The Bosque Boys

Since 9/11 Tony Blair has been Aaron to George Bush's Moses. Mr. Blair has been "spot on" in his eloquent defense of Western values, and of our military response to militant Islam. (If I were to have a son now I might give him the middle name of Blair.) British domestic policy concerns me, but my hat is off to the Prime Minister. With his retirement drawing nearer, who will fill the role of Aaron now?

John Howard, prime minister of Australia looks good to me. Here is his official website. The Australian has a report on his recent speech blasting Aussie leftists. Transcript here. I especially like these bits.

It’s important on an occasion like this [anniversary of the founding of a conservative magazine] we remember not just the big ideological struggles but also the individuals who took up the cause of cultural freedom and the defence of liberal democracy against its enemies.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism, it became all too easy to pretend that the outcome of the Cold War was an inevitable result of large-scale, impersonal forces that ultimately left totalitarianism exhausted and democratic capitalism triumphant. Nothing could be further from the truth. This was a struggle fought by individuals on behalf of the individual spirit.

And Quadrant holds an honoured place in Australian history for the stance it took for democratic freedom and a pluralist society and in opposition to collectivist ideologies that so many saw as the inevitable wave of the future.

It’s worth recalling just a few of the philo-communism that was once quite common in Australia in the 1950’s and 60’s. For example, Manning Clark’s book Meeting Soviet Man where he likened the ideals of Vladimir Lenin to those of Jesus Christ. John Burton, the former head of the External Affairs Department, arguing that Mao’s China provided a model for the ‘transformation’ of Australia. All those who did not simply oppose Australia’s commitment in Vietnam, but who actively supported the other side and fed the delusion that Ho Chi Minh was some sort of Jeffersonian Democrat intent on spreading liberty in Asia.

To quote George Orwell: ‘One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool’. There is a view that the pro-communist left in Australia in decades past was no more than a bunch of naïve idealists, rather than what they were – ideological barrackers for regimes of oppression opposed to Australia and its interests.

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Literally feeling under the weather. Respiratory something. Very tired.

Cannot get over Foley. It gets worser and worser. Don't feel like spinning or fighting. Demoralized. Cannot shake the feeling that this was an open secret. Would be surprised if 1,000 people did not know about this and did nothing.

General Broulard to Colonel Dax: "...you're a disappointment to me. You've spoiled the keenness of your mind by wallowing in sentimentality. You really did want to save those men.... You are an idealist - and I pity you as I would the village idiot."

--Paths of Glory

Life goes on. Committees. Classes. Forums. Students. Working on an extended thought piece unpacking some other things. Will return with complete sentences. Clouds will lift. Will be back with fresh perspective.

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Rachel Swarns has a superb article in the New York Times about the slow and tentative growth of friendship between a black pastor and a Hispanic pastor in Willachoochee, Georgia. Hispanic immigration is changing the racial dynamics of the South, and blacks and Hispanics often deride each other from across this new racial divide. In a poor and working class small town, two Christian ministers are becoming friends, and perhaps may be able to take their congregations on the same journey. Read the whole article. Hat tip Religion Headlines.

Christianity's record on race relations is not pure. Antebellum Southern Christians justified slavery, and later segregation. But, we should remember that groups of British and American evangelicals led the fight to end slavery, and that some white clergy and churches cooperated with black ministers and churches in the Civil Rights Movement.

I've written before on the apocalyptic and messianic character of Shia Islam. It has become well-known that Iran's current president sees himself and Iran as a part of the divine plan to end this stage of the world and usher in the age of the Mahdi. Now, news from the Timesonline that in Iraq, Shiites are being told that U.S. actions are a desperate attempt to prevent the Mahdi's return.

Hojatoleslam al-Sadr claims that his militia is preparing for the day when the Mahdi, the last direct descendent of the revered Shia figure Ali, reappears. Shia believe that the Mahdi, who disappeared in 868, will bring justice to Earth.

