A “CHRISTIAN” HIT ON GIULIANI?
(or)
BUYER’S REMORSE?
(or)
BUYER’S REMORSE?
In a recent Opinion-Journal Political Diary, Charles Krauthammer was quoted about Ronald Reagan.
“"Well, what about Reagan? This president, renowned for his naps, granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli bill. As governor of California, he signed the most liberal abortion legalization bill in America, then flip-flopped and became an abortion opponent.... The point is not to denigrate Reagan but to bring a little realism to the gauzy idol worship that fuels today's discontent. And to argue that in 2007 we have, by any reasonable historical standard, a fine Republican field: One of the great big-city mayors of the last century; a former governor of extraordinary executive talent; a war hero, highly principled and deeply schooled in national security; and a former senator with impeccable conservative credentials" -- Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer.”
A MINI RANT
This is interesting because, as we all know, Ronald Reagan is the nth degree of conservative divinity to the “radio-head” Rush Limbaugh quoting conservatives. If Rush’s view of Ronald Reagan provides this perfect conservative image, and as Krauthammer writes, Reagan was less than perfect by today’s standards, then who is right. It sure likes Reagan was more like the current governator of California.
Please follow the little bouncing ball of logic here. I know it’s difficult because you’ve been brainwashed by Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, Hannity, etc. but today’s “Christian” conservative values voter big head ego-mongering headline grubbing collection plate counting perfectly coiffed princes of perfection. The big problem with those on the religious right who are leading the campaign to defeat Rudy Giuliani, the GOP, and help elect Hillary Clinton are the same ones who were constantly on Reagan’s case.
This is nothing new people. The problem is the right is being pulled so far right, I have a feeling Reagan would be the first person to denounce it. What ever happened to thinking for yourself? And, the conservative “Blogsphere” is no different. While the “Values Voter” is castigating Giuliani for his interesting marital record, they are conveniently forgetting that Ronald Reagan was married twice. It makes you wonder, who is more pragmatic and ‘honorable’ “Christian” leaders who are calling for a conservative hit on Giuliani or the Mob who realized a “hit” on Giuliani would be just plain stupid.
(Finger snap)
Of course, wait a minute, the Costa Nostra or what ever you want to call it was far more retrained in their approach to Giuliani than today’s “Christian” conservative TV leader. Makes you wonder who the real “Christians” actually. Frankly, with friends like these, who needs Nero and his merry band of flesh eating lions and gladiators?
SC BAPTISTS GONE WILD
The head of the SC Southern Baptist Conference has retracted his endorsement of Romney.
Last week, in an attempt to corral the “Values Voter” – or should we say pander to them, Mitt Romney’s SC team announced that Don Wilton had endorsed their campaign. On the 23rd Wilton retracted his endorsement.
In a press release, Wilton said:
“…"While I did give my consent to the local campaign to use my affirmation of the Governor's stance on family values in my capacity as an individual citizen, I made the mistake of not realizing the extent to which it would be used on a national basis. It was my personal error to agree to support Romney’s campaign. Until this incident I had never endorsed any person running for any elected office, Democrat or Republican. While I have had the privilege of meeting with a number of fine candidates over the years I continue to believe my role and responsibility is to preach and teach the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am committed to pray for our elected leaders as well as for the wisdom of the American people as they are compelled to make choices based upon their deep and abiding convictions. The future of this great nation is at stake and the morality of her people in relationship to the God of our founding fathers is critical to our future. While I will vote my constitutional right as an American citizen, and while I implore all eligible Americans to do the same, I will continue to use my personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ as the only standard by which I determine who to vote for in any election."…”
Flap on the Subject
The Dobson Flap
Race42008
Quotes Novak
“…But the situation is not a simple confrontation between the Christian right and Giuliani. The Gallup data suggests that Dobson and the Salt Lake City group may be out of touch with rank-and-file churchgoers. A well-known social conservative, who asked that his name not be used, is disturbed by Dobson saying he could not vote for Giuliani under any conditions. Apart from being the lesser of two evils against Sen. Hillary Clinton, Giuliani seems to be the positive choice of millions of religious Americans.
In an aggregation of 1,690 interviews with Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in four Gallup surveys during August and September, Giuliani led with 27 percent (to Fred Thompson's 24 percent) among those who said they attended church once a week. Even more startling was the result of interviews with adult voters without regard to party preference. Among churchgoing Catholics, Giuliani led with a plus-38 favorable rating (trailed by Sen. John McCain with a plus-29 and Clinton bringing up the rear with a minus-9).
