About.com Guest Commentator Jack Kerwick finally wrote a column I disagree with ... kind of.
For those of you who subscribe to this site or have kept up with these blogs, you know I'm a big supporter of John Mccain. I'm well aware, however, that not all conservatives feel that way. In this week's "Friday's Guest" column, Professor Kerwick takes a close look at the conservative credentials of President George W. Bush and John McCain, then asks himself, "What's the difference?"
While I heartily disagree with much of what Dr. Kerwick says about McCain, it is difficult to disagree with many of the things he has to say about President Bush. Of course, I have my own perspective, and you can bet I'll be sure to follow it up next week.
For now, we are left to digest Kerwick's point-of-view.
From the article:
Neither the Republican base nor most of the neo-conservative/Republican punditry class are at all enthused by the prospects of a McCain presidency. The gist of their chagrin is that McCain is not a “true conservative,” but a “liberal.” To substantiate this charge, the commentariat point to the many instances in which the Arizona senator “threw his party under the bus” by aligning himself with the Democratic opposition on issues of major import: campaign finance reform, taxes, immigration, and others.
That McCain’s discontents have a compelling case against him is a proposition that borders on being self-evidently true, as far as I am concerned. The evidence just listed is alone sufficiently damning.
Across the Internet today, bloggers are uniting for human rights. With that in mind, I'd like to focus on the conservative perspective of "compassion."
Despite the troubles Americans are dealing with thanks to the ever-softening economy, private donations to international human rights organizations are higher than ever. In 2004, tsunami reconstruction efforts were bolstered largely by private donations from American citizens. This is the very definition of compassion.
Following the Bush Administration's failure with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it was mostly private donations and hands-on help that proved vital to the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans and other areas affected by the tragedy. Each year, compassionate Americans improve the world through service, education or donations.
The biggest difference between the liberal and conservative approaches to the issue is about what sort of role the federal government should play. In most cases, liberals tend to believe the US government's financial contributions are most critical to stemming the tide of human rights abuses, whether through direct assistance or in the form of programs. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to believe the US government should have a limited role and that responsibility for helping victims should fall to the private sector and those compassionate Americans who are most able to shoulder the burden. In this way, conservatives believe, Americans who are suffering through financial crises such as job losses or home foreclosures are not forced to provide assistance they cannot afford.
The issue of human rights is not usually associated with conservatives, but it is a myth to say the issue is of no concern to them. For the most part, conservatives are well aware that human rights are being denied in every corner of the world (including our own). Nevertheless, it is the liberals who are often the most vocal about it.
Without taking anything away from such liberal vociferations, conservatives typically would rather speak with their money, time and effort. Indeed, their entire approach to easing the suffering caused by human rights violations differs greatly from their liberal friends. Advocacy, protests and public outrage are important to drawing attention to the problem, but compassion is what helps it directly.
It is important to say here that I am speaking generally on this issue. Not every conservative is "compassionate," as history has shown, and not every liberal is outraged. Likewise, not every liberal subscribes to government intervention in areas where there is a proliferation of human rights abuses, nor does every conservative believe the private sector should bear most of the responsibility for helping to solve the problem. These are simply ideological observations that seem to me to be relatively consistent with liberal and conservative trends.
While the liberal and conservative approaches may differ greatly, I see no reason why they cannot complement one another. With the recent cyclone in Myanmar, this week's earthquake in central China, the ongoing suffering in Darfur and the many problems on our homefront, striking a delicate balance between the conservative and liberal ideologies is critical to improving the overall plight of our world.
For more information, visit Bloggers for Hope. To get involved with promoting human rights around the world, interfaith Christian conservatives might find the Institute on Religion & Democracy to be a useful site.
Graphic Used with Permission: Unite.BlogCatalog.com
I was going to add this as an addendum to yesterday's blog post, but after further consideration, I believe this warrants a post of its own.
I am, frankly, shocked at the level of vitriol coming from Obama's supporters these days.
Their outrage at the mere suggestion that Hillary Clinton might win the Democratic nomination has bordered on violent. I have received numerous vulgar e-mails from his supporters, with a kind of rhetoric usually reserved for hate-groups. It's scary, actually. And it makes me wonder: if they are this fired up about a candidate in their own party, what will they be like when Obama faces a challenger from across the aisle? And, even more terrifying, what happens if he loses? Would this violent rhetoric actually spill over into physical violence? Would there be riots?
Let me be clear: I am not "for" or "against" either of the Democratic candidates in their nominating process. Like many other conservatives, I am curously interested in the outcome of the race because whoever wins will face presumptive GOP nominee John McCain. It is only natural to gawk at a circus, and that's exactly what the Democratic race has become.
