For the record: judging, discerning, and choosing are part and parcel of life. From day one, our senses present the world to us and we’re off on the grand adventure. All is recorded in the Book of Life from cradle to grave. “Known but to God” can be recorded on every tombstone. And so, now we come to the death of the “great man”, Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy. What constitutes this greatness matters. Of late, we have seen idols and iconic figures come to their respective ends. To judge, to discern, to choose is human, wisdom depends on it. Society learns and survives by it.
Let a merciful and just God judge the disposition of a soul. I’m okay with that for myself and others. What to make though, of hours and days and in some cases eons of public pronouncements and near cult worship. Senator Ted Kennedy died and now the myth begins, or has it been spun like a cocoon about him throughout life? For the butterfly to emerge, the cocoon must be broken.
I’m of the opinion that God isn’t wowed by the Kennedy legacy and I’m certain all spin stops before His throne. A face to face with God isn’t like Facebook, Twitter or even “Meet the Press”. Men may flatter us, but the truth is that pride goes before a fall. Before the Almighty, humility is the better garb.
For my part, I see that Edward Moore “Ted” Kenned, had it all; life lived to the full. He got the chance as the youngest of nine children born to a Catholic mother who practiced her faith, not birth control, to experience family, faith, power, love, fun, sin and foolishness. He got to make mistakes, ask forgiveness, build bonds of kinship and friendship. He got to roar like a lion and cry like a baby. I see, too, that this gifted and blessed man, failed to find it in his heart or philosophy to support the unborn, the un-named also conceived by the will of God, failed to grant them protection or welcome into the same life he so abundantly lived. May these, the Holy Innocents, now pray for him, their brother, offering the purest Innocent, the Lamb of God, to a loving Father who even Now, stoops to the lowly when they cry out for mercy. Lord have mercy!
Ignatius Press sticks to the facts and leaves the funeral fuss, fantasy, and lionization to press, popular myth romantics, and political agendas.
Obama is said to be a master of the word and speech. If this is true, then we must suppose his limp response to the murder of Pvt. William Long is very meaningful. The President had at his disposal all the elegant and convincing verbage we have come to expect from him (whether he means it or not.) It is due from the Commander-in- Chief, when one of his troops is murdered. Contrasting Obama’s response with the response he gave when George Tiller, a late term abortionist (with much blood on his own hands,) was murdered; using words like “heinous” and expressing “anger” and “outrage,” Obama was quick to respond and dramatically vocal. The absence of such sentiment, and the three day delay in any response, speaks volumes. We have to ask: Where do Obama’s loyalties lie?
Obama’s passive voice, the dispassionate euphemism, the blameless, faceless, semantic nicety; that is a far cry from a cry of truth. We get abstractions from a man avoiding the reality of a jihadist convert killing one of our troops, one of Obama’s own charges serving loyally and dutifully. No calling out his killer here, just “a sensless” act. By who? and why? we may ask? Obama doesn’t seem to want us to notice that someone, a jahadist, pulled the trigger killing one soldier and gravely wounding another, 18-year-old Private Quinton Ezeagwula.
Michelle Malkin puts it in words for all of Obama’s failure to react.
The Anchoress writes:
And yet, here we are, watching thousands of words being written about the grotesque murder of George Tiller, all of which dutifully identify his killer by name, race, religion and ideology, (Scott Roeder, white, Christian, anti-government, and anti-abortion) while the sad story of Pvt. William Long is quietly put to rest, with little-to-no-mention of the shooter:
[NPR’s] news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have “religious motivations.” She did not name the suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, or tell NPR listeners what those religious motivations might be. In other words, it could have been a radical Unitarian who gunned down the soldiers, or possibly a violent Presbyterian.
The story about Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad grows more interesting by the day:
A joint FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment…said officers found maps to Jewish organizations, a child care center, a Baptist church, a post office and military recruiting centers in the southeastern U.S. and New York and Philadelphia.
And:
An FBI joint terrorism task force based in the southern U.S. reportedly had been tracking Muhammad after he traveled to Yemen and was arrested and jailed there for using a Somali passport, an official told The Associated Press. The probe had been in its early stages and based on Muhammad’s trip to Yemen, ABC News reported.
…At Tuesday’s court hearing, Deputy Prosecutor Scott Duncan said Muhammad told investigators that “he would have killed more soldiers had they been in the parking lot.”The press duly (and briefly) reports, then re-focuses on Tiller, and the evil “Christianists” who are all responsible for his murder. Meanwhile, Obama is keeping silence, even foregoing the perfect opportunity to memorialize his soldier.
When George Tiller was murdered, Obama spoke out, and then he mobilized his justice department, to deploy guards at abortion clinics. Sort of like a Commander-in-Chief might do, if he feels his beloved country is under attack. When Pvt. William Long was murdered, Obama said and did…nothing.
