Politics

Daughter of a preacher man (UPDATED)

A couple of days ago I wrote about Darryl Fears’ snarky Washington Post story about the independent journalists who have targeted community organizing group ACORN. Their videos show employees of ACORN advising how to set up a brothel with underage girls (who are sex-trafficked!) in the most tax-friendly way. It’s not much of a religion story but Fears has been trying to make it one. And with the reticence that much of the mainstream media has had in covering the story, perhaps it’s good that the Post is covering it at all.


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Eye to eye with an Oath Keeper

At this time, I would like to join MZ Hemingway in doing something that may sound a bit strange at this here weblog. I want to praise the Los Angeles Times for writing a major, A1 story that contains a little bit of religion, but not too much. Yes, there’s a religion ghost in this whole, quote, anti-government, unquote, movement, but the ghost does not appear to be running the show.


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Rebirth of a 'Leave Us Alone' coalition?

As tmatt mentioned yesterday, I was able to cover the taxpayer protest here in Washington this Saturday. I cover protests here all the time but I don’t think anyone — including the people who came up with the idea for the protest, the marchers, the media or the police — had any idea it was going to be as big as it was.


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Who were those guys?

Here in Beltway land, people are still buzzing a bit about the whole Tea Bag and Talk Radio festival — to use the most common mainstream media images — that drew tens of thousands (police no longer give specific estimates in this cautious age) of protesters to the National Mall.


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What is an 'anti-abortionist'?

Few issues in newspaper style have created as much controversy as the question of what to call the two sides in the culture wars over abortion. As I understand the style that has evolved, newspapers that seek balanced, fair coverage of the two sides have two solid options.


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Shameless self-promotion: faith-based initiatives

It’s an opinion piece, not a news article, but some of you might be interested in something I wrote for the Wall Street Journal‘s Houses of Worship column yesterday. I took a look at how President Barack Obama’s faith-based initiative office compares with Bush’s. After reminiscing about some of the warnings that Bush’s office was leading the country to a theocratic form of government, I wrote:


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