Obama's Victory and McCain's Defeat

On Tuesday, Obama won the 2008 Presidential Election and will become the 44th President of the United States. Many commentators have detailed the advantages Obama brought to the race. However, others have stated that Obama's victory was at least partly due to the McCain's many political problems. SNL's take...

The Bizzare

SNL's take on some of the unique aspects of the 2008 Election...

Executive Order Changes

There are many things President-elect Obama can do without Congress...

Obama positioned to reverse Bush actions
Stem cell and climate rules among targets of president-elect's team

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition.

In some instances, Obama would be quickly delivering on promises he made during his two-year campaign, while in others he would be embracing Clinton-era policies upended by President Bush during his eight years in office.

"The kind of regulations they are looking at" are those imposed by Bush for "overtly political" reasons, in pursuit of what Democrats say was a partisan Republican agenda, said Dan Mendelson, a former associate administrator for health in the Clinton administration's Office of Management and Budget. The list of executive orders targeted by Obama's team could well get longer in the coming days, as Bush's appointees rush to enact a number of last-minute policies in an effort to extend his legacy.

Stem cell researchA spokeswoman said yesterday that no plans for regulatory changes had been finalized. "Before he makes any decisions on potential executive or legislative actions, he will be conferring with congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle, as well as interested groups," Obama transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said. "Any decisions would need to be discussed with his Cabinet nominees, none of whom have been selected yet."

Still, the preelection transition team, comprising mainly lawyers, has positioned the incoming president to move fast on high-priority items without waiting for Congress.

Obama himself has signaled, for example, that he intends to reverse Bush's controversial limit on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, a decision that scientists say has restrained research into some of the most promising avenues for defeating a wide array of diseases, such as Parkinson's.

Bush's August 2001 decision pleased religious conservatives who have moral objections to the use of cells from days-old human embryos, which are destroyed in the process.

But Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said that during Obama's final swing through her state in October, she reminded him that because the restrictions were never included in legislation, Obama "can simply reverse them by executive order." Obama, she said, "was very receptive to that." Opponents of the restrictions have already drafted an executive order he could sign.

The new president is also expected to lift a so-called global gag rule barring international family planning groups that receive U.S. aid from counseling women about the availability of abortion, even in countries where the procedure is legal, said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he rescinded the Reagan-era regulation, known as the Mexico City policy, but Bush reimposed it.

"We have been communicating with his transition staff" almost daily, Richards said. "We expect to see a real change."

While Obama said at a news conference last week that his top priority would be to stimulate the economy and create jobs, his advisers say that focus will not delay key shifts in social and regulatory policies, including some -- such as the embrace of new environmental safeguards -- that Obama has said will have long-term, beneficial impacts on the economy.

The president-elect has said, for example, that he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration's decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. "Effectively tackling global warming demands bold and innovative solutions, and given the failure of this administration to act, California should be allowed to pioneer," Obama said in January.

California had sought permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years. Seventeen other states had promised to adopt California's rules, representing in total 45 percent of the nation's automobile market. Environmentalists cheered the California initiative because it would stoke innovation that would potentially benefit the entire country.

"An early move by the Obama administration to sign the California waiver would signal the seriousness of intent to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil and build a future for the domestic auto market," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Carbon dioxide emissionsBefore the election, Obama told others that he favors declaring that carbon dioxide emissions are endangering human welfare, following an EPA task force recommendation last December that Bush and his aides shunned in order to protect the utility and auto industries.

Robert Sussman, who was the EPA's deputy administrator during the Clinton administration and is now overseeing EPA transition planning for Obama, wrote a paper last spring strongly recommending such a finding. Others in the campaign have depicted it as an issue on which Obama is keen to show that politics must not interfere with scientific advice.

Some related reforms embraced by Obama's transition advisers would alter procedures for decision-making on climate issues. A book titled "Change for America," being published next week by the Center for American Progress, an influential liberal think tank, will recommend, for example, that Obama rapidly create a National Energy Council to coordinate all policymaking related to global climate change.

The center's influence with Obama is substantial: It was created by former Clinton White House official John D. Podesta, a co-chairman of the transition effort, and much of its staff has been swept into planning for Obama's first 100 days in office.

