The Black Republican

I've discussed before how some of the principles upon which the Republican Party was founded have endured the test of time, and how we've outgrown some prejudices that ought never have been a part of the Party of Lincoln in the first place. One of these positions was the initial anti-Catholic stance of most Republicans early in our history. Thankfully, we have outgrown that, and in fact we have long since reversed the trend with more and more practicing Catholics moving from the Democrat Party.

Note my differentiation by saying: "practicing". A good deal of the "Catholic vote" is still going to the Democratic Party. The problem is those people aren't Catholics as anyone should define them. Unlike many other religious or social affiliations, there actually is a simple litmus test for being Catholic: one must be a member of the Body of Christ, and the outward symbol of that membership (if I dare call it a mere "symbol") is the reception of the Holy Eucharist. What is beyond the understanding of many once-a-week and twice-a-year Catholics is even some of them aren't Catholic either. Without this becoming a long theology lesson, suffice to say there's a lot of faith required behind that act, and a lot more action required behind that faith, before your card is punched.

Especially in America today, we Catholics don't spend a whole lot of time talking about this self-amputation of our members, primarily because it would require us to make judgements about the nature and character of the faith of our brothers. But the Church does have a mechanism to shield the faithful from the most egregious of our erstwhile brethren, lest they drag us down with them: excommunication. By saying publicly that someone is not worthy of receiving the Holy Eucharist at this moment because of the example of his words or actions, the Church can show the faithful a clearly negative example of what it means not to be in union with the Body of Christ.

Here's where we get back to politics. Any political party not run exclusively by practicing Catholics will have policy positions that may run counter to Catholic teachings. And for many years, the Democrat's concentration on social welfare seemed to be as close a fit as one could make with Catholic doctrine. But those days have come and gone. Liberation theology has been repudiated as a serious economic system, leaving bare many of the Democrats' social positions - abortion primary among them - as seriously anti-Catholic in nature. Not to be rebuffed so easily, many Catholic Democrats have insisted that Rome ignore their voting records and rhetoric, trying to separate their public acts from their "private beliefs". (Nevermind for now the hypocritical concept that one should advocate something they personally disagree with.) But recently, bishops and priests have become more vocal in stating that they may need to use excommunication to chastise Catholic politicians who advocate positions contrary to the teachings of Catholic doctrine.

Believe it or not, this brings us to: Wictory Wednesday.

For the fourth time in American history*, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President is Catholic (or, at least, he says he is). But John Kerry has suggested that his Catholic faith is his "bedrock of values, of sureness about who I am," even though he takes the standard anti-Catholic Democratic position on euthanasia, homosexual "rights", and (of course) abortion.

Every Wednesday I ask my readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign if they haven't done so already. And if you have volunteered and donated, then get a friend to join you. This Wednesday, I'd like to especially encourage practicing Catholics to help fight the distortion of the Catholic perspective peddled by the anti-religion opposition. While I feel it would be a clear statement renouncing these secularist Catholics, we can't count on the bishops to go so far as to excommunicate a Democratic nominee in the middle of an election.

If you're a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesday simply by putting up a post like this every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the president's re-election campaign. And don't forget to e-mail PoliPundit so that you can be added to the Wictory Wednesday blogroll, which is part of the Wictory Wednesday post on all participating blogs:

Some time in the near future I hope to find enough time and wit at the same time to post several things that are piling up on my plate. For the same reasons, I apologize for not keeping up on the editing very quickly lately, making the blog appear a little unkempt at times (no offense intended, guys - I'm just anal). That said, wasn't someone asking me for talking points recently? :-)

I strongly suggest this piece by Adam Miller as "Recommended Reading".

The Drudge Report has information that Richard Clarke refused to testify before a Senate commitee in 1999, for the same reason that Dr. Rice is giving!

"We were scheduled -- at the beginning of this gathering we agreed not to call that portion of it a hearing, to have a briefing from Mr. Richard Clarke. And many of you have been notified that he would be here and as recently as yesterday afternoon when I was with him, we were looking forward to his appearance and he was sharing with me some of the areas that he planned to discuss while he was here. Mr. Clarke, as many of you know, is the national coordinator for security and infrastructure protection and counterterrorism on the National Security Council.

