John McCain sees Mike Huckabee's Texas Ranger and Raises him a Rambo and a Rocky. The ironic thing is, in a competition for whose celebrity endorsement will make the biggest difference in the end, both these tough-guys lose to Oprah.
Attacking Obama all weekend, Bill must have just tuckered himself out. From the New York Post:
A few thoughts:
1) Why is Edwards still running? The guy hasn't won a primary yet, hasn't come close to winning one, and is not going to win one. At one point, when Clinton and Obama really got into it, Edwards asked "Are there just two people in this debate." The funny thing is, actually, there really are only two serious possible candidates.
My thought has been that he's trying to pull some decent percentages to use as leverage to be the VP candidate. But that's not a good strategy if he waits too long. Edwards' support comes mainly from the health-care/labor faction of the Democratic party--a faction that will be less relevant as the focus moves from party nomination to general election. The reality is that Edwards will not win. There are, I suspect, a good number of voters who know for sure they don't like Clinton, but who can't decide who is the better Clinton alternative. At this point, about the only thing that Edwards' candidacy is going to do is weaken Obama. As both Clinton and Edwards turned on Obama, the one thing that seemed clear was that Clinton sure is glad Edwards is still running.
2) Obama did seem a tad Janus-faced when he attacked Clinton and then asked for more civility. On the other hand, for me it's forgivable. With the attacks coming from the Clinton campaign lately, it's not realistic to expect Obama to not respond by giving her a bit of her own medicine. One thing he did do well was to actually have an explanation for what Clinton calls inconsistencies in his record.
He did get off one of the best lines of the night on this topic. When he said that Bill Clinton was distorting his record on behalf of his wife's campaign, Hillary tried to draw the focus away from Bill saying "I'm here, he's not." Obama shot back, "Well, sometimes its hard to tell who I'm running against."
Actually, I think Obama played a good rhetorical move by constantly bringing up Bill. You might think that Bill's popularity might make Obama want to draw the focus of him, but by constantly mentioning him in the same breath as Hillary, Obama continually reminded audiences that he's up against the Clinton machine, not just Hillary Clinton. It raises the unseemly specter of a behind the scenes third-term Bill behind his own version of a Manchurian candidate. It also makes Obama the underdog, and it allows him to write off his losses as the result of having been double-teamed.
3) Obama is better at responding to attacks than Clinton is. I think it's perfectly fair for a candidate to use personal attacks in politics. I also think it's perfectly fair for candidate to call the attacker to task for it.
It all started when Clinton started attacking Obama for having something nice to say about President Reagan. Obama's response:
What I said -- and I will provide you with a quote -- what I said was is that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interests to form a majority to push through their agenda, an agenda that I objected to. Because while I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.Fightin' words. So Clinton tries to respond. But rather than explain her ties to Wal-mart, she hits back.
CLINTON: Well, you know, I think we both have very passionate and committed spouses who stand up for us. And I'm proud of that.So what's worse, being on the board of Wal-mart, or representing a slum-lord? Close call. Both provide something that there is a market for, I guess. But compare Obama's response to Clinton's attack to her response to his attack:
But you also talked about the Republicans having ideas over the last 10 to 15 years.
OBAMA: I didn't say they were good ones.
CLINTON: Well, you can read the context of it.
OBAMA: Well, I didn't say they were good ones.
CLINTON: Well, it certainly...
OBAMA: All right, Wolf.
CLINTON: It certainly came across in the way that it was presented, as though the Republicans had been standing up against the conventional wisdom with their ideas. I'm just reacting to the fact, yes, they did have ideas, and they were bad ideas.
OBAMA: I agree.
CLINTON: Bad for America, and I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Resco, in his slum-lord business in inner city Chicago.
BLITZER: I just want to give you a chance, Senator Obama, if you want to respond. Senator Clinton made a serious allegation that you worked for a slumlord. And I wonder if you want to respond.Way more effective. Rather than hit back tit-for-tat, he corrects what he calls a lie on Clinton's part by putting his own spin on it, and then bringing it back to his theme about truthfulness in the campaign.
