I like everything I’ve seen about the upcoming film An American Carol. For those who know nothing about it, the film features a Michael Moore character as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Moore’s character defect isn’t a lack of human feeling or sympathy, though. It’s a failure to appreciate the virtues of his country.

David Zucker of Airplane fame is the man behind the production. Stars include Kelsey Grammar, Jon Voight, and Trace Adkins. If you’re headed to the cinema this weekend, achieve something culturally and politically at the same time by building a little buzz and making sure An American Carol is still rolling come November 4.

Much has been made by some conservative pundits about Obama being teleprompter dependent and how he racks up the speech pauses when he goes off the cuff. One might recall Rush Limbaugh compiling just the “uh’s” in an Obama appearance for comedic effect or Hugh Hewitt wondering how many of the awkward pauses he would accumulate during the first debate.

I don’t think the issue is that Obama is ‘prompter dependent or that he is inarticulate off the cuff. I followed him closely during the Democratic primary season and found him smooth whether working from prepared remarks or not.

The reason he has begun to seem halting is simple. Obama runs effortlessly to the left because that is his comfort zone. When he can give the “workers of the world unite” rhetoric and promote his reasons for dovish foreign policy, he is at home, talking to his people about what they all believe. That’s why he was so good in the primaries.

But in the general, he faces a different problem. He can’t roll the same way. He has to think carefully about what he says because all kinds of Americans are paying attention. Those pauses are necessary because the wheels do need to turn. He HAS to find the nuance in order to avoid appearing radical.

Just a little note to the moderates . . .

John McCain deserves tremendous credit for maintaining his cool while being repeatedly interrupted by protesters. Somehow, he managed not to lash out or show visible irritation. I kept expecting him to yell, “What the hell did you ever do for your country? Don’t you think I deserve to be heard? Have I earned that much?” He soared above it.

On the other hand, I have to rate the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the speech as weak. It had the same uninspiring feeling as a George W. Bush State of the Union. The laundry list, the calling out of ordinary Americans. When he started naming people struggling with recession, I thought of some campaign functionary looking at the poll results. “Cares about people like me” — Check. The first part of the speech had to be endured, sort of like direct mail that repeats the old pattern and the old tricks. You have to wade through it to get to the meat.

The good news is that there was meat. McCain got through the faux SOTU and began talking about what really matters — who he is, what his life has been like, why he is ready to lead. When he talked about that, the tingle started to develop. You could feel it. The contrast sharpened almost painfully. You realized, “Barack Obama has scarcely held a full-time job and we are about to elect pretty words when we desperately need a veteran.” That’s when John McCain scored. Scored points in bunches. He shook off a tired old cocoon and metamorphosed into the great man when he did that.

Francis Beckwith’s emailed his latest Southern Appeal post to me. It’s worth reproducing in full here:

Andrew Sullivan does it again: he tries to demean Gov. Palin and fails, again
by Francis Beckwith

Andrew Sullivan writes:

From an Eagle Forum Candidate Questionnaire:

Q: Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

The phrase was added in 1954.

Andrew, again, has not done his homework. The question was about the “under God” phrase, which, as historians of the American founding note, was added to the Pledge by Congress in 1954 precisely because it was uttered on several occasions by none other than George Washington, including this historically important moment:

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

– Address to the Continental Army before the Battle of Long Island (27 August 1776)

So, the journalism B.A. from the University of Idaho beats the Harvard Ph.D. (in political philosophy) yet again.

John McCain drew blood with the Palin pick. That was obvious from the ill-considered instant press release from the Obama campaign deriding the accomplished governor of Alaska as the former mayor of a tiny burg on the tundra.

It hurt. McCain fooled everyone. The fumble-rooski just took a backseat to the McCain Maneuver.

Maureen Dowd is on the case, though. She’s got that Sex and the City world-weary cool thing working, see. All smart, jaded, and hard-hearted. With all that going for her, she writes with the subtlety of Randy “the Macho Man” Savage selling Slim Jims.

Check out this winning sentence in her latest column:

But that crazy maverick and gambler McCain does it, and conservatives and evangelicals rally around him in admiration of his refreshingly cynical choice of Sarah, an evangelical Protestant and anti-abortion crusader who became a hero when she decided to have her baby, who has Down syndrome, and when she urged schools to debate creationism as well as that stuffy old evolution thing.

Careful, Maureen. We know your tastes. Here, you point out that Sarah Palin is an evangelical Protestant (a group you find less than admirable), a supporter of a more open conversation about Darwinism (a concept you find baffling and disturbing), that she is pro-life (Taliban Alert!), and that she gave birth to a baby with Down Syndrome. There are three things about Sarah Palin in that sentence which you find really disagreeable. Those three things surround the fourth thing, which is the baby with Down Syndrome.

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I could reproduce the whole thing, but you’ll do fine if you just follow this link:

http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2008/06/alaskas-gov-sar.html

Yesterday, virtually any of you who listened to talk radio at all must have heard the CNN interview with a distressed Hillary supporter after the primetime speech at the convention.

