The Pendragon's Hall

I'm sorry: she really is an idiot. "Idiot of the Year" for 2006 Laura Mallory strikes again. The Pendragon does not usually do double-header blogs, but the stupidity this woman has attained in her fight to censor reading material for a whole school district has provoked my wrath. First of all, it should be noted that whatever vague charges of Wicca religion have been thrown around, J.K. Rowling is herself a Christian. Second, it should be noted that the spells used in the Harry Potter books are rough translations into Latin and Greek (or in one case, Arabic) of what the spells actually do. "Expelliarmus" for example means, "Let it be expelled!" And, lo and behold, the spell ejects or expels the other person's wand! This is hardly calling on dark spirits for power--it's a mechanical phenomenon that each wizard and witch has to learn. Mallory contends the books teach that to be non-magical is "not cool." To the contrary, someone who has actually read the books (which Mallory has not) would learn that it is the role of the good wizards to protect the non-magical folk from harm. And, to top it off, the most ridiculous quote of all: "The level of violence in here is like no other. You don't find it in The Wizard of Oz, you don't find it in Sleeping Beauty." That is true: You do, however, find it in "Lord of the Rings" and "The Chronicles of Narnia."

Bottom line here: the Pendragon wholeheartedly supports parental rights over their children's education and reading material, at least when they are young. But schools everywhere, including in Mallory's own district, have agreed that if a parent is uncomfortable with their child reading Harry Potter, the teacher will assign another book. Apparently, in Mallory's school, they even allowed parents to bar their children from using the books in the library. Mallory is upset that her son was allowed to take the book out despite his name being on the "forbidden" list. That could be something to discuss. But my guess is that the library staff assumed that Mallory had given permission for her son to take the book out. After all, parents like that usually know everything about what their children are doing. Mallory has every right to make decisions for her (young) children, but now she has extrapolated that right into being the right for her conscience to dictate to every parent in her school district and this is where she has crossed the line. Mallory has been defeated at every level of the contest, and now she is considering taking her case to federal court. Ridiculous. It makes the Pendragon long for the days when busybodies were confined to their own neighborhoods.

Michael Medved brings some much needed common sense to the discussion of Romney's Mormonism. The Pendragon would never stoop, as Hugh Hewitt did to Mike Gallagher, stoop to calling Romney opponents "bigots." I think they have some justifiable concerns. In the interest of full disclosure, however, let me try once more to clarify my position. People say Mormonism is a cult. That's why I've always heard, and so I tend to believe it as well. But when looking for a president, it is the issues and not the theology that must not dominate, or we Christians are real schmucks for voting for Reagan over Carter. If you want to revive the "infidel" charge used in earlier elections, be advised that the presidents they were most often used against were Jefferson and Lincoln. So I look at the candidates and try to see what kind of policies a Mormon faith brings to the table. I see all Mormons in politics as pro-life, pro-defense, pro-traditional family, and staunch economic conservatives. They are conservative on every issue and what's more their personal lives are impeccable. There can be no charge of hypocrisy against the Right when Mitt Romney is compared to the Clintons. When certain mayors of New York are compared to the Clintons, Bill and Hill come out looking like the defenders of family values. A Mormon contains every single attribute I would look for in a president, if not in a pastor (to the extent that Romney has said he will serve without salary if elected President). Are their beliefs a little weird? You bet! To an outsider. All religions do, however. It's been said, by people who don't want Mitt Romney to be president, that Mormons believe good people will become gods and goddesses on their own planets. I do not know if that is true. But Catholics believe that certain people are so good they can intercede for us lesser mortals with God. Protestants who believe the Bible (see Revelation 2 and 3) believe they will one day be allowed to stand in God's holy temple with a secret name carved on a white stone. Catholics believe they actually consume the body and blood of Christ in their Eucharist, and from some alternate universe they came up with the idea that eating meat on Friday is verboten. Protestants like myself fare no better--John Wesley believed human beings could perfect themselves in this life and came up with a stringent list of rules to ensure it. This is all bizarre stuff--to the outsider--yet people within can give very good reasons why they believe it. The beliefs I have enumerated have led Protestants and secularists to (unjustly) call Catholics idolatrous mystics. So theology isn't really a concern of mine when it comes to the President of the United States. The Republican Party has been told for years that we need to stop having an evangelical Christian litmus test for our candidates. Well here's a way to do it without flip-flopping on the issues.

