Earlier today Tony Blair called for the dissolution of Parliament and a general election on May 5. That’s right: one month from today, with the campaign actually not getting completely underway until after Pope John Paul II’s funeral on Friday and Prince Charles’ wedding on Saturday. So it’s basically going to be a three-week sprint to the wire, astonishing as that may seem to us Americans who are used to two-year marathons.Moreover, Blair’s announcement coincided with the release of a couple of national polls showing Labour’s margin over the Tories shrinking significantly. The Guardian/ICM poll has Labour at 37 percent, the Conservatives at 34 percent, and the LibDems at 21 percent, with a lot of indications of voter volatility. This is a bit misleading, since Labour enjoys a vote-distribution advantage that would convert these numbers into a parliamentary majority of somewhere between 90 and 100 seats, but it’s still likely to be a more competitive election than appeared likely just a couple of weeks ago.As many of you probably know, British party politics in the last few years have revolved around four dynamics: (1) significant public unhappiness with Blair’s foreign policies, and especially Britain’s role in Iraq, which have offset general approbation of Labour’s domestic, and especially economic policies; (2) the chronic weakness of the Tory opposition, which suffers from leadership and message problems that make the superficially similar problems of American Democrats pale in comparison; (3) the steady transformation of the LibDems, who used to be generally considered a centrist party, into a Left Opposition to Labour, especially on foreign policy and cultural issues; and (4) restiveness about Labour’s relatively long hold on power, which would become really remarkable if it wins a third straight general election.I don’t know how many NewDonkey readers are interested in British politics, but I do intend to blog about this semi-regularly between now and May 5. And while I will try to present objective analysis of what’s going on, I’ll disclose right up front that I am a Tony Blair and Labour partisan.No, I’m not happy with the moral and intellectual support that Blair has provided not just to George W. Bush’s foreign policies, but to Bush himself (every time they have a joint press conference, I half-expect Bush to respond to a question with: “What he said.”), but what do you expect from any British Prime Minister? I have zero doubts, and lots of reasons to believe, that 10 Downing Street would have been ecstatic at a Kerry victory last November, and that the U.S.-British alliance would have flourished as never before.But the bottom line is that on every key issue facing his country, our country, and the world, Tony Blair has an abundance of exactly what virtually all U.S. Democrats say a party of the center-left should have: a clear, articulate vision; a values-based progressive message that does not ignore collective security or cultural issues; and a full agenda for shaping change in the interests of most people, especially those with no privilege or power, even in places like Africa. He is also, of course, one of the few twenty-first century survivors among the wave of center-left politicians who won striking victories throughout the West in the 1990s, consigning, or so it seemed at the time, Reagan-Thatcher style conservative politics to the dustbin of history. And to the extent that left-leaning Labour activists (and their U.S. counterparts) with various issues with Blair hope Gordon Brown succeeds him as P.M. during a third term, let me add that I think Brown is a potentially great leader as well, and shares Blair’s New Labour vision more than a lot of observers realize. So I hope Labour wins, but will try to offer a few news items and insights on the campaign as it develops, and however it develops.

Whoever’s in charge of headline writing over at The Hill, the congressional insider tabloid, pulled off a minor masterpiece in today’s banner: “K Street Fears Nuclear Winter.” The accompanying article by Geoff Earle reports that business lobbyists are not exactly happy about Senate Republican threats to “go nuclear” with a procedural maneuver disallowing filibusters on judicial nominations, which Senate Democrats have promised to fight by making life a living hell for the GOPers by refusing to go along with routine Senate business.Sure, some business lobbies like the National Association of Manufacturers have pledged support for the GOP’s efforts to ram judicial nominees through the Senate, but this is really the Cultural Right’s fight. K Street potentates have been asking Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist to delay the confrontation on judges until later in the year, after they get some more goodies out of the Senate like the pending energy and highway bills.The longtime enforcer of conservative message discipline among the K Street crowd, our ol’ buddy Grover Norquist, told Earle the Gucci Shoes will eventually fall into line with the judge-bashing, bench-stacking Gospel.

Norquist said the lobbying community was “insufficiently” involved right now, “but they will be.” He noted that tort reform and the rulings handed down by state and federal judges were primary issues for buisiness groups.

Yeah, and not only that, but you better get in line if you want your own stuff from the administration and the Congress, right, Grover?Today’s edition of The Hill also features a gossipy item by Hans Nichols suggesting that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are arguing over the right way to frame (damn! George Lakoff is ruining a perfectly good verb!) the upcoming “nuclear option” fight, with Reid favoring a direct and narrow pitch and Pelosi wanting it to be part of a broader message about GOP abuse of power in Washington. House and Senate prerogatives aside, there’s a legitimate difference of opinion on how to handle this fight. I’m sympathetic to Reid’s apparent belief that it will take a focused and sustained message effort to get the public to understand, much less care about, a fight over Senate rules. But Pelosi’s absolutely right that it should be part of a broader reform message about a runaway Congress and federal government under iron Republican control. Indeed, that’s a message Democrats should hammer away on from now until November of 2006, no matter which particular abuse the GOPers are indulging in on any particular day.

