Recently in Politics Category

I updated my Voticon post from two years ago.

With the impending election coming there is much talk about the selection of candidates. In some races you think of the phrase "choosing the lesser of two evils." A phrase I really don't like. Even in cases where you a choosing between two candidates that might have views you don't like; you are really choosing to limit evil and are not choosing evil but a good.

Some have spoken of sending a message by sitting out the election or voting third party instead. Well to be sarcastic - all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to vote third party or to sit out the election. Kevin Miller had a very good post on this subject today. If because people sit out and a Supreme Court nominee that could overturn Roe v. Wade doesn't make it through the process - that will really send a message.

Unfortunately it is rarely the case that you pull the lever on a candidate and think wow this person is the perfect moral candidate. Unfortunately in are present system when you vote for someone there is no really good public way to mark your displeasure or that you are voting for them with reservations.

I do have a solution though to this problem. When you read message boards and some blogs you can see the use of emoticons for people to be able to mark the related emotion to what they are saying.

With the advent of so many LCD touch screens in the voting booth just how hard would it be to able to add emoticons with each of your votes? When the emoticons are tabulated politicians would see exactly what you really think of them. Right now a vote appears to them to be an 100 percent vote of approval. It would be great for their humility to get a 80 percent "yawning" and a 10 percent "grossed out' along with other ratings.

Though the standard emoticons are really not expressive enough. I suggest a new category for voting machines - Voticons. Here are some possible Voticons.

Holding my nose while voting for you

You were the lesser of two devils

After voting for you I think I am gonna spew

I am embarrassed to have voted for you but you sucked less than the other person.

I voted pro-life, please don't disappoint me

Used for politicians where you are "split" between liking him one day and hating him the next.

Remember this is my wallet not yours, please vote accordingly.

I am only voting for you because 'better the devil you know than the devil you don't'

I suspect that you will not rob me like a pirate as much as the other guy.

I vote pro-life and you are less murderous than the other guy.

Now in some situations I guess you could actually use one of the normal smiley emoticons, for example if you actually get to vote for someone like Sen. Sam Brownback

And here is one last one:

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." G.K. Chesterton

Fr. Philip Powell, OP in a rare political post starts off:

Many of my friends from my days as a Marxist-feminist-postmodernist ideologue have been asking me lately how I can resist supporting an Obama presidency.

My answer--much to their horror--has been simple: "Because I used to be a Marxist-feminist-postmodernist ideologue, and I understand the party-line of the movement:

He then explains his reasons for opposing Sen. Obama.

Knights of Columbus for Obama www.knightsforobama.com. This is spew-worthy.

Taken in San Francisco and sent in to Mark Steyn "Votive Early, Votive Often ".

Patron anti-saint of Infanticide?

Though maybe you could use them for a Novena to pray he doesn't win.

Update: As some readers have suggested and judging by the style of habit used maybe this is just St. Martin de Porres. There are similar images of this saint clothed like this one. Pictures of this saint usually include him holding a broom and if you enlarge this image that seems to be what he is holding. So probably just a coincidence that the face is very Sen. Obama like.

The Anchoress posts on this election and our response to it regardless of the outcome.

I know that I need to constantly remind myself of the words of Saint Teresa of Avila

"Nada te turbe."

Let nothing upset you,
let nothing startle you.
All things pass;
God does not change.
Patience wins all it seeks.
Whoever has God
lacks nothing:
God alone is enough.

This has been a bad election year with unsatisfactory candidates. We have one candidate who supports abortion, infanticide in some cases, ESCR, cloning, euthanasia, and homosexual marriage. And the other candidate supports ESCR. So while I vote for the greatest good I was pretty happy to find that I now have another choice in this election and I totally endorse them. I will let this video make the case for me.

ROME (CNS) -- The Democratic Party in the United States "risks transforming itself definitively into a 'party of death,'" said U.S. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Vatican's highest court.

...Archbishop Burke was asked if he knew that the August Democratic National Convention in Denver featured a guest appearance by Sheryl Crow, a musician whose performance at a 2007 benefit for a Catholic children's hospital the archbishop had opposed because of her support for abortion and embryonic stem-cell research.

"That does not surprise me much," the archbishop said. "At this point the Democratic Party risks transforming itself definitely into a 'party of death' because of its choices on bioethical questions as Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in his book, 'The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts and the Disregard for Human Life.'"

[Article]

Sheryl Crow appearing there is not as big of deal as Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL and Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards being some of the speakers there. I think "risks transforming itself definitively" is a charitable view of what has happened since really they passed this point awhile ago.

Though the Republicans can't exactly call themselves the Party of Life with the support of some forms of ESCR by some Republicans including Sen. McCain. While it was a good sign that rank-and-file Republicans for the most part were not going to support pro-abortion Mayor Giuliani there were still plenty that were willing to accept him just as long as he was strong on national security. We must never minimize evil just because one party or candidate is less evil than the other.

Media revenge tactics are quite interesting to follow. Ever since the radical political rantings of Rev Wright hurt Sen. Obama to some extent they have been waiting to play "Pin the tail on the Pastor" to get at John McCain.

