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who’s irresponsible?

who’s irresponsible?

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In a time of war, it’s irresponsible for the Democrat leadership in — Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds.

– George Bush, speaking to the press this morning in the Rose Garden

Is it irresponsible to exercise congressional oversight over a war that the majority of the American people believe is being mishandled?

Is it irresponsible to refuse to allow the administration to do whatever it wants, however it wants, without input from the people’s representatives?

Is it irresponsible to ask for dialogue about a war that is costing this nation dearly — in money, in lives, and in reputation?

Or is the truly irresponsible thing to undermine the moral credibility of this nation, to expend billions of dollars and thousands of lives, to provoke an enormity of sufffering and death among the civilian population of a foreign nation, all for the sake of a war of choice, a war without need, a war without cause?

american dynasties?

american dynasties?

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Is anyone else troubled by the fact that if Hillary Clinton is elected president in November, 2008, we will begin a third decade with a head of state drawn from just two families? Since January, 1989 — already twenty years — either a Bush or a Clinton has occupied the Oval Office.

on the subject of the war in iraq

on the subject of the war in iraq

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I reprint for you here an excerpt of the remarks Jim Wallis will make at a Christian peace rally to be held this evening in Washingon, D.C. His words are powerful and passionate and perceptive and faithful to the gospel of Jesus. As Christians, we must discern and root out the fear in our own hearts and minds, let it be rooted out as the love of God fills us more and more. As Christians, we take no sides, nor enlist God to defend “our side,” but do our best to put ourselves on God’s side …

For all of us here tonight, the war in Iraq has become a matter of faith.

By our deepest convictions about Christian standards and teaching, the war in Iraq was not just a well-intended mistake or only mismanaged. THIS WAR, FROM A CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW, IS MORALLY WRONG – AND WAS FROM THE VERY START. It cannot be justified with either the teachings of Jesus Christ OR the criteria of St. Augustine’s just war. It simply doesn’t pass either test and did not from its beginning. This war is not just an offense against the young Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice or to the Iraqis who have paid such a horrible price. This war is not only an offense to the poor at home and around the world who have paid the price of misdirected resources and priorities. This war is also an offense against God.

And so we are here tonight, very simply and resolutely, to begin to end the war in Iraq. But not by anger, though we are angry, and not just by politics, though it will take political courage. But by faith, because we are people of faith.

This service and procession are not just another political protest but an act of faith, an act of prayer, an act of nonviolent witness. Politics led us into this war, and politics is unlikely to save us by itself. The American people have voted against the war in Iraq but political proposals keep failing, one after the other.

I believe it will take faith to end this war. It will take prayer to end it. It will take a mobilization of the faith community to end it – to change the political climate, to change the wind. It will take a revolution of love to end it. Because this endless war in Iraq is based ultimately on fear, and Jesus says that only perfect love will cast out fear.

So tonight we say, as people of faith, as followers of Jesus, that the deep fear that has paralyzed the conscience of this nation, that has caused us to become the kind of people that we are not called to be, that has allowed us to tolerate violations of our most basic values, and that has perpetuated an endless cycle of violence and counter-violence must be exorcised as the demon it is – THIS FEAR MUST BE CAST OUT!

And to cast out that fear, we must act in faith, in prayer, in love, and in hope – so we might help to heal the fears that keep this war going. Tonight we march not in belligerence, or to attack individuals – even those leaders directly responsible for the war – or to use human suffering for partisan political purposes. Rather, we process to the White House tonight as an act of faith, believing that only faith can save us now.

keeping things in perspective

keeping things in perspective

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The blood is in the water. Democrats (joined now by Republican John Sununu) want Alberto Gonzales dismissed from his job as attorney general for his abrupt firing of eight US attorneys.

There may well be justification in condemning the political nature of the firings, but it is hard for me to get too worked up about this issue. An attorney general motivated by politics? And that is a revelation? It may be sad, but true, that the US attorneys do work at the whim of the executive branch and decisions about hiring and firing will be politically motivated.

It is hard for me to get excited about this crusade against Gonzales, because it is transparently a matter of political “gotcha” and of gaining, or at least appearing to gain, the moral “highground.”

Consider the cost of Gonzales’ actions. Eight undoubtedly capable and well-intentioned public servants out of a job … but I would guess not long out of a job. And yet another blow to the sagging edifice of democracy by yet another exercise of executive unilateralism.

Compare the costs of this unilateral action with the costs of another virtually unilateral action: the invasion of Iraq. You cannot compare the two! You cannot compare the fallout of a squabble over politics with the fallout of a war!

Heads must roll over the firing of eight attorneys, but who shall bear the responsibility for an unwarranted, unprecedented, illegal invasion of a sovereign nation without provocation? Who shall bear responsibility for the thousands of American lives and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives this war has cost?

That is something to get worked up about!

a politics “of the people”

a politics “of the people”

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They are out there … those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way — in their own lives, at least — to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves. I imagine the white Southerner who growing up heard his dad talk about niggers this and niggers that but who has struck up a friendship with the black guys at the office and is trying to teach his own son different, who thinks discrimination is wrong but doesn’t see why the son of a black doctor should get admitted to law school ahead of his own son. Or the former Black Panther who decided to go into real estate, bought a few buildings in the neighborhood, and is just as tired of the drug dealers in front of those buildings as he is of the bankers who won’t give him a loan to expand his business. There’s the middle-aged feminist who still mourns her abortion, and the Christian woman who paid for her teenager’s abortion, and the millions of waitresses and temp secretaries and nurse’s assistants and Wal-Mart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope they’ll have enough money to support the children that they did bring into the world.

I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don’t always understand the arguments between left and right, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting.

They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.

I have purposefully omitted the attribution of this quotation, because I want you, the blog reader, to consider its assertions as free as possible of the political gamesmanship and polarizing caricaturing it seeks to surmount, and because it is not my intention, as the blog author, to endorse any particular political candidate or party, but to endorse the kind of thinking about politics it proposes — thinking with a healthy dose of humility, a readiness for cooperation, and genuine hopefulness.

obama: the role of faith in political conversation

obama: the role of faith in political conversation

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Tolerance and passionate faith are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe the opposite is true. Passionate believers, genuine believers, are more tolerant people, because they understand how tolerant God has been with them!

It is refreshing to hear Sen. Barack Obama, a Christian and a member of the United Church of Christ, speak about his faith and its role in framing his political agenda … and his response to folks who may not share his political agenda. He is not apologetic about his faith. Neither is he dismissive of other people’s faith.

He is right. We need a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this nation, about the role of faith in shaping our values … not slogans and sound bites and accusations, but a conversation, a conversation that includes both honest sharing and respectful listening.

Read this excerpt from his keynote address at Pentecost 2006, sponsored by Call to Renewal, a movement affiliated with the Sojourners Community in Washington D.C. Or read the entire address: Keynote Address: Sen. Barack Obama.

A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following:

“Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you.”

The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be “totalizing.” His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of President Bush’s foreign policy.

But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my Web site, which suggested that I would fight “right wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” He went on to write:

“I sense that you have a strong sense of justice … and I also sense that you are a fair-minded person with a high regard for reason … Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded. … You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others … I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”

I checked my Web site and found the offending words. My staff had written them to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.

Re-reading the doctor’s letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in reasonable terms – those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.

I wrote back to the doctor and thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own – a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.