Robert George

Robert George, the Princeton professor of jurisprudence, makes the necessary point about the Terri Schiavo case in National Review Online:

What we must avoid, always and everywhere, is yielding to the temptation to regard some human lives, or the lives of human beings in certain conditions, as lebensunwerten Lebens, lives unworthy of life. Since the life of every human being has inherent worth and dignity, there is no valid category of lebensunwerten Lebens. Any society that supposes that there is such a category has deeply morally compromised itself..... it is clear that the only reason for Michael Schiavo's decision is that he considers Terri's quality of life to be so poor that he wants her to be dead. He claims that she would want that too, which I don't grant, but even if he's right about that, we should treat her like anyone else who wants to commit suicide. We rescue, we care. We affirm the inherent value of the life of every human being. Our governing principle should be always to care, never to kill.

Life is worth living, period. All of it. In this week celebrating the redemptive power of suffering, it is reassuring that at least some members of our Congress (and at least one Princeton professor, God bless him) understand this basic and non-negotiable point.

Classic Bush

Here is a classic response by President Bush in today's news conference:

Q Mr. President, you faced a lot of skepticism in the run-up to the Iraq war, and a lot of criticism for miscalculating some of the challenges of postwar Iraq. Now that the Iraq elections seem to be triggering signs of democratization throughout the broader Middle East, do you feel any sense of vindication?
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I fully understand that as long as I'm the President I will face criticism. It's like part of the job. Frankly, you wouldn't be doing your job if you didn't occasionally lay out the gentle criticism. I welcome constructive ideas as to how we might do our job better. So that doesn't bother me. And, therefore, since it doesn't bother me and I expect it, I don't then seek vindication.
Look, history -- shall I give you my talk on history and presidencies? Okay, thank you. I don't -- what's interesting is George Washington is now getting a second, or third, or fifth, or tenth look in history. I read the Ellis book, which is a really interesting book, and -- "His Excellency," it's called. And McCullough is writing a book on George Washington, as well. People are constantly evaluating somebody's standing in history, a President's standing in history, based upon events that took place during the presidency, based upon things that happened after the presidency, based upon -- like in my case, hopefully, the march of freedom continues way after my presidency. And so I just don't worry about vindication or standing.
The other thing, it turns out, in this job you've got a lot on your plate on a regular basis, you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, how do you think my standing will be? (Laughter.) I've got a lot to do. And I like to make decisions, and I make a lot of them.
But, you know, look, the people who deserve the credit in Iraq are the Iraqi citizens that defied the terrorists. Imagine what it would be like to try to go vote thinking that there could be a suicide bomber standing next to you in line, or somebody would lob a shell or a mortar at you. The courage of the Iraqi citizens was just overwhelming, I thought. It's easy for us to vote. The question is, what it would be like to vote if you were fearful for your life. Parts of the country people were getting messages that said, if you vote we'll find somebody you love and take care of them. And yet they defied these terrorists. It was a powerful moment in the history of freedom. People in the world got to see what it means to -- for a group of people that have been downtrodden to rise up and say, I want to be free.

There he is. Self-effacing, forgiving of others (including the press), confident ("I like to make decisions and I make a lot of them"), funny, deep-thinking about history (but with a light touch), a reader (who'd a thunk it?), humble (i.e., willing to shift and share credit for good events), and, most importantly, a clear and consistent voice for freedom.

McGwire and Steroids

My eight year-old son, who is a huge baseball fan and a huge Cardinals fan, saw Mark McGwire's picture in the paper this morning under a headline about steroids. He said, and I quote, "Mark McGwire didn't use steroids, no way! He's one of my favorite players. I love Mark McGwire. I love Ozzie Smith. I love Bob Gibson. I like Stan Musial." (Aside: it's amazing how kids' minds work; you'll note that he's going backward through history, as if he has a mental chronology of Cardinal greats.)

I am going to be so pissed if it turns out that McGwire did use steroids, and I expect a lot of fathers are going to feel the same way. My boy has a Mark McGwire lunch box for crying out loud!

Baghdad in Brookfield

The horrible shooting that took place in Brookfield, Wisconsin (a relatively toney suburb of Milwaukee) over the weekend at a church gathering at a hotel, killing eight, was less than five miles from my house. My prayers go out to the families of the slain; it was another senseless mass killing, apparently by a middle-aged loser who snapped. The papers talk about "motive," as if there is a motive that would suggest to any sane person to shoot up his own church. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Milwaukee is a city of 1 million people or so, spread out over an area (counting suburbs) that is perhaps 10 miles by 10 miles -- let's say 100 square miles. A terrible act of violence occurred in part of the city, killing eight people. (Over the weekend there was also a woman in the inner city of Milwaukee who was stabbed to death by her roommate -- that murder happened probably four miles from my house in the opposite direction.) Does that mean that the American system is breaking down? Does that mean that democracy can't work here? Does that mean that Milwaukee is a quagmire? Should America withdraw from Milwaukee? Is Milwaukee a bridge too far?

I'm being facetious, of course. Life goes on and the murders in Brookfield, while tremendously sad to the families of the people involved, were only a story on the news for most of the rest of us. People were still shopping at Brookfield Square on Saturday and Sunday; we had a church social/auction Saturday night; people still went out to dates on Saturday night; children went to school this morning; people drove to work; etc., etc. The murders -- they were something that happened miles away.

The point is that same kind of quotidian existence -- the everyday comings and goings of life -- are undoubtedly going on in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq, and for exactly the same reason. Baghdad is a city of 5 million people that is probably something like 25 miles by 25 miles in size, or around 600 square miles. It's 5 times bigger than Milwaukee. If a murder happens 20 miles away in Baghdad, does that mean that your life is untenable in your neighborhood? Does that mean that democracy can't work there? Hardly.

People need to get a grip when they talk about Iraq, and stop and think about what it would be like to be there. It's probably harder in some ways than we imagine, but it's probably also a lot less intense most of the time in most of the places than we think.

Good News, Bad News and Non-News

One. Dan Rather is signing off tonight, and, while I have obviously never liked his brand of "journalism," and frankly have never watched him regularly -- does anybody under the age of 65 with an iota of computer-savvy or a responsible, non-9-to-5 job watch the network news? -- the whole sign-off seems like much ado about nothing. A news reader stops reading news... big deal! Where's the story?

Two. A sad little ex-star, Michael Jackson -- when was his last hit record? -- turns out to have been just as weird and fruity as we expected, and appears to have perpetrated at least some nastiness on a little boy. But where were his freakin' parents in this scenario? What reasonable parent lets their little kid hang out with a nut job like this? All in all, a sad scene, but, again, why is this such big news? Bad parents neglect their children and bad men take advantage of that parental neglect to do nasty things. That sort of thing is happening every day in every city in America.

Three. A pathetic loser of a dumb jock, Jose Canseco, finds that no one thinks he's cool anymore since he's not playing major league sports, so he writes a book claiming that Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa and Raphael Palmeiro are or were all doing steroids. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't; maybe McGwire became Big Mac because of the juice. Do I care? Maybe a little. But why is this national news?

Four. Jen and Brad split. Jen and Brad get back together. 'Nuff said.

Five. Martha Stewart.... eek! It's not news!!

Meanwhile, democracy is on the march in the Middle East, the last place on earth that seemed immune to what President Bush has called the deepest longing of human nature. This is news. This is world-shattering, paradigm-shifting, life-affirming news. Why are we so distracted?

Let's keep our eyes on the ball, people.