The House passed a trillion dollar bill that will force Americans to buy health insurance, force even small businesses to provide health coverage, and require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.  (The last, as I have previously argued, makes it something other than “insurance.”)

Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray for WaPo:

Hours after President Obama exhorted Democratic lawmakers to “answer the call of history,” the House hit an unprecedented milestone on the path to health-care reform, approving a trillion-dollar package late Saturday that seeks to overhaul private insurance practices and guarantee comprehensive and affordable coverage to almost every American.

After months of acrimonious partisanship, Democrats closed ranks on a 220-215 vote that included 39 defections, mostly from the party’s conservative ranks. But the bill attracted a surprise Republican convert: Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, who represents the Democratic-leaning district of New Orleans and had been the target of a last-minute White House lobbying campaign. GOP House leaders had predicted their members would unanimously oppose the bill.

Democrats have sought for decades to provide universal health care, but not since the 1965 passage of Medicare and Medicaid has a chamber of Congress approved such a vast expansion of coverage. Action now shifts to the Senate, which could spend the rest of the year debating its version of the health-care overhaul. Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to bring a measure to the floor before Thanksgiving, but legislation may not reach Obama’s desk before the new year.

[...]

The House legislation would for the first time require every individual to obtain insurance, and would require all but the smallest employers to provide coverage to their workers. It would vastly expand Medicaid and create a new marketplace where people could obtain federal subsidies to buy insurance from private companies or from a new government-run insurance plan.

Though some people would receive no benefits — including about 6 million illegal immigrants, according to congressional estimates — the bill would virtually close the coverage gap for people who do not have access to health-care coverage through their jobs.

Carl Hulse and Robert Pear for NYT:

Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement.

[...]

Democrats were forced to make major concessions on insurance coverage for abortions to attract the final votes to secure passage, a wrenching compromise for the numerous abortion-rights advocates in their ranks.

Many of them hope to make changes to the amendment during negotiations with the Senate, which will now become the main battleground in the health care fight as Democrats there ready their own bill for what is likely to be extensive floor debate.

Democrats say the House measure — paid for through new fees and taxes, along with cuts in Medicare — would extend coverage to 36 million people now without insurance while creating a government health insurance program. It would end insurance company practices like not covering pre-existing conditions or dropping people when they become ill.

[...]

Some Democrats said they voted for the legislation so they could seek improvements in it. “This bill will get better in the Senate,” said Representative Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who has been outspoken in his criticism of some provisions of the bill but decided to support it. “If we kill it here, it won’t have a chance to get better.”

[...]

The House legislation, running almost 2,000 pages, would require most Americans to obtain health insurance or face penalties — an approach Republicans compared to government oppression.  Most employers would have to provide coverage or pay a tax penalty of up to 8 percent of their payroll. The bill would significantly expand Medicaid and would offer subsidies to help moderate-income people buy insurance from private companies or from a government insurance plan. It would also set up a national insurance exchange where people could shop for coverage.

This measure barely passed the House, where Democrats enjoy a solid majority in which most Members are Gerrymandered into uncompetitive seats.  And there are many Jim Coopers among the Yeas: People who would have voted Nay if they were not so confident the Senate would produce a much less radical bill, ensuring any measure that reaches the president’s desk will be less mild.  I’m pretty sure they’re right.

Still, this is a rather staggering measure passed by the House.  If this became law, the poor would be significantly poorer and small businesses would be even less competitive with the big box stores.  During a very weak economy with an unemployment at ten percent, no less.  Oh, and insurance rates will go up for the rest of us, too, as companies amortize the cost of absorbing people who have costly illnesses — who will by definition be a net drain on the pool from Day 1 — by passing it on to the rest of us.

Presumably, the rationale behind these moves is to wreck the current system entirely, making a government system the only alternative.  Certainly, it’s not a good faith measure to improve the current system.

I get that the status quo is far from perfect.  Young, healthy people often can’t afford health insurance.  (I went without during my graduate school days, for example, unable to justify spending $250 a month out of a $750 stipend to cover the incredibly unlikely event of getting seriously sick.)  The poor clog up our emergency rooms.  People are stuck at their job because they’d lose coverage at an otherwise preferable job.  Dealing with insurance companies can be a nightmare.

This bill helps address some of those problems, at least at the margins.  But it exacerbates others.

Moreover, this plan does nothing to address the fundamental problem with the status quo:  The unsustainable skyrocketing in health care costs.    If the Senate were to somehow pass the identical bill, we’d cover more people — a good thing in and of itself — but at a higher per unit cost.  That means an even greater share of GDP would go to health care from the beginning with no additional constraints on the escalation of costs.

A man carrying an anti-abortion sign was murdered this morning.

A well-known anti-abortion activist was shot multiple times and killed Friday morning in front of a Michigan high school and another man was shot and killed just miles away in what police are investigating as related incidents.

Michigan State Police have taken a suspect into custody but have not released the name of the victim, the Flint Journal reported. The school was placed on immediate lockdown, though no students were injured or involved in the shooting, Ossowo Hish School officials told the paper. School officials say the shooting took place outside of school grounds around 7:30 a.m., when most students were already inside the building for classes. The school, located 20 miles west of Flint, is now allowing students to leave with a parental escort, WLNS News reported.

