Peggy Noonan‘s latest column reminds me yet again why I call her my Athena. The Greek goddess of war, handicrafts, industry and skill, Athena sprung fully formed–and fully armed–from the head of her father Zeus, king of the gods, whose favorite she was. In some tellings, Athena was born only after Zeus swallowed his pregnant first wife, Metis, goddess of wisdom, thus making his favorite child an incarnation of wisdom.

Peggy Noonan also incarnates a certain wisdom. Like Athena, she is a hawk. A speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, she penned an excellent memoir of her White House days, What I saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan era. The book’s eighth chapter, “Who Was That Masked Man?” as well her her 2001 besteller, When Character was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan, capture the essence of the Gipper.

In her latest column, defending John Bolton, the president’s much (and wrongly) maligned choice for U.N. Ambassador, she notes that Bolton is not the only public figure alleged to have a bad temper. She doesn’t think however that such a bad temper should necessarily disqualify him from service:

Bad temper is a bad thing in a public servant, but it is not the worst thing. Worse is the person who judges all questions as either career-enhancing or career-retarding, who lets the right but tough choice slide if standing for it will make him controversial and therefore a target. Mr. Bolton apparently never does that. Worse is the person who doesn’t really care that the right thing be done, as long he gets his paycheck. That’s not Mr. Bolton either. Worse still is the cynic who is above caring about anything beyond his own concerns. And that isn’t Mr. Bolton either.

Emphasis added. It was that bolded (and italicized) line which reminded me of Peggy’s Athena-qualities.
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In an e-mail, blog reader Synova linked me to this excellent piece by a military blogger who doesn’t think there’s a good reason to exclude gays from the military:

I think it’s time to stop pretending there are no gay people in the military. Don’t ask, don’t tell is a silly policy that doesn’t give our troops credit for their tolerance. No one gains from this and it gives weasel protestors a meager moral advantage as they oppose military recruiting.

Uncle Jimbo, “Madison’s favorite hawk,” takes issues with Elaine Donnelly’s USA TODAY column favoring the continued exclusion of gays from serving in the military.

Since Uncle Jimbo is a military guy without a gay agenda, his piece carries particular weight. If we’re ever going to get rid of “one of the great injustices and follies of our time,” more military guys like him need to speak out against the ban. When the American people see this as an issue of military effectiveness, they’ll come on board and pressure their legislators to change the law. Jimbo makes a better case than I could ever make on this issue, so just read the WHOLE THING!!

I was delighted to note just a moment ago that Dirty Harry, one of my favorite bloggers (and a conservative), called it a “dumb thing” when Gerald Allen, an Alabama Republican lawmaker, proposed censoring books by gay authors. Dirty Harry links to JunkYardBlog, another conservative blog which also called the proposed censorship “dumb.”

Fortunately, this legislator’s bill failed. JunkYardBlog is right to fault him for proposing such sweeping legislation. But, he goes on to say that this “didn’t happen in a vacuum,” suggesting that Allen is likely responding to “the long train of advocacy dressed up as education that has been going in public schools for most of the past generation.”

I recommend JunkYard’s post, especially for critics of this blog, not because I think he’s right, but because he raises a point that many conservatives–and just social conservatives–have been bringing up time and again. They fear that liberal educators are trying to push an advocacy agenda on schoolchildren. And sometimes with solid evidence.

I’m of two minds on the issue. While I would like children to be exposed to positive portrayals of gay people, I also believe in local control of education which, in many cases, would mean that some schools boards would prevent even high schools from offering such positive portrayals.

JunkYard is right that “reasonable limits on the availability of objectionable material should be expected” in school libraries. The problem here is who gets to define what’s reasonable.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

I have finally figured out how to update the blogroll and want to alert y’all to some great blogs that I’ve now listed. First (and long overdue), I add Somewhere in the Middle. My pal Dirty Harry has recently relocated to Jackson’s Junction where he joins videoblogger extraordinaire (and fellow Gipper fan) Trey Jackson. If it weren’t for “THE ADVOCATE,” I might never have discovered Cathy’s World, a most excellent blog by a bright straight woman. And since we’re on the subject of bright straight women, check out Bridget Johnson’s GOP Vixen. Check ‘em all out and while you’re at it, take a gander at the other blogs we’ve listed.

Glenn Reynolds (AKA Instapundit) offers some great thoughts on the religious right and a potential danger facing the GOP. Like me, he doesn’t think “we’re in the grip of a theocracy” and he noted that Andrew Sullivan‘s tone of late “has been such that I doubt it’s winning many converts.” Importantly he notes that that gay marriage is “clearly a minority position in this country. . . . You go from being a minority position, to a majority position, by convincing people that you’re right. It’s not clear to me that playing the theocracy card will do that.”

Read the whole thing and follow the links for some thoughtful commentary on the “theocracy” debate.

UPDATE: In a recent column, while Michael Barone finds that Americans are becoming increasingly religious, that doesn’t mean “we’re headed to a theocracy” as “America is too diverse and freedom-loving for that.” Read the whole thing!