Faith Based Initiative Administrator- Bush Staff Called Evangelicals "the Nuts"

soooo scary to me. scary because you're absolutely right. the equation between being a follower of Christ and being an American is just baffling to me.

 

On a related note...

I go to a Methodist Church and even though Methodists are sometimes called "Baptists who can read," there is an alarming number in the congregation who want the pastor to tell them what to do on the political/cultural front. He has so far refused to do this, though some compromises like offering Dobson-approved bible studies on Wednesdays have been implemented. This is by far the biggest fissure in the congregation.

When I was a kid, I remember issue discussions on the big events, like the Vietnam War and Civil Rights taking place in the congregation, but it was done with respect and I don't remember every little sermon and bible study curriculum being subject to a knock-down drag-out fight started by people who have obviously confused the political with the spiritual. Those things like Sunday School and sermons were what brought us together.

Distressing.

 

I am so far out of touch with "Christian conservatives" that it might as well be a coalition from Mars (I live in NYC and do not attend church.

A serious question. Are "Christian conservatives" still believing the BS that this Administration is talking just to get their vote or are they wising up?

 

i don't know if Christian conservatives are doing anything.

but i know i'm hearing more and more people in my church distressed about social justice issues and the GOP's position related to them. i attend a non-denominational church. here's the website if that helps give you some better understanding. www.thefom.org

 

Memory lane...
_____________

Monday, January 09, 2006
Using Christian conservatives for fun and profit

Jane Hamsher zeros right in on an exchange of monumental importance which took place on Meet the Press yesterday, involving accusations of wrongdoing exchanged between close Bush ally Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, and top Bush campaign official Ralph Reed. In addition to sweeping some of the most prominent pro-Bush faces into the center of the Abramoff corruption net, this episode powerfully illustrates how the Republican Party has long exploited, with total cynicism and dishonesty, the Christian conservatives who constitutes such a critical and loyal part of its base. The significance of this part of the Abramoff scandal could be huge if used properly. For that reason, it’s worthwhile to review the basic facts.

As part of the federal investigation into Jack Abramoff, e-mails from 2001 surfaced which were written to Abramoff by Ralph Reed, longtime Republican operative and the Bush ‘04 campaign’s Southeast Regional Director. Abramoff at the time was working on behalf of casinos owned by Louisiana Indian tribes, which were concerned that Texas tribes were beginning to open casinos which would compete with them and drain away their gamblers. They wanted government action taken against the Texas casinos -- in sum, they wanted the Texas Government to shut down their competition -- and so they hired Abramoff to use his unparalleled influence with Republicans, especially Texas Republicans, in order to engineer the State Government action that they wanted.

In thinking about how to induce the Texas government to act against the Texas casinos, Abramoff realized that he could cynically exploit Christian conservatives in Texas -- who strongly oppose gambling on religious and moral grounds -- and use that religious opposition to gambling in order to help the Louisiana casinos who were paying him. The Christian conservatives both in Texas and nationally would be the dupes. They would think that they were crusading against gambling by demanding that the Texas casinos be shut down. In reality, the entire spectacle was a grand deceit which was about nothing other than working to serve the interests of the Louisiana casinos by attacking their competitors.

To implement this scheme, Abramoff turned to Ralph Reed, who has long been the most politically influential Christian conservative in the country. Ever since he left Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition in 1997, Reed has been in the business of getting paid to influence Christian conservatives to do whatever serves the political and financial interests of his clients. Reed was also a top advisor to the Bush campaign in 2000 and its Southeast Regional Director in 2004. Abramoff hired Reed and paid him to drum up religious opposition to the Texas casinos in order to protect the Louisiana casinos.

Reed went to work and, when he was done, the targeted Texas casinos ended up being shut down as a result of a lawsuit brought against them in the name of Texas by then-Attorney General Jon Cornyn. Thereafter, Reed claimed in one of his e-mails to Abramoff that all of that happened because Reed had arranged for a meeting between anti-gambling Christian activists and Cornyn where the activists would demand that Cornyn act against the Texas casinos. In that e-mail, Reed advised Abramoff that he had "choreographed" Cornyn’s response – i.e., that Reed had ensured that Cornyn would respond by taking action against the targeted Texas casinos:


In the Nov. 30, 2001, e-mail, Reed told Abramoff that 50 pastors led by Ed Young of Second Baptist Church in Houston would meet with Cornyn to urge him to shut down the Alabama-Coushatta tribe's casino near Livingston. He said Young would back up the request in writing.

