The Anchoress

John Kerry has now made two statements concerning his extremely ill-advised remarks made yesterday before a group of (one might presume) Kos and DU-loving college students:

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

He compounded his mistake with a defiant sort of meltdown and then - sensing that wasn’t working- with a second, mealy-mouthed, “it was a joke about Bush that got mangled.”

You know what? It doesn’t really matter if he “really meant” President Bush or not. Kerry has just demonstrated that for all of his vaunted “nuance” and supposed intelligence, he’s not really ready for prime time. The guy who spent 20 years in the senate moving no real legislation beyond “special days for special people” might be a smoother speaker than Bush, but he’s got his own deficiencies in the speaking area, and he’s showcasing them.

There is an art to good politics and there is a rule, too - and it’s a really simple one, but so many politicians can’t follow it, particularly if they have delusions of genius. The Rule goes like this: If you screw up, whether because you’re an idiot, or you’re just having a bad day, or a mic was left on - whatever - and you say something deplorable (even if it just sounds deplorable but you meant it well…) you admit it, you make a joke at your own expense and you apologize - even a half-assed apology will usually do.

And then the whole thing usually goes away.

If you don’t do that…if you go for “the coverup” or you insist on making excuses, blaming others, etc…it doesn’t go away. It just gets bigger. It’s true for every politician. It’s even true for Bill Clinton. This is The Rule for Scandal, and it goes for everyone.

Unless (and this is the only, only, only exception to the Rule) your name is Hillary, in which case you can wear a pastel colored suit with a cashmere cardigan tied around the shoulders of your suit jacket (!) and say pretty much any garbage you want to about the gaffe - usually something defensive and scolding - and everything goes away, anyway.

Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

Meanwhile, the utterly artless John Kerry has just handed the Democrat party and the press their absolutely PLATINUM excuse, among the several they are preparing, for any surprising failures in next week’s election. If the Dems don’t pick up the 30-50 house seats they’ve been talking about, or they lose a few races the press is currently calling in their favor, the excuse will be that John Kerry’s Stupid Flub did ‘em in.

And that will end any presidential aspirations he might have had for ‘08.

Austin Bay understands The Rule for Scandal and he writes wisely:

Why didn’t Senator Kerry just apologize? “I’m sorry for what I said. I meant to crack a joke and it came out sounding like an insult to US troops. Forgive me. We owe our defenders so much.”

Absolutely correct. That is ALL Kerry had to do. And it would have gone away.

There was some joking around a while back that if Kerry got serious about running again, he’d find a horse’s head in his bed. He may have just put one there, himself.

DJ Drummond takes this opportunity to envision a Dem win next week

Blue Crab Boulevard asks Did Kerry Torpedo the Dems? and Tom Bevan calls it a gift. We’ll see. The press will do all it can to help bail him out - again.

Meanwhile, Flopping Aces takes a look at John Kerry’s life and gives one the impression that - in the end - perhaps John Kerry is just your basic yutz who was born well and married even better. That’s supposed to be bad, right? It would be bad if he were Bush, certainly. Heh.

An NRO roundup of sorts: Jim Geraghty wants to start calling TKS The Kerry Spot again. Kerry has really, really stirred the hive. Michael Ledeen, who has well-educated family in Iraq had this to say:

…it underlines the near-total alienation of the American intellectual elite. I dare say that the leading news and editorial rooms, like the offices of the major universities, are full of people who quite agree with the notion that our troops are stupid and underprivileged. Each time one of our children ships out to the Middle East, we get condolence calls from friends and relatives. They simply cannot fathom it, it is so totally removed from their own experience and from their own narcissistic lives. They do not know uniformed people, they have only a totally misleading stereotype.

This 21-year Navy Vet was further insulted by Kerry’s clarification. A sure sign you need to stop talking and follow The Rules as I have explained them!

