Whited Sepulchre (Matthew 23:27)

Ted Haggard, evangelical pastor of a 14,000 person megachurch, leader of an association of 30 million evangelicals, right-hand man of Christian political boss James Dobson, confidant of Karl Rove and President George Bush, and staunch enemy of gay marriage, has admitted days before the election that he bought crystal meth and received a massage from a gay prostitute, but denies the prostitute's claim that the pair had regular sex every month for three years. The National Association of Evangelicals has accepted Haggard's resignation with "regret" for his "indiscretions." I would be curious to know what Pastor Ted's annual income was as a preacher of the Word, and what will happen to his ill-gotten gains now that he is exposed not merely as a bigot, but as a hypocritical bigot.

Theocracy

Andrew Sullivan quotes C.S. Lewis on the danger of mixing religion and politics.

Epic Achievement

Robert Fagles - Report - New York Times

Robert Fagles follows his celebrated translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey with a new translation of the Aeneid, becoming in the process one of the few people to translate all three epics. Remarkably, Fagles, who earned his doctorate in English literature, taught himself Greek and Latin. The Times' review has an interesting discussion of the subtle distinctions that Fagles attempted to capture between the poem's "public" voice and the private voice expressiong Aeneas' personal anguish.

Bitter Pill

Where We Went Wrong - washingtonpost.com

Dick Armey, of all people, on the current state of the Republican Party:

Now spending is out of control. Rather than rolling back government, we have a new $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription drug benefit, and non-defense discretionary spending is growing twice as fast as it had in the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Social Security is collapsing while rogue nations are going nuclear and the Middle East is more combustible than ever. Yet Republican lawmakers have taken up such issues as flag burning, Terri Schiavo and same-sex marriage.

Armey is also probably right that if the Democrats win control of Congress in the coming election, they need to concentrate on sound policy that is good for the country rather than simply settling scores with the Republicans. Where Armey is wrong is in the implication that doing so is synonymous with surrendering to the Republican agenda of 1994.

The Letter Killeth, But the Spirit Giveth Life

In general, I like Andrew Sullivan, even if I suspect that there are many issues over which we disagree. I do not read Hugh Hewitt much, but what I have read, I do not like. I do not think that my reaction is based simply on my feelings about their respective politics, although I am sure that is part of it.

Reading Hewitt's interview of Sullivan, I found Hewitt's single-minded attack on Sullivan tendentious. Hewitt's tactic is basically to assert a superior knowledge of Constitutional Law and Catholic theology and then attempt to trip Sullivan on the details. Cross examination may be an effective means of determining credibility in the courtroom, but it does not make for a very pleasant or enlightening book interview. As a rule, when I watch a book interview, I am more interested in substantive information about the book than I am in skewering the author. I am willing to give the author enough of the benefit of the doubt so that I can learn something about his book. I have not yet read Sullivan's book, but the impression I get from his blog, in contrast to Hewitt's, is that he is more interested in a free spirit of inquiry than in playing the role of the grand inquisitor. Humility is a becoming trait, but it appears to be one in which Mr. Hewitt is singularly lacking.

A Question

Are Republicans Republicans because they hate Bill Clinton, or do they hate Bill Clinton because they are Republicans?

One person I asked thinks that the Republicans are obsessed with Bill Clinton because he got away with eight years of peace, prosperity, and even some legislative accomplishments — without having control of Congress for the most part — whereas the Republicans, after six years of virtually complete dominance of all three branches of government, have nothing to show but a yawning deficit and a catastrophic foreign war. The only explanation is that Bill Clinton worked some weird mojo on them and is still laughing from the sidelines. (She dismissed the idea that people are obsessed with Clinton because he is an unethical male horndog — after all, doesn't one expect that of our (male) politicians?) What do you think?