There is certainly not much in Giuliani's background to attract religious conservatives. After he changed from being a George McGovern Democrat in 1972, his successful 1993 campaign for mayor opposed term limits, school choice and an end to rent controls. As the Republican mayor, he backed Democrat Mario Cuomo's losing fourth-term bid for governor of New York. He consistently has been pro-choice on abortion, pro-gay rights (including gay marriage) and pro-gun control. How anybody that liberal can be the apparent choice of the religious right is attributed by Republican pollster Frank Luntz to Giuliani's reputation for fighting terrorism. "He has turned security into a social issue," Luntz told me….”
In an aggregation of 1,690 interviews with Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in four Gallup surveys during August and September, Giuliani led with 27 percent (to Fred Thompson's 24 percent) among those who said they attended church once a week. Even more startling was the result of interviews with adult voters without regard to party preference. Among churchgoing Catholics, Giuliani led with a plus-38 favorable rating (trailed by Sen. John McCain with a plus-29 and Clinton bringing up the rear with a minus-9).
There is certainly not much in Giuliani's background to attract religious conservatives. After he changed from being a George McGovern Democrat in 1972, his successful 1993 campaign for mayor opposed term limits, school choice and an end to rent controls. As the Republican mayor, he backed Democrat Mario Cuomo's losing fourth-term bid for governor of New York. He consistently has been pro-choice on abortion, pro-gay rights (including gay marriage) and pro-gun control. How anybody that liberal can be the apparent choice of the religious right is attributed by Republican pollster Frank Luntz to Giuliani's reputation for fighting terrorism. "He has turned security into a social issue," Luntz told me….”
NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE HIT
Something caught my eye today when I was reading Eye On 08. It’s all about abortion, Brownback, Giuliani and the possibility that Romney is pulling a few anti-abortion strings.
“…In other words, Bopp was attacking Brownback, not because he was right, but because the Romney campaign asked him to. I wonder if it also means that NRLC is willing to play nice if that’s what it comes to…”
It makes me wonder if there isn’t hope for Giuliani. The NRLC countered Bopp by nothing the following:
“…Regarding your reported statement that you felt "much more comfortable" with certain of Mr.Giuliani’s views based on the meeting (among these, his criteria for judicial appointments), Mr. Bopp suggested that you must be putting "personal benefit" ahead of the pro-life cause, remarking, "Brownback is angling for some personal political benefit by cozying up to Giuliani.
Mr. Bopp’s remarks quoted above, if accurately reported, do not represent National Right to Life, and we disagree with them. All of us who know you personally recognize that your commitment to the pro-life cause is deep and heartfelt. We know this because we have worked shoulder-to-shoulder with you on such important pro-life issues as partial-birth abortion, fetal pain, ultrasound, and human cloning; you have been an instigator and a leader on these issues and many more.
We reject most emphatically anyone’s suggestion that you have sacrificed or would sacrifice the interests of the unborn in order to garner some "personal political benefit."
In January, 2007, the National Right to Life Board of Directors adopted a resolution urging that no NRLC state affiliate, no executive staff member of any state affiliate, and no NRLC Board member should endorse any candidate for President of the United States until an endorsement is adopted by the Board as a whole. Staff employees of the National Right to Life Committee are also barred from doing so. However, Mr. Bopp is neither a director nor an employee ofNRLC. Mr. Bopp has served as NRLC’s general counsel for many years, but he is not an in-house general counsel; he has many other clients. Mr. Bopp is also involved in political activities in his personal capacity. It is in his personal capacity that he has endorsed Mr. Romney’s candidacy, and it is in his personal capacity that he gives interviews on such matters, including the remarks quoted above…”
Mr. Bopp’s remarks quoted above, if accurately reported, do not represent National Right to Life, and we disagree with them. All of us who know you personally recognize that your commitment to the pro-life cause is deep and heartfelt. We know this because we have worked shoulder-to-shoulder with you on such important pro-life issues as partial-birth abortion, fetal pain, ultrasound, and human cloning; you have been an instigator and a leader on these issues and many more.
We reject most emphatically anyone’s suggestion that you have sacrificed or would sacrifice the interests of the unborn in order to garner some "personal political benefit."