But in the end, perhaps the best way to explain it is through a business analogy. Two people come to a manager candidating for the same job, one Catholic and one Mormon. The Catholic was a sleaze in his personal life, had never held a position like the one offered before, and the one thing he had to his credit was completely impossible to duplicate at the current company. He had none of the same views as the manager on what the company should do and where it should go. The Mormon, on the other hand, had impeccable credentials, was an upstanding citizen of the community, had held many jobs like the one open before and performed admirably in all of them. He and the manager had exactly the same views on the company's role in the world and what it should do in the future. But...the manager was Catholic. So he chose the first guy. Not only is that illegal, we would all call it bad business sense.

Memorial Day is a good day to reflect on the meaning of sacrifice. We hear a great deal from the opponents of war on how the populace should be made to sacrifice, hoping thereby to manufacture dissatisfaction with the war. But there is a deeper undercurrent here. Always a man looking inward, Abraham Lincoln stood on the battlefield of Gettysburg, where some 50,000 people had died, and urged his country to ensure "that these dead will not have died in vain." This meant fighting on to victory. We can show no greater appreciation for those who made the ultimate sacrifice than to ensure that the goal they fought for is achieved. "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

I just don't get it. The Pendragon applauds President Bush for sticking to his guns (no pun intended) on the Iraq War funding bill and it has paid off. The Democrats in Congress have bowed to his demands because their political interest dictates that they not be seen denying funding to the troops. Why can he not do the same on immigration reform? Here is another issue that political interests demand action upon. Neither party wants to be seen as blocking it, yet here the Republicans have chosen to cave. The Democrats have the majority but they have no upper-hand here. According to the latest polls, their approval ratings are neck-and-neck with the President's (about 33%). The country is fed up with the President's apologetic behavior and the Democrats' politicization of the War on Terror for their own ends--ignoring the good of the country to make cheap political shots. Bush could have the edge here. Public opinion is strongly against amnesty for illegal immigration. Had he come out strongly against the bill and vowed to veto it, I'm willing to bet public opinion would have forced the mavericks to the sidelines so the real pros can work. The mood of the country being what it is, I'm daring to predict both presidential nominees next year will be Washington outsiders. Sorry, Senators McCain and Clinton! These facts make Dick Morris' latest blathering in the Town Hall even more insane than usual. But the Pendragon will magnanimously cut him some slack--he is first and foremost a political advisor, unconcerned with other matters (such as the good of the nation), he can simply advise politicians to do whatever they can to promote their own career. Machiavelli would be proud.

Ann Coulter has the right idea.

Sahara's latest comment should spark an interesting discussion. What is the best way to win a war? I wouldn't rule out attrition (at least from the view of what is most effective), but here, I think I find I am not so far from Sahara as I usually am. Having recently finished a graduate research paper on the British occupation of Philadelphia during the American Revolution, the Pendragon is well aware of the need to win hearts and minds. The British high command under General Howe started out this way in the Autumn of 1777. Howe severely punished looters, established curfews for his troops, paid civilians handsomely for use of their town and socialized with all the local bigwigs in an attempt to get them on his side. Howe thought that doing this would show neutral Americans that the King's government was preferable to that of the patriots. It shouldn't have been a hard argument to make. Philadelphia was both a city of Quakers (pacifist--although the Quaker influence had declined somewhat from earlier years) and was connected to the Atlantic trading world, whose merchants eagerly desired to restore importation--something that needed the cooperation of the Royal Navy. Yet the strategy failed when reality took over. The British troops lodged in Philadelphia were depressed--not all that different from their counterparts up the road in Valley Forge. And the hard winter did not make people any more generous to Howe than to Washington, as far as food was concerned. To raise morale and procure proper food, Howe began requisitioning supplies, lodged officers in the chief homes in town, and threw lavish galas that horrified the plain Quakers.

The parallels one can draw are scary to the modern-day. I agree with all the premises of the Iraq War and think that on two out of the three objectives it was remarkably successful. Yet any attempt to win hearts and minds has certainly failed. Why? Curiously enough, because of elements of American culture that social conservatives have been fighting for years. There are now strip shows and prostitutes in Bagdhad, and female soldiers lording it over the men. This certainly will not endear the Americans to the Iraqi people at large. It should not even be a part of our culture, but whenever conservatives have raised this problem in the past, we've been told to shove it. Now this liberal fantasyland is playing out in Bagdhad, ruining the perfectly just war that conservatives launched. You have to love the irony. I do not know if there is a way to rectify this situation, but any solution to a problem this large is going to be complicated and deep. If we're uncomfortable exporting American culture to the world as it is (and we should be), then maybe we should try to make changes here at home. In this, the Pendragon concurs that America deserves criticism--I just don't believe we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. Strip shows and prostitutes are not an integral part of our culture and could be lifted out quite nicely if Americans are willing to abandon their culture of narcissism.

