A federal judge has ruled that the Georgia Institute of Technology had materials in its office to support gay students that amounted to unconstitutional support for some religious groups over others. […]
The ruling came in a case involving a range of issues over speech codes and support for religious groups at Georgia Tech — issues that mirror those being raised at other public colleges and many of which were resolved in earlier rulings or agreements between the parties in the case. The new part of the ruling, however, focused on a set of materials used in the “Safe Space” program at Georgia Tech, a part of the institute’s diversity office designed to support gay and lesbian students.
The case was filed on behalf of two Georgia Tech students, assisted by the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group that has sued many public colleges accusing them of violating the rights of religious students. The portion of the suit about Safe Space argued that materials at the public university were effectively religious in that they endorsed some faiths over others — and that these materials were as a result unconstitutional. Judge J. Owen Forrester agreed.
The materials in question dealt with issues that may be faced by religious gay students, or by gay students challenged about the sexuality by people from different faiths. One passage cited in the ruling says that “historically, Biblical passages taken out of context have been used to justify such things as slavery, the inferior status of women, and the persecution of religious minorities.” Such attitudes have led some religious groups to declare “that homosexuality is immoral,” the group’s materials state, while others “have begun to look at sexual relationships in terms of the love, mutual support, commitments and the responsibility of the partners rather than the sex of the individuals involved.”
In his book, Schecter makes the case for why, although he supported McCain in his run in 2000, McCain no longer deserves support and in fact, his candidacy should be fought actively, without hesitation and on all fronts. Schecter outlines his reasons for these sentiments and fills in those reasons with more details than you may be able to absorb. Schecter draws a portrait of both McCain’s political trajectory and the parallel trajectory of how his political choices since 2001 are a thumbing of his nose at the very people who got him to the presidential precipice in the first place.
A couple of disclosures before I offer you my phone interview with Cliff: I’ve never been a McCain supporter. And I haven’t known of Schecter that long either - here’s the first post I ever wrote about Schecter. However, it was fascinating talking to someone with a seemingly vast knowledge base about someone whom I’ve never really studied.
JMZ: You argue on behalf of former McCain supporters who should be able to realize that McCain isn’t what he once was. Who, then, is the alternative and why?
CS: Well. There’s always, “What we have versus what we’d like to have.” I’m an Obama supporter and he has a lot of appeal to Independents. But he hasn’t done it the way McCain did it – by attacking his own party in big speeches. Obama has done it by standing up, not by splitting. Obama talks about rising above partisanship and reaching out to all people on all sides and getting past the muck where politics has gotten so nasty. Obama says, I’m going to talk to you like an adult. And that’s what McCain had called “straight talk” – but he hasn’t given us much of that [this election cycle.] Read the rest of this entry »
Did the Pope visit the United States in part to influence the U.S. Presidential race in favor of John McCain?
That seems to be the conclusion of a large number of mainland Europeans.
This article from France’s Journal du Dimanche au Quotidien, quoting French journalist V. Jauvert, points out, “Since April 16 - his birthday - Pope Benedict XVI has been in the United States for a rather long trip (for an old person): a week. And he didn’t go there just to blow out the candles on the cake offered by Dubya … The Pope is (subliminally) campaigning for J. McCain … the official visit of a Pope during a very tight election campaign is contrary to tradition. … this trip, beyond the spiritual and political, is a pretext to support the pro life candidate.’
Jauvert goes on to say that in 2004 before his elevation to the papacy, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to American Bishops saying, “it’s not possible to defend the right to abortion and receive communion, and that therefore, those who vote for Kerry, who take communion each Sunday, “would be guilty of formal cooperation with the devil!”
April 15th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Again, a disclosure: I am a Catholic.
Catholic social teachings
disagree with abuses of power,
disagree with politics that omit and oppress the poor and needy,
disagree with trampling the preciousness of the life force,
disagree with any idea that preemptive war is good,
disagree with any idea that humans are not worthy of justice and dignity… and much more.
