What’s Wrong with the World

From Haaretz.com (HT: Hugh Hewitt):

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden was quoted Monday as telling senior Israeli officials behind closed doors that the Jewish state will have to reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran.

In the unsourced report, Army Radio also quoted Biden as saying that he opposed "opening a additional military and diplomatic front."

Biden, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has long been considered strongly pro-Israel. His nomination as Barack Obama's running mate had been expected to shore up the Democrats' strength with U.S. Jewish voters.

Army Radio said Israeli officials expressed "amazement" over the remarks attributed to him.

"Israel will have to reconcile itself with the nuclearization of Iran," Army Radio quoted Biden as telling the unnamed officials.

"It's doubtful if the economic sanctions will be effective, and I am against opening an additional military and diplomatic front."

Read the rest here.

If Mrs. Palin were the presidential candidate I might be tempted out of presidential election abstention for the first time in many years, though I'd have a lot more due diligence to do first.

I spoke to a Republican party 'insider' at a party yesterday and he said that she was anti-ESCR and in favor of making abortion illegal in cases of rape and incest. (He had no motivation to BS me -- this was a private affair that had nothing to do with politics). If true that makes her the most principled pro-life candidate on the national stage, well, ever; or at least since Reagan.

Her chances at being the presidential candidate in 2012 and/or 2016 are probably better with an Obama win. I don't see how an Obama win could spoil them, at this point, but there are a lot of ways that a McCain win could spoil them.

(Cross-posted)

As is well-know by now, Bristol Palin, Governor Palin's 17 year-old daughter, is pregnant. The McCain-Palin campaign released this information because of the completely inane speculations of the Far Left blogosphere about Governor Palin's pregnancy. Bristol, who needs our prayers and respect, has chosen life, and will marry the baby's father.

There is a certain irony in all this: Ann Dunham (b. Nov. 29, 1942) was 18 when she gave birth to Barack Obama II on August 4, 1961. Thus, it is likely that Ann was pregnant at 17 with a child sired by a 24 year-old Kenyan exchange student.

Life presents us with certain hardships, some of which are the consequences of our actions. These are the times at which the exercise of virtue becomes the most difficult as well as the most rewarding. Thankfully, there are still many Ann Dunhams and Bristol Palins residing in our communities. We have much to learn from them.

(Cross-posted)

...about those among Obama's camp followers, up to and including Andrew Sullivan, who were pushing "baby-gate," is that they really seemed to believe that it would reflect badly on Sarah Palin if the rumors that Trig was really her grandson were true!

As so often, Steve Sailer got this exactly right.

Bottom line: even if the rumor-mongers had been right, they would have ended up looking like a bunch of jerks. And if they'd been wrong, they would have ended up looking like an even bigger bunch of jerks. Therefore (assuming the law of the excluded middle) they could only have ended up looking like a bunch of jerks.

...thinks that Barack Obama's qualifications for the presidency are better than Sarah Palin's. He attacks Palin's qualifications, while defending Obama's:

The same people who consider themselves the guardians of reason, continue to offer up one Big Foot-like urban legend after another about Governor Palin. Before the Down syndrome baby-switch conspiracy theory and its subsequent demise, there was the "she supported Pat Buchanan for president" X-File. This too has been demolished, courtesy of David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy:

Palin and Buchanan, II ("Timeline"):

July 17, 1999: AP reports on Pat Buchanan visit to Wasilla, AK. The reporter notes that "among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage."

July 26, 1999, letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News by Sarah Palin:

As mayor of Wasilla, I am proud to welcome all presidential candidates to our city. This is true regardless of their party, or the latest odds of their winning. When presidential candidates visit our community, I am always happy to meet them. I'll even put on their button when handed one as a polite gesture of respect.

Though no reporter interviewed me for the Associated Press article on the recent visit by a presidential candidate (Metro, July 17), the article may have left your readers with the perception that I am endorsing this candidate, as opposed to welcoming his visit to Wasilla. As mayor, I will welcome all the candidates in Wasilla.

