Andrew Sullivan does it again: he tries to demean Gov. Palin and fails, again
Andrew Sullivan writes:
From an Eagle Forum Candidate Questionnaire:
Q: Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.
The phrase was added in 1954.
Andrew, again, has not done his homework. The question was about the “under God” phrase, which, as historians of the American founding note, was added to the Pledge by Congress in 1954 precisely because it was uttered on several occasions by none other than George Washington, including this historically important moment:
The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.
Address to the Continental Army before the Battle of Long Island (27 August 1776)
So, the journalism B.A. from the University of Idaho beats the Harvard Ph.D. (in political philosophy) yet again.
[...] Original post by Francis Beckwith [...]
Isn’t it interesting how far and how quickly these jokers are going to attack Gov. Palin? I promise I’ve yet to send money to Sen. McCain (and time is running short), but I’m writing a check tomorrow.
Tizzi,
I’m with you on that one.
It’s amazing how poor these alleged “profesionals” do their homework.
Sadly, this is what is passed as “journalism”.
[...] Original post by Francis Beckwith [...]
Sorry, Andrew’s right. It was not added because the phrase had been used by the founders–of course it had been, and it was probably used as well by King George III and countless thousands of others of all political persuasions. The idea that it was added because the founders said it is plainly stupid.
The reason it was added in 1954 has everything to do with anti-Communism–it was a way to affirm that we were not, like the Communists, godless atheists.
In any case, the question Palin answered wasn’t about the phrase in general, but about the phrase in the pledge. Which, as Sullivan pointed out,
didn’t even exist until the 20th Century.
Bob, you’re wrong, the question was whether she found the phrase “under God” in the Pledge offensive. Reread it.
Also, I linked to an article by James Piereson that summarizes the literature with which many of us in church-state studies have been familiar for years. Did you read it? If so, you would know that Andrew is wrong.
From the Piereson article
Francis Beckwith 2, Andrew Sullivan 0.
I seriously smell fear in the air whenever I read the vileness directed at Gov. Palin. I pray for her and her family. I hope they weighed the depravity of some of the left as part of the cost in entering the fray.
francis – you’ve been increasingly, um, passionate lately, but you’re leading with your chin on this one.
of course she meant the pledge. the fact that founders uttered the phrase in some unrelated contexts at some other random times in history isn’t really relevant.
i’d also note that virtually not a single liberal blog (i.e., “the Far Left Blogosphere”) pushed the pregnancy thing before it broke today by palin announcing her daughter’s pregnancy. By my count, there was a daily kos DIARIST and then Andrew sullivan (not exactly “far left”).
in general, i was pretty proud of the liberal blogs for not pushing this on their front pages. and, as a fellow blogger you can surely agree that blogs shouldn’t be held responsible for what commenters, etc. say.
We should always offer the most charitable interpretation of a person’s words. In a case where two different interpretations are equally plausible, you always go with the charitable one.
I have no idea what was inside Sarah Palin’s mind when she answered that question. But do I know a bit about the Founding and the Pledge, and I can easily see myself answering a brief candidate-issue questionnaire in the same way. In fact, I suspect that if I had answered it in the same way, most of you would grant me the charitable interpretation, since I’m a male college professor who teaches in this area. But when it comes to a woman with only an undergraduate degree, who has spent most of her life in the real world, you don’t interpret her with charity, since you assume she could never know enough about this topic to be entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
Percolating beneath Sullivan and some of his supporters here, I sense an elitist misogyny.
tizzidale, somehow I don’t think that odor is fear. (At least not emanating from the left, where the sharks smell blood in the water. Those on the right should perhaps check the soles of their shoes.)
Check out what Josh Marshall characterized as “CNN’s Campbell Brown performed what amounted to a live vivisection of [McCain spokesman Tucker] Bounds on live television.”:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/212194.php
yes that’s a solid point — clearly my interpretation is a function of my deep sexism and my growing up in the upper east side of ny. o wait, i grew up in rural kentucky. hmmm.
switch to decaf – jeez.
you’re fighting imaginary straw men
my thought process:
1 – It sure doesn’t sound like she meant the Pledge.
2 – O wait! She’s lived somewhere REAL. Because many parts of America are NOT real. That’s exactly — the precise reason — why i interpret her in a different way
3 – Now I’m really convinced!!
That’s straw person to you!
fair enough — and on your more general point about the pregnancy, i agree. it shouldn’t have been brought up.
