The Anchoress

Fausta is feeling depressed about the inability of our young adults to develop relationships of mature intimacy.

A young woman in college, having sexual encounters with dozens of men who are little more than strangers to her, yearns for a guy to at least say he is going to stay.

I find that extremely depressing: She wants not love, not intimacy (and forget about a spiritual component to a union - that hasn’t even crossed anyone’s mind). Just permanence. How sad.

She’s talking about this young woman, whose - indeed, sad - essay was choses from over 700 submitted by college students asked to write about love and relationships.

But noncommittal is what we’re all about

Siggy writes about love and the higher-self - the perfect union of love which is not simply a physical formula but one of the spirit. Two persons creating a single entity through both physical union and spiritual commitment.

Truly, it is an idea almost as old as civilization - monogamy, family, the unit, which blends two families and then extends out. Given the determined effort of the know-it-all boomers to “deconstruct” all of the worthless and bourgeois establishment norms that went before them - marriage and family were emphatically “out” and “repressive” - it is not surprising to see a generation unable to process the idea of commitment to anything other than “whatever there is today.”

“It’s your thing, do what you wanna do.” “If it feels good, do it.” “Make yourself happy,” and “the church of what’s happening now” have led us to:

Sometimes I don’t like them, or am scared of them, and a lot of times I’m just bored by them. But my fear or dislike or boredom never seems to diminish my underlying desire for a guy to stay, or at least to say he is going to stay, for a very long time.

And even when I don’t want him to stay — even when he and I find each other as strangers and remain strangers until we stop doing whatever it is we are doing — I still want to believe that two people can meet and like each other well enough to stay together exclusively, without the introduction of some 1960s rhetoric about free love or other noncommittal slogans.

But noncommittal is what we’re all about.

I while back I wrote:

We have now had several generations growing up with either missing parents or well-meaning but “barely-there” parents. A lot of what we learn regarding intimacy we learn from Mom and Dad and Grandma. If they’re barely in the picture, from whom will we learn it? The Nursery school teacher?”
[…]
intimacy has been defined downward, especially for our young girls, to mean little more than a “hook-up.” Children, especially girls, are being sexualized at ever-earlier ages…most of Buster’s generation grew up watching Friends and Sex in the City and thinking that this was what life was: a series of sexual encounters with no emotional attachments, no repercussions, no pain, no loss of oneself.
[…]
While the girls are untethered and confused balls of sexuality, too many boys are learning to see the girls not as young women to be respected, admired and (in a chivalrous sense) looked after, but as disposable spittoons for their disregarded and misunderstood sperm. I’ve heard my sons and his friends complain about it - that their generation is very screwed up about how to relate to each other, that too many of both gender have no idea what self-respect is, that they treat themselves, and each other, badly. They crave intimacy but have no idea how to achieve it when they’ve been raised to throw everything - their virginity, their standards, their drive to succeed (it’s not cool to get good grades) - their potential, their very selves away…This is not an overnight problem, it’s yet another fruit of the sexual revolution and the world-tilting sixties - the overcorrection to the 1950’s.

Dick Meyer, writing on the same issue and about our isolationism, in The Lonely States of America:

“I suspect…this study overlooks one simple contributing factor, the decline of real geographic communities — places where people grow up where their parents grew up, where non-nuclear relatives live near by, where friendships and acquaintances go across generations.

Explaining social isolation will be controversial, but not as difficult as repairing it.

Indeed. How do we repair it? All of the old social safeguards are no longer in place; instead of communities wherein live several generations of families and friends, everyone is transient and most of us have only a nodding acquaintance with our neighbors. Church? Secularists who correctly identify the problem do not like to consider that answer, but there might be some help there.

I like this bit from God and the World - by the man my son Buster refers to as “The Artist Formerly Known as Ratzinger”:

Man is created with a need for others, so that he may pass beyond his own limits. He needs to be completed. He is not made to be alone - that is not good for him - but is made to turn toward someone else. He must look for himself in the other person and find himself in him. … there follows the prophetic declaration that the man will on this account leave his father and his mother and will become one flesh with the woman. They will be one flesh with each other, one united human being. The entire drama of the two sexes’ need for each other, of their being turned toward each other, is contained within this declaration. In addition it is also said hat they are there in order to give themselves each to the other, so as to make the gift of new life in doing so, and then finally to devote themselves to this new life. In this sense, the mystery of marriage is contained within it, and basically the family is likewise envisaged.

He goes on like that - very politically incorrect, of course. But sensible.

If you don’t like the religious perspective, you can look at the trends in pop-culture to also see where defining down the differences between men and women have altered our perceptions of each other. Check out this post about the dearth of “women’s” films and strong, respected actresses:

These are women who remain iconic because — are you ready for this? — they command the respect of both men and women. Command, not demand with tired lectures. They also don’t cuss like sailors, show us their tatas, or take whomever to bed in a fit of some twisted definition of empowerment at the expense of respect. For we men, these women were worthy of worship. Most of today’s female stars, on their best days, are mere objects of fantasy.

