CORNEL WEST UPDATE: Orrin Judd has an interesting contrast.

I HOPE THAT THIS STORY IS TRUE:

U.S. intelligence sources in Washington are saying that the job of taking out the suicide bombing infrastructure of the extremist Hamas group will be done by Egyptians.

Under the guise of helping the Palestinian Authority with their reforms so called Egyptian experts will begin to appear in the West Bank and Gaza. Only they’ll be intelligence operatives, and soon designated suicide bombers and their support teams will begin to disappear. The United States has extracted a promise from Egypt not to station forces permanently in the Palestinian enclave. “(The Egyptians) are absolutely ferocious” one U.S. intelligence officer says admiringly.

(Via Fred Pruitt).

MORE ON HAUERWAS: Okay, it’s not generating email the way the men in college post did, or the SUV and interracial marriage posts did, but it’s generated a fair amount. Some samples:

Reader Angie Schultz is a bit hard on Telford Work:

I was prepared to respect Work’s attitude, but no longer. In that link you posted:

> Firing off a missile or two to “send a message” was a common enough

> response from the Clinton Administration. It projected the image (and

> the reality) of a country dismissive of its foes, arrogant about its

> power, and complacent about its future. It enraged and encouraged

> America’s enemies.

No, indeed, it projected the image of a country insecure in its power, hesitant to march overseas and deliver its enemies the ass-kicking they so richly deserved. (And I’ll point out that, though I wasn’t paying much attention, I thought at the time that firing a couple cruise missiles was either too little or too much.)

It did encourage our enemies, but only because it made them think us weak.

> At my school’s memorial service, even before we knew who had

> perpetrated the act, we instinctively repented of our triumphalism,

> arrogance, and complacency

That’s right, we are automatically to blame, no matter what happened, no matter who our enemies are or what their ultimate goals. Osama et al want to set up the Caliphate, for Chrissake, where no doubt Christians would be put to the sword, as in Saudi Arabia (Osama thinks the Saudis are a bunch of pansies), and Work and his oh-so-pious ilk are sorry we are not more accomodating of them.

He also says he hopes Christians would fight non-violently. Forgiving the oxymoron, most of Americans consider themselves Christian, however lightly or fervently they hold the religion. Guess this would mean actually defending the country would fall to Jews and atheist, plus whatever small percentage of other non-pacifist religions remain in the country. Unless of course by “Christian” Work means (as so many Christians do) “my brand of Christianity which is the only legitimate one”. Those other “Christians” (who aren’t really, you know) can go do the hard and bloody work. He sounds like a damned Eurominister.

By the time he’s reminding us that we need to be humbled for relying on our own power, rather than God’s, I’m done. Experience and history show that people and nations who rely solely on God’s intervention, rather than developing their own powers, are doomed.

Feh.

In case you haven’t gathered, I’m an atheist, and I’m really pissed

off.

Well, I think Work is thoughtful and serious. Hauerwas. . . well, I’m not so sure. I think he’s gotten caught up in the act.

Reader Chris Moseley writes:

I’m a Christian and I also agree with you about Hauerwas’ prayer.

I once heard Hauerwas give a paper at Duke. What one needs to realize about him is that he sees himself as a gadfly (in the Socratic sense) for the church. His schtick is to make outrageous statements that get attention; if challenged by coherent criticism, he retreats or deflects the challenge, but the purpose has been served. What I’ve read of his work appears not to be scholarship but the maintenance of a carefully crafted pose.

I recall that at the talk I attended, Hauerwas likened middle-class white Christians (the sort who might listen to ‘Jars of Clay’, say) to Nazis. This was part of the schtick, but it may also reflect genuine hatred on his part.

However, what he may hate and fear above all else is to be ignored. From what I’ve read of his writing, he has reason to fear this.

I don’t think that Hauerwas hates middle-class America. But by all appearances he doesn’t respect it, or its beliefs, as much as he respects those who do hate America. The Nazi analogy is also in this article: “Americans are, for the most part, good, decent and hardworking people, Hauerwas says, but ‘so were the people that supported the Nazis.'”

Reader James Dixon says I’m wrong:

Prof. Reynolds:

> The 9/11 attacks, in other words, seem to have been exactly what

> Hauerwas was praying for.

Uhm, no. I’ll quote:

“Sober us with the knowledge that you will judge this nation, you will humble this nation, you will destroy this nation for our pride.”

I would argue that the 9/11 attacks had, if anything, exactly the opposite effect.

Perhaps it wasn’t America’s pride that God chose to humble. That doesn’t change what Hauerwas was praying for.