OBAMA: I'm happy to respond. Here's what happened: I was an associate at a law firm that represented a church group that had partnered with this individual to do a project and I did about five hours worth of work on this joint project. That's what she's referring to.
Now, it's fine for her to throw that out, but the larger reason that I think this debate is important is because we do have to trust our leaders and what they say. That is important, because if we can't, then we're not going to be able to mobilize the American people behind bringing about changes in health care reform, bringing about changes in how we're going to put people back to work, changing our trade laws. And consistency matters. Truthfulness during campaigns makes a difference.
Well, you know, Senator Obama, it is very difficult having a straight-up debate with you, because you never take responsibility for any vote, and that has been a pattern.
You, in the -- now, wait a minute. In the Illinois state legislature...
(AUDIENCE BOOING)
5) One last thought. The last question of the debate was "If MLK were alive today, why would he endorse you?" Edwards actually answered the question fairly well. He said that King's life was dedicated to eradicating poverty and that his campaign is as well. Obama said that King would endorse none of them because he would let people make their own choices. Clinton basically ignored the question and talked about how nice it is that there's an African-American, and woman, and a "son of the south" (zip-a-de-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay! My dad worked in a mill, so vote for me!) running together. While Obama came the closest, none gave the answer that I wanted to hear. If it were me, this is how I would have responded:
Walter Mondale, namesake of my Law School, former VP and one-time presidential candidate turned 80 today. I gotta say, he looks pretty good for his age. Too bad he's endorsing Clinton.
I'll leave the parsing of the percentages and all that to abler analysts. What interests me more than the results are the speeches that followed. I didn't stay up to watch all the speeches, I was mostly interested in Obama's and Huckabee's as the winners. But while waiting for those two I did catch Edwards' and Clinton's.
First was Clinton. She was predictably stilted and only barely stifled her rage at Obama and Edwards. It was a stale, safe, innocuous, boring speech. The highlight was seeing Madeline Albright over her right shoulder.
Next was Edwards. I suppose it's no surprise that Edwards did well in Iowa, what with his populist pro-union, anti-free trade, universal health care shtick. Not surprisingly, his speech hit the health care theme hard, complete with anecdotes of individual Americans who get sick and can't pay for treatment delivered in a charming, folksy drawl. It's his bread and butter. It's his theme, and he plays it well. He played it well as a trial lawyer and he still does well. The only problem is that he's a bit of a Johnny-one-note. My other stylistic criticism of Edwards he does the Bill Clinton thumb point. The idea is that pointing is rude and a subtle thumb emphasis is more friendly. But when Clinton was in office, the thumb point was satirized to death by late night comics ("Ah feel your pain"). Edwards doing it now is almost self-caricature.
Then came Huckabee. It was about what you would expect. A lot of folksy grandstanding, a lot of talk about our American (i.e. evangelical Christian) values, and a lot of drawling. He talked about how it's a "new day" in American politics---an throwback, I think, to Reagan's "morning in America." The funniest part of Huckabee's speech was the way a be-flanneled Chuck Norris hung, fawning, on his every word like, grinning giddily like a twelve-year-old girl at a Hannah Montana concert. And for some inexplicable reason, the unshaven Texas Ranger shifted from Huckabee's left shoulder to his right shoulder midway through the speech.
Obama's was the best speech of the night. I like to compare it with Edwards. Edwards' message really plays only to working class Democrats. That's not a bad thing, particularly in a Democratic primary in Iowa, but it is limiting. Obama's message has a more universal appeal. He eschewed the Clintonian anecdotes of individuals and went for a more abstract, but more unifying message hitting hard on hope, unity, and possibility. Such abstractions can be hard to visualize and can often make for a forgettable speech, But Obama countered that with his personal stage presence. I appreciate that Obama does the real finger point rather than the Clintonian thumb point. I don't think it's rude, I think it's forceful. He was by far the most energetic, the most passionate. This highlighted his youth and energy, which in turn complements his message of change over Clinton's of experience.