We have also choreographed Cornyn's response. The AG will state that the law is clear, talk about how much he wants to avoid repetition of El Paso and pledge to take swift action to enforce the law," Reed wrote. "He will also personally hand Ed Young a letter that commits him to take action in Livingston."



As a result of these revelations, the moralizing Cornyn now has an obvious problem. Ralph Reed claims that Cornyn took action against the Texas casinos because Reed, acting on behalf of his casino clients, influenced him to do so. Reed says he "choreographed" Cornyn’s response. In order to save himself, Cornyn has now turned on Reed with an unrestrained viciousness. When asked yesterday by Tim Russert about this e-mail, Cornyn accused Reed -- who, in addition to being a top Bush campaign official also happens to be seeking the GOP nomination as Lt. Governor of Georgia -- of lying and "bilking" his clients:


MR. RUSSERT: Senator Cornyn, your name surfaced as receiving $1,000 from associates of Jack Abramoff. And Ralph Reed, an associate of Mr. Abramoff, was quoted as saying that he helped "choreograph" a response for you when you were attorney general towards a tribal problem. Will you give that money back?

SEN. CORNYN: Tim, it was a legal contribution. I don’t plan on giving it back, which is—you know, to listen to Chuck and to try to have it both ways and say this is a partisan issue—you know, Jack Abramoff and the people, his clients, made bipartisan contributions and through—as long as they’re legal and appropriately reported, I don’t see any reason to give them back. On the Reed e-mail—and this is not Harry Reid, but...

SEN. SCHUMER: R-E-E-D of the—yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition.

SEN. CORNYN: Exactly. Those e-mails came out three years after I, as attorney general of Texas, filed an injunction to enforce Texas law against casino gambling. We prevailed because the law was in our favor, and then after the fact, apparently, there were these e-mails I had no knowledge of where Reed and Abramoff were somehow claiming credit and then bilking their Indian clients for millions of dollars, apparently. And I certainly disapprove of that, did not know anything about it.


It is truly amazing to see top Bush Republicans, who have marched in almost absolute lock-stop with one another for five years, turn on each other this way. And these are not fringe Republicans.

Ralph Reed built the Christian Coalition and solidified the attachment of Christian conservatives to the Republican Party -- an attachment which, as Digby amply documented just yesterday, has been and continues to be a critically important cog in the Republican electoral machine. As Reed himself always makes clear, and Karl Rove agrees, these ties are a huge part of what put George Bush in office and gave Congress to the Republicans. Reed has long been at the center of national Republican politics along with his creator and mentor, Pat Robertson.

And Cornyn is no less influential. No Senator is a more loyal ally to George Bush. He was hand-picked by Karl Rove for his Senate seat and his election was a top priority for the White House:


On the Republican side of the Texas Senate race, Texas State Attorney General John Cornyn is the conservative, well-funded Bush ally with close ties to the business community. . . . .

The Cornyn campaign can also count on as much help from the White House as it will need, noted NACS' Director of Political Affairs Dan Mulvaney. Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney have already ventured to Texas for Cornyn fundraisers. "Having a large war chest is a crucial in a state with 19 media markets," said Mulvaney. "Cornyn is likely to maintain a substantial financial edge, thanks to this White House involvement."


Cornyn is blindly loyal to George Bush, and he obviously recognizes the danger he is in from this scandal. Sean-Paul Kelly, who blogs from Southwest Texas and guest hosts a radio show there, has been aggressively documenting the connection of the Abramoff story to Cornyn for some time. His excellent coverage of Cornyn’s involvement in this scandal has prompted rather thugish threats from Cornyn’s office against Kelly's radio station. Bush followers understand quite well the threat this story poses, which is why Cornyn put a knife in Reed’s back on national television yesterday.

