sarran. Its purpose? Housing gifts given to Jacques Chirac by various foreign dignatories (the gifts he declares anyway) but no-one seems that impressed. The Daily Telegraph has more:

“[It] has gone almost three times over budget and is steadily losing money as admission figures slump.”

No surprises there, but then an official, a “senior county councilor”, no less, gives this horrifying glimpse of the bleak, joyless existence of the tots, crones and geezers of Sarran saying, well, this:

"The museum is a superb tourist and cultural asset, both in terms of the permanent exhibition and the temporary presentations as many visiting schoolchildren and elderly people would agree."

Is there really nothing else for these wretches, some of the most vulnerable members of society after all, to do?

But perhaps this takes self-deprecation a little far:

"It's a place where there's constant sunshine. Everyone's incredibly beautiful, skinny and tanned. Basically, it's nothing like England."

Not partisan?

Oh, sure...

I have found it most enjoyable to put the burden of proof on them. The key is to avoid anything remotely confrontational or partisan or they automatically turn into Righteous Angry Kids. When they ask, "Hi! Would you like to help defeat George Bush?", I pretend to have been living on another planet and respond with, "The President? Why? What's he done wrong?" The sputtering and eye-widening alone is priceless-but the payoff really comes when I ask them to give me an example and they find themselves a few sentences into an illogical and unsupportable allegation. I don't let on though-I keep a poker face as long as I can , accented by a few Socratic questions. Once they're softened up, a quick peppering with statistics or facts leaves them absolutely bewildered.

The best one was when the volunteer told ME that she didn't have time to talk right now!

Vermont is a state I love.
I could not look upon the peaks of
Ascutney, Killington, Mansfield, and Equinox
without being moved in a way
that no other scene could move me.
It was here that I first saw the light of day;
here that I received my bride;
here my dead lie, pillowed on the
loving breast of our everlasting hills.

From a reader:

Jonah:

I'm an ex-Jesuit, and a still-devout Catholic.

Let's be clear about what Catholicism actually believes. John Kerry is the
second worst public spokesman for Catholicism, right behind JFK.

Catholics don't oppose abortion because it conflicts with some uniquely
Catholic teaching, like the rules for being a godparent. No Catholic expects
the internal rules for godparenting to apply universally to everyone, just
because we say so. If we did, then Kerry has a legitimate point. But
Catholics oppose abortion, and we expect others to oppose it also, because
it violates humanity.

Now one may argue that it doesn't violate a basic human principle, and
that's a fair argument. But the point here is that when Catholics oppose
abortion, they aren't imposing anything Catholic on anyone. Instead, we're
arguing for fellow humans to oppose abortion on moral grounds which apply to
everyone.

From a reader in response to today's column:

Hello Mr. Goldberg, Great column. As a pastor, I get a little nervous when candidates TRY to wear their so-called religion on their sleeves- especially when it sounds as lame as JFK's. He talked about a "clause" in the bible he liked. (Most of us who read the good book call them "verses") He plays the private faith /public policy split to his advantage when it comes to his faith- as you so adroitly pointed out, and he confuses the right of his church's bishops to censure him or prevent him from taking communion- ("for the good of his own soul" as one bishop put it-) with entanglement of Church and state. And he takes scripture that is aimed at the believing church, not the political system, and seeks to give a "biblical" rational for his positions. Last I looked, the USA was not the same as the Catholic church, the UMC, PCA, ELCA, or any other church body. I would imagine he flusters not only himself, but many people of faith with these oddities. . .

When I was a young Marine officer in Vietnam I had to write after action reports. They were usually based on casualties sustained and bodies found. The actual action took place while most of us had our heads down catching only occasional glmpses of what was going on beyond our fighting hole. Each Marine was given a field of fire to concentrate on so when he was firing his focus was pretty narrow. The fog of war was just a natural result of trying to figure out what was going on when every instinct told you to keep your head in your hole.

But it is relatively easy to tell who is winning most wars. Who is able to engage the enemy forces and destroy them. In Iraq, the US troops are the only force that can do that. Winning is not determined by who can prevent random bombings. That would be a very poor test of military strength. For example, can the insurgents in Falluja prevent, US bombs from dropping on their "safe houses"? In war you win by controlling real estate that you think has some value to you. The amount of real estate controlled by the insurgents is small and shrinking. In every engagement witht he enemy, the inurgents lose. When the US finally decides to take Falluja, the insurgents will be destroyed or flee, but Fallujah will be taken.

The reporter you describe [the Wall Street Journal’s Farnaz Fassihi] appears to be much like someone in combat trying to keep their head down while figuring out what is going on. She needs to look at who can destroy the military of the other. If she focuses on that point she will recognize that the insurgents are losing badly.

I've never emailed before but I am an avid corner fan. This caught my eye today and reminded me of a line in a recent debate.

From today's NYTimes editorial on the Sinclair group's airing of "Stolen Honor: Wounds that never heal":

"Unfortunately, this film is not news, and not journalism. It makes no attempt at balance or fairness. "

The NYTimes lecturing about balance and fairness is a little like Tony Soprano lecturing about law enforcement...

John - I have definitely had the same experience with word-of-mouth reactions. Lots of friends with liberal family members who aren't beltway types, for example, all said Bush won. And most of these people dislike Bush and thought Bush was trounced in the first two. People I've talked to in Ohio and now California (where I've been travelling this week) mostly felt the same way. My email from readers who've canvassed their liberal spouses often back that up (with heavy mentions of Mary Cheney and Kerry's ode to his mom as examples). Who knows if this can withstand the media reaction to the "Who won the debate?" tracking polls but as I argued in my column I think lots of people said "Sure, Kerry won the debate, but I like Bush more" after the final debate.

That's why I'm so psyched about the Zogby tracking poll -- though it would be nice to hear about others. From the partisan pro Kerry crowd I received a fairly brutal deluge of email saying I was fool for writing this:

Here's my meager prediction: The polls will show Bush "lost" the debate, but the polls will also show Bush gained ground because of it.

I present to you the best evidence of Bush's re-election yet - the Mom watch. I work in an office with four mature ladies. Relatively close quarters. They speak not a whiff of politics.Didn't watch on Weds. This morning's topic of conversation ? "How dare they bring up that man's daughter in the debate. You DON'T go there. I can't vote for somebody like that." My confidence has never been higher.

Our friend Robert George isn't voting for George W. Bush. More comments to come.

Clarification: That's Robert A. George not Robert P. George.

I think you're hyperventilating a bit.

As I recall, there was *not* a trail of human rights groups whining. There were spokespeople from at least two organizations (not counting the trade group), and I *think* both of them were directly involved not in human rights monitoring stuff but in direct aid programs of some type.

