So, as I hoped or feared, I’ve taken quite a beating on my comments on candidates the other day.

First off, I’m not recommending that Bernie Sanders become president. I will add, however, that analysis based on economic classes has a very limited renewed relevance when thinking about such phenomena as the proletarianization of a large part of the middle class, the proletarianization of the faculty, “average is over,” and so forth. And surely it’s more noble to be especially concerned with, say, the lower class (people who don’t have any money or property) than with various allegedly demeaned or degraded groups often composed mainly of people with plenty of money. And I can’t help but call attention to the lack of concern in Silicon Valley to the plight of the “working poor” or to whether the benefit of indefinite longevity or the quasi-immortalilty of the transhumanist Singularity will be made available to us all. Having said that, I’m completely for the classless society we should already have based on the proposition that all men are created equal, and so I’m against coercive redistribution based on economic class. Having said that, I wouldn’t go so far as to deny that government might think of parents as parents — or as not just free individuals — and help them out.

Second, I definitely wasn’t endorsing the “hawkish” or aggressively moralistic foreign policy now associated with Bush and Rubio. Rubio’s new version of the Truman Doctrine iis based on promises that far exceed America’s capacities and “willpower” at this time, and in any case the various threats facing us now aren’t comparable with the ideological challenge of global Communism that, thank God and/or Reagan, is no longer with us. The media are playing “gotcha” with Bush over his refusal to say that, given what we know now, we wouldn’t choose the second Iraq war. But still, he needs to make it clear that we’ve learned from that miscalculation, as well as from Obama’s error in withdrawing our troops from Iraq too early.

For now, Cruz’s positioning himself somewhere between the “neocon” and the “isolationist” extremes seems more realistically nuanced, even or especially with his tough talk concerning Iran. Still, I’m not saying that Cruz has really shown me he understands the situation in which we now find ourselves, a situation of diminished relative power and influence and growing dangers. I’m not blaming him; I’m not sure I understand it either. So I’m still looking for the candidate who sees the world today, as it really is, in the mode of a genuine statesman or stateswoman.

Our friend Matt Franck does very well in defending Huckabee against the George Will hit job. Huck is on the right track in defending judicial restraint, and, by doing so, contrary to Will, he’s not defending massive resistance to anti-segregationist court orders. Still, you’d wish a candidate of his brains and experience could actually explain why the Constitution is not what the Court says it is, as well as distinguish clearly between obeying or enforcing a particular court order and accepting the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. As Lincoln said the people will cease to be their own rulers if they have to thoughtlessly defer to “judicial finality” as a matter of constitutional morality. Matt concludes that we can hope that Huck will get better, but he’s been around for long enough now that only men of women of deep faith can keep that hope alive. He should be operating at a much higher pay grade by now.

If you want to be treated to a candidate’s displaying rhetoric of the pay grade of a true statesman, read Bush’s commencement address at Liberty. At Liberty, you say! He must have been pandering to the “religious Right.” Quite the contrary, the speech ascends from political concerns to philosophy, theology, and the true foundation of the principles we share. Not only that, it reminds us of the indispensable place of Christian charity in getting good things done for those most in need in our country. It is a very conciliatory speech.

For now, just one excerpt: “It is not only untrue, but also a little ungrateful, to dismiss the Christian faith as some obstacle to enlightened thought, some ancient, irrelevant creed wearing out its welcome in the modern world. Whether or not we acknowledge the source, Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament still provide the moral vocabulary we all use in America – and may it always be so.”

Well, one more: “Every day in the life of this nation, uncounted people are comforting the lonely, aiding the ill and discouraged, serving the weak and the innocent, giving hope to the prisoner, and in every way they know, loving mercy and living with integrity. And that doesn’t happen by chance either, or because anyone has ordered it, or because there’s a federal program for it. The endless work of Christian charity in America is what free people do when they have good news to share.”

If that weren’t enough, Jeb actually quotes G. K. Chesterton.