The Bosque Boys

"There is something hollow about the blanket praise of 'change,' as if change were always inevitable and always commendable. We know better, but we are reluctant to acknowledge it. Instead, we are bombarded with political oratory, editorial-page bombast, and psychological advice, stressing that one must have the courage to change, to reinvent oneself, to adapt, to move on. Flexibility is to be regarded as the chief virtue of the truly civilized. Suppleness is next to godliness."

"Yet this rhetoric is often a mere rationalization for selling out, giving in to the spirit of the age, reneging on one’s commitments, and taking the path of least resistance, rather than standing fast and resisting in the name of those things that one should really care about, the things that are precious and good. There’s a dirty little secret such oratory is designed to mask: that all too often it’s change that’s easy, all too easy—and it’s continuity, or loyalty, or perseverance, or honor, or idealism, or any number of other firm and steady traits that we used to think of as 'noble,' that is truly difficult. When we choose to forego the fleeting in the name of the enduring, we affirm what is deepest and most admirable in our humanity. But we also swim against the current."

Read the whole thing here.

NBC Washington Bureau chief, Tim Russert, is dead at 58.

A "Russert" search on this blog yields a lot of hits. We have mentioned him often on the Bosque Boys, usually obliquely (in keeping with his role as a facilitator of the American political conversation) and usually with a grudging fondness.

Here is an extended impression of him after an appearance on Washington Journal with Brian Lamb back in May of 2006:

Tim Russert followed. Maybe I am a fool for his working-class persona, but I cannot see how people can generate hatred for Russert. He tells great unassuming stories about being a kid from Buffalo who made good. He offered a meaningful account of how and why his father recently opted for a Ford Crown Vic over a Mercedes, Lexus, or Caddy. He read a moving letter attacking the New York Times Magazine for their sloppy journalism in re a feature that dealt with his personal memories of his mom.

Later, a passionate caller castigated Russert for being in the tank for the Bush administration. Ironically, the indignant caller provided an almost inverse interpretation of the Condi Rice interview from David Limbaugh. Why weren't you as rough on Rice as you were on Nancy Pelosi last week? She accused him of letting his corporate bias cloud his news judgment (FYI: the corporate news conspiracy: all the news orgs are owned by a few corporations who filter and water down the news).

Tim Russert was at the center of American politics for a long time. I will miss him. May God comfort his family, and may God rest his soul.

Gateway Pundit has two posts worth reading this morning: one notes that Bush is not being greeted by mobs of American hating Europeans, the other that today is the anniversary of Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech.

It is worth remembering that when our media tells us how much the world hates us, they usually are referring to the elites. It also is worth remembering that the right person at the right time can change history.

Three cheers for the Irish. They have defeated the Lisbon Treaty. The Lisbon Treaty was a back-door effort to impose the EU on the nations of Europe after the earlier EU Constitution was defeated. Since all 27 nations must approve the Treaty for it to take effect, this should kill it. Though it does not pay to assume that the political elites will play by the rules.

A major problem with the EU is that it shifts power from local nations and communities to a bureacratic elite not accountable to voters. It also makes EU law superior to national and local laws. Its justice system was to be based on Napoleanic Code, which would mean the loss of the rights and liberties of the Anglo-American tradition such as presumption of innocence.

The Irish were the only nation to put the Treaty to the voters. Other nations approved it in other ways, most of them knowing that public opinion was against the Treaty.

God bless the Irish.

Full story from The Telegraph.

So who has won? Not the detainees. The Court's analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation to determine the content of their new habeas right, followed by further litigation to resolve their particular cases, followed by further litigation before the D. C. Circuit—where they could have started had they invoked the DTA procedure. Not Congress, whose attempt to "determine—through democratic means—how best" to balance the security of the American people with the detainees' liberty interests, has been unceremoniously brushed aside. Not the Great Writ [of Habeas Corpus], whose majesty is hardly enhanced by its extension to a jurisdictionally quirky outpost, with no tangible benefit to anyone. Not the rule of law, unless by that is meant the rule of lawyers, who will now arguably have a greater role than military and intelligence officials in shaping policy for alien enemy combatants. And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.

Amen.

From The Washington Times, a chilling report on the doings in an Islamic school right here in the good ol' USA, courtesy of President Bush's "good friends" the Saudis.

