And Then There Were Five...
With the sudden surprise announcement by Alaska governor Sarah Palin of her near-immediate resignation, the most important question continues to be unasked, not only by the national media, but by the several lawyers on this blog site: cui bono? After all, these past few weeks have witnessed a remarkable sight, reminiscent of murder-mystery films like "Ten Little Indians" or "Who's Been Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?"; that of three potential candidates for the GOP nomination for president in 2012 crashing and burning one after another--first Ensign, then Mark Sanford, now Sarah Palin, in a rambling, disjointed speech that recalled Sanford's similar dazed and confused behavior in front of the cameras. What are these people on? Who's doing this to them?
My first thought was that they had been kidnapped and reprogrammed by North Korea, my second that Obama had inherited the Clinton smear apparatus. But it's in the Democrats' best interest to expose these would-be nominees the day after their nomination, not years in advance. The only person to benefit from this early clearing-out campaign is the future nominee himself (now it will certainly be a "he") in 2012.
That leaves Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Mark Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal, and Charlie Crist by my count, though you may have others to add to the list of suspects--like Jeb Bush. Who of these has the money, the organization, and the considerable resources and ruthlessness of a large and powerful organization--all necessary for bribing Argentine office spies or presumably digging up Alaskan contract payment irregularities--behind him? I leave you to decide, though my guess is we'll all know the answer well before the next presidential election. Whoever he is, he's obviously been watching "Nixon/Frost". A lot.
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References
Michael Dale "Mike" Huckabee (born August 24, 1955) is a Republican politician and political commentator for Fox News Channel[2] and ABC Radio[3] who served as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007.
Far be it for me to give advice to the opposition, but I don't see why there is so much Republican "intellectual," resistance towards the Huckster.
He's already on Fox...he connects well with the people.
A natural I say.
Traveller
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)...say a David Petraeus if you could get him to politicize himself a la Eisenhower.
Just thinking for you guys....lol
Traveller
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| parent )...the next in line.
The next in line is now Romney.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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)McCain was the obvious "next in line" for 2000, and flamed out rather spectactularly. "Next in line" only works when there's no strong candidate around, and even then the presumptive candidate needs to not alienate the base.
Romney's a significantly better candidate than Huckabee--of course, Eisenhower's embalmed corpse would also clear that hurdle, but never mind--but he still gives me "empty suit" vibes, and the 2004 campaign suggests that both Republican primary opponents and Democrats are willing to engage in open religious bigotry to try to hurt him. IMO, he's got a glass jaw problem as a candidate, apart from any objections on the merits.
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| parent )He was next in line in 2008. In 2000 he was the insurgent. He was a senator with an impressive bio, but from a small state, he hadn't passed McCain-Feingold, and he was running against a Governor with a very famous name.
The Republicans have always been predictable. Vinteuil is right. It will be Romney, although Huckabee will give him a good race.
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| parent ). . .probably because McCain spent a lot of time between January 2000 and January 2008 thoroughly brassing off the base of his party. Between a bit of short-term bowing and scraping and the implosion of the other Republican campaigns, he was able to sneak back in.
As for 2000, "next in line" implies some significant history where the candidate was previously beaten out by the guy ahead of him in line. That certainly doesn't describe the GWB campaign that year.
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| parent )last I heard, and while my finger is undoubtedly far from the pulse of intra-GOP politics, I think that makes him an unlikely nominee.
Meanwhile, K-Lo at the Corner writes her first (and, statistically speaking, probably last) intelligent post ever: Predictions in Politics Are Useless.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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)I have little more to say about Palin. Her press conference yesterday was cringe-inducing.
Romney will have the same problems in 2012 that he had in 2008. I think he would be a decent president because he has a good intellect and has superlative managerial skills. But he's a substandard campaigner, he's not good at thinking on his feet (remember him talking about shooting "varmints" to bolster his 2nd Amendment credentials?), and he he's flipped flopped on so many issues that it's hard to know where his center is. He's got his work cut out for him, and I'm not optimistic about his chances. He'd be a good VP candidate, though.
As for Huckabee, I'm not a fan.
I prefer Pawlenty and Jindal because they're smart, youngish, reasonably conservative, and they how to campaign. The GOP is tarnished, and if they're serious about turning things around, then they'll need fresh faces to go with some updated ideas.
Crist is too liberal for the conservative set. I don't think he'll go anywhere.
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). . .is to privately rule out 2012 altogether right now (maybe throwing in a few head fakes to cause the moonbats to waste cheap shots at him on air) and keep working on his resume--not because of the recent shots taken at him by the online lefty jack@$$ brigade, but because is still very young and his credentials still need some burnishing. Even if somehow another Republican won in 2012 and served two terms, he'd still be a relatively young candidate in 2020 with an extra decade of experience. If Obama wins in 2012, Jindal in 2016 would be about the age that Clinton and Obama were when elected for the first time. Also, Romney and Huckabee are profoundly flawed candidates who nonetheless draw signficant numbers of votes--it would be nice to get them out of the way for future elections.