August 7, 1999: AP reports on Steve Forbes' campaign in Alaska. "Joining the Fairbanks Republican on the leadership committee will be Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin, and former state GOP chairman Pete Hallgren, who will serve as co-chairs."

This information is all available on Lexis. Anyone who continues to push the "Sarah Palin supported Pat Buchanan in 2000" line is either willfully ignorant or lying. And there is no evidence thus far except a recollection from Pat Buchanan, contradicted by his sister and campaign manager (see previous post), that she supported him in 1995.

Related Posts (on one page):

1. Palin and Buchanan, II ("Timeline"):
2. Palin and Pat Buchanan:

This is starting to feel more and more like a Wellstone funeral.

Andrew Sullivan writes:

From an Eagle Forum Candidate Questionnaire:

Q: Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?  

PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

The phrase was added in 1954.

Andrew, again, has not done his homework. The question was about the "under God" phrase, which, as historians of the American founding note, was added to the Pledge by Congress in 1954 precisely because it was uttered on several occasions by none other than George Washington, including this historically important moment:

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die. Address to the Continental Army before the Battle of Long Island (27 August 1776)

So, the journalism B.A. from the University of Idaho beats the Harvard Ph.D. (in political philosophy) yet again.
(cross-posted)

From John McCormack at the Weekly Standard blog:

In response to accusations that in the 1990s Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party - a third party that seeks a vote on making Alaska a sovereign state - the McCain campaign has provided records showing that Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982.

Jake Tapper has updated his post on Palin and the AIP with this response from the McCain campaign:

[McCain spokesman Brian] Rogers says the McCain campaign provided ABC News with all the voter registration information that exists. Rogers says that Palin didn’t attend the AIP convention in 1994, "but she visited them when they had their convention in Wasilla in 2000 as a courtesy since she was mayor."

He would not comment as to why AIP officials are so convinced Palin was a member of their party. When asked if Palin ever identified herself as a member of the AIP, Rogers said, "No, she's a lifelong Republican."

Given that Pat Buchanan's claim that Palin was a "brigader" for him has been proven false, wouldn't it make sense to be a little skeptical of minor political figures trying to attach themselves to Gov. Palin's rising star from here on out?

If the Left Wing smear machine wants to play the guilt by association card with the bottom of the Republican ticket--which is apparently what they are attempting to do--the top of the Democratic ticket is a royal flush: Ayers, Rezko, Pfleger, Wright, and Dohrn. Remember, for every full disclosure on Gov. Palin, including documents such as her voting registration, something of equal value will be asked of Senator Obama. Every time the Dems up the ante for Gov. Palin, the GOP will raise them one Obama.

As I said before, this is starting to feel more and more like a Wellstone funeral.

(cross-posted)

Readers may be somewhat interested in my and Steve Burton's discussion with Lawrence Auster about the Palin nomination.

Since Auster is away from his computer for today, my most recent response to him won't be posted until some time later, perhaps tomorrow. I also didn't happen to save it as a sent item or a draft, so I don't have those ipsissima verba available. In this post I am going to say just a couple of things I said there, not terribly philosophical, and I hope to put up a post later today squarely on the subject of what it should mean to disapprove of illegimacy.

First, reader Gintas (who has been a commentator on our posts here in the past) implies that talk about men and women as not interchangeable will "set me off." I can't imagine why. I sometimes call myself "Mrs. Eagle Forum." I am one of the most traditional women I know of currently writing on the Internet. I believe in traditional gender roles. I say things deliberately to get people's goats like "The husband should be the head of the home" and "The mother's place is in the home." I defended Auster against hysterical feminist responses to his speculations about the ill effects of the female vote. And I brought up spontaneously on Jeff Culbreath's blog the idea that Sarah Palin would do best to be at home with her own children. But I also said there that I might under some conceivable circumstances (not in this election, because of McCain) vote for her.

In other words, I'm strongly anti-feminist, and Palin is clearly something of a feminist, but that doesn't mean I'd never vote for her. It's not a deal-breaker with me. This seems to me a reasonable enough stance.