One was the [spokesman from a] Roman Catholic group. That guy gave, I thought, a very lucid explanation of the difficulties involved. He was just surprised to be having a conversation with a defense contractor. I would be, too. But he gave the clearest explanation of both the difficulties in large-scale relief efforts, and by implication of why defense contractors might be ideal vendors for this AIDS project.

The second...[spokesman] DID make my teeth grate. The "unilateralism" charge was totally unsupported, and the reporter is clearly to blame for that, for not asking for examples, and then not following up with an administration response. And the Halliburton reference was clearly nothing more than a slander.

Teresa Heinz Kerry (speaking last April) on making her tax returns public:

"If some god of taxes would want to come in and look at all of my portfolio, I'd let them...but I don't think I have the right to put my children's privacy out into the open."

Some politicians' children, it seems, are more equal than others.

Or is it just that Mrs Kerry, to follow, Mrs. Edwards' twisted logic, is "ashamed" of her children's finances?

If Mrs Edwards is being obtuse, that's nothing compared with the 'senior Kerry aide' also quoted in the story. Kerry's comments were not inappropriate, she said. "The woman is in her thirties. She's public about her sexuality. It was brought up in the last debate. So, what the hell?"

"It was brought up in the last debate." Brought up by whom, I wonder.

Elizabeth Edwards, during an interview with ABC News Radio this morning had the following response:

"It makes me really sad that that's Lynne's response. I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences that I'm certain makes her daughter uncomfortable. That makes me very sad on a personal level."

She called Kerry's response "very thoughtful" and "extremely sensitive." She also said Lynne Cheney has been a "wonderful advocate for her daughter," but feels "she has over-reacted to this" and "that's a very sad state of affairs."

Hi Kathryn,

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to tell you just how great NRO is. The Corner and the Kerry Spot are the first two things I read in the morning and the last two things I read at night. This from a person who generally could care less about politics. My wife, who used to be a impressively crazy left-winger...is even more addicted than I am. Given what I've seen her reading when she starts giggling, I suspect she has a thing for Jonah.

Jim Geraghty is superb...I'm going to be sad to see the Kerry Spot go after the election....

....I just subscribed to the print edition to support you and your fine staff.

Keep up the good work.

I'm at the Dayton airport. If you're online now -- I'm the heavyset dude sitting uncomfortably on the floor by the phone booths.

Anyway, I'm heading to San Diego for another speech (Not open to the public alas). But I'll try to check-in from O'Hare. First I want to thank all the NRO-niks and Cornerites who showed up for the debate last night. I think it went very well, all things considered. Second, I'll have more on the debate in a bit.

But let me agree with Ramesh about the global test thing. Of course, it's fair game and relevant. Kerry's denies there's a foreign power veto on our national security. Fine. So what? The question is at what level does Kerry believe our national security kicks in to the point where he's disregard other countries? He said in the convention that he'll always respond to an attack. But the whole point of preemption is that responding to attacks isn't good enough. The global test raises the issue of, At what threshhold does Kerry think bucking the French and the UN is worthwhile?

Remove language and cultural barriers. Because language and cultural differences create barriers to health care, the bill would help patients from diverse backgrounds, including those with limited English proficiency, with provisions such as codifying existing standards for culturally and linguistically appropriate health care, assisting health care professionals in providing cultural and language services, and increasing federal reimbursement for these services.

• Improve workforce diversity. The bill would expand existing programs and create new ones to address the shortage of minority health care providers and researchers. Increasing the number of minority health care providers can help promote trust and improve outreach efforts to minority and underserved communities.

He gives the president better marks than in the last two debates. It's a thoughtful and interesting set of posts. But he, along with most journalists, thinks that the president is doing something shady when he says that Kerry would let other countries veto our national-security policies. "Kerry has denied it a zillion times. Doesn't the president at some point have to stop saying what is the opposite of the recorded truth?" I don't think so. Sure, Kerry has denied the charge. But a lot of his multilateral rhetoric makes no sense unless there are circumstances in which he would let foreign opposition be a decisive reason not to do something he would otherwise want to do. Now at some abstract level, this has to be true for Bush as well. But Kerry would put a lot more weight on foreign opinion, and it strikes me as totally legitimate for Bush to say that the weight he would give to it amounts to an unacceptable foreign veto. Bush denies he would cut Social Security benefits all the time. If Kerry tried to point out, in an honest manner, that other things Bush wants would necessitate such cuts, that would be a legitimate hit too. (He has tried to make the case in a dishonest matter. Bush's plans don't have to result in benefit cuts of the type Kerry describes. The foreign-veto thing, on the other hand, is almost a logical necessity of Kerry's stance.)

Also, Sullivan, who gives Kerry points for being more knowledgeable than Bush--a conclusion that can easily be drawn from the debates in general but not, I think, from this one--congratulates Kerry for "us[ing] the ban on AK-47s to buttress his tough stance on terrorism." Shouldn't Kerry at some point stop repeating, and journalists seconding, a talking point that is the opposite of the truth?

Thanks for that background, Tim.

It’s curious, isn’t it?

Partisan Democrats can – overnight -- become “neutral analysts” on any number of major media outlets. Think not just of Carlos Watson, but of George Stephenapolous, Chris Mathews, Tim Russert (for whom I have great respect).

Now: Can you think of a single Republican who has been given the opportunity to make that transition?

Watson's career spans law, journalism, politics and business....Watson also worked for Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez, Sen. Bob Graham and Democratic National Committee Chair Ron Brown. After graduating from Harvard with honors, he served as chief of staff and campaign manager for Florida Rep. Daryl Jones [a Democrat].

"John Kerry’s statement that he passed 56 bills during his 20 years in the senate is a complete and utter falsehood. Kerry passed five bills and Four resolutions."

I think you could see him thinking. What I mean is that when he got asked a question he should have known the answer to as a matter of character or values he had to run through his mental database for the answer. On abortion, on religion, on affirmative action you could tell that he was calculating the best political answer rather than his heartfelt answer.

On policy questions he usually didn't miss a beat. But on values questions he really seemed like he didn't know what to say about where his own gut and heart are. I think that sort of thing hurts him a lot with people who are still trying to judge the man, not the policies.

The Commission actually faulted the Bush Administration for allowing "[i]mmigrants and visitors from Arab and Middle Eastern countries" to be "subject to increased scrutiny, including interviews, registration and in some cases removal" (pages ix-x) after 9/11.

Republican members on the Commission agreed that the October 5th release of this report was not coincidental. Republican commissioner, Abigail Thernstrom called the report "an election-driven document."

Kerry's for it. But against quotas.

GWB is against quotas.

