Back in 2004, I moved to Washington, D.C.’s suburbs. It was a crazy time for the market, with people offering 20 or 30 thousand dollars above asking prices for homes. Since we were moving to a new place, my wife and I decided the prudent thing to do would be to rent our home for a year to decide if we liked living where we did.

Well, a year went by and we decided that yes, in fact, we really did like our neighborhood in northern Virginia. The problem was, after a year the home prices had skyrocketed to a point that we didn’t feel comfortable buying. So we continued to rent with the expectation that one day the bubble would burst and the prices would come down.

Lo and behold, that day has come. Homes in our neighborhood are now selling for $100,000 less than they were a year ago in some cases (though still about $120,000 more than when we moved here), and if the prices keep going down, we may well decide to buy a home in the near future. In the meantime, we’ve continued saving our money, have pared down our credit card debt, and have even started a vacation fund to save money for family trips. In short, we have not lived beyond our means.

But now I read that Barack Obama thinks it’s heartless to not help those who, unlike me, got in over their heads. People like Mauricio, recently featured in a WaPo story about illegal aliens fleeing Prince William County, Virginia.

The man, whose name is Mauricio and who is Salvadoran, zipped his jacket against the wind whipping across the dark, vacant parking lot as he walked out of the store toward a borrowed car.

That morning, his electricity had been cut off. The next day, he and 11-year-old Erica would be moving into the basement of a neighbor’s house. On this night, they would make do with candles.

It was the latest blow in a year of calamities: In April, the interest rate on Mauricio’s ill-advised mortgage suddenly spiked, more than doubling his monthly payments. In May, he lost his job as a house painter. In June, he had to sell his van. In July, his third child was born, and with no insurance, he started skipping mortgage payments to cover the hospital bills. In October, the bank began foreclosure proceedings. In November, he sent his wife and two U.S.-born children to El Salvador.

December brought the worst setback yet: Mauricio bounced a $460 check he had sent the Department of Homeland Security to renew his temporary legal status, transforming him from legal to illegal immigrant.

In January, he received notice to vacate his house. Two weeks ago, the water was cut off. A week ago, his Virginia driver’s license expired, and without legal status, he can no longer renew it.

Mauricio and Erica turned onto a side street pocked with darkened, empty houses and pulled up to a brick house with mustard shutters. A plastic barrel stood under the gutter spout. Mauricio had been using it to collect rainwater to heat so Erica could take baths.

Inside, it was cold and pitch black. Mauricio lit a candle and handed it to Erica. She dripped the wax onto the kitchen table to make a candle holder.

Next, they went into Erica’s bedroom. She hugged a stuffed dog to her chest as she watched her father stand a candle on her dresser.

Finally, they walked into Mauricio’s bedroom. As he lit his candle, it illuminated a large, framed photograph of him and his wife embracing the children. Mauricio stood for a moment, looking up at their grinning faces, before walking out of the room.

We’re supposed to feel sorry for Mauricio. I feel badly for his daughter, having to live in such conditions because Mom and Dad thought they could easily finance the American Dream, even if they didn’t make enough money to pull it off.

It used to be that we wanted our kids to have a better life than we did. I’ve heard the stories of my grandparents immigrating to the United States. My grandfather worked his rear off to be able to send my dad to an exclusive prep school in Massachusetts (albeit as a “townie”). My own father worked multiple blue collar jobs while attending Brown University on the G.I. Bill after WWII, all to make sure that he could provide for his wife and daughter. He didn’t try to buy the McMansion at age 25. He didn’t drive the 1950 equivalent of a BMW. He didn’t require immediate gratification.

It’s as if we as Americans are chanting, “What do we want? The American Dream! When do we want it? Now!!!” and no one is explaining that we’re entitled to the pursuit of happiness… not happiness itself. We’re not guaranteed a McMansion or an expensive foreign car. We have to work for these things. Some of us may make choices that make it more difficult to buy those nice things (having five kids comes to mind). But we are not entitled to government provided happiness. Nor is the government supposed to make sure we never fail. If that’s the case, then why did I waste my time doing the prudent thing? Shouldn’t I have just gone ahead and purchased a home above my means in the hope that the government would make it all okay if I got in over my head?