I struggled all weekend to find something distinctive to say about the life and legacy of Pope John Paul II, and have a hypothesis to offer. In the end, what Karol Wojtyla will be most remembered for is not his role in the end of the Cold War, or the formidable windbreak he built against the storms of doctrinal change initiated by the Second Vatican Council. His most important legacy, I surmise, may be as the key transitional figure in the transformation of Roman Catholicism specifically, and Christianity generally, from a “Western” tradition rooted in Europe to a truly global faith centered in the South rather than the North.This may seem counter-intuitive, since this Pope was himself pre-eminently European, with a faith and outlook shaped by the twentieth century’s struggles against European totalitarianism, and a life that personified the destruction of the divisions between Eastern and Western Europe. Moreover, he went a long way towards healing European Christianity’s most shameful historical disease, its murderous intolerance of religious minorities, most notably Jews.Yet nearly everything about the powerful and perhaps irreversible trajectory he set for the Church points South, to the Third World, and away from Europe and the United States. Many obituarists of this Pope have struggled to categorize him ideologically as “conservative” on faith and morals yet “liberal” or even “radical” on issues of globalization, poverty and war, even as they acknowledge the unity of his own thinking.But these are Eurocentric ways of looking at his teachings, which may confuse and distress American Catholics and what’s left of the faith in Europe, but make perfect sense to most Catholics in Africa, Latin America and Asia.A deeply illiberal approach to issues involving sexuality and gender; a rejection of capitalism as a necessary counterpart to democracy; and an abiding hostility to U.S.-European political, military, economic and cultural hegemony: this is a consistent point of view with strong support in the global South, among Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Indeed, in many respects what John Paul II represented was a living link between the pre-modern traditions of European Catholicism and the post-modern realities of much of the rest of the world.And in that respect, John Paul II was following, not just leading, the faithful. As will be pointed out often during the next couple of weeks, there is now a Southern majority in the College of Cardinals that will elect this pope’s successor. Most of the Church’s growth is in the South, or among southern immigrants to the North (most notably the Latin American immigrants to the U.S.). John Paul II’s peripatetic travel was notable not just in its pace, but in its scope, especially in Latin America and Asia. And it’s no accident that the short list for the successor to the first non-Italian pope in half a millennium includes serious candidates from outside Europe for the first time ever.Sure, John Paul II clamped down on the “liberation theology” popular in some elements of the Latin American clergy, and reined in some of the more exuberant liturgical experiments underway in Africa (as well as in the U.S.). But such actions should be understood as steps to consolidate the South’s position in the universal church, not as efforts to impose European norms.This is, of course, just a hypothesis, and perhaps I am being unduly influenced by the North-South struggle underway in my own faith community, the Anglican Communion, where African and Asian bishops are headed rapidly down a path that may soon lead to the isolation and/or expulsion of their U.S. and Canadian brethren, with the Church of England itself probably next in line for punishment for its “modernist” heresies.But the case for John Paul II as the crucial figure in the Roman Church’s non-Roman, non-European, non-American future seems more compelling to me than a lot of the competing interpretations. And this possibility should especially give pause to the American conservatives, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and irreligious, who are outdoing each other this week in viewing this pope’s legacy through the lens of their own cultural and political obsessions. This pope’s opposition to “American exceptionalism” invariably embraced opposition to the death penalty, to capitalist triumphalism, and to George W. Bush’s unilateralist foreign policies, as well as to abortion or birth control or the removal of feeding tubes from the hopelessly dying.Many conservatives accuse John Paul II’s American flock of practicing a “Cafeteria Catholicism” of selective obedience to Rome. But the American Right, I would argue, is practicing “Cafeteria Conservatism”–an equally selective interpretation of this pope’s teachings and legacy, which lead not Right or Left but South.

Pope John Paul II died today at 84. There will be much to say, and much said, about the life and legacy of this remarkable man, but for now: may he rest in peace.