Speaking of Democratic youth, energy, and idealism, I couldn't help but see shades of Kennedy. Not only is Obama a young man who appeals to the unifying transcendence of American values, but he also has a young, attractive, graceful wife, and two cute kids to boot. And if you look at Michelle Obama, it's not hard to see a shadow of Jacki Kennedy, especially in her conservative, chin length, flipped coif---specially last night, wearing pearls and a conservative dress that would not have been too out of place in the 1960s. All she needed was a pill box hat, and a pair of gloves. It was to the point that I almost wonder if it's on purpose.
But after two Bushes and a Clinton, I guess we could use another Camelot after all.
Anyone see Romney's?
This is cross-posted at the Council of Fifty.
I don't like Romney's politics. I've said this before. I also think he has come across as insincere and seems to be more a conservative of convenience than of conviction. I also can't get his support for President Bush's foreign policies.
But I want Romney to win. As I've said before, I think it would be good for the Republican party. So what do I, a Democrat, care about having a good Republican party? Well, if my party screws it up, there's only one other alternative. Sure there's a lot of dissatisfaction right now with the current Administration, but Congressional Democrats aren't that far behind he President as targets of public bile. In this atmosphere, neither party is all that likely to win an overwhelming Congressional majority. And the fact is, no matter which party wins the White House in 2008, the other one will still have a significant amount of power. So even if there's a Democrat in the White House, the Republicans will still have plenty of influence. I want them to be shepherded by a party leadership that is moderate, pragmatic, reasonable.
An additional reason: it would make Clinton less likely to win the Democratic nomination. If, say, Huckabee gets it, he would stand no chance against Clinton, and the liberal party elite would have an easier time getting Clinton the victory because the concern about drawing moderate votes would be essentially irrelevant. If, on the other hand, the Republicans put up someone with a real fighting chance to beat Clinton, the Democrats would be more likely to give their nomination to a candidate less polarizing than the ex-First Lady, someone who could draw more moderate voters.
Romney is more Presidential, arguably more moderate, and most importantly, better funded than any of the other Republican candidates. He stands the best chance against Clinton. If he wins, the Democrats will be forced to think more carefully about nominating Clinton. A strong, moderate, electable Republican candidate gives more leverage to the Edwards and Obama campaigns to argue that Clinton, a elite northeastern liberal connected to perhaps the most hated Democrat (at least among conservatives) in recent memory, can't win in the heartland.
And on a personal level, it comes down to this: I don't want to vote for Clinton. And at this point, Romney is the most appealing Republican.
So what's my beef with Hillary? Well, for one, it goes back to before my mission when she first started trying to be a Senator from my home state (actually, I voted against her by absentee ballot). I had no problem in theory with the idea of Clinton running for, or even being my Senator. She's certainly capable. But the fact that she wasn't from New York and hadn't lived there, that she bought a house to barely met the residency requirements, and that it was obvious that she had chosen New York only because it was a liberal enough state to elect her to a calculated Presidential launching pad---well, that bothered me.
And to make matters worse, the state Party leadership didn't even make her run the primary. They just handed her the nomination. That bothered me even more. Now, the interesting thing about Hillary Clinton is that most of the other members of the New York Delegation in Congress can't stand her, personally. These are the people that have worked with her, not those that are paid to stump for her. But they won't say that in public because of the huge amount of influence that the Clintons hold over the party machine. I trust their opinions, and I don't trust her.
Another problem with Clinton: We've already had eight years of the second half of a Republican political dynasty. Do we really want the same thing coming from the Democrats? Do we really want the last few decades of our history to go Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton? Are there really so few qualified people that we have to keep picking from the same two families?
Of course, it would be cool to say that we had finally elected a woman to be President. But do we really want to show the world that the only way a woman can be elected in this country is if she schemes for three decades, finagles her party leadership, and rides on her husband's popularity? Wouldn't we rather have a woman who gets elected on her own merits?
So I want the Republicans to choose someone that will give the Obama and Edwards campaigns a better chance against Clinton. Nobody but Romney can do it: McCain is too old and crazy, Huckabee is too trailer park and Ted Nugent, Fred "Cadaver" Thompson (AKA dead man walking) can barely keep his eyes open during interveiws, Guiliani ought to be disqualified for running a campaign based entirely on 9-11, and Ron Paul, well, come on, it's Ron Paul. If he
wins, the Democrats might as well run Kucinich so we can distribute the crazy equally on both sides. It's got to be Romney.