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| parent )referring to the article Jindal wrote and published in the New Oxford Review, detailing his participation in an exorcism.
Right?
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=jindal+exorcism&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
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| parent )He was there, but he didn't participate. Quote: "I was the only one present who remained silent and apart from the group." Then he said some Hail Marys. Now that the personal destruction machine is done with Palin, I suppose you'll have to find someone else to feed the beast.
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| parent )Whenever I concentrated long enough to begin prayer, I felt some type of physical force distracting me. It was as if something was pushing down on my chest, making it very hard for me to breathe. . . Though I could find no cause for my chest pains, I was very scared of what was happening to me and Susan. I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone in an attempt to find peace for myself.
The exorcism lasted a couple hours and he was there for the whole thing, praying and disturbed by it.
You can google it and read the whole thing. He wasn't there as some dispassionate outside observer. He was a participant.
edit - This isn't about "personal destruction,"
This behavior indicates that he's very extreme in his religious views. It indicates that he's comfortable with people wrestling girls to the floor, chanting and fighting with "demons" in an attempt at "healing"
He's entitled to his nutty religious views. This exorcism baloney is pure dark ages stuff, stupid and ignorant, plain and simple. I'm not comfortable with someone like that being president.
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| parent )the point is that he believed that there was an actual demon in the room, presumably pushing against his chest and ready to attack him.
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| parent )Which was my point. He mischaracterized Jindal's involvement in that room. When I said Jindal stumbled into a weird situation, there was no way that he was expecting to walk into an exorcism, or that his friend would go off the deep end, or that the people around him would do what they did. He knew was in a room full of charismatics, and he was caught between the tensions of leaving and staying by his friend, so he sat to the side and prayed. He was maybe 21 or 22 at the time, and a recently converted Catholic. He was in a college environment, which is a time when you explore things such as your religious faith, and it's when you try out different avenues to see which is a best fit. There are no indications that he became a charismatic or continued in that strange environment. My point is that when people say participated in an exorcism, they are saying untruths.
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| parent )Well, ok. Then he was probably making it up.
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| parent )He should have told a story about drunkenly crashing his car and letting the woman riding with him drown without trying to save her--that would have given him the whole gravitas thing with Democrats.
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| parent )That was like watching a dead man's leg twitch. You seriously need to upgrade your Snarky Joke 3000.
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent ). . .if you guys are going to obsess over something Jindal did in college as why he's not suitable for higher office, it's certainly worth reminding those back in the real world about the kind of conduct by 37 year-olds that Democrats have no problem with for *their* leaders. You know, the whole perspective thing.
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| parent )driving drunk with a strange woman and getting into a horrible accident and freaking out and handling it in an unethical and sorry manner -- thats behaviour that i don't endorse, but at least can understand. i wouldn't want it to happen and if it did to me i hope i could rise to the level of decency kennedy did not in that situation.
but standing around being afraid of demons pushing my chest and watching people tackle a girl and try to exorcise her -- that is something i just do not understand. thats just some staright up crazy idiocy -- as much a standing by while some friends decided to give the poor woman electroshock therapy would be, with about the same ethical problems.
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| parent )First, I'm not sure anyone's obsessing about it. It was brought up to point out that Jindal will have a little 'splaining to do in this regard, and is something less than the savior the party requires -- and forget exorcisms, what possessed him during that disasterous GOP response? The rapid response team -- Bird Dog Division -- leapt into action to defend the calumny, and that's fine. But the latter is what helped the thing balloon into a larger argument, not the original statement. Again, obsession? Hardly.
Trying to find equivalence with Teddy is just lame, and entirely unpersuasive.
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent )After all, Jindal didn't kill anyone. No equivalence there.
As for disastrous public speaking appearances, you *did* watch the 1988 Democratic Convention, right? Time (and campaigning) can do wonders for getting over bad days at the podium.
P.S.--Looking at the time stamps, the response containing the link to the exorcism story was posted ten minutes after my comment. Having a link to that story on "speed-dial" strikes me as a tad obsessive. But maybe that's just me.
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| parent )You don't seem to appreciate how weird it is that Jindal participated in an exorcism.
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent ). . .but I know I'm going to appreciate the sinestrosphere lowering its collective IQ by an order of magnitude by obsessing over this where moderate voters can see it should Jindal become a serious prospect for the Republican nomination.
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| parent )I read the account and I'm a militant atheist. But it's no big deal to me on a personal level and I have no reason whatsoever to think it would be relevant to his governing.
