Speaking of Christianism...

You need to look no further than the Alaska Governor:

"An Associated Press review of the Republican vice presidential candidate's record as mayor and governor reveals her use of elected office to promote religious causes, sometimes at taxpayer expense and in ways that blur the line between church and state. Since she took state office in late 2006, the governor and her family have spent more than $13,000 in taxpayer funds to attend at least 10 religious events and meetings with Christian pastors, including Franklin Graham, the son of evangelical preacher Billy Graham, records show."

I know, you're shocked, just shocked.

Down in the polls and getting desperate

What do you do when your campaign is losing on the issues? When your Hail Mary attempts to look relevant in the face of a financial crisis are intercepted? When you want to divert attention from the fact that your VP is probably the least qualified in American history?

Try more character assaults!

Ah, what an honorable campaign. As Nov. 4 nears, and Obama maintains his steady lead (and demeanor), we can expect much more of the same. Anything that will make voters go into the booth thinking, "Is he really One Of Us?"

The showdown in St. Louis

I'm looking forward to the much-anticipated debate tonight. "Which debate," you ask, "the one between Palin and Obama-loving elitist Gwen Ifill? The debate between Biden and his own notorious proclivity to grandstand and exaggerate? The debate between all the new facts crammed into Palin's head and her mouth?" Yeah, all those, and a little sideshow called Palin vs. Biden. Given how central the Palin brand is to McCain's campaign, and how little we are allowed to know about Palin, I think this debate is possibly more important than the presidential debates.

Here's my prediction for tonight (and the nice thing about blogging is that if I'm wrong, I can just erase any record of it): It will be a draw. Palin will probably say some silly things, but she won't embarrass herself nearly as badly as she did in the Couric/Gibson interviews. She'll use the advantage of the debate format (i.e., fewer direct follow-up questions) to attack Obama a lot, speak in her well-rehearsed talking points, and exploit her self-described Joe Sixpack appeal. That works for her.

Biden will scrupulously avoid attacking Palin directly, for fear of looking like he's "bullying" the poor victimized VP candidate (think about that for a moment). Gwen Ifill, the moderator, will certainly ask some Elitist Media "gotcha" questions designed to trip Palin up (e.g., What's your policy on Afghanistan? What would you do about the economy?), but she'll also be sure to focus attention on Biden's recent gaffes in order to appear fair and balanced.

Result: Both sides will proclaim victory, as they always do. If this is the outcome, I'd say it would be a small victory for McCain, because it will slow down Obama's recent momentum, and reassure conservative-leaning voters that Palin is not a total disaster. I'd expect next week's poll numbers to be back to a small Obama lead nationally, with a toss-up in the battleground states.

But if I'm wrong, just pretend you never read this.

Palin and the end of the world

Huffington Post has a really good article (and especially watch the 10-min video at the bottom) asking about Palin's "eschatology" -- i.e., religious beliefs about the end of the world. I grew up and spent 15 years in an Assemblies of God church, the same denomination as Palin's church in Wasilla.

Most Assemblies of God churches believe that the end of the world is coming soon. They believe that all true Christians will suddenly be whisked away to heaven (the Rapture). They believe that the world as we know it will end in a World War (Armageddon), allowing God to create a new world and Christ to return to Earth in person. Many of them believe that these "end times" will only happen when Israel controls all of the Holy Land, and that Moscow will start Armageddon by attacking Israel. They believe that the "Anti-Christ" is a literal person who will fight against or deceive Christians during the end times. Most importantly, they look forward to all of this eagerly because it means that they're all going to heaven. I know this because I've heard the sermons stating these prophecies first-hand.

Does Sarah Palin personally believe these things? I don't know; she hasn't exactly been available for extensive questioning. But the Youtube videos demonstrate clearly enough that she's comfortable with the theology and subculture.

If you're worried about Palin's lack of knowledge about public policy issues, just imagine what those religious beliefs would mean for her foreign policy. We could actually have a president in several months who looks at the US relationship with Russia and Israel and asks, "What can I do to hasten the Second Coming of Christ?"

