Canterbury Tales? . . . Rowan Down the River?

I haven't been paying much attention to the exegesis being done on the Archbishop's recent statements on Muslim law, but I have noticed a lot of people are quite upset. The witty Wittenburg Door suggests its too much ado:

Afternoon Tea Would be Abolished by Shariah Law

Everybody went nutzoid in London last week when Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said he was in favor of letting Muslims in Britain take their cases to Shariah courts. A quick survey of those condemning the Archbishop’s speech would include Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the head of the Tories, the head of the Liberal Democrats, Muslim leader Sayeeda Hussain Warsi, and just about everyone who flooded the BBC website with comments. What the Archbishop said, in a speech given at the Royal Courts of Justice for the benefit of lawyers, was that he thinks Muslim practice should be brought in line with practices already set up for Orthodox Jews and devout Catholics, who are allowed to use ecclesiastical courts for domestic matters, but then have the right to appeal to civil courts if they’re unsatisfied. In England, this passes for revolutionary thought.

Anyway, whatever the fuss is all about - even if Rowan is dreadfully wrong - while I'm not Anglican, I can't help but like the guy on some level. Partly I think he's admirable enough just for trying so hard to keep a worldwide congregation together that seems all too intent on splitting over the issue of homosexuality.

And I find his little recent announcement here on disposability vs. stewardship resonates a bit -



After all, in our polarized political discourse, it's all too easy sometimes to forget that real faith and true conservatism alike call us to transcend mere consumerism.

Ross on the Republican Reformation

Ross Douthat, Atlantic blogger and one of my favorite bloggingheads, wrote an Op-Ed for today's NYT (h/t Colecurtis):

. . . After being denounced as a tax-and-spender and a pro-life liberal, Mr. Huckabee won four primaries in four Republican strongholds, including Alabama and Georgia. Mr. McCain split the frequent-churchgoer vote with Mr. Romney, and eclipsed him among evangelical Christians, even though the religious-conservative poobah James Dobson has promised to sit out the November election if Mr. McCain becomes the Republican nominee.

The failure of conservative voters to fall in line behind Mr. Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, among others, reflects a deeper problem for the movement’s leadership. With their inflexibility, grudge-holding and eagerness to evict heretics rather than seek converts, too many of conservatism’s leaders sound like the custodians of a dwindling religious denomination or a politically correct English department at a fading liberal-arts college.

Or like yesterday’s Democratic Party. The tribunes of the American right have fallen into the same bad habits that doomed their liberal rivals to years of political failure.

In spite of his record as a maverick, John McCain has become the presumptive nominee by running a classic Republican campaign, emphasizing strength abroad and limited government at home, with nods to his pro-life record. His opponents in the conservative movement, by contrast, have behaved like caricatures of liberals, emphasizing a host of small-bore litmus tests that matter more to Beltway insiders than to the right-winger on the street.

Republican primary voters who turned to Mr. Limbaugh for their marching orders were asked to believe that Mr. McCain’s consistently hawkish record — on Iraq, Iran, the size of the military and any other issue you care to name — mattered less to his standing as a conservative than his views on waterboarding. Or that his extensive record as a free-trader, a tax-cutter and an opponent of pork-barrel spending wasn’t sufficient to qualify him as an economic conservative, because he had opposed a particular set of upper-bracket tax cuts in 2001.

Similarly, religious conservatives who listened to James Dobson were asked to believe that Mr. McCain’s consistent pro-life voting record was less important than the impact his campaign-finance bill had on the National Right to Life Committee’s ability to purchase issue ads on television 60 days before an election. Or that his consistent support for conservative judicial nominees, and his pledge to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of John Roberts and Sam Alito, mattered less than his involvement in the “Gang of 14” compromise on judicial filibusters. . . .

There is indeed something very un-conservative among those whose dissatisfaction with McCain lead them to a stance of in all-or-nothing results, forgetting as they do that politics is the art of the possible rather than the commanding of ideals. As Thomas Jefferson put it to his cousin John Randolph in 1803:

". . . Experience having long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can; when we cannot do all we would wish."

Is Irrational Arrogance a Conservative Principle?

Kathleen Turner in "The Audacity of Compromise" writes of those who would sacrifice the next four or more years to the Democrats in order to spite McCain:

To be sure, political cannibalism makes for interesting dinner conversation, but the winner eventually starves to death.

It isn't necessary to love everything McCain has done to vote for him should he be the nominee. But it isn't possible to argue that there's no difference between McCain and Clinton (or Barack Obama), as some Republicans insist.

