Almighty God,

We come to you disappointed, confused, sad, angry, and speechless.

Through the tears of the Governor we are reminded of times in our own lives when we have disappointed, hurt, and admitted failure to you and others.  We come to you as broken individuals that have sinned against you by what we have done and left undone.

Forgive us for mocking the sin of others.
Forgive us for rejoicing at others moral shortcomings.
Forgive us for constantly justifying sin in our lives and in the lives of others.
Forgive us for going about our daily routines and not loving as you love us.

We are uncapable of fully living the truths that we proclaim.
We are dependent on your grace.
Thank you for bestowing it upon us.

As the father whose love is never failing, pour out your extravagant love on the Sanford family in these difficult times.  Remind Mark that nothing can separate him from your love and forgiveness.  Lead him to sincere repentance.  Give his family hope for a brighter future that is lit by your love, mercy, and kindness

As the author of relationships, comfort the staff and friends of the Sanfords.  Provide friends, mentors, and spiritual leaders for all who are in need.

As the reconciler of the world, continue the work of restoring trust and relationships among all of us and with you.

And may the redemption we know through your son spread and conquer all selfishness,
Amen.

After religiously following election news for the past few months and watching all of the debates and forums, I believe that the best interviews with the candidates occurred at Saddleback Church.

If you missed Saddleback Church's Civil Forum I recommend that you watch it in full. Both candidates had an hour of one-on-one questioning by Pastor Warren and it painted a telling picture of each candidate, their world view, and how they would approach the presidency.

To watch the Forum go here:
Saddleback Civil Forum in full

Many issues are at stake
Some more important than others

Update: Prof. Robert George - "Obama's Abortion Extremism"

His speech was very well done and was filled with hilarity, humility, and insight for our futures.

Some of the shots I got:

Update: Furman Magazine Article and Furman Photographer's Gallery of Commencement

When the news came that President George W. Bush will speak at Furman University’s Commencement on May 31st, I was immensely pleased. I am an alumnus of the Class of 1997, and though I’m not as active as some of my peers — as Furman’s alumni giving department might attest — I do retain enduring ties of friendship and affection for my alma mater. Coming from a peripatetic military life, Furman and Greenville were the closest things I’ve ever had to a hometown. In that light, news of the President’s planned visit inspired pride: my University was always a place of excellence, and it is at last getting its due.

A full disclosure is in order: I worked for George W. Bush from 2001 through 2004. This is not as remarkable as it may sound: thousands of others can claim the same. I was a Schedule C political appointee — selected ostensibly by the President, but really by the White House personnel office, to perform tasks in the Executive Branch. For just under four years, I wrote speeches for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, first on domestic issues, and finally on international affairs.

Depending upon your perspective, then, I am either a public servant or a right-wing operative. What I am not is an unalloyed fan of the President. Having served in the Administration and seen the policy process firsthand, I am well aware of its shortcomings, its errors, and its flaws. Having had classmates from the Furman Army ROTC battalion killed and grievously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, I am also well aware of the terrible human cost of this Administration’s policies. The injured and the dead were better men than me, and so their loss is an especial blow to our society and country.

All of this is preface: though I believe history will judge this Presidency more kindly than popular opinion does now, I understand and appreciate those who disagree. They are our friends, our family, and yes, our former teachers.

Those who disagree include the members of the Furman University faculty who are dismayed at the President’s imminent visit. They number approximately 220, to judge from the signatures on their cloyingly named “(W)e Object” petition at the University’s website. Furman alumni will note the names and understand most of them — there is always a cadre of professors in any school that cannot resist a good, public display of self-promoting righteousness, especially when there’s media involved.

Other, more surprising names on the petition present themselves as probable cases of departmental peer pressure, which reveal much about academia’s state. The departments that produce few graduates who work in their field per se — English, Philosophy, Religion — are overrepresented. The department that actually deals directly with politics, Political Science, is wholly unrepresented. This is not to say that the Political Science faculty at Furman supports the President. It assuredly does not. It is nonetheless noteworthy that the professors with the strongest grasp of the issues at hand in the President’s visit choose to steer clear of their peers’ politicized emoting.

