Dole's spiritual flatlands

Perhaps it's time for evangelical voters to declare August 16 Independence Day | Marvin Olasky

Christian conservatives normally attack Bob Dole for lacking a moral spine on crucial issues such as abortion. That evidently is true, but here's one more problem: His political pragmatism isn't very pragmatic. Bill Clinton, pragmatist supreme, is practicing not only the political triangulation of depicting himself as midway between liberalism and conservatism, but a "spiritual triangulation" as well. I came to understand the importance of spiritual triangulation while writing a book on 18th-century American history. Before the Revolution, three major camps dominated political discussion. Those favoring big government sided with the British. Small government folks, wanting lower taxes and more local control, turned against the British. Righteous government folks did not necessarily side with big or little, but merely wanted officials to act according to biblical principles. They were the swing vote. The American Revolution began when Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams practiced spiritual triangulation by leading the small and righteous government folks to form a coalition against the big government people, whom they successfully portrayed as immoral. Today, the three points on the equilateral triangle still remain: Big government on the left, small government on the right, and righteous government at the top. Bill Clinton, starting from a position of weakness because of his history of personal immorality, has worked hard to become the Defender of the Faith that America is a country of compassion and fairness. Most WORLD readers understand that the president's actions belie his rhetoric, but Mr. Clinton has astutely been pretending to move not so much rightward as diagonally upward.