The comments section is especially good. And it even offers a solution of a sort, different from Pope Benedict’s but it might be a start. I recall that one of the biggest movies in recent years was My Big Fat Greek Wedding - which had for its heroine a real, imperfectly beautiful woman, living in a real imperfect family, with embarrassing parents and nosy aunts and with involved neighbors in their ethnic enclave. To me, when the heroine’s WASPY future husband gets baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church and smiles at her, “I’m Greek, now,” and goes on to blend in beautifully with all the madness, lunacy, sorry and exasperated joy that makes up family - this is totally believable and real. And it is a clue as to how we might go on and go forward.

If religion and authority are - for some - too scary a means by which we may begin to repair this lonely mess we’ve allowed to develop in our society, then maybe the popular culture - which certainly profited from helping to tear our social fabric apart - may figure out that there is profit to be made in restoring it, as well.

UPDATE: The Curmudgeon Porretto says:

Damn it all people, learn from your mistakes!: Sex is much too serious an undertaking to be casual about it. You have to expose yourself to too many hazards — and the bacterial and viral ones are far from the worst.

Yes…and it is the only thin we can do that ultimately assists in creation and in the continuance of the world. Something that powerful really ought to be respected, don’t you think?

I did it again! Opened up dozens of interesting stories and blog posts and now I have too much to write about, so I’ll just link you to them!

Siggy brings us the Heavy Metal Puppy: you won’t believe your eyes.

GM Roper says we ought to be smarter than we’re proving ourselves to be. He’s quite correct.

Remember Sandy Berger and his theft of Top Secret documents on terrorism? The Clinton library ain’t talking about it. It’s amazing how many things the Clintons get away with not talking about. Library donors, Hillary’s exceedingly radical past, physical examinations, money bundlers…all the ways the Clinton administration got palsy with China…

Bill never minds talking about himself, though, and he’s reminding me a little of Gloria Swanson, here: “Somebody faints at nearly every one of these things now. At my age, I didn’t think I could make anybody faint anymore.”

That makes my whole spine shudder the way it did when reading about Madonna rubbing against Justin Timberlake. You want to say, “for cryin’ out loud, get a room,” even though Clinton is only talking about himself.

This Australian is more worried about Clintonian fibbing and Chameleon-like behavior than most Americans seem to be.

Mighty Christopher Hitchens asks a great question: Can Obama’s Wright problems be laid at his wife’s feet? Hitchens is right to ask it and we do deserve to know.

Nicedeb says the Italian newspapers are wondering if Bush is crossing the Tiber I don’t know if it matters; I like his international day of prayer idea, though.

Meanwhile, Curt Jester answers the question: Is liberal Catholicism dead? I’d say it’s in extremis. But I also think that if the “conservatives” in the church overcorrect and overplay their hands, the “liberals” may be pulled out of their death throes. At some point, “love” and “law” will have to intertwine and nurture together.

Bobby Jindal: love him, always did, and if he’d beaten Kathleen Blanco in the Louisiana governor’s race the first time and thus had a few more years under his belt in the state office, I’d say, “veep, hell, make him the top of the ticket!” I’d love to see him round out McCain but I don’t think it can (or even should happen) when his state clearly needs him. But then again the way this crazy primary season is going…well, you know my feelings. Meanwhile Baldilocks fears it looks like pandering.

My Elder Son is graduating but not walking - he’s had enough of the school and does not wish to hear Chuck Schumer’s address. We’ve heard it twice already and Schumer always uses the same speech, uttering the deathless phrase “GO FOR IT!” Son said he’d rather just go for dinner. I figured he should get SOME graduation advice, though, so I sent him a commencement address from P.J. O’ Rourke. H/T Betsy.

One for all the good teachers: Butter and Standardized tests - you’ll like it. Heartwarming.

And one of the worst teachers I’ve ever heard about.

The Swiss are concerned about cruelty and immoral behavior toward plant life. But don’t worry; abortion is still okay over there.

Don’t Cry for Me? Here we have Fausta on the vagaries of Latin America and Gateway Pundit has Bad News for Hugo Chavez and some US Dems.

Are Global Warmingists pulling a fast one? Duh. I like this video.

Obi’s Sister looks at the fact-challenged press.

It’s Little League Season! I so miss having a kid at the games! Danielle Bean writes about League-mom bi-location.

Bring back movie execs who grew stars? There is an argument to be made. And the comments are interesting too, especially about Garbo.

An Interview with Anne Rice, On Benedict’s visit and more. An interesting comments section, too.

Video: Intelligent Design argued entertainingly. H/T Matteo, who probably thinks I never read him anymore, because I link so rarely.

Video: A dedicated warrior sews and shows his softer side.

Father/Son video games: I really love the picture.

Here is an interesting thought, but I must confess it comes not from me, but from a reader, Diane S, who reminded me of this piece (which I am reposting here) and wondered whether Jeremiah Wright, “in the thick of a white-hot media spotlight” is falling prey to the same destructive disease of ego expansion that has struck and deranged others.