Can someone please tell me how you operate an affirmative action policy
without using quotas? (Rhetorical question.)

Here's what he;s writing:

Sunday morning guts
Posted: 9:56 p.m. ET

Kerry just did a truly gutsy thing. He cited "Meet the Press" -- the Sunday morning interview show hosted by Tim Russert. To do that in front of Schieffer, whose very fine Sunday morning interview show trails Russert's in the ratings, takes a ton of guts. He didn't run a swift boat for nothing.

I am sinking into cynicism. Neither of these guys has a clue what to do
about Social Security. Neither has a clue what to do about health care.

Uh-oh -- immigration. Can't believe they are actually talking about it.

Prez: 1,000 more border agents. Let's see... that's one per 3 miles,
right? Uh-uh. Willing worker, willing employer... back to the January
proposal -- the one that drove your base nuts, Mr. Prez. "I don't think we
ought to reward illegal behavior." Woo-hoo.

Kerry: Here's what I'll do. We need a guest worker program. (Why?) "Out
of the shadows"--this seems to be the pro-illegal-immigration cliche du
jour. Yo: They're in the shadows because THEY BROKE THE LAW.

I've had enough of these debates. Look, I'm doing my best here, but my eyes
are glazing over. Ceiling fans from China -- what? Let's vote already.

All right, all right, I'll try to pay attention...

It’s a Democrat site. Tell Michael Graham a much better Electoral College projection and survey summary is here.

Not only does it not provide any partisan commentary and artificial skewing of the data, but it allows you to create your own custom maps where you can exclude certain pollsters and/or sampling methodologies.

So the flu vaccine problems are due to the American healthcare system. That'll be news to the Brits...:

"LONDON, England -- Doctors' leaders in Britain are warning that the licence suspension of a major flu vaccine supplier will have a "significant impact" on the UK's immunization program."

We’ve now on debate No. 3 with moderator No. 3.

We do know, don’t we, who all three will be voting for?

There’s no doubt about that, is there?

Why couldn’t one debate have been moderated by Brit Hume or Tony Snow?

ROMA - Il ministro della Difesa, Antonio Martino, ha provato «grande amarezza e dispiacere» per le dichiarazioni di John Kerry, secondo il quale «le condizioni dell'esercito iracheno erano talmente patetiche che persino l'esercito italiano avrebbe potuto prenderli a calci nel sedere». Nell'apprendere le affermazioni del senatore, pronunciate in campagna elettorale e di cui ieri Kerry si è scusato in tv, Martino avrebbe detto: «Il senatore Kerry, invece di dire quello che pensa, dovrebbe pensare a quello che dice»

HANNITY: We will talk about what other issues would be things that we could expect or anticipated that are going to be asked tomorrow night?

SCHIEFFER: Well, I think the overriding question is safety. Do we feel safe in our homes? And I think that's very much a domestic issue. So I will try to frame some question along that line.

I think we have the various cultural issues that can be discussed. I'll tell you, frankly, and I'm not giving away anything here. I think immigration is a hidden issue. I have gotten more e-mail, Sean, from our viewers saying, "Ask about immigration." So I'm trying to frame a question along those lines.

"Thomas Macaulay, 'Lays of Ancient Rome':

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
'To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods?'"

Matthews: "Are you pro abortion rights, or against them?"

Student: "Against."

Matthews: " You don't think you should be allowed to have an abortion in this country."

Student: "No."

Matthews: "What should we do to the woman who has an abortion? She should be punished?"

Student: "No not punished, I respect a woman’s right, but I don’t think it’s right to murder."

Matthews: "Now, wait a minute. So you think it's all right for her to have an abortion if she wants to. That's called the pro-choice position." Matthews then pounded on her that she couldn't say she was pro-life and think the woman shouldn't be jailed. "Why not? Then it's not a crime." He asked two students if a woman should go to jail for abortion and they said, yes, if it's illegal. He asked the crowd: "How many people think a woman should go to jail if she has an abortion?" The crowd booed.

Sorry, I expected to be chiming in from the hotel once I got here (I'm in Springfield, Ohio --though I couldn't find Shelbyville anywhere). But we got into a car accident on the way from the airport to the hotel which cut into the schedule a bit. I'm fine and so is everyone else including Peter Beinart who was in the car with me (safely in the back seat, shrewdly letting the conservative guy absorb the blow!). While I feel fine now, I may be calling John Edwards later if the debate tonight at Wittenberg U doesn't go that well.

I'll be back tonight, either during the debate or immediately after (not sure where I'll physically be and so don't know what opportunities there will be for live -blogging.

i was taken today by Derb's talk of the italian concept of a "good death”….like all of my books…[The Wake Up] features a major character experiencing this good death. i had never thought of this as being particularly italian, but i suspect the Derb is on to something, and it's clearly something our culture could use a reminder of. the greatest damage that the cult of celebrity has done is to diminish the concept of the hero, one which every other culture in history has used to make life more meaningful. by focusing on transitory people utterly lacking in what christopher marlowe called virtu we have debased ourselves, and made our culture vulnerable to people who, regardless of their moral deficiencies, are imbued with a sense of destiny, and a mission that transcends self.

And is this entire mess the product of McCain-Feingold-Bush?

Yup. Repeal it.

US-led investigators have located nine trenches in Hatra containing hundreds of bodies believed to be Kurds killed during the repression of the 1980s.

The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said.

I wanted to let you know that Amazon.com generally has a very receptive and helpful customer service. They take the responses of their users seriously. I think if enough people complain that fiction book reviews should not be a forum for political hatred, they'd listen and take the reviews down. They do this occasionally for various reasons.

I must confess that I had never heard of Mr. Ferrigno until yesterday. Based on your recommendation, I have purchased two of his books on Amazon. If I like them, I will buy more. [Note from Robinson: You'll like them, all right.] I hope that other Corner readers do likewise -- in droves. That will be worth more than any mean-spirited, close-minded one-star "reviews."

P.S. -- I also bought two Thomas Mallons.

It seems that some on the left will do whatever their little minds can think of to attack anyone who supports Pres. Bush. Check out Amazon.com's website for Ferrigno's The Wake Up. It is now starting to fill up with a bunch of one-star reviews talking about how terrible an author he is. One simpleton merely reproduce Ferrigno's comments from the Slate article as a reason to not read his latest work.

Sad, so very sad.

