a last word on November 3, 2008

posting via iPhone tonight (please pardon any thumbing mistakes) from Pennsylvania where Susan and I are enjoying a few days with her father, Dale.

Today, Dale -- who, at 89, recalls vividly what happened when Americans were willing to employ the strength of our elected government for the common good in another time of economic and political crisis -- put it as clearly as anyone could. "If people like what George Bush has done the last eight years, they should vote for John McCain. If they don't like the last eight years, Obama is their man."

I find no fault in that summary. Senator McCain isn't President Bush but I think he's too close for comfort. Beyond that, I hardly know who he is. Certainly not the Senator who had my grudging respect in the 90s. Senator McCain surrendered significant ground to the Bush Administration on the constitutional doctrine of habeas corpus and historic legal prohibitions prohibiting torture. Senator McCain's lack of curiosity and discernment about economics -- especially after his involvement in the costly Keating financial scandal is disheartening. And then there's the selection of Governor Palin, a choice in which I find no upside.

I don't wish to demonize Senator McCain; I just don't think he's the right person to lead our government.

I like Senator Obama on foreign affairs. I like him on the Constitution, on health care, on tax policy, on the economy (though I feel confident we're in for tough sledding in the economy no matter what). In short, I'm more confident in Senator Obama's worldview than Senator McCain's. Perfect? Of course not. But, as far as I'm concerned, much better.

That's why I voted for Senator Obama in early balloting. It's why Dale will vote for Senator Obama at his polling place tomorrow.

Don't be afraid. This way to the future.

Dang! The Bad News on Governor Palin Piles Up

In a kind of conservative is as conservative does moment of truth, my friend Len more or less threw up his hands when he sent the link about Governor Palin billing her children's airfare to the State of Alaska.

Now this from from The Wasilla Project.



Governor Palin was thoroughly vetted as a potential candidate? Honestly? Sorry, Senator McCain, but all this is on you.

Love + the Single-Issue Vote

If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister, we are liars. For if we do not love a fellow believer, whom we have seen, we cannot love God, whom we have not seen. And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love one another. — 1John 4:20-21 TNIV

I know a man who, when he was 80, had a little sick fun at the expense of the interim pastor at his rural Christian and Missionary Alliance church. Meeting the younger man at the door of the sanctuary, he engaged him in a conversation about what happens to infants who die. The pastor assured him that God in his goodness embraces infants who are gone too soon. “So, then,” said the old fellow, “I guess you’d have to say the abortionists are some of the better evangelists,” and left the young man sputtering.

It’s fair to say that old gentleman was feeling his oats when he ambushed his young preacher that day. It’s also fair to say he was feeling a little fed up with people who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.

I have friends who reject most everything John McCain has said and done in this century, but who feel he is nevertheless the only choice for president because his stance on abortion sounds like theirs.

I don’t think it is.

I think, sadly, that Senator McCain and his party today are like the son Jesus talked about who told his father he would go out into the vineyard and work, and then didn’t. And I think in these days Senator Obama and his party are like that man’s brother, who told their father he would not go into the vineyard, but then did go after all.

Consider this fractured (but loving) take on 1 John 4:20-21

If we say we love the unborn yet hate the born, we are liars. For if we do not love a living child, whom we have seen, we cannot love an unborn child, whom we have not seen. And God has given us this command: Those who love the unborn must also love the born.

I don’t trivialize abortion. I feel sick about all that abortion signifies in my culture. But I don’t trust people who claim they love the unborn while showering contempt on the born.

And then there's this from Ecclesiastes:

A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man—even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity. Do not all go to the same place? — Ecclesiastes 6.3-6 TNIV

In a pinch, I come down on the side of the God of mercy, whom my old mentor, his young preacher and I all agree embraces infants who are gone too soon. To the rest of us:

If you say you love the unborn, fund full health care for the born.

If you say you love the unborn, fund education from early childhood through college or trade school for the born.

If you say you love the unborn, see to it that any parent willing to work full time can earn a living wage.

If you say you love the unborn, make the world a much better place for the born.

If you say you love the unborn, prove it by loving the born.

The Companies He Keeps | John McCain + Energy

change change change | gas tax

really? come on Senator McCain

Senate Bill S.22, sponsored by Senator Jim Webb (D, VA)

Senator McCain Said What?

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s statement on Wednesday that he was uncertain whether waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique, was torture drew a sharp rebuke yesterday from Senator John McCain, who said that his failure to call it torture reflected his inexperience.

“All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today,” Mr. McCain, who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, said in a telephone interview.

Of presidential candidates like Mr. Giuliani, who say that they are unsure whether waterboarding is torture, Mr. McCain said: “They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”
— The New York TimesOctober 26, 2007


Oddly, on February 13, 2008, Senator McCain voted against a ban on waterboarding. Senator McCain, you leave me shaking my head. Who are you?

oh, no you can't | like hope, but different

[thanks JP]

narrowing the religion gap

The February 18 New York Times Magazine includes this from Gary Rosen:

Try a quick political thought experiment. First, form a mental picture of the Democratic front-runners for president — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now do the same for the leading Republican contenders — John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Next (and this is the key step), imagine each of them in church, sitting in a pew, head bowed, or better still, at the pulpit, delivering a homily or leading the congregation in worship.

Strange, no? It’s not hard to envision Clinton and Obama among the faithful. She is a lifelong Methodist and self-described “praying person,” and he belongs to a church where some years ago he found himself (in his own words) “kneeling beneath that cross” in submission “to His will.” Both slip easily into the earnest, humble-of-the-earth mode of liberal God talk.

But McCain and Giuliani? You somehow imagine them fidgeting during the hymns and checking their watches. The senator is an Episcopalian, the former mayor a Catholic, but neither man, you have to think, would be caught dead in a Bible-study group or could possibly declare, à la George W. Bush, that his favorite philosopher is “Christ, because he changed my heart.” In the piety primary, the Democrats win hands down.

It's a twist on America's political road that would have been difficult to imagine at the turn of the century. Political conservatives may now find themselves splitting hairs about the private faith of their candidates as supporters of John Kerry and Al Gore did so recently.

Is it too much to hope for a broader, more substantive, less doctrinaire and demonizing conversation about governance than we've had in recent election cycles?