I heard Charles Krauthammer on Brit Hume’s show yesterday snidely dismissing the importance of the Abramoff scandal generally, saying that he would be "shocked" if anyone even remembered this whole silly thing come November. Bill Kristol, Hume, and the always-compliant Mara Liasson and Juan Williams basically chortled in agreement, depicting this as nothing more than one bad guy, Abramoff, taking advantage of a corrupt though perfectly legal political culture which entails this sort of clever game-playing equally by both parties. And all of the insider-sophisticates know it and accept it. According to Krauthammer, objecting to this filthy system is nothing more than tiresome populist "grandstanding."

But that pretense of indifference to this scandal is laughable. The Abramoff scandal generally implicates almost every significant Republican political operative, along with many of the party’s highest political officials. And Cornyn’s statement on Meet the Press by itself is a huge story. He just accused the Religious Right’s most important figure, who was also a top Bush campaign official, of lying and defrauding his clients. Other than to hardened Beltway tools like Krauthammer – who think that their acceptance of deeply entrenched corruption is a sign of their elevated sophistication -- how can that not be a huge story?

More importantly, this entire Abramoff-Reed-Cornyn scheme demonstrates the completely cynical exploitation of Christian conservatives by a Republican political machine which pretends to be devoted to their agenda, but which has long just used them as ATM machines and ballot box stuffers.

Isn’t it time that Bush opponents at least make the effort to explain to citizens who identify as Christians that the Republican Party is not really working in their interests at all? Long manipulated by the likes of Ralph Reed -- who has made an enormous amount of money selling religious voters to the highest bidder -- these religious conservatives now ignore the issues which truly affect their lives because they have become convinced that the Bush movement is devoted to their core religious issues. But it isn’t. It exploits their religious agenda for its own sake while offering them only symbolic gestures and, as this Reed-Cornyn episode shows, it often works directly and secretly against their agenda.

Shaking loose the unwarranted devotion of religious conservatives to a Bush movement that couldn’t care less about their agenda is long past due. Howard Dean tried to make this point during the primary campaign - that religious conservatives are being manipulated into supporting a party that works against their interests - but the media and Dean’s opponents turned that effort into some stupid sideshow about Dean's supposedly offensive reference to "pick-up trucks" and Confederate flags and the issue faded away in a cloud of idiotic rancor. Subsequent efforts by Dean were met with ridicule, including from those in his own party. But the corrupt, secret work of Ralph Reed, John Cornyn and others to serve their Indian gaming masters while pretending to oppose gambling on moral grounds is the ideal tool to re-engage in that project.

So, too, incidentally, is the NSA scandal and the unlimited federal powers claimed by Bush. Religious conservatives have long been distrustful of federal power, which is what accounts for the discomfort which so many of them have with Bush’s lawless eavesdropping. It is what accounts for the notable opposition of Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who is a True Believer and whose opposition to Bush on this issue should come as no surprise. His political positions are almost always driven by, from beginning to end, his religious agenda. If he takes a strong position, it is due to his religious-based viewpoints.

That is what explains his rather aggressive stance against Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program specifically and the powers of lawlessness claimed by the Administration generally. There has always been a strong "leave-me-alone" current running through religious conservatives in this country because they have always viewed a powerful Federal Government as a potential source of interference with their religious practices.

Much of the not insubstantial populist Christian anger over the Ruby Ridge and David Koresh attacks originated with this viewpoint, and while it has been precariously managed under Bush, it has not gone away. Emphasizing how much this Administration has expanded the powers of federal government - including its law enforcement domestic powers – is an independently potent tool for sowing real distrust and doubt among religious conservatives in George Bush’s Republican Party.

For some reason, Bush opponents cede so much to the Bush movement even though there is no reason to do so. There are lots of extremely compelling reasons why groups such as true Goldwater libertarian/conservatives and even religious conservatives should be alienated by George Bush and his followers. But these alliances are almost never challenged and Bush’s strategists are thus given free reign to solidify those allegiances at no cost.

