Nietzsche? At Liberty? Please Tell Me I'm Dreaming...

The following is a letter I considered sending to the administration or English department at Liberty University, where I graduated in early 2008. I decided that, after my past experiences with the school, probably no one will read the letter or answer my questions so I will just put it for you here. I have absolutely no intention of attending this ridiculous lecture, and wouldn't get caught within a mile of it, but for the Facebook group where I posted this link I was somehow able to write on their wall, probably because my mouse hovered over the "Maybe" button and then I had to change it to "Not Attending." Internets are weird. Anyway, I would appreciate anyone's thoughts:

Dear Liberty,

I am writing to express my profound disappointment in the recent decision of the Department of English to host an event entitled “Nietzsche and Shakespeare: the Most Poetic Philosopher and the Philosophic Poet.” I think this is a very sad reflection on a university who claims to be the world’s largest and most prestigious evangelical Christian institution of higher learning. Friederich Nietzsche was nothing more than a radical nihilist and religion-hating zealot who, I am confident to say, has the blood of millions of Christians, Jews, and non-believers too on his hands. He was a profound influence upon men such as Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Benito Mussolini, who were some of the worst madmen of the twentieth century and caused the greatest war in human history, which resulted in 80 million souls exterminated, most of them innocent. Even President Richard Nixon used some of Nietzsche’s ubermensch/superman ideas to justify his very unethical and even illegal actions during the Watergate break-in and cover-up. As someone who has attended and worked at secular schools, I can testify that many of the most problematic students often revere Nietzsche as a justification for their actions and ideas. One need only watch pop culture films to see the countless references to Nietzsche made by characters who delight in causing problems for other characters; e.g. Kevin Kline’s character in “A Fish Called Wanda.” Nietzsche believed strongly that every man must create his own morality, rather than answering to outdated faiths and institutions and other individuals, of which he saw Christianity as the foremost. Thinking that Shakespeare and Nietzsche resemble each other in that manner is laughable. Shakespeare was a royalist and traditionalist, and by all accounts a believer, or at least an individual who respected Christianity and portrayed that in his writings.

In the Facebook advertisement promotion for this questionable event, there is even a very euphemistic statement which is quite misleading about the man’s ideas: “he is the great companion of anyone conscious of rare gifts he must grow to splendid fruition in a democratic age.” Such a statement is, frankly, garbage and uses flowery, misleading language to alter what the man’s contributions to philosophy and political theory really were. Some of us Liberty alumni are honestly beginning to wonder what Liberty stands for after seeing things like this promoted. It is one thing to host an event to promote discussion or dialog or understanding, especially if it is clear in the title or synopsis that a negative criticism is being offered, but from what I can see, and from what others I have shown these advertisements can see, this event even seems to be glorifying Nietzsche’s life and ideas, and I find that incredibly troubling.

As though Nietzsche’s very blunt declaration of “God is dead,” is not enough, his works are replete with other anti-Christian and simply anti-theistic statements, some of which are frankly frightening. Men like Hitler loved Nietzsche and used his writings to justify many of their actions, including the wholesale genocide of God’s Chosen People, the Jews, and the selective torture, imprisonment, and execution of many countless Protestants, Catholics, and other Europeans of belief. How Liberty can possibly justify this lecture, especially in comparing a wonderful and history-changing poet and playwright such as Shakespeare to Nietzsche, is hard to imagine.

The title of the lecture seems to be promoting Nietzsche and Shakespeare as equals when in fact their ideas are completely different. While Shakespeare’s works do include a fair amount of hopelessness and doubt, they still are replete with theistic and even Christian references, and convey a sense of awe, gratitude and worship to the reader. Nietzsche’s writings, meanwhile, are often very insulting and arrogant, rooted in ancient pagan stories as one can see in Also Sprach Zarathustra, and as I said above are full of anti-religious ramblings. In some cases Nietzsche purposefully did not even bother capitalizing the word “Jew,” which I think Hitler picked up on and which I think goes to show his true feelings about God’s people. Jehovah makes it clear in Genesis that whoever curses Israel will be cursed, so having anti-Semitic radicals like Nietzsche front and center is probably not the best way to go about procuring God’s blessing for our beautiful university. This is so disturbing to me that we Liberty alumni and students are paying for events like this, that I am wondering if I have made the wrong choice in considering graduate studies here in the future. At the very least, secular institutions do not make pretensions to Christian principles and then violate them in open view of the public. There is a place for engaging with secular ideas and writings, but the approach here seems counterproductive.

Here is a particularly disturbing passage of Nietzsche that I found in my research in anticipation of this coming lecture: “When we hear the ancient bells growling on a Sunday morning we ask ourselves: Is it really possible! This, for a jew [sic], crucified two thousand years ago, who said he was God's son? The proof of such a claim is lacking. Certainly the Christian religion is an antiquity projected into our times from remote prehistory... How ghoulishly all this touches us, as if from the tomb of a primeval past! Can one believe that such things are still believed?"
Yes, of course these things are still believed, and this is typical Nietzschean arrogance and dogma. I really can’t understand why students’ tuition dollars are going toward promotion of such a man. It would be one thing if the event were to clearly discourage students from believing him since his ideas were wholly unbiblical and outright blasphemous, and inspired many of the worst tyrants and killers of the twentieth century to embark on the madness that they did. That being said, it looks like the event is morally equivocating between Shakespeare and Nietzsche, even in the title selected for the lecture, and I find that offensive. Shakespeare was a good man and a great writer, perhaps the greatest writer of all time, and he is being compared to a mentally ill, wholly immoral philosopher who wrote wildly exaggerated texts and took pleasure in breaking down institutions and arrogantly domineering over others with whom he debated. It is particularly troubling that a great number of the people who say they are going to attend the event are undergraduate students who probably know very little either about Shakespeare or Nietzsche. This would be a good opportunity to give the students truth about perhaps the most dangerous philosopher of the past two centuries, but instead they are being encouraged to view Nietzsche as a “poetic philosopher” who is a very fitting companion for a “democratic age.” Just read Chapter 4 in Protestant historian William L. Shirer’s masterpiece The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and one gets an idea of how “democratic” Nietzsche’s ideas really are in practice…

There are many other great philosophers in recent memory with whom Shakespeare could be better compared. In fact, why not promote an event like this comparing him to Dostoevsky? Dostoevsky, in his beautifully written novels, posed many of the same questions as did Nietzsche, but arrived at more faith-based and worshipful answers to those questions despite the suffering and horror that he had experienced, often out of his control. Should not that be the kind of intellectual influence we wish to see our students experience? It is acceptable to encourage students to voice their fears and doubts and angers about this life, but if we do not help them to resolve those questions from a biblically rooted worldview as did great men like Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn, instead of Nietzsche who flaunted religion and worshipped self, then we have failed them. It would appear that the English department at Liberty has failed its students in this particular situation, and I think someone needs to speak up and say that this event is wrong in its premise and its practice. God is not dead, He is alive and well and He will either bless or curse our school on the basis of our obedience to Him. Yes, Liberty should seek to promote intellectual engagement and even discussion of controversial subjects such as Nietzsche, but if that is done, it must be done from a Colossians 2:8 mindset, which is certainly not the case here: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces[a] of this world rather than on Christ.”

If Nietzsche is not “hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition,” I’m not sure what is. Shakespeare, on the other hand, seems like wonderful fare for our students and I think we should encourage the reading and understanding of his works, especially without trying to compare him to a far inferior mind and intellect from a far less reverent time centuries later. I think souls are on the line, and Liberty needs to be far more careful in which thinkers and writers it actively promotes. If Liberty’s goal in hosting such an event is to prove to the outside world that it is openminded and intellectual, it should stop trying to do that… the world will never view a Christian school as its academic equal, since Christ promises us in the Scriptures that the world will always despise us for being His followers. We should hold fast to our own values and beliefs, and realize that secular schools would not be any more receptive to the ideas of Christian intellectuals such as Lewis, Spurgeon, and Schaeffer. Sometimes a line has to be drawn, and it would seem as though this is such a time. I appreciate your attention in reading my letter, and I am more than happy to speak with a representative of the school about this matter if that is desired by whomever reads this. God bless Liberty and the students there who deserve far better academic offerings than the man who smiled through his bushy mustache as he said “God is dead.” Yours truly,

Douglas A. Schrock
Liberty University Alumnus, Class of 2008
B.S. in History and Religion

A Thing that Makes Me Joyful But Mostly Angry

Okay, so I need to speed this list up or I am never going to finish. I wanted the “joyful” versus “angry” posts to be tit-for-tat, so I am going to favor my negative self and quickly mention #s 6 and 5 on my “joyful” list. I will come back to them at a later date once this monstrosity of an idea is “successfully” completed…

10 Things that Make Me Joyful (Numbers 6 and 5)

6. Video games. Enough said. (My best friend and I, who still play them together from time to time, used to call them “cideo garnes.” When we were 16 or so, he made a typo in an IM conversation and I erupted into laughter. Still do on occasion.)

5. Glenn Beck. Love him or hate him, the man has passion and does his research. Conservatives and independents love him because he’s real, he’s funny, he’s smart, and he’s one of the few who isn’t afraid of the smarmy self-righteous Left. Liberals hate him because he’s completely unexpected for a usually stoic, stalwart movement and because he actually refutes their tired arguments. Thus? The usual, “Oh, he’s just a stupid bigot”… that same annoying record they’ve been playing for several decades now. Anyone who doesn’t regurgitate the mindless saws of the liberal elite is seen as stupid, because no intellectual energy need be expended on such a dolt. The American people are finally waking up and realizing that the liberals’ monopoly on rage and righteousness is running out. Enjoy getting stomped this autumn, Dems. You deserve it.

Here we are. This will be the first and last point on my two lists where I do this. I will first include it as a “joyful” thing, and then discuss the components—far greater—that leave me “angry.” Enjoy.