When I do the right thing, I do not want my tax dollars going to subsidize somebody else’s bad decisions. Besides the affront to individual responsibility, perhaps someone smarter than I am can tell me what this will do to housing prices? Will they be artificially propped up because of government intervention? Will this in fact prevent the prices from dropping to a point that responsible people like me could take advantage of the market? What a blow that would be… government intervention impeding my right to pursue happiness at the expense of helping provide happiness to those who just didn’t want to wait.

Jim: I’m amazed at how the political class is treating this issue as who can do the most for the Mauricios — or worse, the house-flippers and no-money-down crowd of the world. Anything that gives off a whiff of a bailout will be the welfare issue for this decade, but instead of able-bodied urban poor who collect government checks when they should be working, the target of taxpayer resentment will be gambling house-flippers who priced the responsible buyers out of the market.

Over at the American Thinker, J.R. Dunn says 2008 “marks the end of liberalism as a governing force in the same way that 1968 marked the end of liberalism as a political doctrine.”

Yes, but only if you believe 2009 will be the year that giant, man-eating bunnies will become our new Overlords.

Dunn goes on to make his case, which amounts to a laundry list of Democratic scandals. Spitzer and McGreevey get prominent mention. Dunn makes the usual conservative case against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as well:

Barack Obama was supposed to be another matter. Obama has ascended on a cloud of pure moral superiority and nothing else. That has now evaporated, thanks to impolitic comments from his wife and the news that he has for two decades belonged to what amounts to a racist cult. Obama has nothing else to offer in the way of experience or achievements. Beyond his current difficulties, there lie his continuing and as yet unexplained entanglement with Tony Rezko (He barely knew the man, he insists. All he did was show Rezko his new house before closing. I always clear major purchases with people I scarcely know, don’t you?), along with pending revelations concerning his relationship with Bill Ayers, a former terrorist who began his career as one of the driving forces of the Weather Underground.

Obama’s response, his “Kennedyesque” speech on race, was in fact purely Clintonian in that it attempted to transform his failings into virtues while placing the blame on the country as a whole. (Not to mention his innocent typical white grandmother.) In less than two weeks, Obama has succeeded in lowering himself to the same level as Madame Hillary. Quite an achievement.

The problem is that Dunn, like so many other conservatives these days, lays out the case against the liberals without making the case FOR conservatives. Dunn says:

2008 is being promoted as the year of the Democrats. Under the circumstances, it’s difficult to see this as anything but media hype. Weak as the Republicans may be, they do boast such figures as Schwarzenegger, Jindal, Crist, and Coburn among many others, not to mention a presidential candidate who, whatever his drawbacks, is a different order of being than the opposition.

But there have been danger signs. In the past few years, we’ve seen a number of “conservative” politicians who have adapted the liberal style, masking their own flaws with acceptable rhetoric. The latest of these is Mike Huckabee, who presented himself as a conservative messiah while governing Arkansas like… well, like a typical governor of Arkansas. Liberalism has demonstrated that these tactics lead nowhere. We must be careful not to succumb.

Liberalism will stagger on. It still has control of all those urban political machines, along with the unions and bureaucracies. But it has no future. Personality cults and ideology will take you only so far. We may yet live to see this albatross removed from the nation’s back.

If you’ve read my favorite book of the year, then you’ve at least been exposed to the theory that liberalism (and liberal fascism in particular) is ALREADY here, and can be found in both Democrat and Republican policies. The center has inched leftward in many ways, and I’ve heard very few people explain why this is a bad thing.

I’m sure that Dunn is writing for a conservative audience and therefore doesn’t feel the need to explain why and how conservatism is a better philosophy than liberalism. But his argument that 2008 is the year liberalism dies seems far more like wishful thinking than insightful analysis, and that’s a shame.

Dunn says “Personality cults and ideology will take you only so far.” That’s true. The problem is, sometimes they’ll take you far enough that you can get into the White House, or Congress, or a governor’s mansion. And until conservatives can effectively explain why our philosophy and ideology leads to a better life, snarking about liberals won’t do much but cheer up the choir.

Jim: Every political movement looks its worst when the public has gotten to see its failures — or failures committed in its name — up close and personal. The liberalism of Bill Clinton’s first two years, and the Carter-era Democratic control of the White House, House, and Senate, is long forgotten. Most of Obama’s youngest supporters have no memory of the Iranian hostage crisis, gas lines, “malaise”, etc. Even the Clinton administration’s early botching of health care reform, the failure to provide armored vehicles and worldwide perception of defeat of U.S. military forces in Somalia, Jocelyn Elders’ pledge to teach masturbation in schools, even Clinton’s failed effort to bring sides together to avoid the cancellation of the World Series — these are long-forgotten as examples of what happens when the left gets their hands on the controls of government.