These principles are in place to keep the world from going dead black with avarice and sloth and cruelty and the sounds of many mouths banging in scorn like empty pots. They are not always easy to live, but they are to be rooted in the heart and soul, and to be striven toward even though it is hard in the winds that swirl through this world.
Here, one journalist writes about some who present George Bush as having a seemingly ‘Catholic conscience.’ You can read the entire article by Daniel Burke here “A Catholic Wind in the White House,” and you can read my article I filed this morning at The National Catholic Reporter in my weekly column there where, speaking as a Catholic, I felt I had to refute the idea that George Bush is in any way following sacred Catholic social teachings. You can see that article, entitled, “Silencing a Woman: Retrieving Her Voice,” here.
April 13, 2008, in the Washington Post, Daniel Burke, a national correspondent for Religion News Service, writes about how some imagine President George Bush is actually a secret Catholic ‘believer,’ and has met with and surrounded himself by Catholics during his administration… that his policies have directly grown out of Catholic social justice teachings… and that the Pope is coming to see the President and his Catholic appointees specially, as the Pope is his ally… even though the Pope disagrees with President Bush’s Iraq war and torture.
“Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, another evangelical with an affinity for Catholic teaching, says that the key to understanding Bush’s domestic policy is to view it through the lens of Rome. Others go a step further.
“Paul Weyrich, an architect of the religious right, detects in Bush shades of former British prime minister Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism last year. “I think he is a secret believer,” Weyrich says of Bush. Similarly, John DiIulio, Bush’s first director of faith-based initiatives, has called the president a “closet Catholic.” And he was only half-kidding.”
Mr. Burke’s article goes on to say,
“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… this Protestant president has surrounded himself with Roman Catholic intellectuals, speechwriters, professors, priests, bishops and politicians. These Catholics — and thus Catholic social teaching — have for the past eight years been shaping Bush’s speeches, policies and legacy to a degree perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history….”
But, I must say otherwise:
…At a time when hardworking fathers and mothers are literally piling the children’s toys and bunk beds at the curb, for they are losing their homes in the sub-prime mortgage bunco scheme promoted by the grotesquely avaricious…
…at a time when 25% of older women only have a social security check to live on and nothing more… and they have inherited nothing but a President who wishes to do away with social security… and who admires those who call this hard earned savings account belonging to individuals who worked all their lives long, “an entitlement…”
…during a time when the last small farmers, ranchers, and overland independent truckers are being run out of business from sudden spikes in fuel and government’s one-sided subsidies… and our farmers, ranchers and trucker-heroes are becoming desperate for they not only take care of their own families, but have long taken care of us, their nation’s families at a root level, delivering the food and necessities we need…
…at a time when pharmaceutical companies produce much good, and have some charitable programs, yet still, at the back door, many also hold onto medicine patents that would have expired, thereby allowing the formulas into public domain and bringing down the costs of vital medicines for human beings in need…. but instead, some change the formula in slight and meaningless ways and thereby file to re-patent the medicine again, so they are its only producers, and prices remain high… often out of reach of those in most dire straights… and all this is okay-ed by our government…
To read the rest of both Mr. Burke’s article and mine, please see the links above….
April 14th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
First, a disclosure: I am a Catholic who comes from a long line of deeply ethnic old believers. I’ve had my bewilderments with the Church hierarchy, and my critiques and condemnations of some of the actions of some within the hierarchy as well…. but also hold to the deep social teachings from the heart of the Church which share their core with other philosophies and other faiths’ tenets, especially the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, to attempt, as one can, to take on the repair of the world soul.
Catholic social teachings speak against dictatorial power, do not support politics that omit the poor and needy, disapprove the slighting of the preciousness of the life force, turn from the idea that preemptive war is desirable, refuse the idea that humans are to be exploited and used instead of treated with decency, reject that people are to be put to death… and much more. Catholic social principles are hard to live by sometimes, but without them, the belief is the world would be far more vulnerable to becoming a soul-less wasteland.
