PostWatch

The Definition of Corruption

I have no comprehensive brief against President Ford, and even as a young liberal I agreed that pardoning Richard Nixon was the right thing to do. But if Bob Woodward's reporting is accurate, it was granted for exactly the wrong reason:

"I looked upon him as my personal friend. And I always treasured our relationship. And I had no hesitancy about granting the pardon, because I felt that we had this relationship and that I didn't want to see my real friend have the stigma," Ford said in the interview.

Earlier in this story Woodward writes This and other previously unpublished transcripts of their calls, documents and personal letters provide a portrait of an intensely personal friendship dating to the late 1940s but so hidden that few others were even aware of it. No argument there.

Dueling Headlines

38th President Leaves A Legacy of Healing.

Well, up to a point:

Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq:

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

Sanctions...okayyy.....

...Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."...

He didn't understand the war. Rest in peace, but that's a heckuva farewell present from one president to another, only one of which still bears the burden of trying to make things work.

Update: Hat tip to James Sturcke at the Guardian's News Blog for the link. Sturcke also points to Carry On America with Ford's observations about a thin-skinned Henry Kissinger, and another Address From the Grave transmission with Thomas DeFrank at the New York Daily News that may force me to revise my quick criticism of Ford's Iraq War comments:

Ford was a few weeks shy of his 93rd birthday as we chatted for about 45 minutes. He'd been visited by President Bush three weeks earlier and said he'd told Bush he supported the war in Iraq but that the 43rd President had erred by staking the invasion on weapons of mass destruction.

"Saddam Hussein was an evil person and there was justification to get rid of him," he observed, "but we shouldn't have put the basis on weapons of mass destruction. That was a bad mistake. Where does [Bush] get his advice?"

I don't know if Ford was being inconsistent in telling Bob Woodward that he would have pushed for sanctions (for another decade?) and DeFrank that there was justification for getting rid of him, but I'll take another look for some kind of internally coherent view. The way things are going I'll have a lot of material to choose from. Meanwhile Bill Bennett at NRO asks Ford to "show a little decency" but I think he's only sending messages.

Merry...Um, Whatever

Then there's Ask.com

Merry Christmas!

Life Inside The Cocoon--And Keeping It That Way

Terrence Mattingly at Get Religion noticed an item at MediaBistro's FishbowlDC (he didn't get the permalink) about the Washington Post naming a new reporter to cover religion:

Metro is happy to announce that Jacqui Salmon, who has been covering philanthropy, will change assignments to become a second regional religion reporter together with Michelle Boorstein. We are making this change to restore a second Metro religion reporter, lost when Caryle Murphy took early retirement. The move reflects the importance of religion to our readers and to contemporary social, cultural and political life....

In nearly two decades at The Post, Jacqui has established herself as an enterprising reporter who thinks broadly and breaks news. She has reported and edited on the Business staff, and covered suburban family life on Metro before taking over the philanthropy beat.

Mattingly noted earlier in his post:

Long, long ago, back in 1994, The Washington Post raised many eyebrows by posting a newsroom notice for a religion reporter. The “ideal candidate,” it said, is “not necessarily religious nor an expert in religion.” Well, I still think this is bizarre. Try to imagine a notice in an elite newsroom seeking an opera critic that says the “ideal candidate does not necessarily like opera or know much about opera.” How about notices for reporters who cover professional sports, science, film and politics?

Mattingly--in a long post you really should read--imagines the stampede that would have followed had the Post reached out to groups like the Religion Newswriters Association. In other words people who know what the heck they're writing about.

Oh well, maybe in another ten years.

Ignorance in Action

Snappy title for any advocacy group out there--you're welcome to take it. Came to mind after reading Episcopalians Against Equality by columnist Harold Meyerson:

On Sunday nine Episcopal parishes in Virginia, including the one where George Washington served as a vestryman, announced that they had voted to up and leave the U.S. Episcopal Church to protest its increasingly equal treatment of homosexuals....

Whether it was the thought of a woman [bishop Jefferts Schori] presiding over God's own country club or of gays snuggling under its eaves, it was all too much for a distinct minority of Episcopalians. The dissident parishes in the Virginia diocese contain only about 5 percent of the state's parishioners. But it's the church the defectors have latched on to that makes this schism news.