Camile Paglia sums up John McCain:

"For disaffected Republicans as well as many Democrats like me, McCain is an irascible grandstander of slippery ideology who has made a career out of flattering and courting the media. It remains debatable whether McCain's traumatic experiences as a prisoner of war have enhanced or distorted his admittedly wide-ranging knowledge of military and security matters. Crystal clear, however, is McCain's startling awkwardness as a public speaker. With stilted, stodgy intonations that seem to descend from the late-19th century era of one-room schoolhouses, McCain laboriously reading a speech is a painful spectacle. After the mumbling, disjointed George W. Bush, doesn't the U.S. deserve a more sophisticated leader on the international stage? "

I at last have read the text of Pope Benedict's homily given in Yankee Stadium during his recent visit. I think there are some ideas in his sermon that need to be noted.

He began,

In the Gospel we have just heard, Jesus tells his Apostles to put their faith in him, for he is “the way, and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6). Christ is the way that leads to the Father, the truth which gives meaning to human existence, and the source of that life which is eternal joy with all the saints in his heavenly Kingdom. Let us take the Lord at his word! Let us renew our faith in him and put all our hope in his promises!
. . .
This magnificent vision of a world being transformed by the liberating truth of the Gospel is reflected in the description of the Church found in today’s second reading.

Benedict wars against the tyranny of relativism. He unequivocally places Christ above every other source of truth, and asserts Christ's uniqueness as "the way that leadds to the Father." So, regarding Roman Catholic relations with other religions, these cannot be regarded as somehow equal. After Vatican 2 it seemed to some that the position of other faiths in relation to Christianity was up for discussion. Benedict says that any consideration of other religions cannot compromise the Church's belief in the superiority of Christ.

With this encouragement to persevere in the faith of Peter (cf. Lk 22:32; Mt 16:17), I greet all of you with great affection.
. . .
The first reading also makes clear, as we see from the imposition of hands on the first deacons, that the Church’s unity is “apostolic”. It is a visible unity, grounded in the Apostles whom Christ chose and appointed as witnesses to his resurrection, and it is born of what the Scriptures call “the obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5; cf. Acts 6:7).
. . .
And this, dear friends, is the particular challenge which the Successor of Saint Peter sets before you today. As “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation”, follow faithfully in the footsteps of those who have gone before you! Hasten the coming of God’s Kingdom in this land! Past generations have left you an impressive legacy. In our day too, the Catholic community in this nation has been outstanding in its prophetic witness in the defense of life, in the education of the young, in care for the poor, the sick and the stranger in your midst. On these solid foundations, the future of the Church in America must even now begin to rise!

Benedict, without rancor or exclamation points, asserts the superiority of the Roman Church to all other bodies who call themselves churches. Roman Catholicism is The Church, connected to the apostles, and lead by the "Successor of Saint Peter." After Vatican 2 the relationship between the Roman Church and other communions also seemed to some open for discussion. Benedict, like John Paul II, wants it known that while Rome may not cut itself off from other groups, it can not regard them as equals.

The guy knows how to pope. Kudos to Benedict XVI.

I have not seen Sex and the City the movie--but I am a big fan of the HBO TV series. On general principle, I reject the negative reviews from critics who are not fans going in. Why? The film is a reunion. Hopefully, artistically, it will be better than the Return to Gilligan's Island, but, in a larger sense, Sex and the City (the movie) is little more than a lucrative bow to nostalgia along the lines of a Very Brady Christmas. If you like and care about Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbs, Samantha Jones, and Charlotte York-Goldenblatt, surely you will be keenly interested in and mildly entertained (at the very least) by the Sex and the City movie.

Earlier this week, the Okie Gardener wrote:

Home and family, the traditional destination of a woman's path, is not where the quartet are. They are obsessed with material objects and sex. And the sex is not remotely related to procreation. Fun only, without commitment to future generations. Sterile fun.

Not to nitpick with the Gardener (who admits not knowing much about the characters), but the girls are actually much less one-dimensional (and much more concerned with procreation) than a casual observer might guess. When we last encountered the fabulous foursome in TV land, Miranda had a young son (and a husband), Charlotte was married but devastated by her inability to conceive a child of her own and making arrangements to adopt, and Carrie had rejected the penultimate man in her life partly because of his inability to father a child. Samantha? The Gardener pretty much gets her right.

