Though President Barack Obama says he probably won’t read Sarah Palin’s book, some of his allies are obviously paying attention: Today I received a mass email from Mitch Stewart of Organizing for America, the former campaign website for President Obama. The subject line: “Sarah Palin.”

These regular emails used to raise money for Obama’s presidential campaign. Now they raise money for Obama’s presidential agenda and the Democratic National Committee, though it’s not always clear from the emails how they plan to use the funds they solicit. Today’s email noted that Palin is on a book tour, and Stewart rendered this conclusion: “It’s dangerous.”

The email said Palin’s warnings about “death panels” in health care legislation “opened the floodgates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists.” What to do? Stewart offers this solution: Raise $500,000 in the next week to “help push back against Sarah Palin and her allies.” The email doesn’t specify what that means, but asks every email recipient to chip in $5.

Also of note: Stewart says Palin told Rush Limbaugh that Americans could “face jail time as punishment” if they don’t buy insurance, a claim Stewart calls outrageous and false. WORLD’s Washington Bureau chief Lee Pitts files a report this week explaining how it’s true.

Last week the White House said the president would issue his decision on Afghanistan around Nov. 19. Hmm. Now the White House gatekeepers are casually dropping “December” into their answers about questions on Afghanistan. To hear the Democrats talk, one would think we are not already committed with troops on the ground: “The decision to put troops in harm’s way is the toughest decision any president can make,” said former Clinton advisor Bruce Reed.

As we wait perhaps even this weekend a pronouncement from the president, I commend the recent commentary by Henry Kissinger on Afghanistan:

Full disclosure compels me to state at the beginning that I favor fulfilling the commander’s request and a modification of the strategy. But I also hope that the debate ahead of us avoids the demoralizing trajectory that characterized the previous controversies in wars against adversaries using guerrilla tactics, especially Vietnam and Iraq.

The former secretary of state and architect of the U.S. exit strategy from Vietnam, now 86, is a mellowed version of his realpolitick self of 30+ years ago. While acknowledging that “the most unambiguous form of exit strategy is victory,” Kissinger goes on to explain why military and political leaders need to move beyond the current counterterrorism/counterinsurgency debate to look at a regional peace involving Afghanistan’s neighbors. This is the dynamism and imagination that made Kissinger a loved/hated diplomat, and it’s sorely needed now. Read it.

Click here for a look back at the news of the week, colorfully illustrated by some of the best editorial cartoonists in the business: Pulitzer Prize-winner Steve Breen, Michael Ramirez, Scott Stantis, and Gary Varvel.

This creative cadre of cartoonists offer a unique, colorful, often humorous, and sometimes poignant perspective of politics, the economy, world events, and more.

Obama’s approval rating has dropped below 50 percent for the first time in his presidency, Gallup reports today. Gallup notes that Obama began July with 60 percent approval rating, but that the protracted health care debate and bad economic news have brought that approval rating down to 49 percent.

Giving some historical context, Gallup notes that of the post-World-War-II presidents, Obama is the fourth fastest to drop below the majority level. However, all the presidents eventually bounced back to above 50 percent and most recovered in time to be re-elected. Gallup concludes,

Thus, Obama’s descent below 50% is an important symbolic milestone in his presidency, but history suggests the odds of his regaining majority approval are high, and he could do so relatively soon, particularly since the individual nightly numbers for him in recent days have been right around the 50% mark. History would suggest his current loss of majority approval bears little relation to his chances of being elected to a second term in 2012.

The Manhattan Declaration was released today at noon:

More than 150 Christian leaders, most of them conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Roman Catholics, issued a joint declaration Friday reaffirming their opposition to abortion and gay marriage and pledging to protect religious freedoms.

The 4,700-word document, called “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” sounds familiar themes from political and social debates over the health care overhaul and gay marriage battles.

While acknowledging that “Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage,” the group rejects same-sex marriage. The declaration states that opening a legal door for gay marriage would do the same for “polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships.”

Currently, the web site of the declaration appears to be overloaded with traffic, so make sure to check back later in order to read through this important document.

You can also read it at First Things here.

ADDENDUM: WORLD Washington Bureau reporter Emily Belz attended today’s announcement. Read her report here.

Underscoring the relevance of WORLD’s cover story on domestic terrorism in this new issue (written by Lynn Vincent), are important developments this week. Two 20-somethings involved in a plot to blow up the Sears Tower were this week sentenced in federal district court in Miami. As AP reports:

One of the men, Burson Augustin, 24 was sentenced to six years in prison; his older brother, Rotschild Augustin, 26, was sentenced to seven years.

Today the ringleader of that plot is to be sentenced in Miami.

