Even the neo-liberal 'zine, Slate, recognizes that Ron Paul's talking points might benefit Republican discourse in the future: The GOP shouldn't silence Ron Paul.

It's eerie how the GOP now views dissenters as somehow unworthy of national attention, as if the present Republican foreign policy has always been uniform (and not a neo-conservative-driven coup several years ago).

Carter continues his blather-bleating: Bush did this and Bush is that. And all this to obscure the monumental mismanagement of his own administration, which I had the privilege of missing entirely. From his recent remarks to the press:

I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including [those of] George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me.

Christopher Hitchens, who has stuck his finger in one too many pies of late, has nevertheless said some stuff that needed to be said:

Peanut Envy.

With $800 million to blow, NY Mayor Bloomsburg is "quietly" threatening a third-party run at the presidency. To make matters even more grotesque, Senator Hagel (R-NE) is now being courted by the Big Apple liberal for a joint runt. Hagel hinted on Face the Nation:

It's a great country to think about a New York boy and a Nebraska boy to be teamed up leading this nation.

For all the gossip, see this from Politico.

From Reuters:

In an interview on Monday with NBC's "Today" show, Carter tried to take back some of his words, saying he was comparing Bush's presidency to that of Richard Nixon.

"I wasn't comparing this administration with other administrations back through history, but just with President Nixon's," Carter said.

More from the WP. (Thanks, Chris.)

Michael Moore is back ... beardless this time (revealing, shockingly, that he has no chin). A few random review across the political spectrum:

Rick Lowry: "The only reason to fantasize about Cuban health care is to stick a finger in the eye of the Yanquis. For the likes of Michael Moore, the true glory of Cuba is less its health care than the fact that it is an enemy of the United States. That's why romanticizing Cuban medicine isn't just folly, but itself qualifies as a kind of sickness."

The Cannes contingent: "Sicko has been rapturously received by audiences and critics at Cannes, where it is screening out of competition. Moore's last film, the President Bush-bashing documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, won the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, in 2004."

The Gray Lady contingent: "He’s still the P. T. Barnum of activist cinema."

The intellectuals at EW: "there's a certain robust clarity of political activism in this latest salvo from media provocateur Michael Moore that marks a new maturity."

"Other people arrange these things, and I wasn't personally involved in it."

That makes sense. Via Instapundit.

See also: Worldmag's Mister Edwards' neighborhood.

So says John Hawkins of RightWingNews.

Or, for an antidote: Mr. Ultramontane at LewRockwell.com.

Libertarian/objectivist Reason Magazine has a new article on the value and brazenness of Ron Paul's candidacy: Who's Afraid of Ron Paul?:

"These are arguments that should be on the Republican table, not pushed beyond the pale by moral posturing about an alleged insult to the victims of September 11. And surely as we contemplate the debacle in Iraq, Paul's criticisms of reckless foreign entanglements and nation-building commitments have a strong resonance."

And MI GOP chief, Saul Anuzis, has backed off his earlier stance against including Paul in future Republican debates:

"After consulting with my fellow RNC members, I believe there isn't anything to be gained by advancing a petition aimed solely at removing Congressman Paul from the debates," Anuzis wrote in his daily blog Saturday. "The primary is and will continue to work itself out."

Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said Anuzis was right to reverse course, adding that banning Paul is "very unpopular among the people." (from CBS news)

But most conservative pundits for some reason view Paul's disagreement with current administration foreign policy as evidence of something far more insidious than plain old Goldwater conservatism. Hugh Hewitt, talk radio poobah, had a grand time trying to associate Paul with various liberal and crackpot fringists, neglecting to substantively interact with any actual policy discussions. It's easier to make noise than it is to say something that matters.

