Interesting segment on Olbermann's show last night; another Bush Admin book expose is coming out on monday: "Tempting Faith" by David Kuo.
Short version: the administration is, unsurprisingly, insincere in its claims christian faith; they are contemptuous of their evangelical base, and their leaders, and use them to push issues and energize voters while ignoring their policy priorities or just lying.
I can not say I am surprised. I am also somewhat reassured. Strangely.
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I can not say I am surprised. I am also somewhat reassured. Strangely.
Steinn - Yes, I agree completely - my thoughts on viewing Oloberman's piece on it last night were the same as what you point out. I think we are reasured on 2 levels. Our "faith" that Bush and cronies are all lying weasels is reafirmmed, and our conviction that Pat Roberson, Jim Dobson et al from the religious right are total wackos is also validated. It's a Two-Fer Thursday!
It gave me a chance to agree with the white house for once, the "religious right" is nuts.
Doesn't surprise me much, especially about Rove. The guy is a political genious, even if he's Machiavellian in the extreme. Too smart to be a religious fundy.
Still, Bush's insincerity reassures me in the sense that I can rest a bit more easy knowing that he's just another power-monger, not a Christian fundy who wants to bring about Armagheddon himself.
Would you rather have a deluded fundie, or an outright sociopath?
Sorry, I guess we don't get to choose after all....
Of course, there's always the possiblity that Bush isn't actually aware of the con - and is in fact being connned himself ('You're a man of faith, sir! Just what this country needs!')
Bruce Wilson over at Talk2Action reminds us that as nice as it is to have the contempt Rove and other's may have for fundamentalists exposed for all to see, it is hardly true that the religious right gets nothing from the GOP. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled into "faith based initiatives" which is code for far right evangelical christian prosyletizing organizations.
Yeah, and there is the Supreme Court.
The Bush administration has been curiously inactive on some of the supposed key issues for their base - mostly token proposals, certain to fail, but in such a way as to galvanize the electorate and increase turnout.
But, they can't keep doing that indefinitely and not deliver, yet if they don't truly want to deliver, or more importantly take the political hit for actually delivering a major policy, then at some point the base will break away.
This may be a "tipping point", which enables a key constituency for the republicans to disassociate from them without too much cognitive dissonance.
Be interesting to see if the US is ready for a third party realignment, again.