I don’t expect to see anything like this coming out of the Obama Administration.

The Republican Party must return to its roots and become a truly conservative party again.  And it must be a principled, well-rounded conservatism.  There is no reason we must sacrifice economic interests in favor of cultural issues or vice versa.  We can do it all.

But we must also recognize a thing or two before we attempt to advance a more truly conservative agenda. (more…)

Hysterical satire of the 2008 presidential race by the folks at JibJab:

(h/t RedState)

I am sorry, but this is too funny.

WTH?

It would not surprise me in the least bit.

It’s gotta be a laff riot, right?  As well as a display of the subtle wit and wistful humanity we’ve all come to expect from the higher ed industry with regard to the Bush Presidency. 

Click here for some of the entries (don’t miss the 5-minute video).  Pick your own favorite, then go below the fold to see who won. (more…)

Speaking to an “enthralled” South Lawn audience at the White House, President Bush said the following to Pope Benedict XVI:

“We need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism and embrace a culture of justice and truth. In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish, we need your message that true liberty requires us to live our freedom not just for ourselves, but in a spirit of mutual support.”

I’ve been meaning to link to this fascinating article by a fellow at WaPo, entitled “A Catholic Wind in the White House.” Here’s a taste:

Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI’s election in 2005, President Bush met with a small circle of advisers in the Oval Office. As some mentioned their own religious backgrounds, the president remarked that he had read one of the new pontiff’s books about faith and culture in Western Europe.

Save for one other soul, Bush was the only non-Catholic in the room. But his interest in the pope’s writings was no surprise to those around him. As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush’s inner circle expect the pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the president. Because if Bill Clinton can be called America’s first black president, some say, then George W. Bush could well be the nation’s first Catholic president. (more…)

You can watch Raymond Arroyo’s interview with President Bush here.* This is apparently the only interview President Bush is giving in advance of the Holy Father’s trp to America.

It’s a fascinating interview, and it reminds me of why I voted for President Bush twice. He may not be perfect, but he is a good man who shares my and many other Christians’ worlview. And he has certainly been a far better president than Al Gore or John Kerry would have been. About that much, I am certain.

For those of you who don’t have time to watch the entire interview. I have highlighted some of the more interesting moments below the fold: (more…)

In a blog-entry entitled, “Protest at SMU Targets Bush Library,” Paul Burka of Texas Monthly writes:

The likelihood that the George W. Bush presidential library will be located at SMU has not been welcome news for at least one segment of the university community. A letter, dated December 16, from “Faculty, Administrators, & Staff” of the Perkins School of Theology to R. Gerald Turner, president of the Board of Trustees, is now circulating not only on the SMU campus but also among a wider academic community, urging the board to “reconsider and to rescind SMU’s pursuit of the presidential library.”

Texas Monthly acquired a copy of the letter, about which Mr. Burka writes extensively in his blog entry here.

In the interest of full disclosure, Baylor University, my employer, is a finalist, along with SMU and the University of Dallas, for the George W. Bush Presidential Library. As SA readers would suspect, unlike my peers at SMU, I would welcome the Bush Library at my own institution.

Update: It looks like two SMU professors recently published in the United Methodist Nexus an essay, “The George W. Bush Library: Asset or Albatross for SMU?,” in which they voice their opposition to the prospect of their institution acquiring the library. I’m not sure whether the letter about which Burka has written had its origin in this essay.

Update II: I found a copy of the letter, which is entitled, “In Protest of the George Bush Presidential Library: An Open Letter to the President & Trustees of Southern Methodist University.“

Here’s a very interesting post by Joseph Knippenberg on David Kuo’s controversial book, “Tempting Faith.”

Why am I not surprised.

I mean, this is the guy who thought Harriet Miers would make a swell Supreme Court justice.

Dear President Bush, Ken Mehlman, and Karl Rove: 

If the things David Kuo says in his book about y’all are true (and that certainly appears to be the case given his outstanding conservative credentials), then may God have mercy on all of your souls.

Here’s a summary of the book, courtesy of MSNBC:

More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office is going public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.

The office’s primary mission, providing financial support to charities that serve the poor, never got the presidential support it needed to succeed, according to the book

. . . .

“Tempting Faith’s” author is David Kuo, who served as special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003. A self-described conservative Christian, Kuo’s previous experience includes work for prominent conservatives including former Education Secretary and federal drug czar Bill Bennett and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

. . . .

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.

More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

According to Kuo, “Ken loved the idea and gave us our marching orders.”

Among those marching orders, Kuo says, was Mehlman’s mandate to conceal the true nature of the events.