Joseph Farah goes after talk show host Hank Hanegraff for making the following claim in a recent anti-Left Behind novel:

"Much of American Middle East policy is influenced by a huge voting bloc of evangelicals who are taught not to question Israel's divine right to the land," says Hanegraff. "God is not pro-Jew. He is pro-justice. He is not pro-Palestinian. He is pro-peace. Only a gospel of peace and justice is potent enough to break the stranglehold of anti-Semitism and racism fueled in part by bad theology."

Farah reacts:

What Hannegraff and Brouwer are saying and writing is dangerous. It is untrue. It defies history. It defies logic. It defies common sense. And it makes both Americans and all of the people of the Middle East less safe and less free.

Amusing episode culled from Slate.com--They all look alike:

For someone who suddenly likes to pick on foreigners, Mitt Romney is an awfully recent immigrant himself. If you want to know just how foreign Romney is to the conservative circles he now frequents, read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's account of his fund-raiser last week during the Georgia Republican Convention:

Romney gestured to Ralph Reed and said, "Why it's good to see Gary Bauer here." Romney then caught himself. "Oh, I'm a little mixed up here," he said. But Romney still couldn't place Reed's face—and had to move on.

From one of the blogs on NRO blogrow:

In the Blogads survey, there’s support for another theory often advanced to explain the difference between the online right and left. That Republicans have kids. Here’s a breakdown of household size; over 100% indicates a greater liberal propensity in that group.

1 143.4%
2 109.5%
3 102.2%
4 82.6%
5 49.7%
6 33.1%
7 28.4%
8+ 34.6%

These are fairly staggering numbers. Liberals are fully 40% more likely to live by themselves. Conservatives are twice as likely to have 3 kids, and 3 times as likely to have 4 kids or more.

1) Reason magazine has an insightful article on the paradox of Ron Paul's candidacy:

If Paul's campaign gathers no momentum, his impact on the presidential race will be minor and salutary. If Paul's campaign gathers momentum, he will be swiftly and horrifyingly destroyed by brickbats hurled from every bunker in the 2008 field. We can shorten this to one sentence: The success of Ron Paul's message is inversely proportional to the support his campaign receives.

2) Bill Maher clip: "Ron Paul is my new hero." Strange bedfellows.

Former senator Fred Thompson makes his way painstakingly toward an official candidacy. Meanwhile, at the WP the question is asked: how is Thompson any different than McCain? (Answer: he's a bass to McCain's tenor and has the Hollywood background to make a more convincing portrayal of a conservative).

For your daily dose of pessimism: the New Yorker on the discontent among GOP faithful.

Even if events in Iraq do eventually turn in the direction that the Administration hopes, history is weighted against the Republicans. Only once since the death of Franklin Roosevelt has a party kept the Presidency for three consecutive terms—when George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, in 1988. Bush the Elder, though, had the advantage of being Ronald Reagan’s Vice-President, and Reagan, despite being damaged by the Iran-Contra scandal, was greatly esteemed by his party. Few of the men running now for the Republican nomination are likely to embrace George W. Bush’s record. “If the Democrats can’t win the Presidency in 2008, they’ll never win the Presidency,” David Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, said not long ago.

It pays to be cynical: Are You a Republican or a Republicant?

Side note to self: need to figure out why so many trustworthy conservatives look to Thompson as the next Reagan, but I can't help viewing him as yet another mainline moderate. (Rudy McRomney to Rudy McRompson?) Have I waded in too deep to the poisoned pool of cynicism?

The strained courtship of the religious demographic continues not just in the GOP. Courtesy of our brothers at Sojourners.

“I have a deep and abiding love for my Lord, Jesus Christ,” says Edwards.

“I take my faith very seriously and very personally, and I come from a tradition that is perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faith on their sleeves,” says Hillary.

I've seldom read a more literate or winning piece on foreign policy than this piece on Iran by Peter Hitchens. Almost reminds me of Evelyn Waugh's travel books. It also serves as a reminder that a short-sighted interventionism can often cause a far greater mess than the one it's trying to clean up.