A form of irrational conservatism has taken hold when being true to oneself or to the party is viewed as more important than, say, turning over the country to people who want to raise taxes and impose socialized health care.

Principles shouldn't be so inflexible that strict adherence elevates a worse alternative.

McCain, it's true has taken some positions that are unorthodox to conservatives:

These are positions with which conservatives would naturally argue. And perhaps they are right that McCain is more moderate than conservative, but so is the nation. Alternatively, McCain's maverick lawmaking might be viewed as principled compromise -- or at least an earnest attempt to inject humane ethics into the mix.

Serious people don't really believe that the U.S. government is going to round up 11 million or 12 million people and ship them back to wherever they came from. It isn't going to happen.

Government parceling of free speech via McCain-Feingold, a portion of which has been found unconstitutional, can't otherwise be justified unless you figure, as McCain does, that purchased speech isn't free. When some people have greater access to "free speech" by virtue of their deeper pockets, then one could fairly argue that less prosperous people are denied free speech.

McCain's fire-breathing opponents, meanwhile, disregard his support of other positions Republicans hold dear. He has a strong pro-life voting record (except for supporting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research), has opposed wasteful spending, and has been steadfast in supporting the war. But, stepping outside the GOP box, he opposes torture, including waterboarding.

How dare a man who was tortured for five years in a Vietnamese prison depart from the party line?

Anti-McCain rage for many comes down to personality. He doesn't play nice and his independence annoys those who prefer the team player mentality.

But Republicans' obstinance in claiming to prefer Clinton to McCain is arrogance of a Clintonian order. To wit: Hillary Clinton has said that as president she would not listen to generals in Iraq and would withdraw troops no matter what . . .

Huckabee steals middle-class southern evangelical votes from rich northern Mormon?

It's driving me nuts. The MSM keeps repeating the same old trope. Apparently, they still believe that Christian conservatives are uneducated and easy to command. And the Romney camp and his pals at Clear Channel are feeding this idea to the media, suggesting that Huckabee supporters are just stupid fodder for McCain's campaign and ought to rally around their annointed resurrected Reagan, Mitt Romney.

I just saw on CNN Anderson Cooper asking Democratic strategist Donna Brazille if Huckabee's presence in the race is hurting Romney's chances in the South. (As though this liberal Democrat has some special insight into the minds of the conservative Republican electorate?) She of course gave the oft-repeated conventional wisdom without any real data top back it up.

But I keep wondering - how many people do these media political elites even know who is voting for Huckabee? Of course they probably don't know any because Huckabee's stronghold is not in the D.C. beltway and the Manhattan press offices. These are the people who couldn't imagine in 1980 that anyone was voting for Reagan because of course they didn't know anyone who was voting for Reagan. Well as long as we are peddling in anecdotes, I know a number of people who are Huckabee supporters and none of them are excited in the least about Romney.

Folks, there isn't just some abstract "conservative" vote out there that Romney and Huckabee are splitting. All four of the GOP candidates are conservatives of one stripe or another. Ron Paul is a paleolibertarian Robert Taft conservative. McCain is a progressive traditionalist - a conservative in intuition and values rather than ideology - a virtue warrior rather than a culture warrior. Huckabee is a reformist anti-globalist social conservative. And Romney is a white bread technocrat institutionalist conservative. The conservatism of Huckabee is in spirit at least as different from the conservatism of Romney as it is from McCain or Ron Paul.

Medved notes:

To believe that Huck and Mitt are dividing conservatives, you have to believe that Huckabee is a conservative --- which Romney, Limbaugh, Igraham, and countless others have been denying (stridently and strenuously) for months. . . Either the elite commentators were wrong when they labeled Huckabee a “liberal populist,” or they are wrong now when they say he’s stealing conservative votes from Romney. The only other alternative is that they view conservative voters as just too stupid to see Huckabee for what he really is.

Patrick Ruffini writes:

The Romney campaign’s February 5th math is simple: move all the voters from the Huckabee pile onto theirs and claim a majority of conservatives. Unfortunately, it’s just not that simple.

To this Brainster replies:

What do you mean, not simple? Just move the pile! Now note what's not said at all; what the Huckabee pile is going to receive in return; one suspects that it's the chance to help Mitt Romney over the hump. Now of course, it should come as no news to anybody that Mike Huckabee isn't interested in this game. He has on many occasions expressed his admiration for Senator McCain, and his disdain for Mitt Romney.

And it's not just Huckabee who prefers McCain to Romney. Huckabee supporters seem to feel the same way. These numbers show three-fifths of Huckabee voters having a favorable view of McCain, while less than two-fifths have a favorable view of Romney.