10 Things that Make Me Joyful:

4. Romance. The eros form of love. The unrivaled consummation of body and mind and soul of a man and woman. --I'm not delving into anything but that, thank you... I know, so old fashioned and intolerant of me.-- There is nothing quite like being in the presence of someone you love and who (you think) loves you, is there? There's a bonding, an electricity, a warmth, a chemistry. Time slows down and yet speeds up. You think you're in Heaven even if the person puts you through Hell (at first). Whether the person is flirtatiously sliding her finger along the back of your neck, or making wild love to you on your wedding night, there's a specialness and intimacy nothing else can match. God put woman here for a reason, and no, feminist readers, that was not to be a cooking, cleaning, subservient maid... nor a condescending, ruthless, excessively ambitious career gal who aborts her accidents. Moderation, as always, is nice. Anyway, God likely knows a man will never be content with a God he cannot see or feel or hear in this life, and He knows man in his weakness needs a tangible illustration of how much God loves us.

Allow me to be personal. I have been in love three times, I believe. Maybe four. I have never really had a long-term relationship, although two of those three/four times I truly believe the other person was in love with me for a time. I am glad I've loved, especially this last time, because it's shown me I have two things in me I never thought I had: a strong sensuality, like all men, which disproves the many times a nerdy, excessively bookish high schooler with my name and face thought he must be androgynous--ahem--and secondly, an inate ability to reach inside myself and realize that I really do have the ability to put others, one other in particular, before myself. I am far less selfish now than I was a year ago. I am more considerate of parents, siblings, friends, acquaintances, strangers (except when arguing politics, perhaps, but even then I try to maintain some semblance of decorum... key word being "some"). As I was in love I found myself going to great lengths to help her, to support her, to do annoying and sometimes arduous tasks that I would have complained about internally had anybody else asked them of me.

As if all this was not enough, I simply enjoy the feeling of being with someone beautiful and cool and smart I adore, and knowing that she also finds me fetching. Dates can be very fun and fulfilling, whether they are planned or spontaneous. I must confess, nothing long-term has yet worked out--I get bored easily, and I have an intense personality ("Really?" you ask) that tends to wear out even my most loyal subjects--but at the very least I've had some very valuable GP ("Girl Practice") and am a bigger, better man because of it. Who knows, maybe someday I will meet somebody--I find that unlikely these days--and will be able to more deeply experience and express these things.

Now for the fun part...

10 Things that Make Me Angry:

4. Romance. The eros form of love. The unrivaled frustration of all a man's (or woman's) hopes and dreams and desire if it does not work out or if it produces undesired effects... which it inevitably does. I am sometimes unsure what percentage of my disillusionment with the concept of erotic love is because of my own fallen nature and bad experiences, and what percentage of it is simply an offshoot of our culture and the romantic/sexual madness it imposes upon us all. We are bombarded by suggestive ads, songs, books, movies, pictures, but are also told by the liberal flaunt-everything activists who push those things that we cannot in any way act on that sexuality or desire unless the other person absolutely, positively wants it. A perfectly illogical blend of endless titillation and fascistic fear of sexual harassment accusations. Translation: "You can do whatever the hell you want with your body or that of someone else, but you can't act on any of your urges unless you know you won't get caught." Nice.

Either way, my view of erotic love has fallen by the day, if not hour, and--it's pretty safe to say--my view of it could not be any lower. (I am sure I will regret saying that at some point...)

Many women reach a point in their lives where they so deeply tire of the concept and its related disappointments--the unsupportive husband, the disloyal boyfriend, the immature man they chose too soon and couldn't seem to shake for years--that they gladly cast it aside and move on with their lives. Very few men are willing or able to do that, but I think I may be one of them. While I still hold to what I said above, that romantic love can be fulfilling and can teach you how to love another person, I am not even sure the romantic component of that love is what does this for you. Agape love, the unconditional willingness to serve another human being or entity regardless of reward, is what makes a relationship really work, which would seem to mean that erotic love in and of itself is selfish, conditional, even spiteful. In short, refuse. Perhaps it is not even an issue of culture or society or modern-day mores, but rather something defective in the concept itself. All it has to offer is pleasure, which is self-absorbed and fleeting. Some might consider that blasphemy--we hear goofy pastors sing the praises of sex in crowded church gatherings, as though they wish to be moral versions of their hippie free-love opponents--but sex seems to be an intrinsic overly idolized part of a fallen world, although it existed before Man sinned against God. There is a pain to romance, a wistful unfulfilled and unfulfillable longing one feels, sometimes even when the other returns one's affections.

I look out and I see a culture that has no respect or value for the purity and virginity I hold so dear. And yet, as I said above, I'm tired of Christians also getting on the Sex Wagon. I am tired of it being the only thing ever discussed. In jokes, in books, in films, in everything. It's the one thing in life I'd like to experience and yet the one thing I want to get away from so I can focus on my life's work. Sex is not everything. Period.

I begin to wonder if I've been a fool for championing that idea at all. I hear many of my fellow Christians say I am doing the honorable thing, that my abstinence is upright, but then I look around me and see that these same Christians are divorced, having children out of wedlock, moving from relationship to relationship which even without sex seems to be a form of emotional adultery. I think highly of some man or woman I know from church or Christian circles, and then I hear rumors about their bedroom habits and my heart sinks into my stomach. Another brother or sister in the Lord who lives a lie, who makes the atheists I know assume I'm active too. This is why I no longer go to church, why I struggle to even open the Word or pray. I feel alone, one man in the world who's actually trying his best to preserve some chastity. Does my stand really matter a damn? Does anybody notice? Does even God notice? Are nice, smart, pretty Christian girls taking notice of me because I'm more prudish? If anything, it's the opposite. I see "nice Christian girls" dating drunks, atheists, non-Christians, which makes me wonder if I, too, should be seeking someone of a different faith or background. And yet I know I'd likely be miserable with someone who does not share my system of belief. I feel as though I'm in a "Twilight Zone" episode at times, that perhaps my very Christianness is what keeps Christian girls from finding me attractive. I’m too safe, I’m too boring, I’m not perverted or wild or interesting enough. Maybe I should get a little bit of vice, a little bit of vitriol.The order of the day now is to break barriers, overcome boundaries, prove you can do what’s wrong and still be upright in some weird way, purposefully forgive the most wild contradictions and violations. If God is so willing to forgive and forget, perhaps He laughs at my willingness to abstain, sees no moral supremacy in my approach to that of those who are sexually active with fewer boundaries. Maybe I am the immoral one, the sick twisted weirdo who actually wants to preserve some outdated mode of morality that most others—even in the church—are beginning to discard. I’m a relic, a dinosaur, a lover of history who gets weird looks from people, especially girls my age, when I tell them I majored in history and that I write books about it. I even read an article today that said women find history one of the ten worst topics to ever bring up in a conversation on a date. Forget that garbage. I want a woman—no, need one—who loves her roots, is proud of her heritage, who would defend me to the death, die for her family and her country and her God. That woman is apparently dead or nonexistent. Where are you? Where in the hell are you? Silence.

This is likely bitter ramble, but the point is made. Romance is inferior. The flame burns out, the feelings fade, the arguments and disagreements and insanity. I am overwhelmed by it. By the illogic. By girls who flirt and fawn and then resist genuine advances. By single women who detest me for my singleness then show comfort in the presence of taken men, using their miserable “daddy’s girl” complexes as lame excuses. By women who share my interests and my values but then settle for another guy because he's more popular or mainstream or physically attractive. Women I feel no attraction to, who pretend to like me deeply, only to reveal some hidden user's motive. Girls tell me how brilliant and interesting and delightful they find me, but I am not worth the trouble of a commitment, am not even worth introducing to their friends, let alone spending an hour or two together on a boring summer night. I am told, "You just haven't found the right girl," by one friend while another suggests I hook up with a single friend of hers, who is no longer single by the time I contact her. I want to run away from this. I want to find some deserted island, some distant canyon, and be alone with God and books and thoughts. I want to disappear into a library and never emerge until my soul and heart have been cleansed by a higher love, one of discovery and learning. Which form of love would that be? Agape, perhaps?

I will be alone on Judgment Day, I will be alone when I am cast into the grave. There again, what good can romantic love do me? I am me. I am mine. No woman can lay claim to me, and maybe that’s a good thing. Like the Starman in Rush’s classic rock album 2112, I am one man against an entire system, one naked natural soul holding up his hand against the red star of oppression and conformity. Like most men, I suppose. As I’ve said so often, it’s just God and me. Everyone else dies or drifts away. I guess I have to learn to live a loveless life and replace those urges with higher, loftier ones, whatever those might be. Should be fun…

10 Things That Make Me Joyful: Number 7 (Batman)

7. Batman. Those of you reading this are probably thinking this is a bit of a trivial topic to address in comparison to the lofty themes of such issues as abortion, gay marriage, economics, war, etc. Just hear me out on this one, I do implore you. I am going to make this super short since many of you will probably laugh at me, and since it’s almost 3 a.m. and I need to get some sleep. Needless to say, today, May 1, 2009, is the 70th anniversary of the Batman comics, and while many of you may not care or may not see the significance of it, nerds and superhero fans like myself the world round have something to celebrate.

Let’s face it, he’s the best. He embodies everything a superhero should be: amazing skills; a deep-seeded concern for everyday people like his own parents who were murdered by a monster; a love of justice and liberty; a sense of loyalty to his family, home, and country; and a propensity to draw the most vile, vain, villainous criminals to him so that he can, well, kick them into oblivion. He risks his multimillion dollar mansion and financial well-being, his worldwide reputation as a great businessman, his own life and limb to do what’s right, even if it takes a bit of force and fear to impose his will. Yes, Superman is wonderful, but a shade too corny; yes, Spiderman is quite possibly the best superhero to be created in the last half-century, but a bit too hip perhaps; and of course, the X-Men contain a plethora of creative ideas and inspirations… but I insist, the Bat is the best.

No one has the inner conflict of Bruce Wayne; no one can compete with his arsenal of goodies; no one has as many ridiculously powerful and intimidating, yet somehow cool, arch-enemies; no one defends fair Gotham the way he does. If nothing else, Batman is a literary symbol (if he doesn’t exist—how do we know he doesn’t, eh?) who stands for everything good about America and, indeed, humanity. Yes, he’s just a superhero in a comic book, but most of us love watching the movies, reading the novels and comics, playing the video games. There’s something that draws us to him. We all have a desire deep within us to do something great and heroic, if only for a short time for a small audience, and perhaps Batman helps us fulfill that fantasy if only on the screen or in the pages of a text.