It seemed to me to be a good time to go to Iran, a country currently moving toward the top of the Anglosphere’s list of Most Hated Nations. This list, frequently revised, is maintained by those who feel a pressing need for a national enemy and who have been bereft of a proper foe since the Soviet Union fell in on itself in a cloud of rust. Iran’s leaders, unlike several of the regimes chosen for the role of Chief Threat, seem to enjoy being feared and have encouraged their image by very publicly pursuing nuclear research, rather like a naughty boy teasingly juggling with his mother’s best china.

The best moment in the Republican debate -- a sign in the sky for Giuliani:

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic, was just answering a question about his support for abortion rights, and the harsh criticism that position has drawn from a Rhode Island bishop. Then lightning struck right as he began, cutting off his mike. Moderator Wolf Blitzer of CNN reassured the candidates that it was merely lightning, but those next to Giuliani on stage moved away from him anyway.

"As someone who went to parochial schools all his life, this is a very frightening thing," Giuliani joked, before reiterating his position that he believes abortion is wrong but that the government shouldn't impose that view on women.

The lightning continues, but so far Rudy is still standing.

Watch it:

Neocon poobah Norman Podhoretz says Iran should be pulverized. Seems his first miscalculation appears in his first paragraph: bad tactics to assume one enemy is like another. How the strangely secular, Persian country of Iran is another Nazi Germany is beyond belief.

Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what September 11, 2001 did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the cold war was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the cold war, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of Communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.

A notice from Screwtape.

When John F. Kennedy was running for President in 1960, he made a shrewd political move. As one of the first Roman Catholics to actually have a shot at the presidency[1], he had encountered a great deal of resistance to his church membership, particularly in the deeply Protestant South. In order to assuage the fears of potential Southern supporters, he delivered a speech to the Southern Baptist leaders in which he declared:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote.

Apparently, this was assurance enough the democratically-minded Baptists, and Kennedy went on to capture the vast majority of Southern electoral votes.

A little stale now, but worth it:

The fundamental issue here is of much greater importance than arguments about the justice (or lack thereof) of this particular war. Weigel would have the church effectively abdicate its moral judgment in matters of war to the leaders of the nation-state. It is hard to imagine what could do greater damage to both church and nation. If the church does not have an independent process of discernment to bring the gospel to bear on matters of war and peace, then any hope that the Prince of Peace will be heard over the din of self-interest and fear will be lost. History is already littered with the wreckage caused by Christian capitulation to reasons of state.

From Slate V:

I also love this spot on Mike Gravel's strange little ad. "...Pet him, he won't hurt you..."

John Armstrong just blogged about the three Christians who were arrested for interrupting the first Hindu prayer in the Senate.See the video. He raises several interesting questions:

Are these three Christians in the Senate chamber acting courageously? Are they right in what they actually pray? Should they have been there taking these actions in this place? What do their actions say about who we all are as Christians today. How should we appropriately respond to the presence of numerous non-Christian religions that now share the public religious platform with us in modern America? What should a genuinely missional Christian do in the face of modern pluralism and the various false teachings that confront the one true faith as it is revealed in Jesus Christ alone?

Of course, the way this is going to break down is that the fundamentalist evangelicals will argue that the protesters were completely justified (the same way that Operation Rescue workers were in the 1980s and 90s); the younger, emerging crowd will say the protesters got everything wrong--Christians must be humble and loving to woo the new pluralistic world.

I don't see an easy answer. But I can see warnings to each side. First, we can't be afraid of giving offense, if that offense is the gospel. There's no doubt that the protesters were completely right on substance. They believed they were following the example of John the Baptist or Elijah. But the other question that remains, then, is whether it is the time to be Elijah or the time to be Obadiah. The Christian protesters, as true and noble as they were, come across as shrill, to say the least. It's one thing to call down fire from heaven to consume the Baalites. It's another to act like an embittered ex who can't believe that her former boyfriend has run away with that slut. In effect, that's what we're doing. We've loved and nurtured and fed the ego of America for so long, that we feel a sense of entitlement -- regardless of the fact that our nation was founded on the principles of Enlightenment pluralism. We get angry that George Bush won't declare holy war back on the Islamists, instead playing patsy -- but our second president, John Adams, did the same thing. Our ex has been cheating on us from the beginning, and we're just starting to wake up to the fact.