So first they said that Sen. McCain had a pastor problem with John Hagee. So somehow Obama siting in a church for 20 plus years listening to Rev Wright was the same as John Hagee whose church Sen. McCain has never attended. He became his "pastor" because he endorsed Sen. McCain. This didn't really work out to the media hope so next they tried Pastor Rod Parsley' another person who is not actually John McCain's pastor or part of a church he attends.

So none of this really stuck so next they went after Gov. Palin and those "strange" Pentecostals. The fact that Gov. Palin does not attend an Assemblies of God church anymore didn't matter. But it seems like a pretty stupid political move to make fun of Pentecostals considering how many their are. So they went after the sermons of the so-called non-denominational "Bible" church she attends. No red meat there other than pretty much normal Evangelical beliefs (still odd to the left though). Now the headlines is "Palin once blessed to be free from 'witchcraft'." She was prayed over by a visiting preacher from Kenya so now this person instantly becomes a pastor and other headlines include "Palin's Pastor Problem." The idea of spiritual warfare is of course alien to the media.

Obviously the media needs a lesson on whose one pastor is. It does not include people who endorse you or happen to visit your church. They also need to learn the difference between a pastor who makes political claims such as the U.S. created AIDS to kill blacks and a particular church's theology. We have had many presidents with not exactly an orthodox understanding of theology. It would be a rare case when a candidate's theology is actually relevant concerning presidential office. Obviously if someone belonged to some doomsday cult their theology would be quite relevant to their performance in office.

But the media and the left love gotcha politics, especially if it is in response to a gotcha.

If I hear the "Jesus was a community organizer and Pilate was a Governor" meme one more time I am going to scream. In fact while writing this I just heard it again on the radio - arg. But I guess it does say a lot about those who are willing to use it. They say it as if it was actually a slam against Sarah Palin. I have heard some stupid Democrat inspired religious memes in the past such as the "Holy Family was homeless" but this surely takes the cake.

To start off Pontius Pilate was not a governor he was a Prefect of the Roman Judaea province. But even if it was a governor then what they would say would prove too much since it would include any Democrat who was a governor. Now if you are going to do a Pilate comparison which candidate most fits the mode? Mark Hemingway at the Corner said that when it came to Jesus that Pontius Pilate merely vote "Present" Jay Anderson asks "Between Gov. Palin and Sen. Obama, which do you think would be more likely to utter the question "What is truth?" I think when it comes to washing your hands because of condemning innocent blood surely this is the modern Democratic party. When it comes to abortion, cloning, ESCR, Euthanasia, and even some cases infanticide then surely you hear the sounds of washing hands from the likes of Obama and company. State Senator Obama determined that it was more politically expedient to let children die that were born alive after a failed abortion to protect abortion. Pilate would have understood Obama's politically expediency since he did the same thing.

The idea of Jesus as community organizer proves that they know nothing of who Jesus is and that they don't know what a community organizer is in the first place. But I guess they can't help themselves in continually comparing Obama to Jesus. Some people have the idea that a community organizer is kind of like a volunteer community helper in the Jimmy Carter Habitats for Humanity mode. When it reality a community organizer is a paid political position that does little if any actual good in communities. Habitats for Humanity is something that actually does good and their is a reason Obama doesn't brag about his accomplishment during his time as a community organizer. But I can't blame people for not knowing what this is since even Sen. Obama mentioned in one of his autobiographies that he didn't know what it was when the job was offered to him. Community organizer came to us from Marxist agitator Saul Alinsky in a work called "Rules for Radicals" and is really a model for grievance-mongering. In fact it was some of Alinsky's former students that hired Obama in the first place.

It seems the modern liberals seem to have almost the same view of Jesus as the zealots did. That he would serve a political purpose and a change in government. When the truth is that Jesus did everything he could to avoid being seen in these terms. The community that Jesus died for on the cross was for the whole human community and the sins of our community. Jesus was not limited to helping out in a community in temporal terms in Nazareth or Jerusalem, but in eternal terms by dying for our sins and enabling us to live with him forever. The organizing he has done is to order all things for our good. His job title is Messiah not community organizer, though Obama seems to aspire to both. Jesus taught us who are neighbor is and that we needed to broaden our definition of who are neighbor was and that besides loving them, that we must also love our enemies. That we are to administer to the poor and the sick, not that we are to agitate for the government to take care of our responsibilities towards our neighbor. At our judgment Jesus will ask us what we did for the least of these not what government program we supported. Son of God, son of man, prince of peace, Messiah, and even carpenter are all on his resume, but community organizing is not.

It is a rare thing to see Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body brought up in a political column, but everyone's favorite Paragraph Farmer does so in this column a the American Spectator.

This statement is not yet up on the USCCB site but CNS is reporting that this is the statement.

Recently we had a duty to clarify the Catholic Church's constant teaching against abortion, to correct misrepresentations of that teaching by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on "Meet the Press" (see www.usccb.org/prolife/whatsnew.shtml). On September 7, again on "Meet the Press," Senator Joseph Biden made some statements about that teaching that also deserve a response.

Senator Biden did not claim that Catholic teaching allows or has ever allowed abortion. He said rightly that human life begins "at the moment of conception," and that Catholics and others who recognize this should not be required by others to pay for abortions with their taxes.