The suspect was picked up at his home at about 8:15 a.m. and is now being investigated in connection with a second killing that occurred a few miles away from the school, WNEM News reported.

As police sift through the second “homicide scene” near an Ossowo gravel pit Friday morning, they have ringed off a section of street in front of the high school, where a large sign bearing the image of a baby and the word “Life” can be seen, the Flint Journal reported.

Having only the information quoted above, I agree with Megan McArdle that “this seems more like a lone lunatic than a political killing” and share her hope that “if it does turn out to be someone with a political agenda, the right can manage to refrain from claiming that this is really a symptom of some dark rot at the center of liberalism.”

It does, sadly, seem yet another data point in my longstanding There Are Nuts on Both Sides meme.  Thankfully, even though this is the issue that seems to motivate the most vitriol in our politics, the number of murders committed since 1973’s Roe v. Wade can still be counted on both hands.  There have been more people killed for their sneakers than their views on abortion.

The murder of abortion doctor George Tiller has had its desired impact, the closing of one of the few clinics in the United States willing to provide late-term abortions.  Roxana Hegeman for AP:

The family of slain abortion provider George Tiller said Tuesday that his Wichita clinic will be “permanently closed,” effective immediately.  In a statement released by Tiller’s attorneys, his family said it is ceasing operation of Women’s Health Care Services Inc. and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic. “We are proud of the service and courage shown by our husband and father and know that women’s health care needs have been met because of his dedication and service,” the family said.

[...]

Dr. Warren Hern, one of the few remaining doctors in the country who performs late-term abortions, said the closure of the clinic was an “outrage” and he feels the loss for Dr. Tiller’s family and the patients he served. “How tragic, how tragic,” Hern said when contacted by phone at his Boulder, Colo., clinic. “This is what they want, they’ve been wanting this for 35 years.”  Asked whether he felt efforts should be made to keep the clinic open, he said: “This was Dr. Tiller’s clinic. How much can you resist this kind of violence? What doctor, what reasonable doctor would work there? Where does it stop?”

[...]

Randall Terry, the founder of the original Operation Rescue group, responded to news that Tiller’s clinic would remain closed with, “Good riddance.” He said history would remember Tiller’s clinic as it remembers Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. “What set him apart is that he killed late-term babies,” Terry said. “If his replacement was going to continue to kill late-term children, the protests would continue, the investigations would continue, the indictments would continue.”

Tiller’s alleged killer is pleased as well.  CNN:

An anti-abortion activist suspected in the death of Kansas doctor George Tiller told CNN on Tuesday the closing of Tiller’s women’s clinic is “a victory for all the unborn children.”

Scott Roeder, 51, would not admit to CNN’s Ted Rowlands that he killed Tiller, who was gunned down at his church May 31. But he said if he is convicted in Tiller’s slaying, “the entire motive was the defense of the unborn.”

[...]

Roeder said the closure would mean “no more slicing and dicing of the unborn child in the mother’s womb and no more needles of poison into the baby’s heart to stop the heart from beating, and no more partial-birth abortions.”

Lovely.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias passes on word from Kate Klonick that Operation Rescue is going to make an offer to buy the office.

Ross Douthat, examining the controversy over late-term abortions that was brought back into the public spotlight with the murder of Dr. George Tiller, observes:

The argument for unregulated abortion rests on the idea that where there are exceptions, there cannot be a rule. Because rape and incest can lead to pregnancy, because abortion can save women’s lives, because babies can be born into suffering and certain death, there should be no restrictions on abortion whatsoever.

As a matter of moral philosophy, this makes a certain sense. Either a fetus has a claim to life or it doesn’t. The circumstances of its conception and the state of its health shouldn’t enter into the equation.

But the law is a not a philosophy seminar. It’s the place where morality meets custom, and compromise, and common sense. And it can take account of tragic situations without universalizing their lessons.

I think that’s right.  Intellectually, it’s impossible to justify both forbidding abortion because we deem it the killing of a human being and yet allowing exceptions if the father is a rapist or pedophile.  Because those cases are so extreme — and, frankly, rare — many are nonetheless willing to grant that exception.

Beyond that, I agree with Ross’ larger point, discussed in parts of the column I didn’t excerpt, that this should be a matter for public debate and consensus rather than judicial dictat.  The fact that the Court made up, out of whole cloth, a Constitutional Right to Abortion in 1973 is the primary reason this issue is fought over in such a polarizing, shrill, uncivil manner.

UPDATE:  Freddie objects to Douthat’s suggestion that abortion has been taken out of the democratic process.

Setting aside the banal fact that the judicial system is a part of our democratic process, there is a clear, straightforward and well-known way to overturn Roe v. Wade– pass a constitutional amendment criminalizing abortion. That’s how you override Supreme Court decisions; that’s how Dred Scott was effectively overturned. That’s how the federal income tax was passed. There’s a method for overturning Supreme Court law you don’t like, it’s well known, it’s time tested, and it’s as open to abortion foes as it is to anyone else. If anything, a constitutional amendment is more democratic, because it has to be approved by a larger number of representatives and clear more hurdles before it passes.