Last night, into the evening, we were notified that the legal staff of the National Security Council had determined that it would be inappropriate for Mr. Clarke to appear. I have just spoken to him on the telephone. The rule apparently is that any member of the White House staff who has not been confirmed is not to be allowed to testify before the Congress. They can perform briefings, but they are not to give testimony. And that in response to that rule, Mr. Clarke will not be coming." - Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah), during a committee hearing in 1999

Can anyone who served in the Clinton administration speak in direct terms? Must we parse their every word to understand the real meaning behind what they are saying?

Appearing on yesterday's edition of Meet The Press, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke explained away the letter he gave to President Bush as he left government service in terms that reminds one of Clinton's famous, "It depends what the meaning of is, is" testimony before a government inquiry. Specifically, he now wants us to believe that when he stated to Bush, that, "I will always have fond memories of our briefings for you on cybersecurity", that he wasn't padding his resume by getting on the record that he, Richard Clarke was on top of this coming threat, but instead was just being nice and was carefully avoiding telling Bush that, in Clarke's view, the Bush administration's approach to terror was more flawed than Jesse Jackson's non-profit tax status. (He even managed to invoke "Mother" in his response.)  That he speaks in such cute ways makes me wonder if he did his job the same way, and if so, then without having a Department of Intepreting What Dick Clarke Means, how could anyone understand him? In this same interview he cites a handwritten note from President Bush as evidence that the President appreciated his service. "Dear Dick, you will be missed. You served our nation with distinction and honor. You have left a positive mark on our government." He seems to think that we can assertain the President's meaning without having to read between the lines, imagine how much more glowing Bush's tribute might have been had Clarke been so clear and direct in his manner; instead of being a bureacratic spin meister.

There has been considerable critcism of the Bush administration for their conjecture regarding Clarke's motivation for writing his recent book. Well, if you are a John Kerry supporter, and you bought into Kerry's implied assertion that since a heckler had voted for Bush, and the man's questions were without substance and unworthy of response, then learning from Clarke's acknowledgement on MTP that he did not vote for Bush you already understand everything about this man and his motivations - if you have a brain you know better than to make that leap of logic. Clarke may or may not be explainable as a partisan looking to harm the other party's man, but if you start down that route you may end up wondering, and believing that he actually kept information from the administration so that the terrorists could strike and embarrass President Bush! The entire question of why he is doing this (criticizing his former employer) is moot. Only Clarke knows, and if he told us, could we read between the lines to understand what he said anyway?

(What I also find annoying is that the the press keeps asking the Bush administration why he did this, and then they make the answer they get bigger than the original question.)

I do not believe Clarke wanted terrorists to strike the homeland, or that he acted in a way that would allow it to happen, but I believe that he sees himself as the man on counter-terror, and I think he apologized to the 9-11 families because he truly believes that he did let us all down. With Russert he cited a six week period immediately prior to 9-11 in which he ordered a heightened state of alert: "I did these things, my committee did these things," including warnings to the FAA. Is it unreasonable to think that he is shouldering more self-blame for cancelling that alert in August, '01 than he should? Living with an 'if only I had' rattle inside your cranium will warp your brain. The terrorists caused the attack. Nobody in our government is to blame!

That said, I am not particularly impressed that (if you believe Clarke) he left counter-terror willingly: "I wasn't demoted to a position of national cybersecurity adviser.....I asked in  June of 2001 to be transferred from the terrorism job..." and created a whole new position for himself precisely at a time when he believed the administration was not properly protecting us. I personally do not believe that this administration was that lax, but if Clarke did, if he thought that he alone was on the right track, how could he leave and leave us all unprotected? Sure Cyber-terror is important, we need to work to prevent it, but, how many would die if our computers went down? Are we so far removed from the technologies of twenty years ago that without computers we would become unviable tissue masses? The field he left had the potential for mortal consequences (as we have seen) and he wants us to believe that the one man who could stop it went off to play with zeros and ones.

Or, so he seems to say.