Related:
A letter to any American Soldier, but especially in Iraq
The CIC needs to give a swift kick to Kerry
There is an art to good politics

John Kerry at Yale

John Kerry needs a good swift kick to the ass for this, and it’s really the Commander-in-Chief’s job to do it.

Writes John Stephenson, who has the video:

The latest idiocy and insult from John F’n Kerry:

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

My quick son Buster heard that and said, “well, he’s ‘ivy league educated’ C student and he ended up stuck ’somewhere in Cambodia,’ with a ‘magic hat’…so he’s speaking from experience, right?”

Buster aside, I wonder what this Harvard Alumnus Marine would have to say to Kerry. Kerry isn’t worthy to shine his shoes. Nor his. Nor the shoes of the Yale alum written about here. Nor the Princeton grad, now serving in Iraq, mentioned here. Or of this slain captain. He’s not worthy to shine the shoes of the pediatrician in my neighborhood who has rotated through Iraq and says she hated to leave because of the good work she was able to do there.

In fact, he’s not worthy to shine the shoes of any of the men and women serving honorably in Iraq, regardless of whether they have an ivy league degree, or a simple GED diploma, because the ignorant crap that comes out of his mouth proves he is nothing but a flip-flopping knucklehead who seems to be too stupid, too caught up in his insecurities and his Beacon Hill pretensions, and just plain too dishonorable to even understand what our military men and women are doing…or that it takes some serious smarts to cover men from a crippled chopper and then land it safely (or to fly a fighter jet) and it takes enormous personal courage to put yourself at risk to save your platoon.

What stunning disrespect to our military men and women by a man who clearly has no regard for their service and too much regard (though little self-respect) for himself.

John Kerry is a counter to the argument that “the military instills discipline and makes you grow up.” He’s never managed it. All he is, is one more boomer who is nothing but a perpetual, petulant adolescent.

One friend of mine thinks Kerry is not talking about our military men and women, that he’s talking about President Bush, instead - you know - he’s using his famous “nuance”….oh, really? The fact that he is standing before a bunch of college students, echoing the sentiments from far-lefty sites who routinely denigrate the intelligence and educations of our servicemen and women indicates differently.

And ummm…Kerry wasn’t exactly a whale of a student, either, as I recall:

During last year’s presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences.

Under Yale’s grading system in effect at the time, grades between 90 and 100 equaled an A, 80-89 a B, 70-79 a C, 60 to 69 a D, and anything below that was a failing grade. In addition to Kerry’s four D’s in his freshman year, he received one D in his sophomore year. He did not fail any courses. […]Bush went to Yale from 1964 to 1968; his highest grades were 88s in anthropology, history, and philosophy, according to The New Yorker article. He received one D in his four years, a 69 in astronomy.

If Kerry is now going to try to say he wasn’t speaking about the military, but chiding President Bush for “not doing his homework and getting stuck in Iraq,” then I guess he’s going to be indicting himself and both houses of congress who voted for the war?

But they did their homework! We have the quotes!

“Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime … He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation … And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction … So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real…”
– Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003, Georgetown University

Captain Ed is stunned too:

Wow. Just wow. It’s worth recalling that Kerry at one time aspired to command these same men and women from the White House, and claims to still want to lead them. How would these people react to taking orders from a Commander-in-Chief who believes them to be uneducated, lazy losers?

We’ll see if Kerry’s peers in the Democratic Party support Kerry’s description of our fighting men and women. If Democrats that have had John Kerry campaign on their behalf refuse to address Kerry’s remarks or openly supports their characterization, it will expose the hypocrisy and the contempt that the Left has for the military. All of the talk of “supporting the troops” will be revealed as lip service.

I can’t think of anything that has made me this angry in a long, long time. What a stunningly STUPID man.

