Rick Perry's "Army of God"

Patrick Archbold notes the collective conniption the left and their media cohorts are having over Rick Perry and the very notion that he might ... gasp! ... take his religious faith seriously:

... Obama has often mentioned Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (including at Georgetown University) to make the case for his economic policies. In fact, the Politico ran a piece entitled "Barack Obama invokes Jesus more than George W. Bush."

So why is there no worry about Obama infusing religion into his politics? Ah, that's easy. Because the media believes that Obama's Christianity is only used to advance his politics while they fear that Perry's politics are actually informed by his Christianity. In short, he means it. And that scares the heck out of them.

[More]

Prof. Bainbridge Takes On So-Called "Holier-Than-Thou Right"

Really, Professor?

The holier than thou crowd on the right continues to excoriate Delaware US Senate candidate Mike Castle as being insufficiently conservative...

[...]

By letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, Riehl and his ilk are ensuring themselves of a pure minority. I guess it makes for good talk radio and blog posts, but it's a lousy electoral strategy.

But what if I live in Delaware [obviously, I don't] and don't want to vote for Mike Castle? What if Mike Castle is so far out of touch with my own values that I find the very thought of wasting one of my most precious rights - the right to vote as I see fit - on voting for Mike Castle repugnant in the extreme?

This commenter at Prof. Bainbridge's site, put it well:

And yet, this too easily becomes another kind of "holier than thou" argument. I wonder if the equivalent political calculation in 1980 would have given us nominee Reagan. Perhaps the "holier than thou" right should just vote in the Republican primaries for the available candidate whose views most closely align with their own and then do the same in the general election? You know, just like everyone else gets to do?

Exactly. It's a primary. Vote your conscience.

Or are social conservatives not allowed to do that? Only neo-cons and fiscal-cons, etc., have that luxury, right?

Let's pose a hypothetical question.

Assume that I'm exactly the same person, except that I live in Delaware. I'm not a Republican, so I feel no compulsion to vote out of fealty to the GOP. The issues I'm most concerned about are the issues social conservatives are most concerned about. In addition, I feel very strongly that Cap & Tax is not only economically harmful but is also anti-family in its effects (and perhaps even in intent). I am also opposed to the sorts of gun control measures for which Castle has voted over the years.

In addition, I just don't like nor trust Mike Castle, not only because his values - as evidenced by his votes over the years - do not match up with my own, but because the 70+ year old Castle, who has spent most of his adult life in politics, seems to me to be the textbook example of what is wrong with the GOP establishment, as well as the entire political system.

On the other hand, the challenger is VERY close to me in terms of her values. She represents my own set of political priorities.

Finally, my entire 5-and-a-half-year blogging career has been devoted to "voting your values".

For whom should I vote in the Delaware GOP Primary?

(Hat tip: Opinionated Catholic)

Abortion: The Signpost at the Crossroads

Joseph Bottum writes at First Things:

... You travel the long road of religion in America, and you find the Bible chapels, scattered along the prairie like tumbleweeds that have somehow grown white vinyl siding. You drive past the green-lawn suburban churches with cutesy messages on the brick-framed signs placed out near the street. You pass the exhaust-stained marble fronts of the old city congregations, the yellow taxis inching angrily by. You visit the grand cathedrals and synagogues, announcing their people’s success in America, this newfoundland, and you see the pulpits and the choir lofts and the pews and the Sunday schools—the church basement halls, with their dented aluminum coffeemakers and styrofoam cups, their book tables, their after-service conversations burbling away. And somewhere down that highway you come, again, to the crossroads where the public life of the nation confronts you.

There is a marker at that place, naming its many promises and dangers for travelers, with the word abortion at the top. Even now, abortion remains what it has been for more than thirty years: the signpost at the intersection of religion and American public life.

Of course, there are those who think this shouldn’t be so. Personally, I cannot see how abortion could not rank first. We eliminate 1.3 million unborn children in this country every year, a number that dwarfs, by far, the impact of every other activity with which the moral teachings of the churches might be concerned. For that matter, the story of abortion is a tale of blood and sex and power and law—I do not know what more anyone could need for public significance. The people who say they are uninterested in the issue of abortion have always seemed, to me, to be trying to suppress the imagination that most makes us human.

Nonetheless, even in the churches some do not see things this way, and they want the whole issue simply to go away. But the fact that they wish abortion didn’t matter shows that abortion does, in fact, matter. It’s proof that the social observation remains true, for good or for ill. Whether one approves or not, the issue of abortion is here in America—the signpost at the crossroads...

[...]

... Abortion is here, and not to take a stand is to take a stand.

Every two years, we seem to go through this. Usually it comes after the election—and often from Republicans. There’s a good-sized section of the conservative commenting classes that seems to blame the pro-lifers if the Republicans lose, and dismiss the pro-life vote if the Republicans win...

[...]

And here we get down to it—the real reason, beyond all party politics, that no truce on abortion is possible. One can imagine pro-life absolutisms that are unhelpful and counterproductive. The refusal, for instance, to accept the introduction of pro-life counseling into pregnancy centers because those centers also counsel for abortion. Or the denunciation of small, state-by-state measures because they do not address the central problem of the insertion of abortion as a right into the Constitution by Roe v. Wade. A particularly wrong-headed example, wasting incalculable money and energy, is the attempt made by several states over the last decade to pass state constitutional amendments that ban abortions—hoping thereby to create the silver bullet that would force the Supreme Court to reconsider the abortion license.