The National Energy Council would be a counterpart to the White House National Economic Council that Clinton created in a 1993 executive order.

"It would make sure all the oars are rowing in the right direction" and ensure that climate change policy "gets lots of attention inside the White House," said Daniel J. Weiss, a former Sierra Club official and senior fellow with the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The center's new book will also urge Obama to sign an executive order requiring that greenhouse gas emissions be considered whenever the federal government examines the environmental impact of its actions under the existing National Environmental Policy Act. Several key members of Obama's transition team have already embraced the idea.

Other early Obama initiatives may address the need for improved food and drug regulation and chart a new course for immigration enforcement, some Obama advisers say. But they add that only a portion of his early efforts will be aimed at undoing Bush initiatives.

Striking a balanceDespite enormous pent-up Democratic frustration, Obama and his team realize they must strike a balance between undoing Bush actions and setting their own course, said Winnie Stachelberg, the center's senior vice president for external affairs.

"It took eight years to get into this mess, and it will take a long time to get out of it," she said. "The next administration needs to look ahead. This transition team and the incoming administration gets that in a big way."

Staff writers Juliet Eilperin, Spencer S. Hsu and Carol D. Leonnig and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report. Washingtonpost.com

Election Day

There is something romantic and uniquely American about Election Day. This day allows one to make such a seemingly inconsequential yet all empowering act. Below you will find a poem that, I believe, firmly explains this day's importance and appeal.

J.D. MCCLATCHY:

Election Day

The older couples had voted just after dawn,
And by noon the exit polls are underway.
Some talking head opines in San Jose.
A poster leans mute and silent on the lawn.


"As the wind blows, so the flag will wave,"
Says a cynic who is nevertheless waiting in line.
The woman in front of him has been assigned
The nearest booth where she plans, again, to save


The Republic from itself - the drama played out
In this miniature theater, with its curtain and cast.
Today will be a performance of the past,
Its fortunes and flaws, its certainty and doubt.


The pencil has no eraser. She makes her choice,
Determined but still uncertain how it will end,
As the Founders were as well who thought to lend
So much importance to each small impassioned voice.


But will the cynics vote now cancel hers?
She stays behind to watch him enter the booth.
(In our democracy, we think the truth
Is what everyone, regardless, secretly prefers.)


She won't know anything but threats and trends
Until, again in the dark, but midnights now,
She can sense what hope the numbers will allow,
And what you get when you smear or overspend.


She will sit and stare at charts on CNN.
(But aren't we redeemed by what they cannot show?
The struggle in each restless heart to know
The terms on which the nations fate depends.)


She will think how, at last, millions have spoken as one,
That freedom requires an open mind and hand,
And the strength to be forgiven and understand,
And that tomorrow morning it has all just begun.


J.D. McClatchy teaches at Yale. His sixth collection of poems, titled "Mercury Dressing," will be published in February.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec08/jdmcclatchy_11-07.html

Industrialization - Disney Style

The Economic Meltdown

Confused about the credit crunch? Check out these explanations...

How the Media Reports

It is often stated that there is a liberal bias in the media coverage of political events. This claim was heard continuously throughout the presidential race between Senators Obama and McCain. Many commentators waxed that the media had "fallen in love" with Obama and were actively aiding his efforts by covering him in a positive light.

Here is SNLs Take







Yet, as is often the case in claims of media bias, little evidence was shown to confirm or disprove these statements. However, the Pew Center conducted an exhaustive study of media coverage during the campaign and did locate a bias. Yet the bias may not be what you think.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec08/campaignmedia_10-23.html

The 44th President of the United States

Nearly two years ago, if you had asked me if Sen. Barack Obama would become president I would have simply said no. However, I have been wrong before and I was proven wrong.

Much has been said of the role the economic meltdown played in this campaign. Surely, this contributed to Obama's victory, however, there was something more. The Obama campaign was able to market itself to the American people in a unique and refreshing way. Relying on the tremendous oratorical skills of its candidate the campaign build a clear and convincing argument: Empowerment. Change was the buzz word but what delivered victory was the foundation of a movement.