Yes, many parts of America are not real. For example, I don’t live in the real world, I’m an academic. What I do is important. But it doesn’t hold a candle to my grandmother who worked as a seamstress for 50 years in Brooklyn, New York. No, I’m a pampered, spoiled, intellectual, who, admittedly, gets his dander up when he sees a woman–not unlike my mother, sister, or wife–demeaned and denigrated in ways that are completely unfair.
Look, if you want to play the gaffe-game, be my guest. It’s a game played in all 57 states by articulate black people and Indian 7-Eleven clerks who plagiarize. If you want to play the guilt by association game, go for it. At the end of the day, the Alaska Independence Party is a lot less threatening to most Americans than the Weathermen or the pastor who believes that AIDS was a government plot.
“At the end of the day, the Alaska Independence Party is a lot less threatening to most Americans than the Weathermen or the pastor who believes that AIDS was a government plot.”
Which says those who feel threatened than it does about the pastor in question. Laura Bush’s car has killed more people than has the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s half-cocked theories.
Excuse me. That should have been “Which says more about those who feel threatened than it does about the pasto in question.”
The phrase “under God” was added to the pledge in 1954 and the pledge itself was written in 1892. But this is trivia isn’t it? To jump on a candidate for saying it was good enough for the founders is really pathetic. This is the play on the old joke when some person from “bitter” America (confused over the fact that the Bible is a translation) says “I support English in America because if it was good enough for Jesus Christ it is good enough for me.” And the cultural elites can have a great laugh. Reminds me of the story when Henry Ford told the press that he did not know the little trivial facts and figures, but he can in ten minutes summon a person who knows those things.
Like the famous New Yorker cover showing how New Yorkers view the world, civilization ends when you cross the Hudson River. It is not just Easter Establishment anymore, but our self appointed cultural elites really have contempt for those byeond their spheres and Alaska is about as beyond as you can get (especially since Sarah Palin did not go to Harvard, Yale, etc. for proper education and training).
The competing myths that the founders were all pious Christians or alternatively were all Enlightenment secular agnostics and athiests is rather childish too. In truth the Founding Fathers covered the full spectrum of belief with most of them believers of a “higher power” and “Creator” of some sort. Even Jefferson (sorry Chris Hitchens).
What is going on with Andrew is he is looking for ways to attack John McCain for the benefit of Barack Obama. Because Andrew is a true conservative and only Barack Obama (in his opinion) can save us. Sarah Palin has become the target for that. That is fine, he can be partisan. She should be closely reviewed by the press to a point. In fact, for a fair and honest article on the subject, Time did an excellent and thoughtful story on Bristol. But the level of the attack by Sullivan, the dishonesty and despicable nature of the attack on Trig’s birth (you do not do that to kids on the weakest of evidence), the pettiness of the attack on the kids names, and the hyperventalating over the pledge comment is what is amazing. It is what you would expect from the Daily Kos but not what you would expect from a writer for The Atlantic Monthly.
Sorry I could not find a more “Southern Appeal” appropriate historic reference but I think Peter Robinson raises an excellent point:
Sarah Takes After Abe? [Peter Robinson]
Why, yes, actually, in one important respect, she does. A reader makes a remarkably persuasive case:
All the talk of experience in a VP misses the point; the whole concept of checks and balances implies our founding fathers knew we would be flying by the seat of our pants half the time. So?
Rather than experience we should look towards the concept of mastery. Lincoln is a good example. He spent a fair number of years as a suffling lawyer but he mastered the one great civic-political issue of his day (aside form the moral issue of slavery) – the power and develpment of rail transport in American life. He knew everything there was to know about railroads and land and financing and legal ins and outs concerning the power of rail in the 1850s.
Remember that when you hear Ms. Palin going on about energy. She has mastered the land, legal, technical concepts relating to the oil industry; even more she knows the power politics of big oil as it relates to the biggest state in the union and all the other states as well. Just for fun of it some reporter should ask her: “can you describe what the oil companies are doing to protect their rigs from Hurricane Gustav?” Watch jaws drop as she describes to a “T” what you need to do to protect off-shore rigs from harsh weather.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmNjYmJhZGJlODQwMTJlOWI5MDFjOGMxMjczZWU5ZTQ=
The Knights of Columbus were instrumental in getting the phrase “Under God” added to the Pledge.
“Which says those who feel threatened than it does about the pastor in question. Laura Bush’s car has killed more people than has the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s half-cocked theories.”
Not if you’re counting souls and minds.
Francis,
You are really reaching on this one.
