Loose Canon: June 2004

Should Presbies Be More Like Baptists?

June 30, 2004 | 2:58 p.m.

Okay, now Loose Canon is going to risk making you angry. I'd like to say a few kind words about something that is out of character with our religious life in this day and age--Presbyterians evangelizing members of the Jewish faith.

Yes, you read that right.

The Presbyterian Church USA has engaged in that highly controversial venture, pumping money into

establishing congregations like Avodat Yisrael

, "a fledgling Presbyterian congregation that looks and feels like a Jewish synagogue," and which "has come under fire from Jewish groups as a deceptive attempt to convert Jews to Christianity," according to Religion News Service.

The report continues:

"Some Jewish leaders have said, 'We expect this from the Southern Baptists or the Assemblies of God, but we don't expect this from mainline churches, certainly not the

Presbyterian Church

," said the Rev. Jay Rock, the denomination's director of interfaith relations.

But if you think something is true, don't you want to share it? What if scientists didn't want to spread knowledge of the truths their work unfolds?

What if scientists thought like Christians: Oh, that DNA stuff is nice, but we don't want to offend the scientific community with knowledge that runs counter to what some believe...

Loose Canon thinks it is perfectly right for Presbyies to try to convert Jews--by the same token, it's also perfectly okay for Jews, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, Methodists, or animists to try to convert people, as long as they don't take up arms or behave in a rude fashion.

That said, Loose Canon admits that it can be annoying to be an evangelization target. She still harbors bitter memories of the twice-born couple who once lived in her building. Loose Canon always felt they were itching to lure her away from the One True Church. Even worse, they were unfailingly cheerful.

Wonder whatever happened to them...

I swear they aren't still tied up in my basement.

Speaking of Prots: Why Don't They Blog More?

June 30, 2004 | 2:58 p.m.

Loose Canon has been getting in touch with the profusion of Catholic blogs out there in cyberspace. There seem to be hundreds of papist blogs.

They range in tone from the highly political

Catholic (?) Kerry Watch

to the whimsically named

Dappled Things

(you gotta love a blog whose name honors a line from a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem), my favorite so far.

Dappled Things, written by a priest of the Arlington. Va. Archdiocese, is witty and wise with thoughts about "Fahrenheit 9/11" or prisoners held without recourse to lawyers.

There's not much in the way of bishop-bashing. But I must admit that I found some wistfulness in a quote on bishops as martyrs. It came from Patrick Rothwell's book, "

Glorious Battles

," about the struggles of high church Anglicans in Victorian England:

I cannot conceive of anything more splendid than that your Grace should be executed on Tower Hill," Lord Halifax told his friend and sometime adversary, the archbishop of York. "Nothing but the martyrdom of an Archbishop can save the Church of England. I crave the honour of it for you and that I should live to be there, so that I might plunge my handkerchief in your blood, and pass it on...as the most precious of heirlooms.

Loose Canon, who could suggest some Episcopal candidates for martyrdom, laughed and laughed.

But I did notice something missing in the blogosphere: There seem to be almost no Prot blogs.

You'd think that the blogosphere would be the perfect vehicle for our Protestant brothers and sisters, fond as they are of tacking up 95 theses, 39 articles, or what have you here there and yonder. But no. What gives, Prots? Where are your blogs?

Raving Mad for "Fahrenheit"

June 30, 2004 | 2:58 p.m.

Liberal reviewers who hated Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" have gone all out to praise Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

A blog called

Beautiful Atrocities

has culled through the press to hilariously document this:

From A.O.Scott, of the New York Times:

F9/11: Mr. Moore's populist instincts have never been sharper...he is a credit to the republic.

Passion: Gibson has exploited the popular appetite for terror and gore for what he and his allies see as a higher end.

From Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune:

F9/11: Received both the first prize and the longest continuous standing ovation in the history of the Cannes Film Festival and it wasn't because of some cliched French antipathy to America.

Passion: Lacks artistic and even spiritual balance.

There are quite a few more of these delicious comparisons on Beautiful Atrocities.

(Thanks to

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal

for noticing this.)

Religion: Let's Get Organized

June 30, 2004 | 2:58 p.m.

Loose Canon, who prefers her religion organized and hierarchical (as opposed to disorganized and do-it-yourself), takes heart from news of a Gallup poll released earlier this month.

A

report on the findings

notes that the "public's confidence in organized religion has inched back up after reaching a historic low in 2002."

