Columnist.
Just four years ago, candidate Barack Obama said he believed that marriage was between a man and a woman. "And God is in the mix." Who moved? Say what you will about President Barack Obama's policies, millions of Americans voted for the man in no small part because his family represents a much yearned-for ideal. How much happier Americans would be if all our children lived in a stable, loving, married family with a mom and a dad -- like the Obama family. Many writers expressed the hope that having these real-life Huxtables in the White House would turn around many devastating pathologies in America's cities -- and in our rural areas, too.
Secretary of State John Kerry was barely off the plane in Germany before he embarrassed himself -- and all of us -- with what is perhaps the *worst* defense of religious freedom ever offered. Kerry, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president in 2004, said the United States protects religious freedom because: "In America, you have right to be stupid." Sec. Kerry's audience of German students laughed when he said that. He missed, of course, the perfect opportunity to share our deepest values with the rising generation that will have Europe 's future in their hands.
Secretary of State John Kerry chose an interesting place to deliver his first foreign policy address. The former Massachusetts senator spoke at the University of Virginia. He was introduced by the university's president, Teresa Sullivan. Dr. Sullivan noted that the university's founder, Thomas Jefferson, had served as the *first* Secretary of State. Unlike today's foreign policy elites, Mr. Jefferson thought religious freedom was fundamental to our political liberties. He authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he introduced into the state's General Assembly in 1779. It was a world historical event. When James Madison, Jefferson's loyal lieutenant, pressed that bill through to adoption in 1786, Jefferson was serving as this country's second Minister Plenipotentiary to France. He took pains to have the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom translated into French and circulated widely in Europe.
The media, of course, is calling it a resignation. But it not so much a resignation of a political office as it is a *renunciation*. The 85-year old pontiff's decision to renounce the power and prestige of the papal office is so unexpected, almost unprecedented, as to take the world by surprise. Of course, we Americans of all people can understand what thoughts must have coursed through Pope Benedict XVI's mind as he prayed about this weighty decision. We saw this kind of renunciation with our first president, George Washington. He did not leave the presidency before his second term expired, true, but he renounced all further exercise of power on March 4, 1797. It was then he strode out of the Senate chamber in Philadelphia. He purposely prodded President John Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson, the new nation's elected leaders and Washington's own successors, to go before him. He knew the importance of symbolism. King George III had once been George Washington's bitterest enemy. He said if Washington *renounces* his power, he truly will be the greatest man in the world. He did. He was.
If you visit the excellent new Ford's Theater Center for Education and Leadership, there is a stack of books on Abraham Lincoln that rises three or four stories. We know that of the making of many books there is no end, but does that also apply to books about our sixteenth president? Apparently so. Today we celebrate the birthday of the Great Emancipator. In that Ford's Theater exhibit, there are large panel portraits of later presidents who were influenced by, and who sought to guide their steps by, the principles and precedents of Abraham Lincoln. The first panel shows President Barack Obama. The text below the handsome portrait of our forty-fourth president informs us that he began his career -- as did his fellow Illinoisan -- in the state legislature in Springfield.
President Obama's senior thesis at Columbia University has been embargoed. It is said to be an endorsement of the Nuclear Freeze Movement that was so much the cause célèbre of the left here and throughout Western Europe in the Reagan years. We may have to wait for his presidential library to open to find out. And we may have to wait until then, too, to learn whether young Barack Obama attended the massive, one million plus Nuclear Freeze rally in Central Park in June, 1982. It's hard to imagine that the young student who, he tells us in his book *Dreams from My Father*, consciously sought out the Marxist professors on campus would have missed this huge anti-nuclear demonstration unfolding on his doorstep. It's odd, too, that he seems never to have been asked about this during two campaigns for the White House or during any press conference.
Former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Secretary of Defense should be withdrawn now. He delivered what may be the worst performance at a confirmation hearing ever given. He was described as "confused," "befuddled," and "self contradicting." One of Mr. Hagel's own backers deplored the lack of "charisma" the nominee showed during the hearings. Was this just a "Bad Hair Day"for Mr. Hagel?
