The Climate Change Conundrum

In one sense, I'm neutral in the climate-change debate. I have no access to the data, so I don't "know" what is true. But in the run up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming, I followed the news frenzy surrounding it with great interest, because I'm convinced that at no time since the Cold War's period of nuclear brinksmanship have the stakes for humanity as a whole seemed higher on a single use.

Based on geological evidence and climate data (temperature and other measurements recorded around the world since 1850), a large majority of climatologists have come to two stark conclusions. First, that we are in a period of global warming. The primary cause for this warming, they say, is an increase in "greenhouse gas" (primarily carbon dioxide or CO2) levels in Earth's atmosphere. Second, although geological evidence indicates that our world has been subject to periodic warming and cooling cycles, climate experts say this particular period of warming is, to some degree, fueled by carbon dioxide emissions generated by human technology coupled with human destruction of natural carbon storage mechanisms, such as rain forests.

The pace of warming and the degree to which the resulting climate change might alter our world is a matter of scientific conjecture — enlightened and informed conjecture, but conjecture nonetheless. We have no human record of another time like this in recorded history. Therefore, we have no precedent to which we can appeal. Hence, we face a conundrum.

People don't like conundrums, they prefer certainties. So as a political issue, global warming is proving to be difficult to manage in the public square. Those for and against the climate-change theory have drawn some predictable battle lines:

A large group of about 30,000 scientists and environmentalists (including a few tree-spikers who would rather see a lumberjack than a tree cut down) now believe that climate change is primarily the result of human agency. They point out that the average global temperature has recently, if I heard correctly, risen by one degree. Although that single degree sounds like "not much" to the lay person, these same scientists warn that a couple of degrees higher, on average, is likely to raise the ocean levels several meters and radically alter the climate. Some even predict utter disaster, spinning scenarios of domino-effect environmental crises — drought, famine, huge displacements of animal (including human) populations, pandemic disease, and finally, massive extinctions of plant and animals — that will lay waste to the planet's ecosystem and human civilization as we know it.

On the other hand, some scientists, inside and outside the climatology community (including a few funded by those most likely to lose if the battle goes the wrong way, such as oil companies) have cried foul, claiming variously that global warming is a fraud or, at best, a misreading of the data. Many attempt to discredit climatologists' climate-change research and/or discredit their conclusions. They have been joined by a motley crew of self-styled populists, including right-wing politicians and pseudo-libertarian TV performers, who add climate change to a long list of items that Liberals, Big Government and Obama have foisted on Main Street.

One of the roots of the debate is whether or not humans have the right to consider themselves more important than the other species in earth's ecosystem. For many environmentalists, our ecosystem is fragile, and its delicate balance must be maintained. To many of them, humans are the villains, aggressors who upset that balance and are to blame for most of the eco-ills we now face. Things for some have taken on the tone of a religious crusade: For the radical environmentalist, it's only a matter of time before Gaia herself rises to smite we human transgressors in just retribution if we do not radically change our ways. A smaller number, much like the most radical Islamists, aren't waiting for Gaia to do her work. They're ramming Japanese whaling vessels and performing other acts of eco-terror. No surprise, then, that some global warming apologists call those who disagree "deniers" — an obvious, calculated effort to set those who doubt climate-change science alongside those who doubt the reality of the Holocaust.

For naysayers, the earth is not so fragile, but is instead an ever-shifting, adaptive system that readily adjusts to what they argue is inevitable change. They cite a growing number of instances in which scientists have been wrong: Famously, the snail darter, a point of contention between eco-protectors and naysayers a while back, did not suffer extinction as eco-scientists predicted but instead flourished when their native habitat was "ravaged" by a hydroelectric project. These folks argue that Nature herself uses catastrophic change in positive ways: Notably, the lessons learned by foresters in the great Yellowstone Park fire. Foresters now use "planned" burns and "thinning" techniques to preserve the health of forests. Evidence such as this, the naysayers contend, shows that the eco-saviors are often wrong, and therefore, their "science" cannot be trusted.

What is undeniable is that global warming conundrum is a global issue. Representatives from more than 190 countries attended the Copenhagen congress — a meeting most who were there now admit was an almost abject failure. But the attention paid to the event, alone, indicates that the issue of global warming is the 21st Century's first great cause celebre. As in all such instances, the publicity surrounding it has directed outsized attention not only to those who compiled the data and published the conclusions on climate change but also to those who promote and castigate those results. There are papers to publish, speaking tours to negotiate. Talk show appearances. Egos and reputations are on the line. And, yes, there are paydays. Climate-change proponents and naysayers together have spawned a huge industry. It has generated books, TV programs, movies and become the substance of political careers.

There is considerable pressure to fan the flames of controversy when there are so many careers and dollars at stake. Controversy sells newspapers, and hype boosts the ratings of TV news organizations (their editors are desperate to save media models that in the Internet age might have outlived their utility). That does not make the climate change theorists or their detractors right or wrong, but it does whip up more than a little crusading zeal among the partisans. All this should prompt us Main Streeters to consider carefully and weigh with some skepticism the claims made on both sides.

The naysayers got a bit of a boost from the recent revelation of e-mails and other documents (3,000 or so, in all) hacked from the computers at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. The hacker's timing couldn't have been better, with Copenhagen just around the corner.

I find it particularly puzzling that no one seems to be interested in finding out who released those e-mails. You'd think the people whose e-mails were exposed would be howling for an investigation. Hacking is a crime. And discovery of a "denier" behind the hack would help level the public-relations playing field for the beleaguered e-mailers, two of whom have had to temporarily relinquish their posts pending investigations into their conduct by their respective universities.

The two gentlemen appear now to be in a bit of a pinch. The e-mails suggest there was an effort to evade requests for data disclosure under Freedom of Information laws in the U.K. and U.S. Refusing to honor a properly filed request under the Freedom of Information Acts also is a crime. I've begun to wonder if the "hack" was actually the work of a climate-change insider, (a disaffected climatologist?) who might be portrayed by "deniers" as a whistle-blower. Time will tell.

In any case, when the stakes in the debate are so high, it is tempting to bend the rules and plot the demise of the opposition — a temptation I think might have been too much for the scientists behind the e-mails. The paydays, influence and accolades continue only so long as the data support your conclusions. Scientists who are critical of current climate science are not being unfairly critical to suggest that there might also have been attempts to deny other scientists the right to publish. The quality of scholarship that results from a peer review process is, like anything else, dependent on the honesty of those who control the process. I think obstructionist activity in peer review should give all of us pause.

The e-mails made abundantly clear that the climate-change folks aren't interested in making their data public. Why? What possible harm could come from releasing all the raw data to anyone who requests it? If the raw facts, such as temperature measurements, support the claim that we are, indeed, warming, that would only help their cause. Right?

Well, maybe. Trouble is, the old saw, "Let the facts speak for themselves," is an attractive maxim, but has little basis in fact. In the real world, facts are just facts. Consider the recently hacked e-mails: The various news reports and commentators quoted identical texts of an e-mail verbatim but from there, it was difficult to believe they're talking about the same data. Some saw a plot to deceive the larger scientific community and us plain good folk on Main Street. Others saw nothing more than the crass side-comments of good scientists who privately betrayed that they, too, are human and can make bad decisions under duress. Each group found what it was looking for.

Add to that that much of the raw climate data is just ... numbers. I've had several friends who have been forced to take statistics courses in college. They've each told me the same story. Day one, the statistics prof stands up and says statistics are just statistics. They don't say anything. They must be interpreted. And often can be interpreted in many ways. The science of statistics is, well, actually a very difficult art. Thus, there are, as one e-mailer noted, "tricks" to help hide inconvenient statistical truths.

Just as the pols and pundits drew different conclusions from the data the hackers unearthed, so scientists have drawn different conclusions from the statistical climate data. We shouldn't be surprised by this: It's inevitable when folks come to the fray with political, social and, yes, metaphysical predispositions that no doubt cloud objectivity.

On that note, I am puzzled by a paradox of no small proportion: A number of religious folk have aligned themselves with the doubters, primarily out of a general distrust for science and anything else that smacks of "secular humanism" or is tainted by Darwinism, while many atheists are numbered among those prepared to call for unprecedented sacrifice to prevent a holocaust that in no way impacts an eternal future in which they don't believe they'll have any share. I would have imagined it the other way around. I continue to ponder this strange reality with awful wonder.

Although there are the deniers — those who refuse to believe we're warming at all, there is a growing group of naysayers (Ms. Sarah Palin is one), who don't deny that global warming is a fact, but insist that humans aren't the primary cause. Oddly, Ms. Palin and friends aren't telling us that we could survive three degrees of temperature change without some sort of catastrophe. Given that the dire predictions go unchallenged, Ms. Palin's assurances that I'm not the cause would be small comfort. If warming is simply the inevitable result of an unavoidable global cycle — something we cannot control — then my great grandchildren could be dead no matter what I do. Neither a happy thought nor a very tenable political position. Frankly, the possibility that we are at fault offers some hope, because it leaves us humans the option to stop it.

