February 2004

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From yesterday’s Senate debate on the pending Gun Liability Bill. Senator Kennedy responds to Senator Craig.

From yesterday’s Congressional Record [scroll down (or better yet search for) to page S1639].

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I just want to remind the Senate what we have just heard. It is a wonderful technique. I don’t disparage my friend from Idaho, and he is my friend.

But that is to misrepresent what the amendment does and then to differ with it.

I have been here several years and I know that technique. It is one that I have used once in a while.

Usually flubs like that are “scrubbed” from the record before it hits the presses.

National Review is to politics as the Ensign is to religion. Just got the above issue in the mail yesterday and it just reaffirmed to me what a great job they do. Their website (National Review Online)put out great material everyday on conservative politics, culture and even religion (from a slight Catholic bent which is always interesting). Their blog (The Corner is quite possibly the my favorite blog. Their magazine (National Review On Dead Tree) is where it all began and still the repository for their most in-depth material.

I loved this issue’s cover story which is a review of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. As NR’s normally staid policy wonk, it was touching to read how powerful the film personally affected Ramesh Ponnuru. I don’t expect to see the film (as I swore off rated-R films since I married) but the article was a satisfying substitute.

The issue also reviews a very interesting book that I hope to read soon. I see Senator Smoot’s picture here at the Senate at the Energy Committee.

In The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (North Carolina, 238 pp., $18.95), Vanderbilt history professor Kathleen Flake tells a little-known yet very important story about the development of American pluralism. In 1903, the Utah legislature elected Reed Smoot, one of the Apostles (chief administrators) of the Mormon Church, to the U.S. Senate. This triggered a nationwide protest, as members of other religious denominations petitioned the Senate not to recognize Smoot’s election. Flake writes: “In briefs filed with the Senate, the protesters took care to stipulate, ‘We accuse [Smoot] of no offense cognizable by law.’ Rather, they argued, Smoot’s ineligibility for office was based on his participation in a religious cabal that violated the law, corrupted the home, and controlled Utah’s government and economy.”

The Senate admitted Smoot, but established a special committee to investigate him and his church. The Mormon leaders had publicly accepted the federal law against polygamy; but did they still covertly encourage the institution? More broadly, did the church wield too much power in Utah? Was it genuinely separate from the state? It turned out polygamy was still going on, and a national outcry ensued. A Minnesota newspaper in 1905 ran the headline: “Revelations Doom Mormonism to Extermination / No Matter What Outcome of Trial May Be, System Will Be Suppressed.” Being Mormon was widely seen as incompatible with American values.

The Smoot investigation lasted until 1907, when the Senate voted 43-27 not to expel him. The Latter-day Saints adapted, giving more full-throated assent to the anti-polygamy laws; among the general public anti-Mormon animus faded away. Reed Smoot is remembered today chiefly as coauthor of the notorious Smoot-Hawley tariff bill that helped plunge America into the Great Depression; but he also deserves national affection, as the central figure in a key incident in the growth of religious tolerance in the United States.

Supposedly “all politics is local.” But I really like this commentary [scroll down to "A Plea to Utah Media"] that local media outlets need to provide better coverage of local politics. Some great points that the national and cable networks do more than an adequate job of providing us national politics (in quantity if not quality) and a real disservice is being done by not covering important races such as this year’s governor race in Utah.

I’ve been keeping track of the print space and air time Utah’s television stations and daily newspapers have used over the last month covering the Presidential race and comparing it to air time spent on our own Gubernatorial contest. There has been roughly 20 times as much coverage on the national as on the local. All Utah media – print, TV, and radio – have about the same ratio: Approximately 20 times as much on the national political scene as on the Utah elections.

Here’s my point: We can get all the news and coverage we want about the presidential race from the national networks, from cable, from the news services … so why should Utah media devote so much time and space to it, essentially just duplicating or overlapping what national media is saying, at the expense of coverage about Utah politics and elections? Is the presidential campaign really twenty times as important to Utahns than our own Governors race, or Senate race, or Congressional races? Why can’t we let the national media cover the national election, and save our Utah political coverage for Utah races?

Not getting thorough or extensive news coverage of Utah elections, especially in their early stages, is not only a problem for a voter who wants to be informed, it’s a problem for a candidate! If a candidate doesn’t have much interest from the media in his message, his ideas, his positions, then the only way he can get them out to the public is through paid advertising. Therefore, he’s got to either be very wealthy or spend all his time raising money; and believe me, the time and effort it takes for fund raising takes him away from the issues and the people and puts him with the special interests.

Sounds like a better idea than silly campaign finance reform that just forces new diversions of money while suppressing speech. Plus, it’s a shame that there isn’t more attention paid to local politics. As a staffer at the U.S. Senate, maybe this is hypocritical, but I have wondered, isn’t a truer to conservative ideals to work and be concerned with local politics? Perhaps, we’re all swallowed up by the notion that the national scene is ’sexier’ - after all that’s where most of the power and money is. But shouldn’t we try to make the difference where it should matter most - at home? And maybe, we can make local politics more meaningful than it has been.

Something I’ll think about. Meanwhile, you’ll find me on Capitol Hill.

I served a mission in Costa Rica and I am ashamed to admit that for the first part of my mission I was not a big fan of the Catholic Church. I didn’t exactly buy into the whole ‘Church of the Devil’ thing but it was frustrating to face so many slammed doors by the overwhelming population who claimed they were Catholic which consisted of attending Mass at Easter and Christmas.

However, with time and (hopefully) some maturity I came to realize much of the good the Catholic church does. The LDS Church partners up with many of its worthwhile charities abroad so it doesn’t have to expend funds on duplicating the infrastructure that the Catholics have already established. Plus, as the old joke goes, everyone in the Catholic church is entitled to their own opinion except for the Pope. Many of its members still hold many traditional values that we Mormons do while possessing much greater political and cultural clout.

