The American Spectator

Methvin’s scriptural understanding is, shall we say, of moderate quality. He appears to be missing some important information. I’ve forgotten a lot of my Sunday School training, but I do seem to remember that opposing Moses was a lot worse than opposing Joshua.

For instance, anyone who opposed Moses could be swallowed up by the earth, bitten by poisonous snakes, burned with heavenly fire, or stricken with disease. True, Joshua authorized the execution of Achan and his family, but that was for a secret sin that led to disaster, not for public rebellion against Joshua.

Thus, Methvin’s attempt to paint Moses as a moderate like John McCain, and Joshua as a supposedly strict Taliban-type rightist like Rush Limbaugh, is utterly preposterous. It’s true that Joshua went through the Promised Land and thinned out all of the Canaanite precincts, but prior to this Moses was canvassing in the Transjordan — with equal results.

Of course, this appears cruel to our enlightened age, and it would be if it were just Moses, or Joshua, or the Israelites making the decisions. Nevertheless, I believe it’s recorded somewhere that God was the one who commanded the destruction of the Canaanites.

Isn’t this the trouble with liberalism? It wants the history of Israel without God, but without God, the history of Israel appears repulsive. Remove God from the picture and the Israelites were little better than Islamo-fascists.

Moreover, if Methvin wants to repair to monkeys as a standard for how we should behave, then he should eat bananas and bugs, and laze about all day instead of writing absurd essays.

But, strangely, I agree with Methvin’s larger point, badly made though it is. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh (and Ann Coulter) are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

Now, I honor Rush, but I have to say he’s being inconsistent. He told us not to sit out the 2006 election for the misguided purpose of teaching the Republicans a lesson, but he’s essentially doing what he advised us against in 2006.

I also worship at the altar that is Ann Coulter, and when she glances at me knowingly from the TV screen, during interviews, I’m as captivated with her as Britney is with Sam “Svengali” Lutfi.

But on this issue, Ann is out of her mind. Those conservatives who want to teach Republicans a lesson by working for Hillary, or by staying home, like to imagine that the election of Hillary or Obama will bring great suffering to the country.

In four years, it is assumed, the country will beg the Republicans to take over, just as it happened with Reagan after the Carter disaster. But the election of Ronald Reagan, and later the takeover of Congress by Republicans, did not come about by any sort of strategic surrender. It was hard fought all the way.

There is a story about Phaeton, who in his conceit tried to drive Apollo’s chariot, but lost control of it, alternately scorching or freezing the earth, and the end result was that Jupiter thunder-bolted the boy out of the sky. Similarly, conservatives like Rush and Ann who try to control history by trying to over-think it are courting disaster.

p>I believe it would be better for McCain to move from the moderate extreme to the conservative middle. But it might be easier for him to do that if conservatives would stop trashing him all the time. He may not be the best quarterback for our team, but he’s better than none at all. br> — C. V. Crisler