Under that logic, however, EVERYTHING is theoretically part of the democratic process.

The Constitution was itself essentially an amendment to the Articles of Confederation and passed according to strict guidelines.  Subsequently, it has been formally amended 27 times, with 13 of those coming as as two blocs (the Bill of Rights and post-Civil War amendments).   The problem with Roe and other clearly activist rulings by the Supreme Court is that it bypasses this process, creating a de facto sitting constitutional convention of nine judges — who then need only a simple majority!  To say that, well, the citizenry can simply assemble a huge supermajority and go through a labyrinthine process to overturn the dictat of unelected judges is well beyond the scope of democracy.

To clarify a side discussion going on in the comments, this is entirely a discussion about process rather than results.  As a matter of public policy, I’m not horribly distressed with the current state of abortion law, which the Supremes have amended dozens of times since Roe and is based on fetal viability and recognizes the right of society to impose certain limits, especially in late term and with respect to abortions by minor children.

DrewM. passes on Michelle Malkin’s post and column noting that the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller by a white “Christian” got scads more media commentary and more intense presidential attention than did the murder of Private William Long and maiming and attempted murder of Private Quinton Ezeagwula by a black “Muslim.”

It’s a fair point and very much worth noting that there are craziest on both sides.

At the same time, the first shooting naturally fit into an ongoing storyline whereas the second seemingly comes out of the blue.  Malkin’s done yeoman work over the years in rounding up little-reported incidents by leftist extremists targeting American troops but it remains a tiny, disaggrated fringe movement whereas the anti-abortion movement is massive and even its extreme elements, like Operation Rescue, are rather large and public.

Nutcases aside, there’s been a loud and bitter debate over abortion going on since at least decision in Roe v. Wade some thirty-six years ago. So, naturally, when an abortionist gets murdered, there’s a ready frame into which to plug stories, sidebars, and commentaries.  Columns from 1986 can be dusted off and re-run by changing a few names and throwing in a new quote or three.

By contrast, those who genuinely dislike American soldiers are so far into the lunatic fringe that they’re not part of the public debate.  Just about every liberal male politician over the age of 50 — John Kerry, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, George McGovern, Ted Kennedy, Charlie Rangel — served in the military.  Hell, so did Jeremiah Wright.

To be sure, there are liberals who hate the way our military is used.   Others hate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  But, by and large, those are handled as debates over public policy.  It’s presidents who are the object of that wrath, not American soldiers.  Indeed, when someone dares criticize soldiers — as in the General Betray Us flap — they’re roundly slapped down, even by other liberals.

All that said, I agree with Michelle on the much narrower points.  Yes, President Obama should have said something about the recruiting station incident, especially after his comments on the Tiller murder.  He’s commander-in-chief, after all.  And it would have been good politics, too, earning credit for taking on left-wing crazies without alienating a significant part of his coalition.

And, yes, the press should have used the occasion of the latest shooting to point out that this was not a totally isolated incident.  The press really needs to get beyond its tired story frames and do broader reporting more often.

Photo by Flickr user DRB62 under Creative Commons license.

One soldier was killed and another seriously injured in a shooting at an Army-Navy Recruiting Center in west Little Rock, Arkansas.  Thankfully, the second’s injuries are not considered life-threatening.  Contrary to earlier reports, both victims were “just out of basic training,” participating in the “Hometown Recruiting Assistance” program, and not Army Recruiters.  An arrest has been made but no names are released.  An “assault rifle” of some sort was reportedly used in the shootings.

Thus far, blogospheric commentary seems to be relegated to the right.  Not surprisingly, comparisons are being drawn to the murder of abortionist George Tiller despite the fact that “Police are trying to determine a motive” and the police spokesman “did not know whether the recruiting office was specifically targeted or was randomly chosen.”

Michelle Malkin ruefully quips, “I wonder if the Justice Department will send marshals to beef up protection at recruiting centers — especially given the past targeting of military centers on campuses and elsewhere across the country.”  She rounds up some of her own reports from over the years to demonstrate that violence aimed at military recruiters happens with some frequency, even if it gets less attention than abortion clinic violence.

Charles Johnson wisely refrains from speculation, merely passing on a noteworthy story.  Similarly, Ed Morrissey cautions, “This could have any of several different motives: political, personal, insanity.  I’d caution against reading too much into it until we hear more from the police.  We’ll be keeping an eye on it.”

AJ Strata wonders, “Is this country ready to finally deal with the fringe nut cases in the fevered swamps on the left and right?”

Rob Port observes,

Now, not to use this tragedy for politics or anything, but we could jump to the conclusion that this man was motivated by a hatred for the military (or something along those lines) and then blame groups like Code Pink and Media Matters and MoveOn.org for fanning anti-military, anti-Iraq war passions for years.  We could, much as the left has with people like Bill O’Reilly in the George Tiller murder claim that those groups have blood on their hands.

But we won’t.  Because that’s stupid.  This murder, whatever the motivation (it’s not clear at this point), was committed by a murderous thug who acted of his own volition.  Not because he was compelled to by liberal dissent.