Hillary Clinton finally faced down her critics on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week. She fired back at Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) when he tried to get her to acknowledge that the entire story of an anti-Islamic video inflaming mobs who then murdered Amb. Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans in Libya had been, to put it charitably, wholly unsubstantiated. All along, Hillary had acted as if this was someone else's issue. She was, after all, the Secretary of State who gets "1.43 million cables come into my office" a week. They're all addressed to me, she petulantly shot back. Now, just for a moment, let's consider that statement. Can she really mean she has put in place no system for determining what she must see? She describes a process she allowed to stay in place for four long years that apparently is like drinking from a fire hose. No, that would be *1.43* fire hoses. The military has a standard protocol for distinguishing routine cables from those that deserve higher priority and those that are urgent. An imminent threat to American lives would seem to justify an *urgent* category, wouldn't you think?
President Obama's Religious Freedom Day Proclamation displaces the Jews. He describes America as a nation of "Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, Sikhs and non-believers." This may be politically correct, but it is historically inaccurate. In terms of numbers, the Jews in America have always exceeded the Muslims. In terms of their influence on American ideals, Jews have been foundational from the start. Jews have lived among us from the time they first arrived on these shores. A small Jewish community came to New Amsterdam (New York) in 1654, then under Dutch rule. There has never been a time in American life as an independent nation when Jews have not been a part of our people.
Dear General Powell, I was disappointed with the clear implication in your Meet The Press interview that those of us, in the GOP who defend life, protect traditional marriage and advance religious liberty are intolerant. It was obvious to anyone who watched the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, that NO! had it. There was no way the convention chairman could have heard a two-thirds vote for the YES! position. Three times the chairman asked them to vote. Three times they denied God. Denied Him Thrice! What has happened to the Democratic Party that,in the 1960's, provided such leadership for the cause of Civil Rights? It was Democrats like John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey who supprted the fight for civil rights among the white majority in the1960s. Kennedy, the first Catholic president, was in good company in his church. Roman Catholic Bishops were among the first to strike out against segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was surely a Baptist preacher, but he could rely on thousands of Catholic priests and nuns to join his great March on Washington in 1963. And when he wrote his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail, he cited St. Thomas Aquinas to make his case that an unjust law was no law at all.
President Obama will take the oath of office later this month "on a stack of Bibles," the *Washington Post* tells us. He will place his left hand on Bibles owned by Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Well, that's a relief. Interestingly, not included in the stack is the Koran, about which Mr. Obama spoke so glowingly in Egypt four years ago. (No Bibles openly displayed there.) Now, swearing on a stack of Bibles ordinarily conveys seriousness of purpose and deeper commitment to carry through on the words you have just uttered. President Obama four years ago told us he thought the "signing statements" employed by his predecessor, George W. Bush, were not only improper, but they were *unconstitutional*. Coming from a constitutional law professor, who was sworn in on Lincoln's Bible, those are serious words.
President Obama's choice of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel for Sec. of Defense is a dangerous choice that telegraphs weakness toward Iran. In the Senate, Mr. Hagel compiled a worrisome record toward the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. It is Iran that backs Hezbollah in Lebanon. We haven't heard much about the Cedar Revolution in that war-torn country. That's because Hezbollah murdered the democratic leaders for reform. Iran is behind Hamas in Gaza. Hamas defeated the corrupt regime of Mahmoud Abbas in elections in Gaza that soon degenerated into civil war. Abbas has papered over those differences and now seeks to present a united front to the ruling Muslim Brotherhood-backed party in Egypt and the UN.
A trend has taken shape in Washington, and it has put our country on a devastating path towards potential fiscal ruin. The trend is characterized by an unsustainable penchant for spending money we don't have. It became crystal clear in last year's debt ceiling negotiations and was further highlighted by the recent debate surrounding the fiscal cliff; our country is broke, yet our government continues to spend more, risk more and accumulate more debt. Entitlements are often blamed for the vast majority of our spending issues, but our tendency to overspend is not restricted to just these. Parallels exist across the spectrum of government agencies -- each case portraying the same doomed philosophy that threatens the solvency of our entire economy. A telling example is the Export Import Bank (Ex-Im): an anti-free-market institution that consistently risks billions of public dollars for the sake of corporate welfare.