Hi, Hitler

June 29, 2004 | 3:08 p.m.

"Comparing Bush to Hitler No Longer Confined to Loonies,"

declares the Townhall.com headline

on a new column by John Leo of US News & World Report. Leo did an earlier column on Bush=Hitler rhetoric, which originated on the far-left, several months ago, but was criticized by readers who thought he had cited "weird and marginal Internet lefties."

Since then it's been springtime for Hitler references. Al Gore referred to Republican "Brownshirts" (Nazi street thugs) in a recent speech, while Bush-bashing billionaire George Soros remarked that the president's speech reminds him of the Third Reich. Senator Robert Byrd has allowed as how the president reminds him of Nazi Hermann Goering. More guardedly, "He is not another Hitler. Yet there is a certain parallelism," the Rev. Andrew Greeley said of the president.

It's interesting that a

report on the Hitler rhetoric

leads off talking not about the Hitler rhetoric widely used by Democrats but with a Bush campaign video that features a Hitler clip. The clip came from an anti-Bush spot that appeared on MoveOn.org and was being used by the Bush campaign to characterize what the ad calls a "coalition of the wild-eyed" that opposes Bush.

MoveOn argues that their Hitler pics, part of a "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest, was up only ten days--the organization removed it after learning that it was "offensive" to some viewers.

The Hitler references are incredibly nasty, but, sadly, indicative of what the Democratic party has become.

We used to hear a lot about the "ugly right" but now it's the ugly left that's consumed with hatred.

Three Cheers for Celibacy

June 29, 2004 | 3:08 p.m.

Filmmaker Anthony Thomas, whose HBO flick about priestly celibacy was slammed by U.S. bishops, linked celibacy to the sexual abuse scandals.

Thomas said in an

interview posted on Beliefnet

that "like a lot of people, I was seeing the reports of priest abuse...But no one was asking the 'why' questions. It seemed to me there was a connection between celibacy and the reports we were seeing, and yet no one was asking 'Why celibacy?' 'Why practice it?' 'Who benefits from it?'"

Everybody

was asking the why question, and many people, like Thomas, linked the scandals to celibacy. From Thomas' quote, it seems almost certain that he started not from why but from the proposition that the abuse scandals were related to celibacy.

I hope I won't lose my right-wing Catholic credentials when I say that, while celibacy is a requirement for those who belong to monastic orders, I don't regard it as essential for the priesthood.

But were the Church ever to change the celibacy requirement, I hope it won't be any time soon. Celibacy is a sign of holiness that is in stark contradiction to the values of our world right now. We need celibacy now more than ever before, and that's why it is such a rebuke to those who drink deeply of the zeitgeist.

The Supremes: Not a Defeat for Bush

June 29, 2004 | 3:08 p.m.

Although the media has been quick to portray yesterday's Supreme Court decision as a slap in the face for the Bush administration, the administration actually won on a key point.

The ruling ensures every detainee the right to a day in court, but it also upholds the authority of the commander-in-chief to detain enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens, as asserted by Bush.

"The Court's three rulings will surely complicate U.S. detention policy, at least at the margins,"

argues an editorial

in the Wall Street Journal. "But at the same time they uphold the longstanding and proper deference that the Supreme Court has shown throughout its history to the executive branch on national security, especially in wartime. That includes decisions on how to define and handle a dangerous enemy. For a change, this particular Court actually restrained itself."

Botox for the Brain

June 29, 2004 | 3:08 p.m.

With the polls shifting just a smidgen in favor of Loose Canon's preferred candidate, Andrew Sullivan's

hilarious "Kerry Bores Up" piece

on how the most boring man in the world can become president by staying out of sight is a bit less scary.

Sullivan notes that Kerry was "essentially absent" when he triumphed in the Iowa primary that changed everything for him--and then, in a trice, Kerry had won it all and was the presumptive nominee.

He had bored up:

"The minute Kerry starts to speak, you can hear the life drain out of a room," writes Sullivan. "When he appears on television, the right hand gravitates almost instinctively toward the remote. The word 'pomposity' doesn't quite capture the condescension of the man. Think Clinton's ambition matched with Gore's endlessly self-calibrating mind. Now remove all charm whatsoever. There's a reason he went un-noticed in the primary campaign. No sane human being would ever want to notice him. He's a human anti-histamine. He's Botox for the brain."

We Were Expecting Much Worse...

June 28, 2004 | 3:00 p.m.