As I've said before, I have no problem with the general populace believing that global warming is a threat and that it is primarily a human problem. Whether global warming is real or not, we can't afford to wait until the conundrum becomes a certainty. It'll be too late. Despite the East Anglia e-mails, its hard for me to imagine that thousands of climate scientists in at least three independent working groups would conspire to use fraudulent data to foist on the world a lie of such frightening proportions just to cash in on speakers fees and become celebrities. Even if the climate scientists are dead wrong, the science that has demonstrated the realities of human-generated pollution and the fact that we are depleting our natural resources is indisputable. And both are reason enough to take the precautions climatologists are suggesting.

Ironically, polls almost universally show that "belief" in global warming is eroding in the U.S., and has been in decline since long before the East Anglia furor. Pollsters are not sure why, but one possibility is that the same short-sightedness and lack of will that brought on our recent massive financial meltdown (which reverberated around the world), and put off meaningful reform of the U.S. health care system — both huge contributors to the massive national debt we will pass on to our children — is now blunting the U.S. population's will to solve a problem to which we have, for most of recent history, been the largest contributor.

If I am a Christian in truth, I need to stop pursuing personal comfort, pleasure, prestige and wealth at the expense of others and our shared environment. And I need to urge those around me to do the same. We do need to care about this Earth, because it is our home and God's creation and because our children deserve better. For those who believe there is Someone beyond this world to whom we must give an account, inaction is the unthinkable option. Any possible avenue that could forestall or reverse such an outcome should be taken.

As a Christian, the health of the community is no less important that my own health. I do not have the luxury to chose between the individual and the collective, for my God affirms and loves both. Jesus Christ sacrificed himself to save his community. That's the standard. So I'd far rather drastically reduce my contribution to pollution, the hole in the ozone layer and the wholesale waste of natural resources and then find out later that I was mistaken. The alternative is to plug my ears, eat, drink and be merry, and then stand before God and answer for my dying great-grandchildren.

Neutrality — even in the face of a conundrum — really isn't a Christian option.

Interesting Article on Prayer

Found this article in the NY Times Magazine on prayer, entitled "The Right Way to Pray?." It's an interesting commentary on our need for "proper technique," as if God were a puzzle to solve, a labyrinth to walk or a secret to discover. Author Zev Chafets, not a religious man, visits with a number of folks who sell a variety of approaches to prayer, and ends his story with a description of his visit to an old-fashioned Assemblies of God church, a place where people simply believe that God is, God is good, God loves them and the people around them and is disposed to respond if they ask (pray is the Old English word for ask) for help.

Mr. Wilson's Breach of Decorum

Far too much has been said already about this Representative's outburst during President Obama's speech the other night. I wouldn't add to it were it not for the fact that much of what is being said is so ... shallow and ignores the fundamental issue that Mr. Wilson's behavior raises.

It's the character issue, of course. No one likes this subject because even most of those who write about this stuff don't like to be held accountable for their lack of it. But this needs to be said, whether anyone likes it or not.

First, character really is important. Before a watching world, populated in part by young, impressionable school children, a man elected to high government office shouted at the President (who had the floor) and called him a liar. To President Obama's eternal credit, he displayed for the watching world the good character to ignore the outburst and move on with the important business at hand. Mr. Wilson's statement was disrespectful, to say the least. And let's make sure that we understand that when Mr. Obama used the "lie" word, with respect to untruths circulating about his health care plan, he did not name names or impugn the character of any individuals. And on the other hand, he was careful to give credit for the ideas he was presenting to those who deserved it (including his rival for the Oval Office, Mr. McCain.)

What people in high places do sets the tone for our entire society. If we cannot model healthy discourse before a watching world, particularly the younger and more impressionable part of it, then we have already lost the battle for the future. Unfortunately, we've come to expect disrespectful talk from rappers, late-night talk show hosts, self-styled political pundits and the like. So its no surprise that elected officials are getting into the act. Mr. Obama, in contrast to Mr. Wilson, was an example of how to make a strong, forceful statement without being personally disrespectful.

Now the free-speech lobby will have a hey-day with that. They don't think it right to impede speech of any kind. So let's move on.

Second, the reasons Mr Wilson's outburst is an example of bad character go far beyond the issue of disrespect. His friends could argue, "Well, it's true. Obama is lying." Well, let's suppose thy could prove that (I don't for one minute believe they can, but let's just suppose, for sake of argument.) What of it? The House rules specifically forbid any House member to call the sitting President a liar in the House chamber. It's a breach of House decorum. Mr. Wilson and all his colleagues swore — they took an oath — to abide by the rules of the House. For that and that alone, the House was bound by oath to discipline Mr. Wilson (it should have been a unanimous vote) and, if he were a man of good character, he would accept the rebuke and apologize to his colleagues for breaking the rules to which they all solemnly agreed. We're not big on oaths today. We're not bound by our word anymore. But people of good character are. If we care about our future, so should we all be bound.

Here, we also go beyond the issue of character to the issue of respect for law — something we have far too little of these days. If you want your constituents to respect and abide by the laws you create, then Mr. Wilson, you first must set an example. You didn't, and you owe your colleagues and the American people something better.

Third, Mr. Wilson's behavior made yet another large contribution to America's truly pathetic addiction to "15 minutes of fame." Mr. Wilson's behavior deserved to be ignored during the speech, disciplined quickly afterward and briefly mentioned on the news the next day. But Mr. Wilson has become a star. The media made him one, and the surge in his campaign coffers the next few days indicated that the cult of celebrity, even negative celebrity, has permeated just about every walk of American life. Why should anyone be respectful or follow rules of civil discourse when it's far more effective to be infamous for disrespect? (The only bright side to the news on this was that Mr. Wilson's opponent raised more money. I guess that's something.)

The media decision makers share a large proportion of the blame here. Pundits (left and right) have had a field day with this adolescent outburst, and news editors have allowed coverage of Mr. Wilson's new found right-wing stardom to overshadow coverage (again, as they did with the town hall disruptions, earlier) of the substantive issues Mr. Obama was attempting to address. The American people deserve something far better than this, too.

Mr. Wilson now joins the guy who who threw his shoes at President Bush in the negative celebrity Hall of Fame. The message to our kids? Being bad works. Disrspect sells (look at the multi-millionaire rappers, for example.) Disrupt a town hall meeting. Shout obscenities during speeches. Tell your teacher to go to hell. That'll show 'em.

And when you "grow up," you can graduate to taking a semi-automatic to a high school library or flying an airplane into a tall building.

Obama on Wall Street

Word's out, of course, that Wall Street execs weren't any too pleased with the scolding they got from President Obama in his recent speech. I doubt any Wall Streeters ever frequent my low-rent end of the blogosphere, but, just for the record:

Sorry, folks. You'll get no sympathy here. You're lucky Wall Street still exists. It was a scolding well deserved. You made your bed, and now you get to lie down in it.

Your right-wing Republican pals, strangely enough, would have let you drown like rats. Seems they're so committed to limited government, they'd rather see another depression than admit it might be necessary for the government to step in.

As Mr. Obama made clear, you Wall Street folks owe the American people (who are, after all, the government). We bailed you out. We are your creditors. And you put yourselves in that position.

Instead of resenting the sermon on responsibility, you'd be wise to heed it. You're being asked to help craft new rules that would prevent your own financial demise. And ... you're whining? You're complaining that your pay's gonna be a bit short? That "creativity" will be stifled?

In my book, you're getting off awfully easy. Some of the shenanigans pulled on your watch were every bit as deceptive — and as damaging — as Mr. Madoff's ponzi scheme.

Maybe you'd like to join your pal Bernie Madoff in jail? Maybe next time, we should send you Wall Street execs to ... oh, I don't know. Guantanamo? Seize all your assets and redistribute them to the American taxpayers? Give your homes away, in a lottery, to poor families?

Despite the delusional ravings of your right-wing pals, Mr. Obama has suggested nothing of the sort. What he has suggested sounds pretty darn reasonable to me. I'd take that deal and the comparative wrist slap that goes with it and be very, very grateful. You don't get second chances on stuff like this.

Next Supreme Court Nominee?

This federal judge mentioned in today's lead piece in the NY Times might make a good candidate.

District Court Justice Jed S. Rakoff seems to have the ability to cut through the lawyerly lingo to the real issues, and doesn't mind giving both governmental entities and powerful businesses a good kick in the pants, when it's needed.

In his ruling, Judge Rakoff overturned a settlement between Bank of America and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives just before the bank took over the securities house last year. The bonuses were not disclosed to stockholders before they voted to approve the buyout. The $33 million settlement “does not comport with the most elementary notions of justice and morality,” he wrote, criticizing the fact that the fine levied against Merril Lynch for the nondisclosure would be paid by the bank’s shareholders — yes, by the folks who were injured by the lack of disclosure.

The proposed settlement, according to Judge Rakoff, “suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger; the bank’s management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators. And all this is done at the expense, not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth.”

