Religious Leaders Clash on 'Meet the Press'

I caught most of Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority; the Rev. Al Sharpton, the minister-politician who ran in the Democratic primaries; Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine; and Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Commission on Meet the Press this past Sunday. It was a frustrating interview. Falwell and Sharpton generally seemed immature; more interested in "winning" than in shedding light on the topics of the conversation.

I do not often agree with Land, but he was thoughtful and respectful, while Wallis was far more biblical than any of the others. If Russert just had these two guests, then they could have reacted to each other, answered each other's questions, and presented two different perspectives on the intersection of Christianity and politics. The egos of Falwell and Sharpton prevented such a conversation from occuring.

Basketball

With so many veterans on the team, this would be a great year for OSU to let Eddie Sutton retire with a National Championship. Go Pokes!

Are Christian voters swallowing camels?

Tony Norman is one of my favorite columnists from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His article, Are Christian voters swallowing camels? is one of the reasons for that.

Informed Comment

One more from Informed Comment, this one about the US Marine who shot the wounded Iraqi fighter in the Fallujah mosque.

Informed Comment

Juan Cole's blog is always insightful. He often gives a round-up of Middle Eastern media, as well as his thoughts about the Iraq. Here is one of his posts with a suggestion on how to salvage the elections in Iraq.

A frustration I've had with many "Middle Eastern experts" is that their criticism of current American policy is not followed up with any suggestions of how to proceed. Cole sometimes falls into that, but not here.

Article about Arafat

Juan Cole is a professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. He has some thoughts about Arafat's passing.

Democracy & Islam?

This article by Michael Hirsh in the Washington Monthly is well worth reading. The subtitle says it all; What if Islam isn't an obstacle to democracy in the Middle East but the secret to achieving it?

Something that should have been talked about BEFORE the election

Israel/Palestine: Why was there only one question in any of the debates, the VP debate, about this topic? (Cheney did not really answer the question, and Edwards' answer was terrible) Arafat's illness and the oportunities his death might bring makes this a huge issue. And even if Arafat had remained healthy, how could our country have had any discussion about terror without talking about Israel? We might not see the connection, but most of the Muslim world does.

One facet of our "war on terror," must be working to create an environment in the Middle East in which terrorism is unthinkable - the whole "hearts and minds" thing. The festering war between Israel and Palestine does not help. And the fact that the US is seen as siding with the enemy of the Arabs makes it worse. We need to be an honest broker who is willing to put pressure on both governments to prepare their people to make the sacrifices necessary for peace. Sure would be nice to know how our President would go about doing that.

First Post

Here we go. I imagine that this will mostly be a place to link to interesting articles and other blogs that I across. We'll see how it goes!