Until we know whether the shooter was some yahoo with a beef against military recruiters, a garden variety lunatic, or part of some organized conspiracy, it’s not much worth speculating on the politics.  But Strata and Port are right:  There are fringe elements out there on various points of the political spectrum and some handful of them are willing to kill.

Most murders, though, are apolitical. They’re human tragedies with horrific consequences for friends and loved ones with little public policy meaning.  Sadly, that doesn’t stop people from trying to make political hay out of them.

I fully expect, by the way, some commenters on the left to start exploiting this case to argue for a strengthened assault rifle ban in 5, 4, 3 . . .

Photo:  KATV7

For the second time in less than a week, Andrew Sullivan has handed out one of his positive awards to someone for whom a different and negative award was named.   This time, Michelle Malkin gets an Yglesias Award for calling the murder of George Tiller “terrorism.”   (For those who don’t keep up with such things, the Malkin Award is given for “shrill, hyperbolic, divisive and intemperate right-wing rhetoric.”)

Amusingly, while I join Malkin in condemning the murder of Tiller, I consider terming it “terrorism” to be rather hyperbolic.  Quite a few bloggers I read, especially those on the left, join her in using it.  Steve Benen, for example, argues “We’re dealing with an act of politically-motivated violence, against a law-abiding American on American soil, intended to scare, intimidate, and change U.S. policy.”

That’s not quite right.  While no universally accepted definition exists, Benen’s is as good as any.  But I’d argue that it constitutes a three-pronged test and that this murder falls short on one prong.   Yes, this act was politically motivated and designed to scare and intimidate.  But, while one hesitates to fathom what a deranged lunatic “intends,” but there’s no way a rational person, even an evil one, would think that murdering abortionists will change public policy.  Indeed, if anything, it’s likely to make people on the fence more sympathetic to abortion providers while putting reasoned critics of abortion on the defensive.

At best, this murder was intended to stop Tiller from providing services he was legally free to provide and to intimidate other current or would-be providers.  But that’s “terrorism” of the same sort carried out by the Ku Klux Klan or the Mafia and so far afield from what those who seek to overthrow governments or induce radical changes in public policy do as to require a different category.

UPDATE: An email from a colleague suggests the above needs clarification.  Obviously, many no-question terrorists — Timothy McVeigh and the 9/11 highjackers were offered as examples — kill with no sane hope of actually changing U.S. Government policy.   But that was at least their direct aim.   My presumption is that Tiller’s murderer was aimed at intimidating other would-be abortionists.

As for the KKK, they no doubt terrorized; I’m not sure that makes them “terrorists.” They’re just criminal scumbags.  Indeed, “terrorist,” like “assassin,” actually conveys some legitimacy in a way “murderer” does not. The former, after all, are fighting for something they believe in.

In terms of the Mafia, they conduct all manner of killings to “send a message” of some sort.  Generally, it’s not a political message, to be sure, but it’s intended to intimidate people who get in their way.

UPDATE 2: Thoreau largely dismisses the title question but makes an interesting point about the discussion.

I see plenty of downsides in letting the government treat terrorism as a special category that “regular” laws can’t address.  (For examples, see the past 8 years.)  So I’m fine with calling things by accurate and descriptive names in public discourse, but I see little advantage to having different laws for a special subset of murders.  There’s an important difference between what we say in open discussions and what we actually do in courtrooms.

Now, there may be a need for some sort of different treatment of terrorism in an international context, to distinguish a soldier attacking a military target under orders (these guys are normally accorded POW status) from a guy attacking a civilian target (these guys normally aren’t).  However, in the domestic context I see no need for a distinction.

That’s a fair point.  McVeigh was a terrorist but, more importantly, he was a mass murderer.  He was convicted and punished accordingly.

UPDATE 3: Ezra Klein argues that Congress should not let Tiller’s killer win by making late-term abortions harder to get.   Hilzoy agrees and lists several steps Congress should take.  Coincidentally, these are policy changes that they already favored.

There’s a lot to unpack in this sentence:

Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller, a prominent advocate for abortion rights wounded by a protester more than a decade ago, was shot and killed Sunday at a church in Wichita where he was serving as an usher and his wife was in the choir, his attorney said.

I’m opposed to both late-term abortion and church. Still, presuming he was murdered by abortion opponents calling themselves pro-life and motivated by Christian teaching, it’s hard to imagine anything more twisted.

UPDATE (Monday morning):  I’m going to be tied up today with meetings and panels but I wanted to add some quick points to this post I rapidly dashed off yesterday afternoon before getting on with my Sunday.

• Most late-term abortions are abhorrent, involving a viable child who could live outside the womb.  Many, however, are not.  I’ve gathered from what I’ve read since the news broke that Tiller mostly performed the latter, those heart-wrenching cases where the fetus, while late in its development, was either nonviable, horribly defective, or threatening the safety of its mother.

• Andrew Sullivan and a goodly number of left-of-center bloggers I read blame Bill O’Reilly and other more-or-less mainstream conservative commentators for adding to an environment that made murdering Tiller more likely.  I reject that argument wholeheartedly.   I’m by no means an O’Reilly fan but he’s not advocating murder.  Indeed, the overwhelming number of even hard-right social conservatives condemn these anti-life crimes.  The idea that holding forth passionately on one’s political views is tantamount to incitement to violence is incredibly dangerous to our continued freedom.