But the rejection of Mitch Daniels’ truce proposal is not this sort of absolutism. We should not accept a truce on abortion because the pro-life position is, in fact, winning. With horrifying slowness, yes, but each graduating class of young people is more opposed to abortion than the last, and in the long run the great task of persuasion and argument will prevail...

[...]

No, we cannot halt. We cannot falter. We cannot pause. We cannot agree to wait. No truce—not now, not ever.

[Read the whole thing]

(Hat tip: Joe Scheidler)

If You Want to Experience Bishop Hatred from the Right That Rivals Anything You Might See on the Left ...

... just get into a discussion about immigration. Even so-called "faithful Catholics" aren't above engaging in vile attacks upon the Bishops whenever this issue comes up:

... On a human level, men who can't figure out that they should keep child molesters out of their rectories shouldn't presume to tell us who to let into our country. A decent sense of SHAME should compel America's bishops to 20 years of penance and silence--or better, a mass resignation of the 2/3 who enabled the abusers.

And when confronted about such language ...

Wow. What an unfortunate ad hominem comment. I expect that sort of thing from enemies of the Church who wish to shut the Bishops up on matters like abortion and the sanctity of marriage, etc. But I expect better and more enlightened argumentation from faithful Catholics, especially in the context of a commentary about the inappropriate use of a particular rhetorical device as a conversation ender. But then, that's exactly what you did by making that comment: by bringing the scandal into a discussion that wasn't about the scandal, the goal wasn't rational discourse, but to end the argument. The Bishops should just shut up and no one should listen to them because of the sex-abuse scandal.

... they just keep piling on:

... Two thirds of these bishops have disgraced themselves and their office, as surely as if they had collaborated with the KGB. Their willingness to speak corporately on any issue outside the strict confines of defined doctrine is effrontery that deserves contempt.

By the way, among the Bishops that this gentleman specifically names as undeserving of our respect is Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver. I wonder, has Archbishop Chaput "disgraced" himself in the manner that the writer of the linked piece describes? Has Archbishop Chuput earned nothing but "contempt"?

If not, then one might wonder why this gentleman paints with such a broad brush in dismissing our Bishops as unworthy of our attention.

Catholics and Politics

Joe Hargrave writes on the political polarization of American Catholics at Evangelical Catholicism.

Quote of the Day: Different Political Directions

From a Christianity Today interview with Mike Huckabee:

A lot of people compare you and Sarah Palin as conservative Christian candidates. What separates you two? What makes you different?

Well, it's hard for me to say what's different because I don't know. I don't know how people make the comparison. We were both governors, we certainly are both pretty clear in our expression of faith, so yeah, we share those things. But other than those things, I'm not sure where the comparisons are. We're both Republican, we're both pro-life—there are a lot of similarities that way—but she has a very different political direction than I do. I'm not sure of her future politically, and I'm really not sure of mine either.

(emphasis added)

From a a commenter at HotAir comes this pithy quote of the day:

Yeah, her political direction is up and his is down!

Yep, that about nails it.

A Double Standard on Faith-Based Initiatives

The Palin-hating elitist Kathleen Parker points out the media's double standard in how it has covered faith-based initiatives under Presidents Bush and Obama (I suppose even a stopped clock is accurate twice a day):

Oh, for those halcyon days when our biggest worry was whether the federal "faith-based" office might encourage a homeless person to find Jesus.

Remember that?

Hardly anyone talks much about the faith-based initiative begun by President George W. Bush and expanded by President Obama. And there was hardly a murmur about Obama's appointee to head the program, the Rev. Joshua DuBois, a 27-year-old Pentecostal preacher.

A comparison of how the media have treated the two presidents and their faith-based programs during the first six months of their administrations (2001 and 2009) is the subject of a new study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The findings suggest a very different standard applied to each president.

***
"Sure, there's always a lot going on in Washington with any new administration. But can you imagine the outcry if Bush had hired a 27-year-old Pentecostal preacher to run the faith-based office and surrounded him with a 25-member advisory board made up of people largely sympathetic to his policy agenda?"

In fact, Bush appointed University of Pennsylvania political science professor John DiIulio, a Democrat, to run his program. Cromartie maintains that the greater attention to Bush was because the media were suspicious that his faith-based initiative was an attempt to install a theocracy.

***
Obama, who, in fact, invokes Jesus in speeches more often than Bush did, according to an analysis by Politico, not only embraced his predecessor's initiative but has given it the loaves-and-fishes treatment by expanding the mission. As described by DuBois in a video posted on the White House blog, the office's mission extends even to "figuring out the role of faith-based organizations in combating global climate change."

Why does Obama get a pass?

In part, because he's not Bush. But also, perhaps, because the media are more approving of the issues and policies Obama wants to advance.

[More]

My Comments:
I'm actually surprised Parker gives a damn. You'd think that a well-educated sophisticate like her would know the difference between those safe liberal Christians like Obama and those dangerous far-right fanatical religious nutcases that supported George W. Bush.

Great Catholic Voices of Conservatism Fall Silent

Just think of the important (and historic) Catholic voices the conservative movement has lost in the period of just a little over 1 year:

Rep. Henry Hyde (November 29, 2007)

William F. Buckley (February 28, 2008)

Avery Cardinal Dulles (December 12, 2008)

Paul Weyrich (December 18, 2008)

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus (January 8, 2008)

Have I missed anyone?

Of course, there is Tony Snow (July 12, 2008), certainly an important political figure and commentator, but I'm not sure I rank him in the same category of historic importance as a "Catholic voice of the conservative movement" as I would the aforementioned.