As a hawk, who has not for a moment doubted the rectitude of America's actions in Iraq, I am hopeful that the transfer of powers last night as we slept will eventually bring a new day to that beleaguered nation.

Dexter Filkins, one of the New York Times reporters on the ground in Iraq, had a

terrific piece on the future

of the country in yesterday's "Week in Review" section.

Filkins found signs of hope and dread. The article ended with the words of optimism from Adel Abdul Mahdi, a man who had survived torture under the regime of Saddam Hussein regime and who is now Iraq's new finance minister:

"We were expecting much worse than this," said Mr. Mahdi, who does not discount the possibility that Iraq could slide into civil war. "Much worse."

"We never imagined this would be easy," he said. "We were telling the Americans, you will have a mess. It is mostly the psychological situation. The suffering."

We have not seen the end of violence in Iraq, but let us hope that those who want an end to it will prevail.

Oh, So Now the Bishops Hate the Bible

June 28, 2004 | 3:00 p.m.

The odious Garry Wills, a prolific author who mostly gets it wrong, is one of those liberal Catholics who delight in showing how the Church has veered from her "real" teachings.

His latest attack along this well-trod path was "

The Bishops vs. the Bible

," which appeared in the New York Times Sunday. In the piece, Wills claims that abortion "is not a Church issue" and that the matter can't be settled by theology or religious authority.

Wills claims that "right to life" issues aren't in Scripture, and further tries to bolster his point by noting some of ideas of St. Augustine that now seem silly and out of date (but were never part of the church's teaching magisterium).

The simple fact is that we don't know when the soul enters the picture. There is no Geiger counter to tell us this, but the Church has always had a prohibition against abortion.

Loose Canon, not being a Biblical scholar, can't tell you what, if anything, the Bible says about abortion. But I can tell you this is both a moral and theological question that grows out of Biblical teachings about the value of every human life.

Another Catholic Cop-Out

Garry Wills wasn't the only liberal Catholic taking to the op-ed pages over the weekend to argue against the bishops' annoying Catholics by exercising their teaching authority.

In "

The Bishops and Me

," Joseph Califano Jr., who was secretary of health, education, and welfare from 1977 to 1977, wrote in the Washington Post that he was "not about to retire to some Walden Pond or Vatican Hill" when confronted with Congress's law to permit Medicaid funding of abortions in case of rape or incest.

There was also an account of his negotiating with a representative of the U.S. bishops over LBJ's "aggressive posture" over birth control as part of his anti-poverty program.

In this negotiation, Califano persuaded the hierarchy not to oppose Johnson if the administration would use the term "population problem" rather than "birth control."

As queasy as LC is over denial of communion, she is horrified by this semantic cop-out.

Get Your "Don't Believe the Liberal Media" T-Shirt!

June 28, 2004 | 3:00 p.m.

You had only to glance at the arts coverage in the New York times yesterday to be amazed once again by the astounding degree to which the elite artistic culture hates George Bush.

A caption of a photograph accompanying a piece ("

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Punch Line

") on the revival of an Aristophanes play describes "Nathan Lane as Dionysos in his all-singing, all-dancing, Bush-bashing, bungee-jumping revision of the ancient Greek comedy 'The Frogs.'"

On the same page, inveterate Bush-hating cultural columnist

Frank Rich writes approvingly

of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and of "The Day After Tomorrow," the global warming flick with a Cheney look-alike as vice president.

For those who're sick and tired of this, there's some great news. Washington Post's media reporter

Howard Kurtz writes

that media watchdog Brent Bozell of the conservative Media Research Center "has raised $2.8 million for newspaper ads in 15 markets, billboards in 40 cities and a talk-radio blitz aimed at countering what he sees as a 'liberal jihad' that is unfair to President Bush. The slogan (also on T-shirts and mugs) is not exactly subtle. A finger-pointing Uncle Sam declares: "Don't believe the liberal media!"

Michael Moore: Bad for Democrats

June 28, 2004 | 3:00 p.m.

As New York Times columnist

David Brooks pointed out

Saturday, there's a reason why Europeans have embraced Michael Moore--Mr. Moore doesn't think much of his fellow Americans:

"That's why we're smiling all the time," he told a rapturous throng in Munich. "You can see us coming down the street. You know, 'Hey! Hi! How's it going?' We've got that big [expletive] grin on our face all the time because our brains aren't loaded down....

"They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet...in thrall to conniving, thieving smug [pieces of the human anatomy]," Moore intoned. "We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing."

