MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
FOR THE 12th WORLD DAY OF THE SICK
(SHRINE OF LOURDES, FRANCE, FEBRUARY 11, 2004)
To my Venerable Brother
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán
President of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care
1. The World Day of the Sick, an event held on a different Continent each year, takes on a singular meaning this time. Indeed, it will take place in Lourdes, France, site of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin on 11 February 1858, which since that time has become the destination of many pilgrimages. In that mountainous region, Our Lady wished to demonstrate her maternal love, especially towards the suffering and the sick. Since then, she continues to be present through her solicitude.
This Shrine was chosen because in 2004 is the 150th Anniversary of the proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It was on 8 December 1854 with the Dogmatic Bull Ineffabilis Deus that my Predecessor, Bl. Pius IX of happy memory, affirmed that "the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God" (DS, 2803). At Lourdes, speaking in the native dialect, Mary said: "Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou" [I am the Immaculate Conception].
2. With these words, did not the Blessed Virgin wish to express the link that unites her to health and to life? If death entered the world because of original sin, by the merits of Jesus Christ, God preserved Mary free from every stain of sin, and salvation and life came to us (cf. Rom 5: 12-21).
The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception introduces us into the heart of the mystery of Creation and Redemption (cf. Eph 1: 4-12; 3: 9-11). God wanted to give life in abundance to the human creature (cf. Jn 10: 10), on the condition, however, that his initiative would be met by a free and loving response. Man tragically cut off vital dialogue with the Creator, refusing this gift with the disobedience that led to sin. To the "yes" of God, source of the fullness of life, the "no" of man was placed in opposition, motivated by proud self-sufficiency, harbinger of death (cf. Rom 5: 19).
Entire humanity was heavily involved in this closure towards God. In view of Christ's merits, only Mary of Nazareth was conceived without original sin and was completely open to the divine design so that the Heavenly Father was able to accomplish in her the project that he had for mankind.
The Immaculate Conception introduces the harmonious interlacing between the "yes" of God and the "yes" that Mary pronounced without reserve when the angel brought the heavenly announcement (cf. Lk 1: 38). Her "yes" in the name of humanity re-opened the doors of Heaven to the world, thanks to the Incarnation of the Word of God in her womb by the work of the Holy Spirit (cf. Lk 1: 35). In this way, the original project of creation was restored and strengthened in Christ; the Virgin Mother also shares in this project.
3. The keystone of history lies here: with the Immaculate Conception of Mary began the great work of Redemption that was brought to fulfilment in the precious blood of Christ. In him, every person is called to achieve the perfection of holiness (cf. Col 1: 28).
The Immaculate Conception is, therefore, the promising dawn of the radiant day of Christ, who with his death and Resurrection was to restore full harmony between God and humanity. If Jesus is the source of life that conquers death, Mary is the attentive mother who comes to meet the needs of her children, obtaining for them the health of soul and body. This is the message that the Shrine of Lourdes constantly re-proposes to the devout and to pilgrims. This is also the meaning behind the healings of body and spirit that take place at the grotto of Massabielle.
On that site, since the day of the apparition to Bernadette Soubirous, Mary has "healed" pain and sickness, also restoring many of her sons and daughters to health of body. She has worked much more surprising miracles, however, in the souls of believers, preparing them for the encounter with her Son Jesus, the authentic answer to the deepest expectations of the human heart. The Holy Spirit, who covered her with his shadow at the moment of the Incarnation of the Word, transforms the soul of countless sick people who turn to her. Even when they do not obtain the gift of bodily health, they are able to receive another that is much more important: the conversion of heart, source of peace and interior joy. This gift transforms their existence and makes them apostles of the Cross of Christ, standard of hope, even amid the hardest and most difficult trials.
4. In the Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris I noted that suffering belongs to the ups and downs of men and women throughout history, who must learn to accept and go beyond it (cf. n. 2: [11 February 1984]; L'Osservatore Romano English Edition[ORE], 20 February, p. 1). And yet how can they, if not thanks to the Cross of Christ?
In the death and Resurrection of the Redeemer human suffering finds its deepest meaning and its saving value. All of the weight of humanity's affliction and pain is summarized in the mystery of a God who, taking on our human nature, was humiliated "for our sake... to be sin" (II Cor 5: 21). On Golgotha he was burdened with the sin of every human creature, and in solitude and abandonment he called out to the Father: "Why have you forsaken me?" (Mt 27: 46).
From the paradox of the Cross springs the answer to our most worrying questions.Christ suffers for us. He takes upon himself the sufferings of everyone and redeems them. Christ suffers with us, enabling us to share our pain with him. United to the suffering of Christ, human suffering becomes a means of salvation; this is why the believer can say with St Paul: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" (Col 1: 24). Pain, accepted with faith, becomes the doorway to the mystery of the Lord's redemptive suffering; a suffering that no longer takes away peace and happiness since it is illuminated by the splendour of the Resurrection.
5. At the foot of the Cross Mary, made Mother of humanity, suffers in silence, participating in her Son's suffering, ready to intercede so that every person may obtain salvation (cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris [11 February 1984], n. 25; ORE, 20 February 1984, p. 6).