Denial

I have just finished Bob Woodward's State of Denial. I can't quote from it, because I have already lent my copy to a friend. However, I can say it is a very clear explanation of how the Iraq War, a bad decision in the first place, went from bad to worse. Most of the outline should be known to any reader of the newspaper by now, but the details are quite telling. Perhaps most revealing for me was Woodward's account of Jay Garner's telling Donald Rumsfeld the United States had made three tragic mistakes: disbanding the Iraqi army, purging the government of mid-level Ba'ath party members, and refusing to meet with a provisional government. Garner's analysis, however, does not begin to capture the fundamental wrongheadedness of the prosecution of the war portrayed by Woodward, from the futile search for the Weapons of Mass Destruction that never were to the willful deafness to any kind of bad news.

In the Mud

The Year Of Playing Dirtier - washingtonpost.com

The Washington Post reports on new lows in political ads, mainly Republican — from false accusations that Democratic candidates engaged in phone sex to white women making come-ons to African American candidates in Sourthern states with particularly virulent lingering biases against interracial relationships.

Limbaugh Outfoxed

Newsrack, the most recent addition to my blogroll, responds to Rush Limbaugh's juvenile attack on Michael J. Fox's poltical ads in support of stem cell research. Limbaugh accused Fox of faking the symptoms of his illness and the side effects of his treatment. The link has a YouTube clip of one of the ads, so one can see what the controversy is about.

Disappointed

Having rather enjoyed and admired Victor Davis Hanson's book on the Peloponnesian War, I was quite disappointed to read his screed on how the Arabs should be more grateful after all we have done for them. Hanson may be right that politics in the Middle East is broken, but he does not seem to be willing to acknowledge how deeply implicated the West has been in the breaking. And it seems churlish for a Classical scholar to deride the intellectual heritage of the people who preserved the writings of the Greeks.

Link from Lawyers, Guns and Money

Ads

Ben Cardin has the most powerful political ad I have heard on the radio in a long time. However, to get it you need to know (1) who John Lewis is, (2) that African Americans may well be the swing vote in the Maryland Senate race, and (3) that the Republican candidate Michael Steele is also African American.

How the Rich Get Richer

Embattled CEO To Step Down At UnitedHealth - WSJ.com

William McGuire's company is rich beyond the dreams of avarice by limiting or denying needed medical care to kids like mine. Dr. McGuire is rich beyond the dreams of avarice because he allegedly backdated his stock options illegally.

At the end of last year, Dr. McGuire's cache of unexercised options was valued at $1.78 billion, a sum far greater than any other U.S. corporate chieftain. Yesterday, UnitedHealth said he agreed to have all of the options issued to him from 1994 through 2002 repriced, likely cutting tens of millions in dollars from their value. But the company left open other financial arrangements with Dr. McGuire, and the exact terms of his departure are likely to be the subject of intense negotiations.

McGuire is under investigation by the S.E.C. , federal prosecutors in New York, and the Minnesota attorney general. Somehow, however, I am skeptical that Dr. McGuire will ever do more than a few months at a federal country club, after which he will be free to enjoy his ill gotten millions.

The Devil Makes Mischief for Idle CPU's

The BBC Climate Change Project uses idle time on thousands of PCs around the world to create a virtual supercomputer that runs climate change experiments. Basically, once you sign up and download the software, if you are not using your computer, the BBC Climate Change Project is. A variety of similar projects, powered by BOINC technology, are available through GridRepublic; GridRepublic lets you run several different projects on your computer.

Anyone who cares to join one of my teams (the Hong Kong Kavaliers! after the Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai) can sign up for any of the following projects at the following sites or through GridRepublic:

Hong Kong Kavaliers:

Doing the Numbers

TAPPED

Scott Lemieux debunks criticism of the Lancet study in the American Prospect.

(Incidentally, in an earlier post I stated that the study was 95 percent accurate. More precisely, there is a 95 percent chance that the number of deaths falls between approximately 400,000 and 800,000 950,000, with the most likely number being around 600,000.)

A Leap Forward in the Fight Against Domestic Violence

Congratulations to Professor Joan Meier and the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project (DV LEAP) on receiving the Mary Byron Foundation's Celebrating Solutions Award today. DV LEAP provides critical help to domestic violence victims and lawyers who are appealing adverse rulings in the courts. Not only does DV LEAP aid and empower victims, but it works actively to improve the law regarding domestic violence.