Palin, Iran, and good/evil

Plenty of things have already been said about Gov. Palin's most recent embarrassment, a.k.a. the Couric interview. I won't repeat all the critiques of her lack of knowledge and dangerously extreme policy positions. But I want to focus briefly on her comments about negotiating with Iran:

"I think, with Ahmadinejad, personally, he is not one to negotiate with. You can't just sit down with him with no preconditions being met. Barack Obama is so off-base in his proclamation that he would meet with some of these leaders around our world who would seek to destroy America and that, and without preconditions being met."

Did I miss something, or does Iran really seek to destroy America? Did someone in Iran say that? Did some U.S. intelligence agency infer that? Now Ahmadenijad is no saint, but even under the worst possible interpretation of his various remarks, the worst you could argue (and even here it's highly disputable) is that he wants to destroy Israel.

But this isn't just Palin's own mistake; I think it fits into a long tradition of enemy-making. In Palin's worldview, there are Good Guys and Bad Guys in the world. By definition, we are the good guys, and the bad guys want to destroy us. Since Israel is one of "us," by definition anything Israel does against bad guys is good and shouldn't be second-guessed. Ahmadenijad is not a cynically rational, self-interested authoritarian concerned about his own domestic politics (which a fair reader of this interview would surmise), but another Hitler who must be confronted.

Now there is a tiny, tiny nugget of truth in this thinking. There are people who don't like America and its policies, and sometimes they do things that are evil. But I can't overstate how dangerous this kind of good/evil thinking is, for our own security and others' as well. We are literally (literally, with words) creating enemies out of our opponents and even some former friends. We define these enemies as inherently unreceptive to rational incentives or dialogue, which leaves threats and violence as the only policy alternatives. Do we really need more enemies? Do we never do anything evil ourselves?

Two last comments: First, it seems that this kind of binary good/evil thinking is heavily related to exclusivist religious belief. Second, it only buttresses the position of leaders like Ahmadenijad in his own society, since he can use the same good/evil language to demonize us.

Palin meets with foreign leaders for the first time today

Ah, those Onion staff writers must be salivating.

Another out-of-touch elitist against Palin

In an upcoming Newsweek article, Sam Harris agrees with me that there is something deeply disconcerting about many Americans' anti-intellectual bias when selecting our leaders -- most recently exemplified in the Palin nomination:

"Ask yourself: how has 'elitism' become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated."

Harris is a great, provocative writer. What I find interesting is that, in an email to people on his mailing list, he titled his article "In Defense of Elitism." Makes sense. But compare that to the title on Newsweek's online edition: "When Atheists Attack." Doesn't that sound a bit like pejorative commentary from Newsweek's editors? Does it even relate to the substance of the article?

Just when you thought Obama WASN'T the Antichrist...

Apparently he might be:

"Barack Hussein Obama has taken the nation by storm.... It is stunning. On the surface, it appears attributable only to his eloquent oratory and his race. But an invisible factor may be a strong spiritual force behind him, causing some people to actually swoon in his presence."

Yeah, he's not talking about the Luke force, but the Darth Vader force. Read the whole letter. It's circulating among evangelicals.

If you aren't familiar with pentecostalist evangelical thinking, you might be led to think the letter is some kind of parody. But trust me, I grew up in an Assemblies of God church (the same denomination as Palin), and they're deadly serious.

"Don't worry," you might say, "it's a fringe idea that would never affect a presidential election." No, it's more like a quarter to a third of our population -- that's 100 million people.

McCain's reign is falling in Spain

In an interview with a Spanish-language radio station in Florida yesterday, John McCain seemed unable to identify Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain. In response to the interviewer's attempts to clarify who he was talking about, McCain gave a boilerplate answer about how he will work with friends and confront enemies.

Now, I'm partly willing to give McCain a pass on this one. Perhaps it was a miscommunication because of language differences. Perhaps McCain mixed up Zapatero with the Zapatistas. In fact, I think it's unrealistic to expect the candidates to remember the names of every single foreign leader (although Spain is a pretty important ally). So I'm hesitant to say that this was a big "gotcha" moment. It strikes me as significantly less worrisome and less relevant than, say, Palin's ignorance of the Bush Doctrine.