Today the Supreme Court will be looking at whether the death penalty for juveniles (in effect, 16 and 17 year olds) is constitutional. For what it’s worth, I think that such a punishment is both constitutional and wrong. I also think that this is something for Americans – and Americans alone - to decide. A number of foreign countries appear not entirely to agree. According to the New York Sun the governments of 48 countries have submitted a brief to the Supreme Court in support of the argument that the death penalty under these circumstances is unconstitutional. These countries are entitled to their opinion. They are not – or should not – be entitled to intervene in telling the US how to interpret its constitution. The Supreme Court should throw out their brief with prejudice, insult and all manner of lofty disdain, and, until these 48 countries learn to mind their own business, the US should, as a matter of course, start intervening in their legal proceedings.

Supporters of the death penalty for adults, meanwhile, might want to ponder this case.

Will be debating that renowned Fabian Peter Beinart tonight at Wittenberg U. Will check in later. And, yes, I expect that he will be completely unprepared for my devastating assault on the subject of volcano lancing.

For the love of God Almighty in His heaven! Please don't send us anymore liberal elites, we've already got more per capita than probably any country in the world. But if you've got a couple of extra neocons lyin' around, we'd be glad to take them.

Nuke the hurricanes! (once you resolve the technical issues).

From a reader:

" Volcano Cowboys" by Dick Thompson -- a sweet read that will tell you plenty about dome building eruptions and related phenomenon -- plus the deep skinny on USGS politics, why the nature of the first MSH eruption managed to be such a surprise & what it taught us *really*, how Mammoth Lakes (Long Valley) got strange, and how MSH lessons saved thousands of lives during the Pinatubo eruption.

Even though I spent part of yesterday looking for pegmatite inclusions in a
granite batholith to photograph, I am not a vulcanologist, or even a geologist -- just your average polymath & collector of bear jokes.

Cheers!

M

Last one from Air Power Guy:

I swear you do this to get a rise out of me…

Believe it or not, bombing the lava dome probably wouldn’t have much of an effect, even with a hardened penetrator that delays detonation until you’re well into the target.

Assuming the damn thing fuses, the blast, inside an environment hot enough to turn rock molten, would probably not even be noticed by the mountain.

Moreover, flying over in an F-16 wouldn’t be wise either, seeing as how you only have one engine. Said motor would be pretty roundly trashed by the airborne ash—essentially like throwing little rocks and lots of sand into an engine that screams, lifts up its skirts and runs away at the very thought of Foreign Object Damage (FOD).

I would look askance of completing a parachute landing fall on the top of God’s Big Skillet. With my luck, I’d have probably punched well clear of the crater but the wind would have blown me back in.

Instapilot

Me: Obviously this means we need bigger bombs and better planes. Have none of you people seen a Godzilla movie?

Okay, now I'm done.

One reader:

Why not drop a bomb on the lava dome?

1) We like big kablooies.

2) Mt. St. H is a long way from everywhere. If it blew up ("Big time," says
Dick) the only people that would be affected would be the media people and a
few dozen news vans, the tourists sitting in lawn chairs who enjoy a big
kablooie too much, and an unmanned drone taking air samples.

3) Bombs cost money.

And...

re: Blowing a hole in Mount Saint Helens with a bunker buster.

The answer is simple: Exploding bombs aren't nearly as
cool as Level 5 volcanic kablooeys.

This officially concludes this discussion -- until I win the Nobel Prize for my brilliant suggestion.

Another reader:

Hi Jonah, Everything being equal, the force needed to bust open the cap is equivalent to the force that it is containing, plus some. Not to get too technical, and indeed I am NOT a volcanologist, but the plug is likely many hundreds of meters deep and would require a small nuke to really crack it open (until it's ready to crack on it's own… the 1980 blast erupted clocked in at 24 megatons of energy, which was, we conclude, the burst point for the cap at that time.) Imagine trying to get authority to use a nuke past civilian powers-that-be…

One question: Didn't any of these guys see "Armageddon" with Bruce Willis. You drill a hole really deep and then you drop the ordinance. So simple!

An expert doesn't like my idea. He fails to take into account the "it would be really cool factor":

The main reason, because it might not explode. And because the size of the bomb that might be needed would be as destructive as an actual eruption.

There's a good chance that this activity might just be like the domebuilding activity of the 1980-1986 time period, which would no nothing more than fill in that crater to the same cone before the 1980s activity started.

http://sthelens.blogspot.com

As we all know, I know even more about vulcanology than I do about cricket.

But riddle me this. As I understand it -- and I've paid next to no attention to this story -- scientists are worried that pressure may be building up in Mt. St. H. The hard whatsamafradgitt is containing lots of pressure which is building up for a level 5 kablooey. Sorry to get all technical.

If my partial listening to the science guys on NPR is correct, when the steam, heat and lava build up with nowhere to go, the danger of the level 5 kablooey increases, when there's room for it to escape the kablooeyness decreases.

So here's my question: Why not drop a bunker-buster on top of the mantle-thingamajib and see if that releaves the pressure like a fat man loosening his belt? I know, sicence, nature take its course, prime-directive etc. But if the choice is between blowing the lid off the thing with an F-16 and waiting for it to wreak havok itself, why not punch a hole in the roof?

That's right. There is such a thing. There's also nromirror.blogspot.com And, of course, my sporadic stalker site,
GPhiles.com

Am I missing any other NRO-dedicated blogs?

Update: Dang I forgot Arrgh! home of my military guys.

From a reader:

Jonah,

Didn't you and Dreher hash this out a year or so ago? Not necessarily
the gay thing, but the identity politics issue. I have no problem
listening to the Grateful Dead, shopping grocery co-ops, and pounding
nails for Habitat for Humanity—while strongly supporting W (and wishing
he were more conservative). It's my liberal friends who roll their eyes
and insist that my actions are somehow disingenuous. So what if your
correspondent is gay? So what if he disagrees over certain Republican
platform issues? It's not about him.

Thanks for the link to the Slate article on your Corner post. Something struck me as i was reading the response from Vendela Vida, "John Kerry: If he doesn't win, I'll have to be Canadian for the next four years." I was thinking that maybe NR should rent a bus or charter a plane for all the liberal elitist and basically give them a free ride to the border. I'm sure that K-Lo could get as many longtime readers of NR/NRO to contribute just like we do for the cruises/parties.

Peter,

thanks for the kind words re my comments on the election. my email alert to my friends on this Slate piece was slugged I'LL NEVER GET BLURBED AGAIN. If i didn't spend so much time on the Corner i would be a much faster writer, but infinitely less informed. best
Robert

From a reader:

Dear Jonah, The claim that Bush is a Gladstonian liberal does make the animosity to Bush's foreign policy among liberals all the more interesting. I think this aspect of Iraq is quite interesting and has been one of the more underplayed stories in the press. It seems to be entirely consistent for an ardent leftist like Christopher Hitchens to be supporting this war, so why is he so alone? What is the point of organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch when if you aren't going to be fully behind actually doing something? Couldn't agree more about circumstances changing. The reason I never cared that much about the WMD aspect was because I've thought that 9/11 showed us that we could no longer allow the middle east to be the mess it has been for so long. We wouldn't let Mexico or Canada slide into that state without doing something because they're neighboring countries. 9/11 made clear, that alas, the middle east is in effect a neighboring country as well.

