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Joseph Bottum is the former editor of First Things.

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Two Mules for Sister Sarah

From First Thoughts

My friend Manolo the Shoeblogger has, of course, some advice for a woman in need of shoes today: Dear Manolo, I’m a small town girl with big time dreams, who has just been given the job of a lifetime. The next eight weeks will be super demanding and I’ll be in the limelight a lot . . . . . . . Continue Reading »

McCain & Abortion

From First Thoughts

One reference to a “culture of life,” buried in a laundry list in the twenty-fifth paragraph? That’s it in John McCain’s acceptance speech ? The sole mention of abortion in the combined hour and a half of oratory from the two Republican nominees over the last two nights? . . . . Continue Reading »

RE: Palin & Abortion

From First Thoughts

I’m not sure why no one believes that I mean the actual words I write , but all I said was that the “red meat” talking point of the anti-Palin press was wrong: She didn’t mention the word abortion in her speech last night. Yes, the picture she presented was pro-life: . . . . Continue Reading »

Rhetorical Flourish

From First Thoughts

At the Democratic convention, Bill Clinton declaimed that the world is more impressed “by the power of America’s example than by the example of America’s power.” At the Republican convention, Sarah Palin declared, “In politics, there are some candidates who use change . . . . Continue Reading »

Palin & Abortion

From First Thoughts

Well, Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech seems to have been rapturously received among conservatives. So much so, that you don’t have to go far to find sneering comments about Palin’s delivery of “red meat” to the conservative base. Here’s the curious thing, though: . . . . Continue Reading »

Last Minute Sales

From First Thoughts

From a religious publisher, an email just arrived urging me to take advantage of a sale on “End Times Books.” Why are they so heavily discounted? What does the publisher know that the rest of us don’t? The whole thing makes me a little nervous. . . . . Continue Reading »

Like Water to a Duck

From First Thoughts

I enjoy Clive James, but in a recent issue of Times Literary Supplement , he casually remarks that the composer Arnold Schoenberg “actually had to concentrate quite hard to stay unpopular.” No, man, let’s not start thinking down that road. Unpopularity came as naturally to . . . . Continue Reading »

Election Anger

From First Thoughts

The argument is being made that the Palin grandchild shifts the election from the economy and the war, two grounds on which Republicans are losing in public polls, to cultural issues, the one ground on which the Republicans are winning. Maybe—though surely it’s an odd moment when an . . . . Continue Reading »

The Politics of Blood

From First Thoughts

Film-maker Michael Moore has apparently praised the gulf weather for its chance of disrupting the Republican convention: “This hurricane is proof that there is a god in heaven.” Another low point in politics, though possibly one that could be passed off with a laugh—a partisan . . . . Continue Reading »