Much of the Internet exploded in wrath over Pope Benedict XVI's Christmas greetings to the Roman curia. Delivered in those historic halls painted by Renaissance artists, the Pope's address was given to those tasked with administering the Vatican State and serving the Catholic faithful worldwide. "Rant!" "Hateful!" "Outrageous!" These were some of the milder expletives cast at the Pope -- the ones we didn't have to delete. This storm of abuse arose because of a papal statement extolling marriage and the natural family. Let us carefully note what is happening here. The acknowledged leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics is speaking to his brother priests about the essentials of the Roman Catholic faith. He is speaking in a forum recognized to be the sovereign territory of a city-state, known to Catholics as the Holy See.
Most of us would be honored to have our name become a verb. Especially those of us in public life. But that is not how Judge Robert H. Bork got into the dictionary. He was "borked" when President Reagan nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court. No sooner had the announcement been made by the White House on July 1, 1987, than Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) raced to the Senate floor to denounce the distinguished judge and former Yale Law Professor. In Robert Bork's America, Kennedy roared, blacks would once again sit in the back of the bus, rogue police would break in our doors, and women would be forced to go to back alley butchers for abortions. On and on, Kennedy ranted, using every extreme and exaggerated charge he could employ, to tarnish the judge's reputation.
President Abraham Lincoln had been warned by Gen. George B. McClellan *not* to interfere with the institution of slavery. McClellan was a "War Democrat," willing to fight to preserve the Union, but unwilling to do anything about the root cause of the rebellion that threatened the life of the nation. Ironically, it was McClellan's victory at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, that had given Lincoln the opportunity he needed to issue his *Preliminary* Emancipation Proclamation. In that document, the President warned rebellious states in the South that they would have their slaves freed if they did not cease their insurrection against the federal government and once again obey the laws of the Union. That hundred-day period had been a difficult one for President Lincoln. There would be political reverses in the mid-term congressional elections that fall. Democrats campaigned on the slogan "The Union as it was and the Constitution as it is." That meant slavery would be secure in all the states where it then existed. They picked up congressional seats and won key state governorships.
The editorial staff of the the *Washington Post*, surely meant well. They wanted readers to think that Sen. John Kerry's vast experience in foreign policy over four decades equips him to serve as Secretary of State in the second Obama administration. The editorial, titled "John Kerry: Well-suited to be Secretary of State," gets that part right. The natty Mr. Kerry certainly *looks* the part of a globe-trotting senior U.S. diplomat. As to his qualifications for that role, we're reminded of Frederick the Great's response when he was urged to make a less than stellar general a field marshal. Reminded the only occasionally victorious general had been in every battle for years, Frederick pointed to his mount: "So has my mule. Must I make *him* a field marshal, too?"
Sen. John Kerry has a long and dubious record in foreign policy. In the 1970s, he testified *against* his fellow Vietnam War veterans before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He charged that they were violating the Geneva Conventions every day in Vietnam. Some POWs were outraged at Kerry's disloyal statements. They said they had been tortured by their Communist captors trying to force them to make such untrue statements.
Last May, the world was treated to an unprecedented spectacle. President Obama was meeting in Seoul, South Korea, with leaders of the G-8 (G-10? G-20?) He was caught on a live mic talking with then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Mr. Obama wanted no disturbances in foreign policy to roil the waters. He wanted smooth sailing to re-election in November.
My buddy, Glenn Beck, has made a great contribution to the TEA party movement and to a renewal of popular interest in our Founding Fathers and their ideals. For all that he deserves praise. But, I believe, he is making a serious error in abandoning the civil right of marriage. The Republican Party was founded in opposition to two historic wrongs. The party's first platform in 1856 denounced "slavery and polygamy -- the twin relics of barbarism." Slavery was finally put down with a terrible toll -- 630,000 Americans dead in the Civil War. The new movie, *Lincoln*, tells the dramatic story of the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery.