I'll admit I was disturbed that Jindal is so self-unaware and pompous not to realize he simply had the hots for that girl, she had the hots for him, and instead had to dress it up in religious and pious garb that made him look like he was coming down from on high to 'counsel' her.
Anyway, my brother's into nuttier sh%t and from what I can tell does a good job as a US Attorney.
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| parent )...doesn't affect the way a person governs?
Do you think those traits make Jindal more or less likely to get a sense of Vladimir Putin's soul by looking him in the eye?
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent )Probably the creepiest story of jilted love I've ever read. "Susan" was furious with the diffident Bobby for not putting the moves on her, so she staged an exorcism to cast out her "demon" of pent up junior Christian sexual frustration. Reminds me of The Crucible.
http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2009/02/24/bobby-jindals-story-about-demons-and-spiritual-warfare.aspx
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )And it's as lame as it gets.
But again I don't see that this has much to do with his political views.
It wouldn't necessarily disqualify a progressive candidate in my mind if such details were made known and I don't see why conservatives on this board should be particularly moved either.
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| parent )or hokey beliefs in the supernatural efficacy of prayer could be anything but an obstacle to dealing with modern-day foreign policy issues. Assuming he hasn't disowned those evangelical beliefs, the story reveals a person who's remarkably out of touch with his own emotions as well as reality.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )... about the progressive expansion of what's evidence of psychopathology--and thus what's reason for dismissal or marginalization of beliefs, opinions, & commitments that are facially irrelevant to the purportedly pathological belief, behavior or opinion? Surely, Jordan, you were made to read some Foucault in your Theory-addled days.
And, look, wouldn't it just be simpler to say--"I don't want an orthodox, doctrinaire Catholic representing me"? [Because--and correct me if I'm presuming wrongly--someone with Jindal's religious beliefs & experiences who was, say, a pro-life but otherwise lock-step, even progressive, Democrat would be no less objectionable to you than Jindal, right?] Isn't that more economical--more parsimonious, from a political-theoretical perspective--than slowly but surely effacing the distinction between 'bien pensant liberal' and 'sane'?
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )as I know it. I don't think such beliefs are pathological, just delusional, and I have no problem dismissing such beliefs on those grounds. I'd have trouble with any Presidential candidate who professed to believe in such fairy tales.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )Are you kidding me? (I don't get the scare quotes around orthodox, either; obviously I don't mean it in the sense of the Greek or Russian Orthodox churches, but rather in the generic sense.)
Anyway, here's a start, from the 4th Lateran Council: "The Devil and the other demons were created by God good in their nature but they by themselves have made themselves evil." (Cite & cf. generally here) I'm sure Manish would be happy to point you to the relevant cites in Thomas, too, since he's just been reading it.
It may not be one of the menu items often chosen by cafeteria Catholics, but an account of demons, and their capacity to affect the world--up to & including possession of human beings--just is official Catholic doctrine, like it or lump it.
As for the rest--so your line is that it's not pathological, merely delusional? I guess I'd think that someone who suffers from delusions has a particular psychopathological symptom, so that distinction seems spurious, and non-responsive to the broader concern I put forward.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )There are demons
Who have an order and hierarchy
Who will be punished
Endorsed today. This is also following my comment downthread about how to differentiate possession from mental illness (my emphases).
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| parent )I would be very interested to see a vatican link on that. They take the line of not repudiating it but not endorsing it either. All the better to keep the rubes of every colour dropping the pennies in the box.
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| parent )Over here, every religion does exorcism.
http://www.catholic-tube.com/fr-rufus-catholic-charismatic-and-exorcist
From the comments:
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| parent ).
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )experience with US & European Catholics. I'm aware demonology is part of official doctrine, but if you know Catholics, you know there are a lot of things that are part of official doctrine which they have little use for. Try finding a priest to actually perform an exorcism for example: according to Jindal, the priest sponsoring the prayer group refused to play a role, & although we don't know his specific reasons in this case, it is generically true that exorcism is not at all a widespread practice. The Church's mercenary attitude towards animistic/supernatural beliefs of the dimmer bulbs among the faithful has a long & well-documented history. Aquinas among others endorsed the "each according to their lights" approach, IIRC.
I didn't mean delusional in a pathological sense. Jindal in this case was willing to play along with what was obviously a kind of make-believe, so he isn't exhibiting signs of actual delusion any more than moviegoers who enter a willful suspension of disbelief. If he were truly delusional, he'd be able to see & talk to the demons in question like David Berkowitz.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )--and it was just something he was "play[ing] along with"--who gives a crap? Why would it matter? Either the exorcism stuff is serious, and this is evidence of a mind unfit for the burdens of political office; or it isn't, and it's not.