At a prayer service in the central Iraqi city of Kufa on September 15, the cleric told a crowd of thousands that the Americans were collecting a dossier on the Mahdi to prevent his return. “Did you ever ask yourself about why all of this, the bloodshed and the prisons? Why are the brothers fighting each other for a political game planned by the Americans? This all happened because they (the Americans) are waiting for the Mahdi. This planning started ten years ago. They have a big file for Imam Mahdi and they just need his picture to complete it.”

Hojatoleslam al-Sadr and his advisers are convinced that the Americans want to destroy Islam and stop the Mahdi. “The Americans are trying to hijack Islamic movements. They think that these are serving the Mahdi’s interests. Whatever they did in Afghanistan and Iraq are all attempts to hijack the Mahdi’s return.”

Hat tip Jihadwatch.

Most of the national attention on next month's elections has been focused on Congress. In the day-to-day of governance, and in the nuts-and-bolts of party strength, we should not overlook the state races for governor. The Iowa campaign seems to be in a dead-heat between Chet Culver (D), the Secretary of State, and Jim Nussle (R), an eight-term Congressman. Thomas Beaumont, writing for the Des Moines Register, has a good article today on the race.

One of the points of disagreement concerns abortion: Culver presents himself as pro "abortion rights," while Nussle promises to sign a bill making all abortions, except to save the life of the mother, illegal. Culver is trying to tie Nussle to President Bush, and Nussle is portraying Culver as a big-spender.

Iraq is taking longer and is more complicated than many Americans thought it would. The "War on Terror" has had its victories (removing the Taliban) and its setbacks (public revelation of the financial investigations). We perhaps are beginning to see the enemy clearly: changing our language from "War on Terror" to "War against Islamic Fascism." But this change in language and perception has been halting and contested. On any given day, things seem like a mess.

Here's a bit of historical perspective: things are always in a mess. Joseph Ellis, in his Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, is describing John Adams' retirement struggle to come to terms with his legacy and the public perception thereof. Popular imagination has fastened on an inspired Jefferson and the Declaration, and the providentially ordained march to American Freedom. Adams, the day-in-day-out fighter for Independency is being forgotten, he fears.

As Adams remembered it, on the other hand, "all the great critical questions about men and measures from 1774 to 1778" were desperately contested and highly problematic occasions, usually "decided by the vote of a single state, and that vote was often decided by a single individual." Nothing was clear, inevitable, or even comprehensible to the soldiers in the field at Saratoga or the statesmen in the corridors at Philadelphia: "It was patched and piebald policy then, as it is now, ever was, and ever will be, world without end." The real drama of the American Revolution, which was perfectly in accord with Adams's memory as well as with the turbulent conditions of his own soul, was its inherent messiness. This meant recovering the exciting but terrifying sense that all the major players had at the time--namely, that they were making it up as they went along, improvising on the edge of catastrophe.

In the midst of every great endeavor, things usually look like they are a mess and that disaster is near. Only in retrospect, once the goal is accomplished, and historical reflection shapes a narrative, can the road to victory (or defeat) be seen clearly.

Psssst. Don't tell the studio execs, but there actually are some TV shows that reflect values. Rebecca Cusey lists and describes them on National Review.

From the Washington Post. Some "Third World" Anglican bishops are calling for the U. S. Episcopal church (the Anglican church in the United States) to go ahead and split. Conservatives in the US, upset over the official Episcopal actions regarding same-sex practice (including consecration of a gay bishop) have already begun a process of schism.

Here are the paragraphs relevant to my point:

A suggestion by African, Asian and Latin American Anglican bishops that the Episcopal Church be turned into two churches because of disputes over gay issues would lead to chaos, the head of the U.S. church said on Thursday.

Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the 2.4-million-member Episcopal Church, said a communique issued on September 22 from Kigali, Rwanda, by conservative bishops of a group known as the Global South "raises profound questions about the nature of the church, its ordering and its oversight."

Bishops at the meeting in the Rwandan capital suggested that it was time for Episcopalians upset with the 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican Church history should form their own church.

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In spite of the times my devotion has been abused, I don't know how to quit baseball. In honor of the end of another season, Powerline has this great post on Frank Robinson.