In addition, while Hauerwas did ask for specific outcomes in his prayer, he left the matter of how best to achieve those outcomes entirely in God’s hands (note the “if it be your will”). I doubt that even Hauerwas would consider the deaths of thousands of innocents to be a method God would choose.

I don’t know. Read the prayer. How else do you “humble” a great nation? Historically, it has usually involved fire and blood. As for the “if it be your will,” that’s the usual weasel-phrase people add after asking God to do their will.

Glenn, Hauerwas is arguing from a theological perspective. As much as I like your blog, you are not qualified to debate him on those terms, anymore than he is to debate you on Constitutional law. While I am not a trained theologian either, I can confidently state that his positions are in fact based on accepted Christian doctrine. The positions themselves are extreme, in that they would not be those reached by most reasoning Christians, but few Christians would argue the doctrine from which they are derived.

Yeah, but so what? Personally, I think that Constitutional discourse should be comprehensible to everyone. I feel the same about theological discourse. I agree that Hauerwas argues from a Christian tradition (one that I don’t share) but I don’t feel that gives his opinions on secular questions, like the war, any additional authority. At any rate, Hauerwas is someone who has chosen to take his positions beyond the seminary walls. That makes him fair game — and to his credit, I don’t think he would try to maintain that only those with union cards may debate him. I repeat: I think I’m doing him credit by taking his ideas seriously, rather than simply ignoring them.

I personally do not agree with him, as I consider the Afghan conflict to be a “just war”.

As to why he is taking these positions, he is reminding Christians that they are Christians first and Americans second. For a Christian, the commandments of Christ take precedence over all else, even the survival of the United States. He is simply pointing this out to them. You can argue all you want that this is unwise, but this is a matter of faith, not wisdom, so whether it is wise or not is beside the point to believing Christians (and his arguments are aimed squarely at believing Christians, anyone else they reach is a side benefit).

Anyway, I doubt I’ve cleared the matter up any, but I thought I should try. Thank you for taking the time to share your views with us. Oh, and if you would rather be addressed as Dr. Reynolds, please let me know. I personally consider Professor to be the more respectful title.

I’m happy with all non-profane titles of address. Law professors don’t use “doctor,” though, even though the degree is a doctorate, for reasons based in history (at one time the law degree wasn’t a doctorate) and professional rivalry (the whole medical doctors versus lawyers thing).

It’s fine for Hauerwas to tell Christians that they’re Christians first and Americans second — so long as he’s willing understand that by doing so he puts himself, and Christians who agree with him, in the position of being dismissed as people who, well, put America’s interests second to their own religious beliefs. Kind of like Pat Robertson.

Brent Hardaway writes:

I enjoy your site and I’m an evangelical Christian who thought that your prayer in response to Hauerwas was most appropriate and on target. It is not any “cautionary note”. I spent seven years in a Mennonite denomination where a strong minority of the members are pacifists. I’m sad to say that the modern manifestation of Christian pacifism has nothing to do with it’s more noble past. I think that it makes most of them very bitter that America has the power to secure itself by the use of military force, because it’s much more difficult to go around saying “violence begets violence” when in fact violence can neutralize the enemy. Their words seem to imply that they would like America to be defeated in a war. Well, at least as long as their personal safety would remain intact.

Yes. There’s rather a lot of arrogance in this position. It’s wrong to say “The United States will destroy a nation that threatens its beliefs.” But it’s okay to say, “The United States should be destroyed as a nation because defending it threatens my beliefs.” The former, we’re told, is nationalistic arrogance — the latter, presumably, is piety of some sort.

Screw it. You want to be a martry for Christianity, fine. Get a load of Bibles and take them to Saudi Arabia. But don’t fool yourself that the rest of us share your beliefs, or desire your fate. My own belief is well captured by a passage from the Tennessee Constitution: “the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.”

There’s an interesting email exchange over at Kieran Lyons’ site that’s worth reading, too.

OKAY, I’VE FOUND MY NEW HEROES: Amir Hadad and Aisamul Haq Quresh, an Israeli Jew and Pakistani Muslim who are partnered at Wimbledon.

Pakistan’s government is not happy. They should get a clue.

BY ITS FRUIT THE TREE IS KNOWN:

A teenager who pleaded guilty to murder described his contempt for school and for America in essays that reveal a transformation from popular student to cold-blooded killer of two Dartmouth College professors. . . .

In another school essay, Tulloch said he believed America treated Europeans and Japanese poorly during World War II and entered the war only when its interests were challenged.

