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If it makes you feel better, Carter left the Southern Baptists, about a decade ago.

It seems that the Baptist Democrats lose interest in the Baptist church once their political life is over, if they don’t formally renounce it like Carter did, then they just quietly cease to become involved in it like Clinton, and Al Gore.

>”””And yet the Bush ideology is tinged with religious belief, I said. Not everything comes with a price tag attached.

Gore’s mouth tightened. A Southern Baptist, he, too, had declared himself born again, but he clearly had disdain for Bush’s public kind of faith. “It’s a particular kind of religiosity,” he said. “It’s the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world: Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim. They all have certain features in common. In a world of disconcerting change, when large and complex forces threaten familiar and comfortable guideposts, the natural impulse is to grab hold of the tree trunk that seems to have the deepest roots and hold on for dear life and never question the possibility that it’s not going to be the source of your salvation. And the deepest roots are in philosophical and religious traditions that go way back. You don’t hear very much from them about the Sermon on the Mount, you don’t hear very much about the teachings of Jesus on giving to the poor, or the beatitudes. It’s the vengeance, the brimstone.”

...We passed the Southern Baptist Convention building. Earlier in the day, Gore had made a point of telling me that he and Clinton used to pray together in the White House. I asked him which church in Nashville he and Tipper attended now.

There was a pause in the front seat.

“We’re ecumenical now,” Gore said, finally.

Tipper said with a laugh, “I think I follow Baba Ram Dass.”

“The influx of fundamentalist preachers have pretty much chased us out with their right-wing politics,” Gore added.”””<

“I would like to see Huckabee run again. I did not look
closely at him last time, but would be interested in
choosing between he and Palin” ~ Ramonne

A loser is a loser. bttt

December 17, 2007, 4:00 a.m.

The Problem With Pastor Mike
Foreign-policy foolishness just won’t suffice.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjgzMzYzY2Y1ZjAxNTg5YzAzNzY2MjMwOWYxNWM0ZTc=
By Peter Wehner

Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has written an article for Foreign Affairs magazine, the first two paragraphs of which are stunningly silly, misguided, and unfortunately for Huckabee, deeply revealing.

The two opening paragraphs read this way:
The United States, as the world’s only superpower, is less vulnerable to military defeat. But it is more vulnerable to the animosity of other countries. Much like a top high school student, if it is modest about its abilities and achievements, if it is generous in helping others, it is loved. But if it attempts to dominate others, it is despised.

American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out. The Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad.

My administration will recognize that the United States’ main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists. At the same time, my administration will never surrender any of our sovereignty, which is why I was the first presidential candidate to oppose ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would endanger both our national security and our economic interests.

Where ought one to begin untangling this unholy mess?

Perhaps the place to begin is with his contention that America is ungenerous, which (according to Huckabee) explains the animus now directed at the United States. The fact is that the United States has sacrificed an enormous amount of blood and treasure to help other nations. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong and even offensive.

We have, for starters, liberated more than 50 million people from two of the most repressive regimes in modern history (the Taliban and the Baathist police state in Iraq). The global AIDS initiative qualifies as among the most humane and generous acts in the history of American foreign policy. We give billions in additional foreign aid, including the enormous generosity America displayed in helping Indonesia and other nations in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Indonesia and other nations in December 2004.

The United States, while imperfect, ranks as perhaps the most benevolent superpower (to say nothing of its status as a benevolent nation) in human history. Unlike past empires, we are using American power and influence for great good instead of as a means of advancing oppression.

Beyond that, the belief that if we are modest and generous we will be “loved” by other nations, and that anger at America is based on our attempts to “dominate,” is both naive and foolish. Some nations (like Cuba, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and others) will oppose us because they are totalitarian states that hate our efforts to curb their ambitions and advance freedom and self-determination.

They are not the loving kind.

Other nations (like France under Jacques Chirac) will oppose us because they can’t stand the idea of a unipolar world and want to counterbalance it. And other nations (like China and Russia) will oppose our efforts to end genocide in Darfur and keep Iran from gaining nuclear weapons because of their economic interests.