My father, a tailor from the old country, used to warn that it was suicide to speak of politics and religion in the same breath, that it brought out the scorn-demons on both sides. But, in our time, it cannot be avoided apparently, for the Pope is about to land in the USA to visit only two cities; New York City and Washington D.C., the USA’s pinnacles of politics and politicos…
Too, the Pope is seemingly avoiding the Boston Archdiocese and Los Angeles and Chicago where live mountains of Catholics, but also where the Church hierarchy markedly looked the other way and literally obstructed child victims from justice as they were being sexually predated upon by certain priests in the last place on earth one would ever imagine a child would be unsafe…
Those scars will never be talked away. Not by popes nor apologists. Never.
But, in another turn, already the media’s guesses and analyses are flying about the Pope’s hidden motives and overt intents to meet with pols and those in power here, and to speak at the UN; some will worship without questions, some will demonize without facts. But, many in media will have space to speculate about what the Pope will, won’t, say, what he meant, didn’t mean, what he will support and what he will condemn, whose campaign he will lean more toward supporting–without meaning to.
Some will imagine how the Pope will interfere, admonish, try to corral the free speech and thought of Catholic Universities some of which have, amongst other structures, gay and lesbian sacral groups, and so on.
I’d suggest to look for the humanity in whatever Pope has to say or do, to rest on that wherever, whenever that might occur. Just my two cents’ worth from meeting tens of thousands of people a year when I teach… Far more than admonishments and punishments, the people of the earth are in need of love without academic précis, and fully worthy of unconditional blessing…
for the rhizome, the living life force underground, ever glows and thrives on warmth and light and water, rather than on opprobrium, exile, and scorn.
The press is already dutifully lining up to report on last night’s “Compassion Forum” in Pennsylvania, where Senators Clinton and Obama allowed themselves to be thrust into a “Dog and Pony Show for Jesus” contest to see who could “out-God” each other. At the end of this column I’ll get to some more specific observations from the event, as promised in my short summary last night, but first I would like to address a broader question. Was this really necessary - or even desirable - in an American election?
While a few important topics in the political arena - such as poverty - were raised last night, let us make no mistake. This was not a forum on compassion. This was a forum on religion, plain and simple. This issue I place before you today is whether or not this is a valid criteria for selecting our leaders and one which the media should be enabling.
While we seem to be constantly discouraged from discussing this inconvenient fact, there is no religious test when qualifying a person to run for President of the United States. This is abundantly clear, far beyond a brief nod in the First Amendment, in both the letter and spirit of the laws of our land. The common response to this runs along these lines: “Wait a minute there, bucko… nobody is saying that you have to be a Christian to run for president. We’re just saying that it’s an important aspect of the candidate’s character which we want to consider when voting.”
True enough. The fact is that every American can use any yardstick to measure candidates when determining who they will support. Unfortunately, this includes the full spectrum of possible “criteria” depending on who you ask. You might say that you will only vote for a black candidate and, if more than one are offered, you would like an on-stage melanin count to make sure you’re voting for the blackest one offered. Are you within your rights to do this? Of course! Would most of us want to base our political choices based on your guidance? Maybe not so much. And should such a “forum” be proposed, the media would fall all over themselves to decry it and never even consider airing the event.
The point is that the media are ready and willing enablers of a process which systematically eliminates any and all possible candidates who don’t pass “the god test” with a high enough score. This is the one area which really should not be a “test” to be president and, in fact, could readily be described as as unfair religious bigotry to which the press and the public are willing to give a wink, a nod and a smile and just let it pass. Mitt Romney seems to have learned the hard way that Main Street America is not about to vote for a Mormon. Should a candidate raise their head who was otherwise qualified in all areas, but was an agnostic, atheist, Muslim or Hindu, it seems that they would quickly be hounded from the stage, and our media would be leading the whip-wielding pack.
The Phelps Family Ghouls (the ‘God Hates Gays’ Baptists who picket funerals) may lose their property to the courts as a consequence of their hateful actions.
A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday ordered liens on the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office.
If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral.
A lien is a legal hold on property, making it collateral against money owed to a person or entity. It can keep the owner from selling the property or transferring title to the property.