The second thing I want to throw in here that I didn't perhaps make clear enough in the earlier exchange with Auster is that I do consider it blameworthy for him to use the unpleasant phrase "knocked up" for Bristol Palin's pregnancy and to try in several different ways to distance the girl from her boyfriend. For example, he has made fun of people who call the boyfriend her fiance, though (the upcoming marriage having been announced to the entire nation) that seems a literal enough term. And he implies that the wedding is not simply hastened by the pregnancy but definitely pushed through for the sake of Palin's political career. At least, that is how I understand him. One could, of course, think that perhaps the young couple had genuine affection and love for one another and were already thinking of marriage when they committed the sin of fornication and that the "shot-gun wedding" is so only in the sense of being hastened because of the pregnancy. One could also think that perhaps the family really is considering what is best for the girl in promoting the marriage and has decided upon consideration that this is best rather than pushing the marriage cynically for the sake of the mother's career. In other words, the impression I get from Auster on this subject is that we have to put the most negative possible interpretation on the whole situation and that any conservative who doesn't do so is to be mocked as a sentimental fool. But that is hardly necessary to any contentful point Auster might have to make about illegitimacy, Palin, or anything else, and while I wouldn't use quite Steve's terms--'shameful' and 'disgusting'--I would say that this sort of uncharitable and unjustified implicit speculation is pointless and deplorable.

More later, I hope, on the subject of illegitimacy.

The recent situation with Sarah Palin's family has brought up within the conservative community the question of whether there should be a stigma on illegitimacy and what that might mean. I believe that some of my (and others') disagreement with Lawrence Auster on Palin's situation springs from a disagreement over what it should mean to disapprove of illegitimacy.

My impression is that Auster definitely believes that there should be a stigma upon pregnancy out of wedlock per se, as opposed to there being only a stigma on sex outside of wedlock per se. I may be misunderstanding him here, but this seems to me to be the best way of understanding his insistence that Sarah Palin, by continuing to be John McCain's running mate with a pregnant teenage daughter, is requiring conservatives to abandon a condemnation of illegitimacy. It also helps to explain what seems to me to be the oddity of the following exchange:

Me: You state that I am the one who wishes to get into a discussion of Palin's personal virtue. But I, in making my point about whether Palin was neglectful and the like, was thinking of comments of yours like this:

Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Palin raised their children with so much love and discipline that their 17 year old daughter went and got herself knocked up. Maybe if the family had actually been spending time together, and if the parents had exercised real discipline, as Laura W. powerfully argues, this would not have happened.

See? This isn't just saying she's got too much on her plate or even that we should not approve of illegitimacy. It's a lot more than that.

Auster:Yes, I was expressing diapproval of their daughter's illegitimate pregnancy, AS ANY NORMAL MIDDLE CLASS AMERICAN WOULD HAVE DONE 50 YEARS AGO, and I was making the larger point that regardless of whether their situation is ok or not, regardless of whether Bristol is "ok" and her baby is "ok," the larger social impact of this situation is to legitimate illegitimacy for the whole country

This seems to mean that, to show genuine disapproval of illegitimate pregnancy, we should express scorn for the opinion that the parents of a pregnant teenaged daughter raised her with love and discipline. We should conjecture about just how they were neglectful parents, and we should demand that the entire family be disgraced to the point that the parents (or is it just the mother?) cannot run for a new major public office as a result of the disgrace.

So, what should it really mean for us, as social conservatives and moral traditionalists, to disapprove of illegitimacy?

Senator Obama seems to has given his opponent, Senator McCain, some fodder for tonight's speech in the former's much-anticipated interview with Bill O'Reilly. From Abe Greenwald at the Commentary Mag Blog:

On CNN, Paul Begala just called Barack Obama "Change Incarnate." What's next? A Chalcedonian formulation of Obama's two natures?

(cross-posted)

This is the first post of an as-yet-undetermined number in which I discuss issues other than abortion that pro-lifers are concerned about. The immediate impetus for this series comes from the implication in some paleo-right circles (here, for example) that conservatives, particularly evangelicals, care only about abortion.

