Nothing scares secular lefties more than an election where some 60 million Americans cast a vote for — gasp! — a President who finds great comfort in his faith.
Beltway blasphemy!
Republicans call it winning an election. Maureen Dowd calls it "merging church and state." And as the reality of a victorious conservative electorate sinks in, Dowd says she is ...
"... not getting a peace, charity, tolerance and forgiveness vibe from the conservatives and evangelicals who claim to have put their prodigal son back in office."
Instead, she is ...
"... getting more the feel of a vengeful mob - revved up by rectitude - running around with torches and hatchets after heathens and pagans and infidels."
Vengeful mob? Torches and hatchets?
That's the difrerence between liberals and conservatives. Imagery Dowd uses to describe church-going Christians is imagery conservatives reserve to describe murderous thugs like the savages who killed and mutiliated the bodies of four Americans in Fallujah last March. Although Dowd's word choice is unfortunate, what is more troubling is her fear of Protestant evangelicals, an attitude reminisicent of anti-Catholic sentiments that emerged in 1928 when New York Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith became the Democratic presidential candidate. John F. Kennedy, facing similar hurdles when he ran for office, addressed the mistrust of Catholics to Southern Baptist leaders in 1960:
"I am not the Catholic candidate for President [but the candidate] who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me."
Bush delivered a similar response to his critics just days after his re-election:
"I will be your president regardless of your faith, and I don't expect you to agree with me, necessarily, on religion. As a matter of fact, no president should ever try to impose religion on our society. If you're a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim, you're equally American."
Liberals conveniently ignore such similarities in history, particularly when they involve the hero of the Democratic Party and a conservative Republican President. Instead of taking a hard look at why Democrats lost the electoral and popular vote, Dowd and other liberal pundits are trying to de-legitimize the Republican win and guilt-trip the Bush administration into watering down its second-term agenda by "reaching out to Democrats" and helping "unite a divided country."
This post first appeared on Reporterette.com
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
So, in other words, you are Osama bin Ladin, and you approve this message, you theocratic son of a bitch.
Why don't you theo-cons just go have your circle jerk somewhere else? Maybe you could go to Saudi Arabia, and make merry with your fellow kind of fundamentalist assholes?
2 - alethinos59
Too bad you're still not in the reporting game - I can't imagine Fox News turning you down - unless it's because you're not biased enough...
3 - boomcrashbaby
Vengeful mob? Torches and hatchets?...That's the difrerence between liberals and conservatives
Conservatives use such rhetoric towards those they wish to demonize. Democrats running for office....gay people.....African Americans.....people on welfare....Hollywood....the list goes on...
Republicans have even used such rhetoric on their own (John McCain) and they demonized Zell Miller when they ran against him, then embraced him when it suited them. Too bad most of America can't see through this crap.
4 - Socratestes
"Too bad most of America can't see through this crap"?
An interesting remark from one who presumably represents the pinnacle of all that is democratic, truthful, thoughtful and principled.
Does he (and those of the ilk) really understand the implications of what they are saying?
5 - Jim Carruthers
It means there has been a progression past the 15th century, and the Inquisition. It was called the Enlightenment, and then the Industrial Revolution, and then the Information Age of the 20th Century, and we look forward in about 50 years to the Singularity.
So what, aside from regressive feudalism like your Islamist compatriots do you have to offer?
6 - boomcrashbaby
I never said I was the pinnacle of anything. I am an American and I am fully aware of all that I say.
7 - Jim Carruthers
Why do you people allow time-traveling terrorists from the 15th century to engage in discussion, when you should hunt them down and exterminate them like the vermin they are?
Speak with them in the only language they know -- pitch-forks and torches!
8 - Mark Saleski
no. what scares 'lefties' is that we have a president who declares his "faith", runs a decided unchristian campaign (all those lies and half-truths...i hear jesus wasn't all that big on things like that. isn't there a commandmend havin' t do with that?) and those devoted to him for the 'faith' reason can so easily look the other way.
seems like selective evangelism to me.
9 - Mac Diva
Can the red, What's Her Face. It makes the page look like it is bleeding from such bad writing.
That's the difrerence (sic) between liberals and conservatives. Imagery Dowd uses to describe church-going Christians is imagery conservatives reserve to describe murderous thugs like the savages who killed and mutiliated (sic) the bodies of four Americans in Fallujah last March.
And let's not forget the thugs who tortured innocent Iraqi inmates. How would you describe them, WHF? Just typed 'heroes' and decided not to hit post, didn't you?
The election was won on hate. But for the edge Bush got from people turning out to show their disdain for gay folks, he would have lost. Dowd is correct to wonder how far the 'Christian' hatemongers will go to put those of us who do not fit their rather limited list of acceptable people in their place.
Furthermore, let's not succumb to the imagery WHF would have us associate with the word 'Christian.' Some of the most pathological behavior in history has been done in the name of Christianity -- the Crusades, slavery and genocide, denial of rights to women, minorities and homosexuals, etc. There are fine, enlightened Christians, but their evil counterparts undermine much of the good they do, and always have.