The $5 million penalty is the result of a lawsuit filed against three of the church’s principals by Albert Snyder, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, whose funeral was picketed by church members.
The senior Snyder contended the picketing caused emotional distress and invasion of privacy.
Westboro Baptist members regularly picket funerals of members of the U.S. armed forces, contending the deaths are God’s punishment for the country’s support of homosexuals.
March 27th, 2008 by MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
Mother Jones wrote about it last September. I wrote about it in February. And here, The Atlantic’s Joshua Green reminds us of an important piece he wrote on Clinton, some of which was about it, The Fellowship (a.k.a., The Family), back in November 2006. Green also links to an important Harper’s piece published in March 2003 — written by Jeff Sharlet, who has written a soon-to-be-released book on The Fellowship called The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber has more here.
The media have been all over Obama and Wright. Just to be fair, they should be all over Clinton and The Fellowship, the right-wing Washington prayer group led by one Douglas Coe.
Would you care to explain yourself, Mrs. Clinton? In a speech, maybe? Say, on the separation of church and state? Or on how this secretive organization is working to christianize the upper echelons of the political and business worlds?
Or perhaps you’d just care to explain yourself?
**********
Via Chris Orr at The Plank, I see that Hillary’s pastor, Dean Snyder of the United Methodist Foundry Church, thinks Jeremiah Wright is “an outstanding church leader” and “a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society.”
Chris: “Does this mean Hillary should ‘choose’ to attend a new church? After all, her pastor is aggressively defending what she has described as ‘hate speech.’”
Have Democrats - and Europeans - become too comfortable with the inevitability of a Democratic President in 2008? Financial Times Deutschland columnist Thomas Klau writes in part, ‘The dramatic struggle between two exceptional Democratic politicians has drawn attention away from the fact that McCain’s candidacy is also a turning point - a break in the position of Republicans which, as far as party politics is concerned, could mean a historically and culturally deeper break than the Democratic Party’s nomination duel. … The reproach so often repeated by Obama - that McCain offers only a sequel of the failed politics of George W. Bush - misses the point: McCain has contradicted Bush’s policies so often, that no one can embody calls for change the way he does.’
By Thomas Klau
Translated by Julian Jacob
March 6, 2008
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)
The saga goes on - the epochal battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Once again, the voters have resisted the pressure of the media, which was so quick to choose a favorite candidate.
In the U.S., people love quick results and clear statistics and a fast declaration of winners and losers. But Americans also appreciate the courage of those who don’t give up. Hillary Clinton has fought on after being written off and has gone on the attack when many were urging her to clear the field for Barack Obama. On Tuesday [Mar. 4] , the voters didn’t abandon her.
The senator’s tenacity and her steadfastness in times of great stress could be her best argument, if in Denver in July it comes down to drawing party delegates to her side. Clinton will need arguments because despite her victory yesterday, the numbers continue to speak against her. In terms of the number of delegates, Obama is out in front and will be almost impossible to catch - the arithmetic and dynamics of the approaching primary dates work in his advantage.
Now the battle for the Democratic nomination will become harder and perhaps dirtier. Clinton’s revitalized election team will make every effort to keep the Illinois senator on the defensive. Obama’s squeaky-clean image will suffer if for the first time, the press keeps its klieg lights on the senator’s more problematic contacts. It is here that he is vulnerable to attack. He’s member of a Black church congregation in Chicago, the leader of which has maintained contacts with Black racists. And the corruption trial against a former Obama supporter, building contractor Tony Rezko, is imminent.
DEEP-SEATED PARTY CRISES
With the withdrawal of Mike Huckabee, the Republican primary battle has ended with the formal selection of John McCain. The dramatic struggle between two exceptional Democratic politicians has drawn attention away from the fact that McCain’s candidacy is also a turning point - a break in the position of Republicans which, as far as party politics is concerned, could mean a historically and culturally deeper break than the Democratic Party’s nomination duel.