On the other hand, if Clinton does win, that would make Bill the first First Gentleman, which might get him into the news more often and provide some excellent political comic relief.
Ways that Brian Doyle has changed my life (I went to three of his presentations when he visited campus last month and just finished Leaping):
a) I've come to realize the gift that artistic inspiration is. He quoted his dad as saying "the difference between writers and non-writers is that writers record the things they think about in the shower or lying in bed." Doyle also introduced half the essays he read with a story something like: "I met this incredible old woman/fireman/baseball playing kid, and they told me this story and after hearing it I shuffled off to my office as fast as I could to get it down." He talked about stories having expiration dates, that you have to write ideas down when they're fresh and interesting in your head. And how true this is. How many times have you had an interesting idea and put off doing anything with it? Soon enough either you forget it or it gets tired and brittle and is worth nothing. So I'm a little better at writing things down. And hope to get even better.
b) He made me a better Christian. Inspired me to be. First through this idea of stories: that people are stories and people want to share their stories and when you're humble enough to really listen you invite connection with people and I'm a huge believer that connection is our most urgent imperative in regards to our fellow man (John 15). Second through his example of a man unashamed of his faith and love. Moved to tears by stories of great sacrifice and of his children. Third, through what he taught me about grace. "God's love is more powerful than your sin hands-down, any day of the week." Why didn't I know this? Why have I been clinging to a wienie and watered-down version of grace hoping that this shadowy whisper of an omnipotent being's love was enough to pull me to salvation? Grace.
Leaping itself is pure gold. And think elven gold a la Tolkien--dancing and shimmering in inexplicable ways. It's a collection of essays on Christ and Grace and Children, but in the way of the best essayists, Doyle approaches inexpressible truths through the mundane and the ordinary. His essays feature summer camp and Bruce Springsteen and altar boys being boys. I regret that my review has taken such an ridiculous tone of the superlative because probably it undercuts my credibility, but the truth is that Doyle is a hilarious, human, and humble man with an eye for detail and a faith that shoots each essay through with a spark of the divine.
He manages it without dwelling in the dark and heavy. A tribute to the dead of 9-11 is somber and thought-provoking without being hopeless or vengeful.
I'd like to compare Leaping with Leap by Terry Tempest Williams for a minute. The two are both non-fiction, both attempts to defining and understanding faith and the way the glory of God works in a fallen world. Granted, their aims and audiences are different, but the fact remains: Williams' memoir is dark and jarring and the redemption at the end is a relief that just only justifies the vale of sorrow that readers have been pulled through. Doyle's short-ish pieces are grounded solidly in the muddy mundane (sorry, I've spent the afternoon reading Maxwell) but the heights of giddy redemption they reach are enough to pull you through dark winter finals weeks. Thoughtful and hilarious and human.
In my experience, when I feel closest to the divine I don't get sobby or somber, I want to dance and sing and laugh. That's the kind of divinity that Doyle captures. ke
Good:
It's a Wonderful Life. This one has real staying power, if nothing else. It's also sentimental enough for Christmas without being overly manipulative. It's a great story, the family and friends theme is both Christmas appropriate and timeless. It also has the interesting characteristic of an historical relic, with its strains of progressive (almost socialistic at times) politics.
Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown. This one is really more a TV special than a movie, but I think it has transcended its original context. Great music. The pacing is nicely done, moving back and forth at just the right speed between Snoopy's antics and the kids' story. Extra points for being the only one to quote the entire Christmas story from Luke. Linus is my hero.
Elf. The best recent one without question. Will Ferrel can be be tiresome in the wrong role, but
this one suits him. Also, this one has the best Santa Claus---a cantankerous old connoisseur of NYC pizza. Extra points for making fun of the puppet movies. Best line: "Don't listen to Leon, he's never been anywhere; he doesn't even have feet!" Runner-up: "Bye, Mr. Narwhal."
A Muppet Christmas Carol. Christmas Carol adaptations could really be a separate category. Really, the only way to see it is on the stage. On screen, this one is my favorite.
Home Alone. Great characters. Physical comedy. A great soundtrack. An old man beating robbers with a shovel. What's not to like?
