Over the weekend, we saw “National Treasure 2,” the fun-but-ridiculous romp through American history, in which, among many other incidents, the Nicholas Cage figure breaks into the Oval Office and kidnaps the president (sort of). What struck me was that the president in that movie was not mocked or criticized; rather, he was portrayed as a powerful yet benevolent symbol of America. He was respected, even as he was being “kidnapped,” and the movie gave him a strongly patriotic vibe.

I remember that sense of the presidency with Ronald Reagan, and I am old enough to remember it, which I picked up even as a child, with John F. Kennedy. We haven’t known that since then. I believe the nation, torn by so much divisiveness in our government, yearns to be unified and yearns to rally around a president whom they can look up to and who can bring them together. This, I think, is the primal appeal of Barack Obama. The only Republican who might be able to pull that off is John McCain.

This can be a dangerous sentiment, though, the mood that can turn a nation to a demogogue and a tyrant. These candidates are not that way, but I think we are seeing, for better or worse, a turn in American politics away from ideology. This is being opposed, of course, but those of us strongly committed to an ideology who may be swept away.

Barack Obama is said to embody a post-partisan appeal.

He is being lauded even by conservative pundits, including Rush Limbaugh and Bill Bennett.

Obama, alone among the Democratic candidates, is not demonizing Republicans, conservatives, evangelicals, or pro-lifers. Which is infuriating a good part of the liberal blogosphere. “Obama doesn’t fit our style,” says one leftist blogger. “He’s not combative. He’s not aggressive. He doesn’t talk about Republicans the way you’d hope he would.”

Similarly, many of us on the right cannot stand McCain. He is right on the war and on pro-life issues, but he is seen to be wrong on immigration, taxes, and campaign finance reform.

Is Obama’s post-partisanship just a way to sell his liberal program? What concessions will he make to conservatives if he really wants to reach out to them? Is McCain’s issue-by-issue approach a sign of fatal inconsistency or signs of a larger post-partisan synthesis?

Huckabee is similarly making a broad appeal, but will his evangelicalism keep him a polarizing figure, or might he too become a post-partisan president?

Provocative thoughts on the meaning of the Huckabee upset–as well as why cultural issues trump economics–from David Brooks:

Huckabee won because he tapped into realities that other Republicans have been slow to recognize.

First, evangelicals have changed. Huckabee is the first ironic evangelical on the national stage. He’s funny, campy (see his Chuck Norris fixation) and he’s not at war with modern culture.

Second, Huckabee understands much better than Mitt Romney that we have a crisis of authority in this country. People have lost faith in their leaders’ ability to respond to problems. While Romney embodies the leadership class, Huckabee went after it. He criticized Wall Street and K Street. Most importantly, he sensed that conservatives do not believe their own movement is well led. He took on Rush Limbaugh, the Club for Growth and even President Bush. The old guard threw everything they had at him, and their diminished power is now exposed.

Third, Huckabee understands how middle-class anxiety is really lived. Democrats talk about wages. But real middle-class families have more to fear economically from divorce than from a free trade pact. A person’s lifetime prospects will be threatened more by single parenting than by outsourcing. Huckabee understands that economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being, and he talks about the inter-relationship in a way no other candidate has. In that sense, Huckabee’s victory is not a step into the past. It opens up the way for a new coalition. A conservatism that recognizes stable families as the foundation of economic growth is not hard to imagine. A conservatism that loves capitalism but distrusts capitalists is not hard to imagine either. Adam Smith felt this way. A conservatism that pays attention to people making less than $50,000 a year is the only conservatism worth defending.

Will Huckabee move on and lead this new conservatism? Highly doubtful. The past few weeks have exposed his serious flaws as a presidential candidate. His foreign policy knowledge is minimal. His lapses into amateurishness simply won’t fly in a national campaign. So the race will move on to New Hampshire. Mitt Romney is now grievously wounded. Romney represents what’s left of Republicanism 1.0. Huckabee and McCain represent half-formed iterations of Republicanism 2.0. My guess is Republicans will now swing behind McCain in order to stop Mike. Huckabee probably won’t be the nominee, but starting last night in Iowa, an evangelical began the Republican Reformation.

His third point is the best, articulating well how “it’s not the economy, stupid”; rather, “it’s the culture, stupid.” But do you think the Republican party needs a reformation? And, if so, who is its Luther?

Have you heard about how Hillary Clinton’s motorcade blocked Obama’s at the airport?

Sunday at the burnt out Lutheran church we blogged about last weekend, from the Los Angeles Times:

In Nairobi’s slum district of Kibera, people prayed for peace Sunday under the charred cross and blackened walls of the burned Lutheran church. But in the narrow alleys just 100 yards away, the thugs with machetes still rule.

When the service ended, the parishioners in their Sunday best walked home through neighborhoods still teetering on a knife’s edge.
. . . . . . . . .

More than 300 people have died in the violence.

When one parishioner, Rebecca Muthoni, a 38-year-old Kikuyu, plodded to the Lutheran church Sunday, her heart was heavy. Muthoni’s shack and the kindergarten where she taught children had been torched, as well as her church.

As Pastor Dennis Meeker prayed, Muthoni fell to the ground, tears flowing from her eyes, crying out hysterically: “Forgive them! Forgive them!”

As she yelled, Meeker repeated over and over, “We shall persevere.”

“My pain is really deep,” she said after the service. “I am feeling bad in my heart. I have no house and no job. And I am the only breadwinner in the family.”

The fire left the church walls intact, but there was a black scar on the wall behind the altar with a white patch in the center. Meeker plans to leave it there to remind people what happened in Kibera over the past week. He said Tuesday’s attack by looters could destroy the building but not the church, and urged the congregation to forgive.

“You struggle with anger. You struggle with weeping,” said Meeker, an American who arrived from Iowa in September. “I don’t think you can make sense out of it. In fact, this is caused by politicians because we were really living in peace and going along well until the presidential election.”

A friend of mine who has done mission work in Kenya and who has sources there says that two other Lutheran churches in the countryside were burned. She heard that 35 parishioners taking refuge in one of the church buildings perished in the flames. I can’t find any other references to that. Does anyone know?

Conditions are said to be much improved now, but we need to be praying for the people and churches of Kenya. May they all display that spirit of the grieving woman who cried out not for retribution against the people who destroyed her home, her livelihood, and her church but that God would forgive them.

Thanks to Aardvark Alley for bestowing on this blog the coveted Golden Aardvark Award for our Christmas re-runs. This entitles the honoree (and we were one of many) to proudly display this emblem: