The NY Times profiles "The Evangelical Crackup"

Yes, that's actually the title of a long piece in Sunday's Times by David Kirkpatrick. It's an interesting read. Bush and his war in Iraq helped foster the crackup. And, there seems to be a decidedly different view of what's going on between those evangelicals who are sick of the GOP and those religious right leaders, like Tony Perkins, who are in bed with the GOP.

However "the crackup" plays out in 2008, these couple paragraphs give the flavor of the piece -- and are just fun to read and relish:

Just three years ago, the leaders of the conservative Christian political movement could almost see the Promised Land. White evangelical Protestants looked like perhaps the most potent voting bloc in America. They turned out for President George W. Bush in record numbers, supporting him for re-election by a ratio of four to one. Republican strategists predicted that religious traditionalists would help bring about an era of dominance for their party. Spokesmen for the Christian conservative movement warned of the wrath of “values voters.” James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, was poised to play kingmaker in 2008, at least in the Republican primary. And thanks to President Bush, the Supreme Court appeared just one vote away from answering the prayers of evangelical activists by overturning Roe v. Wade.

Today the movement shows signs of coming apart beneath its leaders. It is not merely that none of the 2008 Republican front-runners come close to measuring up to President Bush in the eyes of the evangelical faithful, although it would be hard to find a cast of characters more ill fit for those shoes: a lapsed-Catholic big-city mayor; a Massachusetts Mormon; a church-skipping Hollywood character actor; and a political renegade known for crossing swords with the Rev. Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Nor is the problem simply that the Democratic presidential front-runners — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards — sound like a bunch of tent-revival Bible thumpers compared with the Republicans.

The 2008 election is just the latest stress on a system of fault lines that go much deeper. The phenomenon of theologically conservative Christians plunging into political activism on the right is, historically speaking, something of an anomaly. Most evangelicals shrugged off abortion as a Catholic issue until after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. But in the wake of the ban on public-school prayer, the sexual revolution and the exodus to the suburbs that filled the new megachurches, protecting the unborn became the rallying cry of a new movement to uphold the traditional family. Now another confluence of factors is threatening to tear the movement apart. The extraordinary evangelical love affair with Bush has ended, for many, in heartbreak over the Iraq war and what they see as his meager domestic accomplishments. That disappointment, in turn, has sharpened latent divisions within the evangelical world — over the evangelical alliance with the Republican Party, among approaches to ministry and theology, and between the generations.

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US could see a water shortage

Is our government learning? Doubtful. Read the rest of this post...

Libertarians vs. Communitarians

Really interesting article by Michael Kinsley in TIME. He argues that whichever political party figures out how to tap into Libertarians will profit extensively. I'm not sure I buy it, but as always, it's great writing and thinking. Read the rest of this post...

Freshmen Dems kill trans amendment in House

We've heard for weeks from the United ENDA crowd how easy it would be to get a trans ENDA passed in the House. This article, and the current situation, suggests otherwise. The support just isn't there, even from our own team. Interestingly, per the article, the Freshmen Dems are afraid that should they be forced to vote for the trans amendment they'll be savaged by conservatives AND liberals. That means other Dem challengers would use the vote against Dem incumbents, but it's not clear if the challengers would mock the incumbents for being pro trans or anti- trans (meaning, are they afraid that other Dem challengers will play the transphobia card, or that they will be more liberal and accuse the incumbent of not being good enough on civil rights - it's not clear from the story). Either way, the politics over this issue are totally screwed up, not at all settled, which is the point I've been making for 3 weeks. The United ENDA crowd has been naively telling us all how easy this was going to be. They were wrong, Barney was right, and now we have a huge mess on our hands when just a few weeks ago the GLB ENDA was a sure win. If United ENDA calls this victory, well, we might as well stop funding our national gay groups right now because this kind of victory we can have by staying home. Read the rest of this post...

Condi has to force State Dept. officials to Iraq

Forced diplomacy. That's going to work:

The State Department will order as many as 50 U.S. diplomats to take posts in Iraq next year because of expected shortfalls in filling openings there, the first such large-scale forced assignment since the Vietnam War.

On Monday, 200 to 300 employees will be notified of their selection as "prime candidates" for 50 open positions in Iraq, said Harry K. Thomas, director general of the Foreign Service. Some are expected to respond by volunteering, he said. However, if an insufficient number volunteers by Nov. 12, a department panel will determine which ones will be ordered to report to the Baghdad embassy next summer.