After watching the Denver Acceptance Speech, my father (an undecided voter at the time) commented that the Republicans were going to lose the election. The reason? As my father explained, their loss was inevitable because they were not merely facing a new and fresh candidate and a stumbling economy. Their inevitable loss would come at the hands of a campaign that had transformed itself into a movement.

This movement for change united a cross-section of the country. The united message of "Yes we can" spoke a simple refrain that the doubts, troubles, and problems facing this country could in fact be overcome. Thus, people were convinced to believe in themselves and in the Obama movement.

Never underestimate the ability of a leader to inspire. That is what Obama was able to do. He made his supporters believe in him and in themselves that this change, that this movement, was not only real but that it could win. And win it did.

Hope's Message

"I don't want a country for me, I want a country for everyone." This I believe was the message of the Obama campaign and truer words have never been spoken.

Do words matter?

My how times have changed...

A Changing America

As our nation grapples with the immigration debate, the Census Bureau issued a report showing that the United States would become a minority majority nation by 2042. This news will surely cause those who fear change and "others" great stress. Yet, as our country continues its long journey as a nation of immigrants we are left to ask what are these differences that seem to divide us? Are immigrants really that different from the past? The answer is no.

A Nation of None and All of the Above

By SAM ROBERTS
Published: August 16, 2008

Deep inside a data dump by the Census Bureau last week was a startling racial projection: By midcentury, the United States will be home to 80 million more white people.

Never mind, for a moment, that the bureau also predicts that Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American-Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will constitute a majority of the population by 2042. The number of people who say they are white is projected to rise by about two million every year.

At that rate, even while the Hispanic and Asian populations expand enormously, the proportion of Americans who identify themselves as white will barely shrink, from a little more than 79 percent, to 74 percent.

It’s not some new math metric that’s responsible. It’s the way the government defines race: most people who describe their origin or heritage as Hispanic or Latino also identify themselves as white.

Which raises an impertinent question: Why all the fuss about the nation’s impending racial and ethnic transformation?

Not only is the census all about self-identification, anyway, but all those projections, today and historically, have been subject to fungible cultural definitions. Mexicans were counted in a separate racial category in the 1930 census, but 10 years later that classification was dropped and the results were revised to count Mexicans as white. (As recently as the 1960s, there was no Hispanic category in the census at all; Asian Indians were classified as white.)

A century or so ago, the Irish Catholics, Italians, Eastern Europeans and even some Germans who arrived in droves in the United States were not universally considered white. (Much earlier, Benjamin Franklin feared that his fellow white Pennsylvanians would be overwhelmed by swarthy Germans, who “will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in my opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious”).

“In the minds of many Americans of influence and position at the time, the post-1890 immigrants — Jews, Italians, various Slavic groups, Greeks — were probably as foreign as ‘Hispanics’ are today, and considered, as Hispanics are today, as in some degree ‘nonwhite,’ ” said Nathan Glazer, professor emeritus of sociology at Harvard, who wrote “Beyond the Melting Pot” with Daniel Patrick Moynihan. “I wonder whether, in the course of the fierce debates on immigration in the first quarter of the 20th century, anyone ever tried to calculate when ‘new immigrants’ and their children would be a majority of the U.S. I am sure someone among the immigration restrictionists must have raised that alarm.”

Professor Glazer predicted that in the decades to come, racial and ethnic distinctions would be further blurred by intermarriage (about one in three grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants marry non-Hispanic spouses; by 2050, nearly 1 in 20 Americans are expected to classify themselves as multiracial).

Also, since 2000, the number of babies born to Hispanic mothers in the United States has surpassed the number of new Hispanic immigrants, which means a growing proportion of Hispanic people are being raised as Americans from birth.

“The process of assimilation is such that our views of the degree of difference of newer non-white groups changes rapidly,” Professor Glazer said. “So the Jews and Italians, considered very foreign at the time of immigration by Henry Adams and others, were much less foreign by the 30s, hardly foreign at all by the 60s — they were then as white as other whites (for a time, called ‘white ethnics’).”