However, the Senator's claim that the beginning of human life is a "personal and private" matter of religious faith, one which cannot be "imposed" on others, does not reflect Catholic teaching. The Church teaches that the obligation to protect unborn human life rests on the answer to two questions, neither of which is private or specifically religious.

The first is a biological question: When does a new human life begin? When is there a new living organism of the human species, distinct from mother and father and ready to develop and mature if given a nurturing environment? While ancient thinkers had little verifiable knowledge to help them answer this question, today embryology textbooks confirm that a new human life begins at conception (see www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/bioethic/fact298.shtml). The Catholic Church does not teach this as a matter of faith; it acknowledges it as a matter of objective fact.

The second is a moral question, with legal and political consequences: Which living members of the human species should be seen as having fundamental human rights, such as a right not to be killed? The Catholic Church's answer is: Everybody. No human being should be treated as lacking human rights, and we have no business dividing humanity into those who are valuable enough to warrant protection and those who are not. Even this is not solely a Catholic teaching, but a principle of natural law accessible to all people of good will. The framers of the Declaration of Independence pointed to the same basic truth by speaking of inalienable rights, bestowed on all members of the human race not by any human power, but by their Creator. Those who hold a narrower and more exclusionary view have the burden of explaining why we should divide humanity into the moral "haves" and "have-nots," and why their particular choice of where to draw that line can be sustained in a pluralistic society. Such views pose a serious threat to the dignity and rights of other poor and vulnerable members of the human family who need and deserve our respect and protection.

While in past centuries biological knowledge was often inaccurate, modern science leaves no excuse for anyone to deny the humanity of the unborn child. Protection of innocent human life is not an imposition of personal religious conviction but a demand of justice.

Now that Nancy Pelosi's spokesman issues a statement in response to the slew of statements about her misrepresenting Church teaching on abortion.

Father Z posts the statement and responds Madame Speaker, you can't reduce the Church's teaching to a 1500 year old sound bite which you don't understand.

Maureen at Aliens in This World takes a look at the Latin of what St. Augustine said and gives us a translation and some analysis. Democrats constantly complain about what they say being taken out of context, but that is what is done with the passage Pelosi's spokesman gave.

With St. Augustine's feast day coming up on Thursday and his mothers St. Monica is tomorrow it is an opportune time to pray for their intercession for Speaker Pelosi. St. Augustine was a bit confused on the moral law himself at one time before his conversion.

Though all of this appealing to St. Augustine is rather odd in the first place. For one she supports partial birth abortion which is way passed the timeline for when St. Augustine thought that the fetus was vivified anyway (males 30 days and females at 90 days.) As Fr. Z asks does she accept that also since St. Augustine held it?

Oh well I am just waiting for her exegesis on St. Jerome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. John Chrysotom and other Church Fathers.

No doubt it will sell more copies than her last book.

My blog friends Steve Dillard, Christopher Blosser, and Jay Anderson have started up the Catholics Against Joe Biden blog. I certainly hope they are as effective as the Catholics Against Rudy effort was. All pro-abortion politicians are annoying, but pro-abortion Catholic are a special effrontery to the Gospel of Life. Sen. Joe Biden is not as pro-abortion as Sen Obama is, though very few people on the face of the planet are. Sen. Biden's voting record is decidedly mixed and I applaud him on his vote that were pro-life and pray that he repents of his votes that weren't.. It is rather sad that like other Democrats that seek power in the Democratic Party that he was once pro-life. Even from a political perspective being pro-abortion is a liability for the most part and few such as President Clinton manage to overcome it (though by pretending to hold a more moderate view).

The new blog has a good synopsis of his voting record.

Maybe there are some Catholics that will be upset by a pro-abortion Catholic veep that would have been willing to vote for Obama otherwise - but it is probably a small group. Though I also suspect that there are many Catholics who don't realize how radically pro-abortion Sen Obama is, though finally this issue is getting some mainstream coverage. We are not likely to get a sequel to the Sen. Kerry so-called Communion wars since Sen. Biden's diocese currently doesn't have a bishop. Bishop W. Francis Malooly will be installed on September 8th.

I do hope that this ticket goes the way of other tickets that included a pro-abortion Catholic. Kerry-Edwards, Mondale/Ferraro, and Obama/Biden would make a nice tripple-play.

Dawn Eden reminded me of this quote from Sen. Biden in 2005

The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious, I'm going to shove my rosary beads down their throat.

Many people are not aware of the Uvula Mysteries.as one of my Plurk friends replied are only prayed on election day.

In the Uvula Mysteries you have the following meditations

For there is no truth in their mouth;
their heart is destruction,
their throat is an open sepulchre,
they flatter with their tongue. Psalm 5.

Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, Psalm 149

You brood of vipers! how can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Matthew 12

Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man." Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and so passes on? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man.

"Their throat is an open grave,
they use their tongues to deceive."
"The venom of asps is under their lips." Romans 3

Senator Biden certainly picked a set of mysteries that fit politicians to the T.

Dawn Eden also quipped in her hilarious style "Keep your rosaries off my uvula!"

