Month: January 2007

Here’s a striking quote from Senator Clinton:

"I am cursed with the responsibility gene. I am. I admit to that. You’ve got to be very careful in how you proceed with any combat situation in which American lives are at stake."

An excuse for politicking? I wouldn’t be so tough. I’ve followed Senator Clinton’s positions on the war these past few years and since they’ve pretty closely tracked my own, I’m not going to attack her for caution and prudence. Wars are dynamic things; they can take unexpected turns, even for the better. This one keeps getting worse, but the stakes are still very high. I take the minority view therefore that Clinton’s position on the war might in the end help her (even with primary voters). And her description of her stance as the product of a "responsibility gene" is a little piece of genius.

Americans often pick a president repairing the glaring flaw in the last one. The most powerful theme of Bush’s presidency has been wanton irresponsibility: fiscal, military, diplomatic, political. The recklessness of the past has deeply alienated many small-c conservatives who regard politics as an exercize in secular caution not religious zeal and frat-boy carelessness. If Hillary frames herself as the school-marm disciplinarian, she’ll find an opening. It’s also an image more suited to her actual personality than anything resembling charisma.

(Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty.)

Sam Harris’s latest blog epistle to me can be read in full here. Money quote:

How does one "integrate doubt" into one’s faith? By acknowledging just how dubious many of the claims of scripture are, and thereafter reading it selectively, bowdlerizing it if need be, and allowing its assertions about reality to be continually trumped by fresh insights‚Äîscientific ("You mean the world isn‚Äôt 6000 years old? Yikes.."), mathematical ("pi doesn’t actually equal 3? All right, so what?"), and moral ("You mean, I shouldn’t beat my slaves? I can‚Äôt even keep slaves? Hmm …"). Religious moderation is the result of not taking scripture all that seriously. So why not take these books less seriously still? Why not admit that they are just books, written by fallible human beings like ourselves? They were not, as your friend the pope would have it, "written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost." Needless to say, I believe you have given the Supreme Pontiff far too much credit as a champion of reason. The man believes that he is in possession of a magic book, entirely free from error…

Religious moderates—by refusing to question the legitimacy of raising children to believe that they are Christians, Muslims, and Jews—tacitly support the religious divisions in our world. They also perpetuate the myth that a person must believe things on insufficient evidence in order to have an ethical and spiritual life. While religious moderates don’t fly planes into buildings, or organize their lives around apocalyptic prophecy, they refuse to deeply question the preposterous ideas of those who do. Moderates neither submit to the real demands of scripture nor draw fully honest inferences from the growing testimony of science. In attempting to find a middle ground between religious dogmatism and intellectual honesty, it seems to me that religious moderates betray faith and reason equally.

Read the rest here. Sufficiently provoked, even irritated, I’ll reply tomorrow. He has raised several big questions and I need a little time to think (and pray) about them.

(Painting: Pietro Perugino (c. 1450-1524) Scenes from the Life of Christ: The Giving of the Keys to Saint Peter.)

Just check this December 19 blog entry out:

A beautiful Baghdad morning. Bright morning sun, slight chill in the air. Standing by a palace pool, surrounded by palm trees. Talking to my daughter Sarah, back home in Minnesota, where it’s just 10 pm on Monday night. The sound of mortar fire breaks the stillness of the morning air. Insurgent fire or Sadr City fire? Perhaps a gift from the Iranians to al-Sadr. I’m told the impact is close to the embassy grounds. One of the staff said it woke him up. Probably aimed at the area where workers gather to enter the Green Zone. In the far distance there is some smoke on the horizon. Car bomb I’m told by embassy staff.

Yesterday was a full day of meetings accompanied by Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL). Starting with the Iraqi National Security Advisor, Dr. Rubaie, and concluding with Deputy Prime Minister Bahram Salah. In speaking with Iraqis, the assessment we are given of the path we should take is heavily influenced by whether we are talking to Shiites, Sunnis, or Kurds.

Maliki’s National Security Advisor, Dr. Rubaie, maintains that the major challenge facing Iraq is not a sectarian conflict, but rather al-Qaeda and disgruntled Baathists seeking to regain power. Both Senator Nelson and I react with incredulity to that assessment. Rubaie cautions against more troops in Baghdad.

Coleman learned one thing in Baghdad. The Maliki government is lying through its teeth. Somehow president Bush never understood this, and still doesn’t. But then he still believes Vladimir Putin is a man of God.

Does he have a James Frey problem? I like Obama, but you’ve got to worry when a campaign dismisses something as a "non-story." That almost always means it’s a real one.

A military source tells me that the latest Public Affairs Guidance issued to the various branches of the military no longer refers to the surge as a "surge." It is now officially referred to in written and verbal communications as a "plus up." "Surge" is so early January.

Chardon, Ohio, 1 pm.

The Bush administration claimed it could wiretap phones without a warrant because it was essential to national security. Now they think they can live with the FISA court. So are we now to believe that this seizure of executive power to spy on Americans without oversight was always optional? Are we now in grave danger? Or have we just learned – again! – not to trust a word these power-mongers say? More commentary here.

It’s become a racial cause celebre. Clive Davis provides the Brit overview.

Listen to the prime minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki. In the Times of London, he strongly expresses a clear desire: to be given weapons and more training in order to unleash Shiite state violence against Sunni insurgents. His view of the next six months seems pretty obvious to me: the U.S. can help weed out Sunni insurgents in Baghdad, and he is prepared to make a few gestures against the more egregious death squads on his side. But after six months, he wants to be able to get on with the job of killing Sunni insurgents himself in defense of a Shia majority state:

Asked how long Iraq would require US troops, Mr al-Maliki said: "If we succeed in implementing the agreement between us to speed up the equipping and providing weapons to our military forces, I think that within three to six months our need for American troops will dramatically go down. That is on condition that there are real, strong efforts to support our military forces and equipping and arming them." …

Robert Gates, the new US Defence Secretary, said that Mr al-Maliki could lose his job if he failed to stop communal bloodshed and Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, gave a warning that he was living on "borrowed time" and that American patience was running out.

Challenged on the point, Mr al-Maliki remarked acidly: "Certain officials are going through a crisis. Secretary Rice is expressing her own point of view if she thinks that the Government is on borrowed time, whether it is borrowed time for the Iraqi Government or American Administration. I don’t think we are on borrowed time."

How exactly would Maliki "lose his job"? The administration’s political strategy in Iraq is based on control it doesn’t exercize. And its military policy is based on a national government that does not exist. Apart from that, the White House has it all figured out.

(Photo: Brooks Kraft for Time.)

Together at last – as the Christianist-Islamist alliance deepens on the far right.