I didn't get all the way through Chait's piece yet. But I did get through this part:

You have to wonder, when was the last time a party nominated a presidential candidate of such low character? Oh, yes: That would be four years ago. In 2000, Bush painted Al Gore as a flip-flopper whenever possible. Voters, he declared, "don't want flip-floppers as president of the United States." Rather than dispute Gore's positions, he derided them as incoherent. When Gore criticized privatizing Social Security, Bush's spokesman mocked it as Gore's "third position in six months." This characterization was amplified in the media. "Mr. Gore has a bit of a reputation for flip-flopping and corner-cutting on issues like abortion and trade," reported a New York Times news story in August 2000.

The last candidate as opportunistic and unprincipled as Gore was Bill Clinton. In 1992, George H.W. Bush's campaign ran advertisements assailing Clinton's contradictions. "As the case of military service makes most clear, these differing positions are, in fact, more than mere flip-flops. They reflect a fundamental element of Governor Clinton's character," charged Dan Quayle. Bush mocked Clinton by visiting a Waffle House. This perception of Clinton became so ingrained that even liberal Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau depicted Clinton as a waffle. Four years later, reported the Times, Bob Dole spent "weeks portraying [Clinton] as a waffler without real convictions" and ran under the not-very-subtle slogan, "The better man for a better America."

There are two possible interpretations of this history. The first is that the Democratic Party, characterologically speaking, has had an astonishing run of bad luck. For four straight presidential elections, it has put forth nominees of such dismal personal integrity that they have been identified in the public mind largely by their prevarication and flip-floppery. This is the interpretation you'd reach if you believed the Sunday morning talking heads, the Republicans and their allied pundits, and the late-night comics.

That would make for quite a coincidence. So let us consider a second interpretation: There is nothing particularly dodgy about Kerry or the previous two Democratic nominees. Their inevitable portrayal as flip-floppers instead reflects larger structural forces in our political system that would result in almost any Democratic nominee acquiring a similar reputation. And the way we understand "character" in presidential elections tells us very little about the true character of the people who would be president.

MeI stopped there because I actually believe the first theory. I think there is something inherent to the Democratic Party in the last 20 years that makes flip-floppers more likely to get nominated. It has something to do with the fact that the national party -- i.e. it's major donors, civil rights groups, Hollywood, New York media etc -- are far more left wing than rank-and-file Democrats. Chait himself has written about how affirmative action is very unpopular in America but elite Democrats love it (and elite Republicans are terrified of dealing with it). Also, the Democratic Party is much more coalitional. These and other forces contribute to the need for these Dems to play a double game. For example, once Gore became a "national Democrat" it became that much harder to be a Southern Democrat. That's why he lost Tennessee. Bill Clinton was much better at playing both sides -- and I doubt even Chait would say that Clinton was a man of granite convictions. But Clinton's I agreed with the minority but would have voted with the majority schtick was a perfect distillation of how a creature of the modern Democratic Party was trying very hard to suck up to two different constituencies simultaneously.

Oh dear oh dear. According to press reports, "Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, today reiterated her claim that the AIDS virus was a deliberately created biological agent." Apparently, this was not the first time she had come out with such views, which cannot have been a surprise to the Nobel Prize committee - unless of course its members had not done their homework properly.

And that couldn't happen, , could it?

Jonathan Chait defends Kerry in The New Republic. After dealing with the Cuba embargo, the the war resolution, and other issues where Kerry has been said to have changed his position, Chait writes, "The rest of the Bush campaign's list of supposed Kerry flip-flops is simply phony. He voted for the No Child Left Behind Act but castigated Bush for failing to deliver the promised funds. He voted to develop missile defenses but opposed deploying them immediately on the grounds that they didn't work yet. He voted for a bill to spend $87 billion on fighting and rebuilding in Iraq and to pay for it by repealing upper-bracket tax cuts, but he voted against a bill to spend the same money financed by borrowing. (Thus his famous explanation, 'I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it.') And so on. Republicans ridicule Kerry for his "reversals," but, in these examples and others, there was a clear difference between what Kerry supported and what he opposed."

On education and the $87 billion, it's Kerry's explanation that's phony. The Bush administration has not failed to deliver "promised" funds. The Democrats invented that issue out of almost nothing. Education spending has risen dramatically under Bush. It is true that spending levels have not risen to the "authorized" levels in the No Child Left Behind Act--but nobody expected them to. They never had before: The last time the education programs in that bill were re-authorized, in 1994, a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president likewise "failed" to reach authorized levels of spending. Those levels are a cap, not a promise.

As for the $87 billion: It is true that Kerry wanted to raise taxes to pay for Iraq, and then voted to keep the money from going to Iraq once he didn't get his way on taxes. But he said beforehand that he wasn't going to take that course of action. He was asked on Meet the Press whether he would vote for the $87 billion if he failed on taxes. He said it would be "irresponsible" to vote against it under those circumstances. Yet he did exactly that--and that's a fairly damning flip-flop. (I put that portion of the transcript up last week.) An aide to Kerry told the New Yorker (anonymously) that Kerry voted the way he did because of the threat of Howard Dean in the primaries. Chait is spinning harder than Kerry's campaign tries to.

But flip-flops aren't the only issue when it comes to Kerry's political character. On the Iraq war, it certainly looks as though he wanted to preserve his options either to support the war or to oppose it depending on how it turned out and where his political advantage lay. That's the perception that's damaging Kerry, and it's accurate.

I don't much care about deficits and never have. I worry about the long-term fiscal problem of Medicare and Social Security, and worry about short-term deficits insofar as they make that problem worse. But I don't worry about deficits' effects on interest rates and the like. The presidential candidates have, however, been jousting over who would be better at fighting the deficit. Jonathan Cohn argues that the answer is Kerry.

Cohn makes three basic arguments for Kerry's being better on the deficit than Bush. First is that Kerry and Edwards have repeatedly said that they would scale back some of their spending plans--e.g., on national service--if necessary to meet deficit targets. Bush hasn't said anything comparable. Here, he's got a point. Second is that Kerry wants budget rules that impede both tax cuts and spending, whereas Bush wants budget rules that impede only spending. If you are narrowly concerned about the deficit, and not about the growth and burden of government, again, Cohn has a point. But it's a point that makes me look more favorably toward Bush, since in this instance he is prioritizing the growth-of-government and deficit issues the right way.