Ruffini also notes the cultural and geographical difference in the Romney and Huckabee vote:

The problem with this analysis is that I’ve seen no evidence that Huckabee voters would go to Romney. On a county level, the Romney and Huckabee votes are negatively correlated, with Romney representing the conservative side of the Chamber of Commerce/Rotary Club vote and not really showing outsized strength with Evangelicals.

I've been looking at this sort of county level results at my new political geography blog. In states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and South Carolina, Romney has done his best in the more urban areas, and Huckabee has done best in rural areas. McCain has done well in both urban and rural areas, among both lower and upper middle class, among both young and old. On a demographic level, it appears that McCain actually bridges the constituencies of the older and white-collar Romney voters and the younger and blue-collar Huckabee enthusiasts.

If we had excluded Huckabee from this race, its possible Fred Thompson could have gained some real ground in the Bible-belt deep South. But to expect that this would be the case for Romney is only slightly more realistic than the idea of Mormons voting en masse for Huckabee.

Is John McCain's nomination inevitable? No, it's not. It's possible that Romney will win the largest share of California's delegates. But McCain has locked up the Northeast (sans Massachusetts), and Romney looks like he's behind both McCain and Huckabee in every state south of the Mason-Dixon line or with a central time zone. Romney's road to the nominattion depends on a few closed caucuses along with his support from Money, Mormons, Michigan, and - maybe - Massachusetts. It's not impossible , but- as Anna Marie Cox points out*- it requires a bit of mental gymnastics.

*h/t ENHQ

Beyond Narrow Interests

From the Chicago Tribune's endorsement of John McCain (h/t MICC)

Four years ago, in mulling candidates for president, we wrote that U.S. voters often make choices based on their pet causes and economic interests. But, we said, citizens of a nation at war against genuine global threats don't have that luxury.

To reinforce the point we quoted a leader who wasn't on the ballot, John McCain: "So it is, whether we wished it or not, that we have come to the test of our generation, to our rendezvous with destiny. ... All of us, despite the differences that enliven our politics, are united in the one big idea that freedom is our birthright and its defense is always our first responsibility. All other responsibilities come second."

The Pundicrats vs. McCain cont'd: Ideology vs. Virtue

Here's TPM's Josh Marshall with some clips and commentary



Michael Medved recently named right-wing talk radio the biggest loser in South Carolina's primary -

For more than a month, the leading conservative talkers in the country have broadcast identical messages in an effort to demonize Mike Huckabee and John McCain. If you’ve tuned in at all to Rush, Sean, Savage, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, and two dozen others you’ve heard a consistent drum beat of hostility toward Mac and Huck. As always, led by Rush Limbaugh (who because of talent and seniority continues to dominate the medium) the talk radio herd has ridden in precisely the same direction, insisting that McCain and Huckabee deserve no support because they’re not “real conservatives.” A month ago, the angry right launched the slogan that Mike Huckabee is a “pro-life liberal.” More recently, after McCain’s energizing victory in New Hampshire, they trotted out the mantra that the Arizona Senator (with a life-time rating for his Congressional voting record of 83% from the American Conservative Union) is a “pro-war liberal.”

Well, the two alleged “liberals,” McCain and Huckabee just swept a total of 63% of the Republican vote in deeply conservative South Carolina. Meanwhile, the two darlings of talk radio -- Mitt Romney and, to a lesser extent, Fred Thompson—combined for an anemic 31% of the vote.

And in spite of Rush's dire warnings about the death of conservatism, Benjamin and Jenna Story write at the Weekly Standard why John McCain's resurgence is good for conservatism's future:
(h/t Donald Douglas)

SOME OF THE SHARPEST minds of conservative punditry have lately been whetting their knives on the candidacy of John McCain. The trend of these arguments is disturbing, because it indicates conservatism may be drifting far from its roots. The ire against McCain contains elements of two of the greatest fallacies of modern political thought: the notion that ideology can replace virtue as the mainstay of a decent regime, and the cynical assumption that virtue is not real but vanity in disguise.

The main current of opposition to McCain faults him for departures from strict free-market ideology. McCain's decisions about tax cuts, campaign finance, and greenhouse gas caps may be prudent or imprudent, and it is important to debate their practical effects on our economy and on our nation's well-being. Nonetheless, if conservatives succeed in marginalizing anyone who does not toe the doctrinaire line of their free market ideology, they will lose an important--indeed the most central and precious--aspect of their creed: the faith in the virtue of individuals to make a good society for themselves, rather than the faith in an ideology to make a good society for us. . .