John McCain is calling for Kerry to apologize. He said:

“Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country’s call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. Americans from all backgrounds, well off and less fortunate, with high school diplomas and graduate degrees, take seriously their duty to our country, and risk their lives today to defend the rest of us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. They all deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service. The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq, is an insult to every soldier serving in combat, and should deeply offend any American with an ounce of appreciation for what they suffer and risk so that the rest of us can sleep more comfortably at night. Without them, we wouldn’t live in a country where people securely possess all their God-given rights, including the right to express insensitive, ill-considered and uninformed remarks.”

Bush should have been first out the door with that. He did finally make a good statement.

Instapundit calls Kerry’s remarks not only reprehensible, but false on the facts.

Also writing:
Political Pitbull
Texas Rainmaker, who quotes a study about the education levels of our troops.
Iowa Voice
Sister Toldjah
Michelle Malkin, who has a good round-up and lots of facts.
Blue Crab Boulevard
Tom Maguire
Gateway Pundit Debunks the myths

I keep getting emails from folks trying to convince me that “Embryonic Stem Cells are the most promising blah blah for treatment of disease, blah blah, mean conservatives inhibiting science, blah blah…”

And they’re not convincing me. If ESCR held the promise these folks vaunt, there would be venture capitalists lined up around the block to throw money at the researchers. Hey, there is nothing stopping them from doing so, there is NO LAW against ESCR. When I see that happening, when I see the chilling George Soros investing as much money in ESCR as he has invested in political manipulation, I’ll start to believe that ESCR might actually show some promise.

Meanwhile, AJ brings the news that a small human liver has been grown in a lab, via umbilical cord stem cells. Now that’s news. THAT should be a lead story on ABC/CBS/NBC. But you’ll probably only read about it on the blogs.

You still thinking you’re going to sit out your vote? Follow the links and if you still sit out your vote, you’re not allowed to complain, later, in fact you should be ashamed. And I NEVER say that about anything…

Meanwhile Election Fraud Allegations are Surfacing - read Siggy and watch the videos. Maddening. Almost more maddening than this.

The Year of Two Popes - an interesting-looking piece in The Atlantic that Siggy sent along and which needs printing out and reading…unless you like reading very long things online.

French Justice as entertaining and effective as the Knave’s trial in Alice in Wonderland. A very interesting and troubling piece. You’ll want to read it.

The phenomenon of Democrats throwing away the people in their lives who take a differing view. Ummm, yes, it’s happened to me, too. Some of the Dems in the piece realize they’re being extreme…but some don’t. As a former Dem, I’m thinking perhaps it is a combination of believing in your moral and intellectual superiority and some deep-seated sub-conscious insecurity. If you are convinced that your belief system is founded on something firm, and not sand, you don’t mind other people taking a different view of things.

The blackface thing, again. Only Dems can get away with it…or, seemingly…would want to I see it as rank projection.

Melanie Philips on Britian’s very screwed up priorities and on its going wobbly, too. Both are must-reads.

Hang Right Politics is enormously energetic - you can go there and just scroll down, there is so much there. I liked this review of those awful tax cuts the Dems can’t wait to repeal.

When I wrote my predictions for 2006, I made a lot of errors (so did freaking A-Rod…). But, sadly, I got this one all-too right.

Is porn providing some sort of catharsis for teens? Glenn Reynolds is looking at some statistics and wondering about it. Maybe it’s just making kids benumbed and jaded. That would be weird.

About the flu shot: Dr. Steve Clouthier gives 5 reasons why he’s against ‘em.

“Dilbert” creator, Scott Adams has retreived his ability to speak, and tells about it in a very interesting piece

I can’t remember where I found this and am sad about that, because I’d like to give a hat-tip, but Ulysses for Dummies is great fun. And, you know…better than the book.

I love this Indiana Jones Rejection Letter

A new blog on Catholic Education and other things: Detocquevilles Daughter. She’s a Steeler’s fan, but we’ll let it stand!

Speaking of films, this one sounds kinda charming.