Tonight I saw HBO’s film about the Rwanda genocide of 1994, “Sometime in April.” It’s a powerful movie, and it is especially impressive in making it clear how little the U.N. and the U.S. did despite extensive knowledge of what was happening day by day. As for the French… well, the film does a subtle but devastating job of showing Paris’ sympathy for the wrong side. As it happens, there is something that I and the other millions of people who may ultimately see “Sometime in April” can do other than feel guilty. We can raise holy hell about today’s ongoing genocide in Darfur, a situation in which New York and Paris and Washington (along with Moscow and Beijing) seem determined, once again, to do little or nothing until it is too late.The OAU presence in Darfur is completely inadequate to the task. U.N. action will probably be blocked by Russia and China. Today’s New Dem Dispatch proposes an emergency NATO mission. That will require immediate and vocal leadership from the President of the United States, who for once has a genuine opportunity to show he really believes in a “culture of life,” and in U.S. moral leadership. Like my colleague The Moose, I believe agitating for action in Darfur is a mission that should unite all sorts of disparate elements of the blogosphere.

I know I’m violating my pledge to leave the sad Terri Schiavo case alone, but a reporter friend just emailed me Tom DeLay’s statement on her death:

Mrs. Schiavo’s death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Schindlers and with Terri Schiavo’s friends in this time of deep sorrow.

My friend asked for a “translation” of the first line and the “answer for their behavior” comment, and I responded:

If you hoped this was some sort of southern saying, or a quote from scripture, I’ll have to disappoint you. It’s just poor writing. The “moral poverty” line reminds me of that great Dick Gephardt epigram: “Markets are not a morality.” Nor are advertisements an epistemology, but who cares?

The “answer for their behavior” bit is a nice example of deliberately menacing ambiguity, worthy of Tony Soprano, making you wonder if he’s talking about Divine Judgment or a House Republican hearing or worse. Hopefully, Barney Frank or somebody will respond with a statement that says: “The political exploitation of Terri Schiavo is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. And the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, and that time may be November of 2006.”

My colleague The Moose and I were talking this morning about an attack on Tom DeLay that was published by The Battalion, the Texas A&M student newspaper, which the Texas blogger Greg Wythe brought to our attention. I was curious about a reference Greg made to DeLay having once referred to A&M as a “den of iniquity,” and The Moose (a native of Waco) enlightened me with a great link: a 2002 article in the Baptist Standard, the official voice of the Texas Baptist Convention. Turns out DeLay told an audience of Texas Baptists that they shouldn’t send their kids to A&M or Baylor because these famously conservative schools weren’t really conservative any more, and were tolerating all sorts of immoral behavior. (Read the whole rich story, which also reveals that DeLay was booted out of Baylor for a “prank” he committed at–you guessed it–Texas A&M). I don’t know that much about Texas, but I do know two things: (1) there’s no percentage in taking a stance to the right of Southern Baptists on issues of personal morality; and (2) you don’t want to mess with the Aggies. DeLay papered over the furor from his disrespecting of Baylor and Texas A&M, but you never know how much ill-will got stored away for future reference. It’s like the old saying: Be careful who you step on as you climb the ladder, ’cause it can earn you a long, lonely fall from the top.

In case you’ve missed it, Tom DeLay has begun a counter-offensive against those critics who are kinda wondering at what stage his egregious pattern of conduct–unethical, illegal, or just plain crass–will get either his party or his constituents to send him back to the exterminating business. DeLay’s argument, of course, is that it’s all just a lefty conspiracy, probably financed by George Soros, to “destroy the conservative movement.” Now put aside for a moment the rather self-aggrandizing idea that the conservative movement would instantly fall to pieces without the Hammer’s leadership. The more interesting assertion is that his growing cast of detractors–including the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal–is being orchestrated by the godless hordes of the Organized Left.You might want to take a look at the official take of that well-known leftist group, the Soros-controlled, Michael-Moore-loving Democratic Leadership Council, on DeLay’s latest line of defense.

All I have to say about the death of poor Terri Schiavo is: may she rest in peace, in a place where she can laugh with the angels at the political usages of her last days.

As I am sure some of you have already informed me by email, Alan Keyes has indeed make the trek to Florida, and does indeed have a few thousand predictably shrill opinions on the Schiavo case. And the fact that I hadn’t noticed it indicates that the whole scene is so crazy that Keyes just doesn’t stand out.Moreoever, my little joke about a Keyes Senate race in Maryland turns out to be right on the money as well. As Annie Linskey of the Baltimore Sun reported a week ago:

Since Keyes still has a house in Maryland, could he reverse his carpetbagging and come back here for a third attempt to finally represent the state?”I’m waiting for a response from him,” said Connie Hair, a spokeswoman for Keyes. But she warned that Keyes is more engaged with an issue – this time in Florida.He is “completely focused right now on the Terri Schiavo matter,” Hair said, referring to the debate over whether the brain-damaged woman should be kept alive with a feeding tube.

Keyes, in other words, is simply impervious to parody. But hey, why shouldn’t he make another Senate run? After all, the whole Republican Party seems to be heading right in his direction.