I think perhaps Wright is not under the same spell. I have no doubt that he is enjoying the attention and his new-found prominence, but I don’t think he is finding “love” and “validation” in the media glare, as seemed to be the case with Cindy Sheehan, Gore, and maybe post 2000-primaries John McCain. They had each been lionized by media because they were convenient tools; they created necessary “distance” for the press, who supported their views but needed to maintain an “unbiased” illusion - Sheehan on the war, Gore on anything anti-Bush and McCain against conservatism. Each of them were treated to huge, almost absurd slatherings of vastly positive media goo, and I think it is the goo that can eventually muck anyone up.

Wright is getting a lot of attention, but it is not uniformly positive, and he is not being used as a weapon against anyone - at least not by the press. Rather, the man keeps running his open sore of a mouth and the press keeps saying, “home run!” while trying to downplay what the rest of us see and hear with our lying eyes and ears.

Perhaps Wright has spent a lifetime wondering why Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton got all the glory while he had the more rousing rhetoric. In that case, he might feel only that he is finally getting what he is due. That’s “validation” of a sort, but it hasn’t the same savor as love - which, perhaps, Wright crave so deeply. Or, considering revealing tidbit, maybe he craves it in ways we simply cannot comprehend.

Meanwhile, here is the repost - note I seem to have lost some of my earlier snark as the blog has evolved; or maybe I really was just in a bad mood on that day. Back then. In 2005. To be clear, today, in 2008, I feel mighty fine, if a little anemic!

MEDIA WHORES AND THEIR CREATORS
(orginally posted, September 2005)

So, it appears Cindy Sheehan has gone and gotten herself arrested while her supporters - proving definitively that they are permanently stuck in 1968 - shouted, “the whole world is watching!” (well, Al Jazeera was, anyway - note they got Sheehan with the “forlorn” expression)

Whoopee.

The woman, who this weekend kvetched because CNN et al were spending all of their time covering Hurricane Rita, which was “just a little wind and rain,” instead of Herself climbing all over Jesse Jackson, made certain she’ll be covered on all the channels tonight - that she’ll get the Drudge coverage and the number one spot on Technorati. She sat down where she wasn’t supposed to and, after three warnings, was “arrested.”

“Attention all you cameramen, I am about to be arrested, please focus!”

I can’t think of anything that seems to destroy people’s mental health faster than a few weeks or months of uncritical, gushing media hype. Think about the people you see in the news, day after day, gathering unconditional praise and coverage from the press. They lose themselves, lose their minds, and they are rarely ever the same after the adulation stops. In fact, I can only think of one person who got caught up in the destructive swirl of relentless positive press reportage and managed to find his way back to sanity, and that would be Sen. Joe Lieberman, and perhaps - I am only saying PERHAPS - his faith has something to do with his re-bound.

The rest of them, once courted, feted, promoted, celebrated, hyped and carried by the press have a very difficult time of it, post-praise.

Sen. John Kerry, a truly terrible presidential candidate, cold, stiff and barely articulate had months and months of uncritical love. Months of the press never asking him a single difficult question, months of the press scurrying to fight his battles, discredit his critics and pat him on the back after soft-ball interviews. He had the press basically promising him a 10-15% advantage for their coverage - a promise which it does seem they delivered on.

When he still lost, and lost soundly, and all of the microphones and cameras went away, he couldn’t seem to believe it. After a nearly silent 20-year career in the Senate during which he did little more than write bills recognizing special days for special people, Kerry was suddenly opining on everything, calling press conferences and issuing statements, and yet the press was not loving him as it had. They barely noticed him. He was back to being a “local paper” story instead of a national figure. He hasn’t been the same, since.

Sen. John McCain discovered he could make the press “love” him by criticizing his party and not merely working with the opposition but shoving his metaphorical tongue down their metaphorical throats. He became the media darling of 1999 and 2000, with endless magazine covers, endless gushing interviews with Katie and Diane and Oprah, endless furrowed-brow talks with Ted Koppel. The “Maverick” became the only acceptable sort of GOP candidate and - for many in the press - a palatable alternative to Al Gore, who was becoming problematic, what with Buddhist nuns, controlling legal authorities, Clinton-fatigue and spots of embarrassing exaggerations regarding his personal life and his “inventiveness.”

When the press reluctantly left McCain behind to cover the actual GOP candidate, McCain was smart enough to realize that all he ever had to do to call them back and bask in the warmth of their klieg lights was to step left-and-lively, and he has done it ever since. He cannot stop himself. Those lights, those microphones, those headlines and all that unequivocal approval - it’s heady stuff to a guy who crashed 3 planes.

Al Gore - well, what can be said about poor Al Gore? Told by the press, over and over, that he was gypped, even after a consortium of papers did themselves concede that he lost in 2000, he seems like a gas leak in search of a pilot light. But he’ll always have Paul Krugman.

I cannot even imagine what will happen to any Clinton for whom the uncritical praise ends.

