Bob McDonnell and the Washington Post

What follows is adapted from a post I made at the Post's website today regarding 'Winners and Losers' from the just completed election cycle:

Among the losers, we should count the Washington Post for its highly problematic coverage of the Virginia governor's race:

1) The editorial board's endorsement of Democrat Creigh Deeds was no surprise, but the partisan and selectively one-sided nature of it indicated a lack of seriousness in appraising the campaign.

2) The Post's polling approach lacked credibility, and it showed. Not only were the Post's polls consistently wrong in lowballing the margin between Republican Bob McDonnell and Deeds (the Post's polls put the margin between 9-11 points), the Post actively poo-pooed other polls that had a far more accurate grasp of the true margin of separation (many other polls had the margin between 14-18 points). McDonnell won by 17-18 points. A 7-8 point margin of error makes the Post's polling methodology unreliable, and yet the Post was labeling the accurate polls as such. Can you say 'credibility gap'?

3) Related to #2, the Post seemed to take a 90 degree turn during the campaign in covering other poll results. In the beginning, the Post went on record saying they would not publicize other polls that they (the Post) had problems with in terms of methodology. After getting skewered over this highly subjective and arbitrary decision, the Post reversed course in the last month and was giving some limited airplay to other polls (which turned out to be more accurate than the Post's own polls). This indicated the lack of a reliable compass in guiding what the newsroom (not the editorial staff) thought was newsworthy. The Post's late stream course correction was the right decision, but it highlights how completely wrong their original position was as a matter of journalistic integrity. This kind of fumbling, bumbling, and stumbling is what hurt Deeds's credibility. It hurts the Post's as well.

4) The Post's metro section made a serious investment in pushing liberal concerns in its reporting. Beyond the Post's infamous obsession with McDonnell's thesis, the metro staff (again, I'm not talking about the editorial board) repeatedly approached the economic and transportation plans of the candidates from the perspective that higher taxes were the only real solution. First, one wonders if these people have looked at the economic condition in Maryland (high taxes, high unemployment, a population exodus to states with lower tax burdens) as part of formulating their own worldview. Second, it is a bit disingenuous for the beat staff to regularly trot out the line that a high wall of separation exists between the editorial board and the metro staff, as if this org chart somehow gets the metro staff off the hook for bringing their own biases to their coverage. It doesn't. It never has, it never will. Just because the metro staff at the Post might take umbrage at this suggestion doesn't make it false, at all. More likely it highlights the objectivity and non-agenda self-delusion that's so common in the press corps.

Nobody I know expected the Post's editorial board to give McDonnell a fair shake, and that's fair enough. While regretable, it's at least consistent and offers few surprises. But the conduct of the metro staff in this campaign has been noticed by many outside the beltway. After years of the Post taking tangible steps to improve its image as a news outlet that shows at least some concern about being fair with diverse viewpoints, I fear that its performance this time around will undo a good bit of that among those who are not partisan Democrats.

In a follow-up editorial today, the editorial board expressed its hope that McDonnell will prove them wrong on all the areas in which they took issue with him. Well, many of us are quite entitled to petition the Post for the same thing. If I were to write an editorial to the Post, I would urge them to seriously listen to the many well deserved criticisms they have received about their conduct in this campaign. Their performance has been disappointing as a matter of journalism. The Post needs to be more intentional about promoting viewpoint diversity in their own ranks to help ensure that future campaigns are covered with a level of respect for differing views that comes with having a staff of differing views. I fear that absent this, the Post will continue to fundamentally misunderstand non-liberal thought and those who adhere to it, and that this misunderstanding will continue to taint their coverage and invite deserved repudiation.

A Blog Post that made me Weep

I don't normally link to specific blog posts written by others. But after neglecting Reggie Kidd's blog for far too long, I noticed a post written back in December of last year that is more than worthy of sharing. Please take a look:

http://reggiekidd.com/RK/2008/12/22/the-gospel-according-to-house-a-christmas-meditation-part-one/

Even though it was one of Reggie's Christmas meditations, the post has a decidedly year-round message. It is this kind of thoughtful interaction with culture that we should be seeing much more of in Christian circles, rather than blind acceptance or vitriolic hostility.