It's Cohn's third, and biggest, point that I find weakest: "[I]ntroducing private savings accounts into Social Security as Bush has proposed would incur $1 trillion to $2 trillion in new costs. (The reason it costs so much is that the government has to finance benefits for today's retirees while tomorrow's workers start building up their accounts.) Add those costs to the bottom line, and Bush's budget suddenly explodes the debt by two to three times as much as Kerry's" (emphasis Cohn's).

How are those "new costs," rather than a shift of existing liabilities forward in time? Let's say you have a Social Security reform plan that lets workers invest some of their payroll taxes in return for a cut in their traditional benefits. Workers who think that their investments plus a reduced traditional benefit will amount to more than the traditional benefits will take that option--in many and perhaps most cases, bettering their own welfare while reducing the Social Security program's shortfall. If your concern is the federal government's long-run financing problem, you'd support that plan even if it did involve a short-term deficit.

I keep meaning to post this. After Russert quizzed Edwards for saying "I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat" in 2002, Edwards responded on how he didn't vote for Bush to make a mess in Iraq. Okay, a bit lame but fair enough. But Russert followed-up:

MR. RUSSERT: But you will acknowledge that Saddam was not "the most imminent threat to America" when you said that?

SEN. EDWARDS: You mean what we now know? We now know that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction. We didn't know that at the time. But we do now know that and that is a difference. There's no question about that.

I do wish that Russert had pressed just one more question:

"Senator Edwards, John Kerry has said that Bush lied to the American people about the WMDs. Why do you get to say you weren't lying because you believed at the time there were WMDs , but John Kerry says Bush was lying for the exact same reason?

If the quote on Drudge is accurate -- and I've been told it definitely is -- than Edwards should be so ashamed of himself. He allegedly said 'When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again..."

This is outrageous beyond belief. I really hope I don't have to explain why.

Update: K-Lo beat me by 2 minutes. Grrr. Clearly she's feeling the power of John Kerry run through her.

A reader responds:

Your letter from the "longtime reader" seems a little Mobyish to me.

I could try to answer it in detail, but it hardly seems worth the effort. Long story short, there are gay people who let their secual orientation define them, i.e. "I am gay therefore..." and finish it with: I have to vote Democrat, I have to watch crappy movies if they have a gay theme in them, I have to drive a Miata and have a rainbow sticker on the bumper... These guys will vote left because they're supposed to. They are lost.

There are others who see it as "I am..." a businessman, a Rangers fan, a Christian, a nice guy, a conservative ... and somewhere down the list, "I happen to be gay also." These guys will vote base on what they think will be best overall for the country and for them. The GOP will pick up some of these, and the sonks will pick up the rest.

It basically comes down to identity and priorities. I am probably more conservative than Bush in all the ways that count. I also think the specter of the "Christian Right" is more a left wing boogey-man used to keep the children in line than a political force, but that's another dissertation.

From a reader:

Long time reader. I've been wondering for a while why no one's asked this or written about it. What's a gay conservative to do? See, I agree with republicans on things like low taxes, free market reform, privatization, smaller government, foreign policy, and the war on terror. Unfortunately. the party caters to a constituency that pretty much defines me as an abomination and takes every effort to cast the "homosexual agenda" as anti-family and anti-american. In election years, this rhetoric becomes even more hateful, and now there's an entire constitutional amendment trying to keep me in my place. They make it crystal clear they don't care about my vote under any circumstances. It's like the republicans labor under the illusion that we will all eventually go away and not have to be dealt with. On the other hand, I disagree with almost every "non-social" policy (I agree on abortion, death penalty, gay rights, and school vouchers with the democrats; pretty much whatever the religous wing of the republicans is for, i oppose) on the democratic platform. But at least they don't slap me in the face. So Jonah, if you were a gay conservative on policy issues, how would you vote? For the party you feel is right, but doesn't want you, or for the one that wants you, but is wrong on how to run a country?

Me: I don't have time for a long answer to this, but I think it is a fair question for conservatives -- gay and straight -- to ponder. First of all, I have written about gays and conservatives a few times in the past. But my short answer to the question is I don't know. The slightly longer answer would involve my bias towards having arguments within groups you agree with more than not. But I'd also say that not every election and every party is in the business of confirming your personal self-identification. Voting your interests as you see them is honorable of course. But if you believe, for example, that the war on terror is the central issue of our time, voting for Ralph Nader because he's good on rent control or even gay rights is hardly the most admirable course. Anyway, as I said, I don't have great answers. But I do think it's a fair question -- and one I hear a lot.

Steven Horwitz, a good man and economist at St. Lawrence University, asks for help. I don't normally do this, but he's helped me out in the past:

Jonah,

Could you ask the wonderful readers of The Corner to let me know if they are aware of any really good studies of the economic impact of Wal-Mart on small towns? I've been asked to be part of a public forum on the topic, as a SuperCenter is being considered for the neighboring town. I've found a few studies but none of them are particularly good. With all the wonky types hiding in the creases and crevices of The Corner, someone's got to have a good reference or two. The cause is noble, and I think I can stand the email barrage at sghorwitz@stlawu.edu.

Andrew Sullivan writes:

KERRY'S CONSERVATISM: Matt Bai's piece in Sunday's NYT magazine has generated a lot of ink. From the coverage, I expected to read in it a parody of 1990s liberalism but that's not what I found. It's clear Kerry believes that countering Jihadist terrorism is primarily a matter of international police work, alliance building, terrorism, monitoring financial transactions, use of special forces and special ops. But Bush believes all this as well. It's just that he also believes in the transformative effect of regime change and democratization in the Arab world, and Kerry appears to be a skeptic in this respect. Count me with Bush on this one (with a few reservations). But notice this irony: Kerry's is clearly the more conservative position here. Conservatives have traditionally been doubters with regard to the transmission of Western values easily onto non-Western societies. They certainly don't believe it can happen overnight. Bush is therefore running as a Gladstonian liberal in foreign affairs, which is why it's strange to hear some conservatives writing as if Kerry's candidacy is the equivalent of Armageddon.

Sullivan's point is well-taken (even if it's part of his long roll-out for his announced voting for Kerry). But I think this conservatives-are-hypocrites for wanting regime change theme is way overplayed, by Buchanan, by Peter Beinart and now by Sullivan, to name a few. Conservatives in America have long taken the view that we must do what is necessary in foreign policy, not what is nice. This is the hinge upon which conservatives have swung from ideological anti-Communism to Nixonian realism. Modern American Liberals have argued that we should do what is nice -- or morally necessary -- and not merely what our narrow national self-interests require (older liberals, however, could be fairly bloodthirsty).

