If you read or see the two-part, Pulitzer-prize winning (and scandalous) play Angels in America, which takes place in the 1980s, during the Reagan Revolution, then you’ll get a good feel for how most liberals hated - really hated - Ronald Reagan.  He was everything bad about America, to them.  But now, more than 20 years later, and Barack Obama, new scion of the liberal elite, is calling him a great president.  What happened?  This Newsweek piece proposes to answer the question: Why are liberals finally loving on Reagan?

[H]e understood that you cannot govern this country if you’re a pessimist. Pessimism has always been a strand of conservatism-pessimism about human nature, pessimism about government. […] He said that when the American people are happy, good things happen: they invest, they save, they have children. So he thought that getting America back to cheerfulness was an intensely practical program.

So, that’s one reason.  And it’s a nice thought.  Of course, one can believe in a fallen human nature and be perennially happy.  In fact, one can only be truly happy if one understands the true character of creation, but only if one also understands that all this can be redeemed.  Reagan was an optimist, and a realist.  He was, after all, a man who called evil what it was.  Christians, too, should be optimists.

Everybody wants to say that Western Civilization is in decline, or that we’re in a clash of civilizations, East and West.  If this is the case, then, French philosopher Guy Sorman asks, “What is the west?”

[T]he West is not a geographic entity. It probably first established itself as a mindset when the Greeks, 25 centuries ago, perceived themselves as Western versus the Oriental Persians.

Then he offers is definition:

I believe that the West is a mindset defined by three fundamental traits that cannot easily be found in the so-called Eastern civilisations: a passion for innovation, a capacity for self-criticism and gender equality.

The non-Westerner, he says, places “tradition above innovation.”  He says the West keeps destroying its traditions.  Of self-criticism, he says, “The Western scholar remains perfectly legitimate when putting to death Western values: there is no Chinese or Muslim Nietzsche claiming that his own God is dead. Is there a Chinese or a Muslim Montaigne ready to write that the “Indian savages” may be wiser than us, as Montaigne did in 16th century France?”  And of gender equality, he says that’s self-explanatory.

Is Sorman right here?  He seems to be defining Western Civilization as liberals would like to define it, and his definition is narrow and a little reedy.  I’m not sure that I’m willing to die for and defend the sake of innovation (what are we innovating toward?) or for the sake of self-criticism (which, as Sorman puts it, seems more like self-loathing).  So, how do we fill out his definition and give it muscle? 

If you think the U.S. media has treated Obama with kid gloves, at least for most of the campaign, then compare that to how the U.S./European media has treated radical Islam.  This is an old story, yes: that the Western media has lionized Islamic fascists as moderates.  But this piece in City Journal is a good place to get the whole story of how bad it’s been.

After each major terrorist act since 9/11, the press has dutifully published stories about Western Muslims fearing an “anti-Muslim backlash”-thus neatly shifting the focus from Islamists’ real acts of violence to non-Muslims’ imaginary ones. (These backlashes, of course, never materialize.)

This is probably happening because those who write and edit the news don’t really understand freedom, what goes into its making, and how to preserve it.

The key question for Westerners is: Do we love our freedoms as much as they hate them? Many free people, alas, have become so accustomed to freedom, and to the comfortable position of not having to stand up for it, that they’re incapable of defending it when it’s imperiled-or even, in many cases, of recognizing that it is imperiled. As for Muslims living in the West, surveys suggest that many of them, though not actively involved in jihad, are prepared to look on passively-and some, approvingly-while their coreligionists drag the Western world into the House of Submission.

So, readers, weight in: what particular freedoms do we need to be defending, and - from the angle of Christian philosophy - how should we defend them?

George Will provides what should be the next twelve questions that are asked of Barack Obama at the next debate, whenever that happens.  They are smart.  Here are my favorites. 

• “Voting against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, you said: Deciding ‘truly difficult cases’ should involve ‘one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.’ Is that not essentially how Chief Justice Roger Taney decided the Dred Scott case? Should other factors-say, the language of the constitutional or statutory provision at issue-matter?”
• “You say John McCain is content to ‘watch [Americans’] home prices decline.’ So, government should prop up housing prices generally? How? Why? Were prices ideal before the bubble popped? How does a senator know ideal prices? Have you explained to young couples straining to buy their first house that declining prices are a misfortune?”
• “Telling young people ‘don’t go into corporate America,’ your wife, Michelle, urged them to become social workers or others in ‘the helping industry,’ not ‘the moneymaking industry.’ Given that the moneymakers pay for 100 percent of American jobs, in both public and private sectors, is it not helpful?”

Read the rest here.

Obama finally broke decisively with his pastor yesterday, after the Reverend Wright has been barnstorming across America with his dog and pony show.  Obama said:

“His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church,” Mr. Obama said, his voice welling with anger. “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs.”

I don’t guess they’ll be hanging out together at dinner on the grounds.  And, to spare you any more Jeremiah Wright posts today, at least from me, you might enjoy this video of some of his recent comments, as rated by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.  And you might appreciate this unhealthy rant by Jimi Izrael, who is confused about why people should be accountable for their rhetoric:

All indications are that The Rev. Wright is unapologetic.  And Thank God for that.  Because The Wright Question is, if you can’t speak freely and plainly in church without consequence, where are you free? What is your freedom worth if you are not entitled to an opinion you can share-in any matter you like-among friends?