In slamming the door on their American co-religionists, the two largest parishes, which are in Fairfax City and Falls Church, also announced their affiliation with the Episcopal Church of Nigeria. The presiding Nigerian archbishop, Peter Akinola, promotes legislation in his country that would forbid gays and lesbians to form organizations or to eat together in restaurants and that would send them to jail for indulging in same-gender sexual activity. Akinola's agenda so touched the hearts of the Northern Virginia faithful that they anointed him, rather than Jefferts Schori, as their bishop.

There are so many misrepresentations in the column I won't bother to list them all. But those who have followed the issue for longer than Meyerson's apparent 15 minutes know that the conservative Episcopalians have been planning to affiliate with Akinola and the Anglican church of Nigeria long before that troubling legislation came along. And they did so, not to support sanctions in a bill that didn't yet exist, but because of support for the traditional foundational teachings of Anglicans. That includes placing Jesus Christ front and center as the only road to salvation, the need for salvation in the first place, clear prohibitions against sex outside of marriage, and yes, opposition to gay marriage as a result of being unable to find any sanction for it in Scripture or Anglican tradition. Rather the opposite. And of course Meyerson neglects to comment on the Episcopalian Church's rejection of the greater Anglican compromise--short version, a moratorium on actions like ordaining gay bishops, without defrocking any existing ones--which was endorsed by Ye Olde Canterbury as well as evil Nigeria.

Okay, one more:

In recent years Anglican churches have experienced their greatest growth in the developing world, which could tilt the entire global Anglican Communion toward more traditionalist norms.

That's not something we have to wait for. As a columnist named Harold Meyerson states one sentence later, without making the necessary connections:

Only 13 of the 38 national churches within the communion ordain women as priests; only three -- the United States, New Zealand and Canada -- ordain women as bishops.

So who, exactly, is tilting?

Credibility

From embedded blogger Bill Roggio:

The Iraqi soldiers risk their lives to serve their country, and are taking casualties at rate of about four times that of U.S. military. They walk multiple patrols daily in the dangerous city of Fallujah, as well as run convoys, conduct raids, set up checkpoints, live in exposed outposts within the city and other dangerous tasks.

Iraqis fighting for Iraq under the rule of law--one of many encouraging facts that don't get through the mainstream media filter. But Roggio's is not some saccaharine happy sunshine fluff--the post runs down the good, the bad, and the ugly, along with venturing some recommendations for improving the odds for the good guys.

The Usual Stem-Cell Fog

Rich Donors Help Calif. Fund Stem Cell Research by Sonya Geis on A2 does the usual job of leaving readers in the dark about the overwhelming advantage in research and therapy possessed by adult stem cells compared to embryonic work. My favorite quote:

Dale Carlson, spokesman for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, called recent developments ironic. "The strategy of the folks that are opposing [stem cell research] -- the folks that are suing us, for example -- is to starve the research for stem cells, especially human embryonic stem cells. Instead, the amount of private money that's going into stem cell research is breathtaking," he said.

I'd be surprised if Carlson could find a single foundation, attorney or blogger suing anyone to stop stem cell research. And "especially human embryonic stem cells" doesn't cover it, and the Post shouldn't let Carlson get away with it.  That's what happens, though, when the Post's understanding of the topic allows Geis to write this:

Federal dollars may be spent only for research on the few stem cell lines obtained from embryos that were destroyed by Aug. 9, 2001. The federal government also funds research on stem cells that come from adults, but scientists prize embryonic stem cells' ability to transform into any type of cell in the body, including blood, organs and bones.

It's almost as if Geis has never heard of research showing non-embryonic stem cells can do the same thing. Which is possible, since the Post's lead reporter in this field, Rick Weiss, fails to cover it.

A Christmas Present From John McCain

When the Washington Post advocates a law banning newspapers from publishing negative stories about politicians during a campaign, I'll start to take them seriously. Until then, editorials like "Finally, 527s" saying the FEC acted too late in fining the free speech of Swiftboat Veterans and MoveOn.org are nothing but special pleading for its own monopoly.