Its clear that the interview question was asking about the “under God” phrase in the context of the Pledge. When the phrase was added to the Pledge is very relevant.
You claim that the phrase was added to the Pledge by Congress “precisely because” it was uttered by George Washington. However, you have provided no evidence whatsoever to substantiate your claim. The article you have linked to doesn’t even substantiate your assertion. Its not even clear just how many Congressman knew that George Washington had uttered the phrase, for goodness sakes!
You also assume that Gov. Palin was aware of a single, random phrase by Washington uttered before the Battle of Long Isand…thats really stretching it.
What’s more…you imply that many of the people who disagree with you are misogynists. This kind of ad-hominem only detracts from your argument…
Francis, you are better educated in this field than I, but I always though of souls as immortal. I am confused. Do you ascribe to Rev. Wright the ability to kill souls?
Jaysen:
I know the Piereson article is fairly long. But read it carefully.
Some people are unaccustomed to following a long historical narrative in which connections are made in order to offer an account of an event or circumstance. Perhaps you are one of those people. I do not know.
There is an interesting article on the history of the Pledge that appeared in the Houston Law Review several years ago, which you can find here: http://usa-the-republic.com/items%20of%20interest/Houston_Law_Review.pdf
An excerpt:
Citations are in the original
As for souls, I was speaking metaphorically not metaphysically. Consider this illustration: “From years of being tutored in Christian heresy and hate speech, little Wanda’s soul died a thousand deaths, corrupted by a minister who should be offering the love of Christ rather than bitterness borne of an unforgiving heart.”
That’s what I meant.
Anon.
Again, nothing in the Piereson article substantiates Francis’ claim…and nothing in the excerpt you posted does either (I am too busy at the moment to read the entire article.).
Regarding the Washinton mention in excerpt …One representative does not equal Congress, and saying why a change makes sense does not mean that is why the change was adopted.
Jaysen: It’s no shame to be dyslexic. It’s a disease, not a sin.
Here’s the money-paragraph from the article you “erda” (i.e.,”read”):
It’s history, not mathematics. It’s a narrative, not an equation.
Francis,
You’re still wrong. The section you have bolded does not support your assertion that “under God” was added by Congress “precisely because” George Washington uttered it.
For one, the article doesn’t demonstrate that the phrase originated with Washington, only that he used it once. Second, the article doesn’t show a conclusive link between Washington’s usage and Weem’s usage, or from Weem’s to Lincoln’s.
What’s worse, even if it could, it wouldn’t in the lease support your case. It doesn’t follow from the fact that Washington used the phrase that it was the determinative element in Congress’s decision to adopt it. As I said earlier, you haven’t even shown that a substantial amoung of Congressmen were even aware that Washington used the phrase.
Sidenote: how do you edit posts?
“It doesn’t follow from the fact that Washington used the phrase that it was the determinative element in Congress’s decision to adopt it. ”
You are missing the point. The point is that “under God” has a rich history of use with its genesis in Washington’s use of it as well as the more general understanding of God being the source of rights.
That’s what virtually every historian of this issue will tell you. A Congressman doesn’t have to be consciously aware of this when he’s proposing legislation, just as he doesn’t have to be immediately aware of the rules of grammar while using language. “Under God” was in the conceptual air, so to speak, precisely because it was put in place by Washington, nurtured by his Founding brothers in their understanding of the theistic source of rights, and inherited by Lincoln. There is a line of intellectual custody that goes back to the Founding, and in Washington in particular, that simply cannot denied.
Again, this is not mathematics. It’s a story, not a set of talking points. Unfortunately, history does not come pre-packaged like a Blockbuster video rental.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
P. S. Jaysen, thanks for being civil in the face of my smart-alecky one liners.
Francis,
Its probably fruitless to belabor this point…and perhaps its a little too picky. But here’s my last shot.
I have no doubt that “under God” has a rich history, and that part of this history can be traced back to the founding. But this is not what you originally asserted…
You said that Congress adopted the phrase “precisely because” it was uttered by Washington…that Washinton’s usage was the reason it was adopted. Now perhaps what you really meant was the “under God” was in the conceptual air in part due to Washington. But these are two different things. The difference may be subtle, but it is still there.
I think this quote by Pres. Eisenhower is probably a good guide as to why Congress adopted the phrase… “They (the words of the phrase) will help us to keep constantly in our minds and hearts the spiritual and moral principles which alone give dignity to man, and upon which our way of life is founded.”
P.S. This will probably be my last post on the issue. Thanks for the conversation Francis