Apparently, this isn't the first time this judge has called out cozy regulator/offender dealings — this judge presided over the Worldcom debacle (Remember the Enron "cooking the books" scandal, and all that, a few years back?), and sent the government and Worldcom execs to the woodshed on that one, too.

I think we need more regulation of Wall Street, but first, we need regulators who actually want to regulate (rather than merely appear to do so) and we need more judges who are willing to call bullshit by its proper name and are willing to call out those who dish it up to the American public.

Mr. Obama, I respectfully suggest that you give this guy a look, if you get another shot at the Supreme.

Having made that request, please pardon my cynicism if I also add that I'm sure he'd never be approved for the highest court, here. (Especially if they change the campaign finance laws so corporations, which now have to get the cash to candidates through more surreptitious means, will be able to openly buy and sell Senators and Representatives.) The business lobbyists wouldn't let them. They'd figure out a way to "Bork" him, and if that didn't work, they'd no doubt try to find a way to "Clarence Thomas" him.

In many other countries, he'd be a marked man. So, I guess we should be thankful for that much. (Please hear the sarcasm. It's intended.)

But I'd still like to see him get nominated. If only for the fact that America needs some heroes right now. And they're out there, but the religious conservative Republicans who keep keeping getting caught in extra-marital dalliances (or feel thy have to shout "You lie" at the President), and the left-wing Democrats who are wringing their hands over who will fill Teddy's filibuster-proofing seat in the Senate (or blurting out that they're communists) keep distracting the media from matters of substance.

A dramatic Supreme Court nominee approval process would, at least, get the glare of the spotlight onto a person of substance who has earned the attention.

A New Low in T-shirt "Evangelism"

I wasn't going to dignify this church's anti-Islam T-shirt campaign with a post, but one of the things I'm most upset about in the Christian church is how its intolerance always seems to end at its own door. So let me be clear:

Mr. Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center do not speak for me. If I may be permitted to say so this strongly, I do not think he and his church speak for Jesus, either. Not the Jesus I've come to know, anyway.

The irony is enough to make you cry: A church named after the symbol of peace making money on a T-shirt that defames the belief system of one third of the world's people. (I was kind of hoping we'd gotten past the bumper-sticker Christianity stage, but I see now that we've only graduated to the T-shirt stage.) Has anyone at the Dove church has ever actually spoken to a Muslim, let alone tried to find out what Muslims really believe?

I'll also bet that in the entire history of Dove Church in Gainesville, there has not been nor will there ever be a "conversion" of a single Muslim. Can you possibly guess why that may be?

Why would a Muslim want to come anywhere near the place? What about "Islam is of the devil" communicates God's love for Muslims? What about Dove's "Islam is of the Devil" campaign is remotely likely to attract a Muslim to the church or convince him or her that he or she might find something better at Dove church?

It's easy to galvanize a group against something. This pastor has taken the classic pastor's easy way out: Appeal to the worst in human nature. (Second only to building programs, which American Christians have a particular fondness for, because its a concrete mark of success, anti-whatever movements are the best way to get people to forget their differences and pull together in a fight against a perceived threat.) Did I mention it is lazy? Hypocritical?

Used to be Christians took pot shots at each other. That's why there are literally hundreds of denominations, many of which believe they, alone, are the true worshipers, the true bearers of God's image in the world, and that all others are headed to hell or fall far short of heaven. I sat under a Protestant pastor for a few years, who believed the Catholic church was of the devil (The Roman Catholics, he thought, were the great Harlot mentioned the book of Revelation). That was one of the many reasons I left that particular church.

Now, I guess we've tired of waging wars of words with each other and have turned our sights outward to the watching world. Now everyone can see what only those of us on the inside have had to witness for so many years.

In the Scriptures, the only folks Jesus ever identified with the devil were the hyper-religious folk who thought they had a corner on righteousness and therefore had the right to pass judgment on others. I always thought there was a message there for us. I just can't imagine Jesus with an "Islam is of the Devil" T-shirt on. But then again, I'm no Bible scholar.

At times like these, I wonder why I stick around. I have lots of friends who no longer go to church. They're Christians, but they've disowned the organized church. They are embarrassed by it.

I still hang in there. Christian churches aren't all like Dove, of course. But they all get tarred with the same brush every time something like this happens. Unfortunately, there lurks in every one of them that awful tendency to look out at the world (and each other) not with love but fear, and therefore open the door to hate, which is the classic coping mechanism of choice for the fearful. Pastors are always calling the flock to "take a stand" against that which they do not understand and, therefore, greatly fear. Leprosy, these days, takes many forms.

The apostle John said, "Perfect love casts out fear." We Christians have always had a tough time with that one. Hopefully, Dove is, if nothing else, a teachable moment for the rest of us. Who knows? Maybe Dove World Outreach Center itself will come to its senses and aspire to live up to its name. I still believe in miracles. I just haven't seen very many lately.

Health Care Reform II: An Abortive Effort?

After spending weeks attempting to fabricate issues that would sink not only President Obama's health care legislation but also Mr. Obama's presidency, the Republican party has been handed a real issue this week that could get them their first wish, anyway.

The Democratic bill before the House apparently mandates that the bill's public (government-run) insurance option will collect from the people who elect it, funds that would be kept separate from "public" funds and used to pay for abortion services beyond those currently allowed through Medicaid (only in cases of rape, incest, and threat to the health of the mother). Moreover, private insurance companies that under the reform bill would be subsidized with public funds could elect to do the same.

Needless to say, I'm deeply disappointed. Mr. Obama excuses this before groups like Planned Parenthood by insisting that "reproductive" health care should be covered by the pubic plan. I couldn't agree more. But ... in what way is an abortion "reproductive"? A woman who has an abortion is choosing not to reproduce. Euphemisms, anyone? It's a bit like calling pornography "mature entertainment."

Worse, the provision provides abortion advocates a sleight-of-hand way around the Hyde Amendment, which in 1976, ended Medicaid funding for elective abortions. Since then, the U.S. government has not funded "elective" abortions and all but 17 states have followed suit, enacting similar restrictions for the use of state funds. The Hyde Amendment has been law almost as long as Roe v. Wade (yes, the Republicans are right here: Roe v. Wade was a textbook study in judicial activism and legislation from the bench). Pro-abortion Democrats ought to feel obligated to accord Hyde at least as much respect as they insist that others give to Roe v. Wade as "the law of the land." The fact-checkers have called this one out: It's a big change. Huge.

More disappointing is that it's a big change that has clearly been engineered not to look like one. Mr. Obama set himself up for well-deserved criticism when he responded this week that the health care reform package did not provide government funding for elective abortions. Technically, of course, he's correct. Instead, it requires anyone who elects the public option to pay into a "private" pool of funds that will be used by the government-administered plan to pay for elective abortions. Not exactly "pro-choice." Although Mr. Obama said, during his campaign, that he desired to find a way to reduce the incidence of abortion, the plan he's defending will make them easier to get and imply government encouragement of abortion. Inconsistent, at best. Defenders of the provision say, of course, that folks can opt for a subsidized private plan that doesn't fund abortions. That hardly changes the fact that the public plan will pay for abortions. A bit of bookkeeping chicanery doesn't change that.

These facts prompted serious schism in the reform ranks: Joining the alarm this week were anti-abortion Democrats — enough of them to sink the health care reform, if the provision is not removed. As many as 19 Democrats will refuse to support the bill if it doesn't clearly exclude funding for abortions.

There's no way the reform bill gets out of the House as it stands.

And that would be a travesty. I'd like to stand by my comments in my preceding post on health care reform. I take nothing back. Health care reform is something that needs to happen. If it doesn't get reformed now, it will demand a much more draconian reform in the future. And it will be even more expensive then than now. And if we don't get it, we'll dearly wish someday that we had.

(It's important to note that the provision for voluntary access to subsidized "end-of-life" counseling — advance planning, as in living wills, hospice care, etc. — was introduced and championed by a Republican, not a Democrat. And that Republican, pro-life U.S. senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia says the "death panel" nonsense was just that.)

Unfortunately, the very pubic squabble (one can hardly dignify what's been going on by calling it a debate) about health care reform is sure, now, to take an ugly and terribly unnecessary turn for the worse. No doubt the same crew that has been trying to tar-and-feather the President and run him out of Washington from the beginning will gleefully capitalize on this week's health care events.

Meanwhile, word is that Democrat Nancy Pelosi is in conference with the unhappy anti-abortion Democrats to try to come up with a "compromise." Here's a compromise: Take out the abortion coverage, and you can get your bill passed. If Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Obama are so married to funding abortions that they will permit a "must" health care reform effort to go down to total defeat, they will not have Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich to blame for it. They will have only to look in the mirror.

Those who support the provision, of course, protest that if abortions aren't funded by the public plan, then some low-income women would lose abortion funding they now have under private insurance policies. That is true. If Ms. Pelosi and her compatriots on the far left would like to see abortions funded, there is no law against organizing a private insurance group that offers abortion coverage as supplemental insurance. Those who care to take advantage of it can, and those who believe as Ms. Pelosi does are free to make that plan as affordable as they can make it. Those who want "choice," then, can choose to pay for it. (That would, in some small, oblique way, justify the "pro-choice" label.) More importantly, that would keep the government out of the abortion business, as the law clearly demands. And those among America's 45 million uninsured who rightly maintain that abortion is the taking of human life wouldn't be forced to choose between their conscience and the health of the children they chose to keep.

