Slate alerts us to Pentecost 2006, the religious left’s political gathering starting this week, organized by Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Call to Renewal. Headliners include Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama and Howard Dean, with a few Republicans thrown in to maintain the Marxist group’s bipartisan facade.

According to their news release, at least one Republican snubbed them:

Jim Wallis Holds a Conversation with Gov. Howard Dean on the “Democratic Party and the Faith Voter.” (Tuesday, June 27, 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.) Gov. Dean and Mark Melman were invited to discuss: “How do Democrats and Republicans Plan to Overcome Poverty.” Gov. Dean accepted the invitation; Mark Melman of the Republican Party declined.

Mark Melman probably declined since he isn’t a member of the Republican Party. Mark Melman happens to be a Democratic pollster who worked for John Kerry.

Sojourners probably meant to invite Ken Mehlman, who might have been somewhat reluctant to open someone else’s letter, or might otherwise be disinclined to join a panel if they can’t get his name right.

Slate’s Martin Edlund also takes time to contrast the event, and Wallis, with a similar gathering and its leader, religious lefty Michael Lerner.

[T]o succeed ["influence two voting blocs that will be critical to the 2008 election"], Wallis needs to remain credible with evangelicals. His cozy relationship with Lerner and the NSP crowd, on the other hand, risks making Wallis appear unorthodox by association.

…The source of Wallis’ appeal is his apparent moderation, both political and theological. His argument is compelling in its simplicity: An overriding commitment to social justice is more basic to Christianity than the issues championed by Christian fundamentalists. But to prevail he must avoid seeming too militantly progressive. “The country is not hungry, I don’t think, for a religious left to counter the religious right,” Wallis told the NSP conference. “The country is hungry for a moral center.” To follow his own advice, he must leave Lerner behind.

That will be difficult for Wallis, who has heaped praise on Lerner for decades. For example, this book review (free registration required) from 1995:

I felt a kindred spirit with Lerner even before we met. Since becoming friends, we’ve often found ourselves on the same platforms and radio shows, or in the same book reviews.

…WHEN Michael Lerner speaks, those who listen learn. I am learning much through this book, and commend it highly, especially to progressive Christians.

Lerner’s history is also intertwined with that of Hillary Clinton, who adopted his phrases to promote her socialist health care plans in 1993. By ‘95, says Wallis, the two had “disavowed each other.” Ten years later, Lerner seemed to have come back around. Quoted by the Village Voice, Lerner says, “There’s a new openness among Democrats to speak religion, and Hillary has gone back to being who she really is.” And now they’re together again, joined through Wallis if nothing else, as Clinton strives to connect with religious voters.

Those interested should read the Albert Mohler column on “empty spirituality” referenced by Slate and take a look at Lerner’s wacky DTN file.

Oh, how I’d love to be at Pentecost 2006, if only to hear Howard Dean read from his pocket “New Testament And Job.”

I guess it’s time we start getting used to that phrase.

Here’s a shot of the Sears Tower taken a year ago next month when we visited Chicago. More photos of the trip are on Flickr.

The following phone call took place about 10 minutes ago. This is a rough transcript, as the call was not recorded:

Ring. Ring.

CNN: Hello? CNN.

Me: Yes, may I have office of Jonathan Klein, please?

CNN: Who are you?

Me: This is Mick Wright.

CNN: Who are you?

Me: My name is Mick Wright.

CNN: No, who are you with?

Me: I’m not with anybody.

CNN: You’re just calling the President of CNN?

Me: That’s right.

CNN: What is this concerning?

Me: It’s concerning some news coverage.

CNN: Ok… I can take a message. What’s your phone number?

Me: 901.—.—-

CNN: Ok, and what is this concerning specifically?

Me: The lack of news coverage on a particular story.

CNN: What story is that?

Me: The 500 chemical shells found in Iraq.

CNN: Oh, I see, ok, thank you. [About to hang up]

Me: Let me ask you a question.

CNN: Ok.

Me: Have you heard about the 500 chemical shells we found in Iraq?

CNN: Yes, I saw it on Fox News.

Me: Why isn’t CNN covering this story?

CNN: Well, I believe the Department of Defense said today that..

Me: How would you know that? How would anyone know that unless you report it?

CNN: We’ve got many correspondants in Iraq and a big staff and I’m sure we’re tracking this story. There are reports on our network and on other networks…

Me: No, CNN has not reported this story. Fox News, yes.

CNN: Ok, I’ll give him your message.

Me: Thank you.

CNN: Goodbye.

After this, I take a restroom break, and when I come back I have a voicemail on my phone:

CNN: Hi, I just spoke to you, I’m with CNN. I just wanted to give you the best way to send any information or any complaints or concerns about things that we may or may not be covering is to go to public.information@cnn.com. All of those are read and responded to and sent to the right people, so that’s your best bet. Thanks. Bye.