• While no commentator has yet taken it that way, I want to make clear that my opposition to “late-term abortion and church” was in no way intended to suggest an equivalence between the two.  I think the former heinously immoral in most circumstances while I’m merely philosophically opposed to the latter for reasons I’ve explained previously but aren’t germane to this discussion.

• This was a plain old murder, not “terrorism” or an “assassination.”

Scott Ott’s latest parody news story:

In an effort to shut down the U.S. Naval Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, thereby restoring America’s moral standing in the world, President Barack Obama today declared some 240 enemy combatants held at Gitmo to be ‘human fetuses’.

In an executive order, the president said, “Since I ordered Gitmo shut down, and people don’t want us to bring the inmates here, the only way to extract them from the facility is to change their legal status to one that offers us more choices.”

More at the Examiner; the rest is rather less funny given the nature of abortion.  Personally, I support human rights for both fetuses and accused terrorists but Scott’s juxtaposition about the blithe acceptance of one and the frenzied reaction to the other is apt.

Photo by Flickr user AmnestyInternationalNorthernIreland under Creative Commons license.

Kevin Drum observes,

When the subject has anything to do with sex, the right in America is the party of moral absolutes.  We know what’s right, we know what’s wrong, and even if there’s a price to pay we can’t shirk our responsibility to set a proper example and do the right thing.

But when the subject is torture, suddenly it’s all about carefully weighing the costs and benefits.  Having an honest debate about how far we should go to protect ourselves.  Understanding the context of what happened.  It’s just not possible to flatly say that waterboarding and sleep deprivation and stress positions are barbarisms unfit for use by a civilized country.  It’s much more complex than that.

I’m both anti-torture and generally opposed to the government mucking around in our bedrooms.  But even leftists, ranging from Alan Derschowitz to a goodly portion of the Democratic congressional leadership, think that there may be occasions when extreme measures are called for in protecting our national security. Conversely, I’m hard pressed to think of occasions when adultery, rape, bigamy, incest, or pedophilia would become circumstantially necessary.  For that matter, while I don’t oppose the right of homosexuals to have sex with each other or form legal unions, there isn’t exactly a “ticking time bomb” equivalent.

The only issue that “has anything to do with sex” where the comparison would be at all apt is abortion.  I’m personally largely ambivalent on very-early-term abortion, including the so-called “morning after pill,” and am pro-contraception.  I even think there are circumstances, such as extreme risk to the life of the mother or extreme deformity of the child, where later term abortions are morally reasonable.  But I can understand the logic of those who are anti-abortion absolutists.   If one truly believes that at a human being exists at Point X (whether conception or some biologically logical later point), then it’s hard to make the case for exceptions.

Conversely, one can believe that torture is morally wrong and bad public policy and still countenance doing it to very bad people to prevent very bad things.   Most people aren’t Kantians.

Photo by Flickr user kharied, used under Creative Commons license.

I glossed over yesterday’s news that the Vatican blocked Caroline Kennedy’s appointment as U.S. ambassador for a variety of reasons.  Regular commenter Tlaloc emailed me, though, making a good point:

[T]he Vatican refuses to accept any ambassador who is not explicitly pro-life including anti-ESC research (such as Doug Kmiec).  Various voices on the right have praised them for this principled stand.  But if we accept this criteria doesn’t it set a bad precedent?  What happens when China demands our next ambassador be an avowed Maoist?  Or Saudi Arabia demand someone who openly accepts sharia law (up to an including the whole acid in the face for uppity girls)?

Us Ambassadors are supposed to represent us, not their host country. Obviously we should make sure that our ambassadors do not inflame their hosts by their mere presence but that’s a world away from them being required to openly affirm allegiance to the host’s ideals.  Or to put it another way, if the Vatican has the right to demand a vocal pro-lifer be our ambassador to them can’t we demand their ambassador to us be a vocal pro-choicer?  And where does such petty brinksmanship get us except a total break down of diplomacy?

The right-leaning blogs memeorandum links on this one are universally praiseworthy.

RedState’s Moe Lane is “curious about how many times this administration plans to insult the Roman Catholic Church.”  His colleague mbecker908 dubs this “an Easter gift from the Vatican” and adds, ” Good for the Vatican. This pentecostal Baptist boy (OK, old boy) is standing with the Pope on this one.”  He agrees with Lane that “being so tone deaf as to openly and forthrightly make an effort to offend the Vatican is off the charts.”

Dan Riehl observes, “Obama just got done going out of his way to inform Islam he had no intention of insulting or threatening it as a religion. So why the continued insults to Catholicism? It’s as if he doesn’t care about it as a religion at all.” Even Michael van der Galien, a staunch moderate, agrees that, “Instead of giving the Church the impression its opinions do not matter, the Obama administration is wise to treat it as it treats enemies of the United States: with respect and understanding.”

Dan and Michael have the right take on this.  If we’re going to have an ambassador to the Vatican (and I’m sympathetic to Michael Stickings‘ view that we probably shouldn’t) then it behooves us to respect their sensibilities when selecting our representatives to them. It’s just good diplomacy.

