The Hound Of Ulster

It’s going to PREMIERE at the Vatican, apparently. (HT: AMY)

The Nativity Story will become the first film ever to premiere at the Vatican, the film’s distributor has announced. The film, which is due to be released December 1, will be shown on Sunday, November 26 at the Vatican’s Pope Paul VI Hall to an audience of appproximately 7,000 invited guests, including director Catherine Hardwick, actors Shohreh Aghdashloo and Oscar Isaac, producers Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, and screenwriter Mike Rich. The screening will benefit the construction of a school in Mughar, Israel, 40 miles from Nazareth. Rolf Mittweg, New Line President and COO of Worldwide Distribution and Marketing, said of the film, “We are very proud of The Nativity Story and extremely grateful that the Vatican has embraced the film in this way,” says Mittweg. “We believe it is the perfect venue to present the film’s universal message of hope and faith, a message we are sure will resonate around the world.”

Interestingly, the press release makes no mention of Keisha Castle-Hughes, the 16-year-old actress who plays Mary in the film — who, it was announced last month, is now herself pregnant out of wedlock. I’m curious whether Castle-Hughes was invited to the Vatican affair; I would sincerely hope that she was, and that she herself chose not to attend for whatever reason.

Is The Nativity Story on your radar for your December movie-going? I want to see it, myself, if only to see Castle-Hughes, who I absolutely loved in Whale Rider. She’s an enormously talented young actress, and I hope she’ll keep making movies once she adjusts to motherhood.

Now, if only the Vatican would screen Deliver Us From Evil…

The idea of a premiere at the Vatican is neat.

Unfortunately, I got a bit distracted by the obvious (and tiresome) Catholic-bating in that post. I know, I know. This is Hollywood, not Holywood. It shouldn’t irritate me. But it still does.

The idea of Castle-Hughes being required to face consequences for her actions is just too outrageous, isn’t it? How could anyone not notice the incredible irony of a very young unwed mother playing the ultimate unwed mother - and of being (potentially) ostracized for it? Sure, I know there’s the whole “sin vs. not” issue, and the whole “father vs. Father” issue, but that all seems so academic.

And besides, it’s not like the Church has any moral high ground here from which to stare down its long Pinocchio nose at us “ordinary folks.” Remember Boston? And SPOKANE? Since there have been some inarguably bad apples, the entire barrel is surely rotten.  That seems logically air-tight to me.  (Or is that logically sound-proof?)

And gee, I wonder why Bush didn’t screen Fahrenheit 911 at the White House. That seems like it would have been a good idea, right?

(The “Us vs. Them” feeling is crushing at times.  And I know that sarcasm is unbecoming on me.  Too bad I find myself wearing it so frequently.)

That phrase hasn’t described the GOP in quite some time. But the battle is shaping up already, and RED STATE has a ticket in mind.

Mike Pence was elected in 2000, and does not have the institutional taint of many who have been in the Republican ranks of the House for a longer time. He is also a disciple of the Reagan Revolution and an articulate spokesman, two characteristics the GOP will need in a Minority Leader. John Shadegg is a veteran of the Class of 1994 and an articulate defender of conservatism. Shadegg outpaced most every one of his colleagues in funding the effort to save the House, recognizing the GOP’s shortcomings, but believing it better than the alternative. He’s also tough as nails, something we need in a Whip.

Captain Ed has SIMILAR thoughts.

John Boehner has not done a bad job in his tenure replacing Tom DeLay as Majority Leader, and with Denny Hastert explicitly removing himself from GOP leadership (before getting the boot from the caucus), one might expect him to continue in that leadership post as the Republicans move to the minority. However, Boehner and Majority Whip Roy Blunt have come to be seen by some Republicans as part of the leadership that created the problems that led to their defeat. The urge to clean house will overcome any good work done by Boehner, and while that’s unfair, it’s also not a bad move.

House Republicans need to demonstrate a commitment to certain principles ahead of policies in order to win the trust back from their constituents. Chief among those should be a commitment to reform and support of limited government. Pence has demonstrated all of those qualities, as well as having a reputation for clean politics. Republicans should strongly consider having Pence lead them during the next two-year period, in which they will be rethinking their direction. Pence seems like the right navigator for that journey.

There’s a fair amount of “Boehner’s got it in the bag” talk floating around, but I sort of hope that’s not true. I do think that appearances are very important in politics, and “fresh blood” seems to be like a good message to send. Still, as long as it’s one of the guys being mentioned at the moment, I think that’ll be fine.  (Mark Levin’s not so SURE about these guys, but he’s not really sure what he does want.)

I’m way more interested in THIS happening.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, whose party just lost both chambers of Congress, will leave his position in January, and the post as party chief has been offered to Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele.