Politically, Clinton and Obama are conventional Democrats, located in the middle-left of their own party. But McCain is the first Republican presidential candidate in many years who has ascended in spite of the resistance of the culture warriors - that aggressive nationalistic wing of the Party. Unlike the leading figures of the present U.S. government, his TV is not tuned to Fox News - the propaganda channel of the right - but MSNBC - and anyone who knows the United States understand how much that says.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections
I wrote here last night about my perception that John McCain’s campaign as the presidential nominee of the Republican party was starting off on the wrong foot.
Emblematic of that to me was McCain’s decision to tear to Washington to receive a personal endorsement from George W. Bush today.
I mentioned at the top of this post that I feel bad about what I’m going to do here. (I stole that line, by the way; it’s Nora Ephron’s opening for her devastating profile of Dorothy Schiff’s New York Post. Now that I’ve given credit, it’s not plagiarism, it’s an homage. See how it works?) I feel bad because my old buddy Leo Morris, who edits the op-ed pages, is going to bear the brunt of this — the investigation, the uncomfortable announcement to readers, the search through the archives for more time bombs, the embarrassment of being took by someone any editor would trust, a self-styled intellectual and senior White House aide, for crying out loud. But either this stuff is important or it isn’t, and I say it is.
As WORLDMEETS.US regularly demonstrates, the U.S. election race is dazzling the rest of the planet. The U.S. correspondent for Portugal’s Jornal de Negocios finds America’s capacity to remake itself after the ‘reactionary’ George W. Bush to be ‘remarkable.’ Leonel Moura writes in part, ‘Just as in the person of George Bush, America has given us one of the most reactionary presidents ever; it now electrifies the planet with the possibility of electing a woman or a Black … For those familiar with American society - which is very advanced technologically and rather backward in terms of moralism - nothing could be more revolutionary than seeing a Black man in the White House - a house that has always belonged to the White man.’ He goes on to observe, ‘this society, rather savage in its pursuit of capitalism, also has the capacity for absolutely remarkable regeneration.’
By Leonel Moura
Translated By Brandi Miller
February 27, 2008
Portugal - Jornal de Negocios - Original Article (Portuguese)
Just as in the person of George Bush, America has given us one of the most reactionary presidents ever; it now electrifies the planet with the possibility of electing a woman or a Black. A fact that just about everyone would have labeled a subversive fantasy just a few years ago is now a matter of great excitement in the world at large and in the United States, where there is talk of nothing else.
This is not to be taken lightly. For those familiar with American society - which is very advanced technologically and rather backward in terms of moralism - nothing could be more revolutionary than seeing a Black man in the White House - a house that has always belonged to the White man. And yet they are increasingly supportive of this scenario. Read the rest of this entry »
What do people in Latin America think about Barack Obama’s difficulties with Hispanics? In the first article of its kind translated by WORLDMEETS.US, Alfredo Toro Hardy of Venezuela’s El Universal writes, ‘Curiously the biggest obstacle to overcoming the taboo that closes off the White House to non-Whites comes from Hispanics. The Hispanic community, which has always played a decisive role in opening the racial floodgates, is now being transformed into the last containment wall to the arrival of a Black man to the U.S. Presidency.’
By Alfredo Toro Hardy
Translated By Barbara Howe
February 14, 2008
Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)
Like a bulldog and despite having no chance of winning, Mike Huckabee refuses to withdraw from the Republican contest. That obliges John McCain to devote time and energy to prevailing over him instead of concentrating on reorganizing the party to confront the Democrats. Moreover, the face-off with Huckabee implies a confrontation with the Christian right and the more conservative elements of the party.
Meanwhile, this difficult effort to differentiate himself from Huckabee threatens to distance McCain from this high-powered faction of the Republican Party, which has so many financial and media resources to draw upon and such a capacity to mobilize voters.
This is a component of the party that McCain has never liked, but without their participation it will be difficult for him to win in November. It seems inevitable that this will lead McCain to forge an agreement between Huckabee and those factions that back him, perhaps offering him the Vice Presidential ticket. In that case, McCain will alienate many of the independent and centrist voters that that support him, and which he needs to prevail over the Democrats. McCain finds himself caught between the conflicting demands of winning the support of the Christian right and of centrists.
