Cranach

As we await the state of the union address–which I suspect hardly anyone will watch–I’m struck by how EVERYONE, including conservatives, and including people who used to defend him, are piling on President Bush. Peggy Noonan, for instance, is saying that it wouldn’t be Huckabee or McCain whose nomination would destroy the Republican party, as Rush Limbaugh says; rather, President Bush has ALREADY destroyed it. Meanwhile, a liberal group is raising money to make sure that his approval ratings do not go up before he leaves office! Why spend money to trash someone who is already leaving office?Bill Kristol, though, defends the president and his reputation. What do you think?

In an interview with Christianity Today, Barack Obama answered this question:
“You’ve talked about your experience walking down the aisle at Trinity United Church of Christ, and kneeling beneath the cross, having your sins redeemed, and submitting to God’s will. Would you describe that as a conversion? Do you consider yourself born again?”

I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life. But most importantly, I believe in the example that Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick and always prioritizing the least of these over the powerful. I didn’t ‘fall out in church’ as they say, but there was a very strong awakening in me of the importance of these issues in my life. I didn’t want to walk alone on this journey. Accepting Jesus Christ in my life has been a powerful guide for my conduct and my values and my ideals.

William Kristol calls for an end to the “more-conservative-than-thou” discord in the Republican ranks and explains the difference between Ronald Reagan, who came to office as the leader of an ideological movement, and the normal state of politics, in which ideological movements use the candidates they have. Read Waiting for Reagan. Does he have a point?

Now that the New Age candidate, Dennis Kucinich, has dropped out of the race, that would be John Edwards. Charles Krauthammer writes about the man’s “breathtaking” posturing, grandiosely condemning the very things he voted for (the Iraq war, free trade with China, the new bankruptcy bill, the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, disposing nuclear waste in Nevada) during his short and indistinguished one term in the Senate. And how he is posing as the angry revolutionary who has been fighting for the proletariat all his life. Please.