Joel Mathis

In this week's Scripps column , I argue that Mitt Romney's religious beliefs have some bearing on the presidential campaign—and Ben argues that the issues are more important. Four years ago , we staked out almost precisely the opposite territory: Ben then: Yet Obama still insists that what he heard from Wright this week was unlike anything he heard over the past two decades. That simply defies belief. Obama chose Wright. His choice was unwise. His choice should tell voters something important about Obama that his position papers on the Iraq war and health care cannot. Me then: But the job of the next president will not be to pick a national clergyman. Instead, the president will have to decide what to do about Iraq, health care and the economy, among other issues. Barack Obama has an argument to make that he'll end the war, extend care to more Americans and save a few of their homes from foreclosure. Given the mood of Americans these days, that could well be a winning a

That's the the topic of my column with Ben Boychuk for Scripps Howard this week. I answer in the kind-of-affirmative: Let's give thanks for progress: A black man and a Mormon will compete for the presidency this November. More people from more backgrounds than ever can fully participate in our politics -- thanks largely to the efforts of American liberals.  Romney doesn't get a free pass for his faith, however.  Don't misunderstand: If you vote for a candidate based on the Nicene Creed, say, then you're being silly and maybe a little un-American. We're electing a president, not a pope.  But a candidate's policies are fair game, as is the worldview that shapes those policies. Faith often shapes a candidate's worldview. Romney's opposition to abortion reportedly springs from the teachings of his church: That's a topic that can't and shouldn't be avoided in a presidential campaign.  Other issues in which Romney's faith m

The latest edition of The Ben and Joel Podcast is, well, kind of weird. In it, we interview Larry Arnn about his new book, " The Founders' Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It ." Arnn's main point is that the Declaration and the Constitution don't have opposing philosophical foundations—despite what some scholars say—but I got hung up on the "divine and natural part" and you can hear so in the podcast. The word "God" appears in Arnn's text 64 times. He references the Declaration's appeal to "the laws of nature and of nature's God" 21 times. And so, for me, the book reads much like a theological declaration as much—or more—as it is a work of history or political science. Is there room for a secular-minded person in a "divine" understanding of government? What's wrong with believing the Founders were a group of smart men—but also hu

That's what Ben and I talk about this week in the Scripps column. My take : Religious liberty is a paramount American value; it's even written into our Constitution. A woman's right to make her own health choices doesn't explicitly appear in the document, it's merely a common-sense human right no less deserving of protection and consideration. So the Obama administration is right to mandate that employers include contraceptive coverage in their employee health insurance programs. And the administration is also right -- if a little late -- to offer an accommodation that ensures access to birth control while permitting religious institutions to adhere to their own teachings. If only that were the end of the debate. Unwilling, it seems, to ever take "yes" for an answer from President Barack Obama, Republicans are now pressing ahead with proposals to exempt any employer from having to pay for contraceptive coverage. GOP leaders say this is about "r

Ben and I talk about Charles Murray's new book, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010" in this week's Scripps column. We jointly note : "He argues that America is increasingly, dangerously divided between an out-of-touch upper class and a lower class that has abandoned the virtues of industriousness, honesty, marriage and religiosity." My take: Here's the good news: Somebody influential on the right -- and Murray is beloved by many conservatives -- is acknowledging the growing class divide in America. That is a breakthrough. The bad news: Murray is big into victim blaming. If life among America's working class has declined during the last 50 years, Murray says it's because its members have abandoned the habits of work and marriage that made the country great. He offers a lot of statistics to prove his point. But there's a crucial piece missing in Murray's story. It is most apparent when he describes the "real&qu

That's the question in this week's Scripps Howard column , following up on yesterday's Gallup poll and President Obama's State of the Union comment that "We can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules." My take: "Fairness" can be a slippery concept, so let's use Obama's formulation as our guide. In the American economy, does everybody get a fair shot? Does everyone do a fair share? Does everyone play by the same set of rules? No. Yes. No. No, not everybody gets a fair shot. Sixty-five percent of American men born poor stay poor, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Sixty-two percent of those born rich stay rich. Other studies show that it's much easier to rise from humble circumstances if you're a native of Canada, Norway, Finland or Denmark than in the United States. The poor often lack the education and resources to advance in

The Iowa caucuses are around the corner. In this week's Scripps Howard column, Ben and I try to weigh which candidate would be best for America. My take : Asking a liberal which Republican they favor in 2012 is like choosing one's favorite flavor of arsenic: You have options, but none will go down very well. Nobody in the field seems likely to attract many Democratic votes in November. As an American, though, I want to see the GOP put its best and most-qualified candidate forward to challenge President Barack Obama. And that candidate is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas might be appealing on civil liberties, but he also appeals too much to racists and conspiracy-mongers. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann are so retrograde on social issues they don't deserve consideration. Texas Gov. Rick Perry isn't bright, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is Newt Gingrich. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is