"If people say they want to go to Iraq, we will take them," Thomas said in an interview. But "we have to move now, because we can't hold up the process." Those on the list were selected by factors including grade, specialty and language skill, as well as "people who have not had a recent hardship tour," he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice previewed a possible shortfall in June, when she ordered that positions in Iraq be filled before any other openings at the State Department headquarters in Washington or abroad are available. At the time, Rice said it was her "fervent hope" that sufficient numbers would continue to volunteer. Her order followed a request by Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker in Baghdad for an increase in the number and quality of economic and political officers.

"Fervent hope." Ha. Send all those GOP Hill staffers who are such fervent supporters of the war to Iraq. They won't join the military, maybe they can go pretend to be diplomats, because everyone knows there's no diplomacy happening.

Condi and her boss have an amazing record of failure. Everything they touch -- everything -- is a disaster. Read the rest of this post...

It's good to be the king

Who out there can't relate to a golden parachute like this?

Merrill Lynch’s directors may be weighing E. Stanley O’Neal’s future, but one thing is already guaranteed: a payday of at least $159 million if he steps down.

Mr. O’Neal, the company’s chairman and chief executive, is entitled to $30 million in retirement benefits as well as $129 million in stock and option holdings, according to an analysis by James F. Reda & Associates using yesterday’s share price of $66.09. That would be on top of the roughly $160 million he took home in his nearly five years on the job.

So Merrill Lynch has to write down a staggering $8.4 billion due to the disastrous mistakes of O'Neal, many jobs will be terminated because of his failed decisions and the guy is going to walk about with this kind of money. I realize he has a contract but really, if America can afford screw ups like this guy at the top, why the hell is it so difficult to see decent benefits and salary increases for the rest of the working population? $159 million is a lot of health care and a lot of salary for others.

Looking objectively at this guys record, he was crap and did not warrant such a lofty pay plan. Where's the personal responsibility from O'Neal on his failures? Sure he's going to be canned but who out there wouldn't want to be fired with this? Our continued idolization of corporate buffoons like this is ridiculous not to mention bloody expensive. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

News, please. Read the rest of this post...

A European Union, for the right kind of people

Always eager to provide more reasons why the new EU is a joke, Gordon Brown's UK government is planning to limit the number of workers (read: poor) from Bulgaria and Romania. All of this happens just a week after Brown decided to scrap a democratic vote by the British electorate on the EU and just leave democracy to the same old ruling class, Parliament. They always seem to know better, don't they?

What strikes me as absurd is that the UK and other countries are only too happy to allow big employers move previously good paying jobs from their home countries to Eastern Europe for a few cents on the euro but heavens no, don't let those eastern Europeans come to the west. Absolutely not. Big business would much rather pay workers chump change in the east than pay even modest salaries in the west and they've done a brilliant job of convincing the EU governments to go along with this unfair plan. The double standard is really wearing thin but this explains why the ruling class of Europe is terrified of giving any more voters an opportunity to actually vote on what they think about the new EU. Read the rest of this post...

Meet Diva of Orange

She was (possibly still is?) the greeter when you buy your ticket to visit the stunning Roman theater in Orange, France. Diva is the most relaxed cat I have ever met, barely noticing the thousands of visitors who passed by but always welcoming a bit of affection. Diva looks just like our Nasdaq but is a few kilos lighter.

At Paris cat central in Montparnasse, Nasdaq has bounced back from her cough though Sushi gave us a scare and stopped eating for a few days and wasn't able to hold any food down. The problem seems to have passed and he's now recovering from a miserable visit to the vet where he clung to me for protection from the big, bad vet who poked, prodded and pricked him with a needle. He's a macho cat at home, but quite the opposite on the vet table. He's now back to his old self, chasing Nasdaq from his food bowl (he has the regular food, not the low cal yucko stuff) and positioning himself comfortably on our laps and laptop keyboards. Read the rest of this post...

Warren Buffet - subprime problems to continue well into 2008, maybe 2009

Possibly longer. The economic fundamentals delivered under GOP rule have managed to make a once thriving economy - a place where the world wanted to invest - into the market to avoid. When one of the most successful investors in the world is concerned about the US market from housing to the plummeting dollar, there is a serious problem. At least the US voters will have their chance to respond to this economy next November at the polls. Read the rest of this post...