Race and ethnicity, says Joel E. Cohen, professor of populations at Rockefeller University, are really about culture, not biology. Categories contrived by bureaucrats and politically correct committees can be confusing and skew the results. “Even the notion of Hispanics ranges in people of European origin in Chile to those of native-America origin in the lowlands of Mexico,” Professor Cohen said.

Those categories might be driven by political constituencies with a stake in stressing their distinctiveness or by overwhelming increases in immigrants classified as a single group. Between 1970 and 2050, according to the latest census projections, the Hispanic population will increase 14-fold.

For any number of reasons — including the way the Census Bureau configures and words its questionnaires — most people who report their origin as Hispanic also list their race as white. The government defines whites as descendants of “the original peoples of Europe, North Africa or the Middle East” and Hispanic or Latino people as those “who trace their origin or descent to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spanish-speaking Central and South America countries and other Spanish cultures.” Origin is defined as “the heritage, nationality group, lineage or country of the person or the person’s parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States.”
While the share of Americans who can trace their roots to immigrants who came directly from Europe has been shrinking, “the edges are getting blurrier,” says Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer of the Pew Hispanic Center.

Professor Glazer agrees. “I don’t think a change such that the census category of ‘non-Hispanic white’ becomes a minority in 30 years is so momentous,” he said. “By then we may not even be using that census category and long before then people will be asking why Asians are still considered a ‘minority’ of any kind.”

The Russian Mess

Why doesn't the U.S. and its NATO allies defend the pro-western government in Georgia as its very survival is threatened by a Russian invasion? Answer: We can't.

In Georgia Clash, a Lesson on U.S. Need for Russia

By HELENE COOPER
Published: August 9, 2008

WASHINGTON — The image of President Bush smiling and chatting with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia from the stands of the Beijing Olympics even as Russian aircraft were shelling Georgia outlines the reality of America’s Russia policy. While America considers Georgia its strongest ally in the bloc of former Soviet countries, Washington needs Russia too much on big issues like Iran to risk it all to defend Georgia.

And State Department officials made it clear on Saturday that there was no chance the United States would intervene militarily.

Mr. Bush did use tough language, demanding that Russia stop bombing. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded that Russia “respect Georgia’s territorial integrity.”

What did Mr. Putin do? First, he repudiated President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in Beijing, refusing to budge when Mr. Sarkozy tried to dissuade Russia from its military operation. “It was a very, very tough meeting,” a senior Western official said afterward. “Putin was saying, ‘We are going to make them pay. We are going to make justice.’ ”

Then, Mr. Putin flew from Beijing to a region that borders South Ossetia, arriving after an announcement that Georgia was pulling its troops out of the capital of the breakaway region. He appeared ostensibly to coordinate assistance to refugees who had fled South Ossetia into Russia, but the Russian message was clear: This is our sphere of influence; others stay out.

“What the Russians just did is, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, they have taken a decisive military action and imposed a military reality,” said George Friedman, chief executive of Stratfor, a geopolitical analysis and intelligence company. “They’ve done it unilaterally, and all of the countries that have been looking to the West to intimidate the Russians are now forced into a position to consider what just happened.”

And Bush administration officials acknowledged that the outside world, and the United States in particular, had little leverage over Russian actions.

“There is no possibility of drawing NATO or the international community into this,” said a senior State Department official in a conference call with reporters.

The unfolding conflict in Georgia set off a flurry of diplomacy. Ms. Rice and other officials at the State Department and the Pentagon have been on the telephone with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and other Russian counterparts, as well as with officials in Georgia, urging both sides to return to peace talks.

The European Union — and Germany, in particular, with its strong ties to Russia — called on both sides to stand down and scheduled meetings to press their concerns. At the United Nations, members of the Security Council met informally to discuss a possible response, but one Security Council diplomat said it remained uncertain whether much could be done.

“Strategically, the Russians have been sending signals that they really wanted to flex their muscles, and they’re upset about Kosovo,” the diplomat said. He was alluding to Russia’s anger at the West for recognizing Kosovo’s independence from Serbia.

Indeed, the decision by the United States and Europe to recognize Kosovo may well have paved the way for Russia’s lightning-fast decision to send troops to back the separatists in South Ossetia. During one meeting on Kosovo in Brussels this year, Mr. Lavrov, the foreign minister, warned Ms. Rice and European diplomats that if they recognized Kosovo, they would be setting a precedent for South Ossetia and other breakaway provinces.