The Democrats, however, are breaking the mould and making history. By some unknown method, a woman and a Black man, representatives of the country’s so-called minorities, are competing to run for the nation’s highest office. Breaking the gender barrier would be impressive, but overcoming the barrier of race would be much more so.
Curiously the biggest obstacle to overcoming the taboo that closes off the White House to non-Whites comes from Hispanics. The Hispanic community, which has always played a decisive role in opening the racial floodgates, is now being transformed into the last containment wall to the arrival of a Black man to the U.S. Presidency.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections.
February 23rd, 2008 by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist
Harvey and Harriet Cedars are not just the breadwinners in a typical conservative Christian Republican family. They’re hard working middle-class folk who have been going through some very difficult times but were confident that their president, his government and the Supreme Court that he has molded over the last seven years were on their side, which is to say God’s side. This has been good enough for the Cedars because they knew that God was on their side — their God anyway.
Then things got all crazy this week.
Times had started getting tough for the Cedars right after George Bush’s second inauguration. In fact, the family was heading back home to Louisiana in Grandpa Cedars’ Winnebago after watching the president being sworn in when Grandpa complained of chest pains. He was diagnosed with a severe heart condition and treatment was going to be expensive, but the government would chip in for some of his care and Harvey and Harriet were making decent money. They had okay health-care benefits for themselves and the kids even if they worked a combined 100 hours a week to pay the bills.
Besides which, the pacemaker that Grandpa Cedars got is just like Dick Cheney’s, so Harvey and Harriet were sure that he’d be okay.
Then eldest son Chip’s National Guard unit was sent to Iraq. Not once but twice. Harvey was laid off from his job as a manager at the local textile plant, which was relocating to India, and the Cedars fell behind on the subprime mortgage on their house. Harvey got a part-time job at McDonalds to help make ends meet, but then Harriet lost her job as the accountant at the local savings and loan, which went bankrupt. Their health benefits went kaplooey and Harriet had to endure the shame of taking Melody to the emergency room after she developed a funny rash on her . . . uh, privates.
All of a sudden prayer and being proud conservative Republican Americans didn’t seem to be enough, but the Cedars are good Christian soldiers and onward they went even though their house was about to be foreclosed, they were defaulting on the loans on their SUVs (which were costing them 120 bucks worth of gasoline each week), Melody was staying out overnight without their permission, and Chip was cowering in his bedroom suffering from violent nightmares in which he killed Iraqis. He refused to take his PTSD medication.
Then the preacher at their local church absconded with the new pipe organ fund and ran off to Las Vegas with Melody. Grandpa got sick from whatever was in the walls of the FEMA trailer that he had to move into after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his Winnebago and now has to move out of. Then his pacemaker went haywire. He nearly died before it could be replaced because the local hospital had been bought-out by a big national company that soon closed it because its stock price was tanking. This meant that Harvey and Harriet had to drive Grandpa nearly 50 miles to New Orleans.
The Cedars had no choice. Prayer was not enough to pay the bills. They hired a lawyer to sue the maker of Grandpa’s pacemaker in state court. Fact of the matter was, they desperately needed money.
This week got off to a troubling start when Harriet finally found a new job after looking for months. It was at the Super Duper Mart stocking shelves with Mexicans on the night shift.
You can imagine their shock when the Supreme Court, the one with those fine men Alito, Roberts and Scalia, not to mention that Thomas fellow even if he is a Negro, ruled on Wednesday that Grandpa had no right to sue because the manufacturer of his Dick Cheney model pacemaker had the approval of the Food and Drug Administration and state courts had no say in the matter.
The coup de grâce (which the Cedars think is a Mexican expression) is that after the president, government and court betrayed them, their own Republican Party is casting Mike Huckabee out of the electoral temple.
Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan looks awfully good all of a sudden, but the Cedars believe that a woman’s place is not in the White House, and while they don’t consider themselves to be racists, well Barack Obama is . . . from Hawaii.