Democrats have invited more than two dozen religious leaders to pray or speak at their upcoming convention with a notable exception: Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, a policy wonk and the leader of Colorado's largest religious denomination.

Well this is not exactly a surprise. The Archbishop is not one to hold his tongue just to get along. When he recently spoke to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) he brought up the topic of holy obedience, a message not exactly warmly received by this group.

But the Democrats does have Sister Catherine Pinkerton who is on Obama campaign's Catholic Advisory Council and hold to a relativisitc version of the seamless garmet. When you play word association with these types this is what happens.

• Abortion: Death Penalty
• ESCR: Health Care
• Euthanasia: War
• Homosexual Marriage: Equality

You will almost certainly always get an answer that is a prudential matter in relation to something intrinsically evil.

Though I do wonder historically if Bishops are invited to the conventions generally from either the Democratic or Republican Party? I don't know the answer to this.

Update: A commenter mentions that Cardinal Mahoney spoke at the Democratic Convention - figures.

In a related note Archbishop Chaput was interviewed last night on the Hugh Hewitt show in a fairly long interview about his new book Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life which I will certainly have to buy. It was a really good interview and I am glad that it is also now available for download.

The religious left often makes me laugh; this time on McCain's "The One" ad.

At best, this ad implies that those who plan to support Senator Obama are looking for a new savior or a replacement Messiah. But many are reading it even more darkly as an attempt to portray Obama as an anti-Christ figure.

I guess we need the left's secret decoder ring to find that hidden message.  The ad pokes fun at how he portrays himself, the language that he uses, and the language and posters that his followers use to describe him. My blog-friend Christopher Blosser has been chronicling this for awhile on the popular Is Barack Obama the Messiah blog so the McCain ad is not showing anything new.  As for Obama being the antichrist well St. John described that there are many antichrists and not just the figure foretold at the end of the world. Those that oppose Christ are in effect an antichrist.  People that support infanticide, abortion, ESCR, cloning, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage are opposing the will of Christ.

The biggest thing that annoys me about the whole Obama messiah business is how he has reacted to it and even played it up.  Obama being a Christian this whole messiah thing should really bother him.  It should upset him that people talk about him in this tone.  John the Baptist when confused with Christ said "I am not the Christ" and "He must increase, but I must decrease." Obama seems to have gotten that last one backwards.  St. Peter when he saw people seeing him wrongly said "Stand up; I too am just a man."  Sen. Obama has done nothing to discourage such comparisons.  Obama should be embarrassed by such treatment, instead he revels in it. In fact as the McCain ad shows Obama said: 

"A light will shine down from somewhere. It will light upon you. You will experience an epiphany and you will say to yourself, 'I have to vote for Barack',"

Besides Obama is too much of an amateur to be "the" Antichrist. Though form over substance will certainly be an attribute of the Antichrist and the fawning largely uncritical reaction will likely be there also.

Creative Minority Reports on a Barack Obama interview in 2004 with a religion reporter for the Chicago Sun Times.

GG: Do you believe in sin?

OBAMA: Yes. GG:

What is sin?

OBAMA: Being out of alignment with my values.

This not only says a lot about Obama, but pretty much reflects an idea that is quite common - even if not explicitly mentioned often. That the only real sin is hypocrisy from your own values. For a Christian this is such nonsense that it is hard to know where to start. St. Augustine defined sin as "A word, deed or desire in opposition to the eternal law" and sin is the deliberate transgression of a law of God. This idea of sin expounded by Obama means that you could be a sinless serial killer as long as murder was one of your values. Now maybe Obama meant that sin was being out of alignment with his values that were informed by God's law. Though considering the rampant relativism the idea of "my values" is very prevalent and even when influenced by eternal law there is almost always a restriction of what those eternal laws are and an adding on of your own.

What he views as God's laws I think are quite uncertain considering the following:

So you got yourself born again?

OBAMA: Yeah, although I don't, I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I'm not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I've got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others.

I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it's best comes with a big dose of doubt. I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.

I think that, particularly as somebody who's now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, there's an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.

Are you "certain" that there is much damage done in the name of religion? He "understands" that people are "limited in their understanding" Sounds a lot like "I absolutely don't believe in absolutes." It is also a rather strange answer to the question and seems to have nothing to do with the idea of being "born again." It seems to me that many people if asked this question who used the language of being "born again" would talk about their faith and Jesus and pretty much not throw water on their faith.

His idea of dogma and having a monopoly on truth is also rather odd. Dogma is just a "formally revealed truth" and if something isn't true it isn't dogmatic. This just arises from a misunderstanding of the word and the animus that society has built around it. But truths can to be tested with our reason and should be. Faith and reason go hand in hand and the only reason to believe something is that it to be true and to revise your understanding when you find that it is not. If we believe something to be true after investigating it than why in the world would you worry about having a monopoly on the truth? But then again truth is not something you can have a monopoly on. We can only share in the truth, we don't own it as a property and truth is not a zero-sum game. He also seems to indicate a certain skepticism that we can't know the truth in the first place and so should not try to pass on the truth we believe to others. This is also another modern physiological claim that is often believed, but never actually practiced. I am fond of quoting Chesterton line that their are two kinds of people. Those who believe in dogma and those who don't know they believe in dogma.