Health Care Reform: Avoiding a Darwinian Nightmare

Republican-friendly media, like Fox News, the National Review and this outfit, are declaring a victory, today, for the Republicans — in particular, for the ex-governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin — as the news circulates that the so-called "death panel" provision has been dropped from the House health care reform legislation.

After the left's pundits pummeled her recent resignation and declared her public future at an end, Ms. Palin vaulted back into the spotlight by raising the "death panel" alarm in the current health care reform debate. At issue, it turns out, is a statement made some years back by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother to President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and an adviser to the Obama Administration's health care reform team. Dr. Emanuel, apparently, contemplated at one time a plan to ration health care.

I'd like to comment on the issue. But before I do, let me be clear: I am in no way in favor of any plan that would ration health care. I am in no way an advocate for any plan that would fund or encourage euthanasia, forcibly deny health care to anyone for any reason, or even suggest to anyone that they voluntarily forfeit health care, no matter what the reason. When most of the country was criticizing the Catholic church and her parents for "interfering" in Terry Schiavo's adulterous husband's court fight to starve his comatose wife, I was one of the shockingly small number of Americans who publicly railed against the idea.

I don't recall Fox News or National Review or the Republican party rising up en masse in righteous indignation over that one. I heard very little about "judicial activism" in that case. (Nary a word from Ms. Palin or any of her friends. But I do remember a lone politician who stood up and took up the case of Ms. Schiavo's parents — the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who just happens to be black and a Democrat.)

And if I thought for one second that the Obama Administration actually intended rationing in its provision for funding voluntary access to "end-of-life" counseling, I'd be jumping up and down, screaming foul. But if we can get past the specter of "death panels" long enough to look at the realities of the Obama provision and the health care crisis we actually face, it might be possible to see things in a more calm and rational frame.

First, the bill currently before Congress had no such provision (see my previous post). There was no "death panel" awaiting Ms. Palin's son Trig or her aging mother.

Ms. Palin's angst is, at it's most pardonable, about her fears of what government involvement in health care might lead to if health care costs continue to skyrocket and the number of uninsured Americans continues to climb. All the more reason for Ms. Palin and friends to become partners in the discussion and help Mr. Obama find a rational solution to the issue of health care cost and availability, as we'll see.

Second, the Republican media machine now has managed, through innuendo alone, to create general distrust about health care reform. Ms. Palin's illogical leap and unfortunate choice of words provided just the right sort of sound byte right-wing commentators needed to muddy the waters of what Mr. Obama had hoped would be a clean, bi-partisan effort to reform health care.

(How is it that the Republicans, who have railed for so many decades against the bias and lack of objectivity of the "liberal media," are now so enamored of right-wing media celebrities who make no pretense to objectivity, gleefully sneer at anything remotely left-leaning, and cheer on those who disrupt public forums?)

I'd like to suggest that if we set Dr. Emanuel's rationing proposal and Ms. Palin's reaction to it against the proper backdrop, we might find that the two have ground for some agreement and, perish the thought, cooperation in the fight against something we should all want to avoid.

The pundits spend a great deal of time comparing the Obama proposal to health care systems now in existence in Canada, Great Britain, France and Switzerland. What they don't describe very well is what we'll get if we don't reform the health care system. For that, we need only look at the former Soviet Union. Just prior to its demise, health care in Russia was in an abysmal state. I remember reading an article about Russian Olympians at the time, who spent much of their earnings from the Soviet athletic training system stockpiling medical supplies, because in the Soviet Union's failing economy, the kind of health care most of us take for granted everyday was near nonexistent. While the Russian populace went without, what was left of Russia's system was reserved (in a survival-of-the-fittest fashion) for the famous (Olympians and educated technocrats) and the privileged (government officials).

Oh, I know, the Republicans will pipe right up and say, "Well, Mike, that's because, in the Soviet Union, the government ran the health care system." Sorry, that won't fly. Guess who's exporting quality health care all over Latin America? Not us. Sorry, it's Cuba. Its government-run health care system (patterned on the Soviet model) has quietly provided the doctors who are (dare, I say it?) revolutionizing public health care for the likes of Mr. Chavez and others left-wing wannabe despots in Latin America. My point? It's not that we should have government run health care. Rather, it's that we now have a private system whose only resemblance to the Soviet system is that its hell bent on bankrupting most of us and becoming the privilege of an elite. It matters much less who runs it than whether or not we can afford it. In a telling irony, Mr. Chavez has improved health care in Venezuela by exploiting the familiar free-market tenets of supply and demand. Cuba is only too happy to export doctors in trade for oil and cash. The market in action. Let me repeat: It's all about affordability.

Unfortunately, the market isn't handling the task so well, here, so the government has stepped in. The Republicans defeated Mr. Clinton's program 12 year ago, and then for eight years under President Bush, we saw health care costs rise at four times the rate of wages. We watched the roll of the uninsured grow every bit as fast during the good times as the rolls of the unemployed have increased during our current recession. Now we have another shot at cleaning up the mess.

The Democrats, at least, are trying. And, by all accounts, most physician's groups and professional health care organizations are onboard. Only the Republicans seem to prefer things the way they are. But that makes sense, doesn't it? The G.O.P. has for a long time been the party of the monied elite: Those who can afford to self-insure. Those who own the insurance companies. Those who believe the poor are poor by choice. It's no skin off their noses if 45 million Americans are uninsured. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh don't bear the cost of treatment for these folks at emergency rooms, because Beck and Limbaugh and their friends can afford the lawyers and accountants it takes to weasel out of the taxes that pay for it. Wall Street doesn't foot the health care bill for the poor folks who live on the side streets that branch off from Main Street. Main Street foots the bill.

Set against that backdrop, Dr. Emanuel's "rationed care" proposal, formulated years ago (and which he now disowns) still has no appeal. But it is understandable when we consider that if we continue on our present course, it would be the lesser-evil alternative to de facto rationing based on far less attractive criteria: Those who control the guns and money get quality health care. Everyone else gets what's left ... or nothing at all. Deja vu, Soviet Union. If we're going to be fearful about something, let's be fearful about that prospect, shall we?

Unfortunately, the Republican right seems bent on derailing Mr. Obama's attempt to avoid this truly Darwinian nightmare by postulating an entirely fictitious Orwellian nightmare, in which the government controls and predetermines our health care options.

We must be clear: The same thing happened with Mr. Clinton's plan: The right appealed to exactly the same fears, and there was no reform. Since then, your premiums and mine have climbed far faster than our incomes. And the rising cost of health care for the uninsured is paid for by the same taxpayers who see their premiums going up. (Actually, that's not really true, is it? It'll be paid for — maybe — by our children and their children, because its all borrowed money. Medicare, a key plot point in the health reform drama, is one of the largest contributors to our national debt).

Can we really afford to see health care reform go down the drain again? Do we really want to pass this problem on (again) to the next generation?

No one, not even Dr. Emanuel, wants to ration health care. That's why health care reform is on the docket. If it falls off the docket again because people fear what might happen instead of facing up to what will happen if we don't do something, then we'll inevitably get what Ms. Palin and Dr. Emanuel both fear most.

Now that the objectionable provision is no longer part of the bill, there's no good reason why Mr. Emanuel and Ms. Palin and their friends can't get on with a rational, productive debate about what might be the best way to do what we all ought to fervently believe needs doing.

That assumes, of course, that Ms. Palin and friends are actually interested in health care reform. The evidence, so far, indicates that assumption is unwarranted. Hope I'm wrong about that.

Birthers, Teabaggers, Townhallers & Death Panels

First there were the Birthers, bent on proving that President Obama was not born on U.S. soil.

Then there was the group — this one, so low-profile (not to mention, just plain low) that it didn't even earn a nickname — that claimed Mr. Obama was a closet Muslim.

Then there were the Teabaggers, who twisted the message of the original Boston Tea Party participants from "no taxation without representation," to "no taxation," to prevent Mr. Obama from laying some of the burden for necessary health care reform on those most able to absorb its financial impact.

Now it's the Townhallers, who think that, by disrupting public meetings run by Democrats to push the health care reform legislation now before Congress and, thereby, preventing a reasonable discussion of the plan's merits and demerits, they somehow serve the interests of those whose medical burdens will continue to mount unless something is done.

It's no secret that an ever-more militant group of Republicans, not so sure that the Obama presidency will fail, are making it their business to ensure that failure. They openly desire his failure even if that failure means the country suffers a depression. Even though few regard the effort as anything more than a purely partisan effort to ensure that a Republican makes it to the White House next time around and that Republicans reclaim the Senate and House.

