GOP family feud

I'm sorry, but this is just too funny. You flatly state that the media "despises" evangelicals, while simultaneously expecting us to believe that the New York Times a) has its finger on what conservatives of all stripes are thinking, and b) is writing a disinterested, fact-based story on the issue. (Seriously, is this story supposed to be a news article? It sure doesn't read like it. It's written like an op-ed.) Now, don't get me wrong, the NYT may very well be entirely right about everything they've written here, but I just don't trust their competence to report on "conservative leaders" any more than I would trust The Nation to do so, or National Review to report on "liberal leaders."

And in complete, utter seriousness, if I ever read another post here even tangentially blaming Jews for the Iraq War, I'm out of here.>

3rd parties never work. But at some point soon a party with a simple platform of fiscal austerity, strong border enforcement and a significant curtailing of all foreign entanglements might have a shot. A party like that doesn't have to be hostile to religious people, merely repectful. And Dems have always treated anyone other than bleeding heart lackeys like Sharpton, Jackson, Coffin, et al with comtempt. At some point Republicans blind alignment with the country club set, hell bent on willy nilly immigration to cut costs, is going to cost it the middle and working class, even the white collars. And to keep up this stupidity that Latino immigrants will one day wake up Republicans could be the dumbest idea ever.

Rod knows this-the mosque on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn that gave comfort and aid to both the 1993 and 9/11 WTC bombers is still there. In fact that community of hatred has grown throughout Brooklyn. Why do we let these animals in? How any federal government in the wake of those attacks could allow that isn't an issue of race, but survival. We know the Dems won't do anything. That Bush did nothing, heck, even played footsie with the CAIR crowd, was shocking.

I listened to Limbaugh briefly today, and his take was even when most conservatives fled to Perot or Buchanan they always came back to the GOP. But you can only treat your base like an abusive spouse for so long. What's the point to voting Republican if they govern like Dems?

I know this-I would never pull a lever for anyone named Bush again.>

If Republicans lose, evangelicals might be in for a some time in the political wilderness. After all, they're the poorer people in the Republican coalition, and studies indicate that elected officials are not too responsive to political opinions among the poor.

First off, though, it's not clear that Republicans are going to lose either house.

Second off, if they do, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the administration move closer to evangelicals. I think the president is sincere in his faith. I bet that he's stung by the accusations of his indifference to that stuff in the Bible about peacemakers and helping the poor, and instead focusing on starting wars, carving out the ability to torture, and reducing taxes for the very wealthy. If there is soul-searching following the election, I bet that's where the president goes.

Also, I don't agree that the media "hates evangelicals." It often fails to know much about them, I'll grant you that-- as in the NYT reporter who'd never heard the saying about the speck in your brother's eye. But I don't think there is hatred there.

The views expressed by some opponents of gay marriage do not find expression in the media, it's true, such as this piece from WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farrah, explaining evangelical frustration with the administration:

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, someone who claims to be a Christian herself, which, by definition, means you submit to the authority of Jesus and the Bible, last week swore in to the position of AIDS coordinator an open homosexual. The position carries the rank of ambassador. The photo accompanying this column shows the smiling first lady, Laura Bush, and Mark Dybul's partner, Jason Claire, leering at him."

But the fact that these views don't find expression, in this tone, in most media, doesn't mean that the media hates evangelicals.>

The Iraq debacle may have many fathers in the GOP camp, but if one of them is the Protestant/Wilsonian camp then it is a free-riding foster parent at best.

I wouldn't even call it an adoptive father.

Prof. Kurth has shown us that there is an ideological or philosophical link between Wilsonianism and Protestantism, but she shows us no causal links between the two, nor does he show us causal links between Wilsoniamism and crusader foreign policy. Then there's a little matter about Iraq not even having been initiated for ideological purposes to begin with...

The word of the day is, I think, "epiphenomenal.">

So, whenever anyone says the word "epiphenomenal"... SCREAM REAL LOUD!!!>

I cannot in good conscience vote for either party. The Consititional Party isn't perfect, but at least it holds to the ideal of our Constitution which seems to have been completely forgotten (or subject to creative and reinterpretation these days). At least I can vote my conscience.

I'm beginning to wonder if the Constitution Party isn't the best bet right now.>

It's all the evangelicals fault. The War in Iraq, the "I've got capital" attitude, all of it, lays at the feet of the evangelicals, or should that be knees?

It's their fault because Dubya and company assumed they had all the aces, the ones in the deck and the ones in their sleeves, because they felt the divided country could vote either way and their base, the evangelicals, would always bring home the vote because they were the difference.