The fact is, Obama has not clinched the nomination, regardless of what his supporters may profess. If Obama had already locked it up, why would his supporters become so ferociously angry at the slightest suggestion that Hillary has a fighting chance? Why wouldn't they just look toward the future and let Hillary and her husband do their thing in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon and Montanna?
If Hillary wants to run, I say let her run. More importantly, don't take away the rights of Democrats to vote for her.
When Mitt Romney was still in the GOP race, everyone thought it was over for him when Giuliani bowed out. I was quite alone in my belief that McCain would pull it out. There were people who told me that McCain couldn't mathmatically win. Yet here we are.
As the front-runner, John McCain never -- to my knowledge -- advocated for the departure of a fellow Republican candidate and, although they are admittedly not much of a threat, still faces challenges from Ron Paul and Alan Keyes at the Republican National Convention in September. McCain seems to understand that these people have a constitutional right to be heard.
It's ironic, actually, because I am no more a Hillary Clinton supporter than I am a Barack Obama supporter. But I will defend to my dying breath their constitutional right as natural-born Americans to run for president.
After defeating Hillary Clinton "soundly" in North Carolina, Barack Obama's supporters were pulling out stakes, packing up the tent and whistling joyously as they began rolling toward November.
When Sen. Clinton surreptitiously stole what Sen. Obama had predicted would be his 7-point victory in Indiana (a state that neighbors his home state of Illinois), Obama's people confidently dismissed it as an anamoly -- an insignificant afterthought to a momentus North Carolina win. While this ploy may have succeeded in hurting Clinton's overall campaign, it also marginalized many Indiana Democrats -- something neither candidate can afford if they want to win in November.
Now, it appears West Virginia will go to Clinton and not by the skinny margin she claimed in Indiana. According to this poll, conducted by the American Research Group, Clinton may beat Obama by more points than he beat her in North Carolina.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to come from tomorrow's vote is the possibility that if Clinton were to win as predicted, she could pick up the lead in the popular vote. Nevertheless, Obama's supporters maintain he is the nominee, regardless of what the will of the people may indicate.
I wonder how many of these supporters were fighting in favor of the popular vote during the 2000 presidential election, when Vice President Al Gore was standing his ground in Florida against GOP nominee George W. Bush. Turns out, Bush actually lost the popular vote, but won the electoral college, which means that if this campaign should have similar results, Obama and Bush would have in common the same kind of win. The only question is whether it would fly with rank-and-file Democrats, or more importantly, voters in the general election.
About the only thing certain right now is that the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is neck-and-neck, and it appears unlikely either candidate will have enough delegates to clinch the nomination by June 3, making the Democratic National Convention in August important to every voter -- liberal and conservative.
Do accusations of "racism" undermine the national discourse on race in America?
About.com Guest Commentator Jack Kerwick attempts to answer that question in this this week's column.
From the article:
During this election season, various charges of “playing the race card” and “racism” have been made by and against virtually everyone involved. Often -- though not always -- the two charges are regarded synonymously: to be found guilty of “playing the race card” is to be found guilty of “racism.”
...
So poisonous is the accusation of “racism,” and so susceptible to abuse at the hands of demagogues who appropriate it as a weapon by which to advance their interests, that it may not be a bad idea to suspend the use of the very term indefinitely, until we have had time to really think about it.
The network spin doctors are calling it for Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Time of death: 1:15 a.m. EST (May 7, 2008).
But let's really think about this. Last night, Barack Obama took North Carolina, as he knew he would. The demographic there is largely African American and his victory percentile among African Americans is between 80 and 90. Hillary Clinton, however, took Indiana, as Obama had hoped HE would. Obama had predicted a 7-point win, but lost by less than two. The punditry is talking this morning about Obama's late night surge, but it wasn't enough to put him over the edge and at the end of the day, although no one is saying it, Indiana should be considered a crushing loss for Obama.
His failure to sew up Indiana should tell him AND American voters something, especially if he goes on to win the nomination. For one thing, Obama's loss in Indiana carries much more weight than his victory in North Carolina. Obama isn't doing well in states bordering his home-state -- areas where people should know him better than they do in other areas of the country. There's a reason, for example, Clinton did well in Pennsylvania: people in Pennsylvania are familiar with her and therefore identify with her. The same, it seems, cannot be said of Obama and his neighboring states.
If Obama is having trouble locking up the nomination this far into the Democratic process, what's going to happen in the fall when he's facing a much more formidable opponent? Most political observers will tell you that voter turnout is always high and optimistic in presidential primaries, but when the hibernating voters wake from their four-year slumber to cast their ballots in the general election, the true voice of the American people is heard.