In any case, seventy years is a long time for any idea or institution to be sustained, which begs the question… if a character like Batman is so trivial, then why has he stood the test of time? Seven feature films (if you count the atrociously campy 1966 one and 1997’s disaster), several TV series, dozens of books, great music, all built around the idea of a man in a cape and a batsuit who flies from building to building in the middle of the night looking for bad guys and a bit of glory. When he was first introduced, most people probably laughed at this notion, but yet he’s still here with us, through half a dozen wars, a dozen recessions, countless disasters and tumultuous events. Like any great heroic character, he comforts us, challenges us, changes us for the better. He is dark and fearsome, he sees the pain and suffering in everyday life…but he has a heart of gold and wishes to help those in need. All I can say is, I hope I live my life the same way. Sorry, that wasn’t exactly short. Happy Birthday, Batman. Oh, and you too, Bruce Wayne. Of course. I’ll let the cries of “Nerd” and “Obsessive” commence. Bring it on, my friends.

10 Things That Make Me Joyful: Number 8

8. I am going to write this post at the risk of two accusations: first of all, that my positive, or “joyful,” posts are shorter than my negative, or “angry,” ones; and secondly, that I will be told I am writing about something so much more mundane and unimportant in comparison to issues like abortion, war, the economy, etc. On the first point, allow me to say that I am a human being, and as such I do not feel guilty for complaining more than I show gratitude. We’re all that way, almost without exception—I humbly wish that weren’t the case, but something in our DNA keeps us from going out of our way to acknowledge when things are good as opposed to bad.

Anyway, I’d like to write a little bit about one of the things that brings me joy in this realm. College basketball is the topic to which I refer. Tonight, as many of you know, was the annual spectacle known as “Duke vs. North Carolina.” Well, this clash of titans actually happens twice in a season, once at Duke and once at Carolina, but the game at Cameron Indoor (Duke’s very small but very exciting and ultra-traditional setting for all its home games) is generally the most exciting due to the intimacy and intensity of the environment. The “Cameron Crazies,” thousands of spoiled rich kids who attend the university, essentially jump up and down, scream, cheer, yell, cry, laugh, boo, emote during the entire course of the game. If you know anything about me, you probably know that I myself am one of them, except for the minor detail that I have to watch the games from home. I live much closer to Durham, North Carolina, than I once did, but am still a couple of hours away and not exactly in a position to buy tickets and attend the spectacles in person. ’Tis tragic.

Despite that, and despite the fact that I watched my Dukies collapse in the second half tonight against the confounded Tar Heels, I love it. Every minute of it. (Duke’s loss to Carolina is somewhat balanced out by my real alma mater Michigan State’s decisive victory at Michigan. So much for that series evening out again…let’s keep it that way for a while, shall we?) It’s exciting, it’s confusing, it involves courage and passion and teamwork and yet individual bravery and glory. I hear so many football fans complain that basketball is too erratic, too lucky, not physical or masculine enough. I beg to differ…personally, I love both sports. College football is another one of my passions. I used to attend many games at Spartan Stadium while a student at Michigan State from 2003 until 2005. Nonetheless, my best memories of watching sports will always be of basketball…of watching the Final Four while on spring break and seeing Duke win its first two national championships, back to back mind you, under Coach K; of seeing their third successful title game in 2001; of going to my first MSU game in the big beautiful Breslin Center; of seeing the 2005 Sparties take down both Duke and Kentucky, the first team to ever beat both those programs in the same NCAA Tournament… I hate to sound too much like Dicky V—it’s not my style to attempt to steal someone else’s style—but I completely fathom his devotion to, and desire for, the game. Had I played basketball myself in junior high or high school, I might feel this sensation even more strongly, but alas, I did not. That will always be a regret of mine. In any case, I can always watch. After all, “it’s awesome, baby.”

10 Things That Make Me Angry: Number 5

5. The Daily Show. I am going to be burned at the stake or tarred-and-feathered for writing this, but I’ve assumed for quite a while that one of those is my fate. Some of my friends have been telling me lately that I’m becoming too political, speaking my mind too much, offending them with my ideas and comments. Personally, I enjoy hearing them say that in some weird [perverse? I hope not] sort of way. Many of these are the same friends I’ve heard say horrible things about George W. Bush and the Republican Party at large for eight years, usually without me saying anything in reply. I sat like a conservative little mouse afraid of being swallowed by a big liberal cat—during parties, classroom sessions, after-school activities, you name it. Well, those days are over. I intend to be civil and respectful (if that’s even possible where politics are involved), but I need to unload the weight on my mind and chest about a very tangential, yet in many ways important, issue; namely, The Daily Show.

I’ll be honest…I think the program is awful. Not because of my own political views, although I will admit that I am human (surprise, surprise) and that, like any other human being, my opinions and ideas about life and society color my reaction to certain entertainment. But not always. I have always enjoyed Saturday Night Live’s political satire, which is characterized primarily by lambasting Republicans a la Sarah Palin (Tina Fey) and the first President Bush (Dana Carvey). I have found myself actually liking some of The Colbert Report from time to time, which in its own strange fashion has an underlying quasi-antagonistic affection for conservatism as much as the show tries to ridicule it. On top of all that, two of my favorite comedies, Seinfeld and The Office, are written from incredibly liberal worldviews. Not only that, the star of The Office is a longtime Daily Show cast member, none other than Steve Carell.

No, my real problem is Stewart and his show. I don’t deny that he’s a smart man, or a clever man, or even a man with some good insights into the current political and social mess in our nation. On the contrary, what really frustrates me about TDS is that it ridicules the problems it helps create. The show lampoons the incompetence or idiocy of the leaders on Capitol Hill—OK, fair enough—but then feeds such one-sided comic propaganda to its viewers. If you’ll recall, Jon Stewart lashed out at Tucker Carlson and company on CNN’s Crossfire a number of years ago for being partisan hacks and was praised throughout the press as a newfangled bulwark of moderation and objectivity. (How they reached that conclusion I’ll never know. The gent hosts a half-hour fake cable news show that uses constant vulgarity and crudeness. Maybe I’m just narrow-minded.) Yet, we watched night after night after night…after night…after night…of Bush-bashing, Cheney-chomping, Rice-rending. After a while, it became embarrassing to watch. Was there no one else to ridicule? What about David Obey, the gravelly voiced Wisconsin Democrat who saw to it that his own son got a lucrative government contract and almost started a fistfight with Republican Tom Delay over some miniscule issue on the House floor? No joke there? Or what about Robert Byrd, the former Ku Klux Klan member who just happens to be the oldest Democrat in the Senate? No need to ridicule the hypocrisy there? Republicans are excoriated if they get caught shopping in the same department store as a racist, but it seems fine for one of the Blameless Party of Diversity’s senior leaders to be an ex-cross burner. Such consistency.

Anyway, my main purpose in writing this particular post was that of addressing Stewart’s February 10 program. In a segment “reporting” (I hate to use that word to describe what it is that he and his cronies do) on President Obama’s recent trip to Elkhart, Indiana, to discuss the government’s economic stimulus package, Stewart had this to say:

“Wow, the RV Capital of the World. You think your town’s got troubles? Imagine your main industry combines the slowdown of auto manufacturing with the plunging values of the housing sector. Figure out how to put a bank in the trunk; maybe the whole town disappears.”

I was flabbergasted…well, not especially. I am used to the New Left’s petty sarcasm, condescending humor, and ridicule of those everyday American workers, women, and minorities it claims to serve. Several thoughts ran through my head after I heard this: first of all, why on Earth is Fox News broadcasting this as a lighthearted end to one of their news programs when they have a perfect opportunity to expose Stewart for the charlatan that he really is?; secondly, when did it become OK for liberal comedians to make fun of the bad economy and those suffering because of it, especially in the town that has had the highest rate of unemployment in the entire U.S. during this “recession”?; and thirdly, how does Jon Stewart have the lack of shame to put down an industry that has provided thousands of jobs, an entire city’s well-being, endless amounts of joy to American families for decades, and a rigorous, vigorous work ethic that has epitomized the U.S. since its inception? I guess he wouldn’t know anything about that; I’m asking an awful lot from a comedian with poor comic delivery, endlessly clichéd put-downs of the opposing political party, and no sense of what constitutes real news. Oh, and he would certainly have no sense of what compromises actual work. Apparently in his mind making mindless jokes for a silly 30-minute TV program (more like 22 minutes, really) about the daily events in our nation is more respectable labor than working on an assembly line drowning in sweat and grease for 9 or 10 hours every day. Sound logic.

Not only that, Elkhart, despite being a heavily unionized urban manufacturing center, is located in a state that voted for George W. Bush twice, so they’re probably not worthy in Stewart’s eyes of fair treatment. Sorry, Jon, I was expecting too much of you and your long-overdue-for-an-unrenewed-contract “news program.” The scariest thing of all is that so many young collegians and high school students watch The Daily Show and truly believe it is hard news. These are the same people who call Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity devilish propagandists; never mind the fact that those men actually have guests with diametrically different viewpoints. What sad times we are living in. Do me a favor, Stewart…next time you feel obligated to put down a little American town that’s done quite well for its size, pick one that isn’t half an hour down the road from where I grew up. That way at least it won’t have the added personal poison that compels me to write these long, rambling diatribes. If I'm wrong--if in fact The Daily Show has made fun of Democrats or treated them with a fair amount of derision--then please inform me. Feel free to mention some concrete examples. But at this point, I'm rather convinced that they have no intention of being "objective" comics (something I'm not sure is possible) and every intention of being quasi-funny partisan hacks.