But as Mike points out, the sex abuse scandals and their cover-up may be even worse than previously thought. The scandals are already a horrible tragedy and blight for the Catholic church. The tragedy is further compounded that in that the scandals effectively nullify the church’s ability to be a strong voice in opposing the gay marriage movement. And where has the sex scandals been the worst? Right where gay marriage is about to be foisted on the nation. And also where the Catholic church is the strongest. Maybe I’m missing something and if so, set me straight but I have not heard much comment on the issue from official Catholic sources.

I have been delinquent in posting new blogs that I have come across.

Davidson’s Law - “All of us are guided by an internal set of laws or principles. This is a quest to identify and refine mine …”

“A Daily Look at Law, Government, Society and other stuff
that catches my eye …”

Mike is a good friend who did his LLM at the University of Utah School of Law while I was a 3L, plus we were in the same student ward. He has just started his own law firm so if you are in the Salt Lake area and need some legal help, check him out.

Randy Tayler
“In an effort to make myself write, I’ve created this weblog — or, as the cool kids say, “blog”, to provide myself a public forum for essays, thoughts, etc. Maybe short stories, too. And maybe scanned pictures I draw. Dunno.”

Ravings of an LDS Singles’ Matchmaker

Both blogs are run by Randy Tyler who also runs SingleSaints.com. It sounds like he has some interesting customers.

Jedthousand-four

Hugh puts me to shame by posting before I do on the return of my brother to the blogosphere. For the meanwhile, my globe-trotting brother is staying put in DC, working for USAID before he starts a grad school program this fall in International Relations. (And he has mercifully stopped teasing me for my deep enjoyment of the Pet Shop Boys.)

Jedidiarrhea’s latest post has a very intersting graph that shows the world in terms of religiosity/secularism vs. what I presume is economic development and liberty(?). Anyway, I suggest at least looking at it if you don’t have time for the entire post. I’m happy to say that the U.S. is in what I consider the best quadrant.

The Seattle Times: Gibson’s ‘Passion’ taps churches to sell film; some worry it may incite anti-Semitism

All the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s movie upcoming movie, “The Passion of the Christ” has been unprecedented publicity for an independent film with dialogue solely comprising of dead languages. Of course, it also has Mel Gibson’s star power and the subject matter to bolster interest as well. What’s interesting is the ground swell in interest from many evangelicals and their coordination with the film’s opening to use the movie as a proselytizing tool.

(I recall last fall that there were some attempts to market The Book of Mormon Movie directly to Ward houses (in California I think) but that didn’t take off too well considering the reluctance for any appearance that the movie have any official sanction.)

The big what-to-do seems to be whether the film will provoke a surge in anti-semitism. To me it seems like a bunch of bunk. Most critics have not seen the movie, and therefore take issue with a literal interpretation of the Gospels. If the critics have a problem, it sounds like it is with the New Testament and not with Gibson’s portrayal.

One of the bigger issues is whether Gibson will ultimately include a scene that uses Matthew 27:25.

Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.

That verse has been horribly applied to promote anti-Semitism but who uses it in that sense today? I think critics are doing themselves a disservice by being so strident without even seeing the movie first. Until then, are they ready to take on the entire New Testament and label it as hate speech or are just out to get Gibson?

Wow.

Opinion poll of Washington journalists from ABC’s The Note no less.

MAJOR UPDATE: Okay, so it was satire. I thought it was at first but upon looking at the Note’s web page it didn’t seem like it so I ran with it. I don’t read it enough to get their dry sense of humor. I should delete the entire post to spare me further embarassment - but that’s not proper blogging etiquette.

Thanks to Polipundit for the update and personally emailing me.

Pilot suggested passengers discuss Christianity during LA-to-New York flight

An American Airlines pilot flying passengers from Los Angeles to New York asked Christians on board to identify themselves and then suggested that non-Christian passengers discuss the faith with them, the airline confirmed Saturday . . .

The pilot had just returned to work from a weeklong mission trip to Costa Rica, Wagner said.

I served a two year mission in Costa Rica and when I flew back I was never as bold. Of course, I didn’t have control of the flight either. Plus, I’m not so sure how reassuring it would have been for Christians to be asked to identify themselves on a flight or anyone of any religion for that matter.

The Salt Lake Tribune — Politics are stifling the old Mitt mojo

Who would think Massachusetts politics would be so well covered in Utah? Well it is now with Mitt Romney as governor. Of course, the Trib has to use a snippy poli-sci professor for their analysis but it’s an interesting read. By most accounts, Governor Romney is doing pretty well and I think this article oversells that he thought he would run the state just like another company.

“The guy expected to be listened to much more than he is,” says pollster Lou DiNatale of the University of Massachusetts Graduate School of Policy Studies. “He doesn’t understand that you are not the CEO of Massachusetts in politics. This isn’t a Mormon household of father knows best where everything you say, people say, ‘Great!’ ” . . .
“We’re the land of bored governors who would rather be president or U.S. senators,” says DiNatale of UMass. “So he may be here only until he figures where he can pick up the Senate seat. Is it going to be Utah or Massachusetts?” [meow]

What will be interesting is to see how the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention proceeds. Governor Romney wrote a “A citizen’s guide to protecting marriage” at last week’s OpinionJournal.com

No sooner than I get back to the Senate than they find today some powder in my building that may be ricin . Just a few floors above my office too.

After going back and forth between Utah and DC five times in the past six weeks, moving, the holidays and a new baby daughter, I was hoping to be able to settle down and blog with a regular internet connection (oh, and maybe do some work too). Hopefully it will be a false alarm.