May 2009 Archives
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a problem.
Something has changed in Washington. This new US President, Barack Obama, is unlike any that an Israeli leader has faced before.
The Pentagon's top secret wartime memos that mixed Scripture and battle photos sparked a lively debate -- rich, heated and very diverse -- among our Texas Faith panel this week.
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Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court is a historic milestone for Latinos, but it resonates well beyond Hispanic pride. It is perhaps the most potent symbol yet of a 21st century rapprochement between the U.S.'s two largest minorities, Latino Americans and African Americans, who in the 20th century could be as violently distrustful of each other as blacks and whites were.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor in 2009.
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One might be forgiven for thinking that Benjamin Netanyahu and Rahm Emanuel hark from parallel universes. Both are the sons of strong-willed, right-wing Israeli fathers. Both have sought to prove their bona fides as defenders of Israel (Netanyahu by serving in an elite commando unit of the Israeli military; Emanuel by rushing off to volunteer for Israel during the first Gulf War).
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Admiral Mullen, for that generous introduction and for your sterling service to our country. To members of our armed forces, to our veterans, to honored guests, and families of the fallen -- I am deeply honored to be with you on Memorial Day.
Thank you to the superintendent, John Metzler, Jr., who cares for these grounds just as his father did before him; to the Third Infantry Regiment who, regardless of weather or hour, guard the sanctity of this hallowed ground with the reverence it deserves -- we are grateful to you; to service members from every branch of the military who, each Memorial Day, place an American flag before every single stone in this cemetery -- we thank you as well. (Applause.) We are indebted -- we are indebted to all who tend to this sacred place.
George W. Bush referred to himself as a "war president," putting himself in the company of American leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The conflicts overseen by these men were vastly different in nature, but one fundamental reality -- the terrible sacrifices made by those who fought in them -- remains the same.
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SPECIAL NOTE: Vanessa Davis Griggs Will be Featured on Thea's B C Book Review Talk Show, Sunday at 5 PM on Live365. Listen at: Live365 or Black Christian Book Review.In Practicing What You Preach (Available Tuesday, May 26, 2009),
Vanessa Davis Griggs sheds new light on the divorce and remarriage
issue in the church. In Griggs' eighth novel, this issue is
addressed through the life of Melissa Anderson and Marcus Peeples.
When the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, 2009, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) hopes you'll be ringing in "the Year of the Bible."
It's probably just wishful thinking.
These are extraordinary times for our country. We are confronting an historic economic crisis. We are fighting two wars. We face a range of challenges that will define the way that Americans will live in the 21st century. There is no shortage of work to be done, or responsibilities to bear.
No new president finds that every aspect of the job suits him at once;
some duties are inevitably more comfortable than others. What we have
witnessed in the last few weeks is Barack Obama trying on and fitting
himself to the role of commander in chief. The most controversial decisions of this period -- expanding the troop commitment and replacing the commander in Afghanistan, opposing the release of photos of abused detainees, keeping the system of military tribunals, and delaying any change in the don't ask, don't tell policy on gays in the services -- are of a pattern.
Barack Obama began his presidency with an unusual attribute, namely that the country already thought it understood him. The story he told in his two books was about a man of multiple worlds who comes to terms with his father's abandonment and a confounding racial identity. Obama resolves his anger by committing himself socially, religiously and eventually politically. He depicts his mature self as unusually able to see other points of view and bridge chasms.
National Republican Committee Chairman Michael Steele, in an effort to move beyond the woes of his party and his own gaffes, declared Tuesday that Republicans had turned a corner and were ready to step up their attacks on President Obama.
No one should have been surprised that there was no meeting of minds between President Barack Obama and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at their inaugural summit on Monday. Although the two men proclaimed a shared commitment to having Israelis and Palestinians live in peace, their views on how to get there remain substantially at odds. Now, as Obama puts the finishing touches on a new peace plan to be unveiled shortly -- perhaps when he addresses the Muslim world from Cairo next month -- the question facing the Administration is how to pursue its strategy with an unenthusiastic Israeli partner.
U.S. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in their first meeting since Israel's election in March, told reporters in Washington they agreed on most issues, including the need to advance peace efforts with the Palestinians and, notably, the need to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. "We don't see closely on this, we see exactly eye to eye on this," Netanyahu said in a joint news conference with Obama at the White House.