And now, we see Mother Sheehan - an utter media creation who burnished her genuine tragedy with an ability to cry-on-cue, but who has long-since overplayed the “grieving mother” hand and become all about preening and performing for the camera. Yesterday people losing lives and livelihoods to a storm were mere peons interfering with her scheduled adulation. Today she got herself arrested, smiling the whole while and still quite certain that the constitution which guarantees her the right to self-destruct in an endless loop on CNN, is a constitution that is not worth dying for.

Can a posing session for Playboy be far behind? That’s where all the sad she-clowns go when they’re usefulness has ended, isn’t it?

Once again, repeat after me - it is amazing how much destruction is wrought because of a need to feel loved.

I didn’t get small! The protests got small!

Btw…I’m in a bad mood today. Blogging will be cloudy, with a chance of snark.

I wasn’t going to write about this because - while I know it gets a lot of Catholic blood running - I can’t get that excited about it.

SOME CLARIFICATION FOR THOSE WILLFULLY MISREADING ME: That does not mean I do not CARE about the issue. It simply means that I think we’ve all managed at times to insult and offend the Lord in various ways, and sometimes Eucharistically, and so I prefer to leave the scolding to the ones who seem most comfortable with it. While I’ve often been called a “self-righteous prig” on some issues (daring to disagree with some on solutions to the illegal immigration problem comes to mind) and I don’t mind wagging fingers politically, I’ve never been much of a spiritual scold. I know that’s true because I’m always getting scolded by other, better, Catholic and non-Catholic Christians for not scolding enough! Quite opposed to those charging me with “not caring,” I think I make abundantly clear that I do care, and I do both accept and support the church’s teaching here, and I agree that the complaints are valid. I simply respond to these things differently than others. If that’s wrong, well…Jesus knows there is no malice in my heart and will judge me as he will us all. END CLARIFICATION

But between some emails I’ve gotten from angry Catholic readers, confused (or smuppity) non-Catholic readers, and a few internet forum comments I’ve read that display both astounding anti-Catholic bigotry or a clear lack of understanding, I feel like I should. Here’s a can of worms I’d prefer not to open, but in doing so, I’ll stick to the Q&A style, since they reflect (or are directly taken from) my email.

For the uninitiated, there is a scandal of sorts brewing because former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani received Communion at the Yankee Stadium mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI. Note that Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy all took communion at the mass at National’s Stadium without all this brouhaha. The reason we’re hearing about Rudy is because Robert Novak, took NY’s Cardinal Egan and DC’s Archbishop Wuerl to task, pubically scolding them for the fact that these grown-up Catholics, Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy and Giuliani, communed.

Immediately after the column appeared, Cardinal Egan - who can’t retire soon enough for my money - released a statement criticizing Giuliani, most particularly for Rudy’s not abiding by what was apparently a private agreement between the two men, that he would not commune at the mass.

I know “conservative” Catholics tend to get scrappy on this issue, and more “liberal” Catholics tend to think it’s not much of a deal. Typically, I fall somewhere between the two, which is why I have no friends. So, here we go.

Q: What is the big deal, here? Isn’t Communion just a symbol and a way to “cleanse ourselves of sin?”

A: No and no. Catholics do not believe that the Eucharist is a “symbol” of anything, but rather the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, truly Present. And Communion is meant to draw us into deeper and more personal interaction with Jesus; by the grace of the sacrament, we are strengthened both physically and spiritually and that may help us in our sinfulness, but it is not the “means” by which we “get rid of” the sins we have already committed.

Q: Does that mean all the people receiving Communion are in a state-of-grace and free from sin?

A: Not by a long shot. None of us can know the state of anyone else’s soul…but can assume some are. Those who have recently been to confession for absolution of their most grievous sins and participated in the mass (where the lesser sins of our everyday humanity and brokenness are absolved within the Rite) are in a state of grace, but plenty of people taking communion do not fit that “ideal”. In 1 Corinthians 11:27, Paul writes of the seriousness of the issue:

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord

For some Catholics, when a public figure receives “unworthily” this creates a public scandal; they fear that others in the church, seeing known proponents of abortion or divorced-and-remarried politicians take communion will both inspire others toward irreverence toward the Lord and weaken understanding of what the Eucharist truly is.

Q: And you think they’re wrong?

A: No, not at all. They certainly have a valid point, and intellectually I can go there. Emotionally, however, I always have a problem with Catholics pointing the finger at other Catholics and going, “ummmmmm…I’m telling!”

Q: Right, because in the end it’s between the politician and God!

A: Well…yes and no. It’s true that - ultimately - what Rudy did was “between him and God”, but - and it’s a big but - Rudy still publicly professes himself a Catholic, and so this is also between him and his Catholic community. This is the problem with community; it is something to answer to, in the same way that a Protestant pastor who leaves his wife for another must answer to his congregation, or a teenager who breaks the speed limit must answer to the judge. The rules are the rules, and Rudy, or Pelosi, or Kerry and Kennedy know full well that when they commune while the cameras are clicking, they’re deliberately riling that community up.