What we see at Furman University now, in this fracas, is not a case of left versus right, but of the adult versus the juvenile. It is painful to arrive at this conclusion, loving my alma mater as I do, and having had no small part of my own juvenilia corrected there. Yet it is inescapable: the declared rationale of the Furman faculty of “(W)e Object,” set against the facts, reveals a professorial group motivated not so much by politics as by love of self — and tragically unable to distinguish between the two.

Like dramatic heroines in a Victorian penny dreadful, the Furman faculty of “(W)e Object” declare that they must protest the President’s visit because — well, because they have policy disagreements with him. In their minds, these policy disagreements elide into moral differences, and the result is an inability to display the most basic value necessary to the modern university: tolerance.

These professors present themselves as latter-day Cincinnati of Greenville, reluctantly abandoning their plows to serve the greater good. “[W]e accept our civic responsibility to speak out against [the President’s] actions,” intones their petition. The litany of those actions is drearily familiar: Iraq, domestic surveillance, global warming, and — rather incredibly — “reckless over-spending” and “expanding the reach of national government into local affairs.” (Suffice it to say that I recall a silence on those last two during the Clinton years.)

One might assume, then, that the student leadership of the Furman class of 2008, which unanimously approved the invitation to the President, is completely unaware of these things. Or, one might assume that these students are aware, but do not especially care about issues on which 220 of their professors suffer the most grave impetus toward “civic responsibility.” It is now up to the Furman faculty of “(W)e Object” to step in and rectify the moral and factual gaps left by four years under their own tutelage.

Whether this is irony or tragedy is irrelevant: it is damning.

The truth is that Furman’s students are quite aware of their nation, their President, and the critiques of both. They are also aware that they must live in a pluralistic society, simultaneously undergirded by common values and enriched by different ideas. They understand that in our Constitutional order, the American Presidency is an august office regardless of its occupant, and deserves respect as such. Finally, they know that a thought does not demand to be uttered merely because it exists — they know that there is a time and a place for someone else’s protest, and that their day is not it.

Dan Hoover of the Greenville News proposed that the students of Furman are more “conservative” than their faculty. This strikes me as doubtful, but even if true, it does not explain the discrepancy between Furman’s students and their teachers now. There are plenty of leftist, anti-Bush students in the Furman class of 2008. The reality — at once hopeful for our country, and unfortunate for Furman — is that when the President speaks on May 31st, the wisest, and indeed most adult members of the audience will be the young men and women about to leave the University forever.

This piece originally appeared in a severely edited form in the Greenville News here, on 24 May 2008.

President George W. Bush to be Speaker at Furman Commencement Exercises May 31

Vince Moore, Director of Media Relations
April 10, 2008

President George W. Bush will serve as commencement speaker when Furman holds its graduation exercises Saturday, May 31 at 7:30 p.m. in Paladin Stadium. As has been the case in recent history, a graduating senior will also speak at the exercises.

GREENVILLE, S.C.—President George W. Bush will serve as commencement speaker when Furman University holds its graduation exercises Saturday, May 31 at 7:30 p.m. in Paladin Stadium.

The White House announced today that President Bush will speak at three commencement exercises this spring. The other two are at Greensburg High School in Kansas and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Furman will award approximately 650 degrees at commencement. As has been the case in recent history, a graduating senior will also speak at the exercises.

Furman has never had a sitting president visit the campus in its 182-year history.

The opportunity for President Bush to speak at commencement arose when the South Carolina Governor’s office contacted the university about that possibility. Furman president David E. Shi met with the senior class leadership, and they were unanimous in their endorsement of the university issuing a formal invitation to the President.

Governor Mark Sanford is a 1983 Furman graduate, and he was the university’s commencement speaker in 2001.

“Mark was remembering his alma mater in this instance, and he was instrumental in bringing the President to Furman,” Shi said.

The university will provide details in the coming weeks about the policy for attending Furman’s 2008 commencement. For more information, contact Furman’s News and Media Relations office at 864-294-3107.

