Karl Rove made religion sexy for every politician and political strategist. More than any other person in the past generation Karl Rove is responsible for the faith-based politics we see around us. His influence is greater than Robertson or Dobson or anyone on the religious left because he didn’t simply preach a religious gospel to a particular group of people. Instead he preached to politicians about the political power of religious manipulation. And it isn’t just Republicans who heard the call. It was Democrats too - Hillary Clinton heard it and so did John Edwards. Barack Obama certainly heard it.
So every time that we find ourselves debating theology - was Obama’s pastor too much into liberation theology? Is Romney’s Mormon faith sufficiently Christian in orientation? - we should think of Karl and his strategy for turning George W. Bush’s religious conversion into George W. Bush’s number one political asset for wining conservative Christians to his side.
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Will Hirsch is absolutely right!
Is David Kuo condemning or praising Rowe? Or is he sitting on the fence? In any case, he seems very confused and self-contradictory.
There is nothing "spiritual" about a president and an administration that ends up killing more than 100,000 people (including nearly 4,000 American citizens), that spends hundreds of billions of dollars for destruction and death, that plunges the world's richest nation into abysmal debt, and that ignores the crying needs of its own people.
I am appalled that Beliefnet would publish this rubbish.
Jillian,
That was a fantastic write-up re: the demonology of the right.
Without justifying some of the more lurid rumors above, I'd prefer to focus back on Rove.
What is it with you and Michael Gerson (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081601685.html) portraying Rove as a Hubert Humphrey "Happy Warrior"? If that's how he genuinely seemed to you in the White House, why did he come across as such a lying, scheming ... well, b*stard to Democrats and, by the end, many Republicans as well?
Unless he's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in disguise (possible), either you and Gerson or the American public is wrong. I think you know who I'm betting on (sorry) ...
According to Christopher Hitchens, Karl Rove is a professed atheist so perhaps you can see his cynical manipulation of religious faithful.
A man as cynical and ruthless in his pursuit of power as Karl Rove is not a believer, even if he claims to be.
But it seems he doesn't claim to be.
He's just happy to use religious folks to achieve his ends, which is not righteousness but power.
Bush may claim to be a believer in his heart, but his "brain" turns out to have a different set of values.
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