What is ceded more than just these alliances are the basic rhetorical premises that Republicans have used to manipulate their supporters. When Republicans depict themselves as the party of resolute strength, Democrats try to say that they are kind of strong, too. When Republicans depict themselves as the party of religion and morality, Democrats try to say that they are sort of moral and religious, too. But there is no need to cede that ground to Republicans, especially Bush Republicans, because they are so plainly neither strong nor moral, at all. And nothing illustrates that better than the blatant manipulation of religious conservatives for profit and gain.

It is well past time to start articulating not just to liberals or liberal-leaners, but to those who have been supporting Bush as well, that the actions of his Administration and his followers do not advance their interests. They are not devoted to the ideals of small government conservatives or to religious conservatives. Quite the contrary. This Abramoff scandal, as well as the lawless expansion of the powers of the Federal Government, together offer the perfect opportunity for making this long overdue case.

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/01/using-christian-conservatives-for-fun.html

 

This for me just reinforces why we need separation between church and state. Its not just that state is compromised by church but that the church is compromised by the state or in this case the politics to control the state.

 

geographically its not, but it sure feels like it sometimes

 

The political-ization of the Christian faith is the root issue.
There is a difference in living a Christian life and trying to impose political agendas based upon church doctrines.
Moral agendas are personal and in reality must be reflected in public and government policy. Here are examples-

1. Christians do not lie- That eliminates the Christian 'tag' from most of the so called political religious. It does not matter what religion or non-religion a person claims the moral policy of honesty and integrity is a political issue. A Christian politician will be open, honest and never misleading.
2. Christians do not steal- Taking property, possessions, earnings, or labor from another person is not allowed. This applies nationally and globally.
3. Christians do not hate- There is no prejudice, injustice, or revenge in Christian policy.
4. Christians are not greedy- Compassion and care; giving and sharing are responsibilities for Christians.
5. Christians are not immoral- Individual morals are not violated and women, children and families are respected giving deference to the welfare of little children, the fatherless and widows.

If this is what you would like separated from government we are well down that road.

If you want the religious hypocrisy separated from government I am sooooo with you.

 

Beautifully put. Well done.

 

Well, LBJ used the n-word like it was a freaking pronoun, and Abe Lincoln was a white supremacist, but I get a ballot every November and paycheck every other Friday because of them. Actions speak louder than words, incidentally any person that mentions Pat "half-a-ton leg press" Robertson, Jerry Falwell and "nuts" in the same train of thought is spot on.

Don't trick yourself into thinking evangelicals will respond to this by voting for a Schumer or Kerry, they will just look for deeper conservative christian credentials, from a Buchanan or Santorum-type.

 

The point to me seems to be that if ONE report, or ONE THOUSAND reports can change your convictions, either side you may be on, then you don't understand convictions.


Christians should vote their convictions. Not their best chance of revenge... which is un-Christian.

Name one Christian that is shocked at all by politics betraying them, and they didn't read about that 12th disciple that ended up hanging himself.

If Christ faced betrayal, or "duping", then any Christians should expect as much/

Christians must stop feeling an entitlement to better treatment than Christ recieved.

Christian = Christ like.

Keep your convictions about the main MORAL points... and remember, God keeps accurate records about who duped who. Vengeance is His.

Never let them accuse you of looking at circumstance in the midst of a storm. If you keep your eyes on Jesus... you can walk on water, too.


(I realize this may only mean anything to a limited bunch in here... not that there's anything wrong with that.)

 

They should vote their convictions but it is ashamed when someone pledges to act in their best interest and in line with those convictions, only to turn around and mock them behind their backs without acting on those same convictions.

 

So Christians should keep on voting Republican because the say the right things even though they are duplicitous?

 

I don't think he said that, exactly, to be fair. That may have been his intent, but he didn't say it. I have more trouble with this:


"Keep your convictions about the main MORAL points... and remember, God keeps accurate records about who duped who. Vengeance is His."


Now, I'm not a Christian. I am agnostic. From reading the posts of those like Max, however, I thought the God of Christians was a God of Love, not Vengeance.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

Hopefully this will be a harsh lesson for the far Right to think for themselves instead of flocking to the smoothest snake oil salesman.