In January, 2007, the National Right to Life Board of Directors adopted a resolution urging that no NRLC state affiliate, no executive staff member of any state affiliate, and no NRLC Board member should endorse any candidate for President of the United States until an endorsement is adopted by the Board as a whole. Staff employees of the National Right to Life Committee are also barred from doing so. However, Mr. Bopp is neither a director nor an employee ofNRLC. Mr. Bopp has served as NRLC’s general counsel for many years, but he is not an in-house general counsel; he has many other clients. Mr. Bopp is also involved in political activities in his personal capacity. It is in his personal capacity that he has endorsed Mr. Romney’s candidacy, and it is in his personal capacity that he gives interviews on such matters, including the remarks quoted above…”
HAS “CHRISTIAN” CONTROL OF THE GOP ENDED?
Frank Rich has a fascinating column in the NYTimes.
“…“Americans do not yet realize how far outside of the mainstream of conservative thought that Mayor Giuliani’s social views really are,” declared Tony Perkins, the Family Research Council leader, in February. But despite Rudy’s fleeting stabs at fudging his views, they are well known now, and still he leads in national polls of Republican voters and is neck and neck with Fred Thompson in the Bible Belt sanctuary of South Carolina.
There are various explanations for this. One is that 9/11 and terrorism fears trump everything. Another is that the rest of the field is weak. But the most obvious explanation is the one that Washington resists because it contradicts the city’s long-running story line. Namely, that the political clout ritualistically ascribed to Mr. Perkins, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of American Values and their ilk is a sham.
These self-promoting values hacks don’t speak for the American mainstream. They don’t speak for the Republican Party. They no longer speak for many evangelical ministers and their flocks. The emperors of morality have in fact had no clothes for some time. Should Rudy Giuliani end up doing a victory dance at the Republican convention, it will be on their graves.
Part of their demise, of course, can be attributed to the pileup of personal hypocrisies that have always undone Elmer Gantrys in America, from Jimmy Swaggart to Jim Bakker. The Ted Haggard revelations were in that tawdry tradition, and so was the news that the Christian Coalition’s front man, Ralph Reed, looked forward, as he put it, to “humping in corporate accounts” in collaboration with the now-jailed K Street lobbyist Jack Abramoff …But the most significant — and happiest — explanation for the values czars’ demise as a political force is that white evangelical Christians and a new generation of evangelical leaders have themselves steadily tacked a different course from the Dobson crowd. …Like most other Americans, they are more interested in hearing from presidential candidates about the war in Iraq and health care than about any other issues….The Values Voter Summit’s survey of the attendees’ presidential preferences showed just as large a disconnect. Rudy Giuliani came in next to last (behind Tom Tancredo, ahead of John McCain) in the field of nine candidates, earning only 1.85 percent of the vote. By contrast, among white evangelicals nationwide in the CBS News poll, he was in a statistical dead heat for first place with Fred Thompson; indeed, Mr. Giuliani’s 26 percent among evangelicals nearly matches his showing among all Republican voters. The discrepancy between the CBS poll and the summit survey leaves you wondering who exactly follows Dr. Dobson and Mr. Perkins beyond the ticket buyers who showed up for their media circus last weekend at the Washington Hilton.
Of late Dr. Dobson has been throwing a hissy fit about Rudy’s rise, reminiscent of his 2005 condemnation of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants for appearing in what he labeled a “pro-homosexual video.” Apparently suffering from the delusion that he has the pull on the right that Ralph Nader once did on the left, he has threatened to bolt to a third party. But for all this huffing and puffing, Dr. Dobson and his stop-Rudy brigade are as politically hypocritical as the Reverend Haggard was sexually hypocritical.
If they really believed uncompromisingly in their issues and principles, they would have long since endorsed either Sam Brownback, the zealous Kansas senator fond of using fetus photos as political props, or Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who spent 15 years as a Baptist preacher, calls abortion a “holocaust” and believes in intelligent design rather than evolution.
But they gave Senator Brownback so little moral and financial support that he folded his candidacy a week ago. And they continue to stop well short of embracing Mr. Huckabee, no matter how many rave reviews his affable personality receives on the campaign trail. They shun him because they know he’ll lose, and they would rather compromise principle than back a loser.
Backing a loser, they know, would even further diminish their waning Washington status in a post-Rove, post-Bush G.O.P. The more they shed their illusion of power, the more they imperil their ability to rake in big bucks from their apocalyptic direct-mail campaigns. They must choose mammon over God if they are to maintain the many values rackets that make up their various business empires.