Right now, Americans have seen what happens when a country is invaded based on faulty intelligence, with limited discussion of the commitment of blood and treasure required to complete the task. They have seen Republican Congressmen go to jail for corruption, so-called conservatives spend like there’s no tomorrow, and several Bush appointees fall well short of what the moment demands. They’ve seen a personal lawyer nominated for the Supreme Court. They’ve seen a Republican senator withdraw his resignation after getting caught toe-tapping in men’s rooms. Failures of the Democrats and the left are dusty memories; failures of Republicans and the right are in living color above the fold. That’s not media bias, that’s just a matter of where and when.

Conservatives can say that liberals have a bunch of ideas that sound good in theory and always fall apart in practice — but Americans may need to see it to believe it again. The American voter has a remarkable capacity to unlearn quickly.

I have been hesitant to blog about British politics, as I still consider myself very much a newcomer, and I’m certainly not yet up on all of the vagaries of Parliament.

But on a recent trip to my local newsagent, this front page headline caused me to spend my 80p on the Guardian instead of the Telegraph. And the details in the story didn’t disappoint.

It seems that the Labour-led government is considering various electoral “reforms.” Among these are transforming the House of Lords to a “Senate” and making its members elected rather than peers who serve for life. This has caused concern among some ministers about the perception of the House of Commons. Combine that with low turnout in the last election, and the fact that MPs in districts with strong Lib Dem or other third party presences are elected with less than 50 percent of the vote, and some ministers are downright worried about ensuring the “primacy” and “legitimacy” of Commons.

Their solution? Among other things, compulsory voting.

So, let me see if I understand this. Worried about the legitimacy of a democratic body, they want to make the voting system less democratic by forcing people to vote?

The right to vote is the fundamental principal in a democracy. But voting is a choice that free people make. And not voting is a choice, too. A decision not to vote can convey dissatisfaction with the choices. It can convey disgust with the current state affairs. Or it can be a symptom of laziness and apathy. None of these can be addressed with a legal mandate to vote. Indeed, my bet is that it would only make people angrier with the system.

And by undermining freedom, mandatory voting will most assuredly undermine the legitimacy of Parliament even more. After all, who can take seriously an election that includes participation by a whole bunch of people who don’t want to be there?

It seems to me that the ministers behind this thinking have lost sight of the forest and are utterly preoccupied with the trees. So long as Her Majesty’s Government is drawn from the Commons, and so long as the Commons controls the government’s purse, it will be the leading legislative body in the United Kingdom, in perception and in fact.

Mandatory voting is a blind alley that sounds like it belongs in a despotic regime, banana Republican or Soviet republic, not the oldest democracy in the world.

(If you’re interested in more on this, the Guardian received a number of letters about the story, which you can read here.)

And who is Bill Cope? Only the best liberal columnist out there! Bill Cope doesn’t bother to write for one of the big papers out there. He’s a man of the people. He writes for the weekly paper in Boise, man. It doesn’t get more real than that.

And Bill Cope doesn’t need to read a book in order to review it.

Admittedly, I have only read critiques of his book. I have too much respect for the organ in my skull to directly inject into it any of the sour opiates these pushers peddle. If you don’t believe a brain fried up crispy in right-wing ideology is a terrible waste of human potential, look no further than the shriveled souls of Bill O’Reilly, Kate O’Beirne and Bob Novak. Is that the sort of thing you want to see when you look in a mirror?

Still, there are reviews aplenty, and without subjecting myself to Goldberg’s own writing—which I know from his stint with BW never goes beyond what any pouty college sophomore could produce—it’s not that difficult to grasp the points he’s trying to make, just as it’s not that difficult to understand what a pedophile is after when he promises a ride home to a school kid. The most absurd claim is that the greatest American leader since Lincoln—that being indisputably (to all but the crazy Right) Franklin D. Roosevelt—was philosophically tethered to the fascism that arose in Spain, Italy and Germany. His evidence seems to be that, since Mussolini and Hitler turned the state into the ultimate arbiter of human affairs, and since Roosevelt used the power of the state to improve the lot of Depression era Americans, then FDR and the monsters of Europe were cut from the same cloth.

