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Home  >  Publications  > 
The Klein and the Fury
By Peter Wehner
Posted: Wednesday, April 9, 2008


ARTICLE
Commentary  
Publication Date: April 7, 2008

On Friday I wrote a response to Joe Klein's most recent Time column -- and apparently Joe didn't like it very much. On Sunday he wrote not one but two responses to my posting. They are worth unpacking.

 

1. Klein refers to me as the "former chief White House propagandist for the Iraq war" and says "those who spent the past seven years as propagandists for the one of the worst, and needlessly blood-soaked, presidencies in American history, have such a fabulous record of self-righteous wrong-headedness that they needn't be taken seriously at all."

 

One might think that when it comes to Iraq, Klein would tread carefully. As I have pointed out here, here, and here, Klein, despite his efforts to make it appear otherwise, supported the Iraq war before it began.

 

On February 22, 2003, he told Tim Russert on his CNBC program that the war was a "really tough decision" but that he, Klein, thought it was probably "the right decision at this point." Klein then offered several reasons for his judgment: Saddam's defiance of 17 U.N. resolutions over a dozen years; Klein's firm conviction that Saddam was hiding WMD; and the need to send that message that if we didn't enforce the latest U.N. resolution, it "empowers every would-be Saddam out there and every would-be terrorist out there."

 

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Religion and the Media
Michael Cromartie
Faith Angle Conference -- May 2008

EPPC Vice President Michael Cromartie moderated a series of discussions in May at the semi-annual Faith Angle Conference sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and held in Key West, Florida. Transcripts of the informative talks are now available online.


 American Evangelicalism: New Leaders, New Faces, New Issues -- D. Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, describes eight fallacies or misconceptions he held as he began his book.

 Religious Voters in the 2008 Election: What It Means for Democrats, Republicans -- William A. Galston, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and an assistant for domestic policy in the Clinton administration, discusses the importance of the Catholic vote in 2008.

 How Our Brains are Wired for Belief -- What does brain science add to age-old debates about the existence of God and the value of religion? Can political parties and religious groups use scientific insights to influence the beliefs of others? Dr. Andrew Newberg and Mr. David Brooks raise these questions and share their insights with journalists.

  


Liberating the Limerick

God's plan made a hopeful beginning
But man spoiled his chances by sinning
We trust that the story
Will end in God's glory
But at present, the other side's winning
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

In his new book Liberating the Limerick, EPPC Senior Scholar (and founding President) Ernest W. Lefever collects, and organizes by theme, 230 limericks that "reflect facets of truth and virtue wrapped in the garments of irony and caricature." Click here to read more.