The thing about truth though is that as long as not everybody accepts something as being true it will always lead to division. That is one reason why Jesus said that he did not bring peace, but the sword. The modern virtue of tolerance is often in opposition to the truth in that it pretends that all ideas have the same weight and tries to eliminate divisions by pretending that they don't really exist. Toleration is "the disposition to permit, or bear with, views, actions, or teaching that differs from one's own." It is not the acceptance of ideas and actions contrary to your own We should do way more than tolerate our neighbors, we should love them. Love is the willing of a good for another.

So I don't tolerate Barack Obama, I love him and I pray that he finds the truth and gives up his many errors such as his radical support of abortion.

The Beginning of the Gospel of Barack Obama, the Son of God (According to Mark Shea)

In other news Jill Stanek has a fundraiser letter by Michelle Obama saying the partial-birth abortion ban is unconstitutional.

In other Obama news.

From CNN to the New York Times, the media hyped Barack Obama's Portland, Oregon rally on Sunday, some comparing him to a rock star.

Unmentioned in national reporting was the fact that Obama was preceded by a rare, 45-minute free concert by actual rock stars The Decemberists. The Portland-based band has drawn rave reviews from Rolling Stone magazine, which gave their 2005 album Picaresque four and a half stars (out of five), and another four and a half stars for 2007's The Crane Wife.

How many of the people showed up to hear Obama, and how many to hear the band?

Hugh Hewitt also mentions that the Decemberists normally start of their set playing the Soviet National Anthem. Whether it happened in this case is not currently known, but it would be appropriate. It is though an interesting question on how many showed up for Decemberists specifically. I grew up in Portland which has more "Free Tibet" and liberal bumper stickers per capita than anywhere else I have seen so I would not be surprised at the large turnout if it was mainly for Obama. It is just interesting that the press failed to mention this at all.

CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fond of quoting a particular passage of Scripture. The quote, however, does not appear in the Bible and is "fictional," according to biblical scholars.

In her April 22 Earth Day news release, Pelosi said, "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children's children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature."

I usually have an odd chuckle when a pro-abortion Democrat once again appeal to doing it for the children. I guess ministering to the needs of God's creation doesn't include children in the womb.

I  have to admit I find it rather funny the way the media has now turned on Hillary Clinton especially over her Bosnia sniper story.  I guess the Senator has not yet realized that she has lost her charism of incuriosity.  Normally when a Democrat makes a statement on faith, morals, or pretty much any subject their charism of incuriosity protects them in all that they say and that there is a freedom from reporters looking into their error.  The incuriosity of reporters around Democrats is well established by the scriptures in the New York Times and Washington Post and was made a dogma by the First Viacom Council.

What Sen. Clinton does not realize is that while normally the charism of incuriosity would protect her from reporters perceiving error and that the Wholly Spirit of the Times would guarantee this gift even among competing Democrats, that this charism can be lost when a majority of reporter electors select another to fully receive this gift.

 Political strategist Donna Brazile said she will quit her position with the Democratic National Committee if superdelegates decide who gets the Democratic presidential nomination.

The superdelegate vote “should reflect the will of the people,” Brazile, who managed Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign and is herself a superdelegate, told National Public Radio. 

Help me out here.  Exactly what is the point of the Democrat's superdelegates if they can't trump popular vote? If they always go along with the popular vote then it is a rubber stamp and serves no purpose.  Donna Brazile was made a superdelegate by Bill Clinton so certainly she has had time to figure out what the role is all about.  I guess she likes having two votes more than actually quitting this position now.

I think the superdelegates are exactly like the pigs in Animal Farm.

Well with today being Super Fat Tuesday it seems to me that this confluence of events is appropriate since the continuing political season is sure to be quite penitential and unfortunately goes way beyond forty days.  With the candidates available I feel like saying "Bless me Father for I have voted."  There are of course never any perfect candidates and they are all flawed in one way or another.  With the internet us political wonks certainly suffer from too much information as to these flaws.  Though it is much better to go into the voting booth with your eyes wide open and being able to take this into account to best promote the culture of life.

Now I had already voted in the Florida primaries and I voted for Gov. Huckabee, but without much enthusiasm.  Gov. Giuliani was out of the question and McCain and Romney both support embryonic stem-cell research at least in regards to frozen embryos.  Since Fred and Duncan Hunter had already bowed out.  I was left with Gov. Huckabee and Ron Paul who are both fully pro-life.  I simply didn't trust Ron Paul to pull our troops out of Iraq without a subsequent massacre and think we owe it to the Iraqi people to fix the situation we helped to create.  I have lots of caveats on Mike Huckabee but it doesn't really matter since Huckabee and Paul are not going to get the nomination and it will be either Sen. McCain or Gov. Romney. They  both support ESCR - John McCain voted for ESCR twice though has since narrowed his support to not allow cloning  which makes his position seemingly now identical to Romney's.

