Above my pay grade

August 19, 2008 By 24 Comments

When Rick Warren asked Barack Obama when a baby is entitled to human rights (a very well-crafted question, for which I give Rev. Warren credit), the presidential candidate said that the answer was “above my pay grade.” That answer–flippant, condescending, and disingenuous–irritates me greatly.

Obama is running for the highest office in the land, so the figure of speech is especially inept. So he doesn’t have an opinion on the matter? He certainly has other opinions that he wants us to accept. He has made plenty of votes on abortion that suggest he has views on the subject. At any rate, if you don’t know when life begins, doesn’t that mean that you need to safeguard the fetus at all stages just to be safe? The fact is, there is no real uncertainty among scientific experts, who recognize the unbroken continuum from conception through childhood. The only arguments that a fetus is not a baby hinge on unverifiable philosophical assertions (such as, a fetus becomes a child only when the mother wants it).

I hope someone asks Obama what other issues are above his pay grade, that he will not venture an opinion about, preferring to defer to experts. War? The economy? More deference to people with more knowledge and experience on various issues would indeed show humility and a willingness to learn. But I don’t see him actually doing that when it comes to abortion.

Can any of you Obama supporters defend that “above my pay grade” response?

Filed Under: Life Issues, Politics 24 Comments

Hope for McCain

August 19, 2008 By 12 Comments

Michael Gerson says that John McCain’s performance at Saddleback may be a turning point for the candidate, who showed that he just does better at unscripted, town-hall type events than Barack Obama:

What took place instead under Warren’s precise and revealing questioning was the most important event so far of the 2008 campaign — a performance every voter should seek out on the Internet and watch.

First, the forum previewed the stylistic battle lines of the contest ahead, and it should give Democrats pause. Obama was fluent, cool and cerebral — the qualities that made Adlai Stevenson interesting but did not make him president. Obama took care to point out that he had once been a professor at the University of Chicago, but that bit of biography was unnecessary. His whole manner smacks of chalkboards and campus ivy. Issues from stem cell research to the nature of evil are weighed, analyzed and explained instead of confronted.

This approach has a genuine appeal to some voters, especially of a more liberal bent, who believe there is a nuance shortage in American life. But on Saturday night it did not compare well with McCain, who was decisive, passionate and surprisingly personal. The candidate who once seemed incapable of the confessional style of politics talked at length of Vietnam experiences and his adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Asked by Warren about his greatest moral failure, McCain’s response — “the failure of my first marriage” — had an abrupt and disarming authenticity. The account of his hardest decision — refusing release from captivity during the Vietnam War ahead of others who had been imprisoned longer — remains shocking in its valor. And McCain’s habit of understatement — he described the excruciating rope torture he experienced in Vietnam as “very uncomfortable” — makes his stories even more effective. . . .

Obama’s response on abortion — the issue that remains his largest obstacle to evangelical support — bordered on a gaffe. Asked by Warren at what point in its development a baby gains “human rights,” Obama said that such determinations were “above my pay grade” — a silly answer to a sophisticated question. If Obama is genuinely unsure about this matter, he (and the law) should err in favor of protecting innocent life. If Obama believes that a baby in the womb lacks human rights, he should say so — pro-choice men and women must affirm (as many sincerely do) that developing life has a lesser status. Here the professor failed the test of logic.

For many evangelicals, the theoretical Obama — the Obama of hope and unity — is intriguing, even appealing. But this opinion is not likely to improve upon closer inspection of his policy views. Obama is one of those rare political figures who seems to grow smaller the closer we approach him.

Filed Under: Politics 12 Comments

From Jerry Falwell to Rick Warren

August 18, 2008 By 88 Comments

Jerry Falwell has passed away. Now Rick Warren, megachurch pastor and author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” has taken his place.

In an extraordinary feat, he got both presidential candidates to come to his Saddleback church and submit to his questioning. It would have been unthinkable for Rev. Falwell to invite a Democrat and even more unthinkable for a Democrat to show up. I am impressed that Rev. Warren donned a sports coat for the occasion, since he usually preaches in an Aloha shirt. (I wonder why he did that. Did he sense that sometimes a certain level of formality is appropriate? Why have such decorum with politicians but not for church?)

So what is this significance of this shift in leadership and in clout?

Filed Under: Church, Politics 88 Comments

The Saddleback confessions

August 18, 2008 By 62 Comments

Rick Warren’s inquisition of the candidates elicited some interesting answers.

In his answers, Obama described many of his positions, even on taxes and energy, in the language of a devout Christian. When asked about his “greatest moral failing,” he discussed his teenage drug and alcohol use, attributing it to “a certain selfishness on my part. I was so obsessed with me, and the reasons why I might be dissatisfied, that I couldn’t focus on other people.”

Confronted with the same question later, McCain cited the failure of his first marriage. . . .

“I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him,” Obama told Warren. “That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis.” McCain said he had been “saved and forgiven” through his belief in Christ.

Each also said he defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, but Obama added that he supports civil unions for same-sex couples. . . .

At Saddleback, Obama did not respond directly when Warren asked him at what point “a baby gets human rights.” He said the issue is “above my pay grade,” and pivoted quickly to his quest to find common ground. He noted that he had inserted pregnancy-prevention language in the 2008 Democratic platform, which he cast as a major turn in party policy.

In his interview with Warren, McCain received loud applause from the crowd of more than 2,000 when he declared his view that unborn children deserve rights “at the moment of conception,” and offered one of the most emphatic declarations of his opposition to abortion in his presidential campaign.