Loose Canon predicts that Michael Moore will turn out to be the best thing to happen to Republicans since Abbie Hoffman went to the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" Is "The Passion of the Christ" for Liberals

June 25, 2004 | 2:45 p.m.

An interesting comparison of the movie liberals are flocking to see as if it were the Second Coming with one they avoided like a biblical plague: "Not since 'The Passion of the Christ,'"

writes Washington Post reviewer

Ann Hornaday, "has a movie from outside the Hollywood mainstream made a review so superfluous."

"By orchestrating a hype campaign every bit as finely tuned as Mel Gibson's," Ms. Hornaday goes on, "filmmaker Michael Moore has made 'Fahrenheit 9/11' required viewing, not just for the thousands of like-minded activists who have vowed to make the documentary a box office hit this weekend, but for anyone who wants to be culturally literate."

Forget that Gibson wasn't entirely responsible for the "hype campaign" that surrounded "The Passion of the Christ"--quite possibly, he wasn't the author of vicious rumors that he and his movie were anti-Semitic--the comparison of the two movies seems to have popped up in several articles.

It's an apt comparison. "Fahrenheit" is, like "The Passion," a rallying point for a certain segment of the population. In fact, I'd argue that "Fahrenheit 9/11" is "The Passion of the Christ" for liberals. But actually swallowing what "Fahrenheit" is peddling actually requires more faith than believing Mel's movie.

"To describe ['Farenheit 9/11'] as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability,"

Christopher Hitchens

wrote in a justly-celebrated evisceration of the movie in Slate.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" struck

USA Today political columnist Walter Shapiro

(who also compared the hoopla to surrounding it to "The Passion") as "a profoundly disturbing movie that struck me as far closer to heavy-handed propaganda than art. Does anybody seriously believe, as Moore suggests, that the United States invaded Afghanistan primarily to pave the way for a natural gas pipeline?"

The answer to that question is yes. "Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe says he believes radical filmmaker Michael Moore's assertion that the United States went to war in Afghanistan not to avenge the terrorist attacks of September 11 but instead to assure that the Unocal Corporation could build a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan for the financial benefit of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Enron chief Kenneth Lay,"

writes National Review columnist Byron York

, reporting on Wednesday night's screening in Washington. D.C.

I agree with York that the movie could prove an albatross for Democrats: "Since 'Fahrenheit 9/11' is so heavily identified with Democratic causes," he writes, "it seems likely that a number of Democratic leaders, possibly including presidential candidate John Kerry, will be asked whether they endorse the conclusions of the movie. That could present a dilemma. To do so would mean associating with some of the least credible theories of the radical Left, while declining to do so would tend to undermine Moore's status as an anti-Bush hero."

By the way, I think that the movie with the more improbable of the two plots, the one about Christ, turns out to be the true story.

The Memos: "Torture" Charges Rebutted

June 25, 2004 | 2:45 p.m.

A Beliefnet member chastised me yesterday for not addressing something "relevant" such as the memos on the treatment of detainees released by the Bush administration. Truth to tell, it took LC until last night to read and digest the two reports (

here

and

here

) in yesterday's Washington Post.

First of all, I came away pleased that the government had conducted a sober and necessary discussion, one that post-9/11, it would have been madness not to have (and one that, by the way, remains ongoing, I hope).

I wholeheartedly concur with an

editorial about the memos

in today's Wall Street Journal:

The good, if under-reported, news is that the pile of documents released by the Bush Administration this week effectively rebuts the charges of 'torture' that have been flying around. While White House and Justice Department lawyers did explore the legal limits of permissible interrogation techniques--something it would have been irresponsible not to do after 9/11--it turns out that none of the practices actually authorized even comes close to the abuses depicted in the photos from Abu Ghraib prison.

But was there a Slippery Slope? Did the authorization of harsher techniques for detainees in Guantanamo lead to the disaster of Abu Ghraib?

"It was always unlikely of course," continues the Wall Street Journal, "that the likes of alleged abuse ringleader Charles Graner and Private Lynndie England were even aware of the Guantanamo detainees' legal status. And the idea that a classified legal debate to which only a handful were privy could have 'set the tone' or 'created the climate' for anything at all defies logic. True, Major-General Geoffrey Miller visited Iraq from Guantanamo last summer to advise on interrogations. But if he's the missing link in the alleged 'culture of permissiveness,' why didn't abuses happen in his own jail too?"