“The Japanese? Well, we had to kill or be killed, right? And the Jews? Well, heck, they’re all the way across the ocean, what do we owe them. And so, since it is a known fact that American lives are worth more than any other, we stayed out of the war. We bombed Japan, ruined countless future generations and still didn’t give a damn,” Tulloch wrote in May 1999, when he was a junior.

Well, he’s a historical illiterate, but he’s got the attitude down.

TELFORD WORK doesn’t like the sarcastic prayer I wrote in response to a prayer of Stanley Hauerwas’s.

I’d like to agree with Work, who is a very thoughtful guy, that Hauerwas was just trying to deflate hubris. I’m all for that — as I said in a post after the Afghanistan victory (quoting Han Solo) “Great shooting! Don’t get cocky.” Pride does go before a fall.

But I just don’t read Hauerwas that way. His prayer isn’t a cautionary note. Rather it’s a demand for God to visit judgment on an America that Hauerwas thinks is too big for its britches. Now you can construct a coherent theological argument for such a position, which people will be persuaded by or not. But I think it’s lousy. (And I note that Hauerwas seems almost boastful as he describes the extent of the American power that he decries. Pride comes in many forms.)

I think Hauerwas’s prayer should be Exhibit One for the Rev. Donald Sensing’s piece contrasting a previous era’s pacifists’ patriotism and willingness to sacrifice for their country in nonviolent ways with today’s pacifists, who seem more anxious to sit astride their high horses. Can you imagine one of these pacifists praying “make those we bomb instruments of your judgment”? I can’t. And I think that it’s entirely fair to call such a prayer un-American. That’s what it’s author intends it to be, and that’s what it is. (Indeed, I think that Hauerwas would take pride in having his work described this way). And calling it that isn’t being dismissive. It’s taking it very seriously on its own terms.

If Hauerwas’s theology is sound, then it is also fair to associate Christian theology in general with such attitudes. If it’s not, then perhaps Christian theologians should spend a bit more time criticizing him. Personally, I think his prayer stinks. Read this account of the “judgment” Hauerwas prayed for and see if you agree.

UPDATE: Bryan Preston writes:

Just wanted to say that I’m with you on this. I’m a Christian, and frankly I’m appalled at the pacifist wing of my faith and its conduct since 9-11. They’re on very shaky theological ground, as the “just war” doctrine has been an integral part of mainstream Christianity at least since Augustine. Further, by praying for judgement on America, they’re cheering on murderous, brutal people who would, as their first act if they won, ban Christianity–that’s what they tend to do in the countries they rule now. They’re taking a cowardly, immoral stand in my view.

You’re right to expose Hauerwas, and your counter prayer was just (and funny too). I said so on my blog, and a majority of Christians agree with you.

Well, thanks. I just wonder: If Brazil was the world’s “hyperpower,” would Hauerwas be calling down God’s judgment on Brazil? The answer, I think, is “only if Hauerwas were from Brazil.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader James Christiansen suggests that I am ignorant of theology. He also says that Stanley Hauerwas is in fact criticized by a lot of theologians, and sends this exchange from First Things as an example.

Well, I’m probably ignorant of theology, at least compared to some — but not of theologians, having grown up around them (much of my childhood was spent around the Harvard Divinity School). I’ll save my views on theology, theologians, and of theology as a discipline, for another time, but yes: I know that Hauerwas is controversial, and often criticized within the discipline, and occasionally in nonprofessional semipublic fora like First Things. I think, however, that the times call for something more than that.

AND SMALLER FLEAS TO BITE ‘EM: Okay, this is getting silly.

STEPHEN GREEN HAS responded to TAPPED’s challenge.

I’M LISTENING TO NPR at the moment, which is running a very negative story on Robert Mueller’s decision to speak to the American Muslim Council.

UPDATE: Howard Feinberg has background on the American Muslim Council.

HERE’S A REPORT on the Blogosphere panel that I missed. I like the term “airplane trouble,” which suggests that it was my personal Lear that was misbehaving. But, uh, you guys are going to have to hit the tipjar a lot harder before that comes true.

It sucked not being able to make it.

UPDATE: ARNOLD KLING has a report too. It was not, however, “lack of an honorarium” that kept me away — except that I had an $800 plane ticket (NOT paid for by the panel sponsors) that would have been wasted if I hadn’t made it in time, as seemed extremely likely.

Though I suppose the “you need an honorarium to get Glenn to speak” meme is one I should try to encourage. Make that “you need a really big honorarium. . . .” In the meantime, picking up the tab on the plane ticket would help, I guess. But, really, the thought that I would probably be stuck in Charlotte while the panel went on without me anyway was the deal-killer. I guess I could have tried flying up the night before — but that didn’t work for Lileks, or for the woman standing behind me in line, who had been stuck overnight.