If you had planned on starting a novena to The Holy Spirit, or to Our Lady of Guadalupe or to St. Michael the Archangel, or to St. Jude or to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in hopes of ending it on Election Day…well, yer late! But it’s never too late to pray. I started a novena today while at Adoration, praying earnestly for the “highest good” to prevail for the sake of our nation. I’ll keep at it and the novena will be finished on Election day…but you know…if you start now, you can finish while the threatened recounts are going on.

I never thought I’d see the day when American elections reminded me of banana republics…but…then again, I never in a million years, back when I was a liberal Democrat, thought I’d see the Dems use the children of their opponents as political fodder, and I never thought they’d become the “gay outting party,” either. But it seems to be what they do. The Cheney daughter, Santorum’s assistant, “the list“…what low-class politicking this is.

A while back I wrote:

I think Boomers like to hear the lie – they know that as long as the lie is predominant, it is, essentially, the truth. They…I probably should say “we” have made it our “tolerant” habit to excuse deviant, dishonorable behavior with a shrug and a “we all make mistakes,” as long as the dishonor is perpetrated by the right sort of person. Thus, Al Gore’s son can drive drunk – George W. Bush’s daughters may not drink at all. Absolution, it seems, is no longer granted or denied through the Right Hand of God, but from the Left.

That double standard of moral superiority is what drove me rightward. Now, I struggle for balance.

I can never be a Democrat again. I can barely be a Republican, but I know I can never be a Dem again.

Btw, several of you have inquired as to why I was so quiet today - nothing terribly wrong, just follow-up medical visits regardings Buster’s knee which is healing nicely and will require some physical therapy but thankfully no surgery. I do believe all of your prayers and good thoughts helped him! Thank you!

If you missed it, Ben Stein was provocative over at CBS Sunday Morning, in declaring that it is time (or past time) for Rumsfeld to step down. He puts it in the form of a speech he feels the president should give.

I don’t know if I agree with everything Stein has written. I think perhaps I don’t - partly because I think the “complete capitulation” he envisions is not something that could ever be received fairly, prudently or trust-worthily by too many in both houses of Congress, who will see it as nothing less than President Bush declaring himself “the weak horse” meant to be trampled on (rather as bin Laden said he saw America after Mogadishu). I think Stein’s answer is a little too extreme, a little too helpless.

But…I think there is a case to be made for the retiring of Donald Rumsfeld and I think Jules Crittenden ably makes it. He also says President Bush needs to increase the size of the military and mothball Dick Cheney. Writes Crittenden:

We must destroy al-Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency. Ruthlessly.
To accomplish this, President Bush must finally do what he failed to do five years ago: Increase the size of the U.S. military. We needed it then, as these wars were forced on us, and we need it now, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but as a credible deterrent to threats from Iran, North Korea and eventually China.
Congress, whether Democratic or Republican, must provide funding to recruit, train and equip a larger army. Technology and special forces, tanks and infantrymen. But just as important, we need the national political will to continue to prosecute this war.
This means Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney must go. They must announce before this election decides which party will control Congress. On Jan. 1, heads high, with their president’s accolades, Cheney and Rumsfeld must walk out the door.
Rumsfeld made the critical error four years ago of thinking he could do Iraq on the cheap. He thought he could fight a multifront war with a downsized, post-Cold War army. He thought he could, overnight, transform a politically and psychologically traumatized, ethnically divided nation.
It is one thing to make mistakes, and another to fail to learn from them. It is time for someone who can make the case for Iraq without becoming the issue himself.

Once again, I don’t know if I agree with everything Crittenden writes, but I agree with a lot of it, most particularly that President Bush should have gently and honorably retired Rummy right after the ‘04 elections. Bushian loyalty is famous, but it is also famous for finally doing the Bushes themselves in, and I believe that has happened with regards to Rumsfeld, among others.