Francis Beckwith: "Same-Sex Marriage and the Failure of Justificatory Liberalism"

Prof. Francis J. Beckwith of Baylor University (and currently visiting professor at Notre Dame) has an interesting piece at the First Things blog On the Square:

In the post-election discussions on Proposition 8 much has been made about the religious make-up of those that supported the amendment. Take, for example, the comments of Professor Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago Law School:

Proposition 8 was enacted by a vote of 52 percent to 48 percent. Those identifying themselves as Evangelicals, however, supported Proposition 8 by a margin of 81 percent to 19 percent, and those who say they attend church services weekly supported Proposition 8 by a vote of 84 percent to 16 percent. Non-Christians, by the way, opposed Proposition 8 by a margin 85 percent to 15 percent and those who do not attend church regularly opposed Proposition 8 by a vote of 83 percent to 17 percent.

What this tells us, quite strikingly, is that Proposition 8 was a highly successful effort of a particular religious group to conscript the power of the state to impose their religious beliefs on their fellow citizens, whether or not those citizens share those beliefs. This is a serious threat to a free society committed to the principle of separation of church and state.

Setting aside the question of what Stone could possibly mean by “a particular religious group” (since that “group” would include Mormons, Catholics, and Evangelicals), what he seems to be suggesting is a version of what is called justificatory liberalism. Because there are many different versions of this position, I will focus on what I think Prof. Stone is defending. He seems to be saying something like this: Because religious citizens have an understanding of sources of authority, background beliefs, and reasons not shared by their neighbors, they should restrain from employing those sources as the basis for the reasons why they enact laws that limit the liberty of their fellow citizens who do not share those sources of authority.

But it’s not clear why religious citizens should accept this rule if they have fulfilled all their epistemic duties and believe that they have good grounds for the coercive laws they support, even if those grounds are supported by premises not held by all. It is the case, after all, that each of us comes to the public conversation with a cluster of beliefs that we hold for a variety of reasons, many of which are based on both arguments we have carefully assessed as well as authorities that we believe are reliable and have no reason to distrust. But in that case, the typical non-religious citizen enters the public square in precisely the same position as the typical religious one. And in both cases, each likely supports laws that he or she thinks are reasonable and necessary but that in some cases have the consequence of limiting the liberties of others, even though each is not likely to see that consequence as a net harm, since each will see it as an advancement of justice and the public good. Consider the following example...

[More]

(Hat tip: Southern Appeal and What's Wrong with the World)

Ramesh Ponnuru: "Scapegoating the Social Right"

(Hat tip: Creative Minority Report)

Writing at National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru ponders the factually devoid scapegoating of social conservatives in which many so-called "conservative" commentators are engaged:

In 2002 and 2004, Republicans ran hard on social issues and the courts — and scored victories at every level of politics. In 2006 and 2008, they left those issues off the table, and got walloped. It follows, naturally, that the social issues are to blame for the Republican defeats.

At least, that’s the conclusion that a chorus of commentators has reached. They are attempting to persuade Republicans to soften or downplay their party’s social conservatism and hide its social conservatives in order to resume winning elections. About this campaign to sideline the social Right, three things can be said with a fairly high degree of confidence: It is predictable; it will fail; and it is wrong.

Republicans’ social conservatism provokes more intense and angry opposition than their positions on other issues do. In some parts of the country — places where political writers tend to congregate, for example — social conservatives are so thin on the ground that it is easy to underestimate how widespread their views are. So it is understandable that many people would leap to the conclusion that Republicans would have more support if they backed off on social issues.

Yet there is no real likelihood that the party is going to abandon or reduce its opposition to abortion in particular or kick aside the social conservatives in general. Social conservatives are, for one thing, too woven into the structure of the party to be ejected. In 2004, the Republican convention showcased pro-choicers such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudolph Giuliani, George Pataki, and Colin Powell. So far, the only candidates anyone is mentioning for 2012 are Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mark Sanford, and Tim Pawlenty. All are pro-life.

The Giuliani campaign’s spectacular flameout shows how hard it would be for Republicans to become pro-choice. Unlike previous pro-choice Republican presidential candidates, Giuliani did not run on his pro-choice position, had a record of accomplishment, tried to meet pro-lifers partway, had huge national name recognition, and took orthodox conservative positions on economic issues. He was no Arlen Specter. Yet he still couldn’t make it. The conventional wisdom blames his failure on his “late-state strategy.” But he adopted that strategy for a reason: He could not compete in Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan, largely because of his position on abortion...

***
The attempts to blame social conservatism for Republican defeats will not reduce its influence in the party. What they will do is distract attention from the changes the party really does need to make.

[Read the whole thing]

My Comments:
"The impulse to blame social conservatives arises nearly every time Republicans fail. They were blamed for the elder Bush’s 1992 defeat, as though he would have won if only Pat Robertson had not spoken at the Republican convention. They were blamed for losses in the House in 1998. And now they are being blamed for McCain’s rout."

Ramesh left out Dole's loss in 1996, an election in which it was so obvious that the squishy moderate Republican nominee (who was foisted on the rest of us much like McCain was this year) was headed for defeat that all the RINO governors and mayors (e.g. Whitman, Wells, Wilson, Giuliani, etc.) decided to get an early start on scapegoating social conservatives and showed up at the GOP Convention with a plan to strip the pro-life plank from the Republican platform.

RINOs are so pathetically predictable.

A Conservative Manifesto

(Hat tip: Regular Guy Paul)

Yet another post from Matthew Patrick Archbold - a must-read from this past weekend:

... How could a "conservative" vote for Obama? Simply, he replaced one god with another.