What Do the "Insurgents" Know that Liberal Pundits Don't Know?

June 25, 2004 | 2:45 p.m.

The reason that the fighting in Iraq is so fierce right now is that those who oppose us know that, if the American experiment succeeds, the ideology of terrorism suffers a defeat in the Middle East.

You'd never know it from most of what you read in the press, but we might pull it off yet. "In liberal circles in Europe and North America," writes Amir Taheri, an expert on the Middle East, in the

Weekly Standard

, "the idea that George W. Bush could inspire any democratic revolution may provoke derision, but in the Middle East, U.S. action in Afghanistan and Iraq is seen as marking the end of an era--the era in which the region's politics was dominated by pan-Arabism and Islamism."

Because of the end of the Taliban as a regime in Afghanistan and the defeat of the Baathists in Iraq, Iraqi scholar Faleh Abdul-Jabbar says: "The genie will not return to the bottle. There is a growing feeling in the region that the days of despotic regimes are numbered."

Forgive Them, Apologize, Whatever

June 25, 2004 | 2:45 p.m.

Former President Bill Clinton loved to apologize for things he hadn't done--like owning slaves. Whew! That's easy, just say you are sorry.

But now a "never-before-published" letter written by Bill Clinton in 1998 on the subject of forgiveness is being made available to a wider audience.

The letter was to Johann Christophe Arnold, elder of the

Bruderhof

--"a Christian communal movement with communities in the Northeastern United States, England, Germany and Australia" according to their

press release

yesterday.

In the letter, the embattled president thanks Arnold (and his missus) for their counsel and praises his book, "Seventy Times Seventy," which deals with the subject of forgiveness.

"I am also learning," the former president wrote, "that I have wasted much time and energy in anger at and judgment of those who have leveled so many false charges at Hillary and me over the years. If I am to be forgiven, I must forgive. If I am to have mercy in judgment, I must show mercy in return."

But is the former president trying to forgive those who have leveled true charges?

The Swinging Bible: "Thou Shalt Not Be Frustrated"

June 25, 2004 | 2:45 p.m.

Lest anybody think that today's swinging Christians are sticklers for scripture, tradition, or any guilt-inducing hang-ups, here's a link from aptly-named conservative Anglican David Virtue's excellent web site to a

story about a sexy new translation of the Bible

as reported in the London Times:

"The Archbishop of Canterbury has given his personal backing to a new translation of the New Testament in which Christians are told to go out and have more sex.

"St. Paul's condemnations of homosexual sodomy are deleted. Instead of censuring fornicators, adulterers and 'abusers of themselves with mankind,' the new version of his first letter to Corinthians has St. Paul advising Christians not to go without sex for too long in case they get frustrated."

I Hate It When He Does That

June 24, 2004 | 3:30 p.m.

Loose Canon can't put down today's New York Times with the front-page

photo of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon

in his royal regalia. Seems that the pudgy founder of the Unification Church "donned a crown and declared himself the Messiah" the other day in an office building on Capitol Hill, as several startled members of Congress looked on in horror.

I hate it when he does that. I spent several of the happiest years of my life as an employee, more or less, of the Rev's. I refer to those halcyon days in the late eighties and early nineties when I was a feature writer and then gossip columnist for The Washington Times.

I wrote my memoirs, subtitled "I Was a Moonie Gossip Columnist," for the New Republic after I left the Times, a piece that made enemies that I daresay still fail to appreciate me today. The piece dwelt on amusing idiosyncrasies of the place--I should probably be lashed for referring to some of the members of the Church as "goofy"--but alleged no sinister "Moonie influence" in the newsroom. (If it was in the newsroom, I completely missed it.)

But I know how my former colleagues must be feeling today. "The Rev, as we called him," I wrote in the New Republic, in 1992, "was always doing embarrassing things like going to prison for tax evasion, embracing a Zimbabwean who claimed to be the reincarnation of his deceased son, or, the very worse, proclaiming himself the Messiah."

I guess when it comes to proclaiming oneself the Messiah, some folks just can't stop. But these doings do detract from a paper that, with a fraction of the resources of the Washington Post or the New York Times, provides a respectable alternative with a conservative commentary section, without which LC would fine life immeasurably duller.

A recent piece in the Washington Post by David Ignatius does indicate that, with the end of the Cold War,

there is a power struggle at the newspaper

between representatives of the Church and the journalists. Moonies are reported to be eager to cozy up to organizations such as the United Nations and to want the paper to change its "hard-line" directions. It would be a shame.