At Lourdes, it is not difficult to understand Mary's unique participation in the salvific role of Christ. The prodigy of the Immaculate Conception reminds believers of a fundamental truth: it is possible to reach salvation only through docile participation in the project of the Father, who wanted to redeem the world through the death and Resurrection of his only-begotten Son. Through Baptism, the believer becomes part of this design of salvation and is freed from original sin. Sickness and death, although present in earthly existence, lose their negative sense, and in the light of faith, corporal death, overcome by Christ's death (cf. Rom 6: 4), becomes the required passage for entering the fullness of immortal life.
6. In our time, great progress has been made in the scientific understanding of life, a fundamental gift of God of which we are the administrators. Life is to be welcomed, respected and defended from its beginning until its natural end; the family, cradle of each newborn life, must be protected with it.
Today, "genetic engineering" is spoken of, referring to the extraordinary possibility that modern science offers to intervene in the very sources of life. Every authentic progress in this field is to be encouraged, provided that it always respects the rights and dignity of the person from his or her conception. Indeed, no one can claim the right to destroy or indiscriminately manipulate the life of the human being. A specific duty of workers in the field of Health Pastoral Care is to sensitize those who work in this delicate sector so that they always engage to put themselves at the service of life.
On the occasion of the World Day of the Sick I wish to thank all of the members of Health Pastoral Care, especially the Bishops from the different Episcopal Conferences who help in this sector; the chaplains, parish priests and the other priests who are engaged in this field; the religious orders and congregations; volunteers and those who do not tire of offering a consistent witness to the death and Resurrection of the Lord in the face of suffering, pain and death.
I would like to extend my gratitude to health-care workers, medical and paramedical personnel, researchers - especially those dedicated to discovering new treatments - and to those employed in the production of medicines to be made available also to the poor.
I entrust all of you to the Most Holy Virgin, venerated at the Shrine of Lourdes as the Immaculate Conception. May she help every Christian to witness that the only authentic answer to pain, suffering and death is Christ our Lord, who died and rose for us.
With these sentiments, I willingly send to you, Venerable Brother, and to those participating in the celebration of the World Day of the Sick, a special Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, 1 December 2003
This being the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Noman enjoyed one of the great ones, "From Here To Eternity," starring Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Donna Reed, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine and others.
It is very much a guy's movie with lots of grunting masculinity, suppressed emotions and informal codes that rule in a very structured world of honor, courage and spirit. The first commandment on this army base is: Thou shalt not complain of abuse, or let the abuser know that he's getting to you. The second is the same with the two terms reversed.
This code ends up costing Sinatra's character, Pvt. Angelo Maggio, his life at the hands of the sadistic Borgnine (Sgt. 'Fatso' Judson). It also governs the life of Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Clift), whose endurance and grace under duress winds up winning him the respect and friendship of his rock hard Sergeant, Milton Warden (Lancaster). Though Prew suffers silently, he gets payback on the film's tormentors on more than one occasion. Especially satisfying are his encounters with Fatso, and Sgt. Ike Galovitch (John Dennis).
Though it's the love story between Clift and Donna Reed--who is great as the dance hall demigoddess, Alma 'Lorene' Burke--that captivates one's attention, and while it is Clift's life the viewer is most drawn into, it is Lancaster's movie. His moral ambiguity--he's basically a fair guy who is nevertheless willing to live with others' injustice, and to bust down whoever he needs to in order to keep things running smoothly--is the axis around which the movie turns. As he says at one point in the story, "I was born smart." Tough, too, and he looks it. For all his tolerance of human depravity, he knows who he is, and where he stands.
It's a simple story that lends itself to high drama. Pruitt is a bugler, and former boxer, who refuses to box for his outfit because of a sparring accident that left a former friend blind. His Captain, Dana Holmes (Philip Ober) won't accept Pruitt's decision as he's out to earn another stripe by winning the inter-company boxing competition. He turns the rest of the team loose on Pruitt--a real gaggle of goons--who accepts the hazing without protest. He is his own man, and is simply not going to bend to others' wills.
The one ray of hope in his otherwise dreary life is provided by Lorene, whose real name is Alma. Their love is plausible; they're both hardened and wounded, yet vulnerable, especially to each other. If you think of Reed as Mary Bailey or as Carl Betz's wife on 1960's television, you'll want to see her in this movie.
In a great scene, Reed turns down Clift's proposal, and lets us see Alma's soul (Spanish-English pun intended). She's got a chip on her lovely shoulder from being jilted by her wealthy, long-time boyfriend. She wants to be proper, in order to be safe, in order to be happy, which she evidently won't be on that path. It's an existential confusion.