 

Concerns Over Gay Issues Challenge GOP

Differences in Opinion on Homosexuality Threaten to Split the Republican Party

By JAKE TAPPER and AVERY MILLER

Oct. 13, 2006 — Arguments among Christian conservatives — primarily that many of the gay men caught up in the Mark Foley scandal prove that Republicans have been too tolerant — threaten to tear the party apart.

"It's time for what we call a 'Come to Jesus Meeting,'" said Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. "Homosexuality is a dysfunctional lifestyle, and it must be addressed."

"Has the social agenda of the GOP been stalled by homosexual members and/or staffers?" Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council wrote in an e-mail to activists. "Does the party want to represent values voters or Mark Foley and friends?"

But gay Republicans say this is sheer bigotry.

"Sexual orientation had nothing to do with what happened here," Patrick Sammon, executive vice president of the Log Cabin Republicans, said. "And the anti-gay group should be ashamed for what they're trying to do."

It is often labeled an open secret on Capitol Hill that even Republican officeholders who are the most hostile to gay rights in public have gay staffers and are much more tolerant of gays in private than their public personas might imply.

In the executive branch of the federal government, the President Bush White House won a second term partly by campaigning against gay marriage.

"Our society is better off when marriage is defined as between a man and a woman," Bush said in August 2004 at a campaign stop in New Mexico.

But while the president has openly admonished gay marriage, others in the administration have seemed perfectly accepting of such unions.

This week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swore in AIDS czar Dr. Mark Dybul, who is openly gay. His partner, Jason Claire, held the Bible.

With first lady Laura Bush looking on approvingly, Rice singled out Claire as Dybul's partner and referred to Claire's mother as Dybul's mother-in-law.

"You have wonderful family to support you, Mark," Rice said.

John Aravosis, an openly gay man who once worked for conservative Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, said these seeming contradictions reveal Republican hypocrisy.

"They are demonizing gays publicly and privately, saying come on down, we have no problem with you," he said — a statement that, surprisingly, religious conservatives agree with.

"They have overlooked what the base is, and they've walked away from it," Sheldon said.

For now, the question that lingers is whether differing approaches to homosexuality within the Republican party will keep religious conservative voters home this election day.

 

Deja vu. Remember when many of the social liberals, minority and gay and lesbian groups soured on Clinton because he courted their votes and delivered them nothing?

Evangelicals should just form their own party...with all of that money and organization and agenda, they'd probably manage to get their own people elected to office...and it would be a good counter-balance to the republicrats.

Not that I'd be anything close to a fellow traveller, but a small and well-oiled Buchanan/Christian Coalition political party would be kinda cool in a way. I think if they campaigned smart they'd pick up alot of votes by appealing to Americans on agendas sympathetic to social justice and poverty and as an instrument against poltical corruption. Plus...Cspan would suddenly get much more exciting.

That's the way it works in Israel (and *cough* Lebanon)...the religious "wackos" are a small party (I should say parties) but they are often the difference in votes to get things passed, so they get courted by both the left and right to get their votes bought for meat and potatos stuff like war funding and diplomacy.

But then, i've always thought the country would be a better place if greens and libertarians actually represented the voters who otherwise vote donkey or elephant.

Evangelicals are never going to get what they want from the Republican Party. It's hard to expect a one-size-fits-all political party to reflect the values and agenda of any group that has a clear idea of who they are and what they want.

 

Fringe evangelicals trying to shove their religious agenda down the country's throat are crazy.

Freedom of religon ---> separation of church and state ~ learn it live it.

 

somebody forgot to read the new testament.

 

Looks like the squirrel keeps his nuts.

Conservatives Rally Against Bush Aide-Turned-Critic
Exposé of White House Scorn for Evangelicals Is Disputed

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 14, 2006; A03

Conservative religious leaders described themselves as shocked yesterday by a new book's charge that Bush administration staffers privately dismissed evangelical Christian political activists as "nuts" and "goofy."

But their dismay was aimed at the book's author, former White House official David Kuo, rather than at President Bush or his senior advisers.

James Dobson, Charles W. Colson and other stalwarts of the conservative Christian movement defended the Bush administration and questioned the timing of the book's publication, a month before the midterm elections. Some suggested that Kuo had betrayed the White House.

