Democrat John Edwards announces his withdrawal from the presidential race in the Hurricane Katrina stricken Ninth Ward of New Orleans, La., Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2008. Edwards' wife Elizabeth and son Jack applaud. So do we.
Maybe Democratic voters who voted for Hillary or Obama better start looking for a lawyer.
RLC
Denyse O'Leary ruined my evening the other night with three predictions she offers at Uncommon Descent. O'Leary looks for the following to happen sometime in the not-to-distant future:
1. Academic institutions will force students to sign statements saying that they renounce the idea that the universe could be intelligently designed. So students from most normal human traditions will be forced to sign a statement saying that their tradition is actually lies, garbage, and drivel. Even though the evidence of the fine tuning of the universe actually supports their traditions' most basic elements. And if they appeal to the judiciary, the judgebots will demand that they sign, if they want an education.
2. Many religion profs, divinity profs, chaplains, alleged Christians in science, etc., will urge the students to sign the statement, because - whether they know it or not - they are totally in the materialist camp. They hope that they can get a salary while they sell out their tradition. It is unclear why these profbots and revbots should not be booted, given that the evidence from science actually supports, rather than undermines, traditional beliefs about the basic nature of the universe. But lots of people get a salary to pretend otherwise, and they will go on doing so.
3. Social workers will come out from under the floorboards from every direction to urge the young people to be "nice" and sign.
I don't know what she bases these depressing prognostications upon other than the historically demonstrable tendency of left-wing materialists to impose a tyrannical and mindless conformity on as many people as possible whenever it is within their power to do so. I hope she's wrong, yet her predictions have about them a certain troubling plausibility. God help us.
RLC
Fred Barnes has written a fine piece in The Weekly Standard that takes us behind the scenes of the decision to implement the surge in Iraq. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the war and the history behind the major change in strategy responsible for the current status of that conflict.
President Bush comes out of this narrative looking for all the world like one of the most wise and courageous men ever to hold the office of the Presidency. Almost everyone in the military, the state department, the media and the congress opposed him yet he and a few of his advisors believed we had to win and that the surge was the best, maybe the only, way to accomplish that.
We haven't won yet. There still remain serious systemic problems in Iraq, but Bush's resolute implementation of the strategy called "The Surge" has convinced all but the most dour doubters that a historic victory is at least within our grasp.
Read Barnes' account. It's worth the time.
RLC
C. MacLeod Fuller comes to the rescue of those ensnared by the lotus eaters (See The Odyssey) on the Isle of Liberalism and offers those mired in the Slough of liberal Despond (See Pilgrim's Progress) a 13 step program of escape.
If you feel helpless to break your own self-destructive addiction to liberal ideas then Fuller's essay is just what you need. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
RLC