Memo to Mike Huckabee: Sometimes we are despised for all the right reasons.

Ronald Reagan engendered anger from nations because he called the Soviet Union an “evil empire;” deployed Cruise and Pershing Missiles in Europe; moved ahead with the Strategic Defense Initiative; and supported the contras in Nicaragua. Millions took to the streets in Europe to oppose his defense build-up. Does Governor Huckabee believe Reagan’s actions were wrong simply because in many countries they were unpopular? Of course we would prefer to have universal support for our actions rather than encounter opposition. But does Huckabee understand that sometimes right and wise actions elicit opposition, and sometimes even intense and widespread opposition?

The popularity of the United States decreased in many Muslim nations in the aftermath of taking down the Taliban regime for its role in harboring and supporting al-Qaeda, which in turn was responsible for the worst attack on the American homeland in our history. Was that anger against America justified? Would Huckabee base his foreign-policy decisions on how our actions poll in Waziristan or Gaza under Hamas, or in madrasas throughout the Middle East? Based on his Foreign Affairs essay, it’s reasonable to believe he might.

As for his claim that the Bush administration’s “arrogant bunker mentality” has been counterproductive at home and abroad, the same point applies. Many Middle East dictatorships recoiled at the president’s decision in 2002 to sideline Yasser Arafat (who in many ways is the father of modern terrorism), and his insistence that Palestinian authorities renounce terrorism as an instrument of state policy if they ever hope to have a homeland. Was it “arrogant” to do so? Does Huckabee wish the president had done more to stand with dictators in the Middle East? Does he wish the president still abided by the ABM Treaty with Russia?

Governor Huckabee also seems ignorant about the extent of cooperation that, on a daily basis, is garnered for the war against militant Islam. Contrary to the portrait he paints, we are seeing unprecedented cooperation in tracking, arresting, and blocking funding for terrorist organizations. Is Governor Huckabee familiar with the Proliferation Security Initiative, which more than 70 nations have joined in an effort to deny terrorists, rogue states, and their supplier networks access to weapons-of-mass-destruction-related material? Is he aware that America and its allies shut down a sophisticated nuclear black market network headed by A. Q. Khan?

Does he know that NATO has taken over command of international forces in Afghanistan the first mission in NATO’s history outside the Euro-Atlantic region? Does he know (or care) that the United States won the unanimous approval of the U.N. Security Council for Resolution 1441, which said Saddam Hussein had to comply with previous resolutions or face “serious consequences” (which all parties took to mean war)? And if the president’s policies have been so counterproductive abroad, how does he explain the rise to power of Sarkozy in France and Merkel in Germany two nations where anti-American animus is said to run deepest?

In his Foreign Affairs essay, Huckabee writes, “After President Bush included Iran in the ‘axis of evil,’ everything went downhill fast.” Everything? Is the former governor of Arkansas at all familiar with the history of Iran since the 1979 revolution? Is he aware of Iran’s actions when it comes to its nuclear ambitions, support for terrorism, and the oppression of its own people actions which earned it a place on the “axis of evil” list? Does Huckabee dispute that the Iranian regime is evil or is he only upset that President Bush spoke truthful words about it? And what does he make of the fact that according to the latest National Intelligence Estimate Iran in 2003 ceased production of its nuclear weapons program a year after the “axis of evil speech” and in the immediate aftermath of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom?

Huckabee writes, “The Bush administration has properly said that it will not take the military option for dealing with Iran off the table. Neither will I. But if we do not put other options on the table, eventually a military strike will become the only viable one.”

Is Huckabee unaware of all the other options on the table, which Iran has so far rejected? And in arguing that we should re-establish diplomatic ties with Iran, Huckabee writes, “When one stops talking to a parent or a friend, differences cannot be resolved and relationships cannot move forward.” This echoes his opening reference to the United States being like a high-school student.

If Pastor Mike thinks that dealing with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sayyid Ali Khamenei is akin to tension arising between high-school juniors Sally and Sue, he has a few things to learn and the presidency is not the place for such basic on-the-job training.