Now, Tlaloc is right that our ambassador is supposed to represent us, not the country to which he’s sent.  Ron Chusid makes that point as well.

The Vatican might not like it, but support for both abortion and embryonic stem cell research is the position of the Obama administration and both are legal in this country. What if the Vatican were to also demand an ambassador who believes in creationism instead of evolution?

What of other areas where countries disagree with the views of appointed ambassadors? Do Muslim nations object to non-Muslim ambassadors from the west?  Should we go along if one were to insist that we only appoint an ambassador who opposes the existence of Israel?

During the cold war it would have been ludicrous for Communist nations to reject western ambassadors who did not support Communism. Imagine if the Chinese had refused overtures from Richard Nixon to begin diplomatic relations because Nixon and his potential ambassadors were not Maoists.

The difference, of course, is that, despite the legal fiction to the contrary, the Vatican isn’t really a country; it’s a church with a big yard.  States, even those that are theocracies (Iran) or close to it (Saudi Arabia), have traditionally operated on the principle of sovereign equality.  They either have diplomatic relations with a given state or not, on a take it or leave it basis.  Not so much with churches.

Now, again, that may be a reason to not send an ambassador.  For most of our history, we didn’t.  Ronald Reagan was the first to have a formal ambassador.  But if we’re going to have diplomatic relations with a church, it only makes sense not to go out of our way to offend it.

The problem with Kmiec and Kennedy, as I understand it, is not so much that they’re pro-abortion but rather that they’re pro-abortion Roman Catholics.  Sending them as our ambassador to the Holy See is the equivalent of sending a Soviet defector as ambassador to Moscow during the Cold War or sending an Orthodox Jew as ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Leah McElrath Renna, left, Rosemary McElrath Renna, 3, and Cathy McElrath pose for a portrait in Washington, on Tuesday, April 7, 2009. The group will be attending the Easter Egg Roll at the White House on April 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

“Has the Right surrendered in the culture war?” asks Washington Examiner political editor Chris Stirewalt.  The piece is illustrated with the photo and caption at right and begins:

As some 240 million American Christians observe the most sacred week of their religious calendar, the nation reached a pivot point on faith and values.

Demonstrating the lessening influence of Christianity on American public life, President Barack Obama, addressing a group of Muslim students in Turkey, said that one of the great strengths of the United States is that “we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation.”

Stirewalt continues,

But Obama has correctly observed that the growing number of American nonbelievers (now 4 percent) and practitioners of a cafeteria-style spirituality have America looking much more like Western Europe. There, religion is like antique furniture, admired for its beauty but used only sparingly.

Obama, like many politicians, has been preparing voters for the transition to a more multicultural nation for some time. As a candidate, he explained that Americans have to appreciate that “we are no longer a nation of just Christians.” In his inaugural address he gave a nod to American “nonbelievers.”

[...]

There were some raised eyebrows when the White House sought out gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender parents to bring their children to the Executive Mansion for the annual Easter celebration as a show of inclusiveness. But there wasn’t the kind of shock and outrage that would have greeted the move a decade ago.

Similarly, the fact that gay marriage is now a foregone conclusion is met with mostly a shrug. With Vermont’s move to pass a law allowing the practice, every state will eventually have to acknowledge the legality of gay vows administered elsewhere. Keeping local restrictions will seem pointless and out of date when the laws actually do nothing to prevent the practice.
In much the same way, changes to the way the government treats abortion and embryos provoked some quibbling but mostly silence.

Exhausted by decades of the culture war and afraid of further economic setbacks, the silent majority hasn’t been roused by the issue. Perhaps it isn’t even a majority anymore.

Indeed, as Andrew Sullivan — a gay Catholic conservative married (in some states at least) to another man — points out, even social conservative firebrand “Dr.” Laura Schlessinger has pronounced gay marriage “a beautiful thing and a healthy thing,” albeit while wishing we’d call it something different when two people of the same sex do it.

I would quibble, however, with one word in Stirewalt’s question.  The right hasn’t surrendered the culture wars; we lost.

And yes, I include myself.  As regular readers know, I’m decidedly not religious and am libertarian on these matters with respect to the use of government power.  I spent the first nearly-three-decades of my life, though, immersed in Southern and military culture.  I’m still anti-abortion (although not anti-contraception) still oppose reading same-sex marriage into the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause (a subject for a separate post).

Conservative culture has been under assault from the popular culture, the schools, and the courts for quite some time now.  We’ve lost the youth and future generations are decidedly unlikely to ever become meaningfully “conservative,” short of an apocalyptic scenario.

Even many of my generation (I’m early Gen X), myself included, have been worn down through a combination of factors.  Gay marriage isn’t something I gave much thought to ten or fifteen years ago — it would have seemed like a reductio ad absurdum at the time — but I’d have reflexively opposed it.   I was bitterly opposed to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” thinking it was the camel’s nose under the tent that could seriously undermine military cohesion.   But, as Cartman might say, the proof of the gay cowboys is in the pudding.   Men are marrying men, women are marrying women, gays are adopting kids, and the world continues to spin on its axis.  Gen Y soldiers and marines are more socially conservative than their civilian counterparts but almost surely think, as I do now, that throwing out competent gays for getting caught being gay makes little sense.