I spent twelve years in Catholic school, myself, and knew and know quite a number of Catholics of various degrees of seriousness & piety. I've never known a single one for whom the business about demons & exorcisms is a central part of their faith, as they lived it every day, though I'd never had occasion (or the temerity) to ask if they believed Church doctrine on the subject. I should think the ordained & the pious among them would give an answer substantially consistent with the teachings of the Church, though.
All of which is neither here nor there, since it's precisely what's orthodox from the perspective of the Catholic Church that's at issue--and it looks to me as if you've conceded the point, albeit with a lot of hermeneutical hand-waving to explain it away.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )without having to medicalize their dumbassery? You're the one who brought up Foucault. Can't a person be unfit for office by virtue of good old fashioned stupidity & magical thinking? Freud's term was "omnipotence of thoughts," and it was his position that all people go through a developmental stage where they can't or choose not to distinguish between their desires and natural causality. In normal development this takes the form of play-acting, and the point is such thinking is quite normal & non-pathological. It also happens to be incorrect, in a pragmatic view of how the world works. Adults are able to return to or cling to that state of mind without our needing to invoke some actual medical malfunction in their brains – Freud would call such people neurotic if they had gone as far as to form an emotional cathexis on their play-acting, but Freudian neurosis is well within the normal, healthy range of human mental development. In other words, I'm not calling Jindal schizophrenic or delusional in a clinical sense; I'm merely saying he made a bad choice by accepting a silly notion of how the world works as more or less literally true.
On Catholic doctrine, my only point was that Catholics by and large would not feel offended by someone ridiculing the idea of exorcism, and so Scott's idea that Catholics would be alienated by ridiculing Jindal for this experience doesn't jibe with what I would expect to see happen. Do you agree? Would you expect to see US Catholics riot in the streets if someone dissed exorcism?
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )I might've brought up Foucault, but I didn't introduce the language of delusion, or all the rest. I mean, I guess now you say that his delusional conflation of his desires with the supernatural order of the world was just "a bad choice"--OK, I guess, but that's an eccentric (and weirdly voluntarist) approach to Freudian psychopathology. And I'm a little unclear why you'd think I attach the very specific sense that you do to 'psychopathological', but OK--I meant it in a broader sense than that, one that would include a 'diagnosis' of "magical thinking." Hell, I'd go so far as to say such armchair diagnoses are the very coins of the realm.
With the stipulation that I don't give a flying fig about electoral prognostication, I doubt there'd be Catholics rioting at the street at the prospect of the mocking of some piece of silly Church doctrine they're far too sophisticated to take seriously (or, if they take it seriously, they certainly don't want the neighbors to know!). I do think there's reason to doubt that those doing the ridiculing could stop themselves at just the exorcism, though. I mean, Jindal probably even believes the Eucharist is the real body & blood of Christ! Whatta maroon!
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )People who adopt dumb habits, to include adults who indulge in magical thinking, are not by definition sick or pathological in any clinical sense. And I didn't mean to suggest they were. I used the word "delusional" in the sloppy, vernacular usage to mean "prone to indulge in fantasy with a questionable understanding of conventionally understood reality." Sorry! Jeeze! I don't think Jindal & his prayer group should be involuntarily committed to an institution. I just think they're silly & that it's fair to question their judgment on things like foreign policy.
Thanks for mostly agreeing with my point about US Catholics & their supposed sensitivity about some of the more macabre points of Church doctrine. What we're discussing just to be clear is a political campaign crafting an attack position against Jindal, The Exorcist, and whether said attack would harm that campaign's standing in the Catholic demo. I doubt it would. I also doubt any campaign would be dumb/insensitive enough to go on and mock the Eucharist, and I'm pretty sure they would find it within themselves to resist any temptation to do so – I'm not sure why you raise that possibility.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )... to think that a demon might possess someone, and should be mocked accordingly when exhibited by someone running for elective office--but the Eucharist, and specifically the belief that bread and wine become the real, substantial (and not symbolic) body and blood of Christ ... that's a doctrine that ought to command our respect, even if we disagree with it? What the?! I mean, if you're saying they're both silly/delusional (in the loose sense, natch), but one is common, and therefore it would be imprudent to mock it, while the other one is fringe, and therfore it's open season--OK, that I understand.
I never said, or thought, that you said, or thought, Jindal or his prayer group should be institutionalized. The fact that you didn't use delusional in a clinical sense was also pretty clear, and--maybe I could've been clearer about this myself--the fact that this was so was actually part of the point I was making. And certainly I never denied that your point was pretty (or even entirely) conventional. Wouldn't have dreamt of doing so!