Alma: Prew, it's true we love each other now, we need each other, but back in the States it might be different. Robert E. Lee "Prew' Prewitt: That ain't the real reason. Alma: You're right, it's not. Robert E. Lee "Prew' Prewitt: What is the real reason? Alma: I - I won't marry you because I don't want to be the wife of a soldier. Robert E. Lee "Prew' Prewitt: Well, that... would be about the best I could ever do for you. Alma: Because nobody's going to stop me from my plan. Nobody, nothing. Because I want to be proper! Robert E. Lee "Prew' Prewitt: Proper. Alma: Yes, proper! In another year I'll have enough money saved. Then I'm going to go back to my home town in Oregon, and I'm going to build a house for my mother and myself, and join the country club and take up golf. Then I'll meet the proper man with the proper position, to make a proper wife, and can run a proper home and raise proper children. And I'll be HAPPY because when you're PROPER you're SAFE! Robert E. Lee "Prew' Prewitt: You've got guts, honey. I hope you can pull that off. Alma: I do mean it when I say I need you. 'Cause I'm lonely. You think I'm lying, don't you? Robert E. Lee "Prew' Prewitt: Nobody ever lies about being lonely.
The movies other love story is an adulterous affair between Lancaster (Warden) and Kerr (Karen Holmes), his company commander's embittered and lonely wife. Their beach date is the movie's iconic moment. It begins this way:
Karen Holmes: Don't try to be gallant, Sergeant. If you think this is a mistake, come right out and say so... Well, I guess it's about time for me to be heading home, isn't it?... Well, isn't it? Sergeant Milton Warden: What's the matter? What started all this, anyway? You think I'd be here if I thought it was a mistake? Taking a chance on 20 years in Leavenworth for making dates with the company commander's wife? And her acting like - like Lady Astor's horse, and all because I got here on time! Karen Holmes: Well, on the other hand, I've got a bathing suit under my dress... Sergeant Milton Warden: Me too!
Theirs is a sympathetic but forbidden love that torments them both while it drives them desperate with desire. She is unfulfilled as an adulterous wife to a ne-er do well husband. He's got nerve enough to pursue his superior's wife. But, the pressure of carrying on the affair under the nose of a superior, a lesser man he doesn't respect, strains him.
Set in Hawaii, the attack on Pearl Harbor serves to put everyone's troubles in perspective. In fact, it puts them to rest.
The movie was highly decorated, winning eight Academy Awards including for Best Picture, Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), Best Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra) and Best Supporting Actress (Donna Reed). Lancaster and Clift were both nominated for Best Actor (won by William Holden), Kerr for Best Actress (won by Audrey Hepburn).
As Noman says, this is one of the great ones. The men are men, for better or worse; the women are patient yet demanding, and womanly. The romance is believable, as is the cruelty, and camaraderie. Be warned that you'll have some explaining to do to your children, as the movie's morals were ahead of its time. The film resolves the characters' moral failings about the way you'd expect a 1950's movie to. That's one reason why they're so good. But, be prepared to explain human frailty and the weakness of the flesh along the way.
Democratic Minority Leader Pelosi has advised us that she has some sludge to sling at former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Her problem is that she dredged it up from a confidential swamp: a 1990's era ethics probe of the former speaker.
As Noman vaguely recalls, charges were ginned up against Gingrich about the shell of a 501(c)(3) tax exempt entity that he appropriated to accept donations for a politics class he taught--or something like that--and in which he recruited Republican activists. Democrats from Harvard Law School to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts were shocked, SHOCKED! to learn that there was political activism occurring on college campuses. Since it was Republican activism, maybe they really were shocked.
Even more vile were the facts that Gingrich had taken in $10-$20 million in contributions to GOPAC over the course of seven years, some of which he used on himself, and that he got a $4.5 million book advance from Rupert Murdoch. These offenses were beyond the pale. By the time that Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) $8 million book advance was approved by the Senate's Ethics committee, and her husband (D-AK) had enriched himself through political campaigning and honoraria, standards had changed. Or, should Noman say doubled?
The linked Meet the Press interview by Tim Russert (Jan. 5, 1997) of David Bonior (D-MI) and John Boehner (R-OH) gives an indication of how Democrats play rollerball politics. It is instructive and well worth watching. Bonior was the hit man, Gingrich the marked man, Pelosi the gun moll and Boehner the morgue attendant whose job it is to preserve the corpse from further desecration at the hands of the trash-talking assassin.
Gingrich's violations were of the run-of-the-mill variety rampant among politicians. How else would they get rich while sitting in Congress? Ask Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi. Gingrich's brashness and venality merely made it easy to assail him for greed.
His real crime in Democrats' eyes was political: engineering the Republican's complete takeover of Congress in 1994, something they hadn't been able to pry away from Democrats' death grip in the prior forty years. They hated him for beating them. For that, a determined hit squad of the least principled partisans was loosed on him. Given time, resources, infinite indulgence by the media, and manic zeal, Bonior, Pelosi et al got their man.
Tactics used went so far as for Democratic activists to illegally intercept and record Gingrich's cell phone calls, turn the recordings over to a Democratic member of the Ethics Committee, Jim McDermott (D-WA), who passed them along to the New York Times, which printed the illegal transcripts in a front-page hit piece on the Speaker. Nothing of consequence happened to any of them, except the Republican, Gingrich.
One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi told Talking Points Memo. “When the time is right. … I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.