Compared To What

In 7 Va. Episcopal Parishes Vote to Sever Ties, reporters Bill Turque and Michelle Boorstein keep referring to a conservative association of Episcopalians as a "splinter group," which utterly misses the point of how these parishes see themselves and why they've decided to separate themselves from the American version of Anglicanism. They may be a splinter in the American context, but the current leadership of the Episcopal Church itself is the splinter group worldwide.

That's the key this story doesn't drive home. And, let me add, in a report that respectfully treats the American sources they're quoting. But, you know, act locally, think globally, eh?

The lede:

At least seven Virginia Episcopal parishes, opposed to the consecration of a gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions, have voted overwhelmingly to break from the U.S. church in a dramatic demonstration of widening rifts within the denomination.

Two of the congregations are among the state's largest and most historic: Truro Church in Fairfax City and The Falls Church in Falls Church, which have roots in the 1700s. Their leaders have been in the vanguard of a national effort to establish a conservative alternative to the Episcopal Church, the U.S. wing of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion....

Yes, they mention the 77 million Anglicans running around but don't quite explain how everything fits together. So you get a sentence like this:

The departure is regrettable [Joan Gundersen, president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh.] said, adding: "Every time one of these churches leaves, their voice becomes an even smaller minority....

Inside the American branch of Anglicanism, sure, but they're joining the much larger global chorus-it's the Gundersens that are the "small minority" when all Anglicans are counted. And while it's understandable that even a front-page story doesn't have the time to explain all the details of this clash, the story stops just short of providing some helpful information:

The votes are fresh evidence of an increasingly bitter split within the U.S. Episcopal Church. Seven of its 111 dioceses have rejected the authority of Presiding U.S. Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, installed in November as the first woman to head an Anglican church. Schori supports V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man elected bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

Schori is a liberal liberal, and was elected not long after the Episcopal Church rejected a call to halt the ordination of gay bishops for a time. That was an attempt by figures like the Archbishop of Canterbury to prevent the schism that's happening now. Much of the rest of Anglicanism, from Canterbury to Truro to Nigeria, concluded that the Episcopal Church was going to do whatever the heck it wanted to. The final provocations.

And so, speaking of Nigeria, the story cites probably the most damaging aspect of the CANA parishes' new planned association with the Nigerian church:

Truro and The Falls Church, with a combined membership of more than 3,000, will form the core of what is envisioned as a new Fairfax-based mission of the conservative Episcopal Church of Nigeria. The head of the Nigerian church, Archbishop Peter Akinola, has voiced support for a pending law in that country that includes prison sentences for gay sexual activity.

All of which must seem a bit bizarre to Americans who don't realize that the Anglican church isn't growing in Canterbury or Truro, but in Africa--just part of a trend in which Christianity is gaining remarkable strength and membership in the third world.

Why Akinola? He's been a prominent critic of the Episcopal Church's leftward tilt and--since parishes have to associate with some bishop somewhere--was thought to be a secure harbor when it comes to traditional Christian teaching. Akinola's support for the law regulating gays sounds bad, and I think it's going to be difficult to downplay it. But it's a late development, and focusing on that to explain what's going on with conservative Episcopals is a distortion--it's just poor reporting.

In this post I'm a Catholic talking about Episcopalians, so the usual caveats apply. Titus One Nine and Midwest Conservative Journal, being actual Episcopalians, are on firmer ground.

Update: A long post by (Catholic) Amy Welborn, one of my favorite bloggers, includes this handy statistic that helps explain my passing reference as to why conservative Episcopalians are working to associate themselves with a Nigerian diocese:

Did you know that there are 50 million people in England? And that there are less than 900,000 worshipers in Anglican churches? 34% of whom are members of evangellically-minded Anglicans, who, via their representatives, confronted Archbishop Williams last week?

That confrontation consisting of traditonal Anglicans announcing they would not recognize liberal bishops. Lots of clashes coming to a head.

Oh, and Nigerian Anglican Church  has 17 million members, according to this article from 2003 and a couple of other references out there. Some splinter.