10 Things That Make Me Angry: Number 6

6. Bishop Lowery's "Prayer." Inauguration Day--wow, it’s finally arrived. The day that we have been waiting for…well, some of us anyway. I am very torn about this particularly momentous moment—not too redundant a phrase, I hope—in history. The historian in me is shouting for joy and gratitude, as is the American, the Yankee, the child of Lincoln, the advocate for diversity and tolerance of all races, all peoples, all creeds. That being said, I must painfully admit, the conservative in me is not gleeful, not impressed, not saturated with the hero worship that I'm told I must absorb in order to avoid the modern-day Scarlet Letter “r” for racist, “b” for bigot, “n” for narrowminded. I even had someone I care very deeply about throw this accusation at me recently. I said that, between John McCain and Barack Obama, I felt Obama deserved the sacred honor of becoming President much less. Not because of his color, his creed, or his personality—I’m not that medieval—but because McCain had spent more than two decades in the military (including six years in a North Vietnamese POW camp, after which he still reenlisted), had spent two decades in the Senate fighting for what he thought was right, reaching across the aisle often to the dismay of his own party to get the people’s business done. Not a rock star, not a god, not a 90 percent party hack, not an idol to be worshipped by the masses…a smart, thoughtful, dedicated, virtuous American veteran and public servant who I felt had not only the experience to bring about positive effective change but also who saw the war, the nation, the world for what they really were. And what did I get for holding that opinion? The r-word thrown right in my face. “He doesn’t deserve this, Doug? You aren’t becoming a racist now, are you?” I looked back at this person, a fellow conservative mind you, in shock. Is that how it’s going to be the next four years? Are we going to be labeled traitors, fascists, bigots everytime we disagree with the Holy and Anointed One Barack H. Obama? Isn’t that what we Republicans were accused of doing while Bush was in power…of calling the other side unpatriotic, anti-American, pro-al Qaeda everytime a Democrat stood up and decried George W.’s management of the Iraq War?

Ironically, only a few minutes after this little spat between this person and myself we watched the Reverend Joseph E. Lowery, one of Dr. King’s fellow SCLC founders, ridicule white people in--and this was my favorite part--a prayer meant to show respect and honor for the day. Allow me to quote his prayer in its entirety:

"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen. And Yellow will be mella!"

"And when white will embrace what is right"? Glorious...so sophisticated too. What if a Republican had said that? What if a Republican President's priest, bishop, or minister had said such a thing on the sacred steps of the United States Capitol Building? When was open season declared on white people? Yes, there were white slaveowners; yes, Hitler's henchmen were all white Germans; yes, the Romans were whites who enslaved and oppressed peoples from all over the Mediterranean; yes, the cavalry who slaughtered countless hundreds, even thousands, of Native Americans protecting their own land were white. But so were the Union soldiers who defeated Lee at Gettysburg, who liberated Richmond and the South and established martial law to prevent slavery from being reborn; so were the Yankees who freed poor Cuban farmers from the oppressive yolk of Spanish tyranny in 1898; so were most of the American GIs who fought, who were wounded, who were often killed in the fight against the Nazis to liberate the Jews from their hellish concentration camps; so were the American soldiers who fought and died to help liberate the Japanese, the South Koreans, the South Vietnamese; so were the Protestant ministers down south who risked life, limb, and liberty to speak out against their fellow whites who were preaching racism and segregation; and guess what? So were the thousands, indeed millions, of supporters who voted for Barack Obama to cleanse the racial guilt they should not have been forced to bear in the first place, or to simply show their support for a political candidate with whom they agreed.

And guess what? Blacks can be racist, fascist jerks too...Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, Mobutu Sese Seko, just to name a few. Not to mention the Black Panthers here at home--racist militarism is bad no matter what color is involved. Newsflash, Latinos can be evil too, even here in America...just read about some of the horrible things done by the Spanish conquistadors to the Native Americans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or about the massacres of unarmed civilians and enemy combatants by Generalissimo Santa Anna, or about the Hispanic gangs like MS-13 responsible for hundreds, even thousands, of deaths in L.A., south Texas, and elsewhere. As for Native Americans, they have done their fair share of brutality. Thousands of innocent white settlers were massacred from the time we landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, until the effective end of the Indian Wars in 1890. Yes, the U.S. government was less than forthright or honorable in its dealings with Indian tribes, but does that justify lighting missionaries on fire, ripping out their tongues, eating their hearts, pouring pots of boiling water on them? If you think I'm exaggerating, I'd be more than happy to share with you the accounts I've read of such events. And as for Asia? How much time do you have? Whether it's the systematic torture, terror, and conquest of the Ottoman Empire, or the rampaging fervor of Mongolian Genghis Khan, or the racist imperialist militarist fascist Japanese oppression of the 1930s and 1940s (just ask China), there's plenty of guilt for the Asian cultures to go around. But do we burden non-white races with these things? No, and we shouldn't. "What is past is prologue," to quote my buddy Oliver Stone (sarcasm!). So why are whites all KKK members all of a sudden? Huh, Dr. Wright? Huh, Rev. Lowery? Forgive me if I drag up the frightful racial ghosts and goblins of the past, but if you don't understand the history every nation, every culture, every ethnic group has then you can never understand the sheer dishonesty and inaccuracy of what the PC lobby tells you.

How dare you, Reverend Lowery? I know you've worked hard for justice and fairness towards your people, and I salute you for that. I fell in love with the history of the African American civil rights movement long ago, but that doesn't negate my feelings about your speech. How dare you rail about politics at Coretta Scott King's funeral three years ago, in the very presence of four living U.S. Presidents, all of whom appointed minorities to their administrations? How dare you profane the Inauguration with your snide, stupid, racist prayer making fun of whites and Asians, and then join hands with the political correctness crowd to crucify those who dare say anything negative about any black, any Hispanic, any Arab? Where is the consistency? Where is the respect for whites that you wish them to show to blacks? Where is the gratitude for the day, the thankfulness that the most powerful man in the history of the world is an African American? I applaud Glenn Beck for writing a letter to President Obama complaining about your indecency. I can already hear the cries of "racist" from those who lapped up your little poem; I can already hear the accusations that I'm overreacting, that I'm just a pitiful white nerd who is jealous of Barack Obama and his victory. Well, in part that's true but it's deeper than that: I'm big on consistency of moral outrage, on actually showing love and respect and tolerance even for the Big Bad White Man. If you claim to be the heirs to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy, then do like he would expect and see black and white as no better, no worse, no different. "Celebrate Diversity," right?

10 Things That Make Me Angry: Number 7

7. Obamania. I have yet to really write a blog about Barack Hussein Obama, but I think it is about time that I do so. I have expressed my thoughts and feelings about the man in private conversations, little posted items on my Facebook profile, etc., but have yet to really put down on paper what I think of this phenomenon called President-elect (President in two more days) Obama.

First of all, let it be known that I am extremely happy that my country finally has elected an African-American President (although he is not 100 percent in that heritage, I think it is irrelevant to the discussion at this point). Indeed, I will do my best to honor and respect his authority, and will refrain from insulting him or calling him disrespectful names. That being said, I’ll be honest: I’m a bit peeved. A whole lot peeved, in fact. Here are half a dozen reasons—and I could probably come up with more, but I will spare my poor readers:

1. He…has…done…nothing. Not as President anyhow. I drove through my hometown in Michigan recently, and on the corner in the Democratic Party office’s window a sign read “Yes We Did.” Did what? Got elected? That’s the easy part. Now govern, now do what’s right, now save America like you’ve promised. I am reminded of the 1976 election in which James Earl “Jimmy” the Peanut Farmer Carter was expected to be the savior from the evil Nixon legacy and the mediocre Gerald Ford administration. Instead, we got four years of incompetence, inefficiency, and embarrassment: Iran hostage crisis, oil embargo, economic collapse, super-high taxes, creation of the disastrous Department of Education, you name it. At the very least it paved the way for Ronald Reagan to take office in 1981.
2. Michelle. Yes, she’s smart; yes, she’s beautiful; yes, she’s a capable wife and mother, but with the millions of wonderful, patriotic, hardworking housewives we have in this country, we have to get the one who arrogantly declares she was never proud of her country until her own husband became a contender for President. Does anyone else feel condescended to?
3. William Ayers. Yes, Obama does know him; yes, Obama has worked with him on “education reform” (whatever that means); and yes, Ayers has given Obama glowing praise in more than one interview. Yikes. Liberals can say, “We don’t believe in guilt by association,” but I’ll remind them of that the next time some Republican is caught in the same room as George W. Bush. If you dish it, take it.
4. Obama’s nutty preacher friends: Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger. Obama belonged to Wright’s church in Chicago for twenty years and, unless he was asleep in the pew or busy playing his Game Boy, heard every incendiary word Wright spoke. While I honor Dr. Wright for his military service and understand his bitterness over the treatment he received back home, I cannot condone his “theology.” We can play the “out of context” game all we want, but the fact of the matter is, we have elected to the highest office in the land a man who has approved of and been repeatedly instructed by a man who thinks of America as a racist, fascist, militaristic society not worthy of praise or merit…a man who has said “God damn America” in public and has said that big bad America (“the U.S. o f K.K.K.A.” in his words) deserved 9/11. Never mind the many blacks and minority individuals who died horribly that day as well. As for Pfleger, who has publicly threatened gun salesmen and been arrested for disorderly conduct, he screams twice as loud as Wright in his sermons and makes even less sense. He made a fool of himself for railing about Democrat Hillary Clinton and how she resents Barack Obama because of his being black. If anything, she resents him because she lost. I don’t say much in favor of the Clintons, but they have always been staunch defenders of the African-American community—why else would Toni Morrison, a black writer herself, refer to Bill as the first African-American President? The media can complain all it wants about the crazy Religious Right, but the crazy Religious Left is alive and well too.
5. The media’s “slobbering love affair” with Barack, as political and current events commentator Bernard Goldberg calls it. Absolutely inexcusable. Sickening, really. I watched a CNN special preparing for the Inauguration earlier today and had to turn it off because everything said about Obama was so Orwellianly positive, optimistic, uncritical, laudatory. Does anyone realize the inherent danger of not criticizing one’s President, of living in a country where the most powerful person never receives a shred of bad press? The scariest part, I think, is the comedians who say there isn’t anything about Obama they could possibly make fun of. What? What about his arrogance? His big ears? His enormous smile no matter what the situation? His never-ending effort to please every man, woman, child, and creature without ever ruffling a feather or wrinkling a forehead? His inexperience? His endless flip-flops on the Iraq surge, offshore drilling, raising taxes, gay marriage? Out of all that, you can’t find one thing to ridicule or humorize? Does your Bush derangement syndrome have the side effect of Obama infallibility? We’re all human—we all make mistakes, we all need redemption, we all have annoying foibles and shortcomings. Make use of them! This is not Jesus Christ, Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny… this is a human being. This is a weak, sinful, prideful man like you and me. And incidentally, this is not Abraham Lincoln. I can’t imagine anything more presumptuous or self-congratulatory than Obama following the same train route as Lincoln in 1860, but oh…he’s already done that.
6. His views. Senator Barack Obama has a 90 percent lifetime approval rating from Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and has been named the most liberal Senator in the United States Senate. Moderate? Uniter? Bipartisan? I think not. He may not ram his liberal ideology down the American people’s throats, but I do believe he will subtly try to fulfill such an agenda (he’s much smarter than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi put together, I will say that for him). The man who champions the little guy condones the infanticide of 4,000 silent victims every day here in America; encourages Georgia to show restraint when it is blitzkrieged by mighty Russia; supports super-high taxes on corporations and businesses and massively increased wages for union workers, which compel “greedy” American companies to decrease jobs and look elsewhere for better business. Regardless of the moderate rhetoric, Obama is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who is not likely to change with majorities in both houses of Congress and a vast majority of American governors being Democrats.