Many think that the conservative movement is currently on shaky ground. In a perceived crisis, it is a human temptation is to run to ideologies to save the day. But conservative thought will be impoverished if its advocates close themselves in the "clean and well-lit prison of one idea," as G. K. Chesterton warned. To do so would be to fall prey to the fallacy that theories can govern men. Men must govern men, and men have characters, good or bad, and those characters are decisive for how the country is led. . .

UPDATE: Responding to the Weekly Standard article, at Burke's Corner:

The latter-day Jacobins of the GOP's hard right, the McCain-haters, have forgotten the wisdom of Burke, the father of conservatism. Governing is not about ideology - it is about virtue, prudence, moral judgment. Which is why McCain is the candidate of authentic conservatism.

Medved on Limbaugh, Hannity vs. McCain, Coburn

Michael Medved asks what is evidence of true conservative leadership_? :

Who gets to define which candidate counts as a “real conservative”?

Should we listen to talk radio titans and sharp-tongued pundettes who’ve never held public office?

Or does it make more sense to listen to idealistic elected officials who toil every day to put conservative principles into practice? . . .

When it comes to evaluating McCain, I don’t expect Republicans to trust me – any more than they should trust my fellow talk hosts and commentators. But they should listen carefully to heroes like Tom Coburn, the Senator from Oklahoma who’s universally esteemed as one of the strongest conservative voices in Washington. Coburn has earned a lifetime rating of 97.8 from the American Conservative Union (McCain himself drew an admirable lifetime number of 83—virtually identical to Fred Thompson’s 86.) And earlier this week the Oklahoman endorsed his Arizona colleague for President.
. . .
The truth is that some of the most outstanding conservatives in recent Senate history have come together with Senator Coburn to campaign for McCain – including Phil Gramm of Texas (co-chair of the national McCain campaign), John Kyl of Arizona, John Thune of South Dakota, Dan Coats of Indiana, Trent Lott of Mississippi, Slade Gorton of Washington, Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, and a dozen others.

Several of the most dynamic Republican and conservative governors of our time are working actively in the McCain campaign – including Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Jon Huntsman of Utah, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Frank Keating of Oklahoma, Tom Kean of New Jersey, Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, and more.

In other words, conservatives who know him best attest to McCain’s consistency, his character, and his Reaganite world-view. Those associates, enthusiastically promoting McCain’s candidacy, count for more than strident and angry talkers who know McCain not at all.

Most impressive to me is the way that even Senators who’ve disagreed with McCain can attest to his integrity and effectiveness in their battles.

Senator Coburn, for instance, did not support the comprehensive immigration reform bill so passionately promoted by Senator McCain and by President Bush. Nevertheless, after the push for reform collapsed in the Senate, Coburn wrote an admiring blog on National Review Online about McCain’s role.

“As the American people, elected officials, and the commentators reflect on the heated immigration debate that came to a temporary close in the Senate this week, many will ask, and have asked, why U.S. Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.) staked out a position that may in retrospect be seen as devastating to his presidential ambitions. I hope the American people, at least, step back from the obsessive play-by-play pre-season election analysis and reflect on Senator McCain’s actions for what I believe they were: One of the purest examples of political courage seen in Washington in a very, very long time.”

Read the whole thing.

John McCain in New Hampshire: Not a Victim of History

In John McCain's victory speech (full text here) in New Hampshire last night, he touched on some themes that will be familiar to his supporters:

. . . I seek the nomination of a party that believes in the strength, industry, and goodness of the American people. We don't believe that government has all the answers, but that it should respect the rights, property and opportunities of the people to whom we are accountable. We don't believe in growing the size of government to make it easier to serve our own ambitions. But what government is expected to do, it must do with competence, resolve and wisdom. In recent years, we have lost the trust of the people, who share our principles, but doubt our own allegiance to them. I seek the nomination of our party to restore that trust; to return our party to the principles that have never failed Americans: The party of fiscal discipline, low taxes; enduring values; a strong and capable defense; that encourages the enterprise and ingenuity of individuals, businesses and families, who know best how to advance America's economy, and secure the dreams that have made us the greatest nation in history. . .

And this golden nugget of American conservatism:

The work that we face in our time is great, but our opportunities greater still. In a time of war, and the terrible sacrifices it entails, the promise of a better future is not always clear. But I promise you, my friends, we face no enemy, no matter how cruel; and no challenge, no matter how daunting, greater than the courage, patriotism and determination of Americans.
We are the makers of history, not its victims . . .

Watch the video here. McCain did look somewhat tired - understandably - but as his speech went on, his passion and enthusiasm shone through.