Scrooged. I like this overlooked Bill Murray performance. It doesn't have the festive-ness or the fun of the muppets, but it stays true enough to the story to be recognizable and plausible, while at the same time varying from it enough to avoid being nothing more than a remake of the George C. Scott version.
The Snowman. I'm not crazy about the altar-boy vocals during the flying scene. But telling the entire story sans words and keeping it engaging takes skill.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas. No, I'm not talking about that abomination with Jim Carey. The original is a classic. Who would have thought Boris Karloff would star in a Christmas film?
Mediocre:
All the stop-animation puppet films. Okay, I know these are pretty much a holiday staple. But they're so overrated. If you sit down and watch them without the nostalgia, you realize they're really not all that good. One exception: The Year Without a Santa Clause gets extra points for the heat miser and cold miser routines, and Yukon Cornelius is the best character this genre ever produced. Also, extra points for having a yeti as a main character.
Bad:
The Christmas Story. Another staple, but I'm going iconoclast with this. Maybe this movie isn't completely no good, but it is hugely overrated. It's so deep in nostalgia that it can't even see the plot. It has some funny moments, no doubt. But it certainly doesn't deserve the 24-hour
Christmas Eve marathon it sometimes gets. Minus extra points for inspiring The Wonder Years.
Santa Claus: The Movie. This is a 1985 gem starring Dudley Moore, the 80s' favorite low-budget excuse for Paul McCartney. It gets points for doing a pretty decent job with explaining the origins of Santa and for doing a' decent visualization of the North Pole. It loses points for starring John Lithgow and having a very dated sound to the music.
Any sequel to any Christmas movie. Due to the electromagnetic force generated by the earth's rotation and tilt, the law of sequels (explained here) is several magnitudes stronger around the winter solstice.
Just Plain Ugly:
George and the Christmas Star. In this heartwarming animated tale, the title character decides his tree needs a start and decides to go on a space journey to get one. This is the worst Christmas movie ever produced. And probably rivals "Plan 9 from Outer Space" for the title of worst movie ever. Minus 10 for using Paul Anka to write the music.
Last week the NYT published an editorial by Adam
Freedman about the Second Amendment case we're waiting for the Court to hear. Freedman blogs at Party of the First Part about the ongoing battle between legalese and plain English. I like Freedman. I identify with his obsessive disdain for legalese and love of plain Anglo-Saxon syntax. Freedman's editorial does a good job of summing up the textual wrangle in way that is precise, thorough, concise, and accessible. Well done.
I've been invited to blog over at The Council of Fifty, a new blog about politics and Mormons (the name was my idea).
The original Council of Fifty was organized by Joseph Smith just prior to his death. The idea was that it would be a sort of political wing of God's Kingdom, while the church was the spiritual wing. The wikipedia article on it is pretty good. Two articles published in BYU Studies in 1980 give a more complete historical treatment. The first, by Michael Quinn, lays out the basic chronology and purposes. The second, by Andrew Ehat, attempts to answer some of the questions that Quinn raised and gets more into the theological background and purposes of the council.
This Council of Fifty is about discussing politics as it relates to Mormonism. My first post is about why the Democrats should be more open to running pro-lifers, especially for the Presidency. Here's a summary of my line of thought:
A less militantly pro-choice Democratic party would diffuse the potency of the abortion card. This would be good for the Democratic party, good for Mormons, and good for the Republican party as well. It would be good for Democrats because they could expand their base. It would be good for Mormons because it could help bring balance to the one-sidedness of political affiliation among Mormons. This in turn may give Republicans more incentive to attract Mormons, or at least to stop tolerating the anti-Mormon rhetoric from the fundamentalist wing of the party.
Of course, this is all speculative. But that’s what makes it fun.
So, really this post comes down to a few observations and a conclusion: (1) the Democrats are trying to ride a wave of populist discontent with the Bush administration and its blunders, (2) populist movements are only successful if they represent what is popular, (3) a hard-line pro-choice stance is out of line with what is popular, and (4) a hard-line pro-choice stance is not crucial to the party’s most important goals and ideals, especially not in presidential politics. Therefore, it makes sense for the party to moderate bit more on the abortion issue.