Only a fool could make such a claim, and only another fool could believe it.

As anybody who’s read Liberal Fascism will tell you, Bill Cope also doesn’t need “facts”, or “truth”, or “reading comprehension” in order to fill his column inches.

Another example is Cope’s column about extending the right to carry onto college campuses.

I can’t just sit here and say nothing while these loony bastards keep coming up with new ways to demonstrate how nuts they are, especially since many of them are in a position to actually turn their fantasies into reality—e.g., state legislatures, Congress, etc. For example, I have learned (thanks to a recent report by Stephen Colbert) of a state legislator from Tennessee who wants to change the law in his state so that bar patrons can carry concealed weapons when they go out drinking. And isn’t that just a marvelous idea … saloon after saloon full of juiced-up rednecks packing pistols? I’ll bet the night shift down at the Chattanooga police station can’t wait for that to happen, huh?

That item, more so than the Supreme Court hearing, convinced me it was time to take another shot at this, if you’ll pardon the expression. But it won’t be politicians I will be addressing here. No, like most politicians, gun nut politicians set their sails to catch whatever they sense is the prevailing wind. And I’m painfully aware my opinion on concealed weaponry is not a prevailing wind, especially in environs like Idaho or Tennessee, where guns are often more important than healthy children, happy wives and well-fed dogs to certain segments of the population.

Besides, when a politician comes up with something as laughable as allowing guns in bars or on campuses, we know he’s only out to establish himself as a reliable licker of the NRA’s blood-soaked hand. It’s not his convictions he’s following, but the scent of money.

Bill Cope doesn’t need to bother with the “facts” here either. He doesn’t need to report that under the proposal in Tennessee, right-to-carry holders who entered a bar or restaurant that served alcohol would be prohibited from drinking if they were, in fact, carrying a concealed firearm.

And Bill Cope doesn’t need to waste his time listening to the arguments from politicians who are also law enforcement officers who support extending the right-to-carry. Not when he can simply brush away the idea that logical and reasonable people can have a different opinion than Bill Cope.

I know how much fun it is to simply make fun of people, rather than deal with their arguments in a substantive way. I mean, heck, I’d love to just call Bill Cope a writer with the debating skills of a lobotomized tree frog, but that doesn’t actually do anything.

So instead, let me point out that I’ve read Liberal Fascism and found it to be fascinating. Yes, it’s even caused me to look at some policies of the Republican Party in a different light. And let me also point out that extending the right-to-carry doesn’t create a new class of gun owners or RTC holders. It simply extends an existing right onto an additional piece of property. The few semi-literate arguments Cope puts forth are the same false arguments that people have been making about RTC for 20 years.

But you stay classy, Bill Cope. And please, keep writing. People like you make my job a lot more fun.

UPDATE (by Marshall): Cam responds to Bill Cope’s rant here.

In Boston and Washington, D.C. police will soon be going door-to-door, asking to search homes for illegally possessed firearms or drugs. Those found in illegal possession of a firearm (or drugs) will not be charged unless the gun was found to be used in a crime.

I’ve been covering this ill-conceived idea for months now on the show, and I’m heartened to see the efforts get some well-deserved criticism. But where is the criticism coming from? Marion Barry, the ACLU, and the New Black Panther Party. Where are the conservative objections? Hell, where’s Reason?

So let’s look at the criticism. Marion Barry, the former D.C. mayor (and crack smoker) says:

the plan violates the Fourth Amendment, which bars illegal search and seizure. He also said it infringes on parental responsibility.

“If there’s a parent who has a son who has a gun in the home and they know what to do, [then] they can call the police,” said Mr. Barry, Ward 8 Democrat. “It’s not that hard.”

Oh. My. God. Marion Barry actually sounds reasonable. As opposed to Jamarhl Crawford, chairman of the New Black Panther Party in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

“Police are like vampires. They shouldn’t be invited into your homes.” “Vampires are polite; they’re smooth,” he said in an interview the following day. “But once they get in, the door closes. Havoc ensues.”

Lisa Thurau-Gray, managing director of the Juvenile Justice Center at Suffolk University Law School, isn’t much better.

She likened the police persistence to a sexual aggressor who refuses to stop assaulting a victim despite her pleas. “What part of no don’t they understand?” she said.