Here's the rub: historically, African American voters (Obama's base) make up a much larger portion of the primary profile than they do in the general election. With a sea of independent voters, crossover voters and party-affiliated voters who didn't vote in the primary, the results in November could be vastly different than what the numbers in the primaries would lead one to predict. Perhaps as a nominee Obama could tap into that vast heretofore unspoken voting block of registered non-voting African Americans, but does the Democratic party really want to gamble all their chips on it?
Obama people have been yelling that John McCain doesn't want to face Barack Obama in the fall because he's more formidable than Clinton. I would disagree. As I see it, Clinton's people would be far less likely to support him after this bitter primary battle than Obama's people would be to support her. If the primary is decided on the floor of the Democratic National Convention and Obama is the winner, that could be enough to split the party and force a large portion of its disenfranchised voters to stay home -- and that would spell defeat for the Democratic nominee.
Either way, Democrats are facing serious unity problems, and as they work to iron them out, conservatives everywhere are quietly watching and waiting for the real fight to begin.
Recent comments from a liberal reader gave me much to ponder about my recent post about Hollywood conservatives.
Her central point was that while Republicans have sent victorious candidates to both the California governor's office and the White House, while Hollywood liberals are virtually non-existent as significant office-holders in state or national politics.
While my liberal friend is certainly correct about the movie-star governor and the movie-star president, I believe that speaks more about those individuals (and their name-recognition on the ballot) than it does about Hollywood politics. Also, even though there have been Republican governors in California, those governors aren't necessarily what you would call "conservative" (take the current governor as an example). In fact, Hollywood Republicans who have held significant offices generally tended to be less conservative politically than their counterparts in the rest of the nation (the obvious exception being Ronald Reagan).
To the issue of conservatism in Hollywood, a reader identified only as a "conservative insider" had this to say about my recent post on Hollywood's dirty little secret:
Anyone who works here in H'wood knows that being "outed" as a conservative means being blacklisted from jobs. I have personally been called many laughably-ignorant names to my face by some self-righteous liberals, all because of the bigoted assumptions they make about "all" conservatives ... What's sad is that these judgmental people cause great damage labeling conservatives as being, for example, racists when those of my ilk are only interested in the cessation of wasteful government spending and the compounding of the problem via exorbitant taxes.
A quick note is needed here to emphasize that not all liberals are "self-righteous" just as all conservatives are not "racists." There are extremists on either side of the fence, and this is unfortunate. Nevertheless, the substance of this comment is entirely valid. "Blacklisted" is the word I was groping for when I developed Monday's list of Hollywood conservatives.
Recently, Hollywood conservative Charlton Heston passed away, to the sorrow of many celebrities of every political stripe. Heston was borne out of a different Hollywood. In "the olden days" Hollywood celebrities DID tend to be more conservative, simply because of the mind-set of the time (family values being the biggest issue politically due to the influx of the flower-power generation, which has since spawned many of the modern-day liberal ideals). Heston, Reagan and a score of other Hollywood conservatives weren't blacklisted as many are today, but they were privately mocked by tinsel-town's executives and celebrities in recent years. Today, it's virtually unthinkable for a working writer, actor or director to identify himself or herself as a conservative, unless he or she plans on leaving the industry altogether. There ARE exceptions, of course, but usually they only serve to prove the larger rule.
Although I have researched the topic, I also have a friend in TV post-production, and I was a consultant for a motion picture company. It's no secret that the general attitude toward conservatives in tinsel-town isn't pretty, but if more folks -- like the ones I listed Monday -- are willing to stand firm, perhaps the playing field will level for everyone.
Top Photo: David McNew/Getty Images Bottom Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
While Hollywood is still light-years away from being a conservative town, more and more right-leaning celebrities are finding their way into tinseltown's mainstream.
Outright conservative activism is still frowned upon widely by Hollywood Hills executives and most of the film industry still produces liberal-leaning movies and television shows, but there are celebrities willing to swim against the stream while holding tight to their conservative principles.
Following is a partial list of confirmed Hollywood conservatives who deserve recognition for their unwavering committiment to the conservative cause (click on their names to see one of the three credible sources I used to determine whether they were, in fact, conservatives worthy of inclusion on the list):
This list by no means "outs" the celebrites mentioned. In every case, the listed celebrity has made public remarks or donated money to a politically conservative cause. Anyone wishing to submit more celebrities to this list isencouraged to do so, but three credible sources must also be submitted for verification for them to be included on the list.