On the other hand, LC has always wondered if the Rev would be more popular with the establishment if he were a liberal Messiah.

Show Us the Pictures

June 23, 2004 | 4:15 p.m.

Ordinarily I'd probably be against showing the gruesome pictures of beheadings. The TV footage of Kim Sun Ill--the South Korean contractor who yesterday became the latest foreigner to be beheaded in Iraq--pleading for his life was horrifying. But we do need to be reminded of what the enemy is like.

I agree with

Andrew Sullivan

, whose blog has been, for the most part, a real light shining in darkness on Iraqi war-related matters, and who says he is "in favor of showing as widely as possible the horrors of the enemy. We have to look these monsters squarely in the face and see them for what they are if we are to sustain the morale to fight them."

The Washington Post's

front-page picture

of Kim's devastated parents as they "react to news of their son's fate" doesn't begin to capture the horror of what the monsters did.

It seems unfair that the image now associated with American soldiers--who for the most part are heroes--is the hooded figure of Abu Ghraib, while the more blood-curdling aspects of the handiwork of the real fiends is withheld from the public. As

Lucianne

sagely points out today, "panties on head mean you still have one."

An Honorable Debate

June 23, 2004 | 4:15 p.m.

It seems clear from two reports today in the Washington Post (

here

and

here

) on the Bush administration's recently released memos that an honorable debate took place in the administration on how to treat captured enemies.

Here's the most relevant nugget:

A Feb. 7, 2002, memo signed by Bush saying that he believed he had "the authority under the Constitution" to deny protections of the Geneva Conventions to combatants picked up during the war in Afghanistan but that he would "decline to exercise that authority at this time."

"Our nation recognizes that this new paradigm--ushered in not by us, but by terrorists--requires new thinking in the law of war," Bush wrote."

In 2002, when interrogators wanted more information from captured Al Qaeda members, other techniques such as "stripping prisoners to humiliate them, using dogs to scare them and employing stress positions to wear them down" were debated. Also under consideration were sound and light assaults, forced shaving of beards, and deprivation of religious items. Apparently, most of the techniques ultimately were rejected.

One of the memos included this important line:

"When assessing exceptional interrogation techniques, consideration should be given to the possible adverse affects on U.S. Armed Forces culture and self-image, which at times in the past may have suffered due to perceived law of war violations."

I'm sure Al Qaeda is having the same debate.

Stay Quiet and You'll Be OK

June 23, 2004 | 4:15 p.m.

From a

must-read piece in Frontpagemag.com

, the online 'zine published by David Horowitz, a former lefty who has seen the bright right light:

"Here's a new slogan for the zeitgeist:

stay quiet and you'll be OK

. This was the message, according to the tapes released last week, that Muhammad Atta gave to the passengers on the ill-fated airplane that he and his fellow terrorists had commandeered."

One of the things we are urged to stay quiet about, according to the piece, is the nature of a certain strain of Islam. "Stay quiet," the article warns, "and the jihad will continue to advance: in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Israel, and Indonesia, and Nigeria, and the Philippines, and Western Europe, and elsewhere-- and if you think we will not feel its impact here, just remember where Atta was when he said those words, and what happened next."

On a Lighter Note: Episcopalians!

June 23, 2004 | 4:15 p.m.

Former Senator John Danforth, an ordained Episcopal priest (last seen doing a bang-up job in the pulpit at Ronald Reagan's state funeral), is now a hot property for Manhattan Episcopalians.

President Bush's appointment of Danforth, who used to celebrate the Eucharist at Washington's St. Albans church, to replace John Negroponte as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has stirred competition among the isles Anglican outlets.

The New York Observer, that delightful peach-colored chronicler of all things chi-chi on the isle of Manhattan,

reports on the situation

:

"I'm sure that a number of us, especially in midtown, would offer him a place," the Rev. Andrew C. Mead, the rector of St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, a Gothic structure whose well-financed parish has a conservative reputation and a famous boys' choir. "I'd be glad to have him hang his hat here and take a regular Eucharist here if he wants to, and we'll probably extend an invitation," he said.

The story is good clean fun, but the headline sent LC into orbit: "Senator Danforth Is Hot Commodity Among Episcopals." For the millionth time: Episcopal is an adjective; and Episcopalian is a noun.