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )adhere to a hard-core belief in transubstantiation? I don't. Far as I can tell, they tend to be vaguely uncomfortable with the actual metaphysics regarding the wine & the host. At the same time they have no problem holding the ritual itself in appropriate reverence. The broad point here is that US Catholics as a rule are fairly blase about the weird 4th century metaphysics of their religion, whether you're talking demonology or Christology, without being any less fervent about the moral & spiritual dimensions of their faith. (Well, ok, disbelief in the kooky metaphysics is the starting point for many an angst-ridden teenage crisis of faith, viz. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist or the work of Christopher Durang.)
That said, dissing the Eucharist would be attacking the core of their practice as Catholics & would rightly be viewed as anti-Catholic per se, whereas dissing exorcism is ridiculing a fringe belief. I guess you could view it as calculated cynicism if you want, but making fun of exorcists isn't "anti-Catholic" in any meaningful sense, and that's the real difference.
To sum up: it shows wacky & questionable judgment to participate in an exorcism. It does not show wacky & questionable judgment to participate in communion. They aren't really comparable. One's a symbolic act you can participate in for its moral & spiritual dimensions without embracing the underlying metaphysics. The other involves holding people down and browbeating them for hours until their will collapses & you can pretend to have driven the "demon" out.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )but I'd be surprised if 30% of that 30% really did.
Even the council of trent fudged it a little and Vatican 2 was very careful to be carel;ess with their language. Classic big tent stuff. Everyone's happy - especially the nuttiest Protestants who can rail against the errors of the antichrist in Rome.
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| parent )"but one is common, and therefore it would be imprudent to mock it"
Note that I myself view both beliefs as "silly". Pragmatism rules, however, and he must needs go that the devil drives. So to speak. I'll bet Barry isn't going to lecture the Chinese at the G8 about beating up Uighers, either.....
---“It is unwise for the government to tell people how they can spend their money” - Barney Frank, Chairman House Financial Services Committee, on on-line gambling, 2009
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| parent ). . .but also because having seen the Hondurans tell The One to take a hike with impunity, the Chinese aren't going to be particularly intimidated by any such lectures. The reply would likely be, "Just imagine that we're mullahs, and that the Uighurs are helpless Iranian women standing in the street minding their own business. That should get you in the right mindset to pretend it isn't happening."
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| parent )And that warms my heart.
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| parent ). . .but you run the risk of alienating a good portion of that pesky Catholic vote, and putting off other voters on grounds of religious bigotry. Thus, the choreographed horror that a college student could show bad judgment (although the muttering about "animistic superstition" in the background is going to blow the con, so get your acts together before 2012!).
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| parent )(for a while) and have variously had contact with Catholics both more & less orthodox for my entire life. I've never known anyone who participated in an exorcism, nor have I known anyone with pronounced concerns about demonology, and most of the Catholics I've known would have little problem dismissing that stuff as over-fervent hooey. American Protestants are another story.
The segment of the US Catholic population that actually buys in to all that supernatural stuff is quite small. Belief in miracles & efficacy of prayer & salvation is as far as most of them go, in my experience.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )you don't mean to include me in that plural-your ("get your acts together"), since you haven't the foggiest about my opinion on the subject.
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent ).
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| parent ).
--Bene vixit, bene qui latuit
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| parent )Then it shouldn't be too hard to pull out a specific example of a single necessary connection between Jindalesque religious beliefs and a troublesome foreign policy issue.
I can't.
Last I remember reading about it, nearly 3/4ths of the US pop. believes in angels and/or demons, including a lot of liberals.
My impression is that for many, prayer, the belief that God communicates with them, answers their prayers, has a specific plan for them, etc. seems to function as a sort of motivational gloss on decisions they would probably make anyway. I have no reason to think Jindal's level of belief is anything more than epiphenomenal BS sprinkled mostly on top of his personal life choices and relationships.
The F'd up exchange between Jindal and that girl who had romantic feelings for him mostly involved some whacko-windowdressing to dynamics that would've been there regardless: a painful exchange between an obtuse and repressed man and a woman who IIRC was sick and didn't know how to reach out.
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| parent )operative and misplacing trust counts? How about going along with the assumption that Iraqis would have a coming to God moment, magically transforming themselves into a free, representative polity if only the evil, Godless Saddam were removed from the picture?
The core tenets of modern evangelical belief: good and evil are strict & knowable binaries; human nature can be radically changed in a conversion experience that involves little more than fervent prayer; interventionism & saving souls are moral imperatives; the folk mythologies of Judeo-Christian scriptures represent the literal history (and science) of the world to date, leading devotees to reject both history and science along with authorities derived from them. Map those beliefs on to the last 8 years of US foreign policy and you have a frighteningly accurate match between doctrine and results.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )as I said before. Trusting your gut was a personality characteristic of Bush's not necessarily tied to religion.