Yeah, thanks CNN, but I already tried that. Two days ago.

Somehow the fact that we’ve found stockpiles of WMD in Iraq is not important enough to cover in a two-day span. Stories that are more important include:

• Man who de-lints his cat wins clean award
• McPhee one of millions with bulimia
• Springsteen talks about his album’s message

Etc.

UPDATE: Fifty percent of Americans now know the facts, despite the media’s misinformation campaign:

Half of Americans now say Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded the country in 2003 — up from 36 percent last year, a Harris poll finds. Pollsters deemed the increase both “substantial” and “surprising” in light of persistent press reports to the contrary in recent years.

The survey did not speculate on what caused the shift in opinion, which supports President Bush’s original rationale for going to war. Respondents were questioned in early July after the release of a Defense Department intelligence report that revealed coalition forces recovered 500 aging chemical weapons containing mustard or sarin gas nerve agents in Iraq.

I’m a big fan of Po Bronson, the best-selling author of the profound nonfiction studies What Should I Do With My Life? and Why Do I Love These People?.

Here’s something he wrote for TIME on immigration:

I’ve lived in California for 24 years. I’ve always taken the most liberal line on immigration, without much question. I supported amnesty for undocumented workers and I marched against California’s propositions that made it harder for immigrants to receive social services. My patriotism is rooted in their perspective; their appreciation for how good life is in America serves as a valuable check on all those who complain that life was better 50 years ago or life is better in France today.

But my preset acceptance has been a blindness. Liberals like me have ignored the way the steady trickle of new Americans has become a massive repopulation program, primarily from Mexico. During the 1970s, 120,000 Mexicans came to the U.S. every year. During the 1980s, it was about 200,000 a year. During the 1990s, it was 350,000 a year. Today, it’s estimated at 485,000—every year. One out of every eight Mexican-born adults is now living in the U.S.

I no longer think it’s okay to give the Mexican government a free pass. Pushing its poor towards the U.S. seems to have become Mexico’s primary social policy. The migration rate is the highest from the areas with the poorest people. But the Mexican government has not pushed money into those areas to ease the conditions that force Mexicans to leave. It’s doing the opposite; the World Bank says those states are receiving the least government help.

This has been a threefold victory for the Mexican government. First, it eliminates the financial concern of how to care for these people. Second, the citizens who would be the angriest about the government’s inadequacies keep leaving the country. Those who would vote, protest, stage walkouts, and revolt—instead keep voting with their feet. Which in turn protects The Powers That Be. And third, as a reward for watching entire communities empty out, they receive a huge influx of cash.

…

It’s fine to welcome immigrants and support their rights. But why do we attack our own government so loudly, and yet remain so silent on how their government is failing them? For a good liberal, there’s nothing more damning than looking culturally insensitive. And Vicente Fox knows this; he knows that half of America will never dare criticize anyone who speaks another language. So he pushes his poor our way, knowing we good liberals will only rise and applaud.

Read the whole thing. And check out this one, too.

Po’s website runs deep, and he also has a blog.

This guy is too hard on himself, and others.

Last week I called the Mike Fleming show (yeah, I know) to add some substance to his criticism of a Commercial Appeal editorial. I was on hold a few minutes before the producer picked up my call and asked if I could call back the next hour because they were about to do a scheduled interview but might take up the subject again later. I decided to send an e-mail instead so I could be done with it and move on to other things.

Four days pass…

This morning I’m on my way back home after taking Alison to work, and Mike’s promo comes on. Every weekday morning at about 6:59, Mike has a little 60 second spot where he does a little rant followed by “…all that and more, typical of what you get afternoons 4-7 on the Mike Fleming radio program.” Today his rant was actually just the meat of my email, almost verbatim. He didn’t mention the source, but he used all of my information without changing any words, and simply adding a few little asides here and there. It was pretty entertaining, and not only because he was speaking in complete sentences for once (just ribbing you, Mike — in case you see this — you’re great, really).

So here’s my email, with linky goodness added for your pleasure:

Mike,

I called earlier and would call again but figured you might get as much use out of an email.

Concerning the “morning publication”s editorial today… a coworker of mine was at the Rotary club meeting and said he was simply outraged by what ABA president Michael Greco said (or what he didn’t say).

The morning publication says Greco’s “voice should not be dismissed as just another from the far-left fringe of public discourse.”

Well, I decided to do some research on Greco this afternoon, and the results are not surprising.

First off, the man is a lawyer from Massachusetts, home of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry — so that’s already two strikes against him.

But I also found out that Greco has contribued thousands of dollars to political candidates over the past decade… all of them Democrats.

Greco also supported Cheryl Jacques, who calls herself “the first openly gay State Senator in Massachusetts history.” She also claims credit for “the defeat of the Federal Marriage Amendment.”