It is now widely known among conservatives that infant euthanasia is carried out in Holland frequently. The publicization of the infamous Groningen Protocol brought this long-standing fact to Americans' notice in a fashion that could not be ignored. And Wesley J. Smith points out that the conceptual and ethical ground is being cleared by non-judgemental discussions of this protocol for its implementation in the U.S. Even more ground-clearing has taken place in the form of personhood theory a la Peter Singer, widely taught as part of "ethics" in our universities.

An on the money blog post by Jonathan V. Last at First Things:

There are reasonable criticisms that can be made of Sarah Palin, both as governor and a vice presidential selection. Yet little of what we have seen in the last six days has been either reasonable or critical (in the traditional sense of the word). Instead, much of the left and many in the media simply lashed out at Palin, particularly at her family.

And not only the fringiest parts of the political fringe: A writer at the Washington Post attacked Palin for the fact that her seventeen-year-old daughter was going to have a baby.

(previously posted on Southern Appeal)

This is good stuff, and you can find it here. (HT: Dean Barnett at the Weekly Standard)

According to Barrett, here's the latest smear, offered by the Atlantic, a magazine once known for a measured and more careful approach:

Todd Palin's former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.

I've been wondering recently if the Obama campaign wants the rumor-mongering Atlantic writer, who coined the slur "Christianist" for those with whom he disagrees theologically, to be known as the Senator Obama's chief literary apologist for his presidency. For that writer seems to have become that advocate by virtue of his well-written Gospel of St. Andrew to the Americans, "Why Obama Matters," published in the December 2007 issue of the Atlantic.

From this morning's New York Times:

In the press galleries at the [Republican] convention, journalists wrinkled their noses in disgust when Piper, Ms. Palin’s youngest daughter, was filmed kitty-licking her baby brother’s hair into place. But to many Americans — including some I talked to in the convention hall — that looked like family church on Sunday, evidence of good breeding and sibling regard.

From Keith Pavlischek:

In a blog post titled, The Education of David Brooks Andrew Sullivan comments on Brooks’ editorial piece in last Friday’s New York Times: “As David concedes, the reason we don't have Lieberman is because David's party is a religious organization that would not accept a pro-choice Jew on the ticket. So the first reason we have Palin is the Christianist veto...."

I’ve read and re-read the Brooks piece, but the closest I could come to finding evidence for such anti-Semitism was this comment by Brooks: "Before the convention, some McCain aides wanted to sunder the links to the past in one bold stroke: Name Joe Lieberman as the vice presidential nominee, promise to serve only one term, vow to take a hiatus from partisanship and work by compromise to get things done. That proved to be a leap too far. So McCain was pulled back."

Maybe Sullivan meant to say that the Republican Party would not accept a pro-choice Protestant, Catholic, Jew or Atheist or Hockey mom on the ticket. But that wouldn’t have the same slanderous rhetorical effect, would it?

This counts for civil discourse over at The Atlantic these days.

One of the more profound insights I've found in the writing of Pope John Paul II, though of course the idea does not originate with him, is that the things that we choose to do always end up changing who we are. This is a profound truth about the human person. Sin brings us closer to Hell because it makes us more the kind of person who will ultimately be at home in Hell. Good works, done out of our own free will with the help of grace, bring us closer to the Beatific Vision because they make us more the kind of person who is close to God. What we choose to do changes us.

A lot of argumentation in the blogosphere, though - particularly political argumentation - tacitly assumes that this is not the case. The notion seems to be that if I vote for a medical cannibal like John McCain or Barack Obama, having decided to do so as a choice of the lesser of two evils, that making that choice does not mean that I will do anything else differently: I will be the same person and do all the same things subsequently whether I vote for a cannibal or not.

But this is obviously not the case. It is not the case for an individual, whose effect on the election is literally negligible. And it is not the case when we aggregate individuals. Five million people who are unwilling to vote for a cannibal are a different kind of group from five million who are willing to vote for a cannibal. Refusing to pull the lever for the least bad viable option is in the end far more powerful on an individual basis than pulling the lever for the least bad viable option, because pulling the lever or refusing to pull the lever changes what kind of person you are. And what is true on an individual basis is true in the aggregate.

"If everyone did it the pro-life cause would lose" is simply false, because it rests on the unspoken assumption that all else remains the same. But all else never remains the same; and most especially we don't remain the same.