Rather than "sterile fun" as a group motif, however, a much more dominant theme within the series is the search for meaning in a world bereft of traditional values.

An Aside: in this way, Sex in the City is not unlike Seinfeld (another snappy commentary on modernity to which the Gardener objected).

In truth, Carrie Bradshaw is our liberated and self-sufficient protagonist, but no fan of the show could possibly describe her as truly happy, at peace, or at all satisfied in her independent and non-traditional life.

Nevertheless, the Gardener correctly notes that the modern Manhattan girls of Sex and the City reject domesticity. This morning, as luck would have it, NPR featured a discussion of Jo March, the protagonist from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, perhaps the ultimate independent woman of the nineteenth century, and her impact on modern American womanhood. Surprisingly (or not), several female former fans of the work, upon reaching adulthood and a certain feminist enlightenment, have reconsidered their previous childhood devotion to the book.

"At a time when women's lives were restricted to hearth and home," NPR's Lynn Neary reports, "Jo represented the possibility of another kind of life."

"'Jo always makes you think anything is possible and anything is possible for a woman,' says children's book expert Anita Silvey."

More Silvey: "She really softens the hard edges of her life. She makes Jo a much more lovable, accepted character than Louisa May Alcott herself ever was."

Was that a betrayal to the cause?

Others object to Jo March as too needy and excessively adoring of the man who eventually comes into her life. Ironically, what some modern readers find unappealing about Jo and the March family, the need "to be liked," many modern women also detest about Carrie Bradshaw, her need for "validation" by men.

Most striking to me, however, was this complaint:

"Who could possibly live up to Jo's standards?"

Neary "discovered something of a backlash against this idealized vision of a woman who is at once a loving sister, a good daughter, a best friend, a career woman and a devoted wife."

One woman confessed, "I didn't really like the book" after rereading it as an adult.

"That family was just too good... and I think part of the thing that bothered me when I was growing up was that it made me feel very guilty because I knew I couldn't be that good."

Is Sex and the City in vogue and Little Women passé for the simple reason that what we really want in twenty-first century America are role models who are just as lost as we are and who set standards we can live DOWN to?

A couple of months ago, I offered comments contemporaneous to the Petraeus/Crocker Senate hearings in April.

This follow-up piece has been in my queue as a draft ever since. While it is no longer current, and I make no claims as to worthiness, I am pushing it off the plank, nevertheless.

For what it is worth:

A Pet Peeve with the United States Senate: they impose upon themselves time-limited opportunities to question important witnesses (this in itself is a good thing; the Senate is, of course, legendary for its tendency to talk endlessly).

The rub comes when august members of the Upper Chamber spend most of their allotted time bloviating and posturing, aiming for something sound-bite worthy, hoping to curry favor with some vital special interest, and leaving no time for witnesses to respond to their fatuous interrogatories. This is all too often followed by exasperation with the witnesses, whose thoughtful answers take away critical time from the Senator's seven minutes of fame.

Without naming any names (Joe Biden), so often senators tend to weave the most esoteric tapestry of bromides, false choices, and hypotheticals--and, then, at the conclusion of an interminable rhetorical odyssey, demand that some poor witness give a "straight answer."

"JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION, Judge (General, Secretary, etc.)!"

This will be followed by a good faith attempt to make sense out of utter gibberish--without making Senator Blusterbuss look like a complete fool (that would be uncivil and bad politics).

Senator again: "Okay, you're not going to answer; that's fine; just say you're not going to answer my question," as he hams it up for the cameras and his partisan viewing audience.

At which point, I am sure the poor witness must really want to say: "What in the Hell is your question; if I only had some remote idea as to what you are talking about, I think I could throw you some small bone for your feeble mind to chew on."

Or maybe this:

"I was listening and I thought I almost understood your question--and then you kept talking and I lost it again."

But, of course, they never say that. They merely sit there politely, apologize, genuflect before the 100 smartest people on the face of the earth, and take their lumps.

God Bless David Petraeus, Ryan Crocker, and the countless other Americans who have suffered this humiliation over the years as a sacrifice at the altar of democratic governance.