I typed the subject of this post before writing it, since I know I've got no particular thesis to explore or advance. This blogging thing can get frustrating, particularly when there's so much going on and only finite opportunities to talk about it.
First -- the news from Iraq, at least according to the NPR reports I've been listening to on the radio back in the room, are dire.
Steven Vincent, blogger and freelance journalist in Iraq, has been murdered, execution style. Probably by those he criticized in his July 31 article (free subscription required) in the New York Times.
Twenty-three Marines have been killed in the past three days in Iraq, 14 of whom were killed by an improvised explosive device (or roadside bomb) in the Euphrates River Valley.
Be sure to check out Blackfive and Greyhawk for the good news coming out of the Middle East.
On the political front, I've steered well clear of the Robert Bolton/John Roberts nominations. Not only are both incredibly predictable, they're also boring enough to make one's ears bleed. However, I did see this article in USA Today on the possibility of an opposition-supported pseudo "Religious Test" in the case of John Roberts' nomination. Check this:
Wow. I guess it's understandable for the public to be afraid of Catholics. After all, there are all those bishops and cardinals who, when they see how most Americans eat meat on Lenten Fridays and use contraception, issue decrees exhorting their followers to kill those offenders who dare slight the Catechism.
Summing up near the end of the lengthy story, The Post took note of a fact it considered remarkable. This is an exact quote: "Roberts certainly looks the part of a conservative. He had a priest over to his home for Christmas Eve." Aha! Gotcha! Imagine The Post printing this: "So-and-so certainly looks the part of a liberal. He invited a gay man to his house for Christmas Eve." Editors would have gone screaming up the walls at this juxtaposition. But consorting with a priest -- that's suspicious.
Oh, whoops. That's not Catholics. It's someone else... I can't remember who, though.
I rag on Christianity in politics a fair bit, but I think the rules are pretty simple. Anyone should be allowed to hold and practice his beliefs -- as long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else's. Roberts has been working as a lawyer and in the government for quite a while now, and I'm reasonably certain that he knows where and where not to voice his own religious beliefs.
And besides, the fact that the opposition to his nomination is raising hue and cry over his religious beliefs at all seems to me to indicate that they're incredibly ignorant of what a judge or justice is. I was under the impression that justices -- particularly the Supreme Court kind -- made decisions not based on their own personal beliefs or feelings, but on the preponderance of evidence put before them by the parties involved. I'm no lawyer, so someone with more schooling in this is welcome to correct me. But isn't that why we haven't had a ruling on why green is better than purple?
I'm not a huge fan of Republicans. But there's no way to head to the other side when Democrats are behaving like toddlers having a tantrum. The Senate majority wants to do something? "NO!" The president wants to do something? "NO!" Do you want to know what those things they wanted to do were? "NO!"
Here's something by NR's Byron York on this issue.
Politics are really becoming intolerable. I'm really glad football season is starting up again.
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UPDATE: Open Post at Mudville. Also, I've added the "Email Post" tool into the byline, so if you read something here you really enjoyed (or hated), you can email it to your friends and share the moment with them. Won't that be useful?
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