Let me explain this rather cryptic statement. In order to explain it, I will use Christopher Buckley as an example, but he is by no means an isolated example. While others of the same ilk may not have gone so far as to vote for Obama, the problem is pervasive. Chris Buckley, after the election, gave an interview to a fawning New York Times.

As an only child, did you find one of your parents easier to talk to than the other? My mother. She got it. He often didn’t get it.

What didn’t he get? Religion.

He was a practicing Catholic. What are you? I am post-Catholic.

As opposed to a lapsed Catholic? I am probably more of a collapsed Catholic.

Do you believe in the afterlife? Alas, no...

That is what it comes down to I think. Men like William F. Buckley, like me, had a fundamental distrust of government. They also thought that free market capitalism as the best of the available -isms for generating prosperity for all. But, and this is a big but, they understood that these philosophies and viewpoints always needed to be tempered and informed by Christianity. Free market capitalism, untethered from Christian restraint, can be the source of as much evil as any other of the well known and pernicious -isms. Take your pick.

Christianity infused the political-economic outlook of these conservatives as much as the social issues are today obviously influenced by it. But somewhere along the line conservatives like Christopher Buckley lost faith in Christ. In the absence of the almighty, these post-Christian conservatives deified free-market capitalism. They traded one God for another.

Thus, conservatives split into two camps. The fiscal conservative, who worshiped capitalism, and the social conservative, who in their faith in God, found the most critical issues of the day the slaughter of the innocent. These two entities, joined under the banner of conservative, have had an uneasy and forced marriage. Cognizant that neither can survive electorally on its own, they have been wedded to each other for a generation.

But something happened this electoral cycle that may have forever altered and perhaps doomed this metaphorical marriage. The fiscal conservatives (and everyone else for that matter) found out their god of choice, untethered free-market capitalism, has feet made of clay. The fiscal conservatives can make the legitimate claim that government interference in the free market helped bring on this disaster, but that explanation only goes so far. What everyone sees now is the greed and excess of capitalism without Christianity. What the Christian ethic rightly decried as gluttony, was viewed by many conservatives as the ultimate virtue and attractively named competition. What we now through natural law was ignored as well, the hangover always follows the party. Unfortunately, this hangover occurred right in the middle of the election season giving us no time to sleep it off.

So now that their god has been revealed as a fraud, with their faith shaken, these fiscal conservatives are now free to apostatize. There were a few high profile defections such as Buckley which wounded, but it was the anonymous fiscal conservative who ultimately pulled the plug. They found no issue with voting for someone who believes that government is the answer to everything and higher taxes and wealth redistribution as goods in and of themselves. Apostasy complete.

Ironically, it was these very same "conservatives" who forced John McCain on the rest of a reluctant party in part because he did not wear his religion on his sleeve in the same way that Romney or Huckabee did . They wanted to distance themselves from the "religious right" in the party. Now, still stung with defeat, they want to pin the blame on, as one analyst called them, the God fearin' oogedy boogedy right. I can't take this point on at any length in this already lengthy post, but suffice it to say the religious right didn't have a dog in this fight.

So if the demise of a cohesive conservative movement was the result of the divorce between Christianity and conservative thought, what is the remedy? Marriage counseling? Yes, but with our pastor.

***
This is all a very long way of saying that the resurrection of the conservative movement, in my view, all depends on whether our Christianity can once again inform and guide our entire political outlook. If we continue in our unhappy marriage, where believers do social issues and non-believers the economic issues, we will continue to fail to persuade. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

[Read the whole thing]

UPDATE
Sorry I initially got the attribution wrong, Patrick. I've now corrected it.

Deal Hudson: "A Warning to the GOP"

Deal Hudson writes at InsideCatholic:

In an op-ed published after the election, former Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman wrote, "Unless the Republican Party ends its self-imposed captivity to social fundamentalists, it will spend a long time in the political wilderness."

And who are these "social fundamentalists?" In Whitman's political lexicon, they are "the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights, and stem cell research."

When I read Whitman's column I had three thoughts:

1. Why is she putting the label "fundamentalist" on fellow Republican voters?

2. Does she know she's also talking about Catholic voters who consider non-negotiable issues before casting their ballot?

3. Is she asking Catholic and Evangelical voters who care deeply about these issues to leave the party and declare themselves independent?

It's remarkable that someone who considers herself a leader in the GOP would go out of her way to antagonize millions of voters who have been dependable Republicans for over three decades.

Whitman and the other GOP leaders who have made post-election stabs at social and religious conservatives had better start minding their manners. Whatever happened to the "Big Tent"? The Republican Party may find itself hemorrhaging its most zealous constituency.

[More]

Elitist Kathleen Parker Disses Not Only Social Conservatives, But G-O-D Himself

Creative Minority Report has the story:

... See, the reason I am wondering about this is that I foolishly read Republican turncoat Kathleen Parker. If it wasn't bad enough how she savaged Sarah Palin simply to get booked more often on CNN and MSNBC, now she is savaging you and me. Well, to be specific, she is savaging any of you "low brow", "oogedy boogedy", G-O-D fearin' types.

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

I'm bathing in holy water as I type.