To be sure, there’s still the modern equivalent of the “Surrender, Hell – the South will rise again!” contingent, like my friend and fellow Jacksonville State alumnus Stacy McCain.   God bless ‘em.  But, alas, Lee’s done surrendered.

Andrew Sullivan has a powerful piece on the state of American conservatism, especially its alliance with the Republican Party.  Two key excerpts from a very long piece:

In contemporary America, the right is now in an almost parodic state of ideology. There isn’t just a rigid set of beliefs, indifferent to any time or place (e.g. tax cuts are right in a boom and a recession, in surplus and debt); it is supported by a full-fledged organization or “movement”; this “movement” generates journals and magazines and blogs designed fundamentally to buttress the cause; and the most salient distinction discussed in these circles is between those who are for the cause and those against it (with particular scorn for any dissidents).

[...]

One reason I admire Oakeshott is simply his understanding that the two deepest impulses in Western political thought – the individualist and the collectivist – need each other to keep our polities coherent. He, like me, preferred the individualist, and so my own leanings are toward smaller government, lower taxes, balanced budgets, individual freedom and prudent strength in foreign policy. But I also see when the alternative might be needed. There are times when the government does indeed need to make a big infrastructure investment or beef up its security technology or address an emergent and vital threat to a settled way of life, like climate change or Jihadist terror. Finding the best way for government to act at those times is a pragmatic and often difficult task; but I have no issues with such action. Government exists in some measure to provide a collective response to a newly felt need.

The first part of that strikes me as exactly right. Too much of today’s conservatism is based on litmus tests stuck in the 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter.   If conservatism is about preserving a precise set of policies now thirty years out of phase, then it’s a dying movement.

The flip side of that, though, is in the second paragraph cited above and Andrew’s general sense of issue-and-time-dependent policy analysis.  Yes, hard choices must be made and desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.   Still, if conservatism is nothing more than a Potter Stewartesque “I know good policy when I see it” feeling, then it’s neither an ideology nor in any sense conservative.

While conservatism, like any ideology, should be organic and evolve over time, avoiding being mired in programatic dogma, it should still hue to principles that abide over time.  Andrew’s list — smaller government, lower taxes, balanced budgets, individual freedom and prudent strength in foreign policy — isn’t a bad one, so long as they’re considered preferences or instincts rather than absolutes.

Some examples from the longer essay:

[A] conservative should have no objection to major pragmatic attempts to prevent this depression taking on a life of its own and perpetuating pain more than necessary.

True. But a conservative should 1) be incredibly skeptical of government’s ability to do so and 2) be mindful of longer term consequences of policies enacted in the effort.

[I]t might even be the case that the vastly growing social and economic inequality of the last three decades could justify redistribution via spending or taxes. The point is to sustain social order by buttressing the middle class – a conservative objective if ever there was one – not to construct an abstract notion of a just society.

Helping the poorest amongst us is a conservative value.  Socially engineering a leveled society?  Not so much.

I don’t see the attempt to roll back all legal abortion after forty years of Roe as a conservative move. It’s a counter-revolutionary one.

As a pragmatic matter, I don’t see abortion rollback as feasible, let alone a smart plank around which to try to win elections.  But working to protect innocent lives is absolutely a conservative principle — if not its most fundamental one.   This doesn’t mean dogmatic insistence that a fertilized egg is a human being, crass behavior towards desperate teenagers trying to enter abortion clinics, or, goodness knows, murdering doctors.  Conservatism is about behavior, not just policy outcomes.

Andrew’s larger essay is well worth the read. It includes a bevy of links to debates and other writing on the subject, too.

Andrew Sullivan is bemused to find himself on Forbes‘ list of “The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media” since he considers himself a conservative.  He posts a reader email that muses on this fact:

Did you notice how many people on the list were seemingly chosen not for their writing or their politics, but rather their identity? Oprah is a liberal because she is black, Hitch is a liberal because he is atheist, and you are a liberal because you are gay. These are not just things that are mentioned in the list — they are the primary reasons given which, coupled with any support at all for Obama in the past election, set your name in stone as a liberal one. I suspect that a few of the choices for that list say much more about the Forbes writers’ politics than it does about yours.

Andrew agrees, observing, “What it mainly tells you is that conservatism is degenerate. But we knew that already.”  (Unsolicited tip: If one’s goal is to defend the notion that you’re a conservative, frequently writing things like “conservatism is degenerate” might be a tad counterproductive. )

Regardless, here’s the rationale Forbes gives for rating Sully as a liberal:

A granddaddy of Washington blogging and a former editor of The New Republic, he clings unconvincingly to the “conservative” label even after his fervent endorsement of Obama. His advocacy for gay marriage rights and his tendency to view virtually everything through a “gay” prism puts him at odds with many on the right.

Fervent endorsement of a liberal for the presidency and staunch support for a public policy position that’s not only hated by most conservatives but that even liberal Democrats running for office — including Obama! — won’t endorse strikes me as a reasonable enough justification.

