Good for you, Peter, for passing along George's important warning. Politics is embedded in culture, and when a culture grows so ideologically intoxicated that it breezily disregards anthropological realities, it's doomed.

As Paul Ryan and others have stressed, it's time to make the moral argument. Talking lower taxes and budget cuts has its place, but it falls on deaf ears when not joined to a powerful moral argument. Thanks, Peter.

That's a great post, Peter, and its essential message is timeless.

Thomas Sowell is a national treasure. Thanks, Peter, for bringing him to the attention of a lot of people who would not otherwise have known him.

I concede on that point, but I'm sure that I at least tie you for being the last person to know what jumping the shark means. Inasmuch as I missed several decades of television, including the show from which the phrase came, I am still not sure enough of its meaning to use the phrase with any confidence. It is a handicap I will have to learn to live with.  

It's always the same ... ultimately.

I'm sorry to be off-topic, but I just posted this on the member feed, and I'm not sure you'll see it there.

The next time you're in front of TV cameras - making sure that one of them is Fox News - take one of the countless opportunities you'll surely have to take on the Pom-Pom media. Conclude this little oration by looking into the (Fox) camera and saying: "My message to those millions of Americans who are sick of the main-stream liberal bias is this: 'Vote with your remote!'"

It will go viral in minutes. Fox will be all over it. And it's not a bad slogan, especially since it will have a life of its own. Good luck.

Yes, long enough to school Rick Santorum on immigration. Newt's idea of local "draft-board type" reviews for those who have worked and striven to assimilate - or something very much like it - is critical. Not even Rubio will be able to overcome a adamantine "send 'em back" position at the top of the ticket. 

Thanks, Peter, for calling attention to the archbishop's strong statement. I had missed it. Clearly, it needs to be widely read and discussed. 

I would like to think that, in retrospect, this election will be seen as the key to the 2012 race. I do, however, worry about Santorum's immigration stance. Newt understands the realities of that issue better than both Romney and Santorum. If Santorum surges - a consummation devoutly to be wished (assuming Newt continues to lose ground) - I dearly hope he refines his immigration position. It's easy enough - and a now familiar Republican trope - to mock "compassionate conservatism," but there's a place for it on the immigration issue. There ought to be some sympathy for law breaking that is systematically ignored by those who profited from it - liberal politicians and cheap-labor employers. Control the borders first, most definitely, but those who have become de facto good citizens - as judged by, say, a "draft-board type" local review board - should be given a break. OTHERWISE, I'm a very happy Santorum supporter. 

Very nice explanation. Misunderstanding reigns on all counts. 

Aaron Gardner put his finger right on it. Give me a repentant sinner any day: someone (like me) who has made stupid mistakes and has learned the hard way that "sins repented are the ballast of a Christian life," ballast, I might add, that steady the ship even in political storms. Thanks, Peter, for passing that along. 

The "five kids" part is all that really matters. Happy New Year.

Peter, Rubin would make a great interviewee on Uncommon Knowledge. Three cheers for your recent ones.

I didn't see or hear the debate, but I am inclined to agree. I've heard Gingrich speak in person and listened as he spoke of his religious conversion, and he seems to be a man who has been humbled by his own mistakes but nonetheless feels a continuing sense of responsibility for the nation he loves. These days, such things are often tossed off as posturing or hype, but people of principle know that they remain true. Given what is likely to happen in the years just ahead, having someone of Gingrich's gravitas in the White House would be reassuring.

An interesting comparison. History could possibly bear it out. The need for a Churchillian leader in the years ahead is as close to certain as anything is.