This reminded Noman of nothing so much as Artie Johnson's Laugh-In Nazi. "Vee haf infurmashun abou chu!" Whether Pelosi's intimations are more interesting than stupid, Noman can't decide. But, it is creepily gestapo-like for a sitting politician to issue extortion threats and make allusions to an opportunistically timed smear. Such is the high character of politicians on the Left.
"I want to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift," Gingrich said at a press conference in Manhattan Monday.
Gingrich denounced the threat from Pelosi, who is now the minority leader in the House, as "a fundamental violation of the rules of the House," and said that if Pelosi were to disclose details of the investigation, it would expose the "tainted ethics process the House was engaged in." He also called for the House to condemn Pelosi if she were to reveal anything from the ethics probe.
That kind of moxy is why Gingrich has taken the lead in the polls. Republicans, conservatives and even independents are sick of the unjust double standards by which Democrats survive, and love candidates who don't take guff from unprincipled interlocutors, especially reporters and smarmy politicians. Had Newt thrown more punches and nuzzled up less to Lefties over the years (e.g., global warming ad with Nancy Pelosi; taking GSE payola), he'd be more credible, and formidable, now.
Nancy Pelosi is a flawed politician herself, though one who doesn't mind living in a glass house. She made a twenty-point gain on the VISA IPO in two days, while killing legislation on the floor of the House that would have hurt profits at credit card companies. (By the way, the practice of allotting hot IPO shares--which regular people cannot get--to VIP's who can reciprocate the largesse by engaging in a quid pro quo is called "spinning," which is what got superstar banker "Frank Quattrone" in trouble with the law).
Her response:
Following the report, Pelosi's office released a statement saying that "Congress has never done more for consumers nor has the Congress passed more critical reforms of the credit card industry than under the Speakership of Nancy Pelosi."
Spokesman Drew Hammill added in the statement that "it is very troubling that 60 Minutes would base their reporting off of an already-discredited conservative author who has made a career of out attacking Democrats."
The "60 Minutes" report used as its starting point Peter Schweizer's book on soft corruption. Schweizer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University. But "60 Minutes" independently verified the information and also highlighted transactions of Republicans - Speaker of the House John Boehner and Rep. Spencer Bachus - both of whom deny using non-public information improperly.
We learn more daily about what Speaker Pelosi's House did for consumers as the cost of banking services rises, credit dwindles, and banking activity flees to more hospitable shores. Her reforms of the credit card industry--after safely pocketing her stock market winnings--served to drive up costs and limit supply. Yet her response is to say that her profiting through crony connections and by using her power to direct legislation is non-discussable because of good (to her mind) she has done, and because the source of the revelations is partisan. As Gingrich might say, what's sauce for the goose...
House Republicans are challenging Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the massive stimulus spending bill contains no pet projects after uncovering in the bill more than $30 million for wetlands conservation in her San Francisco Bay area district, including work she previously championed to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse.
“This sounds like spending projects that have been supported by a certain powerful Democrat in the past,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.
“It certainly doesn’t sound like it will create or save American jobs,” he said. “So can Speaker Pelosi explain exactly how we will improve the American economy by helping the adorable little” critter?
A spokesman for Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said the claim was “fabricated” by Republicans.
“The speaker nor her staff have had any involvement in this initiative. This is yet another contrived partisan attack,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said. “Restoration is key to economic activity including farming, fisheries, recreation, and clean water.”
The criticism of hidden pet projects, or earmarks, in the economic rescue comes as Capitol Hill leaders rush to finalize a roughly $800 billion package in closed-door negotiations. President Obama boasts the stimulus plan contains no earmarks since Congress technically did not use the earmark process for lawmakers to request and drop in specific spending items.
However, much the legislation was written behind closed doors and Republicans question how the projects were chosen.
“One of the proudest boasts of Democrats supporting their trillion-dollar spending plan is that it doesn’t contain earmarks,” Mr. Steel said. “But it seems like powerful Democrats will still find a way to bring home the bacon.”
And, how! Thirty million dollars for the salt marsh harvest mouse. And, her response is to blame Republican partisans for bringing it to the public's attention. Does Noman detect a pattern here?
To Pelosi, anyone who questions her is a partisan. Personally, Noman doesn't care if the claim is contrived by Martians. He'd like her considered answers to charges that under her leadership her Party larded troughs with nearly a trillion dollars of give aways doled out from behind closed doors while the American public was in a state of shock and the opposition party was effectively hand tied.
Investors Business Daily opines that Minority Leader Pelosi would be wise to drop her attack on former Speaker Gingrich given the back room machinations that it took to pass ObamaCare.
Moreover, Speaker Gingrich was vindicated in the Democrat's witch hunt by a source as unlikely as the IRS. The vendetta served only to remove him from the helm of the Republican revolution, which, of course, was the main objective all along. There is something about his combination of speculative and practical intellect that terrifies the Left, despite his obvious character defects. What amazes Noman is that Newt Gingrich still terrifies Democrats to the point of their sicking their German Shepherd on him.
Pelosi sat on the panel that investigated Gingrich's alleged violation of federal tax law in using tax-exempt monies to fund Gingrich's allegedly political college course, "Renewing American Civilization."