The role of commander-in-chief is the most important one we look to in a president, particularly when America is at war. Governor Huckabee’s article in Foreign Affairs, while fine (if largely conventional) in some respects, is fundamentally unserious; on national security matters, he is likewise. And when the final votes are tallied in the GOP race, Mike Huckabee’s words, on these issues and others, will cost him.

Peter Wehner, former deputy assistant to the president, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Here’s more:

You Feelin’ Hucky?

BY MARK STEYN
January 7, 2008
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/69011

Confronted by Preacher Huckabee standing astride the Iowa caucus smirking, “Are you feelin’ Hucky, punk?” many of my conservative pals are inclined to respond, “Shoot me now.”

But, if that seems a little dramatic, let’s try and rustle up an alternative. In response to the evangelical tide from the west, New Hampshire primary voters have figured, “Any old crusty, cranky, craggy coot in a storm,” and re-embraced John McCain. After all, Granite State conservatism is not known for its religious fervor: it prefers small government, low taxes, minimal regulation, the freedom to be left alone by the state. So they’re voting for a guy who opposed the Bush tax cuts, and imposed on the nation the most explicit restriction in political speech in years. Better yet, after a freezing first week of January and the snowiest December in a century, New Hampshire conservatives are googoo for a fellow who believes in the scariest of global-warming scenarios and all the big-government solutions necessary to avert them.

Well, okay, maybe we can rustle up an alternative to the alternative. Rudy Giuliani’s team are betting than after a Huck/McCain seesaw through the early states, by January 29th Florida voters will be ready to unite their party behind a less divisive figure, if by “less divisive figure” you mean a pro-abortion gun-grabbing cross-dresser. I can’t see things playing out quite like that. The principal rationale for Rudy’s candidacy is that he’s the national-security toughie who can beat Hillary. But it’s hard to conclude after Iowa that this is shaping up as a Code Orange election. And, as for Senator Clinton, her Thursday night third-place was the nearest Bill and Hill have come to a Ceausescu balcony moment. In a world where even John Edwards can beat Hillary, who needs Rudy?

Way back a gazillion years ago, when Mrs. Clinton was first exploring the exploration of exploring the possibility of an exploratory committee, some wily GOPers were suggesting the Republicans trump her history-making first-woman-President card by drafting Condi Rice. It turns out we dead white males on the right-wing were worrying unnecessarily: The Democrats trumped themselves. Liberal voters want desperately to cast a history-making vote and, if that’s your priority, Barack Obama is a much more appealing way to cast it than Hillary. Don’t worry about this “Change You Can Believe In” shtick. He doesn’t believe in it, and neither should you. He’s a fresh face on the same-old-same-old which is the only change Democrats are looking for.

As for Huckabee, the thinking on the right is that the mainstream media are boosting him up because he’s the Republican who’ll be easiest to beat. It’s undoubtedly true that they see him as the designated pushover, but in that they’re wrong. If Iowa’s choice becomes the nation’s and it’s Huckabee vs Obama this November, I’d bet on Huck. As governor, as preacher and even as discjockey, he’s spent his entire life in professions that depend on connecting with an audience and he’s very good at it. His gag on “The Tonight Show” “People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off” had a kind of brilliance: True, it is, at one level, cornball (imagine John Edwards doing it with all his smarmy sanctimoniousness) but it also devastatingly cuts to the nub of the difference between him and Romney. It’s a disc-jockey line: the morning man on the radio is a guy doing a tricky job he’s a celebrity trying to pass himself off as a regular joe which is pretty much what the presidential candidate has to do, too. Huckabee’s good at that.

I don’t know whether the Jay Leno shtick was written for him by a professional, but, if so, by the time it came out of his mouth it sounded like him. When Huck’s campaign honcho, Ed Rollins, revealed the other day that he wanted to punch Romney in the teeth, Mitt had a good comeback: “I have just one thing to say to Mr. Rollins,” he began. “Please, don’t touch the hair.” Funny line but it sounds like a line, like something written by a professional and then put in his mouth.

This is the Huckabee advantage. On stage, he’s quick-witted and thinks on his feet. He’s not paralyzed by consultants and trimmers and triangulators. Put him in a Presidential debate and he’ll have sharper ripostes and funnier throwaways and more plausible self-deprecating quips than anyone on the other side. He’ll be a great campaigner. The problems begin when he stops campaigning and starts governing.