One thing that particularly struck me was the woman’s insistence that Hillary was going to give us the jobs and the economy we deserve. Every time I get wobbly on the entitlement state (because I’m a bleeding heart conservative), something like this comes along to stiffen my spine.

When will people come to understand that a president is not like some wizard pulling levers and producing a great economy? I can recall President Clinton acting as if the Paula and Monica scandals were somehow preventing him from keeping the American economy on track. Folks, it ain’t like that. The economy represents the creation of value and productivity of efforts by American citizens in a system of relatively free exchange. The government is not doing the work.

Can the government facilitate? Yes. Can it occasionally make a very good and well-supported public works investment? Clearly. But the influence the government has is all at the margins. Not at the core. If you want the jobs and the economy you deserve, then find the people who are innovating, find the people who are generating value. Join them and forget politics, which is all too often a parasitical activity in an era of big government.

Although Obama has run his campaign almost completely as a reaction to the administration of one George W. Bush, the parallels between their campaigns are apparent.

1. Bush ran against eight years of bad judgment and personality failures of the previous administration. Obama is doing the same.

2. Bush ran as the one who could transcend partisan differences in Washington. So is Obama.

3. Bush faced concerns about his misspent youth. So has Obama.

4. Bush was believed to have done hard drugs. Obama has admitted it.

5. Bush picked Dick Cheney to reassure voters about experience on the ticket and foreign policy gravitas. What do you suppose Obama just did? Heres the http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/23/america/24biden.php

It reflected a critical strategic choice by Obama: To go with a running-mate who could reassure voters about gaps in his resume, rather than to pick someone who could deliver a state or reinforce Obama’s message of change.

I continue to be stunned at this thing. I’ve heard a number of people describe Obama’s answer about abortion as thoughtful or professorial. Let’s take the answer apart quickly bit by bit.

First, he says the question of when life begins is above his pay grade. That is an astonishingly lame way to answer the question. You could say that about nearly any question of right or wrong. Pilate asked, “What is truth?” Any other above-my-pay-grader could ask, “What is justice? What is right? What is wrong? What are rights, really?”

Second, he gave the talking points of the party. Personal decision. In consultation with pastor, husband (which really isn’t their position), doctor. Not taken lightly.

Just apply that set of standards to doing anything else wrong. What about the decision to prohibit one’s daughter to marry a black man? “I made that decision after reviewing it with my spiritual advisor. It was very personal. Not done lightly. I’m sure you all can understand. The question of race mixing is really above my pay grade. Who can judge?”

The answer wasn’t thoughtful or professorial. The answer was relativistic and typical of the type of justifications we employ when we don’t want to deal with something tough.

Back on August 13, I posted an open letter to Rick Warren asking him not to leave the abortion issue out of his candidate forum with John McCain and Barack Obama. He didn’t leave it out. Looks like my fears were unfounded. Good on you, Pastor Warren.

Dear Pastor Warren,

I am writing to you to express concern about something that may get lost when you host the candidate forum with John McCain and Barack Obama at Saddleback Valley Community Church which is likely to receive national attention. The decision to address you on this question in an open letter comes with some trepidation, but I have attempted to reach you through your media agency, the church email, and your personal email with no effect. I hope this message in a public forum will come to your attention instead of sitting unread in a pile of fan mail and requests for favors.

You see, I understand and appreciate who you are and what you’ve done. You are one of the most widely known pastors in the nation and have written one of the best-selling non-fiction books of the past several decades. I have many times walked into friends’ homes and have seen The Purpose-Driven Life sitting on coffee tables or bookshelves. When Time named you one of the most influential evangelicals in America, I agreed and applauded the selection.

During this period of well-deserved fame, you have been a good steward of the blessings God has provided. You gave away 90% of your massive royalties and repaid your church for years of salary. Instead of following the sometimes frivolous paths of other celebrity pastors, you focused in on the suffering of AIDS victims in Africa. You and your wife Kay have been outstanding role models. You have avoided making intemperate statements. Neither have you become some kind of caricature of the pastor in politics, ready to drop anything for a talking-heads appearance anywhere, anytime.

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Barack Obama hopes to make a dent in evangelical Christian and Catholic support for the Republican Party. At first glance, he’s a good bet to do it. John McCain, his opponent, comes from a generation that reflexively clams up about religion.

Both men claim to be Christians, but Obama has mastered the rhetoric. He can speak in soaring tones about the kingdom, the glory, and redemption. Most importantly, he speaks of hope, which is a key Christian theme. The world isn’t destined to end in simple destruction. This whole thing is going somewhere. Our lives matter and the choices we make matter. We must never give in to despair. That is the message of hope.

In addition to hope, Obama speaks in terms of humanity, not America. Dean Barnett is disturbed that Obama doesn’t focus on America and that he poses as a citizen of the world, but this, too, is a key Christian theme. Nations burn, but we have a higher citizenship under God that remains. Most Christians know that they should love America and be thankful for it, but also that they should see the fate of humanity as interconnected.

Hope and Humanity. Obama is running a Christian campaign. It is one largely framed in the secularized and sanitized Christianity of the modern left, and regrettably, it suffers the same infirmities. It is full of Christian aspiration, but is desperately lacking in soul.

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