What Exactly Is Rick Warren Saying About Gay Marriage?
Rick Warren, if you watch this video from 2008, is pretty clear about his opposition to gay marriage. “Now let me say this really clearly: We support Proposition 8—and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8,” he said at the time. In this appearance on Meet the Press, it seems Warren regrets that the comments went public, and that he may have hurt some feelings. Here, he’s somewhat softer in his language—“Of course I have a position on it; I believe what the Bible says”—but isn’t the message identical?
Carl Levin: No Osama, No Taliban
So let’s say we had actually caught Osama bin Laden when we had the chance, near Tora Bora in 2001. Would that mean we would not need to raise troop levels to defeat al Qaeda and the Taliban? That the enemy would have simply dissolved? That seems like a bit of a stretch, but it’s what Michigan Senator Carl Levin argues on Face the Nation.
Bill Kristol Hasn’t Learned Lessons From the Last War
At least Bill Kristol’s inner hawk knows no partisan bounds. On Fox News Sunday, the cheerleader for the most recent Iraq War has his pom-poms out for the war in Afghanistan, and goes so far as say that a victory could stabilize the entire region (echoes of the “spread of democracy” talk from circa 2003?). Not that there aren’t Democrats and independent military minds who agree with him, but Kristol seems to be ignoring the lesson that escalating a war often brings unexpected results, some of them extraordinarily painful.
Google CEO Predicts the Future: We Will Know EVERYTHING
Whether you like it or not (this means you, Rupert Murdoch), it appears that Google is here to stay, and it just keeps growing and learning more and more about you. CEO Eric Schmidt surprised Fareed Zakaria on Sunday’s GPS with an unintentionally Orwellian glimpse into the future, a time it will be possible to “literally know everything.”
Why Aren’t British Newspapers Collapsing?
The state of American newspapers may be all doom and gloom, but there’s a different story when it comes to the British press. Circulation is down there as well, Sir Harold Evans, former editor of the Sunday Times of London (and husband of The Daily Beast’s editor in chief, Tina Brown), tells Reliable Sources’ Howard Kurtz, but the British press benefits from something few American papers do: competition. American newspapers in most markets are monopolies, which, Evans suggests, takes a bit of fire out of their reporting and writing. As for the sensationalism for which Fleet Street is notorious? Evans wonders whether it’s much different from what the American media offers its audience—i.e. Balloon Boy and the Carrie Prejean scandal.
Socialist Senator Says Man Accused of Socialism Shouldn’t Be Renamed Fed Chairman
Talk about getting hit from both sides. George Stephanopoulos asks Lindsey Graham and Bernie Sanders on This Week whether Ben Bernanke should be reappointed as chairman of the Federal Reserve—after noting that Bernanke has been named the top global thinker of 2009 by Foreign Policy magazine. Graham offers a few lukewarm words for the man many credit with staving off a world-wide economic depression, and Sanders says he will “absolutely will not vote” for Bernanke to be re-appointed.
Fox News Hearts Huckabee
Though it’s a bit premature to get excited about national poll numbers for the 2012 presidential race, it’s also hard to imagine that Mike Huckabee won’t be a player when campaigning for the GOP nomination begins. On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace treats Huckabee’s high poll numbers as big news, to which Huckabee seems to respond that one of his main considerations in whether to run is the status of his weekend show on Fox News. In other words, underestimate the power of Roger Ailes only at your peril.
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