President Barack Obama confronted the abortion debate head-on Sunday at the University of Notre Dame, acknowledging that differences over the issue are largely irreconcilable but appealing to both sides to search for "common ground."
The push of gay marriage has been on the political agenda in more than a few states for some time now. It has gained and lost support around the country, but the question is now front and center in New York.
When will President Barack Obama own the economy?
Bad economic news does not faze the president. He's not gleeful about job loss reports and anemic growth numbers, but he does not shy away from them. He confidently announces the latest sign of bad times and clearly assigns blame to our past practices and the old regime. It's George W. Bush's economy, or the economy of greedy Wall Street.
Army Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is being removed to bring in "new leadership" and "fresh thinking" in the war against the Taliban-led insurgency, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Monday.
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With violence and anti-American sentiment on the rise, it's plain to see that military operations in Afghanistan are not going well. But if Defense Secretary Robert Gates is right, three-star Army Lt. Gen. Stan McChrystal is just the guy to turn things around. On May 11, Gates announced plans to install the former Green Beret as the top U.S. and NATO commander for the troubled nation. Some analysts hailed the surprising overhaul as proof that the U.S. is re-thinking its conventional approach to combat, especially given McChrystal's background as commander of the military's clandestine special operations in Iraq.
Welcoming leaders of the hospital, drug and insurance industries to the White House on Monday, President Obama trumpeted their pledge to work together to contain the nation's skyrocketing healthcare tab.
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The Republican conservative
movement, a dominant force in U.S. politics for decades, is
split into hope and hate factions. It just lost the captain of
the hope brigade.
Jack French Kemp, who died on May 2 of cancer, was the most ebullient, joyful, optimistic American political figure since Hubert Humphrey. He was the chief Republican architect of both supply-side economics and the concept of an inclusive party that reaches out to minorities.
The coming battle over President Obama's first Supreme Court nomination could be an enlightening debate over what direction the court should take. It could also be a nasty and hypocritical fight that obscures more issues than it clarifies. Which will it be?
There are optimists within the Republican Party. They look at the wreckage left behind after last year's elections, and recall 1964. That was the year that Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president, was so badly trounced that pundits proclaimed the GOP dead. But it was also the year that a new breed of conservative activists, myself among them, brought a new energy to the party that eventually reshaped it and led to years of Republican domination of the executive branch.
All across campus, the flowers have begun to bloom, their dull Indiana roots stirred by the spring rain, and the grass is almost green again at Notre Dame. Beneath a 16-foot statue of the Blessed Virgin, the main administration building sits, as always, its gold dome sparkling in the warm spring sun.
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Days after national Republicans launched a new campaign to broaden the party's outreach, former upstart presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says the GOP is at risk of becoming "irrelevant as the Whigs."
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These days, Republicans have the desperate aura of an endangered species. They lost Congress, then the White House; more recently, they lost a slam-dunk House election in a conservative New York district, then Senator Arlen Specter. Polls suggest that only one-fourth of the electorate considers itself Republican, that independents are trending Democratic and that as few as five states have solid Republican pluralities.
What prompted Condoleezza Rice to break a self-imposed silence on the Bush Administration's controversial use of harsh interrogation techniques on terror detainees?
Friends and colleagues of the former Secretary of State say it was not something she had planned, but that she was simply responding to questions in public settings. Others suggest she's determined not to let former Vice President Dick Cheney, who left office with a popularity rating in the sub-basement, become history's spokesman for Bush policy on Gitmo. In either case, Rice's recent comments mean she will be drawn into the widening debate about the Administration's record on interrogation.
The fight against poverty produces great programs but disappointing results. You go visit an inner-city school, job-training program or community youth center and you meet incredible people doing wonderful things. Then you look at the results from the serious evaluations and you find that these inspiring places are only producing incremental gains.
By elevating Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to their top spot on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republicans have selected their chief inquisitor for President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee: a Southern, white conservative man who has drawn fire for racially insensitive comments in the past.
Democrats like how this is looking.
In his Weekly Address, the President discusses the government's response to the 2009 H1N1 flu virus, from school closings to activating online social networks. He urges Americans to be calm but cautious.
President Barack Obama's plan to end tax breaks for U.S.-based multinational companies drew a skeptical response from fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill, indicating that his plan may face obstacles on its path through Congress.
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The Republican National Committee is riven by a dispute between Chairman Michael Steele and a faction of RNC establishment veterans that threatens to undermine Steele's ability to put his stamp on the national party.
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