Unfortunately, this well-organized right-wing outfit, which was pretty laughable when it first surfaced as the "birthers," is now, inexplicably, proving quite successful. Mr. Obama's approval rating recently slid below the 50 percent mark. Part of the reason is that the militants have callously played on the fears of Americans economically devastated by a recession that was largely the product of Republican/centrist Democrat policy and that began with a Republican president in the White House. (Let me make clear, here, that I am no mere bystander in this regard. While I still possess a job, I have taken a near 30 percent cut in pay. I feel the ouch. I have experienced the fears. I'm looking over my shoulder, hoping I don't see the ax fall, just like every other Main Streeter).

In reaction, several liberal Democrats have gone so far as to characterize these folks as terrorists. Although its unwise to throw that kind of terminology around lightly, the truth is, a terrorist is one who seeks to inspire terror in another to accomplish a goal. The definition does not specify the use of a bomb or gun. It, therefore, could easily apply to these folks. (As I noted in my previous post, words are among the deadliest of weapons.)

Although this group would prefer to think of itself as a "truth squad," its current campaign centers on the completely fictitious accusation that the Obama health care initiative calls for "death panels" — government sponsored review boards that will decide who has the right to health care. (This term was coined, apparently, by now ex-Governor Sarah Palin, who really seems to believe that the government, under the Obama plan, will tell us when we have to die. Oh, Sarah, you seemed so promising when you first entered the national spotlight!) This isn't just a twist on the truth. Its an outright lie, of course. Unfortunately, in their eagerness to destroy Mr. Obama, truth is something this group of Republicans is all-to-willing to sacrifice.

Newt Gingrich, Senator Charles Grassley, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have encouraged this blatant falsehood. High-profile, right-wing pundits (the American Spectator, the New Republic, et. al.) regularly compare the Obama Administration's willingness to publicly fund access, on a purely voluntary basis, to "end-of-life" counseling to Nazi Germany's policy of forcible euthanasia for the physically and mentally infirm. The same tactic used by the same pundits discredited President Clinton's previous attempt to reform the health care system.

So ... why are they so successful? Well, let me first say that what I'm about to propose are unscientific observations. I have no poll data to present. No one gathers data on what Mr. Obama so rightly characterized as "what no one says in public but admits to in private." But they are observations I've made over a lifetime of involvement in the particular American subculture I'm about to indict. I know this crowd. I'm in it, and of it, but no longer, as you'll see, quite with it. And these observations are based, in part, on what I've heard folks in this subculture admit to, privately, combined with what are undeniably public facts.

Observation #1: The birthers/closet Muslimers, etc., have succeeded in large part because they have exploited a well-oiled rumor network that exists within conservative American Christianity. Christian fundamentalists, evangelicals and charismatics believe that human beings are sinful and in need of saving (and I'm with them on this). Unfortunately, that makes them all-to-ready to believe a bad report about someone, especially if that someone is not an adherent to their particular brand of American Christianity. If that report comes from another Christian of similar persuasion, well, then, it must be true! Christians are among the world's laziest citizens. They rarely check facts. Suspicious of the media's "liberal humanist" agenda, they reject any official accounts that differ from the rumors they've heard. If it sounds like the devil's work, it must be. The Glen Becks and Rush Limbaughs of the world (both claim to be Christians), do check the facts, but then selectively present them, with plenty of innuendo and illogical giant leaps. Thus, our newest supreme court justice, Ms. Sotomayor, was branded a racist and a "judicial legislator" even after the facts, when they finally were brought to light, pointed to a something much closer to a centrist bent on hewing to precedent.

Observation #2: American Christianity (conservative and liberal) is still one of the most segregated segments of American society. Despite what the Bible has to say on the subject, American Christians are suspicious of differences and take refuge in sameness and uniformity. Although Jesus intended that his church would be a powerful, nonviolent army of fearless lovers of all humanity (as was he), Christianity, particularly the highly organized American conservative kind, has become a refuge for — and a vehicle for the exploitation of — those who seek to escape from a dangerous world. Skin color, accent, educational and/or economic status, gender identity, haircuts, clothing, musical preferences, are only a few of the huge number of items on an exceedingly long laundry list that American Christians use to determine the boundary markers and litmus tests for group membership. For many white American conservative Christians, an educated black, liberal Christian president of the United States is simply incomprehensible. Obama's rise and election raises truly primal fears (race wars, mass rape of white women, you name it, we white Christians can imagine it). No matter that these were the very fears that our Lord, if we had only let him, might have overcome. Right-wing pundits love to exploit these fears by publishing predictions that, by 2050, white Americans will be outnumbered by people of color. It's no secret that white conservative Christians think a top item on the U.S. national security agenda should be the closing of our southern border with Mexico (see Observation #4, below). Conservative Christians are primed to believe any rumor they hear (see observation #1) about "them" — that is, anyone who isn't "us."

Observation #3: Despite the Bible's declaration that followers of Christ should be the most generous, giving people on earth (the apostle Paul encouraged giving by declaring the "God loves a hilarious giver"), Christians are perceived as stingy, and have earned that reputation in the watching world. Christians are the world's worst tippers. Ask any waiter. Restaurant employees universally hate it when Christian groups come in. Conservative Christians form the base for most tax protest movements and are well represented among the group that refuse to pay taxes, despite the fact that their Bible encourages them to do so. Although Christians give a good deal of money to their own causes (conservatives outdo their liberal counterparts here), even that amounts only to 2.5 percent of gross income, one quarter of the tenth (tithe) a Jew was required to cough up. They contribute very little to causes that directly benefit nonChristians. (United Way, for example, was off-limits for many Christians because a tiny portion of its funds went to organizations that had connections to "family planning"). And despite the fact that America Christians are beneficiaries of the world's richest economy, Christians in poor nations regularly out-give American Christians, per capita, based on percentage of income. We American Christians, therefore, are only too happy to throw in with Teabaggers and Townhallers. Any plan that is going to take money out of our pockets should be voted down — even if it would mean poorer health care or underfunded public education for our neighbors' children.

Conversely, we are numbered among the greediest of the greedy. Generally, companies headed by conservative Christians pay their employees less for the same work than companies run by nonChristians. This is especially true if that organization is engaged in work classified as supporting Christian causes. And for every Bernie Madoff, there are a hundred so-called Christian organizations that fleece conservative Christians with get-rich-quick schemes, pyramid sales schemes (Amway, anyone?), investment programs based on "biblical" financial success "secrets," and day-trader seminars (God blesses gambling, too.). Millions fell — hook, line and sinker — for the so-called "Prosperity Gospel." American conservative Christians are preposterously gullible, especially when the carrot is cash.

Observation #4: Conservative American Christians are in the vanguard of the group that believes the poor are poor by choice. I saw a bumper sticker one time that really set me back on my heals. It said, "Jesus is coming again, and is he ever pissed." I have no idea what the person who printed that bumper sticker was thinking, but when I think of the "they're poor because they want to be" crowd, the image of that bumper sticker always comes to mind. Republicans have exploited this heinously unbiblical belief to oppose anything that smacks of "welfare." It is profoundly ironic that American Christians wouldn't have government "welfare" programs taking money out of their pockets if their churches were living in accord with Jesus teaching. Taking care of the homeless, the orphan, the widow, etc., was always supposed to be our job. American conservative Christians really believe that poor people are just lazy and unmotivated.

The facts, of course, absolutely destroy that illusion. Take the case of the Mexican national who saves, over years, a small pile of pesos earned from a back-breaking job as a laborer so he or she can buy passage across the border to Los Angeles to work two jobs and send money back to Mexico to provide for his/her family. You could call that illegal. You could call that dangerous or desperate. You could call that foolhardy. But you can't call it lazy. People from south of the border have risked (and lost) life and limb for a century to taste opportunities that we would see as miserable options, all to better themselves and their families. Fact: American employers polled for the reasons why they hired illegals overwhelmingly reported that they did so because the illegals work harder than American citizens.

Observation #5: Despite the teaching of much of the New Testament to the contrary, and although we at times talk a pretty good game, American conservative Christians are (with a few notable exceptions) closet bigots: We are protectionist ("Buy American"), fiercely nationalistic (we have a deadly fear of and would gladly disband the U.N.), xenophobic, homophobic and misogynistic. (On that last point, there is no place on earth where women have so much opportunity for fulfilling employment but are denied it so fiercely than in conservative Christian church circles. There are Islamic republics that put up fewer barriers to female employment than women confront in spoken and unspoken Christian prohibitions.)

We are the world's worst serial profilers: We prejudge others based on how they look or talk. We cross the street to avoid anything that makes us uncomfortable. We are driven by numberless fears and misconceptions. We see demonic plots everywhere. We demonize anyone whose terminology or temperament makes us uncomfortable. (It wasn't long ago, for example, that a segment of the charismatic end of the church saw married couples attempting to cast demons out of each other in situations where other folks would assume they were having a common, ordinary martial tiff.)

There is, in fact, no place quite like the American conservative Christian church for rigid, black-and-white, me-and-my-own-and-everyone-else-be-damned, sound-byte analysis of the complex issue we face. We really prefer rules. Our lists of "dos" and "donts" do away with uncertainty. We want someone (Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh , our pastor) to tell us what's good and what's bad, what's clean and unclean.

