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True story: Your humble scribe once got sucked into a conversation with a guy who thought his own taste in music should settle the argument for what is good and hip and cool. A few minutes in, I let slip that I enjoyed the songs of the late lamented crypto-Christian rock group Creed, which launched my friend on a whale of a rant.
Back from his near-death experience, Osama bin Laden emerged to make an anti-Bush ad in the form of an address to the American people. The bearded one closed with the warning: “Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked.” Leading up to this statement, however, he took a series of swipes at George H.W. Bush and President Bush:
In 1998, when former Marxist dictator Pol Pot died before he could be brought to trial for ordering the deaths of millions of fellow Cambodians, there was a small item in the unsigned editorial section of National Review. If memory serves, it read “The war crimes trial of Pol Pot has now been moved to a higher court.”
Another item from the GetReligion assignment desk, for religion reporters or writers with a healthy interest in globalization.
How does that old saying go? Presidential politics makes for interesting one-night stands. In pursuit of a singular goal — getting more votes than the other guy — arguments are advanced during election season that would not be tolerated by the parties’ bases at any other time.
Entertainment writers tend to be — how shall I put this? — very, very secular. Because of this demographic bias, they often have certain blinders. Hit Christian movies can sneak up on them like special forces troops creeping through tall grasses to find the enemy and rip their throats out. Now that I’ve got your attention with that rather . . . grotesque simile, I’d like to clear a story off of the GetReligion assignment desk.
The Australian follows up this weekend’s low-key celebration of the twenty-sixth anniversary of John Paul II’s election to the papacy with a piece on what will go into deciding the next pope. Author Peter Wilson does a good (read: short, witty, informed) job of laying out how the leadership of the Catholic Church has changed in the last few decades, and how this should influence the decision of the College of Cardinals.
Looooooooong essay in the latest New York Times Magazine by journalist Ron Suskind on the subject of George W. Bush’s faith and how it shapes his administration and the country. The article paints a picture of a White House governed by an executive with an almost messianic view of himself. After slogging through all 8,000 words, I don’t think Suskind has delivered the goods.
Conservative and liberal religious groups both applauded the multiple questions on faith posed to both presidential candidates on Wednesday night, but said the answers were vague and offered no new information. Look, any more specific and the Supreme Court would have held the debates unconstitutional. See this article by GetReligion favorite Julia Duin of The Washington Times.