After a 3 1/2-year ordeal, and a $300,000 fine paid to the House Ethics Committee for providing inaccurate information, the IRS finally ruled that the sponsoring organization, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, "did not serve the private interests of Mr. Gingrich" and was both apolitical and completely legal.
Gingrich, who had led the charge against another House speaker, Jim Wright, in 1988 for ethics violations, said the current threat shows just how politically motivated the ethics investigation of him was.
He notes that 83 of 84 ethics charges "were repudiated as false." The 84th was simply dropped in 1998. Gingrich acknowledged that his "one mistake was one letter by a lawyer that I didn't read carefully."
Pelosi helped ram through the nationalization of health care known as ObamaCare behind closed doors, telling us we'd have to pass it to find out what's in it. Perhaps she would like to tell us how ethical the Cornhusker kickbacks and Louisiana purchases necessary to get it passed were.
Noman wouldn't pay much attention to what Minority Leader Pelosi said if he didn't fear for his life, liberty or property whenever she opened her mouth.
But, he is thankful for her recent outburst, which gives him occasion to tinker with the Beatle's song "Sexy Sadie." The sobriquet, "Nazi Nancy," first suggested itself to Noman as she unilaterally blitzkrieged the crisis-shocked American people with one legislative outrage after another.
Nazi Nancy should be sung to the tune of Sexy Sadie.
Nazi Nancy:
hoNazi Nancy what have you done
You made a fool of everyone
You made a fool of everyone
Nazi Nancy ooh what have you done.
Nazi Nancy you broke the rules
You laid it down for all to see
You laid it down for all to see
Nazi Nancy oooh you broke the rules.
One sunny day the world was waiting for a leader
She came along to scam on everyone
Nazi Nancy the greatest of them all.
Nazi Nancy how did you know
The world was victim just for you
The world was victim just for you
Nazi Nancy oooh how did you know.
Nazi Nancy you'll get yours yet
However big you think you are
However big you think you are
Nazi Nancy oooh you'll get yours yet.
We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table
Just a smile would lighten everything
Nazi Nancy she's the latest and the greatest of them all.
She made a fool of everyone
Nazi Nancy.
However big you think you are
Nazi Nancy.
However big you think you are, Minority Leader Pelosi, it's only an illusion fostered by slavish media devotion. In the real world, your Liberal self righteousness and utter disregard for contrary opinion gave rise to the tea parties, and the 2010 midterm Waterloo for your Party.
Perhaps an even worse shellacking in 2012 will at last free the country from your grinning tyranny.
Herman Cain is bedeviled by yet another media cycle of salacious allegations. Ginger White is the latest accuser to step forward, alleging a 13-year affair with the Republican presidential candidate. What caught Noman's eye in the original story was the following:
Ms. White said she came forward after seeing how Mr. Cain, a businessman who lives in Atlanta, treated the women who had accused him of harassment.
“It bothered me that they were being demonized,” Ms. White said. “I felt bad for them.”
Perhaps Cain should have announced that he felt their pain, while disclaiming that he played any role in causing it.
Personally, Noman feels badly for Cain. If the accusations are true, the man fell prey to his libido and the charms of faux-glam women like Sharon Bialek. He is to be pitied as a figure in Greek tragedy, or anyone with poor character judgment. If the accusations are false, he has no way of defending himself. His fate depends on what the public believes, and that is the media's bailiwick. Unfortunately for Cain, it supports the other Party, and considers his presence on the debate stage a nuisance.
Noman takes White's point, and doesn't condone demonization. But, one man's demonization is another man's fact reporting. The women who have thus far surfaced to impugn Cain's character and torpedo his political campaign have uniformly checkered histories, thin stories and good reasons to expect star treatment from the media. (Noman hopes, but doubts, that some enterprising reporter will be scrutinizing their debt forgiveness, money flows, lifestyle changes and upticks in fortune.) Ironically, the accusers expect the public to accept their stories on the basis of character and credibility.
White has the whole combo-platter of questionable accuser attributes: She's another financially troubled, twice-divorced, unemployed single mother, who has claimed sexual harassment in the past, declared bankruptcy once, was accused of stalking and had a libel judgment entered against her just this year. So far in 2011, she's had nine liens put on her property.
But we're supposed to ignore all of that because she's the third woman of questionable character to make an implausible allegation. Liberals say there's a pattern, but the only pattern is of their making far-fetched accusations of a sexual nature against Cain.
These women are like triple-A ball players with the stats being: number of bankruptcies, smallest bank account, number of liens, most false claims, number of children out of wedlock, degrees of separation from David Axelrod, total trips to human resources and so on.
That wouldn't be dispositive -- except for the fact that their only evidence is their word.
White's other evidence consists of a signed book, money given to her by Cain, and lots of phone messages, which pales in comparison to Gennifer Flowers'--the obvious comparison's--evidence:
Gennifer Flowers produced taped telephone calls with Clinton totaling thousands of words between them, with him counseling her on how to deny their affair: "If they ever hit you with it, just say no, and go on. There's nothing they can do ... But when they -- if somebody contacts you, I need to know ... All you got to do is deny it."