More proof that the executive Bush is living up to the ideals of the original Black Republican - only this time it's Jeb, and not GW that's leading the charge. (Though the article, oddly enough for the WSJ, never mentions that these are Jeb's initiatives.) These Bush boy do come from very fine stock, don't they?

Florida will be a pivotal battleground this November, but on the crucial subject of education reform the battle in that state is already joined.

In the past five years Florida has delivered real school choice to more American schoolchildren than anywhere else in the country. Which is no doubt why Jesse Jackson was down in Tallahassee earlier this month calling Governor Jeb Bush's policies "racist." He and his allies understand all too well that when poor African-American and Latino children start getting the same shot at a decent education that the children of our politicians do, the bankrupt public education empire starts looking like the Berlin Wall.

I've heard several people (on the Imus and Limbaugh shows respectively, among other venues) suggest that Clarke might improve his credibility by donating all advances and proceeds from his book to 9/11 charities.

Thinking back on Thomas Sowell's column yesterday, I have to ask - if Viacom does not do the same, will we see in the future the children of 9/11 casualties sue the media conglomerate for their adding to and abetting "the 9/11 conspiracy" while they were growing up?

I'll be sure to bring it up with my cousin, Alexandria Dunn, in twenty years or so.

Fows News just interrrupted the coverage of 9/11 Comissioner Ben-Veniste's soft-ball leads to witness Sandy Berger's Clinton terrorism effort defense to announce that reporter Jim Angle has a tape of Richard Clarke praising the Bush administration counter-terroism efforts.

Mr. Clarke, a year and a half ago, gave Mr. Angle an "on background" interview, which is now released for publication, in which he proclaims that the Bush administration was getting after the terrorist problem in 2001.

And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, mid-January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

This morning I was at Amazon.com reading reviews of Star Parker's book, "Uncle Sam's Plantation". I should know better than to bother reading web rants against a book written by a black Republican, but considering what I've constructed to pass my free time, it shouldn't be a wonder that I subconsciously go looking for this kind of stuff.

There are the usual collection of reasonable and fawning reviews from mainstream conservatives and traditional values folks. And they are followed by an equally predictable pair: an insulted African-American and - my favorite - a racist liberal. The former is innocuous enough:

Yet another waste of paper from Ms. Parker. She has nothing new to say except that many poor people are lazy. I think we know that since there are lazy, dishonest people in all classes of society. Also, unless you went back in time Ms. Parker, spare me the plantation analogies. Their is nothing in modern day America that comes close to the horrors of plantation slavery. The title is an insult to the sufferings our of black ancestors.

Bitching about government takes no courage, especially when the bitching echoes opinions of the country's wealthy, and it need not (and often does not) involve rational thought.

Explaining her adventures with the welfare system, Star says she was, ". . . caught up in the welfare cycle, seduced by the easy living and the carefree allure . . ." as well as " . . . its magical, sometimes luxurious hold." Wow!!! Those I've known who would have reveled in welfare's carefree allure and its magical, luxurious hold - had those delights existed - failed to notice them.

Many blacks who get a leg up in this society abhor the failures of liberalism, but apparently don't want to recognize that without liberalism's successes, conservatives in this country would have kept them all back in the cotton fields.

I came out of high school with nothing more than a few brains and a white face, neither of which I had earned but which made me rich in light of the times. Throughout seven years of higher education (all supported by government) and then later with my two businesses (with little or no government obstruction) I've lived a very good life . . . and I'm a committed liberal.

But I confess that sometimes - such as when books like these percolate out of the conservative cesspool - I regret some of the liberalism of the past 150 years. Without all that smarmy liberalism, Star would be back in her rightful place up in the mansion, doing special favors for Massa . . . all the while bitching about the laziness of the field-hands.

Those who try to claim that the shattered families in today's ghettoes are "a legacy of slavery" ignore the fact that, a hundred years ago, a slightly higher percentage of blacks than of whites were married and most black children were raised in two-parent families, even during the era of slavery.

As late as 1950, a higher percentage of black women than of white women were married. The broken families of today are a legacy of our own times and our own ill-advised notions and policies.

Of all the reactions against the supposed "slave names" among blacks, the most painfully ironic has been the taking of Arab names instead. The Arabs engaged in massive enslavement of Africans before the Europeans began to -- and continued long after the Europeans stopped.