Finally, in reading these very affecting emails from Captain Robert Secher made me feel so terribly bad for his family, and grieve for the loss of his vibrant life (and that’s precisely how Newsweek wanted me to feel a week before the election), but it hasn’t changed my mind that going into Iraq was the right thing to do. Indeed Secher, although he was ambivilent about much of the war, believed in the mission, as well. Still, something he wrote in one email in particular stood out to me:

Anytime an American fires a weapon there has to be an investigation into why there was an escalation of force. That wouldn’t have stopped us from firing, but it prevents us from just firing indiscriminately. We have to have positively identified targets.

I read that and I thought…no wonder we cannot get any lasting traction in Iraq. I understand why we are trying to fight a “humane” war, and I know that civilian casualties are tragic, but when I read that line I thought, “if we’d had to fight WWII like that, we’d all be speaking German by now.”

We’re falling behind on this war mostly because we’re not fighting it like a war. And no, it is not “like” any other war, and of course we hope to have the fewest civilian casualties possible…but the enemy is not fighting the way we’re fighting. I don’t see how we win if our troops are working with cop-on-the-beat regulations. There is no such thing, unfortunately, as a truely “humane” war. But maybe the job of war, and of a wartime president, is to clean out the rats nests unequivocally and unambiguously (so that no new rats build new nests - so that they understand the futility of it) than to hesitate too much.

I’m not a warrior. One of my sons might be. If he is, I want to know that his life will not depend on dithering. There is much I do not understand. But I do know that if you say a thing, and you say you mean it, then you’d better be be ready to back up that “I mean it” with action that re-inforces what you’ve said. It’s true in parenting. It’s true in politics. It’s true in everything. And it’s true in war.

Meanwhile Flopping Aces is reminding us of the good things.

A really good essay over at Liberty Film Festival, a site I’ve never seen before. This post discusses the classic film Inherit the Wind, based loosely on the Scopes Monkey Trial, and the writer of the piece, in watching this film from Hollywood’s past, finds a link to our present and compares the most cynical and empty character of the film to David Letterman, Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. It’s an interesting read, so check it out.

For the record, I think Letterman is bitterly ugly to anyone who disagrees with him, and Maher is often a pig, but I think Jon Stewart is smarter, more articulate and more willing to be open-minded (even if it is only a teeeeeeny weeeeeny bit) that the other two. Of the three, he’s the only one I ever bother listening to, anymore.

Gerald at Closed Cafeteria, which is always an interesting stop for Catholics, has two particularly interesting posts up this week.

The first discusses a recent South Park episode (the infamous Steve Irwin/Satan’s Party in Hell episode) which also skewered Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles, his abomination of a Cathedral, and the whole “gay priest posse” that seems to have been associated with him (fairly or not…)

Some Catholics are furious about it. I’m not. You’ll want to check out Gerald’s post and the comments yourself.

Gerald also brings the news that a Catholic church in Detroit is being converted into a mosque.

Miss Kelly is mass hopping and if everyone feels as she does, then it’s no wonder the churches are being re-outfitted as mosques. C’mon, Rome, reform some reforms and restore some things, pronto! Let’s get the VCII implemented the way it was supposed to be implemented…that would be a nice change.

UPDATE: Gerald has a new podcast up on matters liturgical so if you are interested in liturgy and like podcasts, it should be right up your alley.

It’s not my way to link to posts which discuss me or something I’ve written - I’m not comfortable doing it, and I really don’t want to give the impression that “it’s all about me, me, me.”

So I have been letting the following two posts hang out on my headline thingy for several days but not linking to them. I’ve been hesitating because I don’t want to seem like I’m courting attention for myself, but at the same time both posts are remarkable and insightful, and I hated not sharing them.

When I wrote the post that inspired these two others, this post, I showed it to the friend whose innocent observation had stirred me to write it. “I don’t know why I am writing this,” I said. “It’s out of character for me to do so, but maybe it’s not for me at all, maybe it’s meant for someone else.”

