Reaction to the Hillary Clinton campaign hostage situation

In case you haven’t heard, Hillary Clinton’s campaign office in Rochester, NH was invaded by a man claiming to have a bomb, and he took several volunteers hostage for about five hours.

The situation finally ended when Leeland Eisenberg released the hostages and surrendered to police.

Thankfully, no one was hurt. The Rochester Police Department and Captain Paul Callaghan handled things wonderfully, kept order, and resolved the situation without letting it get any worse.

Hillary Clinton is apparently getting on a plane any minute now to come to NH and thank her campaign staff and the police for their handling of the situation.

I have to say that this is exactly what she should do.

But the real reason that I’m posting this is a call that I heard on Sean Hannity’s show this afternoon.

My last words on the YouTube Debate

Though there are many of them …

First of all, I hope that we have real debates in the future — when people talk, go back and forth, and are allowed time. You know, like debates?

Newt Gingrich has called for a return to Lincoln-Douglas style debates, and I think he’s right. These mass-forums don’t serve the public well because:

The YouTube debate: Content

I don’t want to go too far into specifics, because I think that this so-called debate was a debacle. It was pathetic.

I do think that Gov. Romney looked terrible. Almost as bad as Mayor Giuliani. Sen. Thompson never passed on an opportunity to lob verbal bombs at the other candidates, which is not the way to run a real campaign.

I think that John McCain actually did very well. In the opening bickering over immigration, it was — strangely enough — McCain who came out doing the best. Even if I think that he was substantively wrong, he sounded good, he sounded like he took the issue seriously. That’s far more than I can say for Romney or Giuliani.

Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo were, as usual, generally ignored. Rep. Tancredo did very well with the time that he had, but that wasn’t much.

I was working on posting about this piece by piece, segment by segment, and then I realized that it wasn’t worthwhile. I learned NOTHING by watching this debate. There wasn’t as single word said that hadn’t already been said, except those which were totally unimportant (such as that Sen. Thompson owns gun but won’t tell us which ones).

I have to give Gov. Romney credit for his reaction to the Confederate flag question — he seemed incredulous that he was actually being asked that. He went on to answer the question, but at first I thought he was saying that he wasn’t going to waste his time on such a question.

He would have been right to do so. It was a waste of time for him to answer, and for those of us who were looking for information from candidates to have to sit through that foolishness. Since no one is talking about hanging a CSA battle flag at the White House, that time should have been spent on a responsible question — “Do you believe that the FBI should be allowed to use executive warrants and national security letters without judicial approval?” comes to mind. “Do you believe that it should be a national priority to find Usama bin Laden?” might be good.

A couple mailings

Considering the criticism I threw at the previous Ron Paul “more than pro-life” ad, I feel obliged to mention the Ron Paul mailing we received today … I find it perfectly acceptable. It lists what he’s actually done and plans, and has removed the exaggerated claims and proclamations. I appreciate this one. It was really all about specifics, which is a wonderful change from other mailings.

We have also received a John McCain mailing covered in quotes from various figures commending Sen. McCain’s character. i have to admit, I half-expected to find “let me make this clear, if there’s anybody on this stage that understands the word honor, I’ve got to say Sen. McCain understands that word because he has given his country a sacrifice the rest of us don’t even comprehend,” attributed to Gov. Mike Huckabee at the debate in Durham, NH. It wasn’t there.  I felt rather relieved, actually.

These were both very good, as far as they went. It’s been a lot more pleasant in the mail this week.

Frankly, I haven’t bothered critiquing the Mitt Romney or John Edwards mailings we’ve received this week.

Finally watched the debate

My first comment about the debate at large is …

What is this country coming to?

I realize that these were the rejected questions, but what kind of person submits questions by animated aliens, melting snowmen, their dogs, stuffed animals, or talking 100-dollar bills? This is a Presidential race in the real world, not Fantasy Land. The President represents real people — not Gumby, Bullwinkle, Sponge Bob, or Garfield.

This was pathetic.

Most of the questions were designed for the purposes of setting people off against each other — “What do you think, was New York a sanctuary city?” What does that have to do with Romney running for President?

This debate isn’t about discussing ideas of the future, it’s almost entirely about finding each candidate’s faults in the past and watching them eat each other.

I’ll get back to the substantive comments on the content of the debate, but my initial thoughts on the debate format and questions are not positive. This is a joke.

In Memoriam: Henry Hyde

At about 3 am this morning, former Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Illinois) went Home.

