I have never been a fan of Tavis Smiley. I was shocked when NPR gave him a show a few years ago, because his work on BET and CNN was always so horrible. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I could never figure out if he was interested in pushing his agenda or doing real news. He’d suck up to his guests in such a pathetic way that I’d feel sorry for him. I never heard his NPR show, but I guess it wasn’t working for him, because he’s sent out a letter telling his fans that it’s over:

It is with deep regret that I write to inform you of my decision to not renew my contract with NPR, which expires shortly. My last scheduled day on air is anticipated to be Thursday, December 16, 2004, when my previously scheduled holiday hiatus is set to commence … I know the ridicule many of you had to endure when you decided to take this journey with me by adding my program to your line-up. I will always be appreciative of your confidence and trust. With your support, I have come to care even more for public radio and its social, cultural and intellectual potential. Yet, after all that we’ve accomplished towards our goal of seeking a broader, more diverse and younger audience for public radio, NPR’s own research has confirmed that NPR has simply failed to meaningfully reach out to a broad spectrum of Americans who would benefit from public radio, but simply don’t know it exists or what it offers. In the most multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial America ever — I believe that NPR can and must do better in the future. I sincerely hope you understand my position. I thank you, again, for all of your support.

Someone should have told Smiley before he started the gig at NPR that the network’s core audience are middle class white listeners. It’s been that way for a long time. If Smiley really wants to reach black Americans with the type of programming NPR provides, then he needs to start from the ground up. NPR is built on a foundation of middle class white donors who pony up during the pledge drives. That’s who NPR caters to because that’s who pays the bills.

I have no doubt that Smiley, being the opportunist that he is, will pop up somewhere else.

Great article in the LA Times profiling Billy Graham. If only more of the public faces of Christianity behaved like Billy Graham. He’s stayed focused on the message of the gospel and has learned to keep his nose out of politics in recent years. His relationship with Nixon soured him on politics, even though he’s stayed close with all the presidents since.

In many ways, I think Graham has displayed many characteristics of what I think the gospel in a post-modern world will look like. He has no problem praising the Pope despite the obvious turf war that Protestants and Catholics have been fighting for 500 years. He also refuses to make Christianity some kind of nationalistic cause that’s exlcusive to America. His evangelistic fervor extends to all people.

Go read the article.

I remember back in July and August when Dennis Hastert began talking about the idea of abolishing the IRS. President Bush kind of latched onto the idea, and it became a hot political item for a couple of weeks around the time of the Democratic National Convention. Kerry and his people seemed shocked that the Republicans would even suggest such an idea, especially since it would never get done. It was pure political posturing in their minds.

Well, guess what item will be high on the agenda of this administration’s agenda during the second term?

It’s uncertain what will emerge, but tax experts say there are many options for simplification, including the creation of a flat income tax or a value-added tax on production or simply tweaking the existing code.

With Republicans increasing their majorities in the House and Senate, some changes are all but certain, said Bill Raabe, tax professor at Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business.

“If it’s ever going to happen, now’s the time,” he said.

Supporters of a national sales tax are buoyed by the president’s remarks at an August campaign stop in Florida, when he called it “the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously.”

There are a couple bills floating around now that support a 23 percent national sales tax, which is one way of addressing the issue. I think a flat tax might also be worth exploring.

If a national sales tax is how this shakes out, there need to be a couple of exemptions. Non-prepared food, clothes, medicine, and services should all be exempt from the sales tax. There also should probably be some kind of rebate program for low-income workers to ease their burden even more.

I think this kind of program does a number of things. First, it increases take home pay for workers, meaning that your paycheck is worth a whole lot more since Uncle Sam isn’t dipping into it before you even get to the bank. Second, it does away with the antiquated and complicated tax system that has been abused by so many for so long. The average person can’t sit down his or her taxes without professional help. Let’s put the CPAs out of business.

Who knows if we’ll ever see the end of the IRS, but the prospect certainly seems appealing and realistic for the first time.

The Democrats keep alienating the very people whose votes they need the most if they ever want to regain Congress or the White House. NPR superstar Garrison Keillor was at a function at the University of Chicago last week, sharing these words of wisdom:

“I am a Democrat—it’s no secret. I am a museum-quality Democrat,” Keillor said. “Last night I spent my time crouched in a fetal position, rolling around and moaning in the dark.”