Though it has been many years since liberals were hunted and, in some cases, falsely accused of being communists by the likes of Sen. Joe McCarthy, Hollywood has become an unfriendly place for conservatives. If, however, more conservatives show themselves to be friendly, socially responsible people, perhaps the tinseltown mentality won't be so exclusionary.
The intense media dialogue between Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has riveted the nation, regardless of its citizens' political affiliations.
While Obama supporters are more than willing to look past the Democratic presidential candidate's former affiliations (and attempt to divert the discussion to comments made by John McCain's former pastor), the fact remains Wright is actively campaigning to clear his name without regard to the disastrous consequences it may have for Obama. For Obama, it is difficult to resolve a situation that seems to get worse by the hour.
To conservatives, Obama's past associations are just as important as McCain's were to liberals when his pastor was under the spotlight for previous unflattering remarks. Why? Because people are often judged by the company they keep and how they respond to controversy. As a liberal friend told me when McCain was experiencing similar grief (albeit to a lesser degree), "It's all part of the vetting process for presidential candidates."
Regardless of that debate, the issue of race is still squarely before the American people. Even if Obama were to successfully distance himself from Wright, the discussion will continue to rage as long as Wright remains on his "speaking tour." Unfortunately, it is very difficult to squeeze toothpaste back into the tube -- especially when the toothpaste is everywhere.
But just how successful has Obama been at distancing himself from Wright? Has he really even tried? That's exactly the question About.com Guest Commentator Jack Kerwick attempts to answer in this week's "Friday's Guest" column.
From the article:
Obama no more denounced Reverend Wright by denouncing his comments than he denounced his white grandmother by denouncing her remarks regarding her fear of strange black men. For that matter, and for the record, neither did Obama denounce Louis Farrakhan when the latter endorsed him.
This week, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright sandbagged his own former congregant, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, at a time when he needed it the least. Wright's comments prompted Obama to respond with outrage.
Now, more than ever, a dream ticket is needed in American politics and if ever there were a person to provide the balance that John McCain and this nation needs, it is former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
There will no doubt be those in the media who place blame at his feet for the "false information" he provided to the United Nations in 2003, which led to his resignation in 2004. In point of fact, those allegations are unfounded and most people know it. Consider the resumé that put him in the State Department in the first place. He ascended the ranks of the military and the Republican party the old fashioned way: hard work, grit and determination. He is the anti-Bush: a respected paleoconservative of high moral standing.
As an African American, Powell's race would undoubtedly help to galvanize Americans of all colors, classes and creeds, but it isn't the main reason I'm advocating him as a running mate for McCain. I was a fan of Colin Powell's long before race became the issue it is today. He's a man of unquestionable character, proven leadership and political shrewdness, all of which make him an ideal candidate for the Oval Office.
That said, Powell has often expressed distaste for a presidential candidacy, but perhaps the recent events dominating headlines on the Democratic side of this year's campaign will lead him to consider a run for vice-president. Powell's presence on the ballot (as well as the campaign trail) would undoubtedly have a calming effect on the nation and show America how blacks and whites can work together without demarcation or distraction.
If the invitation is extended -- and Powell accepts it -- he and McCain would sail into the White House in November and usher in a golden era of conservative politics, the likes of which American citizens have only read about in history books.
Top Photo: Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images
Bottom Photo: Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Recently, Hollywood conservative Charlton Heston passed away, to the sorrow of many celebrities of every political stripe. Heston was borne out of a different Hollywood. In "the olden days" Hollywood celebrities DID tend to be more conservative, simply because of the mind-set of the time (family values being the biggest issue politically due to the influx of the flower-power generation, which has since spawned many of the modern-day liberal ideals). Heston, Reagan and a score of other Hollywood conservatives weren't blacklisted as many are today, but they were privately mocked by tinsel-town's executives and celebrities in recent years. Today, it's virtually unthinkable for a working writer, actor or director to identify himself or herself as a conservative, unless he or she plans on leaving the industry altogether. There ARE exceptions, of course, but usually they only serve to prove the larger rule.
Here's the rub: historically, African American voters (Obama's base) make up a much larger portion of the primary profile than they do in the general election. With a sea of independent voters, crossover voters and party-affiliated voters who didn't vote in the primary, the results in November could be vastly different than what the numbers in the primaries would lead one to predict. Perhaps as a nominee Obama could tap into that vast heretofore unspoken voting block of registered non-voting African Americans, but does the Democratic party really want to gamble all their chips on it?
That said, Powell has often expressed distaste for a presidential candidacy, but perhaps 
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