Month: November 2006

… finds common ground:

I’ve been reading you long enough to know you are certainly not a liberal and there are many things over which you and I disagree. I look forward to the day when you and "liberals", as you’ve named them, can argue vigorously over some of the matters you’ve identified and others that will undoubtedly come to the fore.

Though these differences in opinion are serious, they are minor realtive to the current subjects that separate you, and many of the liberals who have discovered you, from today’s Republican party in power (privacy, torture, religion in school/christianism, responsible gov’t, fiscal accountability, and last but not least, competency in gov’t affairs whether foreign or domestic based upon empirical analysis and accompanying policy adjustments).

But before we return to such disagreements and policy debates we must first save our country from the people who are hell-bent on ruining it.

Until that day …

Deal.

… can’t vote for this crew any more:

I am an upper middle class, stay at home wife and mother of 2. My husband is self employed and we are very aware of the great tax burden we are to carry.  All my life, I have believed in working hard, paying our own way and voting Republican … but I just don’t see how I can at this point in time.

Watching you on CNN was a great relief, because I finally saw someone saying what I have been feeling about President Bush (I voted for him). I get sick every time I hear the President or some other rabid Republican telling me what we must do in the name of security … why we must win, whatever that means! I feel sick that I have no choice any more…this president and the leaders of the party now are on a track to nowhere and I am not aligned with the Democrats.  I feel lost as I listen to leaders hoping to hear someone speaking honestly and not finding it.

And one man who did once speak honestly, John McCain has knuckled under.

"I felt it was my responsibility to my fellow brothers and sisters, that I had to take a stand, and I cannot sit back anymore and hear (what) to me is an anti-gay message," – Mike Jones, 49, of Denver, alleging that he was a paid sexual escort for the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals. The leader, Ted Haggard, denies the accusation.

Then there’s this:

Jones, who told a bankruptcy judge last year that he is a self-employed fitness consultant, told Boyles that he was paid money by Haggard, who he says made frequent trips to Denver for sexual liaisons, that he has recorded voicemails and a letter from Haggard, and that he had also witnessed Haggard use methamphetamine.

Jones offered to take a polygraph examination, and Boyles said that will occur Friday during his morning radio show.

Some community leaders in the Colorado Springs had scheduled a rally this afternoon in support of Haggard but canceled the gathering at the request of the church.

The leader of the National Association of Evangelicals has stepped down to seek spiritual counseling. Ted Haggard was also founder and leader of the Colorado Springs-based New Life Church. I don’t know the facts of the matter – but here is the story in the Denver Post.

Today is the second anniversary of the Islamist murder of Dutch film-maker, Theo van Gogh, in the streets of Amsterdam. In his honor, here is the short film that sealed his fate. It’s a meditation on the struggle many women have in Islamist societies where freedom is denied them. It’s called "Submission." It’s a reminder that we are still at war with a terribly dangerous bunch of religious terrorists – a war this administration has fatally bungled.

A Godless reader writes:

You don’t think that Ms. Coulter will start whining about "due process" and other fancy liberal notions, do you? Is she going to hire a defense lawyer – some goo-goo Democrat liberal, elitist, fancypants who went to Berkeley Law School who’s going to argue that she shouldn’t go to prison – or, Heaven forbid – that some technicality requires that she not be charged with anything?

No, of course not. Technicalities, defense attorneys: they are what guilty people use with the assistance of liberals to avoid responsibility for their conduct.

Just so you know where I’m coming from. I’m not a liberal. I believe in small government, balanced budgets, welfare reform, and a flat tax. I’m against affirmative action and hate crime laws. Personally, I’m pro-life, although I can live in a society in which legal first trimester abortions are safe, legal and rare. I’m pro-marriage – I just want everyone to have access to the family structure. I was for the Iraq war. I published the Danish cartoons. I wore a Reagan ’80 button in an English high school. I’m a Catholic. I would never have voted for the Medicare prescription bill because we simply cannot afford it. In other words: don’t get your hopes up. I’m not on the left, whatever the religious right is now saying about me.

One the other hand, I have some new liberal readers who say I have only recently seen the light on Bush. Just for the record, I very reluctantly endorsed Kerry in 2004 because of what I believed was Bush’s incompetence and recklessness. So this is not a new or sudden epiphany for me. But the way the Republicans have run this campaign has confirmed my worst fears about them.

If you’re an old-style Goldwater conservative, I think you’ll have little choice but to kick the current GOP in the posterior next Tuesday.

If you want to read a conservative critique of the current shambles in Washington, check out my new book. It says much more than I can say on the blog. So far, many, many liberals who have read the book are emailing me to say they don’t agree with all of it, but find it refreshing to read a case for principled old-style conservatism. It helped them figure out why they were liberals. So give it a chance. You can get it online here.

280 religious leaders speak up against the draconian constitutional amendment to strip gay (and unmarried straight) couples of most of their legal rights.

At 5.20 pm, I’ll be on Albert Mohler’s radio talk-show on the Salem Radio Network. Mohler is an intelligent fundamentalist; and I’ve always enjoyed our conversations in the past. No Hewitt, in other words. Then tonight, I’m debating Jerry Falwell on CNN’s Situation Room in the 7 pm block; and on Anderson Cooper 360 at 10 pm. Tomorrow night, I’ll be on PBS’s Now newsmagazine show; and on Sunday morning, I’ll be in my regular chair on the Chris Matthews show.

As marathon runners sometimes say, the race doesn’t start until you can’t breathe. But the stakes are high.

[Update: I’ve just been told Falwell will not now be debating me. No idea why. No idea either why Hannity won’t debate me on conservatism or have me on his show. He’s not chicken, is he?]

"I supported the removal of Saddam Hussein. I believed that Arabs deserved a chance to build a rule-of-law democracy in the Middle East. Based upon firsthand experience, I was convinced that the Middle East was so politically, socially, morally and intellectually stagnant that we had to risk intervention — or face generations of terrorism and tumult. I still believe that our removal of Hussein was a noble act.

I only wish the administration had done it competently. Iraq is failing. No honest observer can conclude otherwise," – pro-war arch-conservative Ralph Peters.

But remember: according to the president, Rumsfeld is doing a "fantastic job." The only inference one can draw is that conservative Ralph Peters has just written that president Bush is dishonest. And he’s right.

Bush is a liar about this war; and he’s been lying for a long time. It’s way past time to call him on it.