In The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan observed of Huck that, “his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.”

She’s right. It’s not the economy, stupid. The economy’s fine. It’s gangbusters. Indeed, despite John Edwards’ dinner-theatre Dickens routine about coatless girls shivering through the night because daddy’s been laid off at the mill, the sub-text of both Democrat and Republican messages is essentially that this country is so rich it can afford to be stupid it can afford to pork up the federal budget; it can afford to put middle-class families on government health care; it can afford to surrender its borders.

There is a potentially huge segment of the population that thinks homo economicus is missing the point. They’re tired of the artificial and, indeed, creepily coercive secular multiculti pseudo-religion imposed on American grade schools. I’m sympathetic to this pitch myself. Unlike Miss Noonan, I think it’s actually connected to the jihad, in the sense that radical Islamism is an opportunist enemy which has arisen in the wake of the western world’s one-way multiculturalism. In the long run, the relativist mush peddled in our grade schools is a national security threat. But, even in the short term, it’s a form of child abuse that cuts off America’s next generation from the glories of their inheritance.

Where I part company with Huck’s supporters is in believing he’s any kind of solution. He’s friendlier to the teachers’ unions than any other so-called “cultural conservative” which is why in New Hampshire he’s the first Republican to be endorsed by the NEA. His healthcare pitch is Attack Of The Fifty Foot Nanny, beginning with his nationwide smoking ban. This is, as Jonah Goldberg put it, compassionate conservatism on steroids big paternalistic government that can only enervate even further “our culture.” So Iowa chose to reward, on the Democrat side, a proponent of the conventional secular left, and, on the Republican side, a proponent of a new Christian left. If that’s the choice, this is going to be a long election year.

bttt

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011103123.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

By Jonah Goldberg
Sunday, January 13, 2008; B1

“... And both of these derive from the kind of thinking that led George W. Bush to insist in 2000 that he was a “different kind of Republican” because he was a “compassionate conservative” — a political program that apparently measures compassion by how much money the government spends on education, marriage counseling and the like.

The most revealing development of the campaign so far has to be Huckabee’s success at displacing Thompson as the candidate of the socially conservative South. Thompson’s failure to translate the immense excitement about his pre-candidacy into anything better than also-ran status is largely attributable to a lackluster campaign effort. But there’s at least something symbolic about the fact that Huckabee has become, in the words of Commentary’s John Podhoretz, “the socially conservative Southern pro-life candidate with a silver tongue and a pleasingly low-key affect.”

...Taken at his word, Thompson is a card-carrying Reaganite, favoring low taxes, a strong defense and a shrunken role for the federal government.

Huckabee, meanwhile, is nearly the philosophical opposite. He would even use his power as president to push for a national ban on public smoking. “I’m one of the few Republicans,” Huckabee insists, “who talk very clearly about the environment, health care, infrastructure, energy independence. I don’t cede any of those to the Democrats.”

When Huckabee says that, he means it in the same way that Bush promised not to surrender health care and education (another Huckabee issue) to his opponents when he ran as a “compassionate conservative.” As a result, we got the biggest federal government expansion into education in history and the largest spike in entitlement spending since the Great Society.

Huckabee says he’s a “paradoxical conservative,” and his success so far suggests that this is the wave of the future on the right. McCain, who may be emerging as the “establishment” candidate, proves the point. ...

There are important differences — on national security, the role of government, religion — among the different brands of conservatism bubbling up. But none of them necessarily reflects the views of the pro-government and social conservative rank and file. The center of the right does not hold, and so we see an army with many flags and many generals and nobody knows who goes with which.

In other words, there’s a huge crowd of self-described conservatives standing around the Republican elephant shouting “Do something!” But what they want the poor beast to do is very unclear. And it doesn’t take an expert in pachyderm psychology to know that if a big enough mob shouts at an elephant long enough, the most likely result will be a mindless stampede — in this case, either to general election defeat or to disastrously unconservative policies, or both. ...”