The Captain is also PLEASED with this development. He also thinks it’s a much better place for Steele than the one Rove has in mind. I agree. Why would he tie himself to the White House right now?

With all due respect to the White House, both Steele and the Republicans would be better served with Steele at the helm of the RNC. He instantly gives more credibility to Republican outreach efforts to minority communities, a key goal after years of writing them off as lost causes. He brings experience, as he has served as Maryland’s Republican chair in the past, and after the midterms, the RNC needs someone with some seasoning from the trenches. He would have a much higher national profile at the RNC than he would stuck in the DC bureaucracy, perhaps even positioning him for a governorship or a Presidential run farther down the road.

Steele would be a worthy successor to Mehlman, who unfortunately leaves on an unhappy note after having done so much to build Republican forces over the past few years. I have had the pleasure of meeting Ken on a few occasions, and he is a serious, committed man with a disciplined mind. He leaves the RNC better than he found it, and he will appear again in Republican politics; rumor has it he will run Rudy Giuliani’s campaign, which makes Giuliani even more formidable than ever. In whatever capacity he decides, Mehlman will bring class, focus, and talent to bear for the Republican party, and we cannot wait to see him at the helm again.

The next little while is going to be very interesting.

OK, I’ll admit it. In what might be yet another example of “telling you more about myself than I want you to know,” THIS surprised me more than the shocking results of Tuesday’s elections.

In related news, Ned was really ticked. The initial articles contained a lot more of his phone interview, and he was not at all pleased. This is a toned-down version of Ned:

He moved on and we’ll move on. We’ll find a player who wants to stay here. Scott broached [the opt-out] and I said if that’s what you decide to do … I’m finished with it.

In light of what J.D. said at the end of the year, about making a commitment and how much he loved playing here, I was surprised. J.D.’s a man of his word. I guess he changed his word. I think you expect things to be handled in a certain way. Based on what was written at the end of the season, you have to ask yourself, ‘How did this happen?’

I see Scottie B. fingerprints all over this one. When Drew got his $11M-per contract, people thought it was absurd. (That’s partially because he’s always/often hurt. And partially because almost no one realizes how good he actually is.)

But it will look tame compared to the one he’s about to get. Seen the $15M being thrown around as a price tag for A. Ramirez and C. Lee? Well, Ramirez is not as good as Drew. And Lee might not be either, depending on his weight. So Drew suddenly becomes the second-best available hitter in the market. And the new CBA means there’s a lot of cash floating around out there.

Which is why Scottie made his move.

Dodger Thoughts has thoughts HERE and HERE.

Though I’m surprised by the move, this was always a possibility. I still don’t agree that this makes the Dodgers’ contract with him a liability - the team made the deal it needed to make, got a top-flight outfielder for a two-year, $22 million deal, and ends up with $11 million more per year (through 2009) to spend. But spend it the Dodgers must. The top outfielder on the current roster is Andre Ethier.

The happiest man about Drew’s decision might be Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramirez. Sure, it’s one more hitter to compete with on the market, but it’s also one more level of need (desperation?) that the Dodgers now possess.

True Blue has a COUPLE as WELL.

I can understand why Drew would do this. In a market where the two most valued hitters are Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Lee, and most of the remaining valuable hitters are almost in their forties, it looks like he’ll get more than the 33 million dollars that the Dodgers guaranteed to him. I am annoyed that J.D. made all those comments about wanting to stay here to raise his family, and pretty much said he wasn’t going to opt out, but ultimately, it’s a decision that he was allowed to make, and you can’t fault him for making it.

I’m going to miss J.D. Drew. I came to love his plate discipline and his “most boring man in the world” persona, which ironically gave him more of a personality than most of the cliché spewers around the league. With little in house options and a very thin free agent market, the Dodgers future looks worse today than it did yesterday.

Myself, I disagree with Dodger Thoughts about Ramirez. I think this means Ned needs to focus on an OF. Andre “The Giant” Ethier is now the Dodgers’ best outfielder. And the farm system is not heavy with outfielders. We do have several young, promising 3B’s, though. So I’ve got my money on Soriano. Put him in left, and move Andre to right. Then, once Kent stops moving - (What do you mean, he already has?) - Soriano will slide in to 2B, and we’ll sign Wells.

Oh, and I’m not crazy. THIS is crazy.

SI has this up in their rumors section:

GM Jim Hendry still is working on a way to keep Aramis Ramirez in a Cubs uniform through 2011, but time is running out. Saturday is the final day the Cubs have exclusive negotiating rights before the Angels and Dodgers lead a group of potential suitors for the free-agent third baseman. Because it’s unlikely the Cubs will get into a bidding war, Ramirez probably will get a take-it-or-leave-it offer by Saturday night. – Chicago Tribune

But ESPN has THIS:

There’s only one problem with the gaudy numbers that Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Lee traditionally put up: They are guaranteed to lead to big contracts but do not necessarily translate into victories.