We Christians like things simple. We like leaders who make things simple. And we much prefer them to the One who challenged us to take off the religious blinders and, by faith, without certainty, see our fallen world through his loving eyes. The One who asked us to risk getting our hands dirty in the act of giving sacrificially of our "time, talent and treasure" to make the world His world.

If we American conservative Christians don't like what Mr. Obama has in mind, mindlessly following the lead of Birthers, Teabaggers and Townhallers is hardly the solution. Getting rid of Obama won't make our lives simpler, easier or less costly. The fact that so many of us reject Mr. Obama's call for some personal sacrifice in the interest of universal health care — something perfectly in keeping with a biblical faith — because he's black, a Democrat, and unfortunately isn't on the right side of the abortion issue, brands us publicly as the fools and hypocrites that we are.

Doing Unto Others

The recent revelations of marital infidelity on the part of Republican U.S. senators Mark Sanford and John Ensign have sparked a lot of debate over the future of the Republican party, but very little discussion of an issue that (my opinion) might be far more important.

It disturbs me greatly that we who are shielded (in part, because we haven't the courage or vision to aspire to public service) from the glare of public scrutiny into our own moral failures often see the falls of public figures as entertainment.

Maybe I'm unusually beset by personal moral failure. Maybe most Americans sail through life, soaring over the ugly landscape that marks the affairs (illicit or otherwise) of the human heart. Perhaps most Americans, especially those members of the press who currently lead such inquiries, are indeed, without sin and, therefore, have earned the right to cast stones.

But I seriously doubt that. I have yet to meet one person who, after I really got to know them, didn't reveal that time (or those times) in their lives when they fell pretty hard in one way or another. We all have our own personal "Argentina."

Jesus intoned the oft repeated but rarely lived "Judge not, least you be judged" for just such moments. Broken promises, ours and others', are to be grieved, not mocked. They are to be mended, not made into occasions for verbal assassination or mockery.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that I condone adultery. Mr. Sanford should resign, and Mr. Ensign, too. But, frankly, so should have Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy. We forget that JFK's dalliances with movie stars and gangland molls were arranged with the help of paid government employees while the press looked the other way. I'm certainly not suggesting a return to the JFK days. Exposure and a subsequent resignation, ironically, might have saved not only Kennedy's life, but Marilyn Monroe's as well. And it might have set a better tone for public life since then.

Sen. Ensign's affair with the wife of a campaign worker, and his family's sad attempt to conceal "hush" money under the legal fiction of a "gift" ought to be exposed. This is behavior that we cannot have in public officials. It's the type of behavior we shouldn't have anywhere.

But today, with the spectre of "coverup" hanging over their heads, the media/entertainment establishment has now fallen off the horse on the other side. A generation of journalists who grew up wanting to be "investigative reporters" now hover near the supermarket tabloid level as they expose publicly every pecadillo (save those of their own, of course), in as much detail as possible.

We don't need Nathaniel Hawthorne's infamous red letter "A." We don't need to bind people, hand and foot in the Puritan stocks, to be mocked, spit on and ridiculed by the holier than thous. What we have today is far more effective: "The Daily Show" and David Letterman and Op/Ed columnists and other political assassins who masquerade as humorists and pundits — whose TV shows and newspaper columns make public ridicule into international events.

These folks know all too well that sticks and stones break only bones, but words ... well, words are the cruelest tools of torture ever devised.

There was a time when a public figure was faced with the evidence and (not for his/her sake, but to protect a spouse and family from public humiliation) given the opportunity to resign. But that doesn't sell newspapers and magazines. It doesn't inflate TV ratings. We've lost sight of the fact that sparing the victims was what investigative reporting once was all about.

To celebrate the moral failings of others — and make money from it into the bargain — is an act of unspeakable hypocrisy. That we revel in their self-destruction makes us no better than they, and probably far worse. Whatever you think of Sarah Palin, when I meet my Maker, I would rather have to answer for her life than for Mr. Letterman's.

At times like these, it might be wiser to remember that "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," wasn't a suggestion. The Golden Rule comes with an implicit warning: When we visit scorn on another, do we not invite it on ourselves?

There but for the grace of God — and the fact that most of us live outside the media spotlight — go you and I.

Sarah Palin: Not Politics as Usual

I'd like to suggest that if you have not actually listened to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's resignation speech, you owe it to yourself do so here.

I have listened to it twice, clear through, and I'm having trouble reconciling what my eyes saw and my ears heard with national press reports of an "often rambling" speech. I had no trouble following it. She stumbled over one word and, yes, she did attribute the "we're advancing in another direction" quote incorrectly to Gen. Douglas MacArthur. But otherwise, her 18 minute speech (admirably short for a politician) seemed to flow from thought to thought just fine. I'm mystified that the speech could provoke responses like this from NY Times columnist Gail Collins.

Lest you think I'm just a bitter conservative Republican and Sarah supporter still licking my wounds after the loss last November, let me make clear that I am currently (but provisionally) a supporter of President Obama's economic and foreign policies. I think Mr. Obama is doing about as well as one could, given the hands he was dealt, economically and politically. I do not want him to fail. I don't believe, as Ms. Palin suggested in her speech, that a "Big Government takeover" is afoot.

Further, I voted for Mr. Obama. I do not believe that Mr. McCain's selection of Governor Palin as a running mate was a wise choice. Ms. Palin's subsequent appearances on public affairs programs made it pretty clear that she was not prepared to deal with U.S. foreign policy challenges. In fact, I determined to vote for Mr. Obama, in largeg part, because I believe that Mr. McCain's hasty choice of Ms. Palin was in character for a fighter pilot, maybe, but decidedly not the best trait in an aspiring leader of the Free World. The choice deserved greater deliberation. It was not in his own or our country's best interests to make such a choice rashly. Nor was it in Ms. Palin's best interests, as subsequent events demonstrated.

But that said, I certainly don't blame her for Mr. McCain's poor choice. I do think, however, that she would have been wise to quietly refuse the offer and wait for a better time when she was more seasoned and better prepared to take on the responsibility. Her resignation speech, therefore, indicates to me that she has, in fact, become wiser. She seems to me to be eminently in possession of her senses — especially the sense most often lost when one goes into politics: common sense. Her desire not to play the "lame duck" seems in character to me. Her acceptance of the fact that her unwelcome notoriety has made it difficult to govern effectively seems pretty clear-headed. She sees no point in "beating her head against the wall." I'd say that's quite a sane contrast to, say, Rod Blagojevich, for example?

The reaction in the press, nationally, to Ms. Palin's resignation speech says something quite uncomplimentary about the Fourth Estate, those who claim to uphold "the people's right to know." The reports of Ms. Palin's speech today from the self-proclaimed guardians of truth are hardly in line with that commitment.

And let me be very clear: I have no desire to deliver, here, a diatribe about the "liberal press." Journalists of all stripes — liberal and conservative — are abandoning even the pretense to objectivity. There's plenty of blame to share around. As a managing editor of two trade publications (a job on which most "legitimate" news hounds would look down their noses), I find this desertion of reporting in favor of propagandizing both objectionable on ethical grounds and dangerous to our country's future. It is precisely the sort of "news" that the government-run outlets in Iran are currently dispensing. If someone on my writing staff similarly misrepresented the facts in a story submitted to me, they'd be looking for another job.

Her comment about the devastation that the "politics of personal destruction" has caused both for the Alaskan government and for her family was poignant: The David Letterman incident should have been enough to convince anyone that she's been the target of it. One need only imagine how long Mr. Letterman would have retained his job had he made an offensive comment about Malia, Mr. Obama's daughter.

I remember thinking, "Be smart, don't react to it. Don't give Letterman's obscenely cruel and disgusting joke more publicity by responding to it. It'll just egg him on. Just let it pass." But that was the man in me talking. That was the politician in me talking. Against my advice, Ms. Palin faced the jerk down. She didn't give up. She demanded, and got, an apology. That's what you'd expect a mom would do. That's what a real person, not a cardboard cutout, would do.

My reaction to the incident says something quite uncomplimentary about me, not her.

So far, Ms. Palin's personal life stands in sharp contrast to that of other Republican governors and aspiring presidential candidates Sanford and Ensign, whose recently exposed adulterous affairs flatly contradict their public "family values" personae. (The latter's fall is particularly disheartening to conservatives, because in a savage irony, he was a leading figure in Promise Keepers, an evangelical Christian organization that encourages men to be faithful husbands and fathers.)

Against the backdrop of Gov. Sanford's refusal to hear the calls for his resignation, the pundits are wondering why Ms. Palin would voluntarily resign and take such as risk with her political future. One commentator speculated, in fact, that her resignation could be attempt to pre-empt an impending "revelation of wrongdoing." But Ms. Palin is not, and never claimed to be, merely a politician. She said in her speech that faith and family are foremost. It's entirely possible that the answer is as simple as this: Unlike Gov. Ensign, Gov. Palin is determined to keep her promises.

