Saturday, December 18, 2004

Priorities Bob Hebert notices an interesting juxtaposition on the front page of the NY Times. The story at the top of the December 10th paper, entitled "It's Inauguration Time Again, and Access Still Has Its Price," made the following point: Even at a time of war when more than 138,000 American troops are serving in Iraq, the organizers say that the inaugural celebration at the end of the January will not be marked by any noticeable restraint and will cost more than any other in history. It also pointed out that the second-place ticket to Inaugural events is $100K. To get the most out of the Inauguration, you have to pay $250K. At any rate, the story just below the first was entitled "Armor Scarce for Big Trucks Transporting Cargo in Iraq." It said: Congress released statistics Thursday documenting stark shortages in armor for the military transport trucks that ferry food, fuel and ammunition along dangerous routes in Iraq, while President Bush and his defense secretary both spoke out to defuse public criticism. But before we conclude that they care more about fancy parties than about the troops, let's not overlook the theme of this year's Inauguration: President Bush's inauguration will have the theme "Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service" and will focus on American troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, inaugural organizers say. The article also notes that, since public criticism of the Inauguration's cost arose, its estimate has gone down from its record $40+ million price tag to $30-40 million, due to "an authentic estimate based on budget projections that the committee had not had the time to assemble last week." 11:28:16 AM    comment [] God and the President Michael Gerson, President Bush's chief speech writer and Christian evangelical, did an off the record interview with a small group of reporters and later allowed some of his comments to be released to the public. On the question whether appeals to God should be removed from presidential speeches: As a writer, I think this attitude would flatten political rhetoric and make it less moving and interesting. But even more, I think the reality here is that scrubbing public discourse of religious ideas would remove one of the main sources of social justice in our history. Without an appeal to justice rooted in faith, there would be no abolition movement or civil rights movement or pro-life movement." And on the question whether the President is objectionably claiming that God is on our side: The important theological principle here, I believe, is to avoid identifying the purposes of an individual or a nation with the purposes of God. That seems a presumption to me, and we've done our best to avoid the temptation. Of course, no one would dare claim the President has ever explicitly identified our purposes with those of God. But that's because he's incapable of drawing out logical implications. Compare the following two comments from a speech I mentioned back in May: [1] And yet, we know something here in America. We know the power of free societies. See, freedom equals peace. Free societies will be peaceful societies. And we also know that freedom is not America's gift to the world. Freedom is the Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world. And two sentences later: [2] The world will be more free and more peaceful, thanks to the United States of America and our military. These are historic times. In sum, America is bestowing freedom and peace to the world, which are gifts of the Almighty. 11:06:41 AM    comment []

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