Not one to shy away from speaking his mind, Keillor proposed a solution to what he deemed a fundamental problem with U.S. elections. “I’m trying to organize support for a constitutional amendment to deny voting rights to born-again Christians,” Keillor smirked. “I feel if your citizenship is in Heaven—like a born again Christian’s is—you should give up your citizenship. Sorry, but this is my new cause. If born again Christians are allowed to vote in this country, then why not Canadians?”

How quaint! It’s precisely because of this kind of rhetoric that Kerry lost this election. You can disagree with the religious faith of voters, but when you start mocking it, then you’ll never win any votes. That’s something that both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton understood, but Al Gore and John Kerry did not.

Why not start looking ahead to 2008? Just like 2000, we know that the White House will be under new management beginning in 2008. What’s even more interesting is that for the first time in a long time, the nominee from the incumbent party will not be the vice president. Cheney has already said that he doesn’t want to run in 2008, and his health may have precluded him even if had the desire.

So whose names will he in the headlines come the summer of 2008? Well, it looks like the early frontrunners are Hillary Clinton and Rudy Guliani. Hmmm … haven’t I seen this fight before?

Other names polling well are John Edwards and John McCain. Actually, I bet a McCain-Edwards tickets would win in a landslide.

I’ll be honest with you. I think Katie Couric is horrible at what she does. She gets paid a lot of money to do it, and she’s not very good at it. Repeatedly, she says things on the air that reveal her lack of journalistic credibility. I undertand that she has the”cute” factor, but when NBC tries to convince us that she’s a broadcast journalist, I have to laugh. The latest example:

“The dumbest question during this Arafat coverage has to come from the multi-million dollar woman Katie Couric. She asked Brian Williams, ‘Is there an Israeli Security presence in Palestine?’ Hello? Where has Katie been? Brian just chuckled and politely informed her that they wouldn’t even be allowed to cross the gate to get to Palestine. Unreal.”

She’s like the pretty girl in high school who thought she was smart and would get offended if anyone claimed that she wasn’t. But any time she was called on in class by the teacher, she’d stumble and stutter with an answer that wouldn’t be correct. Then we’d all laugh at her, and she’d get mad. That is Katie Couric.

The world has bid farewell to one of the most vile, hypocritical, and deceptive men to ever rise to power. I think there’s something ironic about the fact that Arafat dies the week that U.S. Marines are mounting a final assault on Fallujah. The family tree of Arab terrorism has Arafat at the roots. It was Arafat and his efforts in the 1970s that sparked the last three decades of Middle Eastern violence. I’m not saying that Israel, the U.S., Egypt, Jordan, and Syria are without blame, but the godfather of jihad is Arafat.

Powerline has a great post-mortem on Arafat, chronicling his era of terror:

He personally ordered the assassination of American Ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel, Jr. and charge d’affaires Curtis Moore in Khartoum on March 2, 1973 … Arafat himself presided over the Khartoum operation and ordered the assassination of Noel and Moore by short wave radio from PLO headquarters in Beirut. Moore and Noel were only the first of many Americans murdered by Arafat’s terrorist thugs.

In a bizarre footnote to his assassination of American officials, Arafat became the foreign leader most frequently hosted by President Bill Clinton during his two terms in office. The many cold-blooded murders for which Arafat was responsible in the course of his life were politely passed over in silence as they remained entirely unavenged.

Go read the whole thing.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a big fan of James Dobson. Some of my evangelical friends recoil in disgust when I tell them that, so I rarely discuss this fact in public. I usually find myself muttering under my breath.

My biggest problem with Doc, as he’s called by his employees and fans, is that he must have a gigantic ego. Anyone who fancies themself as a Christian leader without having earned that position MUST have a huge ego. Dobson is a pediatrician by training. That’s fine, as long as he limits his expertise to issues of children’s health and well-being. I’m even willing to overlook his involvement in pseduo-child psychology, even though he’s not a trained psychologist. But I must draw the line when he tries to lecture people on politics. Not only does Dobson have absolutely no theological training, but he has even less training in government, politics, or public policy. He’s a political hack.