Ms. Palin should not be confused with the hypocritical Ensigns and Sanfords, the noisy, narcissistic Limbaughs and the rest of the rudderless Republican party leadership. She, not they, best represents that working-class neighborhood, just off Main Street, where ordinary moms and dads work hard for increasingly little pay, but pay their taxes anyway; go to church and then actually try (though they sometimes fail) to live up to what they hear there; vote proudly (not cynically or not at all) and willingly send a disproportionate share of their sons and now their daughters off to fight this country's battles. She speaks the language of a demographic group for which the elite, the rich, the connected, the Wall Street players of both political parties have little respect and have been profoundly unwise to pay lip service to and then ignore.

Whatever you think about Ms. Palin's stance on the sanctity of human life, that stand is credible and admirable in its consistency: Her acceptance and love for Trig, her son recently born with Down's Syndrome, and her continuing public support and love for her daughter — despite the obvious difficulty her unwed pregnancy presented for a woman who was running on a conservative agenda — are worthy of respect, not derision.

"I never believed that a person needs a title to make a difference." With those words, Sarah Palin steps down as Alaska's governor and becomes a private citizen again. I suspect that time will show that she's right about titles. It's very unlikely that she'll disappear from the public eye.

Apathetic, she's not. And she's advancing in a different direction. Whether that direction is the right one, for her, for the G.O.P. or for the country she says she loves, is not easy to discern. Whether Main Streeters will follow her, history will decide. Who knows? I wouldn't count out Ms. Palin as a third-party candidate. It's not unprecedented in U.S. history. And times like these are very fertile ground for that kind of political upheaval.

At the politically youthful age of 45, time is definitely on her side. And next time, if there is a title to which she aspires, I bet she'll be prepared. If she succeeds in making a difference, we might even see an end to what she so rightly derides as "politics as usual."

Freedom Falters: Tiananmen Square to Haft-e-Tir Square

Never a real democracy, Iran has been forced — by forces who favor the most basic of democratic freedoms, a fair counting of the votes — to expose its dictatorial underbelly.

Iran's Supreme Leader, spooked by Mahmood Admadinejad's now firm control of those who own the military hardware, has entirely deserted his customary above-the-fray position to declare, before the sham investigation into election complaints was even begun, that the election results will stand.

As the riot-police truncheons fell and communications jamming continued, word came that one of the protesting candidates had withdrawn his complaint. One can only wonder what deal or threat, or both, this self-described "selfless soldier for the Islamic republic" was offered. Others have retreated into silence or, like the leading opposition candidate, Mr. Moussavi, muted their protests.

Journalists on the ground in Tehran assume, probably rightly, that the hundreds of recent arrests (including arrests of hospitalized protesters, taken right from their beds) will soon issue forth in forced public confessions. It's hardly unprecedented in the evolution of Iran's 1979 Revolution.

The state-run media reported a week ago that President Ahmadinejad will be sworn in for his second term sometime between July 26 and August 19. I have little doubt that that will be the case. Today, Iran's Guardian Council, on the same day it had begun a partial recount of votes, hastily reported that it had found "no evidence" of voter fraud, reporting instead that, in some districts, the vote had even been more lopsided, and then declared with finality that the incumbent president would get his four more years.

And in perhaps the most insulting development of all, Mr. Ahmadinejad himself called for an investgation into the death of Neda Agha Soltan, the 26-year-old student shot dead during a street protest, who has since become a potent symbol of Iranian hopes, particularly of its women. Mr. Ahmadinejad — whose government earlier in the week had insisted that Soltan's death was faked for the foreign press — now contends, of course, that "foreign powers" had her shot, in order to whip up protests against his lawful election.

The short-lived appeal for something resembling real democracy in Iran's sham revolution and the Iraninan elite's transparently obvious attempt to stamp it out hold grim lessons for us all.

Despite the efforts of Iran's conservative clerics and ruling politicians to divert world attention from their own underhandedness by painting the protesters as dupes of the Western press, this isn't a fight (despite some Western journalists' opinions) between "secular" and "religious" forces. The cries of "Allah-u-Akhbar" that still ring from protesters' rooftops in Tehran puts the lie to that simplistic assessment.

I saw no Iranian women tearing their head scarves off or desecrating mosques. In fact, the most remarkable and telling images of the protests were those of its covered women. Stories multiplied of girls and middle-aged women standing in the forefront of demonstrations, being clubbed to the ground and rising back up to continue forward, calling on the less-willing men around them to stand firm.

Indeed, Neda Agha Soltan has become a potent symbol of a battle that today underlies most others in Islamic society. The image of her dying in the street and the one of young girls in Afghanistan attacked by men who throw acid in their faces because they dare to want to go to school have been melded. These images have shocked Western and even some Middle Eastern sensibilities. And rightly, they should. They are horrific reminders that oppression of and injustice against women remain with us.

But before we blend those images together too seamlessly, let's set the record straight: Did you know that the number of women in Iran who are enrolled in institutions of higher education far outstrips the number of enrolled Iranian men? Percentage-wise, the woman/man ratio is greater than that in the U.S. We might want to curb our indignation long enough to sort fact from assumption.

Let me also point out, if I may, that we here in America have no cause to look down our noses at Iran. We have absolutely no grounds for self-righteous indignation. The women's rights movement began here, about 200 years ago. In fact, it was begun by Christian women, and then nearly quashed in the late 20th Century conservative Church by Christian men.

In America, religious or secular, we've never managed to get it right. Rosie the Riveter, for example, helped build the planes and ships American military men used to win WWII, only to be herded back into second-class citizenship when her G.I Joe came home.

And it still goes on: In the U.S., women are still paid much less then men for the same work. In American Christian churches, women are still systematically excluded from positions of power and influence, even in some of the religious groups that claim to be for women's ordination. (I know. I've seen it from the inside, first hand.)

After all these years, did we really expect that a battle not yet won after two centuries in the U.S. would be won in Iran in two weeks?

In their efforts to help Islam's women, many Western men are little better than their Islamic counterparts: French President Nicholas Sarkozy, for example, has now backed up his profoundly secular country's recent legislation banning head scarves in public schools with further calls to ban burkhas from any public place. Similar moves are contemplated in the U.K. Is forcing Islamic women to remove them any better than forcing them to wear them?

Lest we forget, as we compare the protests in Tehran's Haft-e-Tir Square with those that occurred in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, the latter was crushed by a fiercely secular state in reaction to a quasi-religious groundswell. This and the ongoing tension between Beijing and not-so-semi-autonomous Tibet have deeply anti-religious undertones. We need to ask, in all fairness, what about Sarkozy's anti-burkha campaign differentiates France from, say, China's recent security putsch against public displays during the anniversary of Tiananmen Square?

Whatever happened to the fundamentally democratic ideal of giving people the right to choose -- even to choose religious restrictions? Sarkozy would better serve women by offering to protect those who want to take the burkhas off, while also protecting the rights of those who wish to keep them on. Any other course puts Islamic women in a profoundly untenable position. But what does Sarkozy care? After all, he's a man.

Unfortunately, countries, corporations and churches, in the East and West, still operate, for the most part, on hierarchical systems. These top-down management schemes were invented by men, for men, to benefit men. They are power structures, not people structures, propped up by elaborate systems of authority and backed by the threat of armed force. They benefit the powerful, first and foremost. These organizations inevitably become insular, as they seek to preserve the primarily male-oriented institutions they serve. Sooner or later, they exist primarily to enable the "Good Ol' Boy" networks they inevitably spawn. (The "trickle-down economics" construct once in vogue here in the U.S. is a profoundly male approach to concern for one's neighbor.)

If you doubt my analysis, ponder this: If men birthed babies, there would be day care centers within 100 ft of every Good Ol' Boy's workplace. Tell me I'm wrong.

Ultimately, Iran's battle for freedom is not a fight between secularists and clerics or even women against men. It is a battle between socio-economic classes within Islam. Ahmadinejad's crew controls the rural populace and has the support of a military elite that (unlike the 1979 Revolution's ageing leaders) were on the ground in the bloody war with Iraq. (An Iraq which was supported by the U.S. and acquired from the U.S. the materials it used to make chemical weapons it employed against Iraninas in that war.)

Supporters of Iran's current president don't see the protest stories and images making the rounds on the Net. And they're fine with that. Like other generations who fear attacks from without, Ahmadinejad's cohort is fundamentally concerned with security. Despite its public claims, Iran's nuclear ambitions under the current regime do not spring primarily from the desire for peaceful uses. Iran sits on one of the world's largest deposits of fossil fuel. It's energy needs are not the driver. The motivation is much more understandable as defensive. Distrusted by the West, by Israel and by most of its Arab neighbors, Iran (like India and Pakistan) seeks the power to hold its many detractors at bay.

The current opposition in Iran comes not from Iran's poor and oppressed but instead from the middle and upper classes who have benefited most from the 1979 Revolution. Now better educated, and computer/Internet savvy, these folks have had the opportunity to view the world beyond and would like to engage with it. They're no longer willing to see life in revolutionary blacks and whites. They know that Britain and the U.S., in the past, contributed to the unrest in their country, but they also recognize that the times are ripe for re-assessing those past relationships. They accept that the children of a nation cannot be held to account for the sins of their fathers and mothers. They aspire, like many others, to be citizens of the world, not just Iran.

