On The Posner Show, Sarah and Anthea explain how Mike Huckabee got his David Petraeus-King David analogy all wrong. Anthea says the Petraeus affair shows that evangelizing in the military doesn’t have its intended effect. Moving on to an analysis of religion and the election results: Did Ralph Reed exaggerate how many evangelicals he could bring out to the polls? Have the Republicans boxed themselves into a corner by catering to the religious right? Anthea challenges the Catholic bishops on immigration, but suggests that the LDS Church emerged from Romney’s campaign with its reputation intact.
On Foreign Entanglements, Matt and James tackle l’affaire Petraeus. Matt argues that Petraeus gave the DC establishment permission to pretend Iraq wasn’t a huge screw up. Shockingly, Rep. Eric Cantor appears to have behaved responsibly in this matter. After Obama’s re-election, what’s the landscape of conservative foreign policy? James argues that Obama simply continued Bush’s second-term foreign policy, but Matt doesn’t completely buy it. James says that Obama has completely undercut the GOP’s foreign policy message. Plus: Will the right’s next generation of foreign policy thinkers embrace realism?
On The Posner Show, Sarah and Katharine talk about religion and climate change. Katharine describes how climate change exacerbated the effects of Hurricane Sandy. They discuss questions addressed in Katharine’s book, co-written with her husband, on addressing faith-based issues in climate change. If God is in control, and the end is near anyway, why should humans do anything to mitigate climate change? How is climate-change denial like creationism? Has Sandy revived climate change as a political issue? Finally, Katharine explains why houses of worship should go green.
On the premiere of The Mind Report, Joshua talks to Dave about his research on whether people are innately selfish or cooperative. It seems intuitive that thoughtful people would be kinder—but is this so? What’s the psychology behind being nice or mean to a stranger? Joshua and Dave analyze whether cooperation is part of human nature or mediated by culture. Could Americans teach cynical Romanians to be more cooperative? Finally, they consider the true source of our values.
On Foreign Entanglements, Rob speaks with Dan about the aftermath of the election. Dan discusses the growing demographic problem for the GOP. Rob asks about the GOP shadow foreign policy team, and Dan describes the future of “neoconservatism 3.0“. Dan also tries to explain the continued relevance of Charles Krauthammer, while Rob wonders whether technology has changed elite foreign policy narratives. Would appointing John Kerry as Secretary of State guarantee the return of Scott Brown to the Senate? Will the GOP moderate its policies in response to defeat? Finally, they discuss whether the GOP will try to impeach Obama and whether Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016.