For the Bush administration, the choice now becomes whether backing Georgia — which, more than any other former Soviet republic has allied with the United States — on the South Ossetia issue is worth alienating Russia at a time when getting Russia’s help to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions is at the top of the United States’ foreign policy agenda.

One United Nations diplomat joked on Saturday that “if someone went to the Russians and said, ‘OK, Kosovo for Iran,’ we’d have a deal.”

That might be hyperbole, but there is a growing feeling among some officials in the Bush administration that perhaps the United States cannot have it all, and may have to choose its priorities, particularly when it comes to Russia.

The Bush administration’s strong support for Georgia — including the training of Georgia’s military and arms support — came, in part, as a reward for its support of the United States in Iraq. The United States has held Georgia up as a beacon of democracy in the former Soviet Union; it was supposed to be an example to other former Soviet republics of the benefits of tilting to the West.

But that, along with America and Europe’s actions on Kosovo, left Russia feeling threatened, encircled and more convinced that it had to take aggressive measures to restore its power, dignity and influence in a region it considers its strategic back yard, foreign policy experts said.
Russia’s emerging aggressiveness is now also timed with America’s preoccupation with Iraq and Afghanistan, and the looming confrontation with Iran. These counterbalancing considerations mean that Moscow is in the driver’s seat, administration officials acknowledged.

“We’ve placed ourselves in a position that globally we don’t have the wherewithal to do anything,” Mr. Friedman of Stratfor said. “One would think under those circumstances, we’d shut up.”

One senior administration official, when told of that quote, laughed. “Well, maybe we’re learning to shut up now,” he said. He asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

C. J. Chivers contributed reporting.

Ben Stein's Take on Taxes

A Familiar Tax Tune, but It’s Not Mine

By BEN STEIN
Published: August 9, 2008

A FEW days ago, I saw Senator John McCain on television saying something I had heard a few times before. Basically, he said that if you want to have your taxes raised, don’t vote for him.

Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of Senator McCain. He’s got guts. He had a harrowing five years in captivity for his country. His son serves in Iraq and the senator never talks about it.

And, I do not want my taxes raised. I already pay a staggering amount of tax and I don’t care for it. In fact, I would like to pay no tax at all. I could have so much more to prepare for onrushing old age.

But the unhappy fact is that it’s necessary to raise my taxes and the taxes of all upper-income Americans. (I do wish, however, that “upper income” started just a dollar above me.)

The sad truth of the last two two-term Republican presidents is that their economic premise, the key part of their economic game plan, simply has not done what it’s supposed to do.

That is, cutting taxes, especially on upper-income Americans, does not generate so much economic activity that it replaces all the lost I.R.S. take and then some. At least those have been the results so far. When Ronald Reagan lowered taxes, personal income tax revenue stagnated from 1982 to 1984. Now, you may say that revenue rose sharply after that. So maybe that was a mixed result.

But when President Bush drastically cut taxes after he was first elected, the I.R.S. take from individual income taxes fell and did not recover its 2001 level until 2006.A conservative purist might rejoin here that it would be fine if income tax receipts fell, because we would then have a smaller government and a freer society.

That would be nice, but far from true. Instead, government just keeps growing. Government spending grew dramatically under President Reagan, very nearly doubling, and leaving us with a federal deficit vastly bigger than the one he inherited. I know that a large chunk of that increase was to rebuild the military. I heartily approved of it.

But if you want to have a military buildup — and we need one now, desperately — that’s usually a reason to raise taxes, not cut them.

Under the current president, we have had the same story. As income tax receipts fell, military and other spending rose rapidly. Again, this spending was justified as far as I’m concerned. But we have been left with immense deficits and a doubled national debt as President Bush enters his final months in office.

Mr. McCain wants to extend many of President Bush’s income tax cuts and to reduce taxes on corporations. But the facts of life are that we have a large budget deficit, even though some other nations have even larger deficits as percentages of gross domestic product. We have to pay interest on it. As a people and a nation, we owe this money in large part to foreigners — and that can have political implications. The facts of life are that federal spending is almost all untouchable: the military, Social Security, Medicare, interest on the debt, pensions. The discretionary part is tiny.