Q: So, you agree with the Novaks and the “conservative” Catholics, then?

A: Errrmrmrmrm…not really. As I said, I see their point, and it is a valid one, but there’s also that part about not knowing what is going on in one’s soul or in one’s heart - what sort of turmoil or even humility may be residing there. I know some would say that real humility would express itself in refraining from communing and, again, in the ideal that is precisely right.

But then there is Jesus, and there is this man or this woman. It seems to me that there is also a humility to be found in letting Jesus be Jesus and do what he does, in trusting that - whatever the condition of the soul of the receiver - Jesus is both larger and deeper than what we (or even the recipient) can know.

I keep remembering that Jesus said he “came for sinners; the well do not need a physician.” We must never be so protective of Jesus that we begin to think Him too small or fragile to be able to do the heavy lifting required to turn a heart. These pols know the score; they’ve had the doctrine explained. If they’re still receiving then we may assume two things - 1) that they are hard-hearted, do not care and wish only to score points with their constituents or 2) they are in dire need of a one-on-one encounter with the Living Christ - even if they do not consciously realize it or express it - and they will thus seek Him out, and take their lumps for it.

I think I will always err on the side of believing the best, rather than the worst of their motives, and give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re looking for the Encounter. And then we must remember, that Jesus had less patience for the Pharisee who stood at the front of the Temple and crowed about how he did everything just right, not “like that tax collector over there…” than for the sinner who kept his head bowed.

Q: So, then you agree with the “liberals!” You don’t think it’s a scandal.

A: Errrrrrrm….not really. There are lots of ways to scandalize a church or to desecrate the Holy Eucharist, and many people who are not public figures commune “unworthilly.” As near as I could tell Giuliani was the only one of the recipient pols caught on television cameras. I have to be honest, when I saw it, I thought, “he’s not supposed to be doing that…” but I also thought his mien and demeanor, his whole attitude was serious, thoughtful and yes, reverent - moreso than some of the others participating. I knew I was right smack dab in the middle of an abiding Mystery.

In the Apostles Creed, we’re told that Jesus “descended into hell” before he rose. In communion He descends into the hell of our own lives - all of our confusion, all of our sins those declared and those unfaced, all of our doubt, all of our love and our hate, all of our fear, our conscience, our deepest longings and our conscious and sub-conscious minds; our very souls - Jesus descends into it, and then we rise with Him. His very Blood courses through our veins.

This cannot leave us unchanged. Even if outwardly, we seem the same, inwardly, we have been penetrated. Some of us are very, very thick-walled; some of us have built astounding fortresses and battlements within us, and Jesus may very well want to go head-to-head, one-on-one so to speak, to tumble them. To descend into our personal “hells” in order to help us rise from them. He is, after all, the Divine Physician. Paul gave us an ideal and a basis for law. But Jesus has always been - ultimately - bigger than all of it.

And so, no…for all that I accept the validity of those crying “scandal,” I cannot cry it myself.

More to follow…here.

AJ Strata has an interesting link up over at his site - one that, if the thing pans out - suggests that it was a Clinton operative who invited Jeremiah Wright to (disastrously) address the National Press Club.

AJ wonders if Wright has been bought off by the “old school” black democrats - paid to essentially destroy Obama’s campaign - and what the price was.

I initially did not believe that. I thought of Wright as a simple exhibitionist unable to resist the lure of bright lights and headlines - a guy wanting to breath the rarefied air of “power and influence” currently enjoyed by those stale-but-still-strutting barnyard cocks, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton .

But now, it seems like perhaps Wright really has been bought and paid for; Obama’s team says they had no warning about this media-blitz, and that Wright has actually rebuffed them. It seems the coup is in fact, Clintonian.

The question is - does Obama have the guts and the cujones to make that charge against the Clinton campaign - that they’re exploiting the vast weaknesses of his father-figure for their own gain, and have apparently promised him the barnyard?

Upon the palpable implosion of his campaign, it may well be the only hand he has to play right now, and I’m not even sure how strong a hand it is. As I’ve written before, Obama has clearly established that he loves Wright, that there is a whole replacement-father thing going on there; “they dared to show you my daddy-figure full on and unedited” is not really a winner if he whines it. And since Obama does love the man, he’s bound to be feeling a bit raw and shell-shocked about it all.

So, what happens now? Does Obama lie down? Does he expose the cynical-but-brilliant scheme of the Clintons, and if he does, will America be revolted by the Clinton’s move or will they sit back rather admiring it and declaring “all’s fair in love and war?”

Do the Clintons continue the media blitz? Something to think about is whether the Clintons have factored in what this exposure will do to the Democrat party itself - moderate Democrats can’t rest easy with what Wright is spouting, which is why the Clintons have operatives do their work for them and keep their distance - but if the Democrats try to denounce this sort of mindset, they expose themselves as the purveyors of it for the last 50 years (both in terms of race and gender) and demonstrate the party’s own end-of-the-line emptiness

Of course, Hillary could use Wright to sabotage Obama, and then - with the party roiling - set herself up as the candidate of “unity” by offering the badly injured Obama the veep spot. Which would be profoundly ironic - she’d have taken the party to the brink of destruction in order to steal the “unifier” tag from Obama. This is almost a thing of beauty in its perverse way - if it can be pulled off.

