BUSH BASHING - Edgy but not over the edge!

I've been listening to the criticism of Laura Bush's comments (or comedy) at the White House Correspondent's Dinner the other night; well, I've a proposal for all of those who've got their shorts in a knot (see below).

Now I don't like unseemly comments or titillation for titillation's sake any more than the next pastor, but the uproar from some quarters implies her critics think they are perfect or at least so horizontally pure that God is impressed with them. He's not! [Isaiah 64:6]

The question isn't whether or not the First Lady overstepped the boundaries, it's whether or not her unofficial office or our national public morality has been cheapened. And they have ... Michelle Malkin, who I respect more now than before, has it right.

Self-censorship is a conservative value. In a brilliant commencement speech at Hillsdale College last year Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner called on his audience to resist the coarsened rhetoric of our time: "If we are to prevail as a free, self-governing people, we must first govern our tongues and our pens. Restoring civility to public discourse is not an option. It is a necessity."

Lighten up, you say? No thanks. I'd rather be a G-rated conservative who can only make my kids giggle than a South Park/Desperate Housewives conservative whose goal is getting Richard Gere and Jane Fonda to snicker. Giving the Hollyweird Left the last laugh is not my idea of success.

Although we too laugh when the jokes are thrown out publicly, Christians have been called to a higher calling and Mrs. Bush claims a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. She must remember the words of the Apostle Paul ...

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

Ephesians 4:29

And the warning of the Lord ...

Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.

Matthew 15:17, 18

But the public must remember Laura Bush lives in a fishbowl ... every move, every word is noticed and recorded by someone.

My proposal? As a right of passage, everyone reaching adulthood must spend a month with a reporter and cameraman; and then, in the end, be made to answer to a panel of academicians and opinion columnists every day for a week.