Every category of federal spending is likely to grow. This means that if we don’t raise taxes, if we keep doing what we’re doing, the immense deficits and debt will not go away — and will probably grow.

The question is simply this: Do we want to step up to the plate like responsible people — I hate to say this, but the last responsible people who actually did this were named Bill and Bob (Clinton and Rubin) — and shoulder our responsibilities? Or do we just kick the can down the road a bit and leave the mess for our children and their children?

And if we do raise taxes, should people who are barely getting by pay them or should people who are getting by very nicely pay them?

I don’t like taxing rich people or anyone I like. But our government — run by the people we elected — needs the revenue. Do we pay it or do we make our children pay it? Dwight D. Eisenhower — and Bill Clinton — knew the answer: You behave responsibly and balance the budget except in rare circumstances.

Somehow, Republicans (and I am a Republican) have forgotten this basic lesson of adulthood. Maybe Senator McCain is grown up enough to remind us of the real urgency of personal and national responsibility. Or maybe not.

Ben Stein is a lawyer, writer, actor and economist. E-mail: ebiz@nytimes.com.

A Walken Family Reunion...Oh I Wish...

SNL Take

Am I responsible for what my friend says?

In recent days a controversy has emerged over the sermons of Sen. Barack Obama's hometown pastor, Jeremiah Wright. A number of these sermons appear to advance or promote some radical statements. Due to the content of some of these sermons, analysts are being to wonder if this will hurt the Obama campaign. Whether it does or doesn't is not my concern, but rather should it? Are we responsible for what our friends say?

I would argue that on the surface it is not fair to blame a candidate for something someone else says as long as they voice opposition to the statement when it becomes known to them. Obama does not control Wright, nor are many people in the position to tell their pastor that they are wrong. Obama's responsibility is to himself and therefore, publicly declaring opposition to Wright's statements should be enough, as long as his actions are consistent with the opposition. Obama has shown no willingness in speech or action to support some of Wright's radical statements.

Obama's current situation merely articulates the problems politicians run into as they court or associate with religious figures. Recently, Sen. John McCain has promoted his support by John Hagee, a popular televangelist. However, Hagee has called the Catholic Church (which over 1 in 4 Americans belong to) a "whore" and a "false religion." Is McCain responsible for such comments? The answer is clearly no, as long as McCain publicly states he opposes such views. Yet, perhaps politicians on both sides of the spectrum should be weary of the religious company they keep.

Iraq Interactive

Interesting MSNBC interactive describing the complexities of the Iraq issue.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17722026

Do All Dogs Really Go To Heaven?

According to a recent book by an Anglican Bishop, most people have a misunderstanding of heaven. I found this interesting to contemplate.

N.T. "Tom" Wright is one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought. As Bishop of Durham, he is the fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England and a major player in the strife-riven global Anglican Communion; as a much-read theologian and Biblical scholar he has taught at Cambridge and is a hero to conservative Christians worldwide for his 2003 book The Resurrection of the Son of God, which argued forcefully for a literal interpretation of that event.

It therefore comes as a something of a shock that Wright doesn't believe in heaven — at least, not in the way that millions of Christians understand the term. In his new book, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne), Wright quotes a children's book by California first lady Maria Shriver called What's Heaven, which describes it as "a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk... If you're good throughout your life, then you get to go [there]... When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you heaven to be with him." That, says Wright is a good example of "what not to say." The Biblical truth, he continues, "is very, very different."

Wright, 58, talked by phone with TIME's David Van Biema.

TIME: At one point you call the common view of heaven a "distortion and serious diminution of Christian hope."

Wright: It really is. I've often heard people say, "I'm going to heaven soon, and I won't need this stupid body there, thank goodness.' That's a very damaging distortion, all the more so for being unintentional.

TIME: How so? It seems like a typical sentiment.

Wright: There are several important respects in which it's unsupported by the New Testament. First, the timing. In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state. St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet. Secondly, our physical state. The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies. And finally, the location. At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation.