Defending the Gospel of John Scripts Now Available

Last week, I began teaching a new self-developed curriculum entitled 'Defending the Gospel of John'. The first 9 lesson scripts are now available online at my church's website. A link to the scripts can be found on the Links section of this blog. We had over 30 folks attend Week 1 last week, which is a very good start.

The course addresses a number of accusations that have been made against the Gospel of John, including the following:

1) The GJ strongly incorporates Gnostic ideas, terms, and categories.
2) The Apostle John did not write a single word of the GJ.
3) The GJ is historically unreliable and totally dissimilar from the Synoptics.
4) The GJ is a sectarian document written by a sectarian community.
5) The GJ is anti-semitic.
6) The GJ is anti-pluralistic.

The course touches on biblical exegesis, church history, theology, ethics, and other disciplines. I invite all interested readers to pull up the scripts and peruse. And, of course, anyone who would like to attend the course at Faith Church is very invited to come. I'd love the chance to meet you.

Many thanx to Faith Church for making these scripts available online.

Justice - 'Manson Family' Style

With the recent news that former Manson Family devotee Lynette Fromme was released from prison while terminally ill Susan Atkin's latest parole request was denied, I am once again confronted by the ultimate inadequacy of human justice. In saying this, let me be clear about two things:

1) I am not necessarily questioning the wisdom of either decision.
2) Scripture seems clear to me that God established human governing authorities to maintain general social welfare (Rom 12-13). This includes the administration of justice.

Squeaky Fromme, so far as we know, never killed anyone. She was in prison for waving a gun at President Gerald Ford, and her sentence was later lengthened as a result of a brief prison escape in the late 1980s. Atkins, on the other hand, admits to brutally killing Sharon Tate and her unborn child. By normal standards of American justice, her ultimate sentence of life without parole is rather mainstream.

But human justice is not always nice and neat. Atkins, along with other Manson Family members sentenced to life in prison (not including Manson himself), have been model prisoners according to many prison administrators. Their 'good works' in prison have now spanned decades. While not an ironclad argument, a case can be made that these folks have largely been 'rehabilitated'. While the issue of rehabilitation doesn't necessarily override the 'punishment should fit the crime' motto of justice, it is a complicating factor to neat and clean justice. It is further complicated by the release of Fromme.

In my uneducated view, if there is one Manson Family member who continues to have the potential of being dangerous (again, not including Manson himself), it is Fromme. Unlike the other Manson Family members in prison, Fromme has never disassociated herself from Manson. To the contrary, she strongly suggested that the reason behind her attempt to escape from prison in the late 1980s was to visit Manson. In addition, unlike the other Manson Family inmates, Fromme has not been a model prisoner. She has had scrapes with other inmates, and was actually transferred to another prison as a result of attacking another prisoner. Lastly, she has never expressed remorse either about the Manson Family's activities or her own actions that landed her in prison.

From one point of view, 'justice' has been upheld, in that the non-murderer is eventually freed, while the murderers are not. But from another point of view, 'justice' has been decidedly mixed, in that the dangerous and unrepentant person goes free, while the rehabilitated and remorseful people remain jailed. Again, I'm not necessarily questioning the wisdom behind either decision, or the legal process and sentencing guidelines that got us here. But it does make me long for the day when, as Revelation 15.4 says, all nations will worship God, because his righteous acts have been revealed. The 'just' God of Deuteronomy 32 is just that; just. Human justice will always be imperfect, and it will often be messy. Divine justice is the only ultimate remedy, and the imperfections of human justice make me long for it all the more.

Sotomayor Should be Confirmed

The Senate is expected to confirm Judge Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court later today. I believe this is the right decision.