One of the many reasons for studying history is to prevent history from being misused for current hidden agendas. Names are just one of the things being misused in this way.

I strongly suggest this piece by Larry Neumeister as "Recommended Reading".

The Free Republic has found an old Washington Post article quoting a Clinton administration official saying there was a link between bin Laden and Iraq. The official's name: Richard Clarke.

But the funny part comes from the Blogs for Bush entry for this new piece of news:

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Clarke.

UPDATE: Okay, I'm slow, but I see the pattern better now. Clarke is saying in the late '90's that there's a link between bin Laden and Iraq. 9/11 happens. (Despite Clarke's assertions, I remember very well the confusion running through the country for the following week, as we tried to come to grips with what happened and who did it. There was considerable speculation if it was bin Laden (who most of us had never really heard of before) or Hussein (who most of us most definately had).) Condi turns to the man who developed the links between the two back in the Clinton administration and asks him assess if Iraq had anything to do with it. When the War Cabinet met a week later, Iraq was "not on the agenda". Having developed the information for the links, but not a connection between 9/11 and Iraq, Clarke may have been seen by the Administration as the counter-terrorism version of John Kerry: he says both things are true so he can claim credit regardless of what happens. The one exception to this behavior were his assertions regarding cyber-attacks, which seemed to have gone nowhere. So the Administration dumps him into a position managing Internet security to get him out of the line of fire while real men get to work. Next election cycle, while we're in Iraq fighting the War on Terror without him, the disaffected Clarke is writing his memoirs....

I strongly suggest this piece by Gov. Jeb Bush as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Wall Street Journal as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Pete du Pont as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by John Fund as "Recommended Reading".

The Good News

An Israeli airstrike killed the founder of Hamas.

The Bad News

I don't have a gun to fire into the air in exhiliaration, and I don't know how to do that clucking shriek like that Palestinian woman did after the WTC fell!

I have no words to describe these articles at littlegreenfootballs. Suffice to say, whatever you heard on the major TV networks about "anti-war" rallies going on over the weekend was probably whitewash peddled upon you by your friends at the PLO, the Communist Party, and the Democratic Party. (But I repeat myself... again. Why do I keep doing that?)

If you aren't a regular reader of LGF, you should be.

Photos from the Heart of Idiotarianism
New World Odor

WARNING!: Zombie's pictures especially are very hard for a red-blooded American to stomach. Make sure you haven't eaten before viewing. (No, I'm not kidding.)

I strongly suggest this piece by Jason L. Riley as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Victor Davis Hanson as "Recommended Reading".

As you may see by now, I've added a new feature to the blog. Aside from it's insightful commentary from a conservative perspective, the comic strip Day By Day features a character named Damon who is the real deal: a Black Republican. Hopefully, this will at least remind me on a daily basis of an idea I occasionally stray from... this blog should be as much about the "Black" as the "Republican".

Take some time to go back and catch up on the strip from its beginning, which is entirely online. This entry especially (offered back in the first week of Chris Muir's creation) is what told me the strip belongs here at The Black Republican:

I strongly suggest this piece by President George W. Bush as "Recommended Reading".

It must be some sort of blogging festival. I just can't keep up with them today. Some snippets from around the 'net:

Allah has a picture of John Kerry's "best friend" from Vietnam.

Ace of Spades takes note that Andrew Sullivan is on idiotarian - I mean, "suicide" watch.

Britain is showing "signs" of solidarity with the U.S. (pun most definately intended)

Shelby Steele eloquently lays out the case against the homosexual agenda as a civil rights struggle...

The civil rights movement argued that it was precisely the utter innocuousness of racial difference that made segregation an injustice. Racism was evil because it projected a profound difference where there was none--white supremacy, black inferiority--for the sole purpose of exploiting blacks. But there is a profound difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality. In the former, sexual and romantic desire is focused on the same sex, in the latter on the opposite sex. Natural procreation is possible only for heterosexuals, a fact of nature that obligates their sexuality to no less a responsibility than the perpetuation of the species. Unlike racial difference, these two sexual orientations are profoundly--not innocuously--different.