Let`s pretend for a moment that we`re discussing real life here instead of politics. Sadly enough, these things happen. They may simply happen more frequently to politicians. Just as we`ve come to accept that most politicians of a certain age likely smoked pot at some time in their past, so we`ve come to accept that, given the combination of megalomania and charisma needed to run for office, some candidates may at one time have found ego gratification with actress/models or television reporter/nightclub singers, the kind of women who, when they go public, tend to have flattering 8-by-10 glossies readily available.
This matters to different people in different degrees, from those who think it is unforgivable to those who think it`s inevitable. Call it character. Call it a way of seeing women. Call it the sleaze factor. You put together ``forsaking all others,`` ``I will never lie to you`` and ``here`s my room key,`` and you`ve got a credibility gap, in real life and in politics too.
In the last 30 years, we have moved from wondering whether it happens to wondering whether it matters. Now we care about how it is handled, about getting out of a jam with dignity.
If this were real life, Dear Abby would tell you that if you loved Bill Clinton enough, you should accept his story and put all this out of your mind. And that`s probably good political advice too. I`m not sure anyone loves Clinton that much yet. The Democrats I talk to have a clear idea of who they want for president: ABB. Anyone But Bush. If enough people feel that Bill Clinton is necessary to his party, his alleged indiscretions will become secondary to his absolute indispensability.
Since this year's ABB--"Anybody But Barack"--is the middle class's hope and plea, not the media's, the Quindlen standard won't apply to Cain, or his accusers. The tables have been reversed, the accusers have been made to look sympathetic rather than predatory, and Cain is being hounded out of the race rather than kept in it.
As Coulter concludes:
But this is how liberals dirty you up when they've got nothing: They launch a series of false accusations, knowing that Americans with busy lives won't follow each story to the end and notice that they were all blind alleys.
The liberal media is an old story, but it's still a big story when it comes to creating the impression of scandal out of thin air.
Most people say, "Where there's smoke, there's fire." I say, "Where there's smoke around a conservative, there are journalists furiously rubbing two sticks together."
Noman's only disagreement is with the notion of journalists rubbing sticks together to create smoke. Dragons have readier means at their disposal. And, the whiff of sulfur enveloping the media's political machinations indicates another source of power altogether.
Financial markets were granted a respite today from the ongoing Euro crisis by concerted central bank activity that made dollars more cheaply and readily available to borrowers in return for foreign currencies, including Euros. The Federal Reserve's participation means that the US is assuming Euro risk in return for pushing the crisis out of the danger zone. With this move, central banks are kicking the can down the road in order to give Euro-spendthrifts another last chance to put their fiscal houses in order. Noman suggests that you don't hold your breath waiting for it.
The Fed's international action is kin to the President's various stimuli and jobs plans, which serve primarily to channel red state resources into over-bloated, blue state public sectors until the federal government is politically able to assume permanent responsibility for state shortfalls. The alternative is for voters to force public sector unions and other beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse to surrender their privileges. People with sinecures to lose, however, generally fight harder, dirtier, more passionately and longer in order to preserve their prerogatives than does a diffused population bearing only portion of a widely distributed cost in order to end them.
In the case of the Euro, the central banks' actions funnel the money of more responsible nations--which laughably includes the US--into the economies of nations that cannot support the level of public commitments they have assumed. It alleviates the symptoms without addressing the illness; It is a pain-killer, not a cure.
The conundrum was well summarized a couple of weeks back in a WSJ editorial concerning a different but related palliative, European Central Bank purchases of toxic sovereign debt.
And what if even [bond purchases don't] work? The ECB would have squandered its monetary credibility, and shattered its charter, to buy the worst debt in the euro zone at the expense of the countries with the best fiscal policies and the lowest interest rates. It will have abandoned any semblance of market discipline in favor of a panicky rush to defend the ability of spendthrift governments to borrow. Price stability will move from the ECB's sole mandate to its third or fourth priority.
Europe's real problem now, as at the euro's founding, is that the currency zone lacks a mechanism for enforcing fiscal discipline. The Stability and Growth Pact was an attempt, but it lacked teeth and was violated early. All of the fixes in the current crisis lack credibility with markets because they too lack any discipline that would show creditors that Europe's problems of overspending, cradle-to-grave middle-class entitlements and slow growth are being fixed.
The voices now pleading for greater "fiscal union" are really pleading for the Germans and the ECB to write their governments blank checks.
The relevant question regarding the Fed's cheap currency swaps is whether given European nations' inability to get their financial houses in order, the Fed's intervention constitutes a responsible action, or even one likely to avert the rightly feared consequences. In short, is it a good bet? The Germans think not, which is why they are impeding ECB bond purchases. While central banks dollar swaps are a less dramatic ameliorative than bond purchases, Noman is inclined to agree with the German assessment of the European predicament.