I say this not because I agree with Sotomayor's rulings or legal philosophy. I have reservations about both. Republicans are right that an 'empathy' standard is a dangerous one, because it converts preferential identity politics into a legal posture. Justice, even in principle, would no longer be blind, and even in principle, litigants would not be operating on a level playing field. If judges and justices were to embrace such a standard, chaos, followed by Nietzchean will to power, would define justice in America. Why? Because individual empathies inevitably conflict with each other. My empathies may be different than yours. Who gets to decide which empathies become ensconced in jurisprudence? Are such empathies routinely up for debate and significant change over time, and if so, how would citizens, governments, and businesses ever be able to know they are on solid legal ground when making decisions that might impact anyone else? In such a scenario, justice would be governed by fluid preferred empathies at any moment in time, and freedom and even the ability to govern would be thoroughly compromised through judicial enforcement of ever changing and ever conflicting empathies. At that point, the judiciary itself would lose its function, because its role would overlap completely with the political role of the executive and legislative branches. Put simply, we don't need the judiciary to prefer certain policies, groups, or worldviews over others - we have politicians to do that. We need the judiciary to be a check against the inevitable abuses that result from such politics, rather than a judiciary that signs on to such a practice and becomes duplicative and redundant as a result.

Having said all of that, I nonetheless think Sotomayor should be confirmed.

First, elections have consequences. Barack Obama is the president, he won the election fair and square, and he won by a sufficient enough margin to legitimately claim a mandate for his outlook on governance, including his criteria for judges. It doesn't matter that when he was a senator, he did not embrace the same standard in voting against qualified nominees of the previous administration. If one thinks this standard is right when we like the nominee, it doesn't become wrong when we're less enthused about a nominee.

Second, Sotomayor is clearly qualified. Her legal credentials are strong, and she's obviously not a minor league judge. It doesn't matter that when he was a senator, Obama voted against nominees who were also clearly qualified and had impeccable legal credentials. This standard should be a fixed standard that applies regardless of the nominee.

Third, Sotomayor is more or less in the legal mainstream. This is very dicey. During the Bush years, people like Chuck Schumer routinely threw around the term 'mainstream' in judging the fitness of nominees, as if there was some universal agreement about what 'mainstream' meant. Schumer's idea of 'mainstream' is very different from mine, and often varied depending on the day. This resulted in a completely subjective, arbitrary, and politicized standard that became THE standard upon which nominees were judged. It was a farce from start to finish, and it was a farce that then Senator Obama willingly engaged in. But in the case of Sotomayor, it is not easy to build a strong evidential case that she's a legal loon. Very few of her decisions have been reversed (the New Haven case being a glaring exception). While this doesn't guarantee a mainstream outlook, on the surface at least, it probably does imply a certain mainstream.

Fourth, the 'empathy' thing is very concerning, but not a showstopper given Sotomayor's record. Let's be clear that the 'empathy' standard is Obama's. During her hearings, Sotomayor thankfully seemed to reject such a standard, repeatedly. And with the possible exception of the New Haven case, there is little in the record to indicate that in contradiction to her Senate testimony, Sotomayor has in fact embraced empathy as a legal philosophy that influences or even dictates her legal decisions. Even if one considers the New Haven case, which I agree with Republicans was a terrible decision that was rightly reversed by the Supreme Court, it is not clear that Sotomayor took the 'empathy' route in signing on to the bad decision. The decision itself was a summary decision where the court didn't offer a rationale for its decision. So there's nothing in writing to indicate why Sotomayor and the other judges decided the way they did. During her testimony, Sotomayor cited precedent as the legal basis for the decision, not empathy or preferential group politics. One can either believe her explanation or not. Frankly, I don't know. Her out of court statements regarding identity wisdom may in fact be what she believes (though she rejected this in her testimony), and if so, this is unfortunate. But I simply fail to see enough compelling evidence that such a standard has been front and center in the judge's legal thinking.