Hilariously enough, some other big names on the right, typified by Sean Hannity of Fox News, are capitulating to the Giuliani candidacy by pretending that he, like the incessantly flip-flopping Mitt Romney…”
There are various explanations for this. One is that 9/11 and terrorism fears trump everything. Another is that the rest of the field is weak. But the most obvious explanation is the one that Washington resists because it contradicts the city’s long-running story line. Namely, that the political clout ritualistically ascribed to Mr. Perkins, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of American Values and their ilk is a sham.
These self-promoting values hacks don’t speak for the American mainstream. They don’t speak for the Republican Party. They no longer speak for many evangelical ministers and their flocks. The emperors of morality have in fact had no clothes for some time. Should Rudy Giuliani end up doing a victory dance at the Republican convention, it will be on their graves.
Part of their demise, of course, can be attributed to the pileup of personal hypocrisies that have always undone Elmer Gantrys in America, from Jimmy Swaggart to Jim Bakker. The Ted Haggard revelations were in that tawdry tradition, and so was the news that the Christian Coalition’s front man, Ralph Reed, looked forward, as he put it, to “humping in corporate accounts” in collaboration with the now-jailed K Street lobbyist Jack Abramoff …But the most significant — and happiest — explanation for the values czars’ demise as a political force is that white evangelical Christians and a new generation of evangelical leaders have themselves steadily tacked a different course from the Dobson crowd. …Like most other Americans, they are more interested in hearing from presidential candidates about the war in Iraq and health care than about any other issues….The Values Voter Summit’s survey of the attendees’ presidential preferences showed just as large a disconnect. Rudy Giuliani came in next to last (behind Tom Tancredo, ahead of John McCain) in the field of nine candidates, earning only 1.85 percent of the vote. By contrast, among white evangelicals nationwide in the CBS News poll, he was in a statistical dead heat for first place with Fred Thompson; indeed, Mr. Giuliani’s 26 percent among evangelicals nearly matches his showing among all Republican voters. The discrepancy between the CBS poll and the summit survey leaves you wondering who exactly follows Dr. Dobson and Mr. Perkins beyond the ticket buyers who showed up for their media circus last weekend at the Washington Hilton.
Of late Dr. Dobson has been throwing a hissy fit about Rudy’s rise, reminiscent of his 2005 condemnation of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants for appearing in what he labeled a “pro-homosexual video.” Apparently suffering from the delusion that he has the pull on the right that Ralph Nader once did on the left, he has threatened to bolt to a third party. But for all this huffing and puffing, Dr. Dobson and his stop-Rudy brigade are as politically hypocritical as the Reverend Haggard was sexually hypocritical.
If they really believed uncompromisingly in their issues and principles, they would have long since endorsed either Sam Brownback, the zealous Kansas senator fond of using fetus photos as political props, or Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who spent 15 years as a Baptist preacher, calls abortion a “holocaust” and believes in intelligent design rather than evolution.
But they gave Senator Brownback so little moral and financial support that he folded his candidacy a week ago. And they continue to stop well short of embracing Mr. Huckabee, no matter how many rave reviews his affable personality receives on the campaign trail. They shun him because they know he’ll lose, and they would rather compromise principle than back a loser.
Backing a loser, they know, would even further diminish their waning Washington status in a post-Rove, post-Bush G.O.P. The more they shed their illusion of power, the more they imperil their ability to rake in big bucks from their apocalyptic direct-mail campaigns. They must choose mammon over God if they are to maintain the many values rackets that make up their various business empires.
Hilariously enough, some other big names on the right, typified by Sean Hannity of Fox News, are capitulating to the Giuliani candidacy by pretending that he, like the incessantly flip-flopping Mitt Romney…”
Read Daniel Henninger’s WSJ commentary for another view.
CASE IN POINT
David Horowitz is waxing poetic about the persecution of homosexuals in Islamic nations. BUT, in this country homosexuals = evil. Dobson evidently dislikes homosexuals even more than he does Giuliani. (KikosHouse has a stunning condemnation of Dobson)
Okay, it’s like this: Would someone please explain to me why conservatives defend gays in Islamic countries and demand they have their liberties and civil rights, but absolutely hate them here? Frankly the abject hypocrisy is just way too much for my primitive brain to comprehend.
Trackposted to Pirate's Cove, Perri Nelson's Website, Big Dog's Weblog, third world county, Right Truth, and DragonLady's World, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.">
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