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

***
Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows.

And Johan Goldberg has this priceless retort to Parker's nonsense:

I don't know what's more grating, the quasi-bigotry that has you calling religious Christians low brows, gorillas and oogedy-boogedy types or the bravery-on-the-cheap as you salute — in that winsome way — your own courage for saying what (according to you) needs to be said. Please stop bragging about how courageous you are for weathering a storm of nasty email you invite on yourself by dancing to a liberal tune. You aren't special for getting nasty email, from the right or the left. You aren't a martyr smoking your last cigarette. You're just another columnist, talented and charming to be sure, but just another columnist. You are not Joan of the Op-Ed Page. Perhaps the typical Washington Post reader (or editor) doesn't understand that. But you should, and most conservatives familiar with these issues can see through what you're doing.

Kathryn Lopez adds this:

Yes, there is rot on both sides. But social conservatives are not rotten and it's rotten to suggest they (we, in my case) are.

And, dear God, it's not God who is the problem.

The Parker woman is a BIGOT, pure and simple. She's also another 5-letter word that begins with a "B" followed by an "I".

CBN Reporter David Brody Attempts to Rehabilitate Michael Steele's Pro-Life Credentials

Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele
(Matt Houston/AP)
Up until last week, I was a huge fan of former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. In fact, he was my choice 2 years ago to be RNC Chairman and among my top choices, along with Sen. Brownback and Govs. Palin and Jindal, to be Sen. McCain's running mate. So, I was very much on board with the notion of his becoming RNC Chairman this time around.

That was until this news regarding Steele's less-than-stellar defense of the pro-life cause on Meet the Press came out.

And now, David Brody of Christian Broadcasting Newtwork gets in on the act of trying to rehabilitate Steele's pro-life credentials. Unfortunately for him, he drops additional hints regarding Steele's unworthiness for the RNC job:

Michael Steele wants to become Republican National Committee Chairman. Yet some anonymous emails are circulating within Republican circles suggesting he’s not pro-life enough to be chairman. Colleen Parro of the Republican National Coalition for Life has publicly voiced concerns because Steele was a co-founder of the socially moderate Republican Leadership Committee. (more on that here.)

The RLC explains their mission this way:

Inspired by a drive to get back to the fundamentals of the Republican Party, Senator John Danforth, Lt. Governor Michael Steele, and Governor Christine Todd Whitman created the political organization the Republican Leadership Council, which advocates for the historic Republican principles of liberty, individual responsibility, and personal freedom...

The fact, alone, that Steele founded the Republican Leadership Council along with Danforth and Whitman is enough to disqualify him from the RNC job, in my mind, on the basis of poor judgment and questionable political alliances. Both Danforth and Whitman have stated on numerous occasions their desire to see the GOP scuttle those "divisive wedge issues" like abortion and marriage.

With Whitman and Danforth both clamoring for the GOP to ditch social conservatives, to then place one of their close political associates, with whom they co-founded the Republican Leadership Council, at the head of the RNC is not a good political bet for those of us who are concerned with cultural issues.

Brody, however, apparently disagrees with this assessment:

Look, here’s the reality. Steele’s critics have a huge task ahead of them if they’re going to make the case that the guy is not pro-life enough. He’s got the solid track record on the life issue. It’s hard to argue against it.

If anything, the ties to the RLC could be seen as a plus in his corner. After all, the Republican Party will not win presidential contests if their candidate is seen as an ideologue. The challenges for the incoming chairman will be numerous including how to brand the GOP a certain way without sacrificing conservative principles.

Steele has quite a few advantages in the race. He’s well liked within the party, he’s an effective communicator, he seems to have the social value and fiscal discipline package and because he’s African-American it also may send a greater signal to the country that the GOP is not the same old “bunch of white guys” party. The GOP needs to start a new conversation with Americans. Steele could be the bridge to that next step.

Maybe. Maybe not. I have to admit that what Brody describes in that last paragraph are some of the attributes that caused me to gravitate toward Steele 2 years ago in the race for the RNC chair. It's what caused me to consider him a prime prospect for McCain's running mate this past year. And it's what had me in his corner up until last week when I found out the disturbing facts that I mention above.

If Steele wants to get me back in his corner, then he must explain to my satisfaction (1) his troubling comments to the late Tim Russert on Meet the Press regarding his reluctance to see Roe v. Wade overturned; (2) his close association in formting the Republican Leadership Council with those who seek to de-emphasize the GOP's opposition to abortion and same-sex "marriage" and other aspects of the social conservative agenda; and (3) his vision for moving the social conservative agenda forward as a key part of the overall agenda of the Republican National Committee.

Until Steele can satisfactorily address my concerns, I'm afraid I'm going to have to voice my opposition to his elevation to the RNC chairmanship.


UPDATE
Regular Guy Paul has added a couple of comments (here and here) that provide some additional illumination on the subject of Steele's pro-life bona fides. Paul links to this piece at RedState:

We are in the process of putting some questions out that we hope each of the candidates for RNC Chair will answer. I've already raised some questions about Michael Steele, particularly regarding his time with the Republican Leadership Council and his stance on abortion.

I've had a lot of people call me since that posting — mostly people who like Michael Steele and a few people who don't. There is one thing they all have in common. They do not question his commitment to life issues. Whether they like him or not, they say there is no room to question Steele on the life issue.

That's great news.

Also, on the issue of the Republican Leadership Council, I'm reliably told Steele left the RLC after the group began challenging Republicans in primaries. He touches on that in an interview today with the Washington Times.

But he said he would like to see the Supreme Court overturn the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationally. Almost all religious conservatives regard the federal constitutional protection of the unborn as a moral obligation...

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Creative Minority Report Asks: "Is Michael Steele Pro-Life?"

Racial Politics: Obama vs. Steele

Is Michael Steele on McCain's "Short List" for VP?

