The November issue of Consumer Reports, the publication of the independent Consumers Union, contains their analysis of the health care proposals of John McCain and Barack Obama. As the magazine points out, “both plans lack key details.” But, considering what the candidates have said and filling in the blanks with plausible speculation based on the state plans on which Obama and McCain have based their announced programs, the magazine looks at how people in three different situations might...

Accolades: I’ve seen every vice presidential debate since they began. This was the best one ever. It was certainly the most substantive. While both candidates engaged in misconstructions of their opponents’ positions and records, neither was egregious in this. Sarah Palin Didn’t Crash and Burn: I admit that my expectations of Palin going into the evening’s debate were extremely low. I’ve said on this site that while her selection by McCain for his running mate was...

…But I hope that they’ll speak against it. It absolutely creeps me out! The children are sweet, but what religious-like zeal drives adults to compose hymns to a presidential candidate, countenance the songs being taught to them, and watch approvingly? I know that many evangelical Christians meld their faith with their politics and I’ve often spoken against it, both as a Christian and an American. But this video finds approaching politics with a kind of religious fervor. The hope...

…to tell the story of three preachers on a bamboo bike.

[This is a portion of the first part of a series I'm doing over on my own blog regarding the current US financial crisis and our grappling with it.] Only those willing to be seduced are seduced. Nobody persuaded into doing the wrong thing can credibly argue, “He tricked me,” or, “She jumbled my thinking,” or “The devil made me do it.” The evil all around may pull at us, but we are the ones who cave into our inborn tendency to do the wrong thing, no matter what...

In Austria. But giving sixteen year olds the right to vote seems ill-advised. [See my personal blog.]

This promo currently appearing on the Big Ten Network purports to show the conference’s head football coaches on home visits to high school recruiting prospects. I love Penn State coach Joe Paterno’s bit of intense thespianism at the end. Also love Jim Tressel’s, “You do know about our Buckeye leaves…” [Crossposted at my personal blog.]

A few quick reactions to the McCain-Obama debate. “If you like this kind of book, this is the kind of book you will like.” That book review is often attributed to Abraham Lincoln. A paraphrase of it will do in talking about how the debate went on Friday night. If, before the debate, you loved Obama’s positions on the war and domestic issues, you probably still love them. And if you were keen on John McCain going into the debate, you’re probably still keen on him. Neither candidate...

The skepticism of fellow The Moderate Voice blogger Polimom is understandable. All the pieces are in place for John McCain to, sometime tomorrow, be portrayed as the hero who brokered a resolution to the financial crisis acceptable to The White House, Congressional Democrats, and recalcitrant conservative Congressional Republicans. It seems so pat, so obvious, and it just might be true. But I don’t think so. Conservative anger at the proposed White House bailout plan is enormous. Yesterday,...

The thing about a political stunt, I told my son last night, is that if you get away with it, it’s no longer a stunt. It’s bold leadership…keeping in mind that the first mark of a leader is that she or he has followers. John McCain suspended his campaign yesterday, attempting to at least project an image of leadership, if not enacting its substance. Is anybody following? Before giving the obvious answer to that question, it should be said that there is a kind of sense to John McCain...

That’s the title of a useful post written by Asbury Theological Seminary professor, Ben Witherington, on his blog. It may surprise those fed on a regular diet of wrong impressions created by some who claim to speak for all evangelicals or disinformation spooned out by some in the media regarding evangelicals, other Christians, and all theists. Witherington’s advice breaks stereotypes and is non-partisan. One might even call it moderate. His main pieces of advice to evangelical Christians...

No matter what your politics. Former President Bill Clinton was followed by Chris Rock on David Letterman’s show last night. [Here's the link to my personal blog.]

The death of a young person is a tragedy that freezes their image in time and subjects it to romantic embellishments. The deceased becomes a template. On the morning of November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy had served as President of the United States for two years and ten months. He was poised to be renominated by his party in 1964 and would have likely defeated the presumptive Republican nominee, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, though not by the massive proportions that Kennedy’s successor...