That suspicion has been borne out in my email. I am in humbled awe to read some of what has come my way - I’m stricken by the amount of evil that is all around us, just beneath the surface of so many families, and I am speechless at the courage and largeness of spirit on display by so many who have managed to rise above the terrible facts of their lives, and who have even found ways to build something on those scars.

And I am always amazed at how the Holy Spirit uses everything we bring with us, all of our selves and our pasts and our resources no matter how “unusable” we think they might be.

And so it occurs to me that I’m doing the wrong thing in not linking to these two posts. While they may discuss me in passing, they are not about me…and it may very well be that, as with my piece, they are meant for someone else to read…in which case, I should help with their dissemination.

So here they are - the always warm and consoling but wise Dr. Melissa Clouthier writing Molestation: Stealing Someone’s Soul, Restoration: Recovering it

and

Siggy’s insightful, analytical and profoundly lyrical piece The Lonely Ascent

If you feel like these are things you might need to read - if you’re drawn to this subject, then please do read them, they are both astonishing pieces of writing, teaching wisdom and faith.

And it really isn’t about me at all.

As to these emails I am receiving…well, I am in the odd position, here, of finding myself made privy to many of your dreams and nightmares. These things you are writing go the the heart of pain, faith and mystery, and you deserve a much better repository than this girl. I’m going to Adoration later today, and I will bring all of you with me - in thanksgiving for the graces you have and to request the graces some of you feel you need. It will be an honor to remember your intentions.

Bryn Terfel as the ever-randy Don Giovanni, hiding out as Leporello but unable to resist luring yet another winsome young woman first to her window and then into his arms. Terrible scamp! Terfel is wonderul singing Deh, vieni alla finestra.

O come and dispel all my sorrow!
If you refuse me some solace,
before you dear eyes I will die.
Your lips are sweeter than honey,
your heart is sweetness itself:
then be not cruel, my angel,
I beg for one glance, my beloved!

Joel Stein is the infant terrible of the LA Times, who once wrote a column so intellectually sloppy and morally confused that you can’t even find it anymore in the LA Times archives. He took a lot of heat for it, and deservedly so.

Stein is a product of his era, and both Vanderleun and Gagdad Bob have done brilliant jobs of explaining what that means, so I don’t have to. Suffice to say self-obsessed, irony-laden and perpetually adolescent only begin to define Stein’s rather lost generation.

Now there is a growing kerfuffle developing over Stein’s column of October 17, wherein he describes Christianity (to which he admits he has extremely limited exposure or understanding) as a “death cult.”

His column has some Christians fuming and feeling insulted, but I read it and thought the piece was by turns sad, mildly amusing, childish, self-deprecating and - ultimately - sad, again. I am also sad to see the Christians so quick to carry on about wounded sensibilities, so quick to jump on the victimology train that has so been careening so destructively through our nation for the past 20-or-so years. If anyone should be able to “take” Stein’s column, it should be the Christian.

The truth is, while Stein hasn’t the vocabulary or the understanding behind it, he did clue into the fact that Christianity - like Judaism - is a blood religion, with blood being at the very core of the “old” and “new” Covenants God has made with his people. In his limited comprehension, which is further weakened by his inability to quite be serious and grown up about anything, Stein calls this the “death cult:”

In fact, I’d never realized how much of a death cult Christianity is. When we weren’t fixating on how awesome Christ’s murder was, we were singing about how terrific it was going to be when we bite it.

The fact is, we Christians do focus extensively on Christ’s extraordinary Passion and what it means to us, both in the large sense (within the whole pageant of redemption) and in the smaller, more personal sense wherein we are able to see the Suffering Servant and understand that nothing human is unknown to Him. We do sing songs about the time when His Kingdom shall reign, and our own glorification.

Stein’s column is full of adolescent words rendered even more childish by his need to be effervescently light on even the heaviest of issues. Flippancy is a skill that is used to great effect when one wishes to remain detached from things and people - it is the tool of the terrified or the insecure. As such, Stein’s musings deserve not teeth-baring scorn, but a gentle reproof and an offer to clarify.