Racism projects a false difference in order to exploit. Homophobia is a reactive prejudice against a true and firm difference that already exists.

The stigmatization of homosexuals is wrong and makes no contribution to the moral health of our society. I was never worried for my children because they grew up knowing a gay couple that lived across the street, or because several family friends were gay. They learned early what we all know: that homosexuality is as permanent a feature of the human condition as heterosexuality. Nothing is gained in denying this.

The majority of Americans are against homosexual marriage. They make a moral statement that marriage is between a man and a woman. Our laws reflect these morals, as all our laws reflect our morals....

But this is unacceptable to some homosexuals. They want to be labeled as "married," as if that will force the rest of society to accept their actions as morally right....

(N)o right exists for all behavior to be morally accepted by society....

The struggle of a people to be accepted for who they are is just not the same as the effort by a people to be justified in what they do. (my emphasis - Chris)

As if most of the comments at LGF weren't good enough, sometimes they're just downright hilarious.

Have a Nice Trip, See You Next Fall

On Friday, Kerry, his snowboard strapped to his back, hiked past 9,000 feet on Durrance Peak, then snowboarded down the mountain, taking repeated tumbles. Reporters counted six falls, although Kerry was out of sight for part of the descent.

#5 Ms. Andi 3/19/2004 04:49PM PST

Even when he snowboards, he flip-flops. It's a permanent condition.

UPDATE: And again.

I strongly suggest this piece by Donald H. Rumsfeld as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Washington Post as "Recommended Reading".

This entry could very well have been added under "What we've read" but it's just too juicy. Under the title "National Unity Dies", the deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal puts the Democratic Party on a spit and proceeds to roast it.

The Kerry campaign so far hasn't elevated much above the tenor or level at which the Democratic presidential contenders politicked for nearly a year. Then as now, Mr. Kerry suggests there is nothing in the Bush presidency - not one moment, utterance or act since George Bush took the oath of office - that does not deserve to be opposed and reversed.

This total, rejectionist stance is relatively new in American politics. The conventional explanation is that the Democrats' constituencies demand it, but that's been true for 25 years. The deeper reason is younger than that. It flows directly from Democratic anger over the outcome of the Florida legal challenge in 2000. For Democrats it remains the fire that can never be extinguished. They are set against the Bush presidency in its totality--its policies, its personalities, its existence. Like Irish nationalists, Democrats harbor Florida as the event they will never forgive, and it has had the effect of turning American politics into a kind of Northern Ireland.

Just yesterday I confused Steve for an entire lunch by trying to describe the contradictions of Liberation Theology. I should have waited a day and sent him to the Wall Street Journal.

And yes Steve, I see that "Father Aristide" was a Silesian, not a Jesuit. How could I tell with the hammer and sickle over his vestment? For the record, Fr. Sirico, the author of the op-ed, is apparently a Franciscan.

I strongly suggest this piece by Wall Street Journal as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Vice President Dick Cheney as "Recommended Reading".

Now that I've signed up for Blogs for Bush, I've taken advantage of Blogrolling and peeked in on several of our fellows in the blogosphere. Most of the people I've been tripping over are good and decent folk, and I've taken to a few already to the extent that I've added them to our own blogroll. One that I'd seen on nearly everyone else's blogroll as a "must read" is AlphaPatriot. While I haven't seen enough of his writing to know if I agree with him a lot, I can see that perhaps he has a following based on how frequently he posts, making him a nice clearinghouse for the most important tidbits of each day.

I have to say that the first thing I read today from him put me off a bit. On Tuesday, I'd blogged about the new bills pending in Congress to limit the judiciary, and didn't bother to mention the one bill that seemed most inane, suggesting that Congress should be allowed to veto a Supreme Court decision, because I figured it would probably not go anywhere. Several of the other bills, such as the Constitution Restoration Act, have much more reasonable - and constitutionally viable - provisions.

AlphaPatriot chose to concentrate on the one dark spot among the new proposals. I can see the link from which he derived his information doesn't mention the other bills, so perhaps he isn't aware of the alternatives. But it still raised my hackles as the first thing I read from him. Amid all the crap we're taking from the Judiciary lately, I'll lightly applaud anyone who is at least making the attempt to legally balance the separation of powers when they go out of whack, even if I end up heckling them for their overreaching grab for more power.