Fifth and finally, someone's disagreements with a judge's decisions should not automatically provoke a nay vote. There isn't a single judge in America who I would completely agree with. Does that mean that if I was a senator, I would vote 'no' every time I disagree with someone? That simply can't be the basis upon which to shape the judiciary. The judiciary needs to be loyal to the law, not to me. I understand that loyalty to the law is a variable thing since there are many understandings of what that means. But in the case of Sotomayor, her Senate testimony made her loyalty to the law clear, and her legal history doesn't deviate from this enough for me to vote nay.

I respect those who see this differently and believe she shouldn't be confirmed. I share many of the concerns of those who oppose her confirmation. But in the end, I can't and won't adopt many of the specious 'standards' adopted by Democrats in opposing Republican nominated judges. Sotomayor should be confirmed.

Bush and Obama - Iraq and GM

I've been a bit struck lately with some similarities in the American polled attitudes about Iraq during the late Bush years, and the GM bailout now in the early Obama years. While the two are not totally symmetrical, it's getting harder and harder to keep them apart. Consider:

1) The amount of money being thrown at both never seems to come to an end. Nobody seems to have a good handle on how much the taxpayers will have to spend in order for both efforts to ultimately prove 'successful'. Certainly in the case of Iraq, it was legitimate to ask whether the decision to invade and its fallout was well thought through or not, especially given what appeared to be a complete inability to correctly forecast the extent of our commitment in personnel, expense and time. It appears many people are now asking the same question about the decision to bail out GM.

2) The poll numbers are trending somewhat consistently on both issues. The public, while not unanimous, initially supported the Iraq war, at least in plurality. That support held up for a while, but began to tank in Bush's second term, despite some legitimate successes on the ground in Bush's last year in office. Similarly, while not unanimous, a plurality of the public seemed to initially favor a government bailout of GM. In theory, this support was based on the idea that it was very important to the health of the nation that the US auto industry, and all the jobs associated with it, survive. But this support now seems to be flagging, as more money is spent keeping GM afloat despite significant job losses resulting from dealership closings, factory suspensions, and discontinuation of known brands like Pontiac.

3) The rationales offered by the proponents of both issues is eerily similar. When the going got tough in Iraq, Bush and his supporters said we needed to stay the course and that now that we were in there, we needed to finish the job. Iraq war proponents have consistently said that they want to get out of Iraq as soon as Iraq can stand on its own. Yet, all attempts at a timetable were heavily resisted by the former administration. The same thing is happening now with GM. I heard Debbie Stabenow, a senator from Michigan with an obvious interest in saving GM, tell exactly the same story about government intervention in GM that Bush was giving on government intervention in Iraq. She told a sycophantic interviewer on MSNBC that she didn't want the government running GM any longer than necessary, but that government involvement is nonetheless necessary for the forseeable future until GM gets its mess straightened out. She talked about the downside of getting out of GM too quickly (sound familiar? - this is her version of the 'premature withdrawal' argument of the Bush people on Iraq). And like the Iraq war proponents, she heavily downplayed the financial cost to the taxpayer of the decision to bail out GM.

As I said at the beginning, I am not suggesting that these two things are exactly the same, or that their respective support and opposition are based on exactly the same reasons. But there are some curious similarities at work here, and one wonders if the Obama people can see the irony of adopting a number of Bush stump speech justifications on Iraq in defense of their decisions about GM.

New Article Published by 3Mil

Back in May, I submitted an article to ThirdMill titled "Did the Author of the Fourth Gospel Intend to Write History?" The editor of 3Mil's online magazine has graciously agreed to publish the article, and it is now available online. For those interested in reading it, follow the 'My Published Papers So Far' link on the right side of this blog page.

In this article, I interact with the common scholarly contention of the last 40 years that the FG is more or less an allegory about a late 1st century community of believers, rather than a historical narrative about the historical Jesus. I attempt to introduce the issue of literary genre into this discussion, and to pull from a diverse pool of data (topography, historiography, etc) to assess whether this view holds water on the evidence. I argue that it doesn't.