LC realizes that, doctrinally, the Episcopal Church collapsed long ago, but that's no reason for us to confuse nouns and adjectives. May those who do suffer in the afterlife.

P.S. If you're ever in Manhattan of an early evening, the aforementioned St. Thomas still does one of the most beautiful evensongs in Christendom. It's magnificat!

An Issue On Which They Aren't Pro-Choice?

June 23, 2004 | 4:15 p.m.

Loose Canon has heard hair-raising tales of threats received by an ex-gay clergyman who decided to go straight. This is considered an impossible proposition promoted by nutty Christians. Even "Law and Order," to which with all its satellite shows LC is hopelessly addicted, did a show around evil Christians trying to turn a homosexual. The clergyman of whom LC speaks never felt himself safe from temptation, but he made a choice and stuck to it.

Those who choose this difficult path deserve our support. "An activist group is accusing senators of discrimination for passing a 'hate crimes' amendment on sexual orientation but refusing to consider a resolution supporting tolerance for ex-homosexuals,"

WorldNetDaily is reporting

.

9/11 Commission: "Beltway Soap Opera"

June 22, 2004 | 5:20 p.m.

Loose Canon has been mystified by the misguided ire of some 9/11 families who blame President Bush rather than Osama Bin Laden. A long but worthwhile

piece in today's Wall Street Journal

by Debra Burlingame is an antidote to the misplaced anger.

She is the sister of Charles "Chic" Burlingame, pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

"When a group of dedicated New Jersey women whom I'd never met organized a rally in a park near the Capitol," she writes. "I was there under the hot summer sun, carrying a poster that said, 'The men who murdered my brother were listed in the San Diego phone book.'"

Burlingame is disillusioned with the commission, which she thinks has deteriorated into a "Beltway soap opera." She is appalled at having watched the camera-loving commissioners lambaste civil servants who struggled to save lives and did their best that day.

Like LC, Ms. Burlingame, who is "no longer angry at the Bush administration, or at any Americans for that matter," is puzzled by the oddly directed anger of some of other 9/11 survivors. "It was a strange and unsettling experience," she writes, "last week to hear Commission members, witnesses, and even some 9/11 families nonchalantly describing the inability to shoot down four airliners carrying a total of 261 passengers and crew as a regrettable 'failure.'"

A Little Lott Goes a Long Way

June 22, 2004 | 5:20 p.m.

The senior senator from my home state has made me gag again. LC was going to let it pass, but

Swami

quoted Mississippi Senator Trent Lott's unfortunate remarks in a

New York Times Magazine interview

about Abu Ghraib.

Here's the relevant quote:

Most of the people in Mississippi came up to me and said: "Thank Goodness. America comes first." Interrogation is not a Sunday-school class. You don't get information that will save American lives by withholding pancakes.

What can I say? The guy's an idiot. I'd try to tell you he got his head banged too many times playing football at Ole Miss, except that he was a cheerleader.

Yes, Mississippians are glad America comes first, but none of the ones I know are any less upset over abuses of power by Americans than blue state America.

Thanks, Senator Lott, for further convincing Swami and others who rarely leave the Upper East Side that Mississippians are Neanderthals.

Rule Americana!

June 22, 2004 | 5:20 p.m.

Speaking of America the Beautiful, the blurb on a

provocative article by Niall Ferguson

, the Scottish historian and author of the well-received "

Colossus: The Price of America's Empire

," should be sobering to critics of American power:

"Without American hegemony the world would likely return to a new Dark Age of religious fanaticism, economic stagnation and waning civilization," it notes.

"The prospect of an apolar world should frighten us a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of Charlemagne," argues Ferguson.

"If the U.S. is to retreat from the role of global hegemon--its fragile self-belief dented by minor reversals--its critics must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony. The alternative to unpolarity may not be multipolarity at all. It may be a global vacuum of power. Be careful what you wish for."

Do the Democrats Have a Prayer?
June 22, 2004 | 2:45 p.m.

Did you notice how much Bill Clinton talked about praying in good times and bad on the

"60 Minutes" interview

with Dan Rather? Apparently, it was more than, "Lord, get me out of this mess, and I promise I'll never do it again."

"More than any other Democrat," writes New York Times

columnist David Brooks

, "Bill Clinton understands the role religion plays in modern politics. He knows that Americans want to be able to see their leaders' faith. A recent Pew survey showed that for every American who thinks politicians should talk less about religion, there are two who believe politicians should talk more."

