Free Republic

The Eric Cantor debacle in Virginia last week demanded a storyline, which was no heavy lifting. In the GOP primary a political newbie had wiped the floor with the majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Bring on the analysts to find the narrative in the rebuke administered, a rather remote if hard-working political power broker linked more frequently -- here comes the dichotomy -- with Wall Street than Main Street. Cantor, on these terms, updated Cardinal Wolsey's Shakespearean lament from "Henry VIII": "Had I but served my district with half the zeal/I served the Chamber of Commerce...

Ever since the Adwar snake hole yielded up a snake of the first order -- none other than Saddam Hussein -- giddy relief and exultation have swept the world. Why not? Haven't we earned it? Party on, dudes. But -- assuming I can make myself heard over the dance music -- we owe ourselves a moment for perspective.             This Saddam thing is about a bad guy getting, we must presume, his just deserts. It is also about the means employed to make sure he gets them. It is about, in other words, sovereign power -- the power of the...

Has conservatism become an unaffordable luxury in the California governor's race? It depends -- I presume to judge through binoculars -- on two factors: 1) what you mean by "conservatism" and 2) how urgently you want a Republican governor. California conservatives appear riven over Arnold Schwarzenegger (hereinafter plain Arnold, due to the tedium connected with typing a 14-letter surname). "We have to stop this government from overtaxing, overspending and over-regulating," Arnold said the other day. Of course, that's a conservative message. But flip to the social issues -- abortion, gay rights and the like -- and Arnold, from the conservative...

As Episcopalians this week broached the unprecedented topic of a gay priest's fitness to be a bishop, a vital clue emerged as to what was going on. A priest from Portland, Ore., the Rev. Sherman Hesselgrave, observed that "God changes God's mind." Ah. Hmmm. Shall we ponder? First, the linguistics -- the deliberate avoidance of the possessive "His," so as not to identify God with male patriarchal ideas. Then, the central suggestion -- God as just another head-scratching, chin-cupping water-cooler buddy, with changing viewpoints for changing times. "God changes God's mind." Is there a nicer precis of the modern mood,...

What the Supreme Court dumped in our laps, via the Texas sodomy-law decision, was one awful mess. Messes demand to be cleaned up. The means of sorting through, far less vacuuming up, this present one is not evident. Here is the problem: The court tried out an essentially political solution on a moral and theological problem. That is one of the various things homosexuality is -- a moral and theological problem, or question, if that sounds nicer. Not that theology never gets tangled up with politics. It happens all the time. The anguish arises when a purely political body --...