George W. Bush: Seeing The Big Picture
By Doug Newman

If you are not familiar with Pastor Chuck Baldwin, you should be. Especially if you are a Christian and you consider yourself a conservative. Baldwin pastors the Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida, and writes a twice-weekly column examining political issues from a truly biblical and conservative viewpoint.

Baldwin is not your typical go-along-to-get-along commentator. Rather than accept President Bush’s (GWB) rhetoric and professions of Christian faith at face value, he does what Scripture calls him to do. He dispassionately examines the fruit on the tree. He finds it most unpalatable. He routinely takes the religious establishment to task for so unquestioningly following GWB. (Read the rest here)

Poor George - Systemic Intelligence Failure
By Ed Henry

The saga continues. Was President Bush the innocent dupe of misleading information about Iraq’s weaponry? As the British put it, was he the victim of "sexed up" information—a question that seems to say more about the British libido than anything else—or did he and his cohorts deliberately distort qualified intelligence reports, limited information, and educated guesses?

And what about the media or what passes for news in this country? Compare more than six months of daily appearances on television and radio by the most publicity conscious president we've ever seen, leaning over the podium to tell us the 9/11 terrorists "must have thought we'd sue them" and later one-liners like "bring 'em on" while our troops and equipment massed on Iraq's borders and Tommy Franks played computer games in Wolf Blitzer's "Cutter" (Qatar) and the Iraqis dismantled their short range missiles or played with drones from FAO Schwarz. (Read the rest here)

I'll Take Free Choice
by Sheldon Richman
The Future of Freedom Foundation

Intellectuals who disdain the common man's freedom never run out of rationalizations for government control. In a recent New York Times op-ed touting his book, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, psychology professor Barry Schwartz criticized political reforms aimed at expanding choice. He argued that "for many people, increased choice can lead to a decrease in satisfaction. Too many options can result in paralysis, not liberation."

He offered empirical evidence that a large range of choice makes people less happy, not more. For example, he cites research showing that "as the number of flavors of jam or varieties of chocolate available to shoppers is increased, the likelihood that they will leave the store without buying either jam or chocolate goes up." Schwartz comments: "In cases like these, increased choice often enables people to improve their lives by some objective measure - quality of jam, rate of return on investment, suitability of a job to one's ultimate career objectives, and so on. But it also makes people feel worse." (Read the rest here)

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