My pension monies are split between five different funds, each comprising 20% of the total portfolio. On Tuesday night, I checked how the funds were going and found that I had lost a total of $19,000 since the start of the third quarter. When I logged back on today, I learned that because of the market’s response to the bailout initiative announced by Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, my pension had gained $6000 and I’m “only” down $13,000…for the quarter. At this rate,...

History repeated itself recently when John McCain suggested that his running mate, Sarah Palin, is an experienced hand when it comes to national security issues because the state she serves as governor, Alaska, is close to Russia and because she commands the state’s National Guard. It was reminiscent of a flashpoint in the 1992 presidential election. That year, attempting to respond to charges that he wasn’t prepared to lead the United States on national security, Bill Clinton pointed...

[This is a piece I just submitted to The Logan Daily News, the local paper in the community I serve as pastor. It's part of a continuing series to which local clergy are invited to contribute. It is overtly Christian, not, I hope, as a means of pushing my faith down people's throats, but to (a) let non-Christians see that many--I believe most--Christians do not believe that the Church should be a political institution and (b) assure other Christians, forced day after day to watch as some Christian...

It was one of the most memorable lines in Governor Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech at last week’s Republican National Convention. Responding to accusations that her service as mayor of an Anchorage suburb doesn’t commend her for vice president, Palin referred to Senator Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.” The crowd roared. But is it fair to...

David: Let me preface what I’m about to say by telling you that I am a fan. Your knowledge of public issues is encyclopedic and your insights into the major challenges facing the United States today are fascinating. Although partisan Republicans and Democrats may look askance at you for having served President Clinton after having served Presidents Reagan and Bush 1, I’ve always admired your willingness to use your considerable talents in service to country irrespective of an individual...

US News and World Report writer Paul Bedard quotes Baptist minister Richard Land as saying that Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s didn’t become Senator John McCain’s running mate, in part, because Huckabee is an ordained minister. Writes Bedard: With the mounting complications over John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate, some conservatives have been asking why the expected Republican nominee didn’t choose former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won eight...

The Columbus Dispatcharticle on John McCain’s announcement yesterday that he had selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his vice presidential running mate contained this about the reaction of a campaign spokesperson for the Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama: The Obama campaign criticized Palin as too conservative on issues such as abortion and argued that she would not be fit to assume the presidency. Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that McCain was willing to put “the...

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been on my radar screen since she won election in 2006. So, while her selection by Senator John McCain to be his running mate surprised me, I think it was also an inspired choice. Why? The woman appears to have guts and integrity, both rare assets in Alaska’s oil-saturated politics of corruption. If you watched a recent profile of Alaskan politics on ‘60 Minutes,’ you know that Palin has stood out for several years as a pol who not only pushes for...

On the day after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, I wrote a piece in which I asserted that Senator Hillary Clinton’s post-election speech indicated that she knew her quest for the presidency was over for 2008. Near the end, I said: …for the first time in my recollection, Senator Clinton allowed for the possibility of defeat and, in a possible effort to assuage the concerns of superdelegates fearful of the bitterness aroused by the contest between Clinton and Obama, spoke more...

What was the most interesting speech of the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Denver? Well, the short, heroic address of Senator Edward M. Kennedy was certainly the most emotional, eliciting an enthusiastic response from the crowd in the hall. Michelle Obama, wife of the presumptive nominee, hit all the buttons she needed to hit in what has become a tiresome convention tradition in recent years: the spouse’s speech. But to me, the most interesting of the evening’s addresses...

Kenneth Anderson, professor at the Washington Law School of American University, knows a thing or two about Russia and Georgia. He makes four key points in the wake of the Russian invasion of Georgia for current and potential US foreign policy makers: First, I share unreservedly the belief that Russia is deliberately undertaking a dangerous, threatening, imperial expansion in the “near abroad” and that it must be opposed and rolled back… Second, NATO is going to undergo a reshaping in two...

According to Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell over at FP Passport. A sampling: …Biden doesn’t bat 100 percent. He went ahead and supported the Iraq war despite warning that President Bush was underestimating the risks (he now says he didn’t realize Bush would be so incompetent and that he thought Saddam could be deposed by other means). He called the surge “a tragic mistake” in February 2007 while John McCain has backing it wholeheartedly. But he has gotten lots...