TIME: Is there anything more in the Bible about the period between death and the resurrection of the dead?

Wright: We know that we will be with God and with Christ, resting and being refreshed. Paul writes that it will be conscious, but compared with being bodily alive, it will be like being asleep. The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish text from about the same time as Jesus, says "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God," and that seems like a poetic way to put the Christian understanding, as well.

TIME: But it's not where the real action is, so to speak?

Wright: No. Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I've called the life after life after death — in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth. Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will "awake," be embodied and participate in the renewal. John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves." That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom.

TIME: That is rather different from the common understanding. Did some Biblical verse contribute to our confusion?

Wright: There is Luke 23, where Jesus says to the good thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." But in Luke, we know first of all that Christ himself will not be resurrected for three days, so "paradise" cannot be a resurrection. It has to be an intermediate state. And chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation, where there is a vision of worship in heaven that people imagine describes our worship at the end of time. In fact it's describing the worship that's going on right now. If you read the book through, you see that at the end we don't have a description of heaven, but, as I said, of the new heavens and the new earth joined together.

TIME: Why, then, have we misread those verses?

Wright: It has, originally, to do with the translation of Jewish ideas into Greek. The New Testament is deeply, deeply Jewish, and the Jews had for some time been intuiting a final, physical resurrection. They believed that the world of space and time and matter is messed up, but remains basically good, and God will eventually sort it out and put it right again. Belief in that goodness is absolutely essential to Christianity, both theologically and morally. But Greek-speaking Christians influenced by Plato saw our cosmos as shabby and misshapen and full of lies, and the idea was not to make it right, but to escape it and leave behind our material bodies. The church at its best has always come back toward the Hebrew view, but there have been times when the Greek view was very influential.

TIME: Can you give some historical examples?

Wright: Two obvious ones are Dante's great poetry, which sets up a Heaven, Purgatory and Hell immediately after death, and Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine chapel, which portrays heaven and hell as equal and opposite last destinations. Both had enormous influence on Western culture, so much so that many Christians think that is Christianity.

TIME: But it's not.

Wright: Never at any point do the Gospels or Paul say Jesus has been raised, therefore we are we are all going to heaven. They all say, Jesus is raised, therefore the new creation has begun, and we have a job to do.

TIME: That sounds a lot like... work.

Wright: It's more exciting than hanging around listening to nice music. In Revelation and Paul's letters we are told that God's people will actually be running the new world on God's behalf. The idea of our participation in the new creation goes back to Genesis, when humans are supposed to be running the Garden and looking after the animals. If you transpose that all the way through, it's a picture like the one that you get at the end of Revelation.

TIME: And it ties in to what you've written about this all having a moral dimension.

Wright: Both that, and the idea of bodily resurrection that people deny when they talk about their "souls going to Heaven." If people think "my physical body doesn't matter very much," then who cares what I do with it? And if people think that our world, our cosmos, doesn't matter much, who cares what we do with that? Much of "traditional" Christianity gives the impression that God has these rather arbitrary rules about how you have to behave, and if you disobey them you go to hell, rather than to heaven. What the New Testament really says is God wants you to be a renewed human being helping him to renew his creation, and his resurrection was the opening bell. And when he returns to fulfil the plan, you won't be going up there to him, he'll be coming down here.

TIME: That's very different from, say, the vision put out in the Left Behind books.

Wright: Yes. If there's going to be an Armageddon, and we'll all be in heaven already or raptured up just in time, it really doesn't matter if you have acid rain or greenhouse gases prior to that. Or, for that matter, whether you bombed civilians in Iraq. All that really matters is saving souls for that disembodied heaven.

TIME: Has anyone you've talked to expressed disappointment at the loss of the old view?

Wright: Yes, you might get disappointment in the case where somebody has recently gone through the death of somebody they love and they are wanting simply to be with them. And I'd say that's understandable. But the end of Revelation describes a marvelous human participation in God's plan. And in almost all cases, when I've explained this to people, there's a sense of excitement and a sense of, "Why haven't we been told this before?"

Published on www.Time.com

Got to love the 3-D

This is the man we are so afraid of...

An Obama Revolution?

