Another Sunrise

And here's a few things accompanying it.

- As if to vindicate the ill-advised and intolerant decision that voters in Dover, Pennsylvania, made on Tuesday, Revrund Pat Robertson warned the town it would suffer the ten plagues of Egypt because it threw out a school board that favored the Intelligent Design theory of origins as an addition to its school science curriculum.

Or something like that:

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.

All eight Dover, PA, school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" — the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power — as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's 700 Club.

One could be snarky and ask how the citizens of Dover can be "good" if they've just "rejected God from their city." Personally, I'm reminded of what Christ told his disciples about any town that wouldn't listen to the Gospel:

14 "Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, (A) shake the dust off your feet.

15"Truly I say to you, (B) it will be more tolerable for the land of (C) Sodom and Gomorrah in (D) the day of judgment than for that city.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think Dover or the rest of the world is quite to Judgment Day yet. Probably not far from it, eschatologically speaking, but I think it's safe to say ol' Pat is a wee bit premature.

In the mean time he's made the Intelligent Design movement look foolish by association, and, I dare say, encroached upon God's sovereignty in the process. And really, until Judgment Day does arrive, is it really biblical to tell wayward people to "not turn to God"? "9 (A) The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but (B) is patient toward you, (C) not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (II Peter 3:9)

-Looks like Karl the Great is out of the legal woods:

Emerging from weeks of political hibernation, President Bush's longtime advisor Karl Rove told the conservative Federalist Society that rulings by liberal judges will "provoke a strong counter-reaction” through laws or constitutional amendments to limit the judiciary.

Rove addressed the group Thursday evening at the Federalist Society's annual meeting in Washington, reported MSNBC's Tom Curry.

"The public will reclaim its rights as a sovereign people,” Rove predicted, and "at the end of the day the views of the Founders will prevail.”

Rove was greeted by a standing ovation. He has been under a shadow for more than a week as some in Washington expected — and others hoped — that he might be indicted for disclosing classified information that Valerie Plame, the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson, worked for the Central Intelligence Agency....

Something tells me if the White House thought that Rove was in any remotely likely jeopardy of being indicted, he'd still be "hibernating." And that isn't good news for the "hopes" of his and his boss' enemies.

-Perhaps that makes the long-awaited Administration defense of Operation Iraqi Freedom somewhat less coincidental:

"Steve Hadley, the national security adviser, certainly refuted the critics Thursday,” [Weekly Standard poobah Fred] Barnes said. "He told the critics who said the President manipulated WMD intelligence that they are mistaken, citing all of the comments made by high-ranking Democrats [such as Senators Clinton, Kennedy, Kerry, Schumer, Reid, Rockefeller etc.] who backed the war based on the same information.”...

"If you’ll notice, Democrats say ‘Bush Lied’ but they never cite specific examples,” Barnes said. "That’s because they were saying the same things and many of their comments are captured on tape.

In politics, nothing goes without saying, and no case makes itself. If the White House has finally come to grips with that reality, it has taken a huge step toward getting back into the political game. And not a moment too soon.

-And lastly, some news on the forty-fourth president of the United States.

Resuming her "fits & starts" triangulation toward the political center, Hillary took on two lib shiboleths yesterday - Red China and abortion:

Hillary Clinton came out swinging Thursday against Red China for its forced abortion policies.

Speaking in Washington at an American Bar Association symposium, Senator Clinton used her speech to urge President Bush to challenge China's "forced abortion" policy when he meets with Chinese leaders on his planned visit to Beijing next week.

Senator Clinton described China's one-child policy as a "fundamental injustice."

Just as I describe her description as phony as a three-dollar bill. Especially as they could have been taken more or less verbatim from Three-Dollar Bill's campaign stump speeches during the 1992 presidential campaign.

-Meanwhile, her hapless Republican challenger, Jeanine Pirro, has finally figured out an avenue of attack that makes sense, even if it won't make a dent in Mrs. Clinton's at-last-count 24-point lead:

New York U.S. Senate hopeful Jeanine Pirro is attacking 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for being soft on terror during her Senate career as well as the eight years she served as co-president with husband Bill Clinton.

"Hillary claims to be tough on terrorism, yet she voted against a bill to add 2,000 new border patrol agents," Pirro said in a fundraising letter mailed on Thursday.

"And rather than get tough on North Korea's Kim Jong II who is actively pursuing nuclear weapons, Hillary pushed for a massive aid 'appeasement' package for North Korea."

"It didn't work for Bill Clinton when he was president - it certainly won't work now," the Westchester Republican added.

Very nice. It won't get Ms. Pirro to the Senate, but you can be sure - I hope - that George Allen will be borrowing heavily from this line in his desperate struggle to keep Hillary from realizing her 2008 destiny.

Part deux of "The Vast CIA-Leftwing Conspiracy" will come sometime this weekend. In the meantime, we're off to visit my folks. I'll see if I can't provide an on-the-spot report or two from this undisclosed location.