Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Inside the Campaign: How Mitt Romney Stumbled
posted on September 18, 2012At Politico, Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei write a piece critical of Stuart Stevens, Romney’s top campaign strategist. They report Stevens rewrote Romney’s RNC speech, which failed to mention the troops serving abroad; he also allowed Clint Eastwood to speak without oversight at the RNC. “In what many in the campaign now consider a fundamental design flaw, Stevens is doing three major jobs: chief strategist, chief ad maker and chief speechwriter,” Allen and Vandehei write. “It would be as if George W. Bush had run for president in 2000 with one person playing the roles of Karl Rove, Mark McKinnon and Michael Gerson. Or if on the Obama campaign of 2008, David Axelrod had not been backed up by Jim Margolis, Robert Gibbs and Jon Favreau.”
The Disappeared
posted on September 18, 2012Salman Rushdie recounts for The New Yorker going into hiding after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa for him following the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims deemed blasphemous for its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. Written about himself in the third person, the piece reads: “He needed a name, the police told him in Wales. His own name was useless; it was a name that could not be spoken, like Voldemort in the not yet written Harry Potter books. He could not rent a house with it, or register to vote, because to vote you needed to provide a home address and that, of course, was impossible. To protect his democratic right to free expression, he had to surrender his democratic right to choose his government.” The alias Rushdie chose, which he lived by for eleven years, was Joseph Anton, taken from two of his favorite authors, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekov.
U.S. Outposts Still Face Threat in Muslim World
posted on September 18, 2012Reporting from Cairo, The Washington Post‘s Michael Birnbaum and Karin Brulliard write on the continuing unrest throughout the Middle East. American diplomatic presence in the region has been reduced. Meanwhile, country leaders “looked ahead to a week of trying to make an uneasy accommodation between the anger of their citizens and their desire to convince the United States of their goodwill.”
Josh Mandel Wants to be a Senator. If Only He Could Get His In-laws to Donate.
posted on September 18, 2012The New Republic’s Eliza Gray reports on Republican Josh Mandel’s Ohio Senate campaign. While Mandel hopes to win a Senate seat and pass conservative legislation, including anti-abortion laws, his wife’s prominent Jewish family is holding fundraisers for Obama. Mandel’s election is indicative of a problem that the GOP will have with Jewish voters. Despite GOP efforts to highlight alleged weaknesses of the Democrats with regards to Israel, “Ohio voters, like voters elsewhere, seem much more concerned about the economy than about what’s going on in the Holy Land,” writes Gray.
Pope Urges Arab Leaders To Work for Peace in Raging Middle East
posted on September 18, 2012Reuters reports on Pope Benedict’s visit to Lebanon, where he conducted an open-air mass, which was attended by many Arab leaders, including a representative from Hezbollah. However, no reference to the controversial video that mocked prophet Mohammed and has caused extreme unrest throughout the Middle East was made. “May God grant to your country, to Syria and to the Middle East, the gift of peaceful hearts, the silencing of weapons and the cessation of all violence,” the pope said.
Internet Intensifies Jewish Squabbles over Israel, Identity
posted on September 18, 2012CNN’s Dave Schechter reports on growing divisions among Jews in regards to Israel, politics, and what it means to be Jewish – arguments only exacerbated through social media. Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, told Schecter: “There’s a reason for the old adage that one should never discuss politics or religion in polite company. These topics often lead to impoliteness, and it’s no less true of Jews discussing Israel and religion as anyone else.”
Saving Rimsha, and Ourselves
posted on September 18, 2012At National Review, Kathryn Jean Lopez writes about the statements the Obama administration made in the wake of the recent attacks on embassies in the Middle East. Seeing those statements as a “near-apology for the freedom of speech,” she writes, “The current administration simply doesn’t value our freedoms in quite the same way Americans used to do.” For Lopez, religious liberty is the first freedom upon which all others are based. “Without a robust sense that religious freedom is granted by the Creator, not the state, it becomes just another matter for political debate.”
Why I Love Mormonism
posted on September 18, 2012At The New York Times, the philosopher Simon Critchley writes about why he came to appreciate Mormonism, and how he is troubled by his liberal New York friends’ blatant anti-Mormon sentiments. Critchley sees Mormonism’s theology as American, democratic, and “properly and powerfully post-Christian,” a little understood, but important development. He writes, “In the context of you-know-who’s presidential bid, people appear to be endlessly talking about Mormonism, but its true theological challenge is entirely absent from the discussion.”
Rosh Hashanah 2012: The Jewish New Year Explained
posted on September 17, 2012The Huffington Post explains Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the Jewish New Year. This Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the 5773 year in the Jewish calendar, and “is celebrated in 2012 from sundown on Sept. 16 to nightfall on Sept. 18.” “A common greeting on Rosh Hashanah is shana tovah u’metukah, Hebrew for ‘a good and sweet new year,'” writes Huffington Post.
The Power of Political Communion
posted on September 17, 2012At The New York Times, Molly Worthen writes about how both presidential campaigns have framed this election as a “cosmic decision” between, as Joe Biden recently said, “two different visions, two different value sets.” And because both Vice President Biden and his challenger, Paul Ryan, are practicing Catholics, the “cosmic” dimensions of this election have often taken a decidedly Catholic form. Yet this season, the Democratic Party, the longtime political home for most American Catholics, has “marginalized progressive Catholic intellectuals.” The Democrats have done so, argues Worthen, “for the same reason that Rome has: because they habitually challenge sacred doctrines.”