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. -- Treaty of Tripoli, 1797

After reading a couple of Oliver O'Donovan's works, my current to-read list includes:

Man and the State
by Jacques Maritain

Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ
by William T. Cavanaugh

Theopolitical Imagination
by William Cavanaugh

The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology
edited by William Cavanaugh

Theology and the Political: The New Debate
edited by Creston Davis and John Milbank

After Christendom? How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice, and a Christian Nation Are Bad Ideas
by Stanley Hauerwas

D.G. Hart wonders whether dualism is always such a bad thing after all:

The Westminster Divines in chapters 20 and 31, for starters, talk about the differences between civil and ecclesiastical power, and also say that the church is not to meddle in matters civil. This is dualism in my view. It suggests that the state has authority over the physical sphere of human existence and the church over the spiritual. Yes, there are overlapping areas, such as that the state’s laws imply morality and churches own property. But the basic point is that the church uses a two-edged spiritual sword for her discipline, the state uses a real one....

But while I’m at it, I’ll take a stab at defending religious neutrality, in ways comparable to linguistic neutrality. I do think Kuyperians are good Calvinists when they describe the situation of every person — either he or she is a God-fearer, a covenant-keeper (imperfect) or not. So no one is neutral in this sense. But when I go before a judge, and I am identified as a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I am pretty confident that a non-Christian can still hear my case impartially without condemning me for the creed I confess. (I’m actually worried more about his politics than his theology or lack thereof.)

Victor Davis Hanson at TNR:

Bin Laden and his evil Rasputin Dr. Zawahiri were confident on September 11 that such guilt and self-loathing in our hearts could be seasoned, and that it could then be harvested through their own arts of revisionism, victimization, and lies. And consequently within a brief six years of his murdering, our own voices — indeed the very elites of the West — in the luxury of calm before the next attack, are often emboldened to proclaim that the government of America, not the terrorists abroad, is the real danger.

The great lesson of September 11 was not that the jihadists ever believed that they could kill us all. Rather, they trusted that enough of the West and indeed enough of us here in America, might at the end of the day declare that we had it coming.

In this long war, that belief was — and is — far deadlier even than an unhinged murderer at the controls of an airliner.

Question whether America is anything but the salvation of the world, and one is deadlier than an unhinged murderer.

That's right, children.

HT: Scott Clark. Really.

It surprises me every September 11th how incredibly literate Osama Bin Laden's anniversary epistles are. He makes for a fascinating arch-nemesis. Take this for example, in response what he calls the neo-conservative charge that America must fight Muslims in order to avoid another Jewish holocaust:

I saw, refuting this unjust statement, that the morality and culture of the holocaust is your culture, not our culture: In fact, burning living beings is forbidden in our religion, even if they be small like the any, so what of man?! The holocaust of the Jews was carried out by your brethren in the middle of Europe, but had it been closer to our countries, most of the Jews would have been saved by taking refuge with us. And my proof for that is in what your brothers, the Spanish, did when they set up the horrible courts of the Inquisition to try Muslims and Jews, when the Jews only found safe shelter by taking refuge in our countries. And that is why the Jewish community in Morocco today is one of the largest communities in the world. They are alive with us and we have not incinerated them...

It's shockingly effective rhetoric, as long as you take his claim at face value. And certainly, to a traditionalist Muslim, this must seem infinitely more convincing than anything coming from the forked tongues of Bush, Cheney, or Pearle.

Of course, it was unstaged.