1. Carter is also very religious but his foreign policy was different than Bush's. So who knows what Jindal's would look like based on some fundamentalist reminitions.
2. You can map more than the last 8 years of US foreign policy onto religious evangelicalism, even where the leaders weren't evangelicals.
2a. Dick Cheney was running foreign policy as much as Bush was and he was no evangelical. Most of the neo-cons were Jewish.
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| parent )(he's more in the Christian liberal tradition) but I'd argue that yes, his religious convictions shaped his foreign policy, not always with the best outcomes.
2. Not an argument against my point. The Cold War was suffused with evangelical fervor, often with counterproductive, disastrous results.
2a. Dick Cheney & the neocons are near-perfect analogues of crusaders. Their belief in a moral imperative to wage war against evil in the world combined with a belief in the miraculous efficacy of "freedom" for converting whole swaths of the world to our way of thinking, etc. Point is, it's the manichean, supernatural worldview that is the problem, not the specific denominational commitments.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )In what sense?
He thought evolution and the Bible were compatible and said the Bible wasn't literally true. he certainly wasn't a young earth creationist or anything.
Carter identified as a 'born-again evangelical' and I didn't hear your connections between Carter's religion and his F-P.
It sounds like you're objecting to a certain mix of religion and foreign policy that you don't like, but that we don't know that Jindal makes.
2a. Cheney has a binary supernatural worldview? I've never got that sense from anything I've heard from him.
The previous points were in service of the claim that supernatural spooky beliefs are neither necessary nor sufficient for bad foreign policy.
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| parent )belief in conversion experience which at least seems to have informed the Iraq policy.
Carter tried to take America down a path of penitence & self-sacrifice, very much his brand of Xtianity, but instead America wanted the 80s.
The mix of religion & foreign policy I don't like is any mix where religious doctrine and/or religious metaphysics trump science & history on questions of fact regarding what is going on in the world. Religion as a source of moral authority & strength is fine; a distinction millions of religious people make effortlessly in the modern world.
--"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
–Voltaire
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| parent )and the typical inexperience of young conservative christians dealing with sex.
I did say I found that more disturbing than that Jindal believes in demons. So does most of the pop. It's mostly encapsulated from their decision-making as far as I can tell.
e.g. I doubt such beliefs are significantly correlated with being a stupid negotiator with Russia.
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| parent )Our 43rd President's religious beliefs led him to believe he could read the soul of a political advisory. That is scary.
Jindal wrote an article about this experience because it affected him so greatly. It is hard for me to chalk that up to being a sexually frustrated college kid.
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent )Religious people might be just as likely to think a soul can't be 'seen'. And non-religious folk might also over-estimate their ability to read people.
That was just dumb on Bush's part. Plus if you read the entire context of Bush's quote as Macallan posted here once, it wasn't quite as whackily religious as you might think. Bush liked to trust his gut, and I don't think that was a necessarily religious trait.
==
Jindal did write about his experience later in life which is a fair point. I'm reminded of a friend's father who was a smart competent business guy, owned a vacation condo down in FL, and told me and his son when we were vacationing down there some story about being visited by Jesus in the hospital in his youth.
He'd never grown out of it either, and I'm not sure I see the relevance. Religious quirks like that can be encapsulated from the practicalities of living and leading.
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| parent ).
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent )After all, that doomed the Obama candidacy once it came out.
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| parent )the exorcism will doom Jindal?
I think it shows bad judgement. And exposes him as having a rather hocus-pocus view of the world.
But that's the republican base. I think the fact that he's a nerdy little twerp with terrible screen presence and a funny sounding voice will damage him far more than his Ghostbusters exploits.
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| parent )Alert the media! With choreographed OCD-caliber comments, yet.
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| parent )You can have him. Defend him all you want. Jindal has a couple years at least to show us all what he's got.
And again, I think the wacky holy-roller stuff will help him with the gop in general, not hurt him. I'm simply giving my own opinion of this.
You can have Palin, too. Defend away. Doesn't matter to me.
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| parent )Everyone knows he's a half-grown banty rooster. Give him a decade, he might be a serious contender. Right now, he has all the gravitas of a teenage boy wearing too much cologne, whose voice hasn't changed yet.
I'm not saying he won't be a contender in the future. Just not now, and not for a good long time. Louisiana elected him, not because they like him all that much, they don't, but they were angry with his predecessor, hardly a recommendation for high office.
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| parent )nt
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| parent )...in a religious gang rape. During sentencing he'd get fewer years behind bars but just because he's left no DNA inside the victim doesn't mean he's innocent. At all.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )thing for a couple hours, cowering in the corner in fear of a demon pressing on his chest, and muttering hail marys to himself.
