Via John Ray at Dissecting Leftism comes this surprising op-ed by former U.S. senator from Oregon Mark O. Hatfield, endorsing President Bush for re-election: I know from my service in the Senate that Saddam Hussein was an active supporter of terrorism. He used weapons of mass destruction on innocent people and left no doubt that…

Agree with him or disagree with him, Christopher Hitchens is always interesting. Here is an interview with him on his evolving politicial views: He explains that he believes the moment the left’s bankruptcy became clear was on 9/11. “The United States was attacked by theocratic fascists who represents all the most reactionary elements on earth.…

Noah Millman at Gideon’s Blog: …I was finally convinced that Bush has no idea how his agenda fits together, and that he doesn’t care. Which was very depressing for me. I know Bush is capable of tying his preferred policy mix together into a coherent bundle, because he did it in 2000. He did not…

This is from A Taste for the Other: The Social and Ethical Thought of C.S. Lewis by Gilbert Meilaender, and concerns the idea that Lewis emphasizes union with God rather than faith as the key to his theology: Faith as trust is not for Lewis the foundation stone on which to build an exposition of…

Protestantism has always had a somewhat ambiguous relationship with the Law – understood both as the natural and revealed moral law. With its emphasis on justification by grace through faith alone, Protestantism has frequently been accused by critics of lapsing into antinomianism. That is, if we are saved by grace, independently of whether we keep…

From the New York Times: It was no accident that John Kerry appeared Tuesday on “Live With Regis and Kelly” and recalled his days as a young prosecutor in a rape case. Or that he then flew from New York to Jacksonville, Fla., to promote his health care proposals. Or that on Thursday in Davenport,…

A great piece by Gene Healy on being a libertarian in D.C.

One argument sometimes offered as a justification for meat-eating is that it’s “natural” for us humans to eat meat and therefore okay. We’re “made” for meat-eating, it’s sometimes said. Or the human body is “designed” to eat meat, as indicated by our teeth, etc. Barring a really crude creationist picture of human development, I think…

Should churches ever excommunicate their members? What would be the grounds for such a measure? Camassia considers the issue here and here.

Consider the bully on the school playground, tormenting his victim. He is giving outward expression here to a low view of the victim, putting him at the bottom of the playground hierarchy. The playground, especially if it is relatively unsupervised, is a good place to observe what I said yesterday. People who know each other…