When Marion Barry is the only person talking about individual responsibility, we’re in trouble. Not being an attorney, I’ll let the con law professors debate the legality of the voluntary searches. But Barry’s right about the message this sends to parents. This program once again tells us that we have no responsibility. Not as parents, not as juveniles, and frankly, not as elected officials.

The parents are told they don’t have to parent. Just call the police and let them take the gun (or drugs) away. Of course the police will leave behind a pissed-off juvenile who will almost certainly go out and get more drugs or another gun through equally illegal means, but the police chief and the politicians have already told them they won’t be punished for their crimes. And the politicians and chiefs avoid responsibility for the aftermath of this program with their excuse of “We’re genuinely trying to save lives.”

This effort may end up leading to more violent crime. If it’s already leading to police being referred to as “vampires”, you’d have to think it’s not a great boon to establishing rapport between the beat cops and the people who live in these high-crime communities. It seems designed mostly to get positive press coverage rather than achieving any real benefit.

The politicians in D.C. have become so used to taking away liberty in the name of the common good that it’s fair to say they really don’t see anything wrong with this. And that’s the scariest part of all.

This morning in the Washington Post, George Will turns his attention to the question of compensation for federal judges.

Will points to this report by the Chief Justice, which was issued by tradition on New Years Day, but “lost in the cacophony of political news.”

In his report, Chief Justice Roberts eloquently argues that federal judges are woefully underpaid. Pointing out that federal judges have been denied “the
same cost-of-living pay adjustments that other federal employees have received since 1989,” Roberts voices his support for a bill in Congress to address that sorry state of affairs. Then he delivers his coup-de-grace:

This salary restoration legislation is vital now that the denial of annual increases over the years has left federal trial judges—the backbone of our system of justice—earning about the same as (and in some cases less than) first-year lawyers at firms in major cities, where many of the judges are located.

I do not need to rehearse the compelling arguments in favor of this legislation. They have already been made by distinguished jurists, lawyers, and economists in congressional hearings, letters, and editorials—and seconded by a broad spectrum of commercial, governmental, and public interest organizations that appear as litigants before the courts. I simply ask once again for a moment’s reflection on how America would look in the absence of a skilled and independent Judiciary. Consider the critical role of our courts in preserving individual liberty, promoting commerce, protecting property, and ensuring that every person who appears in an American court can expect fair and impartial justice. The cost of this long overdue legislation—less than .004% of the annual federal budget—is miniscule in comparison to what is at stake.

To understand the truly horrifying disparity between compensation for private attorneys and federal judges, one only need read a few posts from David Lat’s “Nationwide Pay Raise Watch” at the indispensable Above the Law.

Will points out the danger: “The cost of not [addressing the pay disparity] will be a decrease in the quality of an increasingly important judiciary — and a change in its perspective. Fifty years ago, about 65 percent of the federal judiciary came from the private sector — from the practicing bar — and 35 percent from the public sector. Today 60 percent come from government jobs, less than 40 percent from private practice. This tends to produce a judiciary that is not only more important than ever but also is more of an extension of the bureaucracy than a check on it.”

As a matter of simple common sense, we all have an interest in ensuring our legal system is the best it can be. That means populating the bench with the brightest legal minds. But between low salaries and the meat grinder-like confirmation process, more than a few of the best lawyers make a habit of quietly turning down nominations to the federal bench.

That’s a reality that should disturb us all, and Congress first and foremost. Here’s hoping that the legislative branch can get its act together in the next month or two and make some progress on judicial compensation. That would be a good first step.

Cross posted at Confirm Them.

Based on the discussion at Monday’s arguments, five or more Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court may believe that the government must overcome its highest burden for justifying its attempt to restrict a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms.

I’ll leave further discussion of that issue to Cam’s expertise while I turn to another question: What are the implications of their views on other individual liberties that are specifically named in the Constitution? For example, the freedoms of speech, press and religion that are outlined in the First Amendment.

It seems to me that, if anything, the rights protected in the First Amendment are just as clear — if not more so — than the second. Consider the language:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

For more than two hundreds years, the debate about the Second Amendment has hung on the Framers’ collective decision to explain themselves with a bunch of language about necessity and security and their relationship to having a militia. Imagine if it read this way: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Not much grey area there, huh? And there would be no need to debate the definition of “militia,” because the term doesn’t appear. Constructed this way, the amendment is absolute, and absolutely clear.

Now, go back and read the First Amendment again. “Congress shall make no law…” The language is so simple, and utterly clear. There is no grey area. No explanation. No modifying language. Nothing.