Then of course, he wrote and published an article about how spiritually moving the experience was.
Bad judgement and complicit in the assault and endangerment of a mentally ill person.
Not to mention looney-tunes dark-ages dumbass. Not surprising he's a star for republicans.
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| parent )sitting away from the group and silently praying is not participating. Writing about what he saw is not participating, either. Whether he believes in the existence of demons is a legitimate question, as well as any other questions stemming from the article, and I'm sure he's going to have to answer those questions when he hits the national stage.
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| parent )silently praying for a demon to be exorcised from a girl a few feet away from you who is being held down and having a bible shoved in her face is participating in an exorcism.
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent )Quote: "I was the only one present who remained silent and apart from the group."
Words mean things, Blue. You're trying to say that down is up, and in doing so, you're distorting and mischaracterizing his role in what took place.
Here's another quote: "So hopefully there is a 527 out there right now willing to ruin John McCain's and/or his family's reputation if it needs to be done."
Now that your allies' work is done with McCain, on to the next GOP threat?
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| parent )Quote:
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent )Your quote says nothing about him participating in an exorcism. That he felt there was an oppressive "evil spirit" in the room is not participation in an exorcism. Whether he believes in demons or evil spirits is a legitimate question. You liberals would be on more solid ground if you just stuck to that, but alas.
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| parent )Can someone else please explain to BD what Jindal meant when he said "us" in the passage I quoted?
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent )The definition: "To take or have a part or share, as with others; partake; share."
What Jindal said: "I was the only one present who remained silent and apart from the group."
The obvious conclusion: Since Jindal remained silent and apart from the group, he could not have participated in an exorcism.
Words mean things, Blue.
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| parent )At the beginning Jindal seems like a reluctant participant but by the end of the article he is clearly describing himself as part of the group.
Also, praying ('repeating the Hail Mary') on the behalf of someone you think is possessed by demons is participating in an exorcism. It really is that simple.
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent )The text of a Hail Mary:
How to perform an exorcism
The closest Jindal came to participating was Step 3, but he only uttered one prayer (generic Hail Marys), not a series of prayers, and he didn't make any commands for the "demon" or "evil spirit" or whatever to leave. He stood apart from the group that actually was involved in the exorcism. Step 2 would preclude his participation because he had only recently converted to Catholicism and was not strong or well-versed in the faith. He had no involvement in Steps 1, 5 and 6. I therefore conclude that he did not participate in the event.
Furthermore, as a Catholic, Jindal was not qualified to participate because only Catholic priests are qualified for the task. According to the Catholic ritual for exorcisms, the closest Jindal came to participating was Step 6:
He did say the Hail Mary. I don't know whether he said it "devoutly" but he did not say it "over the afflicted person" because he was apart from the group (and her).
Considering this, I conclude that your case is weak and not supported.
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| parent )We've gotten to posting the official steps to an exorcism!
The moral is that arguing brings out some interesting stuff even when the people doing it aren't doing it for the right reasons.
Actually that's kind of a motto for this place.
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| parent )How would you differentiate? I know how I would.
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| parent )I am Catholic and I can't tell you how to properly perform an exorcism.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't attempt one if the situation called for it. If you and I were riding in an elevator and you suddenly became possessed by demons you have my word I would try to exorcise those demons.
I am also a lapsed Catholic so I don't remember too many of the prayers. In a time of stress I would have to rely on the Hail Mary and the Our Father.
So, just like Jindal, I would do what I could to exorcise the evil spirits even though I knew my feeble attempt didn't meet the standards set by the Vatican.
Also, Jindal and his bunch of amateur exorcists actually succeeded. Through their efforts, the evil spirits possessing their friend were exorcised from her body & soul. Good for them.
Further, the Hail Mary is a potent prayer. It is a big part of the Rosary and visions of the Virgin Mary are very important to Catholics [Fatima, Guadalupe, Lourdes] . You dismiss it too easily.
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent )...because you're not qualified (and neither is Jindal). That's your priest's job. A Hail Mary doesn't qualify as participating in an exorcism, as cited from a generic source and a Catholic source. Quite frankly, I think your attempt to portray Jindal as participating in an exorcism is a hail mary, but of the Doug Flutie variety.
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| parent )...but I would still attempt it if the need were to arise.
You are clinging to the idea that there is some kind of high bar one must jump over before one is exorcising an evil spirit. This just isn't the case. Words have meanings BD.
Exorcising - to seek to expel (an evil spirit) by adjuration or religious or solemn ceremonies: to exorcise a demon.
Jindal sought to expel the evil spirit(s) from his friend by praying. That meets the definition of exorcising.