As AllahPundit reports the modus operandi seems to be: Dont’ ask-Don’t tell, but that isn’t working:
The real significance, of course, is that it puts the lie to the White House’s feeble spin about how Sotomayor supposedly misspoke in 2001, a position the nominee herself has been forced to adopt even though people on her own side admit it’s nonsense. Evidently, the idea that her biology makes her a superior judge has been with her for decades. The only wrinkle: In 1994 she insisted it was her gender that made her “better” and by 2001 that notion had evolved to include race as well. Nice to know that her progressivism became more “sophisticated” over time.
Hot Air writes concerning Sotomayor inconvenient statement of her judicial stance:
And so the retreat begins, as predicted yesterday in Politico’s story about Democratic strategists nudging The One to walk back her comment and make it go away. Obama weighed in on this himself just a few minutes ago, saying he’s sure she would have “restated” what she said if she could do it again; Gibbs makes essentially the same point. Nice try, but their problem here is that she wasn’t speaking off the cuff at the time. It came in the course of a speech, something to which a federal judge would devote care in composing. Either she’s a sloppy writer, even on matters of great cultural sensitivity like race, or she meant exactly what she said. And somehow I find it hard to believe she’s a sloppy writer.
Lady Justice no longer wears a blindfold, but the American people must, not to see the irony and pathetic stance of this kind of justice and this administration. For Obama appeals to the great American heart in his heralding the success story of Sotomayor. However, there is another classic American story, as engaging as Sotomayor’s for true grit, that the American people should get to heqr at the Senate confirmation hearings and that is the story of Frank Ricci.
Charles Krauthammer hopes for a moment of illumination for America’s voters, just to be clear:
Ricci is a New Haven firefighter stationed seven blocks from where Sotomayor went to law school (Yale). Raised in blue-collar Wallingford, Conn., Ricci struggled as a C and D student in public schools ill-prepared to address his serious learning disabilities. Nonetheless he persevered, becoming a junior firefighter and Connecticut’s youngest certified EMT.
After studying fire science at a community college, he became a New Haven “truckie,” the guy who puts up ladders and breaks holes in burning buildings. When his department announced exams for promotions, he spent $1,000 on books, quit his second job so he could study eight to 13 hours a day, and, because of his dyslexia, hired someone to read him the material.
He placed sixth on the lieutenant’s exam, which qualified him for promotion. Except that the exams were thrown out by the city, and all promotions denied, because no blacks had scored high enough to be promoted. Ricci (with 19 others) sued.
Case dismissed by the three-member circuit court panel including you guessed it Sotomayor. Ricci promotion denied thanks in large part to ‘empathetic’ Sotomayor. No American success story for the white guy, because he’s white.
Krauthammer: On the Ricci case. And on her statements about the inherent differences between groups, and the superior wisdom she believes her Latina physiology, culture and background grant her over a white male judge. They perfectly reflect the Democrats’ enthrallment with identity politics, which assigns free citizens to ethnic and racial groups possessing a hierarchy of wisdom and entitled to a hierarchy of claims upon society.Sotomayor shares President Obama’s vision of empathy as lying at the heart of judicial decision-making — sympathetic concern for litigants’ background and current circumstances, and for how any judicial decision would affect their lives.Since the 2008 election, people have been asking what conservatism stands for. Well, if nothing else, it stands unequivocally against justice as empathy — and unequivocally for the principle of blind justice.Empathy is a vital virtue to be exercised in private life — through charity, respect and lovingkindness — and in the legislative life of a society where the consequences of any law matter greatly, which is why income taxes are progressive and safety nets built for the poor and disadvantaged.But all that stops at the courthouse door. Figuratively and literally, justice wears a blindfold. It cannot be a respecter of persons. Everyone must stand equally before the law, black or white, rich or poor, advantaged or not.Obama and Sotomayor draw on the “richness of her experiences” and concern for judicial results to favor one American story, one disadvantaged background, over another. The refutation lies in the very oath Sotomayor must take when she ascends to the Supreme Court: “I do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich. … So help me God.”When the hearings begin, Republicans should call Frank Ricci as their first witness. Democrats want justice rooted in empathy? Let Ricci tell his story and let the American people judge whether his promotion should have been denied because of his skin color in a procedure Sotomayor joined in calling “facially race-neutral.”Make the case for individual vs. group rights, for justice vs. empathy. Then vote to confirm Sotomayor solely on the grounds — consistently violated by the Democrats, including Sen. Obama — that a president is entitled to deference on his Supreme Court nominees, particularly one who so thoroughly reflects the mainstream views of the winning party. Elections have consequences.Vote Democratic and you get mainstream liberalism: A judicially mandated racial spoils system and a jurisprudence of empathy that hinges on which litigant is less “advantaged.”
Colorado has a way of making paradise seen very close to the day to day of things. Riding the range looks as though it’s good for the heart. The sounds were as wonderful as the sight of cattle, horses and their riders.
Here is heaven on the hoof:
Be Holy! 