If conservatives were "Gladstonian liberals" for trumpeting democracy in Poland to El Salvador in the 1980s, then color me Gladstonian. Also: was Vietnamization "conservative" or Gladstonian?

Also, it seems to me that Kerry is "conservative" not in any ideological sense and barely in the tempermental sense. His conservatism -- as Andrew seems to be defining it -- is marked by a lack of enthusiasm for making a big fuss about anything. After all he did vote for the war and regime change (under Clinton), he simply objects to the mess caused by actually following through. In the world we are living in, such an attitude is the mark of denial, not conservatism. And, again, modern conservative foreign policy (which, contra Frank Foer, has never been as defined or uniform as conservative domestic policy) has always staked its ground on what is necessary.

I know a lot of conservatives who support this war. I know very few who make the case for the war solely on the grounds of how nice it would be to make Iraq democratic. All of them, to one extent or another, argue that what is nice has converged with what is necessary. I think this theme goes all the way back to Burke who, after all, supported regime change in the American colonies.

I need to interview American conservatives living in Paris. I'm directing a documentary film for French TV on American expats & Election Day…. We're making this film on American expats, living in France, and bracing for November 2. So far we are scheduled to attend, and film, numerous events organized by the Dems. Obviously, the fans of Jean-François Kerry and Jean Edouard fit nicely among the Bush-bashing French crowd. And we have a very productive contact with Republicans Abroad in Paris. But we really need to interview as many Conservatives as possible, half of our film will focus on the difficulties Americans for Bush-Cheney encounter "behind enemy lines"... I know that you have a lot of readers among expats living in the land of cheese eating surrender monkeys (I'm French but I love that phrase) and I was wondering, that maybe, you could help us with a post on The Corner...

It was only logical for the Republicans to view the church as a "natural ally" on cultural issues, the archbishop said. He said that would end if a Republican candidate supported abortion rights.

"We are not with the Republican Party," he said. "They are with us."

Mr. Kerry's Catholicism is a special issue for the church, Archbishop Chaput said. To remain silent while a President Kerry supported stem cell research would seem cowardly, he said. The Rev. Andrew Kemberling, pastor of St. Thomas More Church near here, said he agreed with the archbishop, but he acknowledged that parishioners sometimes accused him of telling them how to vote. He said his reply was: "We are not telling them how to vote. We are telling them how to take Communion in good conscience."

From a reader:

Jonah,

Please refrain from using people of any kind in any of your
discussions. Obviously, all good people care about the poor and less
fortunate--unless they are rotting in a Soviet gulag or a Cuban or
Palestinian concentration camp, in which case we must recognize some
sacrifices must be made in the pursuit of the worker's (or
Islamofascist's) paradise--thus all people are liberal, and as such,
would not be appreciated being used in your examples.

Also, by your name, and the fact you are employed and seem to live a
regular life some people may consider you a person, and thus
knowledgeable on things that effect people. Since all people worth
talking about are liberal, this can't possible be true.

So, unless you are going to regurgitate whatever nonsense I believe,
please don't ever write about anything again.

Flip-flopping on water?

Via Ryan Sager

From a reader:

Jonah: I had a good laugh over that email you posted. I run in conservative Calvinistic circles (OK, there's two ways to take that clause), and - trust me - I've never known anyone to be a Calvinist AND a devotee of Darwinism. Maybe I don't know enough people...

From a reader:

onah - John Kerry seems to love invoking the name of Ronald Reagan these days. Do you think it would be entirely too predictable if Bush were to hit this right-over-the-plate softball out of the park, with something like this: "I knew Ronald Reagan. My father served with Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was a friend of mine. Senator... you're no Ronald Reagan." (crowd: OOOOHHHHHH). Someone has to do this, even if it's not Bush. Take care, and keep up the good work. I'm an avid reader of your stuff.

From a reader:

Subject: "Please leave Jews out of your discourse"

Jonah,

Please refrain from using Jews as an example of how our political system has been abused.

Two problems with it.

1. Many people who read your articles are basically uneducated, uninformed conservative Americans, who have previously shown their inability to understand nuance and sarcasm. They may think they agree with you about the Zionists. This is truly a problem in a country run by fear, that is so ready to divide and conquer among its own population.

2. You have a name that indicates to many that you may be Jewish. People may believe that there is significant number of Jews who read and agree with you. As an open minded liberal people, wanting to learn the truth, we probably do read you. Fortunately, any and all polls indicate that over 80% of Jews voted Democratic in the last election. Jews support civil rights, level playing fields, equal education opportunities, the environment. Why? Because Jews believe we have an obligation to help the less fortunate and to make the world a better place. The Darwinistic philosophies you consistently sprout is a hard Calvinistic type belief and far removed from the beliefs of any GOOD Jew.

You backtrack so often, a person would need an archive of your articles to flowchart your true positions (or at the least a backup warning light and siren). You dish it pretty well, even your caveats are loaded. Can you take it?

Warm personal regards,

Here's the email I sent back:

[name withheld] - This is the biggest load of horse s**t I've read in a long time. Where you're not disingenuous, you're insulting, where you're not insulting you're ignorant. If you have an example or two of my backtracking I'd love to see it, unless you're talking out your a**. Indeed, you say I "consistently sprout" calvinistic and darwinian theories (for the record plants "sprout" pundits "spout") and in the same breath you say I'm inconsistent. Which is it?

Oh, and shame on you in the starkest terms for thinking that to be a good Jew you need to hold liberal political views. This sort of determinism and stereotyping has never been good for the Jews.

Seriously [Name withheld], you do a great service to the Jews here by demonstrating that we aren't all articulate and intelligent. Thanks a bunch.

Shalom,

Jonah

…drop dead.

Too late, Jacques, the regime did that already….

Brussels magnifico Chris Patten has been giving his views to the Independent. For arrogance, condescension and intellectual dishonesty it is equaled only by, well, some of his previous public declarations. Readers are told, yet again, that he’s in favor of the draft EU ‘constitution’ (although his description of that document has little relationship to reality) and the EU’s disastrous fisheries policies (that have emptied out the North Sea). He sneers that the Tory party’s move to the right has not brought it electoral success without, um, mentioning that he himself was rejected by voters in 1992 at the time of a general election that the Tories actually won. Most interesting, perhaps, is his characterization of UKIP, Britain’s anti-EU party, as representing “a particularly unattractive, blazered, xenophobia. They live in a fantasy world of conspiracies against gallant Blighty, white cliffs, Dambusters, Panzer helmets, a world in which every foreigner is a threat, a world which is totally at variance with the one in which we have to earn our living and keep the peace.” Now, I’m no fan of UKIP, but to describe them in that way is the mark of a politician who no longer knows what is going on, a politician, moreover, who, quite clearly, has lost all pride in his nation’s history, and who has had his snout for far, far too long in the Brussels trough.