“I have a 25-year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate,” McCain said. “This presidency will have pro-life policies.”

Did anyone hear what the two said about another topic raised by Rev. Warren, the existence of evil? Such actual theology was not reported in the “Washington Post.”

Filed Under: Church, Politics 62 Comments

Ukraine wants in

August 18, 2008 By 4 Comments

Now Ukraine wants to be part of U.S. missile defense system. Adding insult to injury, the nation is offering the West a satellite monitoring base that was built on Ukrainian soil by the Soviets.

Filed Under: International 4 Comments

Fasco-Islamism

August 18, 2008 By 10 Comments

Keith Pavlischek at the First Things blog notes that the affinities between Islam and Fascism have been noted a long time ago. Borrowing from some other writers, he offers a quotation from a prominent theological anti-fascist:

Karl Barth, the great Swiss theologian who was the principal author (with Bonhoffer) of the Barmen Declaration against the Nazis, had this to say:

Participation in this life, according to it the only worthy and blessed life, is what National Socialism, as a political experiment, promises to those who will of their own accord share in this experiment. And now it becomes understandable why, at the point where it meets with resistance, it can only crush and kill with the might and right which belongs to Divinity! Islam of old as we know proceeded in this way. It is impossible to understand National Socialism unless we see it in fact as a new Islam, its myth as a new Allah, and Hitler as this new Allah’s Prophet.

(Church and the Political Problem of Our Day, 1939, p. 43)

Filed Under: History, Islam 10 Comments

Russia threatens nuclear retaliation

August 15, 2008 By 44 Comments

An update to the post below about Poland accepting the US anti-missile defense installation in the face of Russian opposition. Now Russia is threatening to nuke Poland and its allies, which would be us. From the AP story Russia: Poland risks attack because of US missiles:

A top Russian general said Friday that Poland’s agreement to accept a U.S. missile defense battery exposes ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported.

The statement by Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn is the strongest threat that Russia has issued against the plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet satellite nations.

Poland and the United States on Thursday signed a deal for Poland to accept a missile interceptor base as part of a system the United States says is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations. Moscow, however, feels it is aimed at Russia’s missile force.

“Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent,” Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.

He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them.” Nogovitsyn that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, he said, according to Interfax.

Filed Under: International 44 Comments

Ashamed of my profession

August 15, 2008 By 8 Comments

Scholar and writer Mary Grabar documents just how bad it has gotten in literary studies, with its jargon-ridden, meaning-denying, politically-correct scholarship that tears down authors instead of helping us understand them. Dr. Grabar zeroes in on how our establishment universities are giving the heroic Alexander Solzhenitsyn pretty much the same treatment he received in the Soviet gulags. A sample, referring to his story “Matryona’s Home,” about a woman living out her Christian faith amidst the cruelties of communism:

Under “classroom strategies” in the Norton instructor’s manual, teachers are told that they are likely to encounter the problem of students accepting the “truth” of what Solzhenitsyn has to say: “Because the story answers to most of the myths and preconceptions Westerners already have about Soviet life, the problem will be to make sure that students read it with the same degree of resistance with which they would normally confront any other piece of fiction.” Here we have the apologists for communism directing teachers: All that you’ve heard about the brutality of communism is merely part of our “myths and preconceptions.” Students must be reeducated to “resist” the testimony of Solzhenitsyn as dramatized in his fictional account.

Filed Under: Education, Literature 8 Comments

Why it’s hard to get excited about McCain

August 15, 2008 By 27 Comments

In an interview with the Weekly Standard, McCain Won’t Rule Out Pro-choice Running Mate:

IN A WIDE-RANGING INTERVIEW aboard his campaign plane this morning, John McCain said that he is open to choosing a pro-choice running mate and named former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as someone who merits serious consideration despite his support for abortion rights. . . .

“I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party,” McCain said. “And I also feel that–and I’m not trying to equivocate here–that Americans want us to work together. You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don’t think that that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out.” . . .

“I think it’s a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a–albeit strong–but just it’s a disagreement. And I think Ridge is a great example of that. Far moreso than Bloomberg, because Bloomberg is pro-gay rights, pro, you know, a number of other issues.”

Of the four individuals most frequently mentioned as potential McCain runningmates–Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty–Lieberman and Ridge are pro-choice and Romney, by his own account, was pro-choice until at least November 2004.

So if McCain also just wants pro-lifers and pro-deathers to “work together,” how is this different from what Barack Obama is saying? If he actually DOES pick a pro-death running mate, that strongly suggests the issue is not important to him and he’ll lose the vote of lots of cultural conservatives.

Filed Under: Life Issues, Politics 27 Comments

Olympics abuse baseball before killing it

August 15, 2008 By 16 Comments

Yes, I know baseball is being eased out as an Olympic sport, though not understanding why. (Surely its popularity in the entire Western hemisphere, plus Japan, makes it more popular than Olympic sports such as synchronized swimming.) But it is wrong to vandalize the game by changing its rules. From Extra Effort Made to Speed Up Baseball:

Starting in the 11th inning of a tie game — as decreed last month by baseball’s international governing body — each half-inning will begin with runners on first and second base, and the manager of the batting team can start the 11th at any point in his lineup.

Maybe they should let batters hit off a tee to make the game end even faster. Do you see why such a sudden death overtime is ruinous to baseball, in a way that it wouldn’t be in soccer or football?

Filed Under: baseball 16 Comments