View From the U.K.

The Telegraph has a great piece on Obama and the terrorist who tried to ruin Christmas.

Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots at Republicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong after the Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed to waltz onto a Detroit-bound flight.

For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama's treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.

. . .

The incompetence of the US intelligence bureaucracy is not the only thing that makes Underpantsgate so damaging for Obama. More serious is his failure to understand or acknowledge the nature of the enemy - and to view war as mere politics.

Really, the Brits were kinder to Obama than the U.S. media would have been had the episode taken place under the Bush administration: there would have been complaints that the president "failed to connect the dots"; complaints that he should cut his vacation short and rush back to Washington; and then the inevitable Congressional hearing followed by a thousand page report.

Arbchbishop of Canterbury Proposes Islamic Alliance

It would be easy to laugh, or cry in response to remarks of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but that does not do credit to Romans 8:28-- that "all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." (NRSV).

The Archbishop made headlines for calling for religious plurality, and criticizing:

Christianity's history for its violence, its use of harsh punishments and its betrayal of its peaceful principles.

His comments came in a highly conciliatory letter to Islamic leaders calling for an alliance between the two faiths for 'the common good'.

His remarks attempt to respond to criticism for his suggestion a few months back that British common law (upon which American law is based) should give equal treatment to Sharia law. His central thesis is not so different from Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who believes that American brought on the attacks of 9/11 with our own "terrorism."

Sounding like a flack from the Obama campaign, Williams hinted that there is room under the bus for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:

He [Williams] also said the Christian belief in the Trinity - that God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost at the same time - 'is difficult, sometimes offensive, to Muslims'.

Trinitarian doctrine conflicts with the Islamic view that there is just one all-powerful God.

In the face of such doctrinal conflict, according to the Archbishop, we should remember that truth is relative. Unfortunatley, that implies that there is no such thing as truth:

Lambeth Palace hinted that Christians as well as Muslims should listen to Dr Williams' message.

Officials pointed to the Archbishop's call for 'religious plurality' to turn to serving the common good and added: 'This is true even where truth claims may seem irreconcilable.'

For those who cannot comprehend why one of the most powerful leaders of Christ's Church so easily jettisons its fundamental tenets, read how Tony Snow addressed the philosophical and theological question of why he had cancer. I was reminded of his essay when the Anchoress linked it up at the time of Snow's passing.

Bottom line: whether it is the Archbishop of Canterbury's apostasy, or Tony Snow's cancer, or even Barack Obama's newly articulated brand of socialism: God will be glorified, and His will remains sovereign. We may pin election cycles to four year increments, but we did not start the calendar -- even if it's hereafter called "B.O."

Why must we suffer under the supposed leadership of someone, like the Archbishop, who is so lost? That's like Tony Snow asking, "why do I have cancer?", when the better question is, "Why not me?"

I can't improve upon Snow's words:

It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose.

So there you have it: in a fallen world, all things work to the good, despite the best efforts of disease, Rowan Williams and Barack Obama.

McCain Gets It

John McCain reassured conservatives (and anyone else who doesn't want to be killed by a terrorist) that he rejects the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that enemy combatants can assert the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. McCain called the 5-4 decision "one of the worst" decisions in our country's history.

McCain noted that the Court's opinion reminds us of the importance of a president selecting judges who interpret the law rather than legislate from the bench. Justice Anthony Kennedy went beyond usurping Congress's right to make legislation; Kennedy amended the Constitution itself by judicial fiat.

I've been reading David McCullough's John Adams recently and was struck by how little respect Kennedy showed for the Framer's conception of government. Adams and most other Framers understood our government to derive its authority from the consent of the governed. How on earth an enemy combatant, captured in another country and imprisoned beyond our borders, can be understood to have consented to our form of government -- so to take advantage of the rights it affords -- makes no sense.

Kennedy, moreover, has played a bait and switch with Congress, by encouraging Congress to pass the very laws that he then turned around and struck down.

Justice Antonin Scalia, in dissent, is doubtless right. The Court's decision makes us more vulnerable to terrorist attack. People will die as a result, and not just Americans.

Perhaps the most macabre aspect of the majority opinion is the perverse incentives it gives our military when fighting jihaadists, to either kill or release enemy combatants. Our military can hardly risk taking an enemy combatant prisoner, because to do so would give the terrorist a tactical advantage in destroying America by demanding his newly-found right to view our national security data. So Kennedy unwittingly has encouraged our military to take no prisoners.

The Supreme Court opinion serves to remind conservative voters that regardless of their lack of enthusiasm for McCain, any justice whom he would nominate would be better than a Barrack Obama nominee. Obama, after all, might try to put Hillary Clinton on the Court just to keep her from running against him in 2012.

KFC Torched in Pakistan

Here's a weird Kentucky angle on the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. Rioters in Pakistan torched a KFC. (Hat tip: Instapundit).

Though we've heard numerous explanations as to Bhutto's cause of death, neither Colonel Sanders or trans-fats have been implicated.

It's understandable that Bhutto's grief-stricken supporters would take to the streets in response to her assassination. What makes no sense, however, is the destruction of a symbol of West, given that part of Bhutto's allure was her Western education (Harvard and Oxford) and her modernity in a nation where Islamofascists hide in caves.