Yes, I realize far Right Christians go to church. But, I also realize that many of them pray for the destruction of the lives of millions of people under one pretext or another. Being religious and being moral are not necessarily the same thing. The immorality of many far Right Christians boggles the mind.
10 - Matt
Reporterette--is the fact that Maureen Dowd, who is unabashedly liberal, bashed the Christian right? Is this news to you?
I can wait to see the amount of the "Blogs For Bush" will be posting bi-monthly within weeks.
11 - boomcrashbaby
Why do you people allow time-traveling terrorists from the 15th century to engage in discussion, when you should hunt them down and exterminate them like the vermin they are?
If you are directing that to me, it is because if I did that, I would become one of them, wouldn't I?
12 - Yvette Stafford
MacDiva:
Typos are not indicative of bad writing.
Don't like the red? Don't read it.
Then again, I can't blame you for not liking the color -- or was it colour -- red these days.
Take care ...
13 - Eric Olsen
Yvette, I would have to consider this level and instensity of reaction a success!
My personal reaction would be to avoid Dowd's broad brush by generalizing about "liberals" and "consevatives," terms which cover an awful lot of ground
14 - jack e. jett
honey:
if the maureen dowd article pisses your tired jesus ass off...then you should read the frank rich bit.
once the dust settles, i think we will find AGAIN....that the moral majority is neither.
22% of extreme right wingers expressed values as their main concern. this is the same group that supports rush....the drug abuser, fox, the skin flick channel, o'reilly the pervy.
it doesn't really bother us that jesus freaks exist....it bothers us how hypocritical they are. killing innocent children in iraq is not a "moral value".
jack e. jett
15 - Eric Olsen
Jack E, for once I completely agree with Rich and take great comfort from his piece. But no one is trying to "kill innocent children in Iraq" - I think that's a very important moral distinction to make.
16 - boomcrashbaby
"The Zogby poll shows that when voters were asked to list the moral issue that most affected their vote, the Iraq war topped the list (42%) �" more than tripling the number that chose abortion (13%) or gay marriage (9%). Also, when asked to choose the most urgent moral crisis facing the U.S., voters chose 'greed and materialism' (33%) and 'poverty and economic justice' (31%) twice as often as abortion (16%) and gay marriage (12%)."
Defeating terrorism is a moral issue. I can see that. However, that's not the message the MSM is putting out. What was the number again who listed moral values as their reason for voting? 25%? and of that 25% of Bush voters (160 million was it?) only 9% voted because of SSM. If my estimates are correct, that would put the number of people who voted against SSM as their number 1 reason as 4.8 million voters. Roughly the amount Rove wanted to bring out by using SSM as a wedge issue.
What I don't understand though is why people who think greed and materialism is the biggest problem today, would vote for the party that panders to big business and who tramples all over the poor.
I also don't understand why 9% would say that Iraq is the moral reason they voted on, but 12% say that SSM is the most urgent moral crisis. So 3% voted for a moral reason that they don't consider the most urgent?
"Asked the question of the greatest moral crisis facing our country, 31% of Catholics chose poverty and 31% chose greed, compared to only 20% who chose abortion, and 11% that chose same-sex marriage. Further, more Catholic voters were turned off by messages from conservative leaders trumpeting 'non-negotiable' issues [i.e. denying Kerry communion]"
Privatizing Social Security will open up the door for millions of Americans to gamble with their retirement and possibly lose everything. So of course 31% of people who want to combat poverty would vote for a candidate who will make millions of people more likely to become destitute in their old age? 31% voted to combat greed, so they voted for the billion dollar (of mostly Saudi money) Bush Dynasty?
"Voters are hungry for a voice that articulates poverty, health care, war and foreign policy as moral values."
oh, that's right, how could I forget? It's just the voice we vote for. Politics isn't about results, it's about perceived comfort. I gotta remember that. (Health care is a moral value so let's vote for somebody who doesn't want to make sure all Americans have it!)
17 - RJ
You've got free health care, BCB. Just go to the ER with a "foreign object" stuck up your keister, and they'll happily remove it.
Sure, they'll bill you later, but watch what happens when you don't pay the bill: Nothing!
God Bless America!
18 - boomcrashbaby
and you would know this, how?
19 - Mark Saleski
scrubs, the "ass box" episode?
20 - Mac Diva
Good comeback, Boom (Steve). I suspect RJ has 'been there, done that.'
21 - left angle
the right wing republican conservative "definition" of the word
"liberal" has absolutely NOTHING to do
with what the word ACTUALLY means.
just as the republicans distorted sen. kerrys record into something negative, they have done so with the word liberal.
22 - Jim Carruthers
If you are directing that to me, it is because if I did that, I would become one of them, wouldn't I?
I was thinking more like calling Mr. Marcellus Wallace to get all medieval on their asses. Y'know with the blowtorches and whatnot. And the whole Ashcroft and a ball-gag, and the Myra Breckenridge signature strap-on.