The Story Behind Steele: No One Offered RNC Chair to Marylander

Incredibly Stupid Move

Michael Steele to Head GOP?

Steele Gaining

Black Democrats Pledge Backing to GOP's Steele

One of the Best Preemptive Political Ads That I've Ever Seen

Maryland Lt. Gov. (and U.S. Senate Candidate) Michael Steele Reaffirms Catholic Values

The Liberal Media's Elitist Conservative Rats Leave the Sinking Ship

Some person named Ross Whodat or somesuch, who just so happens to write for the same publication that employs the chief purveyor of Palin Derangement Syndrome, offers this apologia for all the faux "conservative" elitists who have wandered off the reservation this electoral go-round:

... There is unquestionably a sense in which center-right scriveners who work for institutions more liberal than they (or merely exist in a climate more liberal than they) have both personal and professional incentives to criticize their own side as often as they do the other one, and to advance arguments and strike attitudes that drive more committed partisans up the wall. I'm flattered that Julian Sanchez's list of conservative writers in this position includes David Brooks and, well, me, but I think it's pretty easy to come up with a longer tally - it would include everyone from Rod Dreher (one of the very few explicitly-conservative writers at Beliefnet and the Dallas Morning News, I believe) to Christopher Buckley (Forbes FYI editor, New Yorker contributor, and now Daily Beast blogger) to various other (Peggy Noonan, Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, etc.) with one foot in the right-wing intelligentsia and one foot in the MSM. Not coincidentally, this list happens to overlap in many cases with a list of right-of-center pundits who have been highly critical of the McCain campaign and the GOP recently. And while I'm sure that these writers and talkers are striving for objectivity in all things and at all times, I'm also acutely aware, from my own experience, of the way that peer effects - the desire to be perceived as the "reasonable conservative" by friends and peers, the positive reinforcement from liberal readers, etc. - can subtly influence the topics one chooses to write about and the tone one chooses to take. It's not a matter of wanting a seat at the table in the Obama Administration, or anything absurd like that; it's just a matter of being aware of your audience, and wanting to be taken seriously by people who don't necessarily share your views, but who exert a significant influence over your professional success even so.

***
Suppose that you accept the most cynical account of, say, Peggy Noonan's uncertainty about whom to vote for in this election, or Christopher Buckley's Obama endorsement - that they're just craven, self-interested bandwagon jumpers who want to keep getting invited to all those swanky cocktail parties I keep hearing about. Suppose that you regard every right-of-center writer - or single-issue fellow traveler with the Bush Republicans, in the case of Christopher Hitchens - who's publicly hurled brickbats at the McCain campaign as a quisling and a coward, a stooge for liberalism and a rat fleeing a fast-sinking ship. In such circumstances, what's the best course of action - denouncing the rats, or trying to figure out why the hell the ship is sinking? Even if Brooks and Noonan and Buckley and Dreher and Kathleen Parker and David Frum and Heather Mac Donald and Bruce Bartlett and George Will [ED.: Yeah that pretty much covers all the elitist jerks on my sh** list.] and on and on - note the ideological diversity in the ranks of conservatives who aren't Helping The Team these days - are all just snobs and careerists who quit or cavil or cover their asses when the going gets tough and their "seat at the table" is threatened, an American conservative movement that consists entirely of those pundits with the rock-hard testicular fortitude required to never take sides against the family seems like a pretty small tent at this point. And if I were Hanson or Levin or Steyn I'd be devoting a little less time to ritual denunciations of heretics and RINOs, and at least a little more time to figuring out how to build the sort of ship that will make the rats of the DC/NY corridor want to scramble back on board, however much it makes you sick to have them back. Who knows? It might just be the sort of ship that swing-state voters will want to climb on board as well.

My Comments:
You know what all these elitists have in common and what their REAL problem with the McCain campaign is? They're all embarassed by Gov. Palin. They're embarassed to be part of a "conservative movement" that includes her and what she represents ... or to be more specific ... that includes all us unwashed yokels out here who care about stopping the holocaust of a million dead babies per year and the judicial attack on the sanctity of marriage, not to mention who are more interested in main-street-common-sense solutions to the problems facing our families than with Wall Street nonsense.

Their REAL beef is that they're tired of having to make apologies to all their homosexual and knee-pad-donning-so-long-as-he-keeps-abortion-legal feminist friends for all those social conservative yahoos that give "center-right" intellectuals like them a bad name.

Be very clear about this: when David Brooks says that Sarah Palin represents a "cancer" on the Republican Party, what he really means is that the Republican Party and the conservative movement would be better off by cutting out the "malignancy" that is the social conservatism of the so-called "religious right". The reason they praise the "old McCain" vs. the "new McCain" is because the "old McCain" took his swings at social conservatives every chance he got. They don't like the "new McCain" who decided it was important enough to get the social conservative base on his side that he chose a pro-life "extremist" and "religious nut" from outside the beltway establishment as his running mate.

The biggest irony of this whole mass exodus by the "center-right" elitist class, as Regular Guy Paul points out, is that many of those jumping ship were among the same people saying that social conservatives needed to "shut up and eat their peas" and vote for the party nominee regardless of where the nominee stood on our issues. So, they pushed, in succession, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney (who they tried to dress up as some sort of conservative culture warrior in an effort to fool us), and finally, the guy they wanted all along beginning 8 years ago, John McCain. But now they're jumping ship on the guy who was their guy in the first place. And the only thing to explain it is that they're embarassed by who he's chosen as his running mate and the social conservative "cancer" she represents. Seriously? You're going AWOL over the VP pick? Dear Lord!