In closing, let me say this: I will support Barack Hussein Obama (no, I’m not being racist by using his midde name; as an historian, I like using presidents’ full names) when I think he’s right, I will refrain from calling him nasty names or dragging his family into the mix (yes, I criticized Michelle, but I realize she is not the Prez and will try not to make a habit of it); and I will give him the benefit of the doubt on every issue. I will not do, I refuse to do, what you maniacal anti-Bush folks have done for eight years now. I will not berate, I will not rant or rave, I will not despise. God forgive those who have done so to George Walker Bush. He is a good and decent man who, just like Barack Obama will, has made his fair share of mistakes in office. He is not a Nazi, he is not Adolf Hitler Junior, he is not a dictator. If he were, you would all be in prison for saying such provocations. You Bush haters on the left who preach tolerance and love and diversity and political correctness are no more privy to those things than the David Dukes and Strom Thurmonds with whom you equate all conservative Republicans. I don’t dislike Barack Obama, I don’t detest him, I will resist all temptations to bash and belittle him. I am overjoyed that Dr. King’s work has come full circle.

But I will close with something “arrogant” and provocative myself: that’s what makes conservatism better. We put the emphasis on individual responsibility, on personal morality and goodness rather than on collective dogma, enforced politeness, and hero worship. Why do you think so many more Republicans dislike George W. Bush than Democrats dislike Bill Clinton? If you want “Change We Can Believe In,” you can start by challenging your own Messiah when you think he’s wrong. Feel free to desert the cult, people. He’s a mortal, he’s a man…you only hurt your leader and your country when you expect the actions of a god. It's not fair to Barack to place such high expectations on him. Obama’s place of work is Washington, not Calvary. OK, now I’ve said my piece…time to move on.

10 Things That Make Me Joyful: Number 9

9. A simple, traditional, historically rooted Christmas. A Christmas based on Christ and family, not on presents, not on vacations, not on parties or snowmen or scarlet-olfactoried caribou… A Christmas rich in time spent with family and friends, but a Christmas that never forgets the “reason for the season,” as they say. A clichéd expression perhaps, but true nonetheless. One walks into a shopping center or a doctor’s office and hears the most sterile, nonreligious, unmeaningful Christmas songs one can think of. No mention of Christ or the Magi, no passionate acceptance of light in the midst of a dark and dying world, no allusion to Mary or Joseph…even the Santa Claus references are fewer and farther between. The religious freedom we have in America allows us to celebrate the holidays any way we darn well please: profoundly religious, materialistically secular, somewhere in between (my favorite place to be, I suppose), or not at all. Not being the most active Christian myself, I find it very important to do whatever I can at Christmastime to honor the real spirit of the holiday. Without honoring the Advent of Christ, it seems shallow at best, downright blasphemous at worst, to even think of celebrating Christmas.

One reads this and probably thinks, “Wow, how boring and antiquated.” Yes, that’s the point. As much as I love outrageous Christmas comedies like Home Alone and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation; as much as I like tackily-decorated houses with giant inflatable Santas and snowmen and multicolored strands of lights; as much as I enjoy getting piles of presents I don't deserve (which will not be happening anytime soon for me, thank you very much); as much as I would like to escape the frigid madness of December in Michigan for a few days in Florida or elsewhere, I have to say that Christ and compassion are beginning to outweigh those other considerations. This life is too short, this holiday is too sacred, the people in my life mean too much to simply ignore them. I won’t belabor the point with impassioned soapbox pleas about the evil war on Christmas (though I believe there is such a thing), but just figure I’ll share my love for this holiday and my need to indulge in its simple, majestic beauty as much as possible. I'll be doing my usual Yuletide traditions this year: rereading A Christmas Carol, listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra, laughing at holiday-themed jokes...but I sincerely hope for my own sake, and that of those around me, that I can keep the Nativity Scene first and foremost on my mind on December 25.

A Quiet Sunday in Paradise

Last week we celebrated the sixty-seventh anniversary of the unforgettable Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, that claimed over 2,400 American lives and wounded an additional 1,200 or so. The following is a poem I wrote seven years ago for the sixtieth anniversary of the attack. As you can see, I'm not the next candidate for poet laureate but, having had a grandfather who served in the United States Navy on a destroyer escort from 1942 until 1946, I feel a special bond with the men who fought and/or died that solemn day in our nation's history. In fact, during the spring of 1991 (about seven months before the 50th anniversary of December 7th), my grandfather was given a flag that was flown at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial as a token of appreciation for his service in World War II. I can't imagine any honor more satisfying to a veteran of Leyte Gulf (October 1944), the largest battle in naval history to this day. The least I can do is put this little composition out there as a symbol of my own love and admiration for the men of December 7th and those, like my own grandpa Schrock, who felt the need to enlist afterwards in a courageous, indeed successful attempt at justice and liberation. Here goes.

ON THE SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF PEARL HARBOR
Wednesday, December 12, 2001

The air was mute, the water still,
The ships at rest across the bay;
From high upon the lofty hill
The sun emerged to birth the day.

The sailors slept below the decks,
Dreaming in the Oahu heat;
Unseasonable sweat wetting necks
In the Hawaii winter, warm and sweet.

Bluish skies and clouds that fled—
Met the gaze of those who waked;
Yet, most were still asleep in bed,
All of them with lives at stake.

The first bomb fell at five to eight,
A torpedo next, and burst of fire;
Even early it was far too late
To spare these men their pain so dire.

There it was, cold and clean,
That blood-red sun of death and war;
Against a field of living green,
An omen of hatred, nothing more.

Many a sailor that Hell-grazed morn
Stared, unb’lieving, at the dark’ning sky;
He pondered the horror of this storm
And wondered, “Am I thus to die?”

Torpedoes, now, sliced through the waves,
Messengers of steel-tongued doom;
A weaving, winding, watery maze
Of exploding fish, a sailor’s tomb.

Oklahoma capsized, West Virginia sunk,
Ford Island strafed, and Hickam Field;
Any man at Pearl, though drunk,
Saw the power Japan could wield.

And then, of course, at eight and ten,
The mighty Arizona reared;
Smoke and fire and steel and men
Belched into the atmosphere.

The time was burned onto their clocks
Forevermore, and longer;
The pain and shame and guilt—and shock…
And guts. It made Sam stronger.

--DAS

Remember Pearl Harbor. A stronger, safer America means a stronger, safer world. Finis.

10 Things That Make Me Joyful: Number 10

I know, I know, I still have seven left on my "angry" list, but I thought I'd balance it out with some joy and gratitude, OK?

10. Wow. That was the one word going through my head when I read the news about John McCain choosing young Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate this morning... I was in shock for the first few minutes and found myself wondering throughout the day whether this was a good choice or bad. The more I think about it, though, one other word comes to mind: brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Woman. Firebrand conservative. Principled. Smart. Attractive. Tough. From the West Coast, which gets angry about being left out of national elections time after time anyway. I have to say, I noticed the looks of pride and excitement on the faces of some young women on campus today who were talking about J-Mac’s pick. I talked to a few of them I know and realized how historic, indeed how potentially energizing, this decision was and will continue to be until November and beyond. I have to say, I’m proud of my party, my candidate, my country today. If you know me, you know I’m not a feminist per se, but I do believe women have taken a back seat to the political foreground for far too long.

Let the neoliberals say what they want; they’ll bash her, abuse her, claim to be women's rights activists but then say horrible things about her (e.g. Facebook group called "I would have sex with, but not vote for, Sarah Palin"--wow, Democrats, so progressive of you), drag her name through the mud. Oh well, nothing new. She'll make it. She’s handled five children, including one headed to Iraq and one with Down’s syndrome (a poster lady for the pro-life movement if ever one lived); she’s been a beauty pageant contestant, a city mayor, a governor (a darn good one at that), and a thorough professional, so she should be able to handle a few loser twentysomething bloggers living in their parents’ basements who have no idea what real life for real women entails. I can see a “love at first sight” reaction beginning to form between the Republican Party (and many non-Republicans) and Governor Palin. She should help soften our image a bit and show people that we do value women for the wonderful, beautiful, priceless creatures that they are. Where would the conservative movement, or indeed this country, be without them? Go Sarah, Go Mac, let’s pull an upset.

10 Things That Make Me Angry: Number 8

8. The 2008 Beijing Olympics…or “Genocide Olympics,” as some are now fittingly dubbing it. As Red Commie China locks thousands of innocent Buddhists and Christians in prison, beats up and kills Tibetan monks for speaking their minds, drowns innocent children in rice patties because their parents weren’t supposed to have them, uses aborted fetuses’ organs in weird perverted Frankenstein-ish medical experiments, does business with the Sudanese government that is conducting genocide against its own people in Darfur, ships toxic toys to millions of innocent children in America and Europe, forces a billion of its citizens to work under atrocious conditions for virtually no money, conducts shady and uncorrupt business policy with all its trade partners, and refuses to change anything about its 60-year policy of war, oppression, and tyrannical irresponsibility…as all of that occurs, the other 200-plus nations of the world are just supposed to say, “OK, that’s fine,” and step aside as China bullies its way onto the world stage to hold the most sacred and revered of athletic traditions?