UPDATE: Here’s another report, and a pretty good one.

And here’s another one, with pictures.

STEVEN DEN BESTE ANSWERS Donald Sensing’s statement that all the pacifists Sensing has met are cowards. Of course, it may just be that they’re not making pacifists like they used to. Den Beste also looks at the latest Israeli incursions into the West Bank and asks: “Where’s the outrage?” The answer, I think, is that the Palestinians have pretty much used up their moral capital. Which I think suggests that Bush’s rope-a-dope was successful. The Palestinian problem isn’t standing in the way of war anymore.

UPDATE: Sensing replies with an extended riff on why they’re not making pacifists like they used to. Excerpt:

American religious pacifism has a rich history going back to the early days of the republic, but its adherents also sought ways to serve their country in times of war. They did not shirk from sharing the risk of preserving freedom even though they refused to take up arms in their own hands.

They don’t make pacifists like they used to. On the whole, American “pacifist” ranks have been filled with white men and women of privileged backgrounds whose primary motivation seems mostly anti-American. Hence, they refuse to share the risks of preserving America, even in non-combat roles, perhaps because they don’t see America as something worth preserving.

JOSH MARSHALL LOOKS AT CHRIS WHITTLE’S — AND EDISON’S — FINANCES and doesn’t like what he sees. Whittle, of course, is a Knoxvillian. He built a big publishing empire here (he once owned Esquire, among a bunch of other magazines, the Channel One TV network, and a bunch of cheesy efforts to advertise in places like doctors’ offices). Whittle’s grandiose Colonial-style headquarters building (known as “Historic Whittlesburg” around these parts) is now a magnificent Federal Courthouse whose over-appointed chambers — it was bought by the Feds when Whittle went belly-up, at firesale prices complete with real oriental rugs, pink marble fireplaces, crystal chandeliers, etc. — are the envy of federal judges everywhere.

Unfortunately, Whittle seems to be better at buying things and borrowing money than at running things and making money. I’d like to see Edison succeed, but I’ve always doubted its financial soundness. Even expensive private schools depend on a surprisingly large amount of volunteer labor and financial donation that it’s not at all clear a for-profit school can attract. Marshall’s got an axe to grind, of course, “and plenty of fury to turn the wheel.” But I think he’s right to be doubtful about Edison’s future.

The good news is that a bunch of the people who came to Knoxville to work for Whittle stayed after it went belly up. Many of them started their own smaller ventures, or became freelance writers, thus enriching the area substantially.

MOIRA REDMOND has posted her farewell message to Slate. For better or worse, InstaPundit owes, well, pretty much everything to The Fray. Moira will be missed.

ERIC ALTERMAN DESERVES A SOUND FISKING FOR THIS ABSURD STATEMENT:

As for CCR, well, who the hell was their drummer? I never saw them, but were they any better than Fogerty solo? I can’t imagine it. The man is magic-except for that one crappy album with the voodoo stuff on the cover.

The drummer was Doug “Cosmo” Clifford, for whom the album Cosmo’s Factory is named. He’s a hell of a drummer, who has recently done good work with Southern Pacific. The bass player, Stu Cook, is also superb as almost any random CCR track will prove (but listen to “Pagan Baby” or “Born to Move” if you doubt me). Clifford and Cook could lay down a line you could hang your wash on. And John’s brother Tom Fogerty ranks among the world’s top rhythm guitarists, and did some good solo work, too before his health went.

I’m as big a John Fogerty fan as anybody alive, and his solo stuff is excellent (especially by comparison with, say, Mick Jagger’s solo stuff — ugh). I saw his first reappearance in public at Mud Island in 1986, and have seen him several times since. He’s great. But the whole was more than the sum of the parts with Creedence Clearwater Revival.

UPDATE: Reader H. Koenig writes: “Those two (Clifford and Cook) have a band called “Creedence Clearwater Revisted” which has been recently advertised as playing at at least one Indian Casino here in the Pacific Northwest.”

Anybody heard ’em play?

ANOTHER UPDATE: And, of course, the answer is “yes!” Multiple yeses, in fact. Reader Brian Jones (no, not that Brian Jones: he’s dead) writes:

I not only saw them play, I got to introduce them, at the 30th anniversary of Woodstock…not that mess up at Griffis AFB, but at Yasgur’s Farm with several of the other original performers.

While I can’t vouch for how this half-CCR performs on other nights — I’ve seen too many cringeworthy oldies shows — the two original members were delighted to be back on that stage, and it showed in their performances and rubbed off on the other band members.

Still, the previous year’s show was better.