Kuo quotes Mehlman as saying, “… (I)t can’t come from the campaigns. That would make it look too political. It needs to come from the congressional offices. We’ll take care of that by having our guys call the office [of faith-based initiatives] to request the visit.”

Nineteen out of the 20 targeted races were won by Republicans, Kuo reports. The outreach was so extensive and so powerful in motivating not just conservative evangelicals, but also traditionally Democratic minorities, that Kuo attributes Bush’s 2004 Ohio victory “at least partially … to the conferences we had launched two years before.”

. . . .

In fact, when Bush asks Kuo how much money was being spent on “compassion” social programs, Kuo claims he discovered “we were actually spending about $20 million a year less on them than before he had taken office.”

The money that was appropriated and disbursed, however, often served a political agenda, Kuo claims.

“Many of the grant-winning organizations that rose to the top of the process were politically friendly to the administration,” he says.

This only confirms what I’ve suspected about President Bush and his cronies for quite some time (especially since the Harriet Miers debacle): they’re full of it. They put on a damn fine dog-and-pony show, but at the end of the day they have the same elitist disdain for “salt of the earth” Christians that the dems do.

Well, Mr. President, here’s hoping that your poll numbers dip down into single digits.  Oh, and as for Kenny and Karl, you boys are about to find out the hard way this election cycle what happens when the “nuts” no longer take their ”marching orders” from you bastards. Enjoy being in the minority again, jerks.

Update: Here’s a piece that Kuo recently penned for BeliefNet. I found this tidbit particularly disgusting:

Congressional Republicans matched Democratic hostility with snoring indifference. Sen. Rick Santorum spent endless hours alone lobbying Senate Leadership to give some floor time, any floor time to get a bill to help charities and the poor - even after 9/11 when charities were going out of business because of a decline in giving. He was stiff-armed by his own party.

But kudos to Senator Santorum for fighting the good fight on behalf of real compassionate conservatism. 

I also think Kuo nails it with this observation:

At the end of the day, both parties played to stereotype — Republicans were indifferent to the poor and the Democrats were allergic to faith.

Yep, that about sums up the sorry state of affairs with our current two-party system.

Macon, Jawja.

The president now has a 44% approval rating. Now, that’s certainly nothing to write home about, but it beats the heck out of being in the low 30s.

Courtesy of Father Thomas Euteneuer:

“What the President apparently fails to realize is that Plan B kills the same innocent unborn children that the ESCR process does.”

First Harriet Miers, and now this.

Poor George. When are you going to learn that you can’t screw over the base just because your wife is a proabort.

I really am done with you this time, Mr. President. Done. Finito.

Oh, and fwiw, I believe that every candidate seeking the Republican-presidential nomination in ‘08 ought to be asked point blank whether they support this repugnant decision. Those who do will not win the nomination if social conservatives have anything to say about it.

President Bush recently read “The Stranger,” by Albert Camus.

Personally, I think he can do much better than that (see, e.g., this).

Any other suggestions (both serious and humorous)? 

It damn well better be.

Move over Bono.

It’s time to sell whatever stock you’re holding in the Bush effort to ban gay marriage. I’m one of those people who is generally opposed to the concept of legalized gay marriage, but even I can’t help but view Republican work on the issue with anything but the most world-weary cynicism. It just feels as though the GOP rolls opposition to gay marriage out whenever they feel worried about their base. It’s not working. The base is just feeling manipulated. Small government is going to eventually become the defining GOP issue again in the future — that and pro-life, which is a heckuva lot easier to argue than gay marriage (but that’s another post entirely).

It’s also time to sell Google, not just till the price is better, but entirely. I watched the Google stock price soar through the roof and never understood it. Sure, it’s the first option in search, but it doesn’t have some unassailable technology that can’t easily be matched or replaced. The truth is that Yahoo does virtually everything Google does and has a commanding lead in email users. Yet, for some reason I’ve yet to fathom Google is worth far more than Yahoo. How to explain apart from a feeling. I think Google is another example of irrational exuberance and it will fall farther and harder, yet.

I don’t know all the ins and outs of the “Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act” that is set for U.S. Senate action this week, but I can tell you that quite a few conservative commentators are arguing that it is a very, very bad idea — “race-based government,” in fact.  (K-Lo has collected more links, here.)

And, to make matters worse, Congressional Republicans are mostly asleep at the switch or actively involved in pushing the bill, and the White House has chosen to remain on the sidelines.  In other words, don’t expect the President to reach for his veto pen (there is one — really there is!) on this one.  Once again we’re looking at principle taking a back seat to expediency with this Administration.