And in Chicago David C. Headley and Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana have been arrested as “suspected Islamist militants” but with a twist: The two are charged not with targeting the United States, but with staging foreign operations from relative anonymity on American soil. As The Washington Post comments today:

Their profile is a fresh one, and it is being viewed by U.S. authorities with alarm.

Whether it’s about trees, parades, festivals, displays, or greetings, the outcry this time or year usually involves someone deciding to call something “holiday” rather than “Christmas.” Not so in the community of Patchogue on New York’s Long Island. Last year, the town and the local chamber of commerce were concerned about a popular annual event not being inclusive enough so they rechristened it the “Holiday Boat Parade.” However, the number of spectators dramatically dropped off last year, so the Patchogue Riverfront Committee, which assumed sponsorship of the event this year, has renamed it the “Christmas Holiday Boat Parade”

After 25 seasons on the air, the Oprah Winfrey show will come to an end in 2011:

Oprah Winfrey was set to announce Friday that her powerhouse daytime television show, the foundation of a multibillion-dollar media empire with legions of fans, will end its run in 2011 after 25 seasons on the air.

A Harpo spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday on Winfrey’s plans except to say that “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which has seen ratings slip 7 percent from a year ago, will not move to cable television.

Winfrey, 55, is widely expected to start up a new talk show on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a much-delayed joint venture with Discovery Communications Inc. that is projected to debut in 2011. OWN is to replace the Discovery Health Channel and will debut in some 74 million homes. An OWN spokeswoman declined comment Thursday.

Whatever your thoughts about Oprah, no one can deny that she has been a major force in American media over the past two decades. Her opinion and even her approach to current news topics influence and shape the thinking of millions.

The Atlantic this month offers a piece on Christian financial guru Dave Ramsey – any of you used his advice? The author, Megan McArdle, summarizes his advice thus:

[G]ive 10 percent of your income to charity, save 15 percent for retirement, build up a sizable emergency stash and a college fund for your kids, and above all, stop borrowing money. Ramsey devotees pay cash for everything they can. They are allowed only one exception to the no-more-debt rule: a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage.

Christianity Today’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey critiques the article’s use of canned phrases about evangelicals and generalizations:

“the format was more tent revival than accounting seminar”

“his disciples routinely shun lucrative financing deals”

“Ramsey is not the first evangelical to sell financial advice to his co-religionists”

“Ramsey devotees”

McArdle, however, has a generally positive take on Ramsey’s advice, though she scoffs a bit at his evangelism.

The piece shows Ramsey as a foil to prosperity-gospel (debt-ridden) Christians, which The Atlantic details in its breathless cover story: “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” There, author Hanna Rosin explores the idea that mainstream denominations promote risk-taking because the prosperity gospel offers material rewards, creating a culture of debt.

For a secular writer, McArdle rather surprisingly offers Ramsey as an antidote.

Every week, my local newspaper runs a small piece called “A Student’s View,” written, as you can probably guess, by a high school student on the topic of his or her choice.

In a recent one, titled “Oh my God,” a Jewish girl wrote protesting her parents’ insistence that she attend synagogue services for the High Holy Days. The author was clearly bright, and the piece was thoughtful and well-written. And having experienced teenage rebellion in various forms firsthand, I pass no judgment on her or her parents. (If anything, I admire them for insisting she attend.)

Making no excuses but raising a good point, she writes, “A majority of my classmates . . . say the Lord’s name in vain all the time. . . .” And it’s not just her classmates. All day, every day, on TV and in movies, in real life and in books, the phrase “Oh my God” is uttered. Hearing that relentlessly, what must young people think? How could it not diminish the meaning behind the name?

It wasn’t always so. I don’t remember hearing the phrase as a child, on TV, or used by my classmates. But it slowly crept into common useage and is now ubiquitous, with its very own texting shorthand, “OMG.”

I sometimes wonder what would happen if school children—or TV characters—en masse started saying “Oh my Allah” instead. I doubt that would be tolerated. But never mind the sensibilities of believing Christians and Jews. And how many of us say it ourselves? How many of us let it slide when others say it? We allow it to happen.

Writing for Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, S.M. Hutchens describes a scene in C.S. Lewis’s book, Perelandra. The character representing Satan continually calls out the name Ransom, who’s been sent to oppose him. The first few times Ransom hears his name he answers, “What is it?” “Nothing,” comes the reply. This continues until Ransom simply stops responding.

Hutchens writes: “[A]t the heart of this nothing was a denial of the person called upon, an aggressive attempt to negate his being, an attempt to equate him with nothing, an attempt to kill.”

Perhaps that’s the reason behind the Third Commandment.