Even more frustrating is our own reaction as America, and indeed individual Americans, to the China crisis and our own enabling of it through our massively stupid economic policies, our foolish willingness to buy hordes of Chinese goods, and our blind acceptance of the glorious Olympics being held there later this summer. Our supposedly stubborn and stalwart President has been remarkably weak-kneed and spineless in his handling of the China issue. One of the excuses he and others give is that China holds the “nuclear option” of freezing all American assets, especially if we were to boycott the Beijing Games to send a message to the Communist government there. But guess what? They’ll probably end up doing it someday anyway, particularly if they get backed into a corner by forces outside of our control. So why not call their bluff and do it now? For one thing, we owe them so much money that it might actually hurt them more than us if they were to launch Trade Armageddon against us. And it would prove once and for all that we still, despite the whining neoliberals’ sadistic daily delight in declaring the contrary, hold the moral high ground in most matters foreign and domestic, especially compared with abortion-happy (even compared to us), monk-terrorizing, anti-Christian, hyper-polluting, ultra-corrupt Red China. But somehow I doubt that we’ll have the guts to stand up to Hu Jintao and his brutal dictatorship…

I mean, what kind of world are we living in when it’s America, not France, that is afraid to even consider a boycott of the Olympics? (Or at least the opening ceremony, as France is threatening to omit?) Incidentally, God bless Nikolas Sarkozy…I never thought I’d say that about a French President, but to paraphrase my “main man” John McCain: A pro-American, conservative French leader shows you that anything is possible, if you live long enough. Anyway, I think I speak for most Americans when I say this to President Bush and Congress: Please…do something, anything, about our dependence on China, before it’s too late. Over a billion tired, oppressed Chinese citizens; 300 million financially worried Americans; and half a million dead Darfur Sudanese plead for it. Let's not make the same mistake we made in taking eight years to do something about Hitler and the Holocaust...or doing nothing at all about Rwanda. Outrage demands action...period.

10 Things That Make Me Angry: Numbers 10 and 9

(Subtitle: If Keith Olbermann Can Count Down, So Can I.)

PREFACE: A word of warning…you will be offended. Deal with it.

10. My fellow conservatives who think it’s fine to break Ronald Reagan’s so-called "11th Commandment." I was recently sickened by a cowardly, pointless online networking group created by so-called "conservatives" to deride and debase Senator John McCain, a man who spent 23 years in the Navy, including seven hellish years in a North Vietnamese POW camp.

Also, during the last Republican debate on MSNBC some of Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s fellow debaters actually laughed at him when he made a very passionate, serious point of conscience about the Iraq War. Not only was this rude, but it was also just plain stupid. When debating an issue as momentous as war, all views need to be voiced within a constructive setting without such unprofessional displays of emotion. Is it just me, or is Paul looking better and better with time? Imagine that: a Presidential candidate with an intellect, and some moral principle. I pray that we nominate someone a la Duncan Hunter or McCain next year, rather than a pro-choicer like Rudy Giuliani or Kerry-esque Massachusetts flip-flopper like Mitt Romney. (No, I have nothing against him for his Mormonism, thank you very much.)

Can you imagine Reagan, Barry Goldwater, or indeed conservative Republican President Calvin Coolidge doing such a thing to a lone dissident, e.g. Paul, when they ran for President? No? That’s right—because they didn’t! Although I wouldn’t expect you to remember much about Coolidge…no one else does. (He was the epitome of the classic, conservative, humble, honest, laissez-faire, no-agenda leader. Learn about him!) So much for us being different than the abrasive lefties. We really have trashed our own roots—such a shame. If we don't get them back--and soon--we will continue losing big like we did in 2006. At least the Democrats are living up to their base's expectations, as low as those might be.

9. “Political correctness.” First of all, does anyone realize that that term originally stems from the Soviet Union? But oh, I forgot, here in America today Nazism is the only vicious form of totalitarianism we talk about any longer. Communism gets a free pass, probably because the liberal college professors (9 out of 10 are liberal now) don’t want us to realize that the left wing, not just the right, has nightmarish potential if left unchecked. When Lenin and Trotsky first established the Communist state in Russia, there was still a great deal of political opposition and so they established their infamous system of “politically correcting” such supposed miscreants, usually in labor camps and prisons, which Stalin would later perfect to a diabolical science that would cost 30 million innocent lives.

Is that really the model we want to follow? In the home of the Bill of Rights and the Gettysburg Address? After all, the real danger of restricting speech—which the liberals should realize—is that it automatically legitimizes the most ridiculous, reprehensible, indeed ruthless things that are said by allowing those who are no longer allowed to speak freely the ability to claim the moral high ground. If you want evidence of this, just look at the way dictatorial regimes are almost always overthrown and replaced with equally repressive governments, just from the other end of the spectrum. The two realities are not unrelated. This is why it is so dangerous to correct speech, because the repression of expression feeds the resentments and paranoias of already-troubled groups. This is something the Founding Fathers, in their genius, prophesied… if you allow fools to speak their minds, the vast majority of the masses will see them for what they are: fools. If you shut them up, however, you make them martyrs.

In closing, allow me to point out a massive inconsistency with the liberal P.C. propaganda. We are told by either implication or direct edict that we can say nothing critical about any Black American, any Muslim male, any Latin(o/a), any homosexual or lesbian, any Hindu or Buddhist or non-Westerner, any global warming advocate, etc. etc. Just look at Don Imus or Trent Lott or George Allen or Rush Limbaugh--but somehow Bill Maher and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and Chris Rock get away with saying equally atrocious things. Somehow it's worse when a conservative says it. Where is this outrage when despicable, unfettered attacks are made on Christians? Catholics? Blacks who vote Republican? Conservative women? When Muslim women are stoned, tortured, and oppressed? Or, above all, when Jews—a minority, if there is such a thing!—are bashed, ridiculed, and scapegoated by the likes of Jimmy Carter and others? That’s right, there is none. Political correctness and “tolerance” are a farce, a lie, a diversion. Nothing more, nothing less. True tolerance doesn’t tamper with the First Amendment—end of story.

From Holocaust to Homeland

Fifty-nine years ago today, on May 14, 1948, a new nation was born (or rather, an ancient kingdom was re-established)...one that, like Greece and Ireland before it, took two thousand years to finally come full-circle. The nation of which I speak is, of course, the Jewish state, the State of Israel. It is only fitting that I write a tribute to those who live in, and particularly defend, her on this day.

The Israeli does not fight for land, for money, for women, for alliances, for political gain. He does not fight for pride or lust, she does not fight for the feminist agenda or to win the approval of men. He fights for his right to live and love and work, she fights for her right to bear children and live freely. The Israeli fights for Yahweh, for Israel, for fairest Zion, for the right to exist. The Israeli, every Israeli, serves his, serves her, country as a young adult, sharing the burden of defense without question, without query, without qualms.

He and she put aside fear, worry, selfish ambition, and self-preservation to help preserve the ancient traditions of Eres Israel, indeed to please their God. The six million citizens of Israel work today to prevent what happened yesterday, to six million of their comrades, from happening yet again tomorrow at the hands of Iran or Syria or another racist regime. Never again! is the battle cry on their lips now, as it was in 1948, 1967, 1973, 1982, and indeed last summer against Hezbollah.

What naive, over-idealistic pro-Palestinian leaders like John Edwards, raving senile anti-Semites like Jimmy Carter, excessive noninterventionists like Ron Paul (as much as I like him), and indeed all non-Jews--including passionate Christian Zionists like myself--don't understand is that Israel is not an aggressor, not a bully, not an "occupying force." I hate to use the cliche of my Jewish friends, but I will: "How can you 'occupy' what belongs to you?" Two words: you cannot. It's theirs, all of it, including the West Bank and Gaza. Just look at the map of ancient Israel and Judah in the back of your Study Bible (if you have one, that is).

Yes, I love Israel and am not afraid to say it, not just because they're God's chosen people, not just because of their ability to create and inspire despite five thousand years of persecution (not only the Holocaust!), but because they remain the beautiful, tenacious, strong, democratic underdog, the "America of the Middle East," I suppose. I cheer for them now, and always will, and I hope the equally noble American people will do the same. If we don't, who will?

P.S. I don't just throw out nasty terms like "anti-Semite." I thought long and hard about giving that nomenclature to former President Carter...I didn't like doing it.

Happy Birthday, Greece

As you may or may not know, today marks the 186th anniversary of modern Greek independence--March 13, 1821, a very important day indeed in European and world history. In many ways, the re-establishment of Greece as a nation--freed from the tyranny of the Ottoman Turks, with the help of some Western allies, including Great Britain--was to Christendom what the re-establishment of Israel in 1948 was to the faith of Judaism. It helped bring full circle the enlightened, glorious, democratic traditions of the past--although Greece did not become a republic for another century--and struck yet another massive blow to the already-declining Ottomans. (Thank God!)

We could use another such victory today as we wage war with the barbaric radical Muslims a la al-Qaeda and the Mehdi Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. If only Iraq could become the Greece or Israel of Islam. Wouldn't that be something? A colossal step forward for democracy, Islam, and the Middle East, indeed the globe...proof that the silent prayers and wishes of millions of moderate, peaceful, freedom-loving Muslims worldwide were finally answered. A first step, indeed, in creating modernistic--not simply Islamist--democracy in the Arab world. An inspiration for the oppressed masses in our "allied" kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in Sudan and Libya and Somalia, indeed in ultra-fundamentalist, nuclear-minded Iran.

But how can we expect such a milestone if we leave Iraq prematurely? If we allow weakness, cowardice, politics, indeed betrayal of our own military, to dictate our plans? I wish the American people, especially the spineless Democratic Party, would remember Sherman's words: "War is all Hell." When I listen to Jack Murtha, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and other liberals speak about war, I wonder--especially in the case of Murtha, who has already felt the bitter sting of losing a war--if they know anything about military tactics, strategy, or history. War sucks, people! At best it's bloody, horrifying, and traumatic; at worst it's devilish, immoral, and insane...but there are times when it has to be fought. Deposing Saddam--a narcissistic dictator (is there any other kind?) who had killed 300,000 of his own people, in addition to hundreds of thousands of others--was a noble thing. What was ignoble was our administration's incompetent inability to give 20 good reasons to the American public for the invasion, instead of one majorly botched reason. That doesn't make the Iraq War wrong, folks.