I kind of like the positions of Romney 2.0 for the most part.  The question is is Romney 2.0 a firmware upgrade or to extend the software metaphor has he selected a conservative skin to pretty up his conservative interface?  No doubt Romney 2.0 is much better than Romney 1.0 in pretty much all the right directions and I certainly like to give people who become pro-life the benefit of the doubt.  I find it quite strange just how many conservative talk radio pundits and other conservatives buy into Romney 2.0 without and spoken qualms.  Though I guess that is part of human nature in the political process is that you ignore or diminish the doubts or faults of the person you end up supporting.  Can't say though I am very impressed by his actions as governor and when it came down to really doing something about their court ruling on same-sex marriage, making Catholic hospitals use Plan B, and forcing homosexual adoption on Catholic Charities. I don't see how he says he "stood up" against same-sex marriage.  

Now I put Senator McCain at version 1.1 since with the Senator what you see and hear is mostly what you get.  He has had some slight changes in positions such as now he supports the fence first, before addressing immigration, as I mentioned has tightened his view on ESCR, and he now has a different reason for why he opposed the Bush tax cuts (class warfare before and now because spending wasn't reduced).  The problem with John McCain 1.1 is that I didn't much like 1.0 and the minor upgrade isn't much better.  Though there are some things I do like about the Senator.  If it wasn't for ESCR his pro-life voting record would be perfect.  His view on torture and not being one of the people to think that water boarding is "enhanced interrogation" also knocks him up for me.  His consistent fight against government spending and earmarks also gives him a checkmark in my book.  He was willing to take a strong stand on the surge during a time when many had written off Iraq.  There is not doubt that McCain sticks to his principles, my problem with him is often that these are not conservative principles and the reason he is so often called a Maverick and so loved by the press at times is because Maverick principles go all over the map.

He is running a commercial saying he was a foot soldier for the Regan revolution. Well considering his support for global warming hysteria and carbon caps, restriction of free speech,  voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment, comparing drilling in Anwar with drilling in the Grand Canyon,  saying “It’s not social issues I care about” and “I have no doubt Senator Clinton would make a great president.”,  his diatribe against "greedy" corporations and seeing profit as something less than good, I think that he is a foot soldier in the Ron Reagan revolution, if anything.  If John McCain has made a negative comment about someone you can be sure it was against a fellow conservative and not someone in the Democratic Party.  There is good evidence that he considered jumping ship in 2001 ala Jumping Jim Jeffords and that he also considered running with Sen. John Kerry.  Considering his falling ACU rating I am not sure how he can be considered a Ronald Reagan foot soldier.  He certainly has shown no leadership in regards to social conservative issues and the trend of bills he sponsors like McCain-Lieberman, McCain-Fiengold, McCain-Kennedy don't exactly help him make his case.

Though I am not like Ann Coulter or James Dobson and would certainly vote for Sen. John McCain over Hillary or Barack.  John McCain is much more likely to appoint a judicial conservative (though I have my worries) and you know the Democratic nominee will certainly pick judges who will ensure that Roe v. Wade will continue to be the unjust law of the land.  There is also no doubt that a President McCain would not veto pro-life  legislation (except possibly on aspects of ESCR).

Unfortunately judicial activism has made Supreme Court nominations so vitally important and an issue and requires a high trust level.  I don't have a high trust level on nominees for either McCain or Romney.  Mitt Romney does not have a good record of judicial appointments in Massachusetts and while McCain backed all of the judges appointed by Republican presidents, he did the same for Democratic presidents.  Though when it comes down it to I would want Romney or McCain and part of that is because I prefer governors over senators as candidates and maybe part of it is that I have disliked McCain longer than I have had mixed feelings about Mitt Romney.

Though I am not like some pundits who say a vote for one candidate is a vote for another one.  If you can't vote your conscience in the Primaries exactly when are you allowed to?  While someone can prudently select a candidate for electability or in a close race to try to support one over the other, one can choose to not make their decision on this criteria.   I have certainly in the past during the primaries supported Quixote candidates like Alan Keyes who I knew were never going to get the nomination.

All I can say is whoever sold Mayor Giuliani on the Florida strategy or whether it was his own idea - good job! Anything that keeps a culture of death Republican from being the nominee is for me a good strategy.  I do wish though that the reason he failed was that he was not personally opposed to abortion and was not any kind of social conservative.  Though I think that was part of it, but most of the Republican establishment was not all that worried about breaking a pro-life precedence just as long as he promised to do what they want on national security and gave assurances about his judicial picks. The only talk show I have listened to that was actually worried about Rudy splitting the party and ending the Republican party as the party of life was Laura Ingraham.

As a critique of a campaign strategy and it easy to say now - what a maroon!  It seems to me that if you are going to run for President you need to run as president in all fifty states because even if you don't win the primaries at least you will have already set up networks and contacts when it comes to the general election.  Skipping states and concentrating on ones later on in the primary cycle also keeps you from getting all of the free press coverage and keeps your name out of the news. I am just glad in Rudy's case that he decided to put all of his eggs in one basket.

As a side issue it is also nice that we won't have a cafeteria Catholic being a nominee this time around.  We won't have the Communion wars as we did with Sen. Kerry since reportedly the Mayor does not go to Communion because of his current "marriage."

has a good article in The American Spectator on the divide between religious coverage of reporters on candidates for the two parties.  There is an intense curiosity by reporters regarding faith when it comes to Republicans that is totally missing in coverage of the Democrats that will never get cries of theocracy no matter how many church pulpits they speak from.

