Jeffrey Goldberg urges the Obama administration to reach out to Iran:[A]dvocates of an attack on Iran today would be exchanging a theoretical nightmare -- an Iran with nukes -- for an actual nightmare, a potentially out-of-control conventional war raging across the Middle East that cost the lives of thousands Iranians, Israelis, Gulf Arabs and even American servicemen.
How did Arnold Schwarzenegger choose a political party? Richard Nixon (who would've been 99 today) was the one:I heard Nixon speak [during the 1968 campaign]. He was talking about free enterprise, getting government off your back, lowering taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air. I said to my friend, "What party is he?" My friend said, "He's a Republican." I said, "Then I am a Republican!”They met for the first time at the Nixon library in November 1991, after the future governor of California arrived by chopper from a movie set to attend a reception in 37's honor. As library director, I introduced them, not that they didn't recognize one other already. I was on a flight with Nixon in the 1980s when he ran into Maria Shriver and huddled with her for 20 minutes, sharing stories about politics and their respective political clans (this was before she married Schwarzenegger, with whom, it's rumored, she may be reconciling). I also met Bruce Springsteen because of Nixon, but that's another story.
Michael Kimmage on the influence of William F. Buckley, Jr.:Buckley’s power, as a conservative, was the power of association. He made connections where connections had previously been tenuous or non-existent. He united conservatives in journalism, academia, government, and corporate America, sometimes in print and sometimes around the dinner table. He associated the young with the old, the ideologues with the philosophers, and the lovers of economic liberty with the lovers of natural law. In doing so, he helped associate the Republican Party with his preferred synthesis of social conservatism, libertarianism, and a foreign policy of Wilsonian outreach.
In my own life, I have drawn great strength from my religious practices and, according to the teachings of my faith tradition, I intend to continue to keep in prayer those who are chosen to lead our nation. That said, the litmus for our elected leaders must not be the church they attend but the Constitution they defend.
Dismissing half-measures proposed by longtime Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross, Paul Pillar at The National Interest says it will take a president with nothing to lose to make a Palestinian state a reality, which is to say a reelected president:The slim hope for [a fundamentally changed U.S. approach] would require a president winning a second term and thus having four more years knowing he will never run for office again. The alternative election result in the United States certainly gives no hope for an end to the stalemate. Front-runner Mitt Romney, with his stand-with-Israel-no-matter-what approach, almost sounds like the moderate on this issue compared to his principal opponents, Newt (“We have invented the Palestinian people”) Gingrich and Rick (“All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis”) Santorum.
You can and should listen to Canadian folkie Kathleen Edwards' upcoming album, Voyageur, for free at NPR. It doesn't rock quite as steady as her earlier records; it's more spacious, atmospheric, and, frankly, commercial. Here's hoping it breaks big, as she deserves.
London's Express celebrates the 99th anniversary of 37's birth with an article about Don Fulsom's likely-to-be-discredited book. Reporter Peter Sheridan includes a quote from The Episconixonian:Though Nixon remains one of America’s most reviled figures, even his harshest critics question the book’s conclusions. There are no love letters, videos or audio tapes proving an affair with Rebozo and White House gossip can be notoriously politically motivated. Nixon’s former chief of staff John Taylor insists the gay allegations are “not true, take it from me... Nixon was heterosexual. He loved smart, attractive women, flirted with them keenly if ineptly and had no sexual energy whatsoever with men.”
If parish ministry is the best work in the world, baptisms may be the best of the best. Jack Christopher Hageman was marked as Christ's own forever this morning at St. John's, wearing the baptismal gown that his great-great-grandmother made in Ireland a century ago. His sister, Abby Rose, wore it at her baptism, which I also had the blessing to perform. I officiated at the marriage of Jill, my St. John's School colleague, and Bill Hageman. If you sense I'm grasping for some small measure of credit in connection with this wonderful family enterprise, you're not half wrong. Pastors do that.
On Dec. 3 Fred Clark questioned evangelical leader and former Nixon aide Chuck Colson's motives for accusing those who want to raise taxes on the rich of class envy:Clark uses the word "socialist" several times, as if Colson had used it against those who wanted to raise taxes on high incomes. But neither that word nor "radical" comes up in Colson's column, which substantially detracts from the irony that Clark claims exists. Colson may well have thought taxes were too high in 1969-73; many conservatives such as he did, but they couldn't do anything about it since the Democrats controlled Congress throughout the Nixon administration. For his part, Colson errs in accusing those who favor higher taxes of falling prey to the sin of envy. Many experts sitting in cushy think tanks who aren't acting out rage akin to that of Russian peasants nonetheless believe that a sensible fiscal solution requires more revenue from the wealthy (whom else? Russian peasants?) than Republican obstructionists are willing to consider.During every day that [Colson] worked in the White House as one of the most powerful men in the executive branch, the wealthiest Americans were charged double the rate of income tax that they pay today....
[T]he top marginal income-tax rate today is half of what it was during Colson’s service at the top levels of the Nixon administration. And the capital gains tax today — the tax that matters more to the wealthiest Americans who make money from money rather than from work — is even lower. The capital gains tax rate is just 15 percent, which is why Warren Buffett pays a lower rate than his secretary does.
When Chuck Colson was working alongside the president, revenue as share of GDP was 17.6 percent. Today it is 14.4 percent — historically low, the lowest it has been since 1950.
So according to the standard set by his column, Chuck Colson and the rest of the Nixon administration were a bunch of soak-the-rich radical redistributionists driven by socialist envy.