############

Bush in the Furman Dining Hall making his last campaign stop in SC during the 2000 primary:

Inglis for Congress

The Incarnation of the Caring Class - A New Social Revolution

Few know that you'll often find me, during my down time, watching or
listening to political coverage. You might call me a shade-tree
political analyst. News shows get intensely interesting for me when
events become focused on an upcoming political presidential election.

Perhaps many would assume that I'm a liberal - in that I've spent most
of my life around the poor who generally vote Democratic. I'm a social
troubadour, singer-song writer and folk artist. I'm one of the later
baby-boomers and early gen X'rs, born in the 60's and idolize Bob
Dylan. I admire Dr. Martin Luther King. I see myself as partly
contributing to his legacy and in part an extension of his vision. For
many, that is enough to make me a liberal.

However, it might surprise you to know that places of poverty are
mostly responsible for peeking my interest in supply-side economics
and social conservatism. Many would assume that as a southerner,
evangelical and Calvinist that I am hopelessly conservative. But while
I'm conservative, I'm not your dyed in the wool Republican. I'm
something quite different and more radical than that. Nevertheless,
I'm convinced that government policy toward the poor has proven itself
at best ineffective and at worst dangerously counterproductive and
corrosive.

"So you are a moderate then…?", one might suspect. Let me say, of any
option in the array of choices, I am moderate - least of all. As I see
it, the gravest sin on the left is careless social engineering,
compassion from a distance and with other people's money. The
insidious sin on the right is that mostly they could care less. Some
have said that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting
poorer. This is true. The rich tend to get richer because they
continue to do the things that made them rich. The poor tend to remain
poor because they continue to do the things that make them poor.
However, through the intervention of the caring class, this does not
have to remain this way. There is a way for those who are poor to
become rich through moral transformation, through industry and
financial literacy. I've seen it happen with my own two eyes.

You might say that I'm a conservative who gives a damn (please pardon
my French). But I passionately believe that what is most needed in
pockets of poverty is an infusion of good conservative family values,
the Judeo-Christian work ethic and empowerment through education. More
importantly I believe that the intervention of the word and work of
the gospel and of the church is God's prescription for what ails
American pockets of poverty.

So who should be president?

If we become what God has designed us to be as the church, an
institution that is truly salt and light, pouring ourselves out in
radically transforming ways, it matters little who is governing. The
church frankly has depended too heavily on government either to
legislate our moral framework (conservatives) or to commission our
enterprise of compassion (liberals). The government's internalization
of our values and social vision are more the outgrowth of our
effective evangelistic strategies and our incarnational community
activism.

However, after 18 1/2 years of front-line urban ministry, I see the
multi-generational impact of the war on poverty and its resulting
degradation of culture, family and individual dignity - in the very
place where those components are the most necessary for overcoming the
challenges of poverty. And so I will be voting conservative. But I
will also be applying and leveraging our rich theological and
educational heritage among the poor to such an extent that through our
common sacrifice we will see the poor become rich - in every way. I
hope you will join me in this.

I love his statement in the next to last paragraph.

It reminds me of one my favorite Mike Huckabee quotes,

"I'm often asked why taxes are so high and government is so big. It's because the faith we have in local churches has become so small. If we'd been doing what we should have -- giving a dime from every dollar to help the widows, the orphans and the poor -- we now wouldn't be giving nearly 50 cents of every dollar to a government that's doing ... what we should have been doing all along."

As the Body of Christ we need to realize that governments may be helpful in solving problems, but that the ultimate solutions will come through the Church and lives that have been transformed by Jesus.

Surprisingly enough, I found Hillary's event much more enjoyable than Barack's. This is most likely due to the fact that she did a policy speech rather than a flowery speech with little substance. And did anyone else realize that Obama uses teleprompters at the majority of his speeches? You can see them on either side of him below. I always thought he spoke extemporaneously like Huckabee does.

My favorite picture I took - a classic Drudge Report style photo.

I can't make an entry for two democrats without plugging my own party. Advance voting in Georgia begins today. Find your county's special advance polling place here. Below is a great new video made by a Huckabee supporter.