How about the other two questionable liberals identified by Sully’s reader?

Vociferously atheistic, Hitchens, who styles himself a “radical,” will likely be aghast to find himself on this list. This prolific, but never less than eye-catching, author has supported the war on terror as enthusiastically as he has excoriated Sarah Palin.

[...]

Oprah makes this list because her status as an American cultural and racial icon gives her a uniquely influential position to mold political debate in the Obama era.

Again, both supported Obama’s candidacy for president, one enthusiastically so.  Hitch is a self-described Leftist who’s so far to the left on most issues that he’s off the radar screen of American politics.   Oprah’s politics are largely opaque but she hosts a touchy-feely television show and hosts Obama rallies. That’s probably close enough to earn her a “liberal” tag.

The labels “liberal” and “conservative” are not particularly useful these days, if they ever have been.  Sullivan and Hitchens are conservative on some issues, liberal on others.   Sullivan thinks of himself as a conservative, while Hitchens thinks of himself is a Radical or a Leftist or something else.  I don’t know how Oprah thinks of herself and don’t much care.

But it’s reasonable enough, given a bimodal choice, for Forbes to stick these three people on the “Liberal” side for the purposes of a linkbait feature.   Here, by the way, is their own definition:

Broadly, a “liberal’ subscribes to some or all of the following: progressive income taxation; universal health care of some kind; opposition to the war in Iraq, and a certain queasiness about the war on terror; an instinctive preference for international diplomacy; the right to gay marriage; a woman’s right to an abortion; environmentalism in some Kyoto Protocol-friendly form; and a rejection of the McCain-Palin ticket.

In this post, Andrew does a good job of responding to these points one-by-one, showing that his views are rather complicated and, moreover, the list is rather bizarre.   Indeed, while I consider myself, broadly speaking, conservative, Forbes could well cast me as a liberal on several of those fronts.  Alas, I’m not influential enough to merit categorization either way.

Rick Warren and Barack Obama at Saddleback

President-Elect Barack Obama has made the most controversial move thus far in his transition, naming far right televangelist Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.  While this initially struck me as a brilliant move on his part, winning points with Evangelical Christians with little downside, the announcement has sparked outrage in the gay community.

Ben Smith and Nia-Malika Henderson, Politico, “Gay leaders furious with Obama”

Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to deliver the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November, but it is drawing fierce challenges from a gay rights movement that – in the wake of a gay marriage ban in California – is looking for a fight.

Rick Warren, the senior pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California, opposes abortion rights but has taken more liberal stances on the government role in fighting poverty, and backed away from other evangelicals’ staunch support for economic conservatism. But it’s his support for the California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that drew the most heated criticism from Democrats Wednesday.

“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese, wrote Obama Wednesday. “[W]e feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.”

Andrew Sullivan, Daily Dish, “Ugh”

Warren is a man who believes my marriage removes his freedom of speech and cannot say that authorizing torture is a moral failing. Shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now. He won’t be as bad as the Clintons (who, among leading Democrats, could?), but pandering to Christianists at his inauguration is a depressing omen. More evidence that a civil rights movement needs to realize that no politician can deliver for us what we have to deliver on our own.

That, from a conservative Catholic who has been singing Obama’s praises for more than a year, including a glowing cover story for Atlantic Monthly.

John Aravosis, AmericaBlog, “Obama picks homophobe pro-’Prop 8′ evangelical preacher to give the invocation at inaugural”

Gee, maybe Donnie McClurkin wasn’t a fluke. Picking Rick Warren to give THE invocation is abominable. I’m doing my research and will be updating this post in a minute.

He proceeds to do numerous updates, each more scathing than the last, pointing to things Warren has said that will be offensive to abortion supporters, gay rights proponents, and others. He includes this video:

Sam Stein, Huffington Post, “Rick Warren, Obama Invocation Choice, Causing First Real Rift With Progressives”

Ever since Barack Obama was elected president, the media has been pining to write a story about liberal dissatisfaction with his transition efforts. By and large, the meme has been blown out of proportion, as the press overestimated how divisive Obama’s cabinet choices were for progressives.

The press may now have its conflict moment. And it comes in the form of the spiritual leader chosen to launch Obama’s inauguration.

[...]

Warren does have a rather peculiar relationship with the incoming president. The two share a general ethos that political differences should not serve as impediments to progress. On topics like AIDS and poverty relief, they see eye-to-eye. But Warren’s domestic and social agendas are at odds with Obama’s. And for the gay and lesbian community in particular, the choice is a bitter pill to swallow.

“Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church’s engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance,” read a statement from People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. “He has repeated the Religious Right’s big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion.”

In all honesty, I was only tangentially aware of Warren before he hosted the Saddleback forum featuring Obama and McCain. Indeed, other than being vaguely aware of his book The Purpose Driven Life, I don’t know that I’d heard of him.

Were this George W. Bush, I would have no doubt that he’d weather the storm of criticism rather than rebuke a loyal friend with whom he has had a close relationship for years. Obama, though, may well cut bait on Warren if he can’t fix this quickly. As we saw in the cases of Jeremiah Wright and Samantha Power, Obama isn’t one to let sentimentality get in the way of his agenda.