Suddenly I'm liking Dr. Dobson better. While the Pendragon has not necessarily ruled out voting for John McCain (although his obscene explosion in the Senate when challenged on the woefully-lacking immigration bill had sent him down even further in my estimation), I think it would send a powerful message to the conservative Christian community if one of their leaders refused to back Giuliani and turned to Romney, despite his Mormonism. The Pendragon has had differences with Dobson in the past, but this move on his part, the realization that a Republican one does not respect could be just as bad as a Democrat. Actually, I would prefer a Democrat to Giuliani because then I could merely go into opposition party mode. If the president was a Republican, it would be hard to be in opposition. In 1996, we were faced with a candidate who was weak on social issues; in 2008 we're faced with a candidate who's wrong on the issues. Giuliani's spokesperson said the mayor believes that we need to respect people who disagree with us. Fine. We don't need to vote for them.

The Pendragon has given up on the Bush administration. It was nice while it lasted. Although Bush's approval of the new immigration bill has disgusted me so much that I may never defend him again. I will say this though: nothing he has done deserves impeachment. Censure, maybe. Criticism certainly. But if Clinton should not be impeached--almost no one should. The only punishable offense should be actually handing the keys of the Capitol over to our enemies.

In lighter news, the Ottawa Senators hockey team today sealed their place in this year's Stanley Cup by beating Buffalo 3-2 in OT. As an American who hates all things Buffalo and has ties to Ottawa, this game makes the Pendragon very happy.

Jerry Falwell's death has sent the Left into ecstasy as nothing since the death of Reagan has. One of the constant charges hurled at Falwell, for whom I have no particular attachment, is his statement that the 9/11 attacks were brought on by American culture's acceptance of homosexuality and abortion. In other words, it was God's punishment. Insofar as most of his critics don't believe in God, they obviously take exception with this. But the charge has been that Falwell was blaming the victims. Yet, strangely enough, when Michael Moore, Ward Churchill, or other morons of that ilk blame 9/11 on the "sins" of America in exporting McDonalds, they are given loving consideration. If calling the victims "little Eichmanns" isn't blaming them for the tragedy, I don't know what is. The fact of the matter is, Falwell's critics and supporters simply share a different view of what would constitute a punishable offense. For his critics, no other excuse is needed than that we're American; the supporters think we actually have to do something wrong.

On another note, once I say things, the trend seems to spread.

The Pendragon is no expert on immigration (although my wife and I recently navigated the legal corridors of the institution), but the bill coming out of the US House of Representatives this week is A Bad Thing. I remember urging members of Congress, particularly Republican members of Congress, not to ignore the illegal immigration issue, thus giving opportunity to a third party to spoil next year's presidential election. That said election has as its second most dominant issue, after the War, illegal immigration is a record to how mainstream the Pendragon really is in America. What I and others should have remembered to mention apparently is that bad action is not better than no action. This is what Ted Kennedy and his cronies who sponsored the bill are telling us: "It's not perfect but at least we moved on the problem." It is so far from perfect the fact that probable Republican presidential nominee John McCain is behind it should give pause to all registered Republicans. McCain and Giuliani favor amnesty, see. I don't know why Bush is going along with it. The bill calls for all illegal aliens within the country to be granted temporary worker status so that they can begin the process legally. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, to their credit, are attacking this legislation already, despite the fact that it has won the approval of the current (Republican) president. I think they have their fingers on the pulse of the country better than this bill's sponsors. Americans want action on the immigration issue, but the first thing they want to see is punishment of illegal immigration and stricter enforcement of our borders. The Pendragon once favored a kind fo "guest-worker" program, but only on the understanding that it was offered not to illegals already here, but to those who wanted to live in Mexico and work in the United States.

The key lesson to take away from this is that action is not an end in itself, but its merits depend strictly on the kind of action taken. Acting unwisely is not a better alternative than not acting at all. Nor can members of Congress plead any need for speed that compromised the deliberative process (like, say, a matter of national security). They've been arguing bills like this for years. They had plenty of time to take their polls and study the dynamics of the situation. There was no urgency until suddenly both parties realized they could make political hay out of it. It is suggestive that Ted Kennedy sponsored both this bill and No Child Left Behind--flawed programs that people feared to oppose because it was politically unfeasible. It's about time politics in this country took a backseat to serving the national interest. Of course, this would also require Ted Kennedy's ejection from the Senate and imprisonment, so it's easy to see why perhaps he chooses the easier road.