The Cedars could never vote for John McCain because James Dobson, whose voice of reason on the radio is such a comforting port in their storm these days, says McCain is a dirty rotten turncoat.
But if McCain is a turncoat, who can the Cedars turn to? What’s a good conservative Christian family to do?
It seems that not all Europeans favor Barack Obama. João Marques de Almeida of Portugal’s leading business daily Diario Economico writes, ‘For a liberal, center-right European, John McCain is the preferred North American candidate … There are few things better than to see a free politician.’ He goes on to argue against what was in the end Mitt Romney’s greatest appeal: ‘In times of crisis, it’s more important to have a politician with experience than one with an understanding of economics.’
By João Marques de Almeida*
Translated By Brandi Miller
February 7, 2008
For a liberal, center-right European, John McCain is the preferred North American candidate. For his liberal views of society and the economy, he’s preferable to any other Republican candidate. I have the greatest respect for the Christian religion and its unique place in Western history (of which, incidentally, I am very proud), but I think that years of sermons in churches of the southern United States, where one rapidly loses rationality, is not the best preparation for taking power.
Neither does this position expose any particular dislike for the Democratic candidates, despite the fact that Bill Clinton’s hyper-active promotion of his wife causes me some discomfort. As a matter of principle, it’s not good for an unelected person to have such enormous influence over a future president, as would happen if Hillary Clinton were elected.
As for Obama, he undoubtedly has political talent and charisma. However I’m not convinced that he’s prepared to be the American president. I identify much more with McCain’s vision of the world and its dangers and threats than with the positions of Clinton or Obama. There are four questions that from Europe’s perspective are fundamental: keeping troops in Iraq; preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons; engaging in World Trade Organization talks to reinforce the global free trade system; reforming the trans-Atlantic alliance and reforming NATO in 2009. I’m not sure a Democratic president will endeavor to accomplish these four objectives like McCain would.
In addition to these reasons, there are three other reasons that lead me to look even enthusiastically to McCain’s candidacy. The first has to do with McCain’s character and personality. There are few things better than to see a free politician. …
READ THE REST ON WORLDMEETS.US, along with our continuing foreign press news coverage of the United States. Tune in during the next 24 hours for translated U.S. election coverage from China, Portugal, France and Brazil.
Will Republicans allow John McCain to save them from ‘an election that was said to be lost in advance?’ Le Figaro’s deputy editorial editor Pierre Rousselin wonders whether Republicans will grasp perhaps their last and best opportunity to retain control of the all-important White House.
“He has managed to exasperate the most traditional Republicans with his positions … but his five and a half years in Vietcong prisons suffering the most brutal torture allow him to take certain liberties. … Here is a man of experience, who stands outside partisan orthodoxy, but who is capable of operating in the “breach” and winning an election that was said to be lost in advance … The Super-Tuesday primaries will show whether the Republicans are able to seize the opportunity.”
By Pierre Rousselin
Translated By James Jacobson
January 31, 2008
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French
The Republican Party may have found in Florida its providential man. By winning the first primary election held in one of the most populated states of the Union, John McCain is emerging as the favorite in race for the Republican nomination. Six months ago, no one would have bet on this former Vietnam hero who had the mad audacity to applaud the idea of sending additional troops to Iraq.
Ronald Reagan has been the luckiest president of my lifetime, which is one reason that I find myself chuckling when his name is invoked — as it frequently is these days — by the Republican presidential wannabes and by that Obama fella on one or two occasions, as well.
What do I mean by luckiest?
Because Reagan was pretty much an empty vessel into which every Republican mover and shaker of consequence of his time poured their own political views and agendas. He was a universal wrench of a man whose primary qualifications were a mediocre movie career and so-so turn as governor of California. He had no interest in details and was befuddled by complex concepts, but was extraordinarily adept at exciting the Republican political base and making Americans feel really good about themselves even as he rewarded the rich and undercut the middle class.