(Cross-posted)

Looks like Biden is Trigger happy:

This event was the rare one at which Biden took questions that one of them was not about his counterpart on the Republican ticket, Gov. Sarah Palin. But he did refer to her when one woman asked about how he and Obama would help those with disabilities. In her convention speech, Palin said she’d be a voice for parents with children with special needs, noting her newborn son, Trig, who has Down’s Syndrome. “I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have … the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability,” said Biden, who’s wife is a teacher. “Well guess what folks? If you care about it, why don't you support stem cell research?”

The Catholic Church holds, and Mother Teresa held, the same position that Biden is attacking. Is Biden suggesting that John Paul II and Mother Teresa didn't care about disabled children?

That Biden, a real class act.

(Update: From a commentator ["george"] at the Commentary Mag blog: "it is absolutely impossible to treat trisomy 21 with stem cells. EVERY cell in the baby’s body has an extra chromosome 21. One would have to physically replace every cell in the baby’s body to see an effect. Not only is Biden a boor, he is a scientific illiterate. Just what we need in charge.")

(cross-posted)

Here is an interesting illustration offered by my friend J. P. Moreland:

Last month I published a WWwTW entry with a link to Professor Eileen McDonagh's review of my book, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007). I finally got around to composing a response, which took longer than expected because of the move to South Bend as well as a few publishing deadlines and speaking commitments.

You can find my response online here.

Here's the relevant text, which precedes his now infamous September 9 "lipstick on a pig" comments:

"John McCain says he's about change too. Exce- and and so I guess his whole angle is watch out, George Bush, except for economic policy, healthcare policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl-Rove-style politics, we're really gonna shake things up in Washington."

Here's the cartoon, which appeared in the September 5 Washington Post:

From Politico:

S.C. Dem chair: Palin primary qualification is she hasn't had an abortion

South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate " whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”

Palin is an opponent of abortion rights and gave birth to her fifth child, Trig, earlier this year after finding out during her pregnancy that the baby had Down syndrome.

Fowler told my colleague Alex Burns in an interview that the selection of an opponent of abortion rights would not boost McCain among many women.

“Among Democratic women and even among independent women, I don’t think it helped him,” she said.

Told of McCain's boost in the new ABC/Washington Post among white women following the Palin pick, Fowler said: "Just anecdotally, I believe that those white women are Republican women anyway."

Ms. Fowler is a member of the DNC's bylaws and rules committee. See here.
(cross-posted)

Prof. Wendy Doniger has come to this conclusion in a piece published on the Washington Post's website: "Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman." In terms of the essay's central argument, if you read it carefully, you will notice that Prof. Dolinger does the very thing that she condemns. She claims, as her title states, "all beliefs are welcome, unless they are forced on others." However, she offers her understanding of the nature of religious beliefs as the only correct guide by which religious citizens ought to engage the public square. So, ironically, no other belief about beliefs is welcome, except hers. Thus, she is "forcing" her belief about beliefs on others.

(cross-posted)

What happened on this day seven years ago may be said simply: The Jihad delivered against America a most grievous and staggering blow; also, of course, a treacherous and spiritually impotent one — as befits the Jihad. It was not a blow delivered against the American fighting man. Against him the Jihad has generally withered or taken flight. We demean the word by calling what happened on September 11th a battle. It was a blow delivered against men and women the great majority of whom never had even a moment to contemplate self-defense. That some Americans — who we venerate today where their remains lie, in the wide fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania — gave battle to these brigands, and in the end conquered them by thwarting their conspiracy, shows indeed their valor, but does not grant their murderers the honor of the title Soldier.

The Towers fell; the Pentagon burned. It was a perfect expression of the Jihad. The guilt of its victims, according to doctrine, was fixed by their unbelief. America stood as the citadel and champion of Infidelity. There could be no innocents there.

And so honor, innocence, charity, kindness, courage, nobility, valor — all must kneel at the feet of the obligation of the Jihad to smash up the powers of Infidelity. America is the greatest of those powers. Whatever our foreign po