Some conservative bloggers are dismayed by President Bush's rather pedestrian endorsement of Abdul Rahman's right to embrace whatever religion he wishes:
"We expect them to honor the universal principle of freedom," Bush said. "I'm troubled when I hear, deeply troubled when I hear, the fact that a person who converted away from Islam may be held to account. That's not the universal application of the values that I talked about. I look forward to working with the government of that country to make sure that people are protected in their capacity to worship."
Okay, so it's not Churchillian, exactly, and his use of "held to account" is troublesome, or would be if uttered by someone with greater mastery of the language, but what's most important is what Bush and Condaleeza Rice are doing quietly behind the scenes to impose common sense and civilized norms on Afghan Muslims. We may hope that the Afghans really do want to learn how to live in ways appropriate to the 21st century and that they are being tutored by Ms Rice in the fundamentals of civilized life. We'll see what happens.
Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin has the latest details here.