What if the Brits or Russians had given up on Greece in 1826, after the Greeks suffered a huge defeat at Missolonghi, five years into the war? Or if the West had deserted Israel in the 1940s as she tried to establish her post-Holocaust, two millennia-overdue homeland in Palestine? We cannot do that to Iraq, or we will reap the whirlwind--at home, abroad, and at the hands of both history and Heaven. God loves liberty and those who long for it, but He despises those too arrogant to share it. Let us not disappoint Him, as we very likely did when we retreated prematurely from Vietnam and Cambodia in 1973. Fight...to...win. At the very least, we owe it to 3,000 dead and 20,000 wounded Americans. Remember that, will you?

My Valentine's "Alternative"

The second week of February is always a poignant, indeed special, one for me. Not because of Valentine's Day--certainly not. In fact, I wear black each February 14, not in a self-piteous show of a single man's bitterness--well, maybe partially!--but rather in symbolic mourning for my lost, or at least unfound, love. Sappy and old-school, isn't it? Anyway, the reason this week is important for me can be summed up in the birthday commemorations of three very special individuals in my life and leanings: California Governor and 40th U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911), British novelist and Ebenezer Scrooge creator Charles John Huffam Dickens (February 7, 1812), and yes, my ideological mentor and favorite historical figure, our 16th President--and Great Emancipator--Abraham Lincoln (today, February 12, 1809). While it is a heavy emotional and psychological load to consider all three of these men thoroughly in the same few days, it is also a very affirming and uplifting task as well, one I don't really mind performing. (Can't tell I'm a history nerd yet, can you?) Here are a few brief, succinct thoughts I have about all three:

Ronald Reagan - He was--and is--the father of modern-day conservatism, the man who renewed America's patriotism and faith in itself...the Great Communicator, the redeemer of the GOP, the first man to serve two full terms in his own right since FDR. Almost every earthly, political conviction I hold I can trace back to him and his values--an appreciation for smaller government and free enterprise, a need for a strong volunteer military, a reverence for the laws of God and country, and a deep compassion for every human life, especially those yet unborn. I may have differed with him on certain issues, as is inevitable with any leader, but I will cherish his memory until I too leave this globe.

Charles Dickens - He is my all-time favorite author, and is quite possibly the second most brilliant and effective crafter of the English language (behind Shakespeare, of course...no shame in being called second there). One could argue he was the greatest novelist of all time, writing not just one but more than a dozen classics with indelible characters: A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, David Copperfield...to name a few. There is something remarkable about picking up a Dickensian work on a winter's eve and letting it warm, indeed touch, your body, heart, and mind. Many in our modern, cynical world have begun to spurn Dickens for his sentimental, spiritual literature, but I say God bless him even now! I can trace much of my compassion for the sick and weak, the young and even unborn, to his influence. Thanks, Boz--I owe you one.

Abraham Lincoln – The tall, scrawny, rugged-looking prairie lawyer…born in a rural Kentucky cabin, raised on a dirt-poor Indiana farm, ushered into manhood by way of failure and adversity in the fields of New Salem near Springfield, Illinois. My hero, my icon, my inspiration—the noblest, brightest, most singular leader we have had here in America. The Founding Fathers were a mountain range of impressive intellects and historical figures amassed together—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Adams, Madison, Monroe, Paine, Henry—while Lincoln was a Colossus, a monolith, of leadership and courage rising from the vast plain of mediocrity and evil around him, both before and after his Presidency. Without him, our great future leaders—Roosevelt, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Reagan—would have had no bridge back, no real connection, to that original distant, glorious birth of freedom embodied by the Declaration and the Constitution. It took Lincoln to remind the entire nation, not merely the South, that freedom must be universal and unfettered, and that a great republic’s true union depended entirely on liberty. A valuable lesson then, and even more so now, in this increasingly troubled and complex world. Lincoln’s towering soul, like his body in life, continues to watch us…let’s not disappoint him, whether it be in Baghdad or Kabul or here at home.

So that's my humble, yet somehow lofty, alternative to Valentine's Day. Take it or leave it... Unless you're a magnificent nerd like myself, I'm guessing you'll choose the latter. But show some empathy, or at least pity; for those of us without a love or a life, such "commemorations" must suffice. For now, that's fine with me. Such men and women in history can never get enough attention, as far as I'm concerned.

Wish I Were Italian...Or Something.

This may seem like a strange blog--and it probably is--but I'm writing it anyway. (That's how you know you're a genuine writer.) I am supremely proud of my American heritage, not to mention the fact that I have deep roots in German and Scots-Irish ancestry. Nonetheless, there are times when I wish I were less of an ethnic mongrel, so to speak. I really have no one European lineage to identify with, which so many Americans do. I think it would give me a better sense of where my ancestors came from, what they suffered, and what exactly brought them here. Instead, I am finding I have to piece together the many morsels of my ancestry...a little Scottish here, a little English there, some German, a tad of Italian Swiss and even Chippewa Indian.

What am I, then? One hundred percent American indeed, and that will always be my primary identity. But I must admit, it would be nice to have a strong, unbroken tie to a certain foreign country, so as to give my forefathers' (and mothers) saga more meaning...and my eventual planned pilgrimage to such a place. I'm quite jealous of those in our society, particularly Italian- and Irish-Americans, who have such clear, defined, unadulterated attachments to their ethnic heritage and history. I realize it's probably because they've been through a lot more adversity and exclusion than perhaps my English or German forebears, but nonetheless...I'm green with envy--or orange, since I'm a partially Scots-Irish Protestant.

If I could choose any one ethnicity, or at least one apart from my myriad, it would probably be Italian. I'll always adored Italian "stuff." Glorious food and drink, great music and literature (I actually love opera), Renaissance art and architecture, beautiful passionate brunettes, a home country with perhaps the richest and most colorful history and landscape--alongside Greece--in all of Europe. (Granted, I would probably have to become Roman Catholic, but even as a proud Protestant with grave misgivings about Catholic theology, I see Catholics as my Christian brethren.) Not only that, I would enjoy being part of a culture that values family life, national loyalty, and simple pleasures above all else (although the whole Mafia thing would be a bit of a turn-off). I think America used to exhibit those qualities, but we've become such a corporate-driven, materialistic, hedonistic, cynical, weak, pro-choice, pro-criminal, pro-globalist, anti-war, anti-religion, anti-decency, self-absorbed, "diversity"-instead-of-unity freak show, that I sometimes no longer recognize Lady Liberty or Uncle Sam in our midst.

But forgive me for digressing. My point is somewhat tongue-in-cheek...I am not really saying I want to convert to a different nationality. I just think it would be nice if I could cling to an American and another country's flag. After all, our immigrants' dual identity has always been a valuable, integral part of our society. We have always been populated by people proud of where they came from, even prouder of where they have come. I guess I will just have to cling to the one flag I love--and would love--more than any other anyhow, that of brave, freedom-loving, red-white-and-blue Old Glory...which is fine with me. If and when I plan my pilgrimage to my ancestors' home countries, I'll just have to visit five or six instead of only one. The more the merrier, I suppose. Perhaps in that sense I am more of a true American. E pluribus unum, eh?

My Person of the Year? Not "You"

Originally I was going to write a blog today about its being the 200th anniversary of Robert E. Lee's birth on January 19, 1807. As a fellow Virginian, and as a deep admirer of the Confederate general, I thought it would be proper. But seeing as how I've already spent a lot of the day thinking about his legacy, and even posting a birthday tribute on a Facebook group dedicated to R.E. Lee, I think I'll write about another topic I've been wanting to address since New Year's. Oh, and for those of you self-righteous liberals who think I'm a fascist for liking Robert E. Lee, get a life, for two reasons: 1) I'm also a near-idolater when it comes to Abraham Lincoln; and 2) Lee personally opposed slavery and even freed his own slaves. Yes, he did fight for the Confederacy, but he even allowed black troops to fight near the end of the war in exchange for freedom. Moving on...

Instead of blogging about Lee, I'd like to fulfill my procrastinated intentions and name my own 2006 Human Being of the Year. Not "You"...sorry. I don't play politically correct, cowardly, supposedly "avant-garde" games like Time Magazine. Nor do I choose non-human entities...therefore "Human Being of the Year" is the moniker here. In the interest of being progressive--no, conservative and progressive are not mutually exclusive--I will make my first ever HBOTY a woman. A young one at that--and one from southern California. (Is the sky falling?)

Her name? Christine Zoldos, and you may have heard of her. On Wednesday, November 8, she--an attractive, modest, patriotic, 18-year-old woman--made a name for herself by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at a student trustees meeting on the campus of Orange Coast College, a two-year school near Los Angeles. Yes, by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance! "So what?" you ask? Well, her student council had spitefully prohibited the sacred Pledge from being recited at the beginning of its meetings, to supposedly save time and because of the "under God" phrase which infuriated their childish over-sensitivity. Despite the fact that the college is attended by more than 28,000 L.A. area students, and the fact that more than 85 percent of Americans do believe in God, three of the council's members took it upon themselves to turn an American public college's student council into a soapbox for anti-American, Communist viewpoints. After all, the leader of those three, Jason Bell, proudly declared his atheistic, socialistic beliefs and wore a revolutionary beret and militaristic garb(age) at these public-funded gatherings. (He excused his acts by accusing the Pledge writers of adding "under God" as a simple McCarthyistic attack...perhaps, but it's 50 years later. Just skip those two words if you're so freaking offended.) I'm not surprised, given that we're talking about Los Angeles...but the last I checked, California is still on American soil. It isn't a Chinese or Mexican province--not right now, at any rate. We must defend every last remnant of our soil against such ideological attacks.

Anyway, Zoldos was so upset by the actions of Bell and his comrades that she decided to make her own statement. At the beginning of the group's meeting on Wednesday, November 8, she recited the Pledge aloud before the committee could commence its evening business. According to a November 9 article on Reuters' website, she told a reporter, "America is the one thing I'm passionate about and I can't let them take that away from me." I hear you, Christine, and so do millions of other angry Americans. Her action was short, simple, and clear--the best political statements always are, something two-dimensional thinker Cindy Sheehan and one-sided filmmaker Michael Moore should learn--but she made headlines almost instantly. She even got a three-minute interview a day or two later on the conservative comic and commentator Glenn Beck's CNN program, which is where I first heard the story in detail. She struck me as very modest, very plainspoken, and yet very intelligent and passionate, as she had said.