As this election year progresses and the Democratic race continues to shape up as a virtual tie between Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama, the Obama appeal becomes clearer. The Senator from Illinois has tapped into a long dormant supply of political energy. In the past month, I have heard an almost unanimous voice from my under-30 acquaintances in support for Obama. But why? Why does this political figure seem to speak to them when so many others have not?

Sen. Obama has chosen to frame his campaign around the notions of hope and change. He permeates a message of optimism that change and improvement is possible through cooperation and a new style of politics. While he provides few specific details on what this change will look like (his chief political fault), the under-30 crowd seems not to care. This is a generation that has been sold to all its life, and Obama represents something that, at least on the surface, appears authentic. The under-30 generation's love affair with Obama also speaks to an underlying uneasiness. They have been told continually that our nation's long established social programs are nearly bankrupt, that we face an international threat worse than communism (that being radical Islam), and that the current war (drawing disproportionately from its ranks) will possibly continue for decades to come. It has been told that they may be the first generation in American History that may enjoy a lower quality of life than their parents. Obama, who exudes change and difference, represents in body, mind, and voice this frustration with our nation's current affairs.

This movement has similarities with 1968, with a newly energized youth movement over concerns about the future course of the country. Then, like today, the youth of the United States was tired of the inadequate policies and failed leadership of their parents' generation. In 1968, the "Greatest Generation" had failed to deal with civil rights and had led the nation into an unending quagmire in Vietnam. In 2008, the Vietnam generation continues to fight out the social and economic issues of their youth while ignoring pressing problems at home and has led the nation into a war of choice in Iraq. Yet, the lessons of 1968 should haunt today's youth. The question remains: will 2008 present a "Yes We Can" moment or another "Dream Deferred."

Is it that easy?

This baby is so smart...

McCain's Campaign Motto

It is clear that Sen. John McCain is in a tight race in Florida with Gov. Mitt Romney. Both men have substantial support in the state and each is trying desperately to set the tone and principle issue. For Romney it is the economy and for McCain it is national security. Yet, it appears more and more clear that McCain is perhaps taking the national security issue a bit too far. Two days ago, he inaccurately accused Romney of favoring public timetables for troop withdraw, which he does not. Then yesterday, McCain approached the American people with a new campaign promise. Oh, you might ask, what is this American hero and long time legislator going to offer our country? Lower taxes? Better health care? Reduction in our dependency on foreign oil? No, in the words of John McCain, "my friends" the Senator is offering us more wars. More wars?!?!?! That's right, straight from the Senator's mouth, if John McCain is elected president he will give us more wars. Does anyone really think this is a winning political strategy? I never have viewed McCain as a warmonger but I am beginning to question his commitment to peace.

History in South Carolina?

Last night, Barack Obama soundly defeated Hillary Clinton and John Edwards to win the South Carolina Democratic Primary. Barack's victory clearly gives him an impressive win on which he can build. That said, there are still underlying issues standing in his way (at least as I see the current political environment). Despite the media's renewed confidence in a faltering Clinton campaign and a rising Obama we should not forget Iowa. Even when Obama won Iowa (if the exit polls are to be believed) he only received 36% of the white vote. In South Carolina, despite winning 55% of the overall vote, he won less than a quarter of the white vote. I would like to believe that our country is above racial voting, but clearly there is a divide between the voting blocs. Why can't Obama appeal to white voters in large numbers? Is there a political or racial explanation? I don't know the answer, but his lack of appeal to this voting bloc is not due to a failure to court their support. Obama has waged a clearly unifying campaign. He has not cast himself as the "black" candidate and rarely talks about racial issues. This presents a critical voting problem for Obama, especially as Edwards fades, and the Super Tuesday Primaries are in predominately white/hispanic states. That said, it is clear he has tremendous youth support. In every race he has won the under 30 vote, and usually by wide margins. Additionally, he seems to be attracting large numbers of previously apathetic young voters to the race and the Democratic Party. With this in mind, it is clear the Obama has tapped into something unique within today's youth. I see it everyday in the classroom. Almost, without exception, high school students seem to support this Senator from Illinois. His appeal is strong, and if you simply watch his victory speech from last night, is it any wonder?