I think his group Focus on the Family does good work when it’s limited to dealing with family issues, like child raising, relationships, health, etc. But I think it’s shameful for Dobson to use his mailing list and influence to flex his political muscles, even though I agree with many of his positions.

This all leads to an exchange on ABC’s This Week between George Stephanopoulos and James Dobson:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Dr. Dobson, you also have a problem with the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy. I want to show something that was reported in “The Daily Oklahoman” during the campaign. In the “Daily Oklahoman,” it quoted you saying, “Patrick Leahy is a God’s people hater. I don’t know if he hates God, but he hates God’s people.” Now, Dr. Dobson, that doesn’t sound like a particularly Christian thing to say. Do you think you owe Senator Leahy an apology?

DR JAMES DOBSON: George, you think you ought to lecture me on what a Christian is all about? You know, I think -I think I’ll stand by the things I have said. Patrick Leahy has been in opposition to most of the things that I believe. He is the one that took the reference to God out of the oath.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But Dr. Dobson, excuse me for a second. You use the word hate. You said that he’s a “God’s people hater.” How do you back that up?

DR JAMES DOBSON: Well, there’s been an awful lot of hate expressed in this election. And most of it has been aimed at those who hold to conservative Christian views. He is certainly not the only one to take a position like that. But
I think that that is -that’s where he’s coming from. He has certainly
opposed most of the things that conservative Christians stand for.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apology?

DR JAMES DOBSON: No apology.

Look, I’m no fan of Pat Leahy, but to call him a hater of God’s people is really crossing the line. Not to parse Dobson’s words too much, but he does go on to say that Leahy, “opposed most of the things that conservative Christians stand for.” I think that’s different than hating God’s people, which is a distinction that should have been made.

For Dobson and so many of the religious right, faith and politics have become inseparable, which is a dangerous position to take. While I agree that one’s faith ought to inform one’s poltical stands, I think there comes a time to distinguish between faith convictions and public policy. I think this goes to th heart of Jesus’ call to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to render unto God what is God. Jesus makes a distinction between these two spheres. Certainly God has authority of Caesar, but that doesn’t negate the fact that Jesus recognizes that Caesar’s ways are not God’s ways and that God’s people need to understand that. When they understand this difference, they’ll know where and how to direct their energies and efforts.

In the meantime, Dobson will continue to offer the world a very skewed perspective of the Kingdom of God.

The blogosphere is awash in finger-pointing, blame-placing, and general despondence. Kerry supporters are perplexed as to how they could have possibly lost this election. From their perspective, Bush represented an easy target. After all, he waged an unpopular war in Iraq based on false information, the economy has been in the tank, and the world hates us. Besides, Bush is an idiot, right? John Kerry should have cake-walked his way to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Instead, Kerry did worse than Al Gore. Bush will serve another four years. The Republicans expanded their margins in both the Senate and the House. Bush will have the chance to name several Supreme Court justices.

What happened? Well, a lot of factors seem to be at play here.

First, Kerry was not a very good candidate. If you look at the 3 most recently elected Democratic presidents — Johnson, Carter, and Clinton — the one common factor among them is their Southern roots. Kerry was undeniably a New England liberal, more like Michael Dukakis than John F. Kennedy, despite Kerry’s best efforts to cast himself as the second coming of Kennedy. Early in the primary season, Howard Dean dominated the polls and the headlines, but when it came time to vote in Iowa and New Hampshire, Democrats got cold feet and Dean self-destructed. Rather than going for a solid Midwesterner like Dick Gephardt, the Democrats latched onto Kerry simply becase he was “anybody but Bush.”

Not a great way to start your campaign, and Kerry did his best to underwhelm voters. He didn’t communicate a clear message on the war or foreign policy. Did he support the war or not? Will he remove troops from Iraq? I still don’t know. He sounded a little too much like an internationalist when the talked about a global test. His views on abortion and gay marriage were clear as mud. His economic plan didn’t sound very substantive. Bottom line, Kerry tried to please everyone by standing for nothing.