Kemp - John McCain will Empower America

I've been a fan of Jack Kemp for as long as I've known about the guy. That he and Bob Dole lost in 1996 is one of the great missed opportunities of the last century. Jack Kemp is a compassionate conservative in the best sense - one who has long been an advocate of empowering the poor through expanding - not diminishing - economic freedom.

Now Jack Kemp has come out in support of John McCain. Read the press release here.

On NRO, Larry Kudlow had this to say:

Kemp would join former Sen. Phil Gramm as key McCain economic advisors. As I noted in an earlier post, Phil Gramm is the quintessential free-market advocate. He spent a career in the House and Senate limiting government spending, taxing, and regulating.

Both Kemp and Gramm are strong free-trade supporters. Gramm was also the original sponsor of the Reagan tax-and-spending cuts back in 1981 in the Gramm-Latta bill reported out of the House. That bill incorporated Jack Kemp’s original proposal to slash personal tax rates by 30 percent across the board.

New Hampshire GOP Debate - the Principle Question

One question asked by Charles Gibson - which he freely admitted he stole from President Bush - at tonight's debate gave some insight into the core of the candidates.

What is the key principle(s) that will guide you as president?

The answer for Ron Paul and Fred Thompson: The Constitution (tradition, principles specific to Americans)

For John McCain and Mike Huckabee: The Declaration of Independence ("endowed by Creator" - principles universal to humanity)

For Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney: Here is what I plan get done . . .

Someone needs to remind Rudy and Mitt of the definition of the word "principle." It's not the same as an "agenda." If your only principle is your agenda - well that's a serious problem of having it backwards, at best.

McCain's Conservative Presidency

John McCain has often noted that Teddy Roosevelt is one of his favorite presidents. But when it comes to executive power, McCain could end up being the William Howard Taft to Bush-Cheney's TR. Daniel Drezner links to this Boston Globe article describing a McCain approach to making the presidency more open and accountable. McCain might be wrong on Constitutional issues such as campaign finance, the line-item veto, and prohibiting flag burning. But a McCain presidency would break from the last two presidencies and work within the law and under the scrutiny of the public. As McCain says ,"anything that makes people pay attention to their government is probably a good idea."

Some fear McCain is too much of a hawk, but of all the candidates, due to his own experience, McCain understands that America cannot have success in a war without the support of the American people. McCain knows the stakes of war as much as anyone, and will not involve our nation in any endeavor without communicating the true scope of the sacrifices that will be necessary. McCain continues to take a lot of flack from Republicans for his "Gang of 14" that allowed most but not all of the conservative judicial nominees to go forward. This bipartisan accord was fundamentally conservative, as it stopped the traditional rules of the Senate from being thrown out the window. The filibuster makes activists moan, for it is one of the aspects of the Senate that keeps the majority party in check and characterizes the body as deliberative. By not exercising the "nuclear option," it will be possible for extreme activitist judges of the Left to be blocked even in the event of Democratic control of both the Senate and the White House. This foresight that McCain showed by holding onto deliberative tradition against the wishes of the "movement" conservatives demonstrates that a McCain presidency will be a conservative one, for McCain recognizes the corrupting influence of power. The anti-Machiavellian crusade McCain has fought against the use of torture is another example of McCain's understanding that what law broken for the sake of efficiency in the moment can have dire consequences for the liberty and security of the future.

Stupid thoughts on the Economy

So there's this new poll claiming that voters are now more concerned with "the economy" than they are with Iraq. Bill Schneider reports on this development, quoting Ms. Clinton -

"I'd describe the economy as kind of a trap door where you're one medical diagnosis or a pink slip or a missed mortgage payment away from dropping through and losing everything"

Hmm, Ms. Clinton, is this the same economy that is experiencing such growth that it makes you so confident Social Security will be solvent indefinitely without any significant reform?

It just makes me wonder what people mean when they say they are worried most about "the economy."
Of course, in most polls "the economy" is just one item among another limited predefined selection of issues, where things like nuclear proliferation or genocide don't even show up.

The economy is an important issue - very important. But what do voters expect from a President? Politicians can do very little about the periodic waxes and waning of the market, or about this month's high gas prices. Where government does have an influence is in the long term. And so the importance of this issue shouldn't really go away. We need to start thinking less about what a President can do to lower the price of yellow bananas, and more about what a President can do to cut the deficit, to encourage long term growth, to build healthy trade relationships, and to develop sustainable policies with regard to energy and natural resources.

In short, we need a President whose economic contribution will be felt not in the next election cycle, but in the next generation.