If it can’t, well…we always knew that if the Clintons couldn’t control the party any longer, they would destroy it.

UPDATE: AJ suspects that the Wright media blitz is doing double duty; it both takes out Obama and focuses the press’ gaze on the “Fall of the Messiah” story, while diverting attention from the fact that Hillary is being forced to testify in a fraud suit involving her husband, the presumed “First Gentleman” but…she won’t have to do it until AFTER the election.

To do it before the election would surely sink her chances - it would remind America that we were fully sick of the scandals and the reek of corruption from that team by 2000. And we’re not going to be allowed to remember that, if it’s at all possible.

Can you imagine the president-elect testifying in a fraud case concerning her husband? It would never happen. This ball just got kicked down the road to an eventual oblivion, by a judge who told Clinton lawyer David Kendell to “say hello to my friend, Bill”.

Meanwhile, in a testament to the upside-down nature of this campaign, some are begging Obama to take Karl Rove’s advise! And I don’t know how either candidate is going to handle the SCOTUS saying dead people can’t vote!

Hugh Hewitt, of course, has all the audio you want.

More coverage:
Baldilocks gives us the view from under the bus
Tom Maguire feels bad for Obama’s Grandmother
Bulldogpundit is too.
Jonah Goldberg: Wright’s gonna need a bigger bus!
Ed Morrissey covers most of the major columnists on Wright
Classical Values finds an interesting old picture.
Dana Milbank with Wright video
Gerard Vanderluen covers the astonishing Wright-declared “information” on the difference between white and black brains
Michael Goodwin says Hillary is a Bully
Kim Priestap at Wizbang
Bookworm at The Bookwormroom
Allahpundit on Gingrich on Wright
Patterico on Andrew Sullivan on Wright

WELCOME: Hugh Hewitt readers. While here please take a look around. Today I’m also wondering, where the hell this version of President Bush has been hiding. If you’re interested in Catholic stuff, we’re tossing around the withholding communion issue.

Q: Anchoress, if someone tells you that you cannot be credibly pro-life until you adopt a sick baby, and then you go out and adopt a sick baby (and then a second) and that person - who promised to become “pro-life” if you did it - never kept his end of the bargain, what does that mean?

A: It means you can’t form a conscience in fits and starts. You cannot become “pro-life” because of what someone else does, unless you are really willing to let their actions open up within you what you have previously closed and locked tight. And since Jim Caviezel gives witness that picking up on this friend’s cynical prompting has enriched his life and blessed him, it also means that God speaks to us through anyone - in any way - he chooses, even if they seem unlikely candidates for the job, so you might as well listen up respectfully and be sweet to everybody.

Q: Will there always be an England?

A: Starting to look a little doubtful, isn’t it? Within the last week we’ve seen the nation all but cancel St. George’s Day for fear of insulting their Islamist population, and they allowed the EU to issue a map without Great Britain. Note “The English Channel” is now “The Channel Sea.” My Celtic ancestors must be spinning in their graves. Brits at their Best has more on all that.

Q: So, Anchorage is digging out from yet another massive snowjob snowfall. But these folks say global warming is not cooling. Do you still say it’s all hoo-hah?

A: Yes, I say whether we are in any sort of “preventable” weather cycle is debatable, whether we can actually affect the earth’s weather is dubious (we can’t even predict next week’s weather accurately) and whether any of the interesting weather anomalies is “manmade” is hoo-hah, especially since we steadfastly ignore the sun. Mark Steyn is looking at ethanol ethics, as I did last week and last month. IBD wonders if we can undo the ethanol mistake. There’s all kinds of inconvenient truths out there, but the really troubling one, to my way of thinking, is people going hungry.

Q: Why do you refer to “Manmade” Global Warming as “hoo-hah” - don’t you know that’s a slang for a woman’s private parts?

A: Not in my neck of the woods. I don’t know who calls vaginas and vulva’s “hoohah’s;” on this blog we just call them what they are, and routinely mock the vulvic-worship. I learned “hoo-hah” at the knee of my Jewish neighbors, and I love the way it dismisses nonsense with beautiful and semitic simplicity. Kipling said “a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.” I say a vagina is just a vagina, but a surpassing bit of absolute blarney is a hoo-hah!

Q: Are you missing William F. Buckley?

A: Actually I do mean to read God and Man at Yale, but as with Ronald Reagan, I came to appreciation of Buckley rather late. However, there is a new piece up on the man by Fr. George W. Rutler. Rutler, you may remember, was the man who said to Christopher Hitchens, “you will either die a Catholic or a madman…”. Rutler offered to tell Hitchens the difference at that point, and I wish Hitchen had allowed him to, because I really want to know what it is. Hitchens, however, busily plugging his book with a “Whack-a-Christian” tour, did not allow Rutler to explain. This disappointed me. I think as a rule Hitchens’ very curious mind (and his sense of humor) would have looked forward to the answer as a whole new point of debate; but strangely, he didn’t want to know. Speaking of atheism, I notice that Pajamas Media has a feature piece on the Scientific embrace of Atheism, which looks like a good read. I have no problem with atheists, myself. I just think they should be as tolerant of my creed as I am of theirs, and stop trying to force their beliefs on me..