Berlin's alleged sin is its reluctance to write a blank check to save the euro—either by underwriting a new euro-zone fiscal union, or granting permission for the European Central Bank to buy trillions in sovereign debt. The chant comes in unison from the debtor nations themselves, the bailout caucus in Brussels, an Obama White House concerned about its re-election, and liberal pundits worried that their welfare-state economic model is under assault. Like the "rich" in America who must pay their "fair share," the Germans are supposed to pay up to save a united Europe.
Passing the cost of big government profligacy onto the fiscally responsible is the political drama of 2011 in a nutshell. Dollar swaps and debt purchases are just means of putting off fixing, and redistributing the costs of, deeper unaddressed problems. European nations, and American states, that serve as hosts for the socialistically inclined are being forced by capital markets to reckon with economic reality. They have spent and promised too much more than they can afford. Lenders who are fronting the money for utopia want to be compensated for assuming higher risk, if indeed they are willing to assume it at all. When the bill is presented to reckless debtors in the form of higher rates or insufficient demand for new debt, old lenders clamor for retroactive guarantees while deadbeat borrowers riot for bailouts on easy terms. If granted, borrowers and lenders alike continue along their merry courses until the menace reasserts itself in more virulent form because of higher levels of debt, at which time the troubled entity is presumed too big to fail. If denied money to compensate for past errors and perpetuate future ones, lenders pull back while borrowers burn cars, occupy Wall Street, demonize the rich, demagog the opposition, threaten social instability and mug for sympathetic cameras.
For those committed to living beyond their means, anything, is preferable to losing the good thing they've got. Nothing could be worse than surrendering their privileges. Better to have one's desires at others expense, like the United Auto Workers Union were able to arrange with Democrat's help. The trick is political: How to make others pay for big government profligacy against their wills?
The alternative is to repent, relent, and change course for the sake of the common good.
The reality is that the Germans—along with the Dutch and the Finns—are the rare Europeans who understand that saving the euro requires more than a blank check. It requires a new political commitment to better economic policy. Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet are as euro-centric as the French, but they realize that money alone won't solve Europe's more fundamental debt and growth problem.
It's certainly true that the Germans have benefited from the euro, which is one reason they want to preserve it. Their exports have flourished, often to other European countries, thanks to a stable currency and free-trade zone. But one reason for their relative economic success is that Germany is a rare European country that used the early years of the euro to reform its labor markets and improve fiscal policies. While the Greeks and Italians used their years of near-German borrowing rates to live beyond their means, the Bavarians became more competitive.
It all comes back to the same choice between (1) reducing the size and scope of government, (2) playing political chicken until the economic order runs off a cliff, or (3) affectuating a revolutionary redistribution of wealth, which, as we know from history, works only once: when people have something to take; thereafter they cease to produce. Why should they bother? The second choice is merely the fast, opportunistic track to the third.
Noman understands the desirability, and perhaps even preferability, of averting imminent catastrophe by resorting to palliatives. The galling aspect of todays social welfare crises, however, is that by deferring judgment day and preserving the status quo, the illness is granted more time to posture as the cure; the cause as the antedote. Needless to say, the problem doesn't get fixed; it festers. People get lulled by orchestrated manifestations like Occupy Wall Street. During the respite, Leftist politicians like President Obama at home and his socialist counterparts in Europe, just make matters worse, and the eventual reckoning more severe, by expanding entitlements, increasing public employment and larding troughs for cronies. They never change, and it is folly to expect them to.
Leftists know that at the next reassertion of crisis, they will win more concessions via violence, demagoguery, cunning, treachery and political chicanery--all with the benefit of media manipulation. Perhaps they might even achieve political victory by imposing confiscatory taxes on people who vociferously object to progressive policies. Given the opportunity of crisis, they might even lay claim to private wealth for "public" purposes--meaning the preferred purposes of politicians, bureaucrats and hangers-on who presume to speak for the public. They have only to continue lying, clamoring, accusing, scapegoating, escalating and confronting. That's the Leftist playbook, and it's always worked before.
With respect to the European theater of this war:
The tragedy is that the euro-zone countries failed to abide by their original fiscal rules, a failure that has brought them to this unhappy pass. The Brussels-Washington bailout caucus now wants to extend the damage to monetary policy by printing more euros [to purchase toxic debt] and worrying about the consequences later.
In opposing that option, the Germans are said to be imposing their Prussian morality on everyone else. But without reforms, the countries of southern Europe will never pull out of their downward debt spiral. The Germans are at least telling the truth.
It becomes increasingly clear that we are kicking the can down the road to serfdom, or to more heinous forms of servitude. Heaven give us the strength, the Germanic virtue, to resist going back.
In a press conference this evening, the president referred in stumbling fashion to the “English Embassy” in Iran instead of the British Embassy. One can only imagine the kind of howls of derision that would greet any presidential contender if that kind of basic error were made before, say, the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. You can watch the video above.
In case the president is unaware, England forms part of Great Britain, which also includes Scotland and Wales, though not Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. There is no such thing as an “English” embassy anywhere in the world, and there hasn’t been one for several centuries.