Aside from that nasty assassination attempt, some recession messiness during his first term and being caught out in the Iran-Contra affair, things usually broke Reagan’s way whether he was napping or not, most notably when the Berlin Wall came down and Soviet Union swooned on his watch. Today he is an oft-cited conservative icon despite the reality that he had little substance beyond his political skills.
I am fond of saying that you make your own luck, and George Bush certainly has done so.
Like Reagan, Bush has been pretty much an empty vessel into which today’s Republican movers and shakers (read neocons and right-wing Christianists) have poured their own political views and agendas. Like Reagan, he was more resume than man when he became president. And like Reagan, seems to use a notably small part of his brain but once upon a time could excite that political base.
After the 9/11 attacks, Bush did a passable job at making Americans feel really good about themselves at a really lousy juncture in their history and then, because he believed the sycophants around him when they called him The Latest and The Greatest, recklessly squandered the greatest presidential mandate since Pearl Harbor on the Iraq war and other misadventures. So enormous has the collapse of the Bush presidency been that it has to be ranked right behind the 9/11 attacks as the biggest story of the young millennium.
The Republican Party is trebly hobbled this election season:
With Vice President Cheney a hiccup away from what Redd Foxx called The Big One on “Sanford and Son,” the party has no heir apparent. Bush has almost single-handedly ended the Republicans’ grip on power. And because he is so toxic, the presidential candidates have to look hard over their shoulders to when that city on the hill last shined so brightly for the Grand Old Party.
January 18th, 2008 by MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
Mike Huckabee rose to prominence seemingly out of nowhere, skyrocketing up the polls, capturing Iowa, and emerging as the presumptive frontrunner, all the while becoming a media darling — remember that Frank Rich called him the Obama of the GOP — but, as his star fades, as the phenomenon withers, as his candidacy collapses, the man is getting more and more extreme, more and more disgusting. Or, perhaps, the real Huckabee is coming out, the real Huckabee who worked to parole a convicted rapist while governor of Arkansas, the Christianist Huckabee, ignorant and stupid, the bigot, the fool.
It is desperation, perhaps, that is bringing out the real Huckabee. He may have won Iowa, but he is, in this race, a loser, and what he is doing, I think, is trying to attract the hardcore Christianist vote, more broadly the social conservative vote. Thompson and Romney have secured much of that vote, but Huckabee’s only chance of turning around his failing campaign — and it is slim, to say the least — is to out-crazy them. (And to out-good-ol’-boy them: He seems to have a certain George Allen-like fondness for the Confederate flag, even saying this: “[I]f somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell them what to do with the pole, that’s what we’d do.” Charming. And rather un-presidential, no?)
The other day, as many of you surely know by now, Huckabee declared that the Constitution should be amended “according to God’s standards,” that is, that America should be a Christianist country with Christianist laws governed by a Christianist man (and it must be a man), that is, a country governed by him and the laws of his god as he understands and enforces them. (Note: This is Christianist, not Christian. Christianism is the right-wing political ideology espoused by fanatics like Huckabee. See the excellent Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg.)
But what would it mean to bring the Constitution, and the country, into line with “God’s standards” (as Huckabee defines them)?
Would Frankie Parker still be alive if he had found Jesus and not Buddha? Only Mike Huckabee knows for sure.
In a case with some similarities to but a very different outcome from that of Wayne Dumond, Parker was executed in 1996 when efforts to commute his death sentence because of his religious conversion were rejected by then-Governor Huckabee.
Dumond, of course, was the man whom Bill Clinton-hating fanatics believed had been framed for the 1985 rape of a 17-year-old high school cheerleader because she was a distant relative of the then-Arkansas governor and future president, and the daughter of a major Clinton campaign contributor.
Huckabee, a Baptist preacher whose long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination has made him something of a media darling, met with Dumond’s wife while campaigning for governor, vowing to free a man who had taken on the trappings of a good Christian, and then met privately with the Arkansas parole board as governor after a campaign in which religious right wingers were instrumental in his election.
![[La Tribune, Honduras]](http://worldmeets.us/images/popepedofile_latribunahn.gif)
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