"I feel sorry for him, because once you do something like this, you get your 15 minutes in the spotlight, but then after that nobody will touch you," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group in Washington. "These kiss-and-tell books do more damage to the author than to the people they attack."

Kuo, who was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in Bush's first term, alleges in the book, "Tempting Faith," that the Bush administration used its funding of religious charities to court evangelical voters in Machiavellian fashion.

The book is being published at a pivotal moment not just for Republicans who are battling to maintain control of the House and Senate but also for conservative Christian voters, whose support for the GOP has dipped in recent polls.

At 7 p.m. Sunday, evangelical leaders including Perkins and Dobson plan to broadcast a 90-minute television special from a Boston church to hundreds of other churches across the country in an attempt to keep religious conservatives from sitting out the election.

Called "Liberty Sunday," it will "highlight specific cases and stories where people's religious liberties have been threatened because of homosexual activism and gay marriage in Massachusetts," said Family Research Council spokeswoman Bethanie Swendsen.

At the same hour, CBS's "60 Minutes" will broadcast the first interview with Kuo about his book, which is scheduled to go on sale Monday. CBS and the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, tried to keep a lid on the book's contents until the "60 Minutes" exclusive. But MSNBC host Keith Olbermann obtained a copy and began broadcasting excerpts Wednesday.

Conservative Christian leaders as well as present and former White House officials responded yesterday to the MSNBC report, noting that they had not yet seen the book itself.

White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters that the book's "assumption or insinuation seems to be that the administration takes lightly faith-based groups." That is "false," he said.

Asked whether the president's "faith-based initiative" was used for political purposes, Snow said flatly: "No." Snow also read from a letter Kuo wrote to Bush when he left the administration in December 2003, saying he was "proud of all the initiative has accomplished."

In the book, Kuo asserts that the faith-based office was hurriedly set up after Bush took office in 2001 by a transition volunteer who was given less than a week to roll out the initiative.

Kuo asserts that evangelical leaders were called "the nuts" by people in White House political strategist Karl Rove's office. "National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person, and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control' and just plain 'goofy,' " the book says, according to MSNBC.

Kuo previously has criticized the Bush administration for not carrying out the president's 2000 campaign promise to boost charitable giving at least $7 billion a year by extending charitable tax breaks to people who do not itemize income tax deductions.

In the book, he says the White House opted instead for cuts in the estate tax that eliminated the incentive for many wealthy people to make charitable donations. The "ultimate impact was to brutalize the very charities Mr. Bush once identified as his top priorities," Kuo says.

Beginning in 2002, the White House held ostensibly "nonpartisan" conferences about the availability of federal grants for religious charities. But Kuo alleges that the events were, in fact, designed to help vulnerable Republican incumbents.

Ken Mehlman, then the White House director of political affairs and now chairman of the Republican National Committee, "loved the idea and gave us our marching orders" to hold meetings in 20 congressional districts, the book says.

H. James Towey, who directed the faith-based office during Kuo's time there, said yesterday that "it sounds like he worked at a different White House than the one I worked for."

Towey added that he, not Mehlman, decided where to hold conferences. "If a congressman in a tight race invited me, I went," he said. "But that was true of Democrats as well as Republicans."

Dobson, the psychologist and radio host who heads the influential group Focus on the Family, issued a statement calling the book "a mix of sour grapes and political timing."

Colson, who founded Prison Fellowship Ministries, said he was "shocked and disappointed by what appears to be political timing to sell a book, and a very unfair characterization of the parties involved."

Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, a Christian women's group in Washington, said she sees "no reason to question the sincerity of this president" based on the accusations aired so far.

"So, in Rove's office people of faith are mocked? Well, who in Rove's office did the mocking? It's easy to make allegations like that if you don't give the name, date, time," she said.

Perkins of the Family Research Council said he would not be surprised if derisive comments were made behind Christian leaders' backs.

"I have no misconceptions about how people in the Republican Party and the establishment view social conservatives. They are dismissive. I see how they prefer to work with fiscal conservatives," he said. "Having said that, I see it really as a marriage of convenience. We are not without significant gains by working with this administration."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company