But here's where McCain doesn't get a pass. He has made his foreign policy experience a central argument in his campaign. Earlier in the very same interview, he tried to draw a contrast with Obama by claiming, "I know the issues and I know the leaders." So McCain should simply be held to the standard that he sets himself. If Obama had made this mistake, McCain would certainly make it Exhibit A in the case against Obama's foreign policy cred.

Incidentally, the same should also hold true for Palin (possibly) getting pregnant before she was married, and McCain committing adultery on his first wife. I don't think these issues are relevant to someone's qualifications to be president. But if the appeal of your own candidacy is based on notions of fidelity, personal integrity, and sexual morality, shouldn't you be held to your own standard?

Palin's appeal

Identity politics? Preposterous.

Expertise matters

Now that Gov. Palin has actually granted one journalist an interview, it seems that people are beginning to notice that her knowledge of foreign policy is... how shall I say it... a bit lacking. I guess being able to peer across the Bering Strait just didn't give her all the expertise she hoped for. Last week Robert Kagan, a McCain advisor, said the following in her defense:

“I don’t take this elite foreign policy view that only this anointed class knows everything about the world," he said. "I’m not generally impressed that they are better judges of American foreign policy experience than those who have Palin’s experience.”

Which made me think: I wonder how far Republicans would be willing to carry this "knowledge is elitist" claim? I mean, how egregious does your lack of knowledge have to be before you're deemed unqualified? Apparently, "not really focusing on" the war in Iraq, and not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is, or what a vice president does, isn't enough. If a candidate didn't know where Washington DC was, would they praise him for being an "outside the Beltway maverick"? If he didn't know where Canada was, would they call him a patriot?

The classic Rovian strategy seems to be: turn your weakness into strength, and your opponent's strength into weakness. So if Obama finished at the top of his class at Harvard, is an expert in constitutional law, and can speak intelligently about foreign policy, he's "out of touch with mainstream America." And Palin is a hockey mom "just like one of us."

Hey, I enjoy a beer with the guys at happy hour just like anyone. But if any of them ran for national office, I'd punch them in the face. (OK, metaphorically.) And I hope they'd do the same to me. Neither I, nor the guys I used to drink with in DC, are smart enough to be President of the Freaking United States. The country -- especially at this moment -- needs someone exceptionally smart and capable to be in that position. It's just plain dangerous for us to belittle expertise in favor of the Average Guy Candidate.

Lipstick, flag pins and elections

One reason I started this blog is because I believe that US presidential elections are deadly serious events. People give their lives to have opportunities like this. So I've been pretty disheartened by the level of public discourse over the past couple of weeks. I know there are strong structural and psychological incentives in every election to pay attention to trivialities rather than issues. Every election has its share of lying, deception, exaggeration, and twisting of facts. But frankly, I expected more from Senator McCain, whose public image has been built around the notion of integrity.

I am an Obama supporter, and have been for some time, so I know I'm biased. But McCain's personal attacks on Obama's integrity and patriotism, the phony sexism charges, and the sex education attack ad were just outright lies. Not accidentally false claims, or exaggerations, but deliberate Rovian lies.

I find McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as VP to be along the same vein. I actually find a lot about Gov. Palin that I personally like. But McCain's decision-making process was cynical, rash, and ill-prepared. Whatever you think about Palin, McCain cannot have been thinking about effective governing when he made this decision. He was thinking about effective politicking-- and even then, only the most cynical form of identity politics that America should be trying to move beyond in 2008.

Palin on the Bush Doctrine

Honestly, I expected Gov. Palin to be fairly well prepped for the Charlie Gibson interview. Her response -- or lack of response -- to his question on the Bush Doctrine really blew my mind. You see, I'm a professor who has taught Intro to International Relations, a freshman level general education class at my college. The Bush Doctrine is something that every single freshman -- not just Politics or IR majors, but every single college freshman -- should be able to define and critique after one semester of this class. Governor Palin clearly did not know what the Bush Doctrine was. Her level of knowledge would have failed a freshman International Relations course. Now granted, she only had two weeks to prepare for this exam, and my students have the whole semester. But my students aren't running for Vice President of the United States either.

She sure seemed awfully confident though. As the past 7.5 years have taught us, lack of knowledge should never dissuade you from looking confident in your assertions. Thank God.