If we look at this situation logically we have to blame the evangelicals, they're the ones that tipped the scales.

And of course they were used and abused by the Bush administration. Evangelicals were a necessary evil in the GOP's box of ammunition.

Pun intended.

But heck, if you look at any faction that participated in the Bush Bash you can see where they were treated just like the evangelicals. Every special interest was used and abused. And they were all done wrong for the same reason.

It's a little thing about power. If power is your absolute then.........>

I think that, as a liberal Democrat, this internal war within the Republican party, is long overdue. What is happening, I think, is that the "class of '80" evangelicals who were first suckered into Republicanism by Ronald Reagan are finally waking up to the fact that they have been used all along.

These are the people who were told by their preachers that "it is a sin to vote for a Democrat," who believed that the "shining city on a hill" was their personal conservative Utopia, and who are finding out that it is not just the "godless, treasonous," liberals who can act with less than divine motives.

As one who has been scorned, laughed at, and been acused of being anti-American just for being a registered Democrat in "the most Republican state of them all" Kansas, I think that it is fun to watch the Limbaugh/Coulter clones implode. If it were not for the fact that soldiers are dying in Iraq/Afghansistan every day, sacrificed on the alter of Bush Revenge, then this would really take on the aspect of a comidic farce. Unlike Republicans, who laugh at others' pain, I really do "feel the pain" of the families of these soldiers who have died for nothing.>

Rod,

"If President Bush really cared about protecting traditional marriage"

He could never "protect" "traditioal" marriage because it isn't - and never was - under attack. When you build an addition on to a house, you aren't "atatacking" the original structure, merely modifying and enlargin it so that it can house and shelter MORE people.

"he got quite a lot of people to vote for him thinking that he would fight to preserve traditional marriage"

A futile "fight", for even now that gay people are allowed to marry (in some, limited few places), "traditional marriage" (i.e. 1 man & 1 woman) still exists, nay, abounds. It is delusional to believe otherwise. And that is why, ultimately, you will lose this "fight" - it is based on a lie.>

I'm not liking this analogy for a simple reason: walls are not sentient creatures making choices.

I'm rather sick of the whole "defense" of marriage schtick as it is, what with a 50% divorce rate embedded in our social consciousness well before anyone thought about "non-traditional" marriages in any context, let alone in the context of civil rights.

Where were the religious right when divorce began to skyrocket? Were they perhaps too busy having their own divorces to bother with it?

Inquiring minds would like to know.>

" find it exceedingly ironic that the deficit comparisons are being made to the "LBJ-era", as if there must be some sort of mystical connection to either Viet Nam or being from Texas..."

Franklin, the ironies abound! Such unhappy republicans when it is THEY who are in power!>

It's not a surprise to me that the GOP has used evangelicals.

What surprises me is how evangelicals keep falling for the same old schtick EVERY SINGLE election year! Wake up, people!

I guess if I want to get elected as Republican, all I have to do is a.) Wear an elephant pin on my lapel, b.) say the words "Jesus" and "traditional" a lot, c.) pretend to know something about NASCAR, d.) shake my head solemnly over the memory of having watched the Democrats kill Terri Schavio as she danced and sang in her hospital room for Tom Delay and Bill Frist, and e.) suggest that "The Flintstones" should be taught to our school children as an accurate picture of pre-historic times.

Good grief. If evangelicals want to be respected as a political power (meaning, the seek and GET results), then thery ought to quit acting like star-struck fools whenever some gasbag pol starts sermonizing.>

David J. White,

"But when you build an addition onto a house, you have to be careful not to demolish or weaken one of the load-bearing walls in the original structure"

Do you believe that allowing gays to marry "demolishes" and/or "weakens" marriage? And if so, how?>

Jonathan suggests:

the Republican Party has been faithful to evangelical concerns, while balancing the concerns of other wings. The main ethical concern I remember from the Reagan Revolution was abortion. Reagan's faithfulness brought a gazillion Southern pro-life Democrats into the Republican fold.

Interesting then that 2 of the 3 Reagan SC appointees were faithful ("centrist") upholders of Roe. In fact, we're still waiting for one to die... or retire. Reagan was the original Zen Master at smokescreening the religious right. It all began with him, with the cooperation the Religious Right's all-to-credulous leaders (and followers). Ergo Rove. In fact, in comparison to Reagan, Dubya's SC nominees have been superb. Alas, this alone I find in his favor.>