Focus on the speech provision. “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”

Laying aside the long-standing legal debate over the definitions of “abridging” and “speech,” consider the legal standards at play. In the McConnell case, the Supreme Court invented a messy legal standard that not even experts can decipher effectively. As applied in that case, the standard was low enough to allow the government to effectively regulate almost anything it wants. Applying the same “compelling interest” standard in McConnell that it is considering in the D.C. gun law case would, in my view, have rendered an entirely different result — one that would have found BCRA and other laws banning certain varieties of speech unconstitutional.

And that seems only logical. The language is so clear. So obvious to anyone who just, you know, reads it. So why must the court get wrapped around its axle? The answer, of course, is precedent.

It will be interesting to see how cases involving the Second Amendment evolve the Court’s reasoning in light of its decision. Here’s hoping the Court’s language in the D.C. gun case clear enough to avoid misunderstanding. I’m not holding my breath.

Cam, I appreciate your point of view, and I don’t disagree with anything you said. When it comes to Pastor Wright, I think the guy is a total whack ass. But at the end of the day, Barrack Obama doesn’t subscribe to Pastor Wright’s views. He has said that he doesn’t. So why is it fair to attack him for his pastor’s views? In short, IMHO, it isn’t.

Jim: Marshall, like Cam, I hate to disagree. Eh, who am I kidding? I like going tooth and nail with a mind I respect.

Marshall, you wrote, “Anyone who has a close relationship with their pastor has experienced what Barrack Obama described today.”

Really? I don’t have any particularly close relationships with a pastor, so I’ll admit, I can’t relate. But have you ever had your pastor say something that you not merely disagree strongly with, but that leave you slackjawed, as I presume the whole AIDS/USofKKKA/God d*** America troika did? (I realize these things are personal, so you don’t have to reply; treat that as rhetorical as necessary.) I’ve heard homilies that have left me rolling my eyes, but nothing on par with Wright’s. I think the order of magnitude of degree of shock and appall is so different, that Obama’s invoking the weekly disagreements on politics in the pews was comparing apples and oranges.

“And to hold Senator Obama responsible for Pastor Wright’s views is, in my view, totally unfair.”

Are we holding Obama responsible for Wright’s views? Or are we holding him responsible for his choice of mentor, his choice of which church to join, his choice to stay once he heard what he found so objectionable, his choice to bring his daughters to a house of worship that taught such things, and his choice to, to the best of our knowledge, avoid a painful discussion with his friend and mentor about what he preaches from the pulpit? Others have decided that Trinity United Church of Christ was not for them, among them Obama’s friend Oprah.

A man who claims to have dedicated his career to good, clean government chooses to buy his house with Tony Rezko, and a man who claims to have dedicated his life to racial reconciliation chooses to attend a church that teaches that the government created AIDS to commit genocide against minorities. Obama has this strange habit of choosing a path that takes him in the opposite direction of his stated goal.

Marshall, I guess I think you’re being too kind when you say with such certainty “Barack Obama doesn’t subscribe to Pastor Wright’s views.” Indeed, he claims he doesn’t. But there are strange echoes of Wright in his wife’s comments that America is a country that is “just downright mean” or that Obama’s success is the first time she’s been proud of America in her adult life, or that every woman she knows is struggling to keep her head above water (including, presumbly, her friend Oprah). She, like Wright, seems at times to suggest that America is a relentlessly rotten place, full of cruelty and injustice, and that the only proper solution is to elect her husband president.

For certain public figures, their record is long enough and clear enough that some accusations are just silly. Lefty bloggers tried to tag John McCain with the anti-Catholicism of Texas televangelist John Hagee, who endorsed him. But there’s nothing in McCain’s record to suggest anti-Catholicism, and the accusation is laughable to the Catholics who work for him. (I think it’s safe to say John McCain doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about theological differences among branches of Christianity.)

What does Barack Obama really think, really say, when the cameras and microphones are put away and it’s just Michelle and him, or Pastor Jeremiah and him? Does he agree with their angrier, more divisive statements when he’s away from the prying eyes of public scrutiny? When they talk about America and whites and blacks, does he sound like the Obama we’ve seen in the spotlight for the past four years? Or does he sound more like Michelle or Wright?

I don’t know. And I don’t think anyone outside their closest inner circle knows, either.