Meanwhile reader Bruce Kratofil writes:

I just happened to hear CCR version 2.0 last week (June 20). We were staying on Hilton Head, and they gave a concert at the tennis stadium a short walk from our rental – effectively a free concert, since you could walk right outside the tennis court and both listen and watch.

They went out and hired a John Fogerty sound-alike lead singer (whose name escapes me) and they also added a rhythm guitarist from the Cars. On the instrumental parts, such as the end of “Grapevine”, you really couldn’t tell the difference. On the vocals, the trick was not to pay too close attention to them, and it sounded close enough.

I never heard the original ones except via vinyl — and now CD.

Me neither, though my mom played their records so many times they wore out when I was a kid. Which is parenting at its finest.

I’M A BIG FAN OF MELISSA SECKORA’S and now she’s profiled as a “rising star” by UPI. I’m not surprised to read that she’s blessed with “brains, beauty, talent and drive” but I was a bit surprised to find out that she’s 26. Somehow her writing gives the impression of a grizzled journalism pro. Guess I’ll have to leave out the “grizzled” part now.

WELL, THAT SUCKS: I won’t be at the Blogosphere panel after all. I got up at 4:30 a.m., drove to the airport for my 7:30 nonstop flight, was told at 6:45 that it was cancelled. The next flight would have gotten me to D.C. just in time to waltz in at noon — if everything went perfectly, which the agent told me was unlikely given “equipment and crew issues” at Charlotte. So rather than risk spending my day at Charlotte and still missing the panel, which seemed far and away the most likely outcome, I aborted.

To be fair, he was nice and helpful in trying to find alternate routes, didn’t give me any overoptimistic bullshit, and cheerfully refunded my ticket without any guff. And — in yet another reason to love Knoxville — the parking lot attendant didn’t even charge me when she heard why my stay was so brief. So I had a better experience than Lileks, but with the same ultimate outcome.

I’m going to take the opportunity to spend some quality time with my wife. Back later. In the meantime, check out this challenge to the Blogosphere from TAPPED.

UPDATE: Laurence Simon of Amish Technical Support has taken up the challenge.

OKAY, HERE’S A QUICKIE: Howard Owens says we shouldn’t be ashamed of the Crusades: they were a defensive war against Arab aggression.

And the Blogosphere panel has already produced a Lileks piece. Also, a good column today from Charles Krauthammer and a rather mixed column from Salman Rushdie — I don’t think that the war is going badly, as he seems to, but he’s certainly right about the Muslim world’s muteness on terrorism. Oh, and the irony: this story came with a huge honkin’ popup ad.

And lastly, check out the picture of Dick Gephardt accompanying this article in the New York Times. He looks like they caught him in the middle of a downhill ski run. Nobody was trying very hard to make him look good when they decided to run that one.

Have a good day. I’ll be back later.

I’M GOING TO BED EARLY, since I have to get up at the crack of dawn to fly to DC for the Blogosphere panel. Probably no more posts until tomorrow night, unless I find myself with time to kill somewhere where there’s an internet connection.

THE SPAM MAP shows the interrelationship of many spam emailers in graphic form. But where’s Mrs. Mobutu Sese Seko?

PHILIP SHROPSHIRE makes the all-too-seldom-heard left-wing argument for colonizing Mars. I admire this piece, and agree with most of it. It’s a welcome break from the rather large crowd of people on the left who haven’t approved of anything new since the invention of the wet blanket.

ERIC RAYMOND ANNOUNCES HIS FIRST Blogchild.

AMERICAN AGENTS, disguised as roving mullahs are wandering through Pakistan. The beauty of this is that if their cover works, the mission is successful. If their cover’s blown, it means that genuine roving mullahs (who don’t like us, for the most part, and who are a plague on that part of the world) will find themselves distrusted and, hopefully, roughly interrogated.

FISKING MOLLY IVINS: Yeah, okay, it’s easy — but this guy’s new, and he does it well.

JOHN ENTWISTLE is dead, apparently of a heart attack. Bummer.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll has some thoughts. I saw The Who at RFK stadium in 1989, from 9th row seats. They were awesome. I always liked Entwistle because he was so businesslike, and so incredibly good. That’s a combination I admire — common in bass players, not so common elsewhere in rock and roll.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Brink Lindsey shares some memories of drunken revels and jam sessions with Entwistle.

ECONOMIC SCHADENFREUDE ISN’T LIMITED TO THE NATION: Charles Austin reflects on how journalists love bad economic news.

No chance any of those guys will take any blame for hyping the boom the way they’re hyping the bust, is there? They were pumping companies as hard as Arthur Andersen, but we won’t hear about that now.