When I first created this blog at Blogger.com, the interface required a "description" of the blog when you created the title, and it placed that description underneath it as a subtitle when it assembled the template. Thinking about the original Black Republican, and what he said about conservatism, it occurred to me that while a party's position on selective issues will change somewhat through time, the members of the party should believe in certain core principles regardless of ebb and flow of those ancillary issues. For instance, the original Republican Party had a platform that was notoriously anti-Catholic - a position which would exclude yours truly from the ranks of the party if it were retained today. Thankfully, over time, the Party has reasoned that this position is not consistant with its other principles.

Some people who have read The Black Republican have been critical of the subtitle I eventually created, because it mentions this word 'principles': "A defense of the principles upon which the Republican Party was founded." It seemed to me at the time that certain principles are - as the great Virginian once said about Truths - "self-evident". But perhaps people today need a bit of a reminder. A quick scan of Lincoln's famous speeches (and a line or two borrowed from that Virginian) brings to mind a few:

One nation under God
Government (should be) of the people, by the people, and for the people
All men are created equal
Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
Each State has the right to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment (under the Constitution)
Malice toward none
Charity for all
A just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations

Firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right

Enduring the test of time.

Hence comes my question: to clarify for those who cannot comprehend the implication, should I change our subtitle to read "...those enduring principles..."?

I strongly suggest this piece by Peggy Noonan as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Zev Chafets as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Brendan Miniter as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Wall Street Journal as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by James P. Pinkerton as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Charles H. Darrell as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Ruhama Shattan as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Wall Street Journal as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Hei Lun as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Byron York as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Peggy Noonan as "Recommended Reading".

I've come to a conclusion regarding The Passion: what anti-semitism is there can be a backhanded force for good.

At first, I didn't see any anti-Semitism in it at all. But after reading Krauthammer and now Claudia Rosett, I think Andrew Sullivan may have come closest to defining the film by calling it "pornography" - because like the old Supreme Court ruling-turned-joke, you know the anti-Semitism in the movie when you see it. But just because I don't see it does not mean I can't see where others could.

But that's not just the end of this. Where those who see hate in the film end their commentary (like Rosett, unable to return to the discussion after digressing to Auschwitz), I see yet more to say. Where they see nothing but hate for Jews, I see solidarity with Jews: in the blood-drenched cloth clenched in Mary's fingers, when Satan is passing through the crowds - but mirrored by Mary who is also passing through the same crowds, and the impassive face of Caiphas before the cross turns anguished when the temple is torn asunder.

The same goes for the reviewers. Most of those critical of the film say "anti-Semitism" as if Gibson is laying cement for the ovens at the next Auschwitz. But at a time when so many in the media and politics (and even in the Jewish community) are too ready to accept the idea of Israel giving land for peace, I see an invitation for more death and torment. But just when it becomes most inconvenient for the Palestinians to see Jewish spines stiffen, Mel Gibson produces a movie that allows everyone to discuss the Holocaust anew.

Jewish friends take heart: The Passion causes anti-Semites to go on defense, while giving Christians the opportunity to restate their solidarity with God's Chosen People. How we get the idea from a source that you find offensive will remain a mystery to you - but not to us.

I strongly suggest this piece by Clarence Page as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Tony Blankley as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Thomas Sowell as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Jeff Jacoby as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Mona Charen as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by John Fund as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Debra Burlingame as "Recommended Reading".

Charles Krauthammer is a man I greatly respect. So, is it my respect for him or is it his excellent writing skills turning the issue in a slightly different way that creates real self-doubt for the first time since The Passion business all came up?

I strongly suggest this piece by Wall Street Journal as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Fox News as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Fox News as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Wall Street Journal as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Jeff Jacoby as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Dick Morris as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Christopher Hitchens as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Tony Blankley as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Brendan Miniter as "Recommended Reading".

....don't see The Passion. It's too violent and bloody.

I strongly suggest this piece by Laura Bartholomew Armstrong as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Mary Ann Glendon as "Recommended Reading".