Second, the get out the vote road runs two ways. The best efforts of Democrats to register new, young voters was matched by Karl Rove’s efforts to rouse evangelical Christians — white AND black — from their pews and into voting booths. Young people didn’t vote any more than they have for the last 40 years. Those that did represented the new face of the Reagan Youth — conservative and pro-active. They grew up with the Gipper, and can remember Reagan’s steady optimism in the face of the Cold War.

Third, the world isn’t red vs. blue. The liberals always blame the conservatives for seeing the world in starkly binary terms — Christians vs. Muslims, gays vs. straights, blacks vs. whites. But in the wake of Kerry’s defeat, I’ve seen more of this us vs. them mentality coming from the left than from the right. The left loves to paint Republicans as backwater, uneducated Bible-thumpers, unable to grasp the nuances of American liberalism. That’s the kind of thinking that sent Kerry back to Nantucket.

America is a diverse mosaic of cultures, ethnicities, and religions. Conservatives realize this, and for the most part, have no problem with it. The conflict arises when conservatives begin to feel like their values are being compromised in the name of diversity. This is where the gay marriage debate is at today. I believe religious conservatives really have no problem if Steve and Mike live together as life partners and receive all the state and federal benefits that married couples do. They just don’t want you to call it marriage because that’s a religious term. They see this move as an assault on their values. To them, it’s a matter of keeping your values out of our church, and we’ll keep ours out of your bedroom.

The same mentality can be applied to foreign policy, abortion, taxes, etc. This is where liberalism and conservatism differs. Liberals are always trying to use government as a tool to change people’s values. Accept me, help me, love me. Conservatives only want government to preserve their values. They don’t hate gays, or blacks, or Muslims, or any other perceived group of victims. They simply hold their beliefs very closely and would prefer not to see them trampled on by the government.

In part, this explains why conservatives turned out to support Bush. While the left spent so much energy mocking Bush and literally burning him in efigy, the right quietly continued promoting its values to anyone who would listen, including millions of blacks and hispanic voters who share the same values. By some accounts it was a battle of hatred for Bush vs. love of country.

The left can’t understand this. Until they stop demonizing Republicans like Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Santorum, and Scalia as evil and until they stop caricaturing all the red states as vast wastelands of dim-witted simpletons, they will continue losing ground.

The Democratic party do some serious soul-searching in the next 4 years. They need to ask themselves if there is room in their party for religious voters? Pro-life voters? How will the Democratic party wage a serious war on terrorism? Will they support the military? Will they bow down to the UN?

In answering these questions, they might no longer have room for Howard Dean and Al Sharpton. They have to come to grips with that. The party needs to chancge, because it’s on the verge of irrelevance.

Anil Dash is claiming that:

Instead of Rocking the Vote, disappointed Kerry voters can just sit around and wait for the baby boomers to die. As a side bonus, we’ll also get to stop hearing the Eagles on the muzak system in retail establishments.

I’ve yet to hear any Kerry supported coherently explain why he lost this election, other than that too many stupid people voted the wrong way, which I guess is what this statement is getting at. Well, maybe that too many old, stupid people voted the wrong way. Perhaps Mr. Dash and others should recall the words of Winston Churchill:”Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.” - Winston Churchill

I’ve always felt that Terry McAuliffe is a horrible DNC chairman. That’s been proved twice now with horrible mid-term elections in 2002 and now the debacle that has been the 2004 election. The Democratic Party should never have let Bill Clinton strongarm them into picking this guy. He’s set the clock back at least 6 years for the Dems, possibly 10 years.

Do the math — the GOP now controls the White House, the Senate (by a 5-vote margin), and the House (by a 30-vote margin). In addition, Bush will have the chance to appoint as many as 3 Supreme Court Justices (Rehnquist who is 80, Stevens who is 84, and O’Connor who is 74).

Yet McAuliffe still thinks the DNC is in good shape:

“This party is stronger than it’s ever been. We’re in the best financial shape,” he says. “We now have, unlike four years ago, millions and millions of new supporters of this party. We’re debt-free for the first time ever and we’re beginning to build towards 2008.”

Too bad your party has less power than it has in a long time. If I were a Democrat, I’d be furious that this guy has bee allowed to run amock for the last 4 years.