While the faith of twice-born President Bush upsets some secularists, Brooks says that presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry "doesn't seem to get" the role of religious faith. "Many of the people running the Democratic Party don't get it either," Brooks added.

A recent Time magazine survey reported that only 7 per cent of Americans believe that Kerry is "a man of strong religious faith."

However, Brooks reports, another poll finds that the number of Americans with no religious affiliation has more than doubled since 1990. There is a secular power block within the Democratic Party.

Still, the religiously non-aligned don't have a prayer of carrying the election. "If you want to know why Kerry is still roughly even with Bush in the polls," writes Brooks, "even though Bush has had the worst year of any president since Nixon in 1973 or L.B.J. in 1968, this is one big reason."

Shame: Priests Who Belong Behind Bars

June 21, 2004 | 2:15 p.m.

The Dallas Morning News yesterday

began a horrifying series

on Catholic priests accused of molesting children who've run from the law and "started new lives in unsuspecting communities, often with the help of Church officials."

The series, which will be running over the next several months, deals with priests on six continents; it claims that, in half the 200 cases reviewed by the newspaper, the priests had actually fled legal authorities.

Today's installment is about

Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez

, head of the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, who, according to the article, sent a priest called Enrique Vásquez to work in two remote parishes after accusations of molestation surfaced.

A chilling tidbit:

"Bishop San Casimiro [his ordinary at the time] acknowledged that in the mid-1990s, he freed Father Vásquez to work abroad after the priest admitted to him that he had abused a 10-year-old altar boy. 'When I found out he had this problem,' the bishop said, 'I confronted him, and he said, 'Yes, monsignor, I have this problem.'"

The Church is right to emphasize that even priests who commit the most heinous acts can be redeemed. But Church authorities should not help them escape justice in this world. These men, if convicted, belong behind bars.

If the Dallas Morning News stories are correct, the Church continues to act as if she won the battle for separate courts for "criminous clerks" back when Thomas à Becket tangled with Henry II over the issue.

His Life: Mr. Sleaze Still Doesn't Get It

June 21, 2004 | 2:15 p.m.

For me, the most revealing thing in last night's "60 Minutes" interview with Bill Clinton was the former president's admission of something we'd known all along--that he had saved his flagging presidential campaign by going on national TV and lying.

That was the famous "60 Minutes" segment when he and the missus looked into the cameras and flatly denied an affair with Gennifer Flowers. Clinton was unapologetic and matter of fact about the deception last night, even having the nerve to admit he was angered by correspondent Steve Kroft's softball questioning.

Bill Clinton will always be the captive of Bill Clinton.

Don't miss book

Michiko Kakutani's devastating review

of his book in the New York Times: "This book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull--the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history."

Fred Barnes, whose piece was written before the "60 Minutes" promo in which the former president failed to shine, is still good on The Legacy:

"A book cannot elevate a president,"

writes Barnes

. "That's true even for a book marketed by Dan Rather for an hour on 60 Minutes, its publication treated like a show-stopping event by the media, its author's tour seen as the equivalent of a high-octane political campaign, and its importance signified by the expectation of an entire summer in which the author will never be far from the spotlight."

Meanwhile, my dear friend

Lucianne

"Don't Send that Dress to the Cleaners, Dear" Goldberg, celebrates the day with an apt quote from Ronald Reagan:

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."

A Sinister Plot to Aid John Kerry?

June 21, 2004 | 2:15 p.m.

Mark Steyn is a hoot

on the impact of Bill Clinton's publicity whirlwind on the Kerry campaign.

Steyn is funny, but I regret to say that he may be wrong on this. I think that Clinton is good for Kerry--he keeps the spotlight off Mr. Unlikable.

Kausfiles shrewdly remarked

when Kerry ceased campaigning for the Reagan obsequies: "Shrewd move. Alert kf reader A.L. emails that Kerry'd be doing better in the polls if he'd also taken a week off when Tony Randall died."

Dunleavy: "Bury Beasts in Pig Fat"

June 21, 2004 | 2:15 p.m.

The New York Post's

Steve Dunleavy is demanding

that American Muslim leaders condemn the beheading of Paul Johnson:

"Every single mosque in this United States must make a simple statement."

Sick Economy, Sick Society

June 21, 2004 | 2:15 p.m.

James K. Glassman

on Euro-envy:

"Food aside, there's irony here. While many Americans, including the putative Democratic presidential candidate, admire European ways, Europeans themselves aren't so cheery."

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