You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Presidents Clinton and Carter didn’t invite the Southern Baptists to their new movement of left-leaning Baptists (read about it here). I thought about blogging on this weird presidential alliance, but I can do no better than Russell Moore has done in his excellent piece: “Bill Clinton and Baptist Unity.” Moore is right on the money with this one. Go read it.
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Bush in My Backyard
No, President Bush isn’t really in my backyard, but it looks like his Presidential Library will be. According to the New York Times, Dallas’ Southern Methodist University will likely be the site for the president’s future library and museum. Unfortunately, some of SMU’s faculty are resisting the prospect of a Bush library on their campus. Two anti-war professors from SMU’s Perkins School of Theology have co-written an opinion editorial in the campus newspaper opposing the library. After weighing the benefits of having the library on their campus, they ask this question:
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Israel Plans Nuclear Attack against Iran
The Times of London reports that, Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources. The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb. . .
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Touchstone Magazine on Human Life
Touchstone magazine is a staple for the serious Christian reader, and if you are not a regular reader of Touchstone magazine, you should start your subscription today (click here to order). The January 2007 issue is about human life, and it is outstanding. Here is an excerpt from Patrick Henry Reardon’s excellent editorial: “Because ours is a journal ecumenical in structure, we are rarely apodictic in our views of public matters. In general, we have endeavored to be more Socratic than prophetic. Most of the subjects encompassed by our interest, after all, are open to more than one legitimate approach. . .
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President Gerald Ford, the War Hero
Roberty Drury’s and Tom Clavin’s column in today’s New York Times tells of Gerald Ford’s heroism in World War II. It concludes, “Like his fellow World War II veterans, Mr. Ford returned home and resumed his life, rarely speaking publicly of his heroism. But in contrast to the public’s image of him as a clumsy nonentity, Mr. Ford was a man whose grace under pressure saved his ship and hundreds of men on it.” Go read the story: “How Lieutenant Ford Saved His Ship.”
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President Ford Disagreed with Iraq War
I guess Bob Woodward always gets the scoop. He certainly does in today’s Washington Post. The headline of Woodward’s story reads “Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq.” Woodward conducted the interview with President Ford in 2004 but only had permission to publish it after Ford’s death. It’s fascinating to see how different Ford is from Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, both of whom served in the Ford administration. It’s an interesting piece and worth the read.
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President Gerald Ford, R.I.P.
Former President Gerald Ford has died. President George W. Bush has released a statement saying that “President Ford was a great American who gave many years of dedicated service to our country. On August 9, 1974, after a long career in the House of Representatives and service as Vice President, he assumed the Presidency in an hour of national turmoil and division.
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Barack Obama: An Empty Suit?
A friend of mine recently said to me that he thought Senator Barack Obama was an empty suit. Peggy Noonan agrees with this assessment in her column “‘The Man From Nowhere’: What does Barack Obama believe in?” Noonan’s critique of Obama as a politician is withering:
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Harvesting Body Parts from Aborted Babies
Here is the brave new world in which we are living. The Associated Press reports that Doctors in Oregon took brain cells from an aborted baby and implanted them in a 6-year old boy. Last month in Portland, Ore., doctors for the first time transplanted stem cells from aborted fetuses into his head in a desperate bid to reverse, or at least slow, a rare genetic disorder called Batten disease. The so-far incurable condition normally results in blindness and paralysis before death.
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Shelby Steele on Victory in Iraq
I recently wrote a paper arguing that comparisons between the current so-called “American empire” and the Roman empire of old are tendentious at best. Yes, the United States is the lone superpower in the world and has complete military dominance among the nations of the world. But the United States does not colonize as a matter of government policy. As a matter of course, the U.S. does not conquer nations, occupy them indefinitely, and give them a government under the direct control of the U.S. government. After the U.S. wins a war, they leave. As Colin Powell said in 2003,