Congressman Hyde was a champion of families and a champion of the causes of life in his positions, though not without his flaws. I’ll mention that in a moment.

Henry Hyde was a World War II veteran, serving in the Philippines in the U.S. Navy. He was raised in a Democratic family, but changed parties in 1952 to support the candidacy of Dwight Eisenhower.

The YouTube debate, first question

I’ve read several posts about it, from a few wonderful people who live-blogged it last night (thanks yet again to Kerry and Caleb, especially).

In the opening exchange, I must ask — what is wrong with Giuliani and Romney?

The two are yipping back and forth like children. Neither looks remotely Presidential so far. I’d love to see each of them come out and apologize for their abominable behavior last night.

Christian Carnival CC

The 200th Christian Carnival is posted at NickQueen.com.

Sorry I didn’t get this up yesterday, but he posted it rather late in the day, and I didn’t see it until now.

The Christian Carnival is a weekly collection of some of the best posts of the Christian blogosphere. It’s open to Christians of Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic convictions. One of the goals of this carnival is to offer our readers to a broad range of Christian thought. This is a great way to make your writing more well known and perhaps pick up some regular readers.

To enter is simple. First, your post should be of a Christian nature, but this does not exclude posts that are about home life, politics, or current events from a Christian point of view. Select only one post dated since the last Christian Carnival (i.e. from the last Wednesday through the coming Tuesday). Then do the following:

You can use the Blog Carnival submission form, or you can send your submission to christiancarnivalsubmissions @ gmail dot com.

Please submit only one post (per blog, per author) dated since the last Christian Carnival deadline, i.e. something posted since midnight EST Tuesday night, November 27 (5am GMT Wednesday, November 28). [If you are emailing your submission: if you are able to do so, please submit your information in Times New Roman 12pt font, preferably in plain text. The uniformity will save time for the host.]

Include the following information in your submission:

1. The name of your blog and a link to your main site. (Adding the name with a hyperlink would be a nice courtesy to the host.)
2. The title of your post and the URL of the post. (Again, adding the title with a hyperlink would be helpful.)
3. If you want a trackback, include a trackback link. (Tracking back is optional. Some hosts may oblige you; others may not have the time or ability.)
4. Include a short (one- or two-sentence) description of the post. Your description may be edited by the host, but many hosts often use just what you give them. (So don’t say anything you wouldn’t want published.)

The deadline for submissions is midnight EST Tuesday night, December 5 (4am GMT Wed December 6). Be aware that hosts have the option of limiting the Christian Carnival to the first 40 (or 50) acceptable entries. Most hosts do not do this, and many weeks do not have that many posts, but this is a good reason to enter early just in case. Hosts that do this do not have the option of selecting their favorites, so you can’t rely on your post being good.

You can see the more extended instructions on post submissions here, and you can join the weekly reminder list for the Christian Carnival here. (Note: there was a previous announcement list for the Christian Carnival. That list is no longer usable. This one came into existence around the beginning of May 2007. If you have not joined such a list since then, you are not on the current announcement list.)

Disclaimer: As the goal of this Carnival is to highlight Christian thought in the blogosphere, entries will be limited to blogs that share that goal. Posts strictly focused on matters unrelated to Christianity or from blogs with potentially offensive material that Christians may not want to link to may end up being rejected, but there are other carnivals that would be a more appropriate for such posts. Though this will be a judgment call on the part of the week’s host or the carnival’s organizers, and being human they may make mistakes, this is necessary given that the Christian Carnival is sometimes quite large, and it is sometimes questionable whether the entrants are seeking to promote Christian thought.

On a Positive Note

Why Do You Support Mike Huckabee?

Check out the stated reasons. It’s great.

Following up on civility and such …

I’m sure you can imagine my surprise at coming home from my Bible study group, turning on the computer, and finding a comment (since removed, as it deserved) swearing at me for not being a good enough Christian.

I then deleted the other worthless comments (including three identical ones listed from different people — either one liar who can’t keep his story straight or a pro-Ron Paul form letter written for spamming purposes … I can’t say I care which), and set about reading blogs from two wonderful bloggers who live-blogged this evening’s debate.

One of them, I’m unable to thank because spammers have persuaded her that it’s necessary to close her blog to comments.

I think she would know who she is … So, if you’re reading this, thank you.

If you’re one of these people with nothing better to do than bombard with whom you don’t agree with nasty comments … please, grow up.