Sadly, it will take hundreds, indeed thousands, more like Zoldos to take back our right to exercise patriotism in our own country. Ridiculous, isn't it? Apparently, the Supreme Court thinks the First Amendment applies only to the radical, God-denying minority and not the average, hard-working, God-fearing American majority that has built this country on sweat, blood, toil, and tears, since 1607. Don't get me wrong...I firmly believe that we should protect the right of an American Communist, indeed an American Nazi, to practice freedom of speech. That, after all, is the true test of a legitimate Bill of Rights--but the security and rights of the historic, overwhelming majority must be considered first. We built this country on majority rule as well, not just minority rights. We have forgotten that as a country and a culture. It takes the acts of people like Christine Zoldos to remind us. And so, in a year that has been particularly ugly for conservatives, she is a shining exception. (She's even promised to keep attending the council, which she serves on, in order to continue her salute of the American flag. Most impressive.) As for you, Time Magazine, let me say this: "You" suck. Next year, have some guts and pick a real person. Just a thought.

Quote of the Day: "The fact that they have enough power to ban one of the most valued traditions in America is just horrible." - Christine Zoldos, 11/09/07. The only way to take that power away from such extremist bully oligarchs is to use their own weapon against them, i.e. that good old freedom of speech, and freedom of the assembly, which they constantly flaunt. We patriots, whether Democrat or Republican, need to stop retreating on this issue...defensive warfare usually fails. Ask Robert E. Lee.

Magnum Opus: Bush 43

I have been thinking a great deal about Presidential legacies lately, largely because of Gerald Ford's December 26 death and the Bush-related "thumping" of the GOP on November 7. That, and I had a very strange dream last night, as I so often do. I dreamt that I had to write a very important research paper about President Franklin Pierce, but could only find two very short, unhelpful sources...not a good thing, if you're a history major like me. I was frantic, running here and there, all over town, from one place to the next, looking for a freaking biography of the New Hampshire man who lived in the White House from 1853 until 1857. No such luck.

Upon awaking, I realized that my "nightmare" had been quite realistic. There are certain poor souls who go down in history as either mediocre or worthless, despite being placed in glorious positions at pivotal moments. Franklin Pierce and his successor, James Buchanan, may be the epitome of such individuals, at least in our nation's history. It took someone like rail-splitting Illinois country boy Abraham Lincoln to finally use the Presidency to accomplish something--namely, the dismantling of slavery and re-establishment of the Union--the first executive to really wield power (aside from James K. Polk, 1845-1849) since Jackson in 1837, twenty-four unbearably long years earlier.

And so I begin to wonder if we are in a similar period right now. Our last President who deeply exhibited those qualities so vital to a good or great President--integrity, honesty, intellect, strength, political tact, and conviction--was Ronald Reagan, who left office in 1989...has it already been 18 years? Since then we've had George Herbert Walker Bush, shrewd and upright in his handling of the Persian Gulf War and the final collapse of Gorbachev's Soviet regime, but equally indifferent to the economic plight of middle-class Americans and not real passionate about the prospect of another term, as evidenced by the infamous watch-checking incident during his final debate with Clinton in Richmond. (I lived there at the time.)

Next was William Jefferson Clinton, perhaps our country's most "morally bankrupt" President of all time (at least sexually)--and that's saying a lot, considering Nixon and all his tendencies. Cheating on his wife with numerous women, having sex in the Oval Office where Lincoln freed the slaves, lying directly to 250 million anxious American citizens, passing on a 1996 offer by the government of Sudan to extradite a rising star in the radical Muslim world named Osama bin Laden... Not to mention the Whitewater scandal and allegedly making off with White House furniture in January 2001.

That brings us to George Walker Bush. Let this be my magnum opus on the eventual legacy of Chief Executive #43. For those of you who don't know, a magnum opus is the classic, quintessential work of a certain author or artist, particularly on a subject of great importance to that person. In addition, it generally contains those things a person is absolutely sure of about a given subject, in spite of other possible enigmas and uncertainties. I seriously doubt this blog will ever be of such historic importance, but I will do my best to write those feelings about, and impressions of, George W. Bush that are never likely to change for me.

First of all, I believe there are two major distinctions that Bush will hold, even if historians one day declare him our worst President (considering those like Buchanan and Clinton, I doubt that will happen). The first distinction is that of controversy...I believe Bush 43 ranks in the top five regarding that designation--first-to-be-impeached (but not convicted) Andrew Johnson, failed Vietnam War architect Lyndon Johnson, nymphomaniac and liar Bill Clinton, and paranoid power-craver Richard Nixon being the other four. Lincoln, Jackson, and others were very controversial during their years in office, but history has proven them to be morally upright, iconic heroes. Secondly, I believe Bush will forever be remembered as one of our most powerful Presidents--a man not afraid to make unpopular decisions and flesh out the very limits of his constitutional authority. In this regard he is rivaled only by FDR, Andrew Jackson, Lyndon Johnson, and again...Lincoln. Lincoln briefly suspended habeus corpus at the beginning of the Civil War, instituted our first draft, and issued the boldest Presidential declaration in history, the Emancipation Proclamation. Bush, meanwhile, has launched two major military campaigns overseas, deposed two dictators, mostly ignored the UN and EU (sometimes rightfully), carried out a domestic surveillance and wiretapping program (as did Democrat FDR), created massive new bureaucracies despite being a "conservative," and continued his policies unblinkingly in the face of a 30-percent approval rating. That takes stubbornness, and that takes power. Much of his assertive decision-making has been shored up by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, firm believers in Presidential license.

As this blog is already much longer than I had intended, I will "attempt" to close. Had Bush been a one-term President, he might have gone down as one of our best execs to serve just four years. He strongly boosted our morale after 9/11, successfully liberated Afghanistan, employed new terrorist surveillance strategies, led the charge against partial-birth abortion, began campaign finance reform, made effective tax cuts, supported faith-based programs to help the poor, and even filled the spare moments with a good sense of humor and a little self-deprecation. So what happened, you ask? He didn't just serve one term, and now his legacy will almost certainly be hitched to one miserable word that has symbolized his second term (and part of his first): Iraq. As fair or unfair as it may be, I have made peace with that reality. Bush and Iraq will forever be inextricably tied, whether it miraculously turns around or concludes as an astounding failure (in spite of Saddam's deserved defeat). In closing this quintessential "magnum opus" regarding Bush, I will restate what I know beyond a doubt: he will go down as one of our most controversial, yet powerful (or at least aggressive), commanders-in-chief, and will be shown in textbooks centuries from now with Iraq around his neck, either as a glowing laurel or a ponderous millstone. I hope and pray it is the former.

The Good Man from Grand Rapids: Part II

In the first part of my blog about Gerald R. Ford, I primarily discussed his personal strengths and attributes. This is what the majority of the media and Gerry Ford's admirers have been dwelling on since Tuesday...but there was more to him than merely his honesty and humility. In fact, he was quite unique in regard to his brief tenure as President. Here are some fascinating distinctions about the man we called Mr. President for 895 days, from August 9, 1974 until January 20, 1977:

- He was the only man to ever ascend to both Vice President and President without being elected. Indeed, his dream was to become Speaker of the House, not President or Vice.
- Only four Presidents--William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, James Garfield, and Warren G. Harding --served briefer terms as U.S. President.
- He was faced with the task of properly ending the longest war in American history, not an enviable assignment.
- He was one of the few presidents--Lincoln, Carter, and Grant being notable others--who rose from obscurity and, at times, near-poverty to become the most powerful democratic leader on Earth.
- In 1976 Ford became the first President to approve female cadets at the nation's public military academies, a very bold and unexpected move.
- Upon his death on December 26, 2006, Ford died as the oldest U.S. President ever.
- Ford is still the only Eagle Scout to become President.
- He was married to his wife, Betty, for an incredible 58 years, despite her struggles with alcohol and breast cancer, and his own political difficulties.
- Despite being quite possibly the best athlete in Presidential history--an MVP center on two national title football teams at Michigan (1932-33)--Ford was unfairly portrayed by liberal operations like Saturday Night Live and Hollywood as a clumsy fool. Surprise, surprise.
- The bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence occurred during Ford's Presidency; this was a very special and thoroughly celebrated affair that helped boost the country's morale after Watergate and Vietnam.

In addition to these unique distinctions, Ford was actually able to accomplish a moderate amount in his 895 days as chief executive. On his insistence, American forces rescued around 237,000 pro-democracy Vietnamese refugees in 1975, saving them from certain death or persecution at the hands of the Communist regime. This was a major blow to the vengeful Viet Cong, onlooking China, and world Communism and tyranny. Around 140,000 of these refugees settled in the U.S., and have contributed greatly to our society in the past three decades. That same year, Ford deftly handled the Mayaguez crisis off the coast of Cambodia, in which 39 American hostages were successfully rescued by U.S. Marines despite heavy losses. This sent a clear message that failure in Vietnam did not mean America would lose its nerve in other international crises. In addition to this, Ford signed the historic Helsinki Accords with Brezhnev's Soviet Union, which furthered detente and led to internal changes within Eastern Europe that promoted greater freedom of expression and the planting of democratic ideas. This was one crucial step in the eventual downfall of the Soviet empire.

Finally, Ford was able to curb a great deal of the nation's severe inflation; he kept Dr. Henry Kissinger on as a very effective and influential, although controversial, Secretary of State; and he began placing more diplomatic pressure on South Africa's racist apartheid government, something no other President before him had done. Within a decade, that regime too would begin to collapse. It's too bad Gerry was not elected in 1976; these were not the actions of an incompetent dupe, as he has been so stupidly portrayed. Rather, they were the accomplishments of a loyal public servant who showed the same face in public as in private, a rarity in Washington and in life.

Quote of the Day: "I am a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln's. But I will do my very best to equal his brevity and his plain speaking." - Gerald R. Ford, December 1973, after being named as Nixon's new Vice President. These are the brief, plain words of an intelligent but humble man who knew himself and the seriousness of his new responsibilities. Within eight short months, he would be promoted even further by circumstances. Thank God it was him, and not Spiro T. Agnew...or anyone else.