Q: Last week you were unhappy with Lisa Miller at Newsweek for her piece about Pope Benedict; do you like them any better this week?

A: You mean that incredibly tone-deaf piece on why Benedict didn’t “connect” with people? Too funny in retrospect, isn’t it? I have no animus toward Miller or Newsweek; I just think the magazine’s writers are supremely out-of-touch - almost endearingly so - with a huge portion of the country. They prove it again this week with this startlingly bigoted piece by Michael Hirsch in which he basically disses and dismisses people who are not like him and don’t live in the elitist coastal enclaves:

“…what we know today as Red State America. This region was heavily settled by Scots-Irish immigrants–the same ethnic mix King James I sent to Northern Ireland to clear out the native Celtic Catholics…Southern frontiersmen never got over their hatred of the East Coast elites and a belief in the morality and nobility of defying them. Their champion was the Indian-fighter Andrew Jackson. The outcome was that a substantial portion of the new nation developed, over many generations, a rather savage, unsophisticated set of mores. Traditionally, it has been balanced by a more diplomatic, communitarian Yankee sensibility from the Northeast and upper Midwest.

He also calls his fellow countrymen “yahoos” and goes on blathering like that for a while. Well, goldarnit, Barack shure did warned us ’bout folks like this ol’ boy, clingin’, bitterly, to his’n identity n’his secular-humanist creed!

Q: Um, aren’t you a New Yorker?

A: I am, born here and live here now, but there was that whole adolescence spent in the unnamed place among the cowpokes and prospectors, and I will forever have some real perspective into the south and west which allows appreciation. Hirsch should get out more and broaden his horizons a little. There is a whole interesting world beyond the Smuppity West Side.

Q: Aw, did you just invent a word? Smuppity?

A: Why yes, I did. Smug & Uppity = Smuppity. My word, as of right now. But you can use it.

Q: You’re awfully quiet on the Hillary-front, lately.

A: Well, I am busy inventing new words for the lexicon, but Hubbard is both amusing and smart on Hillary today.

Q: So, Anchoress, then you’ve had your fill of writing about Pope Benedict XVI?

A: Well, actually, I am going to be quoting rather extensively from his tremendous book God and the World (which is actually a three-day conversation with writer Peter Seewald, and it’s fascinating) during the week, but for now others are doing Benedict, or things papal, very well indeed. Check out Deacon Greg’s links about the book of victim names which Cardinal Sean O’Malley handed the pontiff in Washington DC (somehow I’d envisioned a yellow legal pad, but I’m not artistic), and this interview with a Jewish journalist covering the pope’s visit. Never forget to check out the Deac’s homily for the week, which is always an insightful gift.

Then check out Irene Lagan’s coverage of the pope’s Regina Caeli address to the audience following his ordination of 29 new priests, during which he mentioned some trouble spots in the world (particularly Africa) and also his recent visit to the US:

I thank God who greatly blessed this unique mission and allowed me to make be an instrument of hope of Christ for the Church and for the country. At the same time I thank him because I myself was confirmed in the hope of American Catholics: I found it a great vitality and determination to live and bear witness to the faith in Jesus.

The tireless Rocco Palmieri has the full text of the address.

Most surprisingly - and worth mentioning in light of Benedict’s ongoing, full-on engagement of both Islam and the Arab peoples - one of the newly-ordained is an Iraqi.

Meanwhile, I totally agree with this comparison between John Paul II and Benedict. And I agree with Rod Dreher that this is a great “commercial” for Catholicism.

Q: Well, you just live in a sunny, “everything-is-beautiful” la-la land, dontcha?

A: No, I don’t, and I’ve had my forays into the darkling company, but I’ve never written about it with Gerard’s power and unstinting honesty. And for a sad but also rather lovely and uplifting story, check out Okie on the Lam’s tribute to his late mother-in-law. The greatness of the Greatest Generation was not gender-exclusive.

Q:Get any interesting review copies, lately?

A: Well…yes and no, but mostly no. I have an advance of A Persistent Peace by Fr. John Dear, S.J., which will soon be released by Loyola Press, (forward by Martin Sheen) and I will talk more about it when I’ve finished it, but so far…well, I’m trying very hard to appreciate the good father’s ultra-pacifist philosophy (and I’m sure some regular readers of the blog may enjoy it) but - perhaps because I am Irish - I don’t quite get it. I know all the intellectual arguments for pacifism (it reduces us to the behavior of the aggressors, violence begets violence, love is the answer) and I even agree with that to a point. There there is that point, where I must say that “yes, love, love, love is the answer but it is not expedient.” And sometimes - as when you have people plotting to release poison in a subway, or something, expedience is the other answer. This is why I can never fully embrace either the “full pacifist” stance or the warrior mentality. Too much of either seems out-of-balance to me, and Fr. Dear’s book - page after page of noble pacifism drenched with hero-worship of Ghandi and Tutu - after a while makes me feel rather clammy. Oh. I guess I did just review it!