Oh, how I hate to disagree with my buddy. But in this case I have no other option.

Marshall writes:

I go to church, and like Senator Obama, I’ve sat quietly in my seat listening to my pastor say things which with I’ve disagreed, oftentimes strongly. But that doesn’t mean that I believe him to be any less a man of God.

God is perfect. Men are fallible. Which means men like Pastor Wright are fallible, too. Pastor Wright brought Barrack Obama closer to God. That’s his life’s purpose. He is not a man of politics. That’s Senator Obama’s territory. And to hold Senator Obama responsible for Pastor Wright’s views is, in my view, totally unfair.

I hasten to add, it’s equally unfair when the media try to indict a conservative politician for attacking the religious views of his or her church. So let’s attack the double standard, but let’s not attack the candidates.

It’s fine to disagree with your pastor, though I still think if my pastor had said the things Jeremiah Wright said, I’d be looking for another church. But my problems go far beyond “U-S of K-K-K A” and “God Damn America”. Barack Obama says he disagrees with Wright’s statements. But what about Wright’s theology?

Rev. Wright’s theology is one that he describes as “black liberation theology”. Well, if liberation theology in general can be described as Christian Socialism, then black liberation theology could best be described as Christian Socialism with a specific emphasis on social equality for blacks. I don’t believe this is a “black seperatist” or a “black supremacist” movement. But when the basis of your church is that every act or thought must be viewed through a racial prism, it’s kind of hard for me to accept that Obama’s going to be the guy to bridge the racial divide in this country.

Frankly, from where I sit, it seems black liberation theology has little to do with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. Compare this:

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
…
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

To this exerpt from a Jeremiah Wright sermon.

It just came to me with — within the past few weeks, you all, why so many folk are hating on Barack Obama. He doesn’t fit the model. He ain’t white. He ain’t rich. And he ain’t privileged.

Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.

I guess one of my biggest problems isn’t necessarily JUST with the comments we’ve seen from Rev. Wright. It is that Rev. Wright’s comments don’t seem out of line with liberation theology in general, and black liberation theology in particular. And I’m having a hard time seeing how black liberation theology is anything but a perversion of Martin Luther King’s vision of a society in which we are judged by the content of our character, rather than the color of our skin.

I’m sure if you look through Rev. Wright’s sermons, you’ll see a lot of talk of hope, and love, and charity. But if he is, as he says he is, a proponent of black liberation theology, then it will always be about the racial division, not the common ground we all share. It seems to me the message of Rev. Wright is completely different than the message Barack Obama has been expressing, which makes me wonder how he could have attended this church for 20+ years if Rev. Wright’s theology didn’t ring true.

I may have mentioned before that my 21-year old daughter (the offspring of a white woman and a black man) is an Obama supporter. Part of that is her age, but a large part of his appeal has to do with the fact that someone “like her” could be in the White House. One of the things I’ve tried to impress upon her is that ideology isn’t skin deep. She may well have a lot in common with Barack Obama, but basing her vote on their similar skin color isn’t a very mature way to vote. I’ve told her that I hope we can have a real conversation about what she perceives to be Obama’s strengths and weaknesses, because I want her to make an informed vote in November. If her chosen candidate subscribes to a religious theology that says I’M the biggest problem in my her life because of the color of my skin, I’d like her to be aware of that.

I’m ready for the attacks on Senator Obama over his pastor’s views to be over.

And, yes. I watched the speech.

Anyone who has a close relationship with their pastor has experienced what Barrack Obama described today. And there’s no reason to think that the Senator shared his pastor’s views on any issue at any time. In fact, he explicitly said today that he didn’t.

For me, the two most relevant pieces of the speech are these:

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

[snip]

[Trinity] church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children.

I go to church, and like Senator Obama, I’ve sat quietly in my seat listening to my pastor say things which with I’ve disagreed, oftentimes strongly. But that doesn’t mean that I believe him to be any less a man of God.

God is perfect. Men are fallible. Which means men like Pastor Wright are fallible, too. Pastor Wright brought Barrack Obama closer to God. That’s his life’s purpose. He is not a man of politics. That’s Senator Obama’s territory. And to hold Senator Obama responsible for Pastor Wright’s views is, in my view, totally unfair.

I hasten to add, it’s equally unfair when the media try to indict a conservative politician for attacking the religious views of his or her church. So let’s attack the double standard, but let’s not attack the candidates.