Who won the GOP debate tonight? Giuliani did rise a few points in my estimation by lashing out at Ron Paul's statement that the US caused 9/11 by bombing Iraq in the late 90s, saying, "I can't believe I'm hearing this. I've never heard that the campaigns against Saddam Hussein brought on 9/11 and I've heard some pretty absurd reasons." So credit where credit's due. The guy, however, is still trying to wriggle out on every other issue. The real winner tonight was Mike Huckabee who nailed Giuliani with a similar statement to my last blog entry: "Saying you're personally opposed to abortion but not willing to do anything about it is like saying you're against slavery but people have the right to engage in it." Giuliani's feeble response was: "I can't imagine anyone having a good reason for believing in slavery, but good people have differing positions on abortion." You need to retake your history classes, Mr. Mayor. There were good people--Robert E. Lee, for example--who were "personally opposed" to slavery and freed their own slaves but helped lead the war that would have perptuated the institution indefinitely. The issues are interconnected and while I appreciate that you stick to your guns and tell people what you think no matter how unpopular, you are, in fact, espousing a similar position to the pro-slavery argument and there's no two ways about it. As for the rest, I still like Mitt Romney. He did pretty well. Tancredo rose in my esimation by his strong position on illegal immigration and when asked about his response to a hypothetical terror attack with nuclear bombs, responding that "if bombs go off in the US, I'm not going to ask questions about how our troops treated the terrorists arrested." McCain sounded feeble and old--he's in the last stages, I'm afraid. Giuliani, as always, proved he has no program for the presidency. He kept babbling about how government should not interfere in the abortion debate, apparently ignoring that the courts, a branch of the government (needs to retake his civics too), are constantly interfering in the debate. The only one who came close to changing my mind about the current slate of candidates was Mike Huckabee, I think the clear winner of this debate. I have re-ranked the candidates by my own preference, following this debate. I shall continue to do this as long as the debates continue.

1. Mitt Romney (still the best choice for experience and positions).
2. Mike Huckabee
3. Rep. Tancredo (don't know his first name)
4. Jim Gilmore
5. Sam Brownback
6. Tommy Thompson (rather boring)
7. Duncan Hunter
8. John McCain
9. Rudy Giuliani
10. Ron Paul.

One of the most frustrating things the Pendragon has had to deal with lately is the constant chorus of people, some right, some left, telling me I should ignore moral issues and vote for economics above everything. On the right, this belief takes the form of people telling me to forget about Mitt Romney and the fact that he is an outstanding candidate and just be happy there's a fiscal conservative like Giuliani running, never mind that he is a snake both on the moral issues and in his personal moral life. On the left, they tell me that the country does better economically under the Democrats (a debateable proposition in and of itself) so I should ignore the immoral positions these candidates tend to take and vote Democrat.

As a historian, the Pendragon cannot do that. It is not easy for me to forget the similarities between this debate and an earlier one--the debate over slavery. Everytime Giuliani says he is "personally opposed" (a Democratic mantra) to abortion but supports the institution, the Pendragon sees James Buchanan, "personally opposed" to slavery; "personally opposed" to secession, but doing nothing to stop either of them. The entire slavery debate was filled with people saying they were "personally opposed" to slavery but couldn't find a way to do without it, economically speaking. Those who champion the preeminence of economics to morality would have voted for men like Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce, not the abolitionist leaders who believed that morality was equally important. Because saying you are "personally opposed" to something means nothing if you do nothing to oppose it. It's just words. I cannot countenance the election of an immoral President (by voting for him or her) simply because economics are right. We've tried voting on economics before now and we ended up with lousy presidents. Our times are challenging and we need better leadership than the Fillmore-Buchanan faction of either party can provide. This is why the Pendragon is willing to fight tooth and nail against Giuliani's nomination, even to the extreme of backing John McCain if it comes down to a choice between the two, and why I remain, despite the odds, a committed Republican, warily eying the other side in the hopes that if Giuliani is the Republican nominee, the Democrats might step out of character and nominate someone who actually has the moral standing to compete. Who knows? This time next year, this blog may be pulling for a third-party candidate.

You know you're in the conservative nut-house when you read an article like this. Sadly, the Pendragon found myself nodding in agreement at certain angles. We probably can't do any worse than what we're looking at for the future right now.