I don’t think anyone was suggesting that Wright wasn’t free to say those things, which constitute hate speech, frankly.  He was simply saying stupid and unfortunate things, and things that we didn’t want a potential U.S. president to be nodding in agreement to while sitting in the pews.

Now that the Pennsylvania primary is over, as I’m sure you’ve heard, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has been released from captivity and is doing everything he can to make sure he keeps Obama from being the next president. He’s been on a speaking tour for the last few days, and he’s loving it.

Smiling, cracking corny jokes, mugging it up for the big-time news media - this reverend is never going away. He’s found himself a national platform, and he’s loving it […] He’s living a narcissist’s dream. At long last, his 15 minutes have arrived.

So there he was lecturing an audience at the National Press Club about everything from the black slave experience to the differences in sentencing for possession of crack and powdered cocaine. All but swooning over the wonderfulness of himself, the reverend acts like he is the first person to come up with the idea that blacks too often get the short end of the stick in America, that the malignant influences of slavery and the long dark night of racial discrimination are still being felt today, that in many ways this is a profoundly inequitable society.

The man is a megalomaniac, and he’s making himself look like one.

“For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong” (H.L. Mencken).

Take biofuels, for instance. As a solution to greenhouse emissions and the salvation of the universe, it sounded so good, so noble, so elegant. So Congress jumped on it like a duck on a june-bug and passed a bill last December mandating huge increases of the stuff. It was a political freebie: it made the environmental lobby happy, and conferred eternal job security on the agricultural industry. Farmers would make corn and lawmakers would make hay, and all would be right with the world.

Turns out the bill wasn’t fueled by science so much as popular political winds. The studies touting benefits of growing more corn, soy, and grasses to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and our dependence on fossil fuel neglected to factor land use into the equation. 25% of U.S. corn now goes to make ethanol. Since we still need corn for eating, and for feeding cows to make meat, we need to find the extra land somewhere, and we’re cutting down forests to get it.

When you cut down forests, you’re burning up all that carbon stored in the soil, and releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — more than you’re diminishing by using ethanol in your automobile’s tank.

Tim Searchinger of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson school says “For every mile you drive with biofuel, you’re actually doubling greenhouse gas emissions.” Put that in your car and smoke it.

Trailhead has the most plausible idea to save the Democratic party from self-annihilation: Obama drops out!  If he does, says Trailhead, he’ll be guaranteed to win the White House…in 2012.  Here’s the scenario:

Obama drops out next week, stating that although he could almost certainly win the nomination by fighting it out until the convention in August, he is simply not willing to drag the party through a battle that will cripple its chances against John McCain. He then pledges to help support Sen. Clinton in her bid-with full knowledge that she will not take him up on the offer.

In one stroke, Obama will regain his messiah creds by making the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the party. His followers will be furious. The mere mention of Clinton’s name will provoke unspeakable acts. They will abandon Clinton in numbers sufficient to hand McCain the election in November […] The base will turn its wrath on party leaders like Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi, who failed to push Clinton out. Obama, as the de facto head of the party, will broker negotiations to install new leaders loyal to him.

This won’t happen, of course, but it’d make the best novel.

The Root asks, “How will black voters react if Obama retains the lead in delegates, popular votes, states won and money raised, but the superdelegates give Clinton the nomination?”  The Root answers: They will not like it.  They will not like it one bit.  At times, the article has an uncomfortable subtext that, perhaps, blacks will rise up somehow against this tyranny.  Perhaps like rioters after the Rodney King decision or the Martin Luther King assassination.

Many will argue that if a candidate with as much multi-racial appeal as Obama cannot be treated fairly, then there is truly no hope of any black in the U.S. (with perhaps the exception of a black Republican) to win the nation’s top office in the foreseeable future. 

The issue, however, doesn’t seem to be about blackness.  Its seems to be about winning-against-McCain-ness. 

Here’s an interest reminiscence from writer Paul Auster, who took part in the Columbia University protests of 1968.  His story starts with his attendance of a protest rally forty years ago today.

The issue had nothing to do with the war, but rather a gymnasium the university was about to build in Morningside Park. The park was public property, and because Columbia intended to create a separate entrance for the local residents (mostly black), the building plan was deemed to be both unjust and racist. I was in accord with this assessment, but I didn’t attend the rally because of the gym.

I went because I was crazy, crazy with the poison of Vietnam in my lungs, and the many hundreds of students who gathered around the sundial in the center of campus that afternoon were not there to protest the construction of the gym so much as to vent their craziness, to lash out at something, anything, and since we were all students at Columbia, why not throw bricks at Columbia, since it was engaged in lucrative research projects for military contractors and thus was contributing to the war effort in Vietnam?

The protest happened, the protesters ended up tearing down the gymnasium construction fence, and then they stormed campus buildings.  Auster was dragged a week later by police into a van and arrested.

What did we accomplish? Not much of anything. It’s true that the gymnasium project was scrapped, but the real issue was Vietnam, and the war dragged on for seven more horrible years. You can’t change government policy by attacking a private institution.

Quite an admission.