Read Stein’s whole piece. He ends on what could have been a poignant note - he almost (almost) allows himself to get a little serious, to examine what it might mean to him to be a person of faith were he not so committed to post-modernism. It is only a brief few words and then he stalls the thought by once again hiding behind flippancy.

Just as I couldn’t see getting nuts over Madonna’s latest crucifixion or the Da Vinci Code, I can’t see getting too worked up about Stein’s column. Back then I wrote:

The job of the Christian is to hold fast in the face of chaos and to recall that Christ is more powerful than any man or media, and that darkness does not overcome light. To be honest, all the fretting from us Christians is a bit unseemly. If we are secure in what we believe, a cartoon does not take us down, no matter how perverse and offensive, because Christ is alive, and Grace abounds, and because just as an Abbess or Abbot is entitled to use whatever resources his or her community contains to advance the stability of the abbey, the Holy Spirit has a way of confounding us by using what is out there in the world - sometimes very surprising things and people - to do the will of the One.

Stein is making fun of himself in his column, as much as he is Christianity which he admits he does not understand. I believe he is actually being as respectful as he knows how to be.

So, in response, should we Christians descend into the hotheaded Valley of Hurt Feelings populated by hyper-sensitive feminists and frenzied Islamists, wherein every joke, every satire, every stupid (or plain ignorant) thing written or said about Christianity is worth declaring a sort of Jihad?

I can’t see the point. The reality of Christ is so much greater than Stein’s 700 word column, or his childish need to giggle through life. Applaud Stein for worrying that taking communion at this Presbyterian service might insult his friends and their worship. Applaud him for wondering (for probably the space of time it took him to write the words) what it would be like to believe, and then pray for the kid…because it sounds like he could use prayers, and maybe he and the rest of the world could use the example of Christians who love instead of Christians who wander around with metaphorical knives between their teeth, attuned to every insult.

We’re going to be insulted. We’re going to be hated. Christ told us that. And he showed us how to deal with it, too. It did not involve pissing and moaning and a demand for apologies or jobs.

Some Christians are complaining that Stein’s “blood cult” remark equates Christians with Islamofascists…I disagree. If anything, the angry responses of the Christians themselves are begging the comparison with the hotheads of Cartoon-rage.

We don’t want to go there. As we have seen throughout the world, there be monsters.

“They’ll know we are Christians by our love…” Remember that old song? It was a stinker of a hymn, but St. Paul was right…this is how our community must be known, or what is the point? If the Christian Community becomes just one more group of aggrieved complainers who demand retribution for an insult - who have lost the grace to transcend what is hurtful and render it both powerless and productive - then what is the point?

I almost wish I could take Stein into my family for a while, and let him be precisely who he is, and encourage him to ask questions and drink his milk and tell him he mustn’t write on the walls. I would like him to spend a little time talking metal bands and metaphysics with my deep-thinking, kind and brilliant Elder Son and talking Marvin Gaye and the common sense approach to faith that Buster lives. I’d like to see what his idea of Christians and Christianity-in-general would be after spending a while with my tirelessly-volunteering husband, who sees all service as serving Christ. I’d like to see the column he might write after that. Love trumps flippancy, every time.

Stein has not written something mean-spirited here. He simply does not understand. Our job is to love him, and to mean it.

A great ad. Just the latest in a whole string of really great, upbeat, human ads which have avoided the gutterbrawling we’re seeing in so many other campaigns.

I have not sent a dime to any candidates in this election. I’m making an online donation to Steele’s campaign today because he’s the only candidate I’ve seen running for any office who makes me want to vote FOR him, instead of against someone else. Bravo.

We need more smart and down-to-earth people like Steele in the game. The only way to keep them there is to support ‘em with funds and then VOTE for them.

Big Lizard has more.