Read the entire post here. Leave comments about the argument there, comments about other stuff here. I don't want to poach the discussion.
I was introduced to the comedian Steven Wright by Jared Gillins a while ago. I got hooked on his CD “I Have a Pony.” It was funny and definitely worth listening too.
For Christmas my sister and brother-in-law got me Wright’s new CD “I Still Have a Pony.” I found it as enjoyable as the original, and recommend it to anyone looking for quality comedy. It is in his usual deadpan style with crazy one liners and bizarre stories. Here are some key quotes:
When I was a little kid I wished the first word I ever said was the word quote so right before I died I could say unquote.
You know the earth is bipolar.
You ever notice when a house burns down the only thing left standing is the fireplace and the chimney? How’s that for evidence?
What did Jesus ever do for Santa Claus on his birthday?
My nephew has HDADD - High Definition Attention Deficit Disorder. He can barely pay attention but when he does it’s unbelievably clear.
So I’ve been emailing my answering machine which has been sending faxes to my cellular subconscious which has call waiting so in case I’m thinking about something else I can get back to myself later.
…my mind is skipping around and I’m wondering how my life would have been different had I been born one day earlier and then I’m thinking maybe it wouldn’t have been different other than I would have asked that question yesterday.
I’m addicted to placebos. I could quit but it wouldn’t matter.
A friend of mine has a trophy wife but apparently it wasn’t first place.
So I’m driving down the highway and there’s a guy hitchhiking, he’s holding a sign that says heaven. So I hit him.
I am going to Doha Qatar for Christmas to visit my parents. I fly back on Saturday December 29, with a fairly long layover in London. I land in Heathrow at 6:30am and take off at 5:00 that night. I have been to London before on a layover, and saw Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.
So my question to everyone who has been to London: what should I do with the little bit of time I have? I would like to make it back to the airport with two hours to spare.
Here's an interesting comparison and contrast. Three speeches addressed to similar concerns about how a candidate's religion will color his reception in the national political arena.
The first was given by Reed Smoot (Utahn Senator, LDS Apostle, and forerunner of Wilford Brimley, famous walrus impersonator) on the floor of the Senate in 1907. Several Senators had opposed Smoot sitting in the Senate charging that his religious obligations disqualified him from performing his civic obligations in the Senate. The speech is reprinted, with some background and commentary, in the Spring 2007 Issue of Utah Historical Quarterly (Click here for online version). The article starts on page 100, and the speech on 105.
The second is the famous JFK Speech given in 1960 to convince protestant ministers that his religious obligations would not interfere with his civic obligations as president. You can read, listen to, or watch the speech at NPR.
The third is the Romney speech given Wednesday to convince GOP voters in Iowa that his membership in the Mormon church does not disqualify him from being a good Republican candidate for President. I put up video and links to text and audio here on this blog the other day.
This being the middle of the finals cram, I'm not going to post an extensive exposition of my thoughts. But I find the similarities and differences interesting. What do the readers think?
There's been considerable hype about Romney's speech yesterday and over whether it was successful. The speech, entitled with a not-so-clever pun, "Faith in America," was billed as the "JFK Speech" where Romney would finally address his religion the way JFK did in the 60s by reassuring WASPS that he wouldn't turn America into a Papal State. But there are differences between JFK and Romney and their respective situations that make the comparison a bit misleading.
First, Kennedy and Romney are addressing different audiences. Kennedy gave his speech weeks before the general election and was speaking to America as a whole.
Romney's audience is a bit more complicated. His speech was given weeks before the primaries begin, and is addressed to GOP voters---specifically, GOP voters in Iowa. On the other hand, it was also nationally televised and predictably pounced on by the national punditry, so he had a bigger indirect audience.
Secondly, Kennedy and Romney are addressing different concerns. This is partially a function of the first difference. With Kennedy the fear was that he would answer to the Pope. This was relatively easy to disarm. He simply disavowed that he would make Rome a decision-maker. With Romney also, some fear that he will answer to Salt Lake, but for most, there is also the more amorphous fear is that he is not truly Christian, and that he is part of a weird cult. This seems to matter to GOP voters in Iowa (hence, Huckabee's success). This is harder to disarm. He could just disavow Mormonism, but that's not really an option if he has any devotion or integrity. So he has to either (1) make Mormonism acceptable to the Christian conservatives in the heartland, or (2) convince them that Mormonism doesn't matter.