I still am disgruntled by MLBs inability to make the sport safe from performance-enhancing drug abuse. I would think that by now the players themselves would want ironclad procedures that would protect them from suspicions such as those now hanging over Roger Clemens as he takes his exit bows.

But, I still love the game. At the risk of self-indulgence I repeat a post from earlier in the season. (With extra quotes thrown in.)

People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn into the driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. 'Of course we won't mind if you have a look around,' you'll say. 'It's only twenty dollars per person.' They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it; for it is money they have, and peace they lack. They'll walk up to the bleachers and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they had dipped themselves in magic waters; the memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers; it has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and raised again. Baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again. Oh, people will come Ray. People will most definitely come. From FIELD OF DREAMS

Some of my earliest memories from childhood are of lying in my bed early on twilight summer evenings with the windows open, listening to Harry Carey calling Cardinal’s games over my grandfather’s radio in his bedroom fifty yards north of mine. (We both went early to bed, I because my mom believed children needed their sleep, he because he believed a day had been half wasted if the cows had not been milked by daylight. His radio was turned up loud because he was half deaf as an old man.) I’m not sure I really remember the first time I attended a baseball game I was so young. We went to St. Louis and saw the Cardinals; we went to Kansas City and saw the Athletics. In the car, on the tractor, at home, baseball on the radio has been as much a sound of spring and summer and fall for me as spring frogs and cicadas.
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Thinking Out Loud:

1. The majority of college-educated white Americans vote Republican (although a slimmer majority of Americans with graduate degrees vote Democrat); the vast majority of evangelical whites in this country vote Republican.

In a nutshell: Well-educated (presumably intelligent) God-fearing white America votes Republican.

What explains these numbers?

The Republican Party has become the party of common sense. We have approximately 12 million undocumented (illegal) immigrants in our country. We should do something to stop that. Common Sense. Terrorists are trying to kill us. We should try to kill them first. We should treat them roughly and follow them around and listen to what they are saying on their cell phones. Common Sense. America is a good place. That is why so many people are trying to come here. Common Sense. Men should marry women. Common sense. Lower taxes and smaller government good; an intrusive and bloated federal government that sees our collective pocketbook as a blank check is bad. Common Sense. Peace through strength. Common Sense. Guns don't kill people; people kill people. Common Sense. Put criminals in jail, and they will commit fewer crimes. Common Sense. And I could go on.

Moreover, the rhetoric of the Republican Party acknowledges the God that the majority worships and honors expressions of love for the nation, which a majority still believe to be the "last best hope for mankind." During the generation following the Civil War, the Republican Party chastised the Democrats: "Not every Democrat was a traitor, but every traitor was a Democrat." Today, it seems as if not all Democrats are America-haters, but all America-haters are Democrats. It is easy to make the case in the heartland that the Republican Party is for God and country (and the other guys are not so sure).

2. Even with the bloody ugly mess that is Iraq, most college-educated, white evangelicals want to support President Bush. Even with the bloody ugly mess that is the federal budget and current bloated bureaucracy, most college-educated, white evangelicals want to vote Republican this November.

Coming into this weekend, you could start to smell another Republican surprise. The polls were turning around (and the polls never accurately measure Republican strength--so you can always add a few points to what ever Zogby says the GOP total is likely to be). The President was moving up. The generic "Republican Congress" was moving up. Individual races were looking much better.

Why? Americans want to vote Republican despite Republican failures. Americans continue to trust Republicans. Yeah, they make mistakes, but at least they see the world in a realistic way (according to our perspective). George Bush is a guy like me.

3. Then we get Foley. A case of perversion and arrogance. I had never heard of Mark Foley before Friday night, but he was an important person in the GOP hierarchy. And he was also a sexual (homosexual) predator whom the GOP leadership allowed to roam the halls of Congress and solicit underage pages unchecked. Once again, the party of morality faces a moral crisis.

If we were in a mood last week to forgive Republicans for their faults (if only because the alternative was so repulsive), we were shockingly reminded this weekend that the GOP is sick. Washington is sick. Congress is sick. The system is sick. You can feel Republicans losing steam even as we speak.