MIAMI (AP) — With his plan for winning the GOP presidential nomination riding largely on a Florida victory at the end of the month, Rudy Giuliani asked an evangelical congregation for prayers instead of votes Sunday and quoted scripture to evoke a message of hope and perseverance.

"I'm not coming here to ask for your vote," he said. "That's up to you and it's not the right place. But I am coming here to ask you for something very special and more important: I'm asking for your prayers."

Well I am already praying that he doesn't get the GOP nomination thus bringing in the Moloch contingent into the "Big Tent."

Mark Shea

With Sen. McCain's win in New Hampshire there have been a bunch of posts in St. Blogs about McCain's suitability from a pro-life perspective. Christopher Blosser posting at Catholics in the Public Square blog has another one of his good round-up posts on the subject.

As many know Sen. McCain's pro-life voting record is quite good except for the glaring example of voting for and supporting embryonic stem-cell research. Christopher posts the following from McCain's site.

Addressing the Moral Concerns of Advanced Technology

Stem cell research offers tremendous hope for those suffering from a variety of deadly diseases - hope for both cures and life-extending treatments. However, the compassion to relieve suffering and to cure deadly disease cannot erode moral and ethical principles.

For this reason, John McCain opposes the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes. To that end, Senator McCain voted to ban the practice of "fetal farming," making it a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes. Furthermore, he voted to ban attempts to use or obtain human cells gestated in animals. Finally, John McCain strongly opposes human cloning and voted to ban the practice, and any related experimentation, under federal law.

As president, John McCain will strongly support funding for promising research programs, including amniotic fluid and adult stem cell research and other types of scientific study that do not involve the use of human embryos.

Where federal funds are used for stem cell research, Senator McCain believes clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress, and that any such research should be subject to strict federal guidelines.

Some have said with the very pro-life Sen. Brownback supporting Sen. McCain that the Senator now has a more restrictive view on ESCR than what he once held. The question is what does the above statement mean in the real world. If he is actually against human cloning and the intentional creation of human embryos than how does this effect actual research?

One of the reasons that cloning has become the grail for promoters of embryonic stem-cell research is that there are immunological issues associated with putting cells derived from one person into the body of another. These are not minor considerations and one easily solved and are the primary reason that so-called "therapeutic cloning" from the patients own tissue is the primary focus. You don't have immunological issues if a clone is made of yourself and they kill your twin to get embryonic stem-cells. Using large scale genetic engineering to modify embryonic stem-cells from other sources is highly dubious, if possible at all, and could very well introduce genetic mutations The other possibility is as in organ transplants is finding a good match for the patient and would obviously require a large supply of embryos to make practicable.

So if the Senator is against both cloning and creation of embryos then where exactly are the embryos suppose to come from that he can approve research from? If the statement is actually represents his belief the only alternative is so-called "leftover" embryos from In Virtro Fertilization. If this is the case why doesn't he just say so. If this is his position it would make it identical to Gov. Mitt Romney's in that he specifically only supports ESCR with embryos from IVF.

This is a position that has been staked out by other politicians and one that I think makes not only no moral sense, but also no practical sense. Leaving aside moral concerns of using these embryos, say for example that there were sufficient human embryos that were released by the parents for use in research and that this research actually led to actual cures using embryonic stem-cells. This would then create a instant demand for human embryo's that could not be met by the supply provided from research as a result of IVF. So by supporting use of these human embryos for research you are really automatically supporting the demand for human embryos from other sources.

As a side note it really is I think surprising how IVF seemed to fly in under the moral radar in the first place with very little outcry over it. Once again is is only the Catholic Church that is consistent and she publicly condemned the use of IVF while for the most-part Protestants have no problems with it. I think it is unfortunate the the pro-life community has hardly touched on this issue and I have never heard of demonstrations outside of clinics where IVF is done. Here we have a case where multiple embryos are created and then several embryos are implanted into the womb in the hope that one survives. When too many (by their standards) survive than "elective fetal reductions" are performed. Then of course there are also the other human beings that aren't implanted who are placed into the "freezer." It is because of IVF that we have had part of the temptations to use these persons. The argument being that they are going to die anyway so I guess we should harvest the organs of prisoners about to be executed or experiment on people with terminal cancer since they are also all going to die anyway. Though of course all of us are going to die anyway.

As for myself I have a host of issues with Sen. McCain, though if he was the GOP nominee is would support him against the Democratic candidate who will be not pro-life at all. For the primaries though I will vote for someone much more pro-life even if they are a Don Quixote candidate.

Sen. McCain on his site also says he will protect marriage though he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, though he defends this as a state's rights issue. He did support Arizona's proposition to outlaw same-sex marriage which was narrowly defeated.