Noman only mentions it because of the beating that Republican presidential candidates have taken for momentary mental lapses, e.g., Rick Perry's oops moment, Herman Cain on President Obama's Libya incursion. Since the mainstream media views its mission as covering up for Democrats' mistakes (and misdeeds) while attacking Republicans' every slip up, it's good for alternative media to note the inconceivable: the President himself flubs on occasion.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this latest slip-up by President Obama. After all he recently described France as America’s closest ally, and famously declared that he has traveled to no less than 57 states. But it would be nice if the leader of the free world bothered to look at a map once in a while, or even paid a visit to the British Embassy in Washington, currently housing the Churchill bust that Mr. Obama unceremoniously threw out of the Oval Office soon after his inauguration.
The larger question is whether this most recent gaffe signifies a broader disregard for Great Britain along with other traditional US allies.
From siding with Argentina on its call for UN-brokered negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falklands, to placing “a boot on the throat” of BP, Britain’s largest company, the Obama administration has downgraded relations with America’s closest friend and partner on the world stage. The Special Relationship still matters greatly on several key fronts for the United States, from the NATO-led operation in Afghanistan to the global war against Islamist terrorism. US-British military and intelligence cooperation remains vital to the defense of the free world, and cooperation between London and Washington will be imperative in standing up to an increasingly aggressive Iran. The White House will no doubt dismiss this latest faux pas by the president as a slip of the tongue, but it cannot disguise the fact that it has on many occasions treated Britain and other key allies with an air of disdain, and even contempt.
Big media's Liberal bias disturbs Noman and strikes him as politically dangerous given that democracy depends upon an informed--not deformed--electorate. Nevertheless, the Heritage Foundation's last point is the salient one. President Obama's predilections run towards the Continent and away from Britain, towards Islam and away from Israel. Right or wrong, his picture of the world is markedly different than most Americans'.
Klein is famous for starting the secretive political-media members-only clique of some 400 journalists, political operatives, White House staffers, think tankers and lefty economists such as Paul Krugman known as JournoList. Until it was shut down by exposure from the Daily Caller and BigGovernment.com, the JournoList group discussed talking points to create a media echo chamber, tried to falsely smear opponents as racists, and cooked up ways to take Fox News off the air.
Now he's creating a "new paradigm," at the Washington Post: that of a blogger whose media ethos includes using his perch in prestige media to be an on-the-ground activist that briefs Democratic politicians on talking-points strategy.
The Washington Post's 27-year-old star blogger Ezra Klein has been called "whiz kid," and "brat packer" and a "wunderkind." Now he's actually advising Democratic chiefs of staff, briefing them last week about the supercommittee in Congress, according to a report by Fishbowl-DC on MediaBistro.com.
That's because Klein himself sports the imprimatur of one of the most vaunted news organizations in the world, the Washington Post. He's supposed to have the Post's high standards. But instead of reporting the news, even at a slant, as bloggers do, Klein takes bias beyond that. Instead of commenting on news, he makes it.
Klein is a rogue, doing what he wants with no consequences from the Post, taking media standards down with him. As a journalist, it's one thing to have an ideological agenda, quite another to work hand-in-glove with a political party and openly advocate its agenda.
Actually, Klein is relatively mainstream for the mainstream media. It's been apparent for decades that what passes for news in the print and visual media bears more than a striking resemblance to the Democratic Party's talking points. The difference now is that the media is the tail wagging the political dog.
"I used to have political aspirations," Klein, a former campaigner for Howard Dean, told the Washington Monthly in 2004. "But over time, I found that I enjoy writing far more. More to the point, I think that the creation of a media environment that can sustain and propel progressivism is more important than any single elected official," he said. "The media is as effective and important an agent for change as the legislative bodies, and I think it's where I'm happiest and most effective."
That's succinctly put: the goal of media is to create an "environment that can sustain and propel progressivism." As the IBD Editorial indicates, this new paradigm for journalism is one that the Washington Post's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, "would very much like to replicate."
None of this strikes Noman as startling. His first day at Harvard Law School featured a talk by a recent alumnus, an environmental lawyer, describing how'd she'd used the Boston Globe to kill a development on the Charles River that had otherwise passed regulatory muster. She was leaving her position in the law to work more with media, which was easier, quicker and more effective.
He can't help wondering, however, given the longstanding, actual condition of mainstream media, if the 4th estate deserves all of its constitutional protections, for example, the right to attribute fabricated quotations to public figures (Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, 1991).
An analogy might be worth considering. After the great crash of 1929, Congress devised securities laws that among other things separated commercial from investment banking. While banks had traditionally performed both functions under the same roof, Congress wished to preserve and protect the core financial business of receiving deposits and making loans from the substantively different and speculative ones of underwriting companies' securities and trading in them. Thus, it shielded the former activity from the risk inherent in the latter for the sake of both, and the economy.
While the constitution expressly permits Congress to regulate commerce, and the 1st Amendment expressly prohibits Congress from abridging the freedom of speech, the Supreme Court has nevertheless upheld bubble-zone restrictions against pro-life protestors, and it has never upheld a right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater.
Might preserving the integrity of newspaper and newscast reporting, which informs the public, require a similar separation of news media's constitutional function from its advocacy practices? Just asking.
