The President Talks Tough | + most of us hear just part of the story

Whatever you think President Obama said to the Congressional Black Caucus last weekend, don't believe it until you see it in context.

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When people...press, pundits, political opponents...take words out of context, how is that not lying?

Jon Stewart | Tax Cheats + Grannies

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Plato | Benefactors of One Another

You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.

— Plato, The Republic, Book VII

Expecting More from Our Leaders

As we were finishing our elections last week, a UK court was busy voiding the election last May of a Mr. Phil Woolas. 

Mr. Woolas' error was simple to comprehend: He knowingly made false statements about his opponent in the election in violation of election law which makes it an offense "to publish 'any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate's personal character or conduct' to prevent them being elected - unless they believed it was true and had "reasonable grounds" to do so."

The court found:

Having considered the evidence which was adduced in court we are sure that these statements were untrue. We are also sure that the respondent had no reasonable grounds for believing them to be true and did not believe them to be true.

Mr. Woolas was ordered to pay £5,000 and costs to his opponent. 

He faces a three-year parliamentary ban.

He was suspended by his party, a deputy leader saying: "It is not part of Labour politics to try to win elections by saying things that are not true."

A party deputy from the opposition said: "Mr Woolas has come severely unstuck and I am very pleased for politics and the rule of law that the judges have said so clearly that this was unacceptable."

What do you call it when we tell our children not to lie but teach them the opposite by tolerating — even celebrating — people in politics and business who gain an advantage by lying?

What could possibly prevent us from embracing in practice the standards we declare with our words?

Where Are The Christians?

Question: Am I a Christian citizen if I don't insist my fellow citizens be treated as I want to be treated?

Schools confront gay suicide surge, minus specifics

www.salon.com

School officials choose to confront "bullying" without addressing the issue of homophobia

Passionate But Not Careful

The other day a friend of a friend informed me matter-of-factly:

The fact is most of The presidents cabinet has no clue how to fix the problems they are worsening. Interesting fact, only 8% of the presidents cabinet members were previously employed in the private sector. That is the lowest amount of any president ever. Eisenhower had 57%, Reagan had 53%, and W Bush had 51%.

Setting aside issues of who does what in government, this 8% of cabinet members previously employed in the private sector struck me as just the sort of thing that's easy to check these days.

8% of 20 first-term cabinet members comes to just 1.6 individuals this person claims were previously employed in the private sector.

Susan Rice and the recently-resigned Peter Orszag were both consultants for McKinsey & Company — so we're already at 10%.

Something I Worry About

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally, we shall insist on seeing everything—God and our friends and ourselves included—as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p 118

Tim Russert

Mr. Russert was gifted and a gift to us all. I'm awfully glad he was here, if only for a moment...

what's not to like?

are Republican voters as stupid as Tom Cole thinks?

Are Republican voters as stupid as Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole thinks?

I don't believe so. I hope not.

It could have been any of a number of elected officials but it happened to be Congressman Cole I heard last weekend saying, "We are the party of small government, low taxes and a strong defense."

Really? He believes his constituents will buy that? He is relatively new to the Congress but I see he attended . . . well, look for yourself:

A former college instructor in history and politics, Cole holds a B.A. from Grinnell College, an M.A. from Yale University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. Cole has been a Thomas Watson Fellow and a Fulbright Fellow at the University of London. He currently serves on the national Board of the Fulbright Association. He also serves on the board of the Aspen Institute.

So if he's not the dumb one, who does he think is?

I doubt Congressman Cole or anyone else would consciously settle for an ineffective government solely on the basis of it's runty size.

I doubt anyone would seriously contend that taxes too low to contribute to the common good were better than higher but measureably more beneficial taxes — any more than they would insist on only the cheapest footware and brag that they are "the family of worthless shoes."

Insisting "We are the party of strong defense" is a triumphalist jingo devoid of meaningful metrics. Everyone knows that . . . now.

I should think Congressman Cole would wish to be in the party of wildly efficient government, intelligently scaled taxation and universally effective foreign policy. I would be willing to wager a small amount that behind closed doors he would say that, or something like it, is precisely what he wants.

But not in public. Because he apparently thinks Republican voters are stupid . . . bless their hearts.

happy new year

History is the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience. Self-knowledge is the indispensable prelude to self-control, for the nation as well as for the individual, and history should forever remind us of the limits of our passing perspectives. It should strengthen us to resist the pressure to convert momentary impulses into moral absolutes. It should lead us to acknowledge our profound and chastening frailty as human beings — to a recognition of the fact, so often and so sadly displayed, that the future outwits all our certitudes and that the possibilities of the future are more various than the human intellect is designed to conceive.
— ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER Jr. in the New York Times, January 1, 2007