On the other hand, Instapundit has received a review copy of a book I wish they’d have sent me: Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II. Insty calls it: A collection of essays, including one on a particular breed of pacifist that Chesterton saw as new in the 20th Century: “He does not so much believe in his own conscience as disbelieve in the common conscience which is the soul of any society. His hatred for patriotism is very much plainer than his love for peace.”

Indeed. Heh.

Speaking of Chesterton, Maureen Martin has some fun with him, here:

Chesterton joked that while his friends Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton led lives that convinced people to help the poor and commune with God, that he, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy were quickly becoming the patron saints of people “who just read all the time.”

Very cute.

Q: Don’t you think Chesterton and Antonin Scalia would have hit it off?

A: Absolutely. I’d love to have seen Stahl interview both of ‘em.

Q: Was that you I saw last Friday night at Carnegie Hall singing Molly Malone with Bryn Terfel?

A: Yep! I agree with Nordlinger, too, that his Mozart was the unintended highlight of the night. Bryn’s voice and Mozart are a match made in heaven.

John Hawkins is featuring an interview with Carol Platt Liebau wherein she discusses her new book, Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!)

The cover-design is awful; it reminds me of one of Anne Rice’s Vampire tomes, but the book itself sounds interesting. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

CPL: …in my view, there has been a strand of feminism that has been very destructive to young girls and even to women of slightly older ages and I talk about them in Prude and I call it “do me feminism.”

Q: A lot of people think the only downside for premarital sex is STDs and pregnancy and if you avoid those problems by wearing a condom, then you might as well enjoy yourself. Let’s say a person isn’t religious and they don’t get STDs or get pregnant; why shouldn’t they have sex before marriage?

That’s the key question that I was trying to strike at the heart of Prude.

You know what? You may avoid an STD, you may never confront an unwedded pregnancy, but even so, giving too much, too soon, to too many people is still a terrible idea. It’s terrible idea because there are many, many, emotional and psychological consequences that often these little girls are never told about.

Q: Like what?

They include regret, anxiety, shame, the inability to trust men, and trouble forming permanent committed relationships later. You know, John, it all makes sense. If you’re the kind of young woman who doesn’t understand why it’s important not just to have sex with any guy that wants you to, you’re probably going to be prone to seeing some of the less attractive sides of male behavior. If you see that over and over again…it’s going to be difficult to learn how to trust men…

Q: What would you say to a young woman who said to you, “Carol, I’m a Christian and I’m inclined not to have premarital sex, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep a boyfriend or even eventually get married unless I do have sex before marriage.”

…That’s a fair question, but obviously, if someone’s a Christian, they already have a certain basis why it’s not always right to do everything we want to do at the moment we want to do it.

The thing I would also say to that young woman is that I think she is underestimating men. Because, of course, you have a lot of men out there who are looking for nothing more than a little quick action. But, there are also a lot of very fine men who are looking for a woman they can respect and are looking for a woman who has loved them enough, even before she met them — to want to save a very precious and important part of herself, the sort of deep intimacy that comes with having sex with someone you love and who is committed to you — for him…

I do like that Liebau has taken head-on the notion that if one does not subscribe to the idea that our orgasms were meant to be the alphas and omegas of our lives, one is quickly labeled a “prude.” This name-calling and spiteful mockery is par-for-the-course with those who have decided that the world is a schoolyard and they are forever 14 years old. Go against the conventional wisdom and try to live with a little discipline and self-restraint, and you are derided as uptight, repressed, frigid…you know…you “have issues.” No one ever wonders if the people who cannot bear to consider self-restraint don’t have some issues of their own.

I think Liebau makes an important point about how feminism has evolved into something that encourages being used by men because the woman is “using him back.” Using each other is close to regarding each other as “things,” and we’ve talked before about where that leads. It is how we stop seeing each other as human beings, at all.

In this blog I’ve touched on the old canard that “Catholics believe every sperm is sacred,” in a way that I think (I hope) makes sense to a reader who actually has an open mind, but it doesn’t get read too often, (although this guy seems to get it.)

Likewise I’ve spent some time wondering about the whole point and meaning of virginity (and circumcision). These subjects don’t get spoken about too often - quite possibly because people are so afraid of the social pressure to conform to the age and to get with the program.

The age is so fast and noisy that - as Pope Benedict said last week - it doesn’t allow us much time to think and to process or to wonder. But these are important, really basic and essential issues that have for too long been relegated into the “uncool” pile. I’m glad to see Liebau’s book, and I hope it furthers the discussion.

Related: Who Told You that You Were Naked?
They Eat Up My People
Every Sperm is Sacred?
Self-respect is not prudery