This is what poses a threat to Ahmadinejad's security-focused constituency. Indeed, the large protests in the three days after Iran's election might have been quashed immediately and much more brutally had it not been for the fact that Mr. Rafsanjani and other clerics also see the need to shed a simplistic world view. They know that it is no longer possible to use the threat posed by various sorts of "infidels" outside Iran to justify continued restrictions on life inside Iran. They fear, and are trying to resist, if only in the background, Admadinejad's increasingly obvious play for power. The current split among Iran's clerics and the surprisingly outspoken words from leaders of the 1979 Revolution are the strongest pieces of evidence that Ahmadinejad did, indeed, steal the election.

When security becomes the uppermost concern, there are predictable side effects. In the last two weeks, stories of Iran's Basij militiamen armed to the teeth and riding around packed into the backs of pickup trucks was a eerie reminder of the K.K.K. and other white supremacist groups whose adherents in the U.S. once openly clutched their quasi-fundamentalist sect's credentials in one hand and their weapons in the other. Although the latter, for years, have kept a low profile here, the God 'n' Guns clubs are hauntingly similar, no matter where you find them.

As if on cue, the news came this week that an American church pastor had invited folks to bring their guns to the parish sanctuary for a "celebration of their second amendment rights." Suddenly, carrying concealed to church, in some Christian circles, is right up there with fiery preaching in the pantheon of Christian celebrity.

This new development is defended, of course, from the Bible: Supporters pluck a single puzzling New Testament verse (Luke 22:36) from its context to justify their actions, ignoring that Jesus later told Peter to put away his sword, healed Malchus ear, and then refused to call down 12 legions of angels to rescue him from Pilate at his trial.

Despite their talk of protecting religious and political liberty, these almost exclusively white and either Southern or Pacific Northwest gun-toters are motivated far less by a desire to preserve their neighbor's freedoms as they are to protect themselves from their neighbor. If you doubt that, try honestly to imagine the enthusiasm these same second-amendment devotees would feel if a bring-your-gun meeting were held at the local mosque. Or in Pastor Wright's predominately black church in Chicago.

God 'n' Guns is all about fear and security. And there's always boogeymen to point to, to keep the troops in line. In Iran, this month, it's liberal journalists and President Obama. It is profoundly ironic that in America, the God 'n' Guns groups (and sympathizers like Rush Limbaugh and certain Fox News commentators) take aim at the same targets.

I think it's undeniable that the current gun groundswell is inextricably tied to the fact that we have an African American as President and the completely groundless fear the NRA has fanned into flame: That Barack Hussein Obama — who many conservatives still believe without a shred of evidence is a closet jihadist — will "pry their guns from their cold, dead fingers." As that pick-up truck bumper sticker slogan suggests, there are reactionary Ahmadinejad's-in-waiting, even here in America.

From Tiananmen Square in 1989 Bejing to Haft-e-Tir Square in Tehran, people who chafe under dictatorships see in Iran their own stories, played out again. But today, as always, there are still far too many (men and women) willing to abdicate their neighbors' personal rights to elites, religious or secular, that demand unquestioning allegiance in trade for the illusion of security.

These elites, no matter their ideological or religious bent or how well they wear the stolen clothes of democracy, seek not freedom, but control. I'm all for cheering on anyone who speaks out in favor of freedom and I deplore those who would trade freedom away for security. The current Iranian leadership is certainly an example of the latter.

Have we forgotten, in the stir of the moment, that we've traded away many of our neighbor's freedoms since 9/11 only to get Guantanano prison and a chilling public debate about the merits of torture as a security tool? That we, too, had a bitterly disputed election (remember hanging chads?) in which a president retained power after falling short in the popular vote? Do we now deny that, not unlike Iran, we were for eight long years distrusted and faced with censure in world opinion?

Let us not make the mistake of making Iran the boogeyman in our efforts to gloss over our own bloody history.

Iran in the Crucible of Democracy

Iran's religious hierarchy and the Iranian people who have lived under its precepts since 1979 have together come face-to-face with the inherent downside of democracy: For someone, things don't turn out as hoped.

Someone wins, and others lose.

Democracy's positive side, of course, is that it presents a way for a people to govern itself without resort to bloodshed. It is a system (as originally intended, anyway) by which the people, who are the true governors and the governed, select those who will carry out the people's will. Under ordinary circumstances — that is to say, when the election is known to have been conducted fairly and all parties agree that the votes were counted and tallied correctly — those who have agreed beforehand to accept the verdict of the people generally grouse a bit, then go on with their lives and accept the result. They can do so, because they believe they had a fair shot at it, and fairly lost. They can do so because they are confident that democracy will give them another chance.

In Iran, this week, a sizable portion of the populace does not now have that confidence. While it's possible that Iranian pollsters are so backward and primitive that there could be a 30-percentage-point error in their calculations, its not even remotely possible that poll officials arrived at a certifiable count just two hours after the polls closed. In the U.S., even a mayoral election in a middling small town can't be certified before breakfast the next morning.

No wonder, then, that all the opposition candidates are unanimous in their opinion that election fraud has been perpetrated in Iran on a large scale. These same leaders have charged that their observers (in the U.S., we call them poll watchers) were systematically excluded from polling places. People within the Iranian ministry that oversees elections have admitted, anonymously, to journalists that the election was fraudulent. Members of the Iranian national soccer team were seen wearing opposition green at an international match this week. The Iranian clergy is now openly divided over the election. And the list goes on.

Iran's current leadership, clearly worried by the continuing unrest, has attempted to stifle free speech, disrupt communications, bar the international press from reporting what everyone already knows. In short, they've employed all the time-tested techniques that modern despots regularly use when the quieter methods of holding a populace hostage are no longer sufficient to keep people in line. But without what the political scientists like to call "the consent of the governed," democracy (let alone what many now suspect is a sham democracy) cannot be made to work.

Remarkably — and likely a measure of just how pervasive the unrest really is — Iran's Ayatollah did a striking about face mid-week, suggesting that a "limited recount" might be in order ... with the proviso, of course, that opposition leaders stifle their supporters. More striking still, nobody was buying that line. People continue to march, to shout from their rooftops, to e-mail photos and videos of protest marches and militia violence, to tweet the news out of Iran, a sentence at a time. Now he's trying to blame Gordon Brown and the international press for his troubles.

Although his options diminish daily, the Ayatollah does have one have real ace in the hole: Rather than a recount (which no one would believe, given who's in possession of the ballots) he should call for a redo, with multinational supervision. (Hey ... how about the UN? They actually have some expertise in this area!).

That's right. Respect the Iranians on Tehran's Main Street enough to give them a do-over.

At this point, there's little to lose: Iran's international reputation (with all but, maybe, Vladimir Putin) currently weighs in the balance. The government's legitimacy is in serious question, whether it likes it or not. There is no way, through inaction or threat, to regain public confidence.

Conversely, there is much to be gained: Assuming the second election goes in the incumbent's favor, the world, having not been able to put up, must then shut up. And Iran's leadership would get credit for openess. It will have bent over backward to assure its own people, it's neighbors and the watching world that it is legitimate. Further, it would buy itself a stronger place at the negotiating table in talks with U.S. officials, should it care to participate. It's really a no-lose.

And if by some strange and unlikely turn of events, the election goes the other way? Not to worry: The clerics can take credit for having been willing to accept the possibility that the election had been highjacked, and can celebrate with its people in the correction of what could have been a national travesty (Allah be praised!) ... and then deal with the minor officials who, they will shortly discover, colluded with unscrupulous minor politicians to commit election fraud. The current president and others too big to fail could be quietly expatriated to ... well, how about Russia? (Putin seems to like them. Let him have them.)

No matter how you cut it, this is an eminently sensible and, politically, wise and pragmatic move. Unfortunately for those who rule Iran, it might be too late to take advantage of this option. In any case, it's one they're unlikely to take. The Ayatollah and his friends in the Iranian clergy and military have sold its populace the proposition that Iran's Supreme Leader speaks for God. This insistence on infallibility puts him in an unenviable position: If he blinks, God blinks. For those who go in for that kind of thinking, the one option that remains is to act to protect God's honor: crush dissent, jail the opposition, turn the militias loose, and "re-educate" the populace with show trials and public executions. We'll never know who really won, so everyone will lose.

If Iran's real governors (those with the guns) take that option, they'll plunge Iran into political darkness for another decade. But they'll also sow the seeds of their own defeat. Everyone will know. Everyone will remember. That small taste of freedom that slipped their grasp will grow bitter in their mouths. The blood of the Green Martyrs will inflame their hearts. Someday, inevitably, that broken dream will lift them up again.

The Iranian people are learning this week what we in the West too conveniently want to forget. Democracy has rarely been instituted without bloodletting. Those who prefer to rule outside democracy's consensual strictures are forever loath to accept them without a fight. Only those willing to die for the vote ever get it or keep it.