To evaluate whether Romney was successful, we need to have answer three questions:
"They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers - I will be true to them and to my beliefs.
Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world."
"Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree."
"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution."
"And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims."
"These American values, this great moral heritage, is shared and lived in my religion as it is in yours. I was taught in my home to honor God and love my neighbor. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King. I saw my parents provide compassionate care to others, in personal ways to people nearby, and in just as consequential ways in leading national volunteer movements. I am moved by the Lord's words: 'For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me...'"
Here's the video that Romney's campaign put up on his website.
George Herbert Walker Bush gives an introduction. Romney starts talking around 2:55. It's about 20 min.
Here's the text. There's also a link to audio on the same page. The NPR audio is way better quality than the audio on the video.
About two weeks ago, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide District of Columbia v. Heller. Heller is a Second Amendment challenge to D.C.'s gun law, which prohibits handguns within the district (with an exception for retired police officers) and requires that long guns be kept either secured with a trigger lock or dissembled.
This challenge to the 32-year old D.C. gun law was initially rejected by the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia in 2004. In March of last year, however, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the District Court's decision. See Parker v. District of Columbia. That it is now before the Supreme Court is significant because the Court has addressed the Second Amendment head-on only once---and that was almost 7 decades ago.
In Miller v. U.S., a prohibition-era case, a bootlegger was prosecuted for taking an unregistered sawed-off double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun across state lines, which was a violation of federal law. The bootlegger, Miller, argued that the federal law was an unconstitutional restriction of his right to keep and bear arms. The Supreme Court rejected Miller's Second Amendment challenge, holding that he had failed to prove that his "possession or use" of a sawed-off double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun had "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia."
The Miller court did not hold that one has to be a member of a state militia to lay claim on the Second Amendment. However, it did say that that the "possession or use" of a firearm has to be reasonably related to the militia in order to be protected by the Second Amendment. Under Miller, the question is whether the possession or use of handguns in the District of Columbia is in some way related to a well-regulated militia.
Curiously, though, the D.C. Circuit refused to approach the issue under the Miller holding. Instead, it asked whether the Amendment protects the individual right to have guns, or the collective right to bear arms. This individual vs. collective question had been a point of controversy among law professors and academics, and the historical and linguistic evidence is pretty evenly stacked on either hand. But the odd thing is that Judge Silberman and my old Stake President could have avoided taking sides in the controversy if they would have just asked the question presented under Miller.
Why did they do this? They could have just said that owning handguns in D.C. is related to the militia and ended it there. Instead, they spent the time and effort to take sides in the whole individual/collective debate. Why? My best guess is that it is ideologically driven (though probably completely sincere). The D.C. Circuit is a conservative court and it is popular among conservatives to support gun rights. See, for example, Mitt Romney's recently having joined the NRA become a life-long hunter. The current ideologically orthodox position for conservatives seems to be the individual rights position. In 2001, for example, John Ashcroft wrote a memorandum changing the official position of the department of Justice from the collective rights to the individual rights view. The memo is appended to the government's brief in Haney v. U.S..
I think it was wrong for the D.C. Circuit to address the question the way it did rather than stick with the Miller precedent. But what I think is irrelevant, now, because the case is before Johnny and the Supremes and they don't have the same obligation to respect precedent that lower courts have. Not much is known about the individual Justices' views on the Second Amendment, but the speculation is that this relatively conservative Court will approve what the D.C. Circuit did. So it will be interesting to see how it all goes.
In case anyone read the hate crimes posts and wasn't all that familiar with Nat Turner, here's a pretty decent documentary bit that explains part of his slave rebellion. The segment also details some of the most pernicious, insidious, disgusting, and just plain evil misuse of the scriptures that corrupted southern Christianity has ever produced.
I'm reminded that J. Golden Kimball once quipped, while serving as President of the southern states mission, that "the only way to redeem the south is burn it all up and baptize for the dead."