Patten is entitled to his views, of course, however ludicrous they may be, but given the odd collection of treachery, europhilia and pure fantasy that make them up, why does he feel that he still belongs in the Conservative party. If he had any integrity he would leave.

Time to go, Chris.

Writing in the London Spectator, here’s Bruce Anderson on Jacques Chirac:

”During the inevitable argument over America, one French journalist insisted that George Bush could not be a candidate for the French Presidency; he was too stupid. I retorted that Jacques Chirac could not be a candidate for the US Presidency; he would be in jail.”

A few people have responded to my post about Frank Foer's essay in the NYT yesterday by saying that Charles Beard was a conservative and John Dewey was an "interventionist." I suspect some lefty blog inspired these folks because the ones that make any effort to offer contradictory facts cite Ron Radosh's book, Prophets on the Right and the info they gleened from its page at Amazon.com . The problem, to put it bluntly, is these people don't know what they're talking about.

Ron Radosh, who I admire a great deal and am glad to call a friend, wrote that book in the mid 1970s when he was a major writer for the New Left. He considered almost all New Deal liberals to be "conservative" because they weren't radical socialists or Marxists. One reader -- who says I'm "100% wrong" -- cites as evidence this review on Amazon:

"However, as Ronald Radosh (no man of the Right) points out, many on the Right were opposed to U.S. imperialism, globalism, and war going back to the Spanish American War. In fact, the traditional approach of the Right is a non-interventionist foreign policy (often misleadingly called "isolationism.") On the other hand, it was those on the Left - such thinkers as John Dewey ...who supported U.S. involvement in foreign wars and smeared non-interventionists.

In this outstanding book, Dr. Radosh profiles five opponents of interventionism of the Right: Charles Beard, Oswald Villard, John Flynn, Robert Taft & Lawrence Dennis. These people didn't agree on everything, and one or two might not be accurately called members of the "Right.""

Um, you could say that again. Oswald Villard was the former owner of The Nation. Charles Beard remains the most influential liberal historian of the 20th century, even though he's not studied as much as he used to be (because his assumptions have been absorbed by academia). John Flynn's a very interesting character, and the Right has come to claim him, but he was a former New Republic columnist and something of a socialist in his day. And Dewey was a very strong interventionist before WWI -- as were the vast majority of American liberals and leftists -- but he was an isolationist before WWII.

Oddly, my post about Frank Foer's essay in yesterday's NYT has disappeared from the Corner (which seems to end at 3:36 yesterday). Anyway, I'm reposting here because I keep getting email about it. Here's the original post:

Frank Foer's got a round-up essay on the the history of conservatives in the NYT (man would I love to write something similar on the history of liberals some day). Anyway, it's not a bad recap, even if I'd quibble with parts. For instance, while Foer concedes, quietly, that plenty of liberals and leftists were also Isolationists he does it in a bloodless way. It's as if isolationism is central to his conception of conservative ideology while it's merely tangential to the history of liberalism. This is the conventional wisdom among liberals and the conventional wisdom is simply wrong. After all Charles Beard and John Dewey, to name probably the two most influential liberal thinkers of the 20th century, were just as isolationist -- if not more so -- on WWII than, say, Charles Lindbergh.

Another complaint: He starts his essay by suggesting George Will's second thoughts on the Iraq war constitute a movement towards isolationism. This is a gross over-reading of Will if you ask me. I don't recall anyone claiming that the New Republic was moving towards isolationism when it voiced its second thoughts about the war -- a war it supported too. After all, John Kerry's griping about how we could spend that $200 billion better at home and be a better example to the world is completely consistent with the Beardian isolationism that resides at the core of modern American liberalism.

Isn't it funny that when liberals reevaluate their foreign adventures they become reasonable, but when conservatives do they become "isolationists"?

The best gauge of terrorists' success is the response of the general population; for example, Afghanistan's successful election is a resounding defeat for al Qaeda and the Taliban. A simple number of Iraqi deaths, similarly, doesn't exactly paint a portrait of success or failure. How are the Iraqis themselves responding? They're becoming more and more involved in their new country. That's the last thing the Ba'athists or Khomeinists could possibly want.

EDELMAN KICKS-OFF MAJOR VOTER MOBILIZATION EFFORT

Faith Community Responds to the Most Dangerous Time for Children

NEW YORK – Children’s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman today announced plans to lead a major mobilization around the fall elections targeting citizens committed to their faith and the movement to Leave No Child Behind*, following a rousing sermon to thousands gathered at Harlem’s Riverside Church in New York City.

Edelman said the Bush Administration co-opted CDF’s trademarked words “Leave No Child Behind*” and used them, or some variation thereof, over and over again rhetorically to cover up unjust budget and tax policies that hurt children in today’s sermon entitled, “A Nation and Century Defining Time: Where is America Going?”

“Our nation’s moral compass needs resetting,” said Edelman. “If you believe it’s all right for our leaders to impose budget cuts on poor children in order to give massive tax breaks and subsidies to millionaires and powerful corporations, then stay home and don’t vote. There are some big weasels eating away at America’s Constitution and eating away at America’s professed values of freedom and justice. Unless we name them, challenge them, and pluck them out, they will destroy our nation’s soul and children’s future.”

Reeve's support of stem cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between President Bush and John Kerry. His name was even mentioned by Kerry earlier this month during the second presidential debate.

Frank Foer's got a round-up essay on the the history of conservatives in the NYT (man would I love to write something similar on the history of liberals some day). Anyway, it's not a bad recap, even if I'd quibble with parts. For instance, while Foer concedes, quietly, that plenty of liberals and leftists were also Isolationists he does it in a bloodless way. It's as if isolationism is central to his conception of conservative ideology while it's merely tangential to the history of liberalism. This is the conventional wisdom among liberals and the conventional wisdom is simply wrong. After all Charles Beard and John Dewey, to name probably the two most influential liberal thinkers of the 20th century, were just as isolationist -- if not more so -- on WWII than, say, Charles Lindbergh.

Another complaint: He starts his essay by suggesting George Will's second thoughts on the Iraq war constitute a movement towards isolationism. This is a gross over-reading of Will if you ask me. I don't recall anyone claiming that the New Republic was moving towards isolationism when it voiced its second thoughts about the war -- a war it supported too. After all, John Kerry's griping about how we could spend that $200 billion better at home and be a better example to the world is completely consistent with the Beardian isolationism that resides at the core of modern American liberalism.

Isn't it funny that when liberals reevaluate their foreign adventures they become reasonable, but when conservatives do they become "isolationists"?