I will freely admit Jindal & Co. did not perform an exorcism sanctioned by an organized religion, and I will freely admit that Jindal wasn't a major player in the exorcism. These issues are irrelevant to the question of whether or not Jindal participated in an exorcism. The fact is he did, and he freely admits it in his article.
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent )...years of theological training, a master's dissertation and additional years of internship, you'd have a point. However, CPR takes a half-hour to learn, so your analogy is lame. Praying is not a definition of exorcising, as both links demonstrated. Sorry, but it's just not.
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| parent )plus of course the fact the CPR actually does something.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )chanting the Hail Mary at the possessed is participating.
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| parent )BD's gonna stick with his definition of 'participated' and you're going to stick with yours.
There's no longer an interesting question here.
I ain't givin no 'Amens' to nobody today!
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| parent )How we define words is important.
If we let BD & Co. get away with inventing a new definition of 'participate' then it will be easier to let them redefine 'torture' or 'lie'. Before you know it the US will be torturing prisoners and our leaders will lie their way into a war.
--I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'M crazy? - S. Tendencies
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| parent )'participating in an exorcism' is a locution nobody's bothered to make precise because borderline cases don't really matter.
Not so with 'torture' and 'lying'.
Btw, I'm on your side. The fact that he said and did nothing and apparently had the same beliefs as the people who were more active in the room is almost as bad as organizing the thing.
I doubt I'd get a lot out of a personal relationship with him and if that's what was at issue, we'd be in agreement.
He sucks and is not my friend.
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| parent )standing by, silently witnessing a rape happen make one a rapist? No.
Does standing by, silently witnessing someone get beaten up make one a bully? No.
It makes you a coward, at the very least. Throw in the supernatural crap and it makes him a superstitious coward.
Yes, it happened when he was in his 20s. Do I think he'd hold seances and exorcisms in the White House? No. That his wife would hire a psychic advisor? Not necessarily.
But it shows poor judgement, and a weak mind.
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| parent )nt
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| parent )And yes, Jindal's disastrous appearance will be long forgotten, heck, it already is. But Clinton followed his with some of the more successful speeches/appearances given by any pol of his generation -- charm, that was the dude's currency.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest Jindal is not similarly armed. Which won't be a fatal obstacle. But it *will* make his task more difficult.
Voters like nerds to run tech companies. The country? Not so much.
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent )umm, good for you, Scott.
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| parent )A predictable, logical reaction to this particular moonbat talking point.
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| parent )aahhh there we go.
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| parent ).
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent )to comment #172728?
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| parent )You offered your opinion, and it's an opinion I don't agree with.
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| parent )He was silent and outside of the group that actually was participating in the exorcism. Sitting off to the side and praying is not participating. BTW, I did read the entire article, more than once. He stumbled into a weird situation by a mentally troubled individual.
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| parent )...though less well crafted defense was offered by Marion Berry when he got caught in that hotel room indulging his demons.
--Me: We! -- Ali
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| parent )Ahh, the GOP. The gift that keeps on giving.
--“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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| parent )First, these people were his friends, not strangers on the street.
He sat by while a mentally ill person was having some sort of fit or seizure and his friends held her down on the ground and chanted over her for a couple of hours. Calling out evil spirits.
The only responsible, rational move would have been to get on a phone and call 911. The girl was seriously in trouble and his friends were basically assaulting her.
Jindal's response? Sit quietly and pray to himself. For two hours. Then write an article about how powerful and moving the experience was.
That's kooky, irresponsible behavior. Ignorant, superstitious and above all, terrible judgement.
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| parent )Sounds like a description of Palin's activities when she was pregnant w/ Trig. But hey, according to some here, that's her biological prerogative and we are disgusting jerks for bringing up that idiocy.
--Over here on E Street, we're proud to support Obama for President. - Bruce Springsteen
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| parent )he was too scared to participate fully.
Both creepy and a wuss, definitely not Presidential material.
--"Something I think most liberals don't understand is exactly how stupid many conservative leaders are." - Matt Yglesias
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| parent )To much of a coward to even say a prayer in the face of a lesser demon, how would be handle a provaction from North Korea? Would he fold when the Antichrist makes his play to set up the One World Government?
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| parent )You mean like a nuclear bomb test or the firing of 7 test missiles yesterday? Why, I'm sure he'd handle it with the same courage, firmness, and effectiveness as our current president. And the one before him.
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| parent )but I'm pretty sure Obama could use his kung fu skills against Nicolae Jetty Carpathia should he ever try to even speak at the UN. I mean... did you see that fly swat?
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| parent )I fully expect the next print run of those books to replace Carpathia's character with one having the initials BHO.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )quia non est nobis conluctatio adversus carnem et sanguinem sed adversus principes et potestates adversus mundi rectores tenebrarum harum contra spiritalia nequitiae in caelestibus
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| parent )