I guess we should've seen the writing on the wall when the elitist class went apeshit over the prospect that Gov. Mike Huckabee might come anywhere near the top or the bottom of the ticket.

Well, screw you, Ross Asshat! I don't want to "figur[e] out how to build the sort of ship that will make the rats of the DC/NY corridor want to scramble back on board". I'm sick of riding on a ship in which I and the rest of the unwashed are forced into steerage while all you elitists party it up on the Lido deck. You can rot!

Unlike you and your kind, politics ain't a frickin' game to me. I don't like it. I don't enjoy participating in it. And I certainly don't like the unsavory coalitions that it has forced me into in order to try to achieve my objectives (which, by the way, always seem to get pushed to the back burner when "more important" issues like foreign and economic policy must take priority). I'm not in this to win elections (although I certainly recognize the importance of winning elections to achieving success in my public policy preferences). But I certainly ain't in this thing to impress the frickin' illuminati. Theirs is an elitism that is morally bankrupt. Our friend Darwin put it well when he said recently:

... the thing that I think that elitist conservatives often forget is that the educational and cultural and social institutions which they are attached to, which they consider elite (like top colleges and coastal cities and live theater and high brow books and magazines and such) have become not only morally but culturally corrupt. Going to an elite university these days will often impede your ability to actually develop an understanding and love for Western Culture and all that has made it worthy.

In this sense, it's only through a certain kind of populism that conservatism and Western culture and values can survive and be passed on.

The long and the short of it is that I'm not interested in luring "the rats of the DC/NY corridor" anywhere near me, because, quite frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about your issues. And the reason I don't is because you don't give a rat's ass about mine.


UPDATE
Don't believe me when I say that the same rats who are now deserting the ship were the same people who were once telling social conservatives to "suck it up"? Well, here's a reminder that Christopher Buckley himself not so long ago told conservatives to "shut up" their criticism of the very John McCain that he just abandoned this past week.

Note that Buckley admits that, were it not a family newspaper in which he was writing, that he would have told us to "Shut the f*** up".


UPDATE #2
A commenter at HotAir hits the nail on the head:

As someone who hasn’t had a lot of interest in following the day-to-day progression of this election I seem to have missed all of the hubbub. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is what’s happening here that all of the RINO pundits that were pushing for McCain from the very beginning now trying to blame somebody else for their candidate’s miserable performance, Palin, and are now in the process of jumping ship to Obama, which is were they probably should have been in the first place?

FloatingRock on October 15, 2008 at 12:10 AM

Yep, that's about it. That, and the fact that they despise the social conservatives of whom Gov. Palin is representative.

Mark Warner Says "Right to Lifers", Homeschoolers, and the NRA "Threaten What it Means to be American"

(Hat tip: Regular Guy Paul)

Virginia's former Democrat Governor Mark Warner, running to replace retiring Republican (RINO) U.S. Senator John Warner, is contemptuous of pro-lifers, homeschoolers, and gunowners:


"Threatening to what it means to be an American"? Can you say projection? It's the secularist left that are threatening what it means to be an American in their efforts to transform this nation into something that it is not and never has been (and, God willing, never will be): a secularist nation with an unarmed and government indoctrinated populace at the mercy of the all-powerful State - just like the socialist countries of Europe (and Cuba) that the lefties so admire.

And it's no coincidence that the groups Warner names as "threatening" are, in fact, the very groups that stand in the way of the leftists achieving their harmful anti-American agenda.

And finally, as an aside, no wonder Sen. John Warner has said he may cross party lines and vote for Mark Warner to replace him. In addition to sharing a last name, they both share a similar contempt for the conservative base of the Republican Party.

"One of the Last Sane Conservatives"

Mark Shea writes:

Bill Moyers Interviews One of the Last Sane Conservatives: Andrew Bacevich.

Wow. "One of the last sane conservatives", huh? So, I guess that means most of the rest of us who identify as "conservatives" are insane? When questioned on this very point, Mark responds:

Just watch the interview, dude, and ask yourself if [Bush & Co. and all the conservatives who enabled them] are sane.

Without getting into the merits of - or whether I happen to agree or disagree with - whatever Mr. Bacevich might have said in the interview with Moyers, let me just say this (and it REALLY OUGHT to go without saying):

When I want to get "facts" about the sanity or lack thereof of conservatives, the ABSOLUTE LAST place I'll go to get it is Bill Moyers.

Recall that it was Bill Moyers who, while working as a campaign strategist for LBJ coined the phrase "In your guts, you know he's nuts" in reference to Barry Goldwater - not to mention the fact that Moyers is the one who gave the go-ahead to the "Daisy" ad, which implied a vote for Goldwater was a vote for nuclear destruction.

Finally, Moyers has taken it as his solemn duty to expose those people of faith who take their religion with them into the public square as a bunch of fundamentalist zealots bent on theocracy.

Yeah, I'm going to take Bill Moyers as the last word on conservative "sanity".

Not.


UPDATE
In response to this and this (that's getting to be a pretty tired analogy, by the way):

The purpose of my objection to Mark's post was never to take issue with anything Mr. Bacevich says.

But I will take issue with the notion that most conservatives are insane, and, for the reasons I cited above, I will particularly take issue with citing to a Bill Moyers interview as the authority for the notion that most conservatives are insane.


UPDATE #2
Mark responds:

Jay:

I didn't cite Moyers as an authority.

My point about Bacevich is that what used [to be] conservatism has been dominated throughout the Bush era by, well, the craziness Bacevich describes.