Ben and I wrestle with the Penn State scandal in this week's Scripps column. My take : College football is a blot upon the landscape. The sport distorts the educational mission of participating schools, draws disproportionately from their financial resources and institutional energy, and badly exploits the young men who play the game. All this, so we fans can have our Saturday tailgates.  The scandal at Penn State isn't uncommon. As a young reporter in the early 2000s, I wrote about how Terry Allen, then-football coach at the University of Kansas, was presented with accusations that two of his players sexually assaulted a woman. He didn't go to police; Allen punished the players by making them run extra laps after practice.  After the story broke, he stuck around another year before losing his job over a poor record. Anybody who has spent time around a top-level college program can probably tell you a similar story -- usually off-the-record.  KU's current coach, Turner

Ben and I discuss whether regulatory uncertainty is holding back the U.S. economy in this week's column. My take: Let's be honest: "Regulatory uncertainty" is a euphemism for "regulations." Businesses -- and their mostly Republican allies -- don't want them. We have regulations for a reason. The Dodd-Frank law passed because the financial industry proved it couldn't police itself and nearly destroyed the American economy. Richard Nixon created OSHA at a time when 14,000 employees were dying in the workplace every year; that number dropped 60 percent over the next 30 years. Left to their own devices, businesses often cut corners, resulting in financial and even physical harm to the rest of us. Overregulation can stifle the economy. The Obama administration recognizes this -- and in August announced a reform effort to reduce regulatory burdens on business by $10 billion a year, mostly by streamlining required health, labor and tax paperwork. Obama

Ben and I talk about the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in this week's Scripps Howard column . Rather than do our usual point-counterpoint thing we did something new and rare for us: We agreed, and combined a single column explaining our shared civil liberties concerns. An excerpt: How was al-Awlaki marked for death? According to the Washington Post, the Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of al-Awlaki. Reuters reports that al-Awlaki was then targeted by a secret White House committee -- and that the president's role in ordering the decision is "fuzzy." If killing al-Awlaki was justified, then why is both the process and the justification for this killing secret? As the Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf observed, "Obama hasn't just set a new precedent about killing Americans without due process. He has done so in a way that deliberately shields from public view the precise nature of the important precedent he has set.&

President Obama's new jobs bill would make it illegal for employers to turn away job applicants just because they're not currently employed. That's the topic of my Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk this week. My take : Workers have rights, too.  So much of the political discussion in recent years has focused on the liberty of businesses -- usually huge corporations -- to dominate our politics, be free from burdensome regulations, and avoid the entanglements of unions.  Even in the aftermath of the financial collapse of 2008, Republicans have been unceasing in the efforts to ensure that businesses can do whatever they want to do to turn a profit. If those companies have any responsibility to the broader American community, you'd never know it from GOP rhetoric.  Obama's proposed law does nothing to reverse that tide. It doesn't keep corporations from spending tons of money on campaigns. It doesn't force them to reduce their own profits in order to clean

As politicians promise to start cutting spending in Washington after this fall's elections, there's growing talk -- even among some Republicans -- that it's perhaps time to cut defense spending. That has, predictably, generated a backlash within the GOP. Ben and I tackle the topic in our column for Scripps Howard this week. Here's my take : Yes, America can and should significantly cut its military budget. Our military isn't built just to defend America and its interests, but to bestride the world like a colossus: There are significant deployments of U.S. troops and personnel in Europe and Asia, and commands charged with readiness to project American military power on the remaining inhabited continents. This has had benefits -- we've helped keep the peace in Europe, by and large, for more than 60 years, which is an extraordinary accomplishment. But American taxpayers continue to pay dearly for the privilege of maintaining the most awesome military in world

Ben and I talk about whether the ongoing, never-ending process of school reform is endangered by the resignation of Michelle Rhee as Washington D.C.'s chancellor of schools. My take : Certain "reformers" are rushing to make Michelle Rhee's resignation a morality tale for the nation's education system -- an example of the corrupt power of teachers' unions and the rot of public schools. But there's less to the development than meets the eye. If "reform" is the message, then Rhee was an imperfect messenger: It is time for her to move on. Reform, after all, remains the agenda for D.C. Mayor-in-Waiting Vincent Gray and Interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson -- a Rhee protege -- have promised that efforts begun under Rhee will continue. As Melinda Hennenberger noted at Politics Daily, "The plan under Henderson is Rhee's exact reform agenda, so how does giving someone else a chance to implement it amount to disaster?" It doesn't. But

