I Make Brian McLaren’s Site

I sent Brian McLaren an email confronting him for agreeing to speak to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention. And, lo and behold, it made his site:

Here's another [e-mail] - a lot like the previous one in tone:

Mr. McLaren,
Shame on you for speaking to the Episcopal Church's General Convention. The Episcopal Church persecutes the faithful, promotes abortion and any number of heresies. And you have allied yourself with their evil.
Your so-called generous orthodoxy is neither.
Shame on you!

So he doesn’t actually respond and instead sniffs about its tone and lumps it with an unrelated e-mail. But I’ll take what I can get.

Taliban ACLU Target War Memorial

The ACLU is asking the Supreme Court to outlaw a war memorial first erected in 1934 in the Mojave Desert. Why? Because the memorial is a cross. Horrors!

With its tireless efforts to disinfect American public life of Christian symbols, not to mention freedom of religion, the ACLU has well earned being tagged the American Taliban.

Step 1: Dig pit. Step 2: Fall in.

Remember all those psalms about the evil digging pits for the righteous and then falling into them themselves? The pseudo-Diocese of San Joaquin set up by The Episcopal Church presents us with an amusing example of the same.

The Anglican Curmudgeon reports that TEC’s pseudo-diocese has painted themselves into a bit of a corner (if you excuse another metaphor). For it appears their canonical gymnastics have made it almost impossible for them to achieve a quorum sufficient to hold a convention, much less “depose” 61 clergy.

Lovely.

Obama’s Incredible Irresponsibility on Missile Defense

Obama is being incredibly irresponsible by cutting funds for missile defense. With North Korea shooting off missiles and testing nukes and with Iran going merrily along in its nuke program now is no time to cut back on missile defense.

Even a Clintonite wimp can see that.

Bishop Gladstone Adams, Vindictive Lowlife

If my good readers are in need of their daily bile, they may check out how TEC Bishop Gladstone Adams is being a vindictive lowlife against a rector who won’t kiss his feet . . . again.

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MORE: O.K. I have to say more. I know Matt+ Kennedy. He is a good gentle Christian man. He and his parish have bent over backwards to conduct themselves as Christians through this whole matter, even after they lost their buildings and even after a bequest which was clearly not intended for the Episcopal Church was handed over to greedy said “church” in a miscarriage of justice. Matt+ talks about this here. As is typical of him, he is far more gracious about this than I am.

And, yet, The Episcopal Church still won’t leave Matt+ and his parish alone, even after they are long gone.

The shameless evil of The Episcopal Church continues to astound.

Why did Bush the Elder appoint Sotomayor?

An argument you will hear again and again is that Sonia Sotomayor is really a moderate – after all George H. W. Bush appointed her.

Don’t buy that for a minute. Bush’s appointment was a political horse trade and nothing more:

. . . in 1992, the Senate was controlled by Democrats, and the two senators from New York were Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Republican Alphonse D'Amato.



By a number of accounts, Moynihan and D'Amato had a longstanding arrangement. "It was a special deal whereby D'Amato agreed to defer to the pick of Moynihan for one out of every four district court seats," another former Bush official told me. "That was a deal that preceded President Bush I, so basically Moynihan was picking one of four district court nominees." That deal stood even though Republicans controlled the White House and thus (theoretically) the right to choose judges for the federal courts.



And at that moment, in 1992, it was Moynihan's turn to choose, and his choice was Sotomayor. There is no evidence that anyone in the Bush I White House or Justice Department thought Sotomayor was a conservative, or even a moderate, but no one wanted a fight with Moynihan. "She was not our first choice," recalls a third Bush I official, "but she was someone who was, if we were going to get a nominee confirmed to that position -- essentially someone we had to go with."

Not to mention Bush the Elder’s judicial choices were not exactly stellar. He appointed Souter, after all.

Republicans, Be Careful About Sotomayor

I am sure it will not surprise my kind readers that I am not thrilled over President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. But, given my combative nature, my council to Republicans may astonish – do not expend too much political capital in opposing her.

Yes, her qualifications are questionable. Yes, her commitment to the Constitution is highly questionable.

But Obama can do worse, believe me. And it is unlikely he will do better in picking a Supreme Court Justice. (Heck, it wouldn’t shock me if she proved an improvement over Souter. That's not saying much, but hey . . .)

It is also unlikely this nomination can be stopped. And – the main reason I council caution – her story is endearing. Even such a mean sado-conservative as myself finds it hard to dislike her. I do not think heated opposition to her would prove fruitful, but would instead backfire.

There are many battles to be fought against the audacity of Obama. This is not one of them. Republicans would do well to keep their opposition scrupulously polite and principled.