Really, just listen to the guy. He's not saying anything serious social conservatives haven't said for years.

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
"Reporting's Easier When You Don’t Worry About Facts"

Bill Moyers: "Rove Turned Religion Into a Weapon of Political Combat"

Feddie, on Behalf of Jimmy Akin, Tells Bill Moyers and His Lawyers to Go Pound Sand

Bill Moyers - Still An Idiot After All These Years

Paging Prof. Kmiec ...

... Why is it that Michael Gerson can recognize what you can't (or WON'T?) see?

... the Warren forum demonstrated how difficult it will be for Obama to appeal to religious and conservative voters as the campaign proceeds. His outreach to evangelical voters is obviously sincere, but he doesn't actually agree with them on much. In the course of the forum, he endorsed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research in spite of the existence of humane and promising alternatives. He proposed controversial government regulations on faith-based charities that accept federal funds. He attacked Justice Clarence Thomas as unqualified and defended his vote against the confirmation of the widely admired Chief Justice John Roberts. Obama deserves points for honesty on all these issues, but it is possible to be honestly off-putting.

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. "I want people to know me well," Obama said at the forum. Among religious conservatives, that may not be an advantage.

[More]

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
You know, I'm REALLY trying to be charitable in giving Prof. Kmiec the benefit of the doubt; but the truth of what Gerson writes above is SO obvious, that I'm having a difficult time believing that Prof. Kmiec is arguing in good faith when he claims that Sen. Obama is the MORE "pro-life" of the 2 major-party candidates running for President.

I suppose the most charitable spin I can give it is that Prof. Kmiec wants to award Sen. Obama and candidates like him for making the effort to show up at events like the Saddleback Forum, regardless of whether those candidates actually agree with the views of the faith-based voters whose votes they are seeking.

To say the least, it will be interesting to see how Prof. Kmiec tries to spin the Saddleback Forum to Sen. Obama's benefit.

Mark Shea: "Secular Messianism, On the Left and Right"

Mark Shea writes at InsideCatholic regarding "Secular Messianism, On the Left and Right".

The Real Lessons of the Hagee Case

Austin Ruse, president of the New York and Washington DC-based Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) and a member of John McCain's Catholic advisory committee, writes on the John Hagee imbroglio at a new website called The Catholic Thing (tip o' the hat to the man with the black hat):

Pastor John Hagee partly deserved what he got in the recent kafuffle over his lurid remarks about the Catholic Church. If you are going to throw punches at Catholicism in public, you can expect to get a few thrown back at you. But the actions taken against him by some Catholics went too far, and may come with a hidden cost for Catholic/Evangelical relations and for John McCain, too.

***
Doctrinal disagreement is old news. What's new is how harmoniously orthodox believers of all faiths, even despite our profound differences, have banded together in modern times to fight a greater threat than each other: radical secularism. The strength of this alliance lies in our common view that beliefs should not be watered down or apologized for. They are bracketed, while all sides join together against a common foe.

This did not happen by accident. Great strides have been made in the past quarter century between Evangelicals and Catholics. Where once there was open hostility -- aimed mostly at Catholics -- there is now a closeness and common purpose that can only be considered providential. Human agency has helped, of course, most notably “Catholics and Evangelicals Together,” the majestic project of Father Richard John Neuhaus, Charles Colson, and others, which meets regularly to work out common understandings or civil disagreements over doctrinal issues.

A parallel development has been the great coming together of Evangelicals and Catholics in the fight against abortion. This coalition has grown into a potent force that has changed the face of American politics and kept such issues as abortion and marriage on the hottest burner in American politics – and even encouraged similar efforts internationally. But it has done much more. It has nurtured greater friendship, understanding, and even love among Evangelicals and Catholics.

The Catholics I know who work on these and other equally important cultural questions often assume that some of their Evangelical allies believe the Church is the Whore of Babylon or that we worship Mary or other such things. And so what? They’re wrong. We know it. Following the teaching of recent popes, we work for Christian unity, knowing it will not come soon. In the meantime, we have other fish to fry.

[More]

My Comments:
Let's be clear about one thing. Those on the Catholic right who complained about the GOP candidates' associations with Hagee were concerned primarily about the lack of respect toward Catholics that his public pronouncements evinced; NOT about the doctrinal differences. And, to some extent, some of us were concerned about what smacked of hypocrisy arising from the fact that McCain would embrace Hagee after having pilloried Bush (even accusing him of holding an insensitivity toward Catholics) over merely speaking at Bob Jones University 8 years ago.

Now let's get to the Catholic left. Those folks harped on the Hagee affair primarily as an effort toward driving a wedge between Catholics and Evangelicals (so, who's being "divisive"?) who have worked together harmoniously over the years to promote the pro-life agenda that the Catholic left either opposes outright or sees as a matter of inconvenience standing in the way of electing their candidates of "choice" (pun intended). They don't like that sort of ecumenisism with those sorts of Christians.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Deal Hudson: "Are Religious Conservatives and the GOP Heading for Divorce?"

John McCain's "Profiles in Courage": A Couple of Examples of Why I Have Not Backed McCain ...

Hagee Takes Arrow Out of Obamoloch Catholic Quiver: Controversial Evangelical Apologizes to Catholics [UPDATED]

Catholic Left Beats McCain with Hagee Stick

How Significant is Hagee's McCain Endorsement?

Deal Hudson: "McCain Campaign Learns Its Lesson About Catholics"

Deal Hudson on "Mike Huckabee's Anti-Catholic Problem"