Along with Alfonso Soriano, these are the biggest bats on the market, and it figures someone will pay them accordingly (Lee appears headed to the Houston Astros; Ramirez possibly to the Los Angeles Angels). But for all their thunder, Lee and Ramirez have combined for only 55 at-bats in the playoffs (and a .218 average), generally playing on also-ran teams.

Their teams were a combined 147-176 last year. Lee did not deliver when he was traded from the Milwaukee BrewersTexas Rangers at the July deadline, and Ramirez disappeared when the Chicago Cubs needed him to step up while Derrek Lee was sidelined. to the

One scout says the saying about lies, damn lies and statistics applies to free agency. “You can take any stat, I believe, and damn near make any point you choose with it,” he said.

Neither Lee nor Ramirez is a good fielder. Any team offering Ramirez $15 million a year for five or more years might want to invest a little extra to destroy tapes of Ramirez allowing an infield pop to hit him in the coconut in the 11th inning of a game in May.

Yikes! I sure hope the Angels “beat us out” for Ramirez. If we give that guy something in the 5-year, $75M range, it’ll make the Drew contract look brilliant. Heck, it might even make the Brown one look OK.

Oh, and HERE are the new threads for you Phoenix folks. Can’t say I’m a huge fan, but I can’t say I was even a luke-warm fan of the purple ones. And I suspect Byrnes may not be showing them off to their best advantage.

Mrs. B. has ANOTHER Potter/Chrisianity tidbit. It’s much smaller than the massive piece on Potter she posted recently, but you’ll have to wait to see that one. I’ve got to keep some blogging material for a rainy day, right?

And here are a couple of election-related things. I can’t get away from them.

Barone TALKS about the “good loser” role Allen is playing.

Allen’s problems in the 2006 campaign obviously destroyed any chance he had to run for president. His graceful withdrawal, however, leaves him other options. Introducing him in Old Town Alexandria was his colleague John Warner, whose term expires in 2008, when he will be 81. Warner may choose to retire then, after 30 years in the Senate. If so, it looks to me that Allen has positioned himself to be a serious candidate for the seat. This has happened before: Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington State lost for re-election in 1986 but came back in 1988 and won the state’s other Senate seat, which he won again in 1994 and lost by only a very narrow margin in 2000.

And HERE are Santorum’s “closing thoughts.

Lamar Alexander’s ready to go to the WHIP.

Lastly, but definitely not least, Bolton’s in TROUBLE.

Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., who was defeated by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse on Tuesday, told reporters in Rhode Island that he would continue opposing Bolton. That would likely deny Republicans the votes needed to move Bolton’s nomination from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the full Senate.

“The American people have spoken out against the president’s agenda on a number of fronts, and presumably one of those is on foreign policy,” Chafee said. “And at this late stage in my term, I’m not going to endorse something the American people have spoke out against.”

I could make snide comments about his English, but I won’t. And I can’t even admit that his quote made me that angry.

Because I saw THIS right afterwards.

Two days after losing a bid for a second term in an election seen as a referendum on President Bush and the Republican Party, Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he was unsure whether he’d remain a Republican.

“I haven’t made any decisions. I just haven’t even thought about where my place is,” Chafee said at a news conference Thursday when asked whether he would stick with the Republican Party or switch to be an independent or Democrat.

When asked if his comments meant he thought he might not belong in the Republican Party, he replied: “That’s fair.”

Chafee, 53, is the most liberal Republican in the Senate and was the sole Senate Republican to vote against the war in Iraq. That was not enough to save his seat against the winner, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, who shared many of Chafee’s views but was a member of the dominant party in a state where Democrats far outnumber Republicans.

When asked whether he felt that his loss may have helped the country by switching control of power in Congress, he replied: “To be honest, yes.”

“The people have spoken all across America. They want the Democrats and Republicans to work together,” Chafee added. “I think the president now is going to have to talk to the Democrats. I think that’s going to be good for America.”

A lifelong Republican who succeeded his father, the late John Chafee, in the U.S. Senate, Chafee said he waged a lonely campaign to try to bring the party to the middle. He described attending weekly Thursday lunches with fellow Republican senators and standing up to argue his point of view, often alone.

“There were times walking into my caucus room where it wasn’t fun,” he said.

Chafee said he stuck with the party in large part because it allowed him to bring federal dollars home to Rhode Island. He said he did not regret not switching parties before the election because he felt it kept him in the best position to help Rhode Island to remain with what was then the majority party.

Gag.

