Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
--Deuteronomy 20:16
The Eighth Commandment. Not a real complicated rule. Not very difficult to understand, even when rendered in the somewhat archaic language of the King James Version of the Holy Bible. And yet the editor of publication aiming to serve Roman Catholics can’t seem to get it right.
Writing in Wednesday’s edition of The American Spectator, George Neumayr, editor of the conservative Catholic World Report, wrote about the "Unholy Triumvirate" of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
To be a good American now means you nod vigorously as an Obama supporter at a cocktail party bashes the Boy Scouts as bigots while explaining to you why Obama's association with the "distinguished" education professor (as Congressman Rahm Emanuel put it) Bill Ayers is no big deal. It means you chuckle along with Joe Biden as he tells Ellen DeGeneres that conservative Californians are deluded to oppose gay marriage.
Or it means listening in hushed awe as unimpeachable American hero Colin Powell calls the most liberal Republican presidential nominee ever "narrow" and insufficiently "inclusive," and scolds unnamed Americans for objecting to the notion of a Muslim president. (I was half-expecting him to join Barney Frank in calling for the elimination of the Constitution's prohibition on foreign-born presidents. Surely that's not "inclusive" either.)
To start with, it’s not just Rahm Emmanuel who calls former terrorist Bill Ayers a "distinguished" education professor; it’s the University of Illinois at Chicago, which gave that to Ayers as a formal title. And, if John McCain is "the most liberal presidential nominee ever", what then do we make of a GOP presidential nominee who helped lay the groundwork for Human Rights Watch, one who supported the ill-fated Equal Rights Amendment and one who nominated a (gasp!) liberal to the highest court in the land.
Mister Neumayr, feel free to read up on the life and times of Gerald R. Ford sometime.
Of course, the whole Muslim charge has been debunked so many times I scarcely need to repeat it here. But it’s because of writers such as Neumayr that this unfounded rumor lives on. It’s worth noting that U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, a practicing Muslim, has been serving his Minnesota constituents since January of 2007.
Or consider Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, a 20-year-old soldier who was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. His headstone is marked, not by Christianity’s cross, but rather Islam’s crescent and star.
No one with a trace of humanity can fail to be moved by the patriotic sacrifice of a man whose patriotism would have questioned by some of the people he died for.
Still, patriotic sacrifices such as Khan’s may be beneath Neumayr’s notice, the way he claims that patriotic acts are beneath liberals’ notice:
Patriotism is now measured not by respect for the conservatism contained in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution but by the level of one's enthusiasm for the America to come.
And what conservatism might that be? Surely not the notion that all men are created equal. As far back as anyone living can remember, egalitarianism hasn’t been part of the Republican game plan. Separation of church and state? Don’t be silly. The social conservative base of the GOP would love nothing more than to see the Ten Commandments posted every 25 feet or so.
Or, in Mister Neumayr’s case, maybe just nine of them.