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Karl Rove tries to marginalize half the country.

Esquire: Sept 2004: Ron Reagan: ‘[This summer] a fresh age appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the sound of scales falling from people’s eyes.’

I’m always striving to be fair, even though I frequently miss the mark. To this end, I sent a short note to South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham yesterday — via his Web contact form — praising his sane and honorable conduct in the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings.

Dear Sen. Graham:

Thank you for engaging these Abu Ghraib hearings with intelligence, courage, tenacity, and an obvious passion for justice.

The Republican Party has lost me forever, but I am nevertheless committed to giving credit where due: Your behavior over the last few days makes me proud, and gives me a glimmer of hope that honor and justice may yet carry the day in my government.

Thank you, sir.

Lindsey triggers the welcome realization for me that I don’t have to be in total agreement with people (especially government leaders) to be okay with them; I just need ‘em to show enough character, honesty, and clear thinking to be able to respect ‘em.

IOW, character still trumps political affiliation.

Good. I’ve been getting more shallow and dismissive of fellow citizens as our national politics have become more polarized. I’m determined to stop that trend. Deep and welcoming are still far, far away as accurate descriptors for me, but that’s the direction I aim to go in.

Legitimate dissent, however, will continue unabated. If mindless, unquestioning “patriotism” is a symptom of shallow — and I believe it is — then willingness to dissent is a necessary ingredient of deep.

2004-06-18 update: Oh, c’mon, dammit. I don’t think these guys are ever going to reveal anything voluntarily; subpoena is a minimum requirement to force their hand.

I really, really like William Rivers Pitt’s definition of a patriot’s duty:

The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say ‘No.’

Context: We have a patriotic duty to stand against the USA Patriot Act. (Citizens in hundreds of U.S. communities — who recognize unconstitutionality when they see it — are doing just that.)

On a related note, cartoonist Mark Fiore entertainingly blasts John Ashcroft’s Patriot Act Summer Tour.

More seriously, Walter Cronkite minces no words about the USA Patriot Act, saying, “In his 2 1/2 years in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft has earned himself a remarkable distinction as the Torquemada of American law.”

I really want to add my 2¢, but each time I try I have to keep striking out uncharitable words like stupid and clueless concerning anyone’s support for these thugs now that so much about them is out in the broad light of day. So I’d rather wait until I can be a bit more constructive than that.

2003-09-25 update: Meteor Blades articulates the constructive reframe I’m looking for: Bush supporters aren’t stupid and clueless; they’ve been betrayed.

From yesterday’s Boston Globe article Religious Leaders Try to Raise Voice for Peace:

At the same time [as President Bush makes a case for war in his SOTU address], at Boston’s storied Trinity Church, leaders of many of the state’s religious traditions … to make their own case, for peace.

The simultaneous events highlight an increasing tension between an openly religious president and the leaders of many of the nation’s religions.

I believe this tension is well-founded. I look at the U.S. administration and see a whitewashed sepulchre, as Jesus called the openly religious scribes and Pharisees: “You are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.”

Be careful that you are not led astray.

“I don’t want to second-guess [the president’s] discernment, but I think he’s clearly misguided on this issue,” said Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, who is organizing tonight’s religious event, at which Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs plan to pray together against war …

God is father of all of us. I imagine this [multi-faith prayer] event makes him glad.

“I’m not sure that, at this stage of preparations for war, there have ever been so many voices so united and so concerned,” said the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, the president of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ. … “We’re letting our national leaders know we are not in agreement with a preemptive rush to war, and we are standing in solidarity with each other and with our neighbors in a faraway country called Iraq.”

Indeed. This is what we as peoples of faith are called to do.

I find Jesus’ words in Luke 21:8 speak directly to the present situation: “Be careful that you are not led astray; for many will come in My name… Do not go out after them.”

Update: Follow-up article on this Trinity Church meeting appeared today, Diversity in Faith, Unity in Peace:

“How can we not be against this war?” [Bishop] Shaw asked last night. “This unity, this interconnectedness that is the heart of our faith cuts across all of our national identities and is more powerful than all the leaders in the world or the armies or the weapons in the world.”