The Pendragon owes my few readers an apology for the lack of consistent updating recently. I plan to light up the blogosphere this summer, but for the moment I am up to my eyebrows in the British occupation of Philadelphia during the American Revolution, and desperately trying to finish my last paper before the Monday morning deadline. I do have one comment on recent news, however. France's election of a conservative President has given the lie once and for all to the liberal myth that Bush has alienated the rest of the world with his policy. Australia, Great Britain, and Japan have maintained their pro-America governments; Canada, Germany, and now France have elected pro-American governments. How ticked off can the rest of the world be? As Ann Coulter rightly points out, they're more ticked off at maniac Muslims burning cars in their streets. Now, the only question is: Will Americans elect a pro-American government? Right now, it's not looking good.

I thought it was no big deal and everyone did it. Glad as I am to see Democrats pretending morality is valued, isn't the charge of hypocrisy to be raised here? I know it will be raised if the Republicans nominate Giuliani. After all, Democrats defended a president who did more then sleep on the floor of his intern's apartment with the words, "Everyone does it." In fact, if you want to know the reason more people don't take it seriously...paging Dr. Clinton, Dr. Clinton. Yes, a whole generation learned that what an elected official does morally is nobody's business but his. Now that a Republican has been "caught" (although I can't even tell if anything happened there) the Dems are happy to espouse morality.

Even funnier: the NYT announced today that "surprisingly" terror attacks are up in Iraq and Afghanistan while down in all the rest of the world. I wish I were like the Times editors--everything is always such a delightful surprise. The lesson we're supposed to take from this is that the War in Iraq has failed because there are terror attacks there. But maybe the real lesson is that Al-Qaeda is fighting a war with the US Army and so they're attacking them in Iraq and Afghanistan because that's what they are. The media will never report that, of course, because the corollary is that if we bring them home, the terror attacks will be happening here. Much better, and less intelligent, to believe that the War has failed. Actually, I think these statistics may be proof of the success of the War in Iraq. We went to war for two reasons so far as the Pendragon can remember: one was to prevent future terror attacks on our soil by fighting the terrorists where they were, and two, to stabilize the Middle East by creating prosperous, democratic regimes. The Pendragon is more than willing to admit the second is steadily becoming more problematic, perhaps even failing--not failed, it's not over till President Obama whips all the troops out--but not working as well as we would like. The statistics seem to suggest that the first war aim has been a resounding success. We're not being attacked. We're fighting them where they are. The rest of the world is safer. But don't expect to hear that from the NYT.

The evidence keeps pouring in: people are morons--liberal, conservative, it doesn't matter. The latest flap is not over John Edwards' sick manipulation of his son's death, his father's poverty and his wife's illness; it's not over the fact that Obama couldn't name three American allies (which, as I remember, was a pretty big deal in 2000 when Bush couldn't name three tinpot African dictators). No, it's over two things: Giuliani being framed for something he didn't say, and Romney liking a novel by a Scientologist. Anyone who reads this page regularly knows I have as much affection for Giuliani as for Bill Clinton, but he is not guilty of "the politics of fear." He has been quoted as saying that if a Democrat won the White House, there would be more terror attacks like 9/11. The Democrats immediately chided him for trying to scare people into voting for him. Turns out Giuliani did not say that--he noted, quite rightly, that electing a Democrat meant going on the defensive in the War on Terror, instead of trying to get them before they get us like Bush and the Republicans have tried to do. He never said there would be more terror attacks. The media should get htis upset over Clinton--her headlines read: "Clinton reaches out to gays," "Hillary opens up on the campaign trail," ad nauseum.

But the Romney thing is way out of proportion. I was watching the Fox News interview, not knowing it was going to turn into anything. They asked him what his favorite book was. He said he liked the novels of L. Ron Hubbard, who happens to be a scientologist. He added in the same breath that he does not approve of Hubbard's religion at all. And the right-wing press went nuts! Coulter refers to Romney as "ridiculous" on her webpage and cites some nutgroup called "The Plank" where everyone jumps on Romney's case for saying what his favorite novel is. They say he should have told them it was "The Da Vinci Code." Given the choice, I'd have to say the Scientologist's humans fighting aliens story is less disturbing. So Romney likes science fiction (I don't). Essentially, what conservatives are saying with this "controversy" is that (a) Romney should have lied and told us he liked some other book because that would make us feel better about him, and (b) that his choice of reading material is as important as his positions on the issues. I don't know who Coulter and her other hacks are backing for the presidency--I notice Giuliani doesn't show up much in her writing these days--but I would like to know what they think is important. Is all-around conservatism and a decent, upright man for the office important, or do we turn to a scumbag because we like his favorite book better? And what is Giuliani's favorite book?

For the record, my favorite book is "Watership Down." Go crazy!