Greco and the ABA have a chip on their shoulder ever since President Bush decided to end the ABA’s role in screening judicial nominees in 2001. This is a man who certainly has a bone to pick with President Bush; it isn’t a legal argument that Greco is making — if it were, he would make his arguments in court rather than at Rotary club meetings.

The Commercial Appeal would like to pass off Greco as a distinguished leader of a civic group, but the truth is that he’s just a partisan hack, heading up a group that has become more and more partisan over the past two decades, and it’s membership has actually declined during that time because of the ABA’s liberal bias.

Fleming quoted paragraphs six, seven and eight verbatim. It’s a very weird feeling. I imagine this is how Karl Rove feels every morning after he sends the talking points to Fox News and us inhabitants of the conservative blogosphere. Or, this could be how Michael Greco would feel if he knew The Commercial Appeal sucked up all his arguments and spewed them right back out for the general audience, uncritically.

Emily Robison of The Dixie Chicks, on Thursday:

“A lot of artists cashed in on being against what we said or what we stood for because that was promoting their career, which was a horrible thing to do,” says Robison.

“A lot of pandering started going on, and you’d see soldiers and the American flag in every video. It became a sickening display of ultra-patriotism.”

“The entire country may disagree with me, but I don’t understand the necessity for patriotism,” Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. “Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don’t see why people care about patriotism.”

Chris Peck of The Commercial Appeal, on Sunday:

The Chicks’ new album talks about mistakes, about speaking up and not backing down, about not taking the easy road but rather, the long way around.

Isn’t there something deeply American, and patriotic, about those ideas?

Peck also notes that the Memphis show appears to be still scheduled, despite earlier reports of it being cancelled on poor ticket sales.

Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.”

…They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work.

- Nehemiah 2: 17-18

The U.S. Senate recently voted to build a 370-mile fence along the U.S./Mexico border. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) called it “a signal that open-border days are over.” We could agree if the proposed fence weren’t about 1,582 miles too short, covering only 23% of the southern border, and of course leaving another 4,000 miles vulernable to Canadian terrorist cells. This is like building a well by drilling only a fourth of the way down and then calling it “a signal that our days of thirst are over.”

Sessions also quoted from a poem by Robert Frost, saying, “good fences make good neighbors.”

Then, of course, NPR swept in with a guide to the often misunderstood poem and essentially argued that by building a security fence we’re ignoring the laws of nature. What commentator Jay Keyser didn’t say, however, was that we’ve long ignored the laws of this country, a fact which has led us to this debate in the first place. Keyser also failed to note that the neighbor in Frost’s poem wasn’t trying to break through the wall, take the speaker’s job and demand free medical, free education and other benefits. One might suspect the poem would read a little differently if that were the case, no matter how friendly the neighbor was otherwise, or how well he could pick fruit, grill vegetables or landscape an apartment complex.

In fact, we have evidence that this is so:

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.

Substitute “cows” with any other entity that wants to steal across “the line,” and you have a different situation entirely. Like “coyotes,” perhaps.

Instead, Frost is specifically talking about a wall which serves no purpose other than to divide trees. It isn’t a security fence. It isn’t a wall to keep out theives. And Frost isn’t saying we need no walls on our houses or locks on the doors to keep out criminals. In his effort to correct those who would take the poem out of context to further their political views, Keyser is guilty of doing the same.

Still, liberals and media pundits (if we’re forced to distinguish between the two) took this half measure (quarter measure?) by the Senate as a sign of America’s racism, bigotry and unbridled fear. Conservatives, on the other hand, saw it as a case of political pandering (on both sides), and one group had already decided to just build the thing themselves.

A third group, moderates, may like to secure the borders but are afraid of offending our neighbors by invoking national sovereignty. As usual, the honorable Colin Powell is a perfect embodiment of the moderate ideology (or lack thereof). Powell, speaking at a business conference in Mexico City, was quoted as follows:

“The Berlin Wall did not work perfectly and the wall that the Israelis are putting up is not going to work perfectly. So, a wall alone is not the answer.”

Powell’s relaxed tone and distinguished facade softens the blow of what really is an outrageous statement. A security fence on our border equals the Berlin Wall?

And, of course, nobody ever said a wall alone was the answer. Before putting up a fence, the first thing we need to do is install a spine.

Remember that “something there is that doesn’t love a wall”?

It’s called the United States Senate.

Ben has the beginnings of a good post up at Barefoot in Memphis that I’ve been meaning to mention. I wish more liberal Christians were as thoughtful (and funny) as he:

When I need to get more furniture, I guarantee you that I will feel that “need” more than I will feel the “need” to contribute to an organization that takes care of homeless pregnant women (besides, they got themselves there, right? I deserve my couch).

Yes, Ben, you need to launch another blog where you are free to revise and expand your remarks.

Jeff has a great rant up at bloggegem review:

We take only our own pictures, we touch only our own skin and we look at a screen that tells us that we have seventy-five friends.

Some of us call them “cronies.”