Month: January 2008

The Kenya Effect

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Will violence and disorder spread to its neighbors? The Vigilante Journalist, aka Anne Holmes, is live-blogging from Nairobi here. It’s riveting, indispensable reporting. Money quote:

When I arrived in Kibera it was a virtual war zone. General service Units (GSU), or the Red Berets as they are often referred to, and Administrative Police (AP) were firing live rounds at will into a neighborhood of Kibera, injuring innocent bystanders, one of whom was in his home. They seemed rather to be enjoying themselves, displaying a kind of bloodthirstiness which I had not as yet witnessed.

She has some amazing photographs as well including the one above, with the caption:

A man by the name of Geoffry (last name unavailable) was shot in the neck as he was walking home from work and later died of his wounds in Kibera.

While you’re there, hit her tip-jar.

In Defense Of Glen Johnson

I’m with Dan:

The reporter sitting on the floor putting actual, tough, reality-based questions to Romney is AP reporter Glen Johnson—and someone ought to pin a medal on him. Romney lied, Johnson called him on it. He didn’t run off and find a Democrat or a rival for the GOP nomination to "dispute Romney’s claim." He reacted the way any reporter—any person—ought to react when they’re being lied to.

I really don’t believe it’s bias to call a candidate on a bald-faced lie. I wish the press corps would do it with the president.

God Bless America

Megan points me to these words of wisdom:

As for policy positions, as best I can tell, the Democrats want to give most of the southwest U.S. to Mexico, and invite Muslim terrorists to publicly behead everyone making more than a million dollars a year, except for Steven Spielberg and George Soros. Republicans, meanwhile, want to kick anyone with a Mexican-sounding name out of the U.S., and conquer the entire Middle East so that Halliburton will have work after it kills all the porpoises while drilling for oil off the U.S. coast, which will soon be just east of Kansas City, as a result of the Bush-Reagan-Hitler global warming conspiracy.

Both parties are convinced that government is exceptionally skilled at doing things they want more of, and entirely incompetent when it comes to things they don’t like.

The Latest Gerson Screed

We find the ancient liberal smear that limited government conservatism means un-Christian cruelty. There have been arguments over the social Gospel throughout human history. I side with Thompson against the notion of government as a force for spiritual reformation and mandatory charity. What’s objectionable about Gerson’s piece is the notion that Thompson’s version of Christian politics is not a genuine disagreement but a function of "shallow" theology. Different theology, not shallower. Poulos agrees:

Gerson would seem to have us think that a Christian is defective unless he or she supports the use of every tool at the federal government’s disposal to minimize the risk of new terrorists being created.

Larison is tarter:

It is now "isolationist" to oppose foreign aid for disease prevention on a continent where the United States has negligible interests, because apparently our resources are as infinite as the ever-multiplying "interests" that the Gersons of the world discover for us in every problem around the world.  More than that, Gerson tells us, Fred has revealed his lack of "moral seriousness."  For Gerson, governing isn’t a matter of making choices and setting priorities in the American interest, but of unburdening his conscience about suffering on the other side of the world with someone else’s money.  I can understand why Gerson is annoyed–this kind of foreign aid was one of his favourite administration policies–but the reasoning here is beyond laughable.

Obama, Farrakhan, Double Standards

Now, there’s a new bar for Obama to meet: Abraham Foxman now demands that Obama leave his own church because his preacher has all sorts of crazy views that relate to politics. Examining Jeremiah Wright’s theology as it has influenced Obama’s thinking seems to me to be interesting and even important. And Obama will have to take some lumps for it. But demanding someone leave their own church because of some political views espoused by their pastor seems a bit over-the-top to me. David Bernstein doesn’t go that far but he argues it is not enough for Obama to condemn Farrakhan, as he has, nor to condemn Wright for things he has said directly related to the campaign, as he has, but to condemn Wright for his church-sponsored magazine’s kind words for Farrakhan. I don’t think this kind of pressure has any logical end – except for where Foxman wants to go. And Obama should resist being pushed around.

I should add, contra Bernstein, that I think it’s fair to criticize candidates when they are endorsed by a religious figure on the campaign trail, when they have a religious figure hold a campaign fundraiser for them, or when, as in Giuliani’s case, they employ a priest credibly charged with child molestation. But holding a candidate answerable for everything a magazine sponsored by his church says unrelated to the campaign is a step designed purely to sling the smear of anti-Semitism onto someone whose life and career has been transcending racial and religious barriers, not deepening them.

McCain Derangement Syndrome

Gerard Baker nails it:

I sense that the syndrome says something about what has gone so badly wrong with the conservative movement in the past ten years. It has become so intolerant and exclusive that once orthodox views are now regarded as heresy; while views once merely narrow and eccentric are now prerequisites for membership.