With all due respect, Mr. Chafee, sir: you have not been a Republican for a very long time. In fact, I question whether you have ever actually been a Republican. Please, switch parties. It will be a clarifying moment for everyone, including yourself.

There has been a lot of discussion over the “surprise resignation” of Donald Rumsfeld. Actually, to be more accurate, there has been a lot of discussion over the timing of his resignation.

National Review’s editors have their PIECE up, and it’s pretty harsh.

Donald Rumsfeld is out as secretary of Defense. His departure was a necessary precondition for President Bush to win any measure of public support for the sort of fresh departures his Iraq policy needs. It was also justified on the merits. More than three years on, the Iraq War is arguably going more poorly than ever.

Rumsfeld had lost the ability to speak with much credibility about the war. He has become a radioactive figure partly because of vicious and unfair attacks on him from the left and (occasionally) the right, attacks from which we have often defended him. But he is also radioactive because he is associated with the biggest failure of the Bush administration, one that sank the Republican party in Tuesday’s elections and that, much more importantly, threatens a dangerous and long-lasting setback to the interests of the United States.

…

All of this has brought us to a perilous position in which defeat seems more likely than victory. We hope the ascension of Robert Gates as Rumsfeld’s replacement at least brings “fresh eyes” to Iraq policy, as Bush put it yesterday. Bush needs to send more troops to Baghdad in another attempt to secure the city, at the same time he takes on a few of the least objectionable Democratic ideas to put his war policy on a more bipartisan footing.

There was no hope of getting such bipartisan support as long as Rumsfeld stayed in office, and any new policy would have been hurt by its mere association with Rumsfeld. As Bush noted yesterday, Donald Rumsfeld is a brave man and a great American patriot. But his tenure as secretary of Defense was deeply flawed.

I can’t say anything about the strategic criticisms in that article, really. I don’t know enough about the particulars. And the changes of me ever knowing enough about them are slim. But I do think it is a necessary step in what I still hope (and believe) will be a successful resolution in Iraq.

I think Rumsfeld is a great man, in many ways. And I also think he had to go. The timing seems like a small detail in that consideration, actually. (It pains me to see the Dems crow about their success. But that’s not a compelling reason to let him stay.)

Mario Loyola has a slightly more TECHNICAL consideration of the matter.

The main point is that Rumsfeld would have resigned either way. And it makes sense for other reasons. He is the longest serving cabinet secretary and will be the longest serving SecDef ever; in the space of six years he has toppled two dictatorships and reorganized the department, its strategy, its force posture, its planning construct, etc., etc. — and he’s really old.

What’s interesting about the timing is that this morning we woke up to a new Democratic congress, and by the time of the evening news everyone was talking about the new secretary of defense. Another suspiciously well-timed blockbuster announcement from the White House.

K-Lo has a Gates-related E-MAIL from an intelligence guy:

Having read Mr. Robert Gates’ autobiography several times for historical context, the Corner might find it of interest that Mr. Gates was highly involved (and gave great credit to Pres. Jimmy Carter for initiating) with covert and clandestine insurgent activities within Eastern Europe and the former USSR.

Why is this interesting? Perhaps Mr. Gates’ pragmatic input to successful insurgent tactics in Eastern Europe will be useful in conducting ANTI-insurgent planning in Iraq.

To be noted: Mr. Gates spelled-out as many unclassified facts and activities as he could; these activities took place during the late 1970’s in propping up John Paul and the Polish Solidarity covert insurgency against the Warsaw Pact….

(The “giving great credit to Carter” is offset quite nicely by the “propping up John Paul” line, I thought.. But I still have absolutely no idea about Gates.)

Dean Barnett is very UNHAPPY with the timing, but seems to agree with the principles involved. I think. He moves about a bit in that post. (I wonder if he would have been fine with the move is the GOP had won? I suspect not, but it’s an interesting thought experiment.)

But the time had come for Rummy to go. It had become increasingly obvious that he and the administration weren’t in sync and that the administration’s war effort had become incoherent. An example: Many people wonder why we haven’t sealed off the borders between Iran, Syria and Iraq. Some people cite this as evidence that we need more troops on the ground. In truth, those borders could be sealed off quite effectively by air. The decision to not do so has been a political one, not one borne out of military inability.

My point is that Rumsfeld’s war could not succeed without his colleagues on the political side showing a ferocity similar to his own. And if there was going to be no such display, then Rummy had to adapt his plans accordingly.

Additionally, the old adage that “you can’t fire the players so you fire the coach” comes to mind. Relations between Rumsfeld and the military had become hopelessly personally poisonous. If the Pentagon is to be transformed, Rumsfeld has lost his chance to be an effective agent for bringing about the necessary changes.

And Red State has some WORDS from the man himself.