This is another issue that annoys me among some of the GOP's nominees. For example not supporting changes in the Constitution in regards to abortion and marriage. They say these are state's rights issues only and should be left to each individual state to decide. It seems rather dumb to me that you could get married and then go across a state lines and have a marriage not recognized. But even if you could make the case for this when it comes to abortion we need to ultimately have Federal action done to protect life. Nobody now would accept a situation where slavery was once more condoned depending on the state. This was the situation before where slavery was legal in some states and outlawed in others. As a moral issue abortion is much worse than the great evil of abortion and to say it is only a states-rights issue is quite problematic. On a prudential level I will be quite happy if Roe v. Wade is overturned and the legality abortion once again be determined by each state since it is so much easier to fight against abortion at a state level. Ultimately thought anybody against abortion should see that the protection of life needs to be done at the Federal level. We amended the Constitution to outlaw slavery and we should do the same for abortion. Murdering children is not a states rights issue.

Paul at Thoughts of a Regular Guy writes:

...My analysis is that crying didn't get Sen. Clinton more than just a few new votes. What put Clinton over the top in New Hampshire yesterday was that she cast doubt on Sen. Obama's pro-abortion credentials. Less than with Republicans, abortion is the still THE litmus-test issue for Democrats. They may forgive a vote for "Mr. Bush's War", but they'll never forgive a lapse in promoting or defending abortion.

No doubt that among so many Democrat voters that protecting abortion is such a major concern for them. I for one would like to see this as an issue between Senators Hillary and Obama in the primaries since what they say can hurt themselves in the general election. Sen. Hillary has already started making this an issue with push calls and bringing it up in her stump speeches. Though I guess a stump speeches is an ironically important place for referring to the right to dismember babies.

Over the last two years Sen. Hillary has tried to move to the middle on abortion by saying such things as "abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many" and holding to her husbands line about wishing for the day "when abortion is truly safe, legal, and rare." They never explain though how a "right" can be tragic and should be made rare. Though there has never been much frankness in support of abortion in the Democratic Party with much obfuscation such as "personally opposed", etc. Out of the current slate of Democratic Presidential Candidates only Bill Richardson is "personally opposed" to abortion this time. I guess it is only Catholic Democrats that have to add the "personally opposed" caveat which in itself is rather interesting that other candidates who say they are Christian feel no need to use such a modifier. This election though we have a strange switch with a Catholic who is a Democrat saying that he is personally opposed but will support abortion and a Republican who is Catholic saying he is personally for, but will vote against it.

In the general election though ardent support of abortion is an albatross so I say let the Democrats knock themselves out in portraying their loyalty to abortion in the primaries.

Here are some quick general reflections on the presidential race.

Whenever I hear politicians talk about change I think change is what is left in my pocket from my paycheck by the time they get done.

When I hear Sen. Hillary talking about President Johnson passing the Civil Rights act I remember the final Senate vote.

The original House version:

* Democratic Party: 164-96 (64%-39%)
* Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)

The Senate version:

* Democratic Party: 46-22 (68%-32%)
* Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)

The Senate version, voted on by the House:

* Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
* Republican Party: 186-35 (80%-20%)

Including in the nea for the Democrats was Al Gore's father.

The Hillary crying incident doesn't bother me since if she is elected President I might cry also.

I wish that a half-Black half-Spanish lesbian was elected president. We could get so many firsts out of the way so that people can get back to voting based on a candidates position vice other attributes.

Edwards responded sharply to a Clinton aide's criticism today, intensifying a back-and-forth that began at last night's debate, after Clinton said Nataline Sarkisyan could be alive if the patients bill of rights, which he'd boasted of championing, had passed.

"The Clinton campaign has no conscience," Edwards said, after Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said Edwards does no more than "read articles about people who need help and talk about them."

I found this rather funny considering what John Edwards said four years ago.

Edwards said Reeve, who died Sunday, "was a powerful voice for the need to do stem cell research and change the lives of people like him.

"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again," Edwards said.

I wonder how in the world anybody at a Catholic High School would think it would be a good idea to rent out their gymnasium for a Sen. Obama campaign stop. But Newman Catholic High School in Mason City, Iowa must have thought so. Here is a senator as pro-abortion as they come who as a state senator did what he could to block a Illinois state version of the born alive infants act. He voted to block the partial birth abortion ban and is in favor of embryonic stem-cell research. He is also in favor of homosexual marriage. So you have a Senator in favor of not only abortion but infanticide once the child is born and yet he is allowed to boost his campaign at a Catholic High School.

Though I am also not in favor of any candidates at any level of office speaking either in Catholic churches or Catholic schools.

As a side note I do wonder what the Obama banner covers up on the knight's shield and especially wonder if it might be a cross?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, the Kansas conservative who struggled to raise money and gain recognition in the 2008 presidential campaign, will drop out on Friday, people close to him said Thursday.

Money was a main reason for his decision, said one person close to Brownback who requested anonymity because the candidate had not yet announced his plans. Brownback is expected announce his withdrawal in Topeka, Kan.

It's widely anticipated Brownback will run for Kansas governor in 2010, when his term — his second — expires. He had promised in his first Senate campaign to serve no more than two terms.

Well this is certainly no surprise. He has run a campaign that makes Katherine Harris's Senate campaign in Florida look inspired. I will though be sad to see him leave the Senate after his current term since he has been for the most part an excellent senator, and probably the most pro-life senator there currently is and also one who is the best on social issues.