What the heck — I’ll go out on a limb here:  Read the authors I’ve linked above, and consider emailing your Senators on this issue.  It couldn’t hurt.

is up to 40% in the latest Rasmussen poll.

Take that Nixon!

Mexico, a country with a strict immigration policy, is threatening America with a lawsuit if the National Guard engages in active detainment of illegal immigrants.

  “If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people … we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates,” Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez told a Mexico City radio station. He did not offer further details.

Okay, someone pinch me so I can wakeup from this dream.  Mexico, a country that believes in shooting first and then asking questions when a person appears illegal, is threatening to sue the US if we use the military for its rightful purpose - securing our borders.  However, the most worrisome is

Some Mexican newspapers criticized President Vicente Fox for not taking a stronger stand against the measure, even though Fox called Bush to express his concerns.

A political cartoon in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma depicted Bush as a gorilla carrying a club with a flattened Fox stuck to it.

Fox’s spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Tuesday that Mexico accepted Bush’s statement that the sending in the National Guard didn’t mean militarizing the area. He also said Mexico remained “optimistic” that the U.S. Senate would approve an immigration reform “in the interests of both countries.”

While I support legal immigration, I am concerned a national security issue is being compromised on a variety of levels.  Why are we trying to pacify another nation regarding immigrants coming from an oppressive country?  A country these people are fleeing from at all costs:

Juan Canche, 36, traveled more than 1,200 miles to the border from the southern town of Izamal and said nothing would stop him from trying to cross.

“Even with a lot of guards and soldiers in place, we have to jump that puddle,” said Canche, referring to the drought-stricken Rio Grande dividing Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. “My family is hungry and there is no work in my land. I have to risk it.”

Provided our borders are secure, I support an increase in legal immigration and a temporary guest worker program.    However, Mexico and other countries that force their citizens to flee their borders and often encourage illegal immigration must be held accountable for resulting crisis.  As a result, Mexico should have not have any input or influence in the American immigration policy.

Here, here, and here.

From the Washington Post,

Disaffection over spending and immigration have caused conservatives to take flight from President Bush and the Republican Congress at a rapid pace in recent weeks, sending Bush’s approval ratings to record lows and presenting a new threat to the GOP’s 12-year reign on Capitol Hill, according to White House officials, lawmakers and new polling data.

Bush and Congress have suffered a decline in support from almost every part of the conservative coalition over the past year, a trend that has accelerated with alarming implications for Bush’s governing strategy.

The Gallup polling organization recorded a 13-percentage-point drop in Republican support for Bush in the past couple weeks. These usually reliable voters are telling pollsters and lawmakers they are fed up with what they see as out-of-control spending by Washington and an abandonment of core conservative principles more generally.

This goes way back for me, much longer than “the past couple weeks.”

I’ve now read in several places that John Podesta’s (Bill Clinton’s former Chief of Staff) glitzy new think tank, the Center for American Progress, circulated press kits to members of the media informing them of Tony Snow’s negative appraisals of the Bush White House. The idea was apparently to embarrass Bush or Snow or both on the day of his hiring as White House spokesman.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) was conceived as a left-wing counter to outfits like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. It launched with a lot of fanfare and has surely offered its share of white papers, policy briefs, and expert testimonies. I sense that with the Tony Snow maneuver the CAP may have damaged its own credibility. We’re talking about petty electioneering type stuff and my experience is that think tanks don’t do that, not even the ones with a clear ideological bent.

George W. Milhous Bush? Is Dubya the new Nixon?

Bush is certainly to the right of Nixon on many issues. But at the philosophical level, he shares the Nixonians’ supreme confidence in the power of the state. Bush rejects limited government and many of the philosophical assumptions that underlie that position. He favors instead strong government. He believes, as he said in 2003, that when “somebody hurts, government has got to move.” His compassionate conservatism shares with Nixon’s moderate Republicanism a core faith that not only can the government love you, but it should spend money to prove its love. Beyond that, there seems to be no core set of principles that define Bush’s approach, and therefore, much like Nixon, no clearly communicable message that explains why he does things other than political calculation and expediency.

Me: It’s a question worth considering. It’s definitely an article worth reading.

If you can forgive (or look past) all of the critical things Tony Snow said about you, and hire him as your press secretary, surely you can cut me some slack for my criticism of you re: Harriet Miers (which, by the way, was a really, really crappy nomination). So, if a federal judgeship opens up here in Macon or at the 11th Circuit, just keep me in mind, o.k.?