Ben and I talk about the "enthusiasm gap" among Democratic voters in our Scripps Howard column this week. My take: You almost can't blame President Obama for being frustrated. He's gotten more big things done -- a health care bill, the stimulus, financial reform -- than any Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson, and he's done it in only two years. So why all the complaining from his liberal base? Because it hasn't been enough. And what has been done hasn't been done well. Yes, the longtime progressive dream of a universal health care bill passed -- but in a messy form that, with its mandate on American citizens to buy their own health insurance or face penalties, seems designed to alienate as many voters as it serves. The stimulus probably averted a Depression-like disaster for the American economy, but liberals believe it probably needed to be bigger in order to lower a still-horrendous unemployment rate. Financial reform took too long to pass an

Our Scripps Howard column this week is about Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars." My take: Bob Woodward's new book reminds us of an important proposition: American democracy and long-term war are a bad mix. It's certainly bad for democracy. One of the most disturbing revelations is the lengths that President Obama went to in order to ensure the military obeyed his orders in Afghanistan -- dictating a six-page single-spaced document dictating the terms of 2009's surge of 40,000 troops to that country. Why the detail? Because the president felt sure his generals and admirals would find "wiggle room" to violate the spirit of the order setting a 2011 deadline to begin drawing down troops there. The American Constitution is clear: The president is the commander-in-chief. He makes the country's big decisions about how we fight war. Generals and admirals give their best military advice, and then execute the decisions the president has mad

Glenn Beck has "honor" and "being honored" confused. Has America lost its honor? That's the topic of my latest Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk -- inspired by Glenn Beck's "Restoring America's Honor" rally last weekend. My take : Has America lost its honor? Absolutely. The campaigns against Muslim mosques in New York City and Murfreesboro, Tenn., represent a profound betrayal of this country's traditional values of religious tolerance. We Americans should repent the ugliness directed at our Muslim fellow citizens. What? Wait. You mean that's not the "lost honor" Glenn Beck was talking about? Of course not. Whatever you think of America's honor, one thing is certain: Double standards are alive and well in this country. When liberals point out how America falls short of its ideals, they're often accused of "hating America." When conservatives do the same thing, they're treated like prophetic

That's the question raised in The Atlantic's September cover story , and is also the topic of my Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk this week . My take: An attack on Iran, whether by Israel or the United States, would have devastating consequences for the rest of us: Iran would almost certainly respond by unleashing its terrorist proxy groups to make war on Western targets, and it could easily make life miserable for shipping in the Straits of Hormuz -- a critical passage for oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world. Many people would die, and a shaky world economy might be plunged into depression. And that's what would happen if the attack worked. Iran learned the lessons of Israel's attacks on nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria during the last three decades. The country has spread out and buried its key nuclear facilities. Western intelligence probably doesn't know where all those facilities are located. Even proponents of an attack

That's the question I tackle with Ben Boychuk in our column for Scripps Howard News Service . You already got an early version of my take on this blog, so I'll give the floor to Ben. The problem here isn't charity. The problem is Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Americans tend to disdain the gaudy rich and ostentatious displays of wealth. Gates and Buffett are what might be called ostentatious donors. Through his family foundation, Gates has donated tens of billions of dollars to causes ranging from education reform to vaccinations for poor women in third world countries. Buffett has given $8 billion alone to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Have they helped people? Probably. Have they shaped public policy? Almost certainly. The question is whether those billions have shaped policy for the better. To the extent Gates and Buffett have pushed for reforms that expand the scope and reach of national governments, that's not positive change. Gates and Buffett bot

That's the central question of my Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk this week. My take: Whether the Supreme Court strikes down gay-marriage bans may depend entirely on the attitudes and disposition of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who tends to be the swing vote on controversial issues. Reading his 2003 opinion in Lawrence v. Texas -- the ruling that struck down laws making homosexual sex a crime -- it's difficult to see how state bans on gay marriage will survive. It is true that Kennedy, in his 2003 ruling, was careful to state that decriminalizing such sexual practices did not require formal government recognition of gay relationships. But the logic of that ruling is compelling in the context of gay marriage. The logic was this: To use the law to set apart homosexual conduct "demeans the lives of homosexual persons," and thus is at odds with the guarantees of liberty provided by the U.S. Constitution. Kennedy was right then, and he would be right now to say

That's the topic of my Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk this week. Since you already got most of my take in blog form last week , let me do something different and focus on Ben's take. An excerpt: Now let's contrast Washington with Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the Cordoba House project who wrote a fascinating book in 2004 called "What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America." In it, Rauf casually argues that the U.S. Constitution and the core principles of Islamic law (sharia) are not in conflict at all and, indeed, the "American political structure is sharia-compliant." "Islamic law and American democratic principles have many things in common," Rauf wrote, stressing that sharia's support for "political justice" and "economic justice ... for the weak and impoverished" "sounds suspiciously like the Declaration of Independence." To the casual reader, maybe. Fact is, sharia doe