I didn't tune into Dear Leader's speech about immigration because I anticipated that Bush's words would splat like Georgia clay shakin' off a dirty hound dog. If I want to listen to pandering to a bunch of radical bigots, I can flip the channel to the CBN. Isn't that the voter audience that Bush wanted to placate? House Republicans have gotten the message to get tough or else and they oppose any plan from Bush that would allow any route to citizenship that does not require first leaving the country, having already passed a $2.2 billion initiative to build border fences 700-miles long. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), speaking after Bush's address on immigration, "did not praise the path-to-citizenship plan." Now why is that? Perhaps Republicans can't afford to ignore those that put them in office.
Some of President Bush's most influential conservative Christian allies are becoming openly critical of the White House and Republicans in Congress, warning that they will withhold their support in the midterm elections unless Congress does more to oppose same-sex marriage, obscenity and abortion.
"There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall," said Richard Viguerie, a conservative direct-mail pioneer.
Mr. Viguerie also cited dissatisfaction with government spending, the war in Iraq and the immigration-policy debate, which Mr. Bush is scheduled to address in a televised speech on Monday night.
"I can't tell you how much anger there is at the Republican leadership," Mr. Viguerie said. "I have never seen anything like it."
In the last several weeks, Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and one of the most influential Christian conservatives, has publicly accused Republican leaders of betraying the social conservatives who helped elect them in 2004. He has also warned in private meetings with about a dozen of the top Republicans in Washington that he may turn critic this fall unless the party delivers on conservative goals.
And at a meeting in Northern Virginia this weekend of the Council for National Policy, an alliance of the most prominent Christian conservatives, several participants said sentiment toward the White House and Republicans in Congress had deteriorated sharply since the 2004 elections.
When the group met in the summer of 2004, it resembled a pep rally for Mr. Bush and his allies on Capitol Hill, and one session focused on how to use state initiatives seeking to ban same-sex marriage to help turn out the vote. This year, some participants are complaining that as soon as Mr. Bush was re-elected he stopped expressing his support for a constitutional amendment banning such unions.
Christian conservative leaders have often threatened in the months before an election to withhold their support for Republicans in an effort to press for their legislative goals. In the 1990's, Dr. Dobson in particular became known for his jeremiads against the Republican party, most notably in the months before the 1998 midterm elections.
But the complaints this year are especially significant because they underscore how the broad decline in public approval for Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans is beginning to cut into their core supporters. The threatened defections come just two years after many Christian conservatives — most notably Dr. Dobson — abandoned much of their previous reservations and poured energy into electing Republicans in 2004.
[...]
Midterm Congressional elections tend to be won by whichever side can motivate more true believers to vote. Dr. Dobson and other conservatives are renewing their complaints about the Republicans at a time when several recent polls have shown sharp declines in approval among Republicans and conservatives. And compared with other constituencies, evangelical Protestants have historically been suspicious of the worldly business of politics and thus more prone to stay home unless they feel clear moral issues are at stake.
[...]
According to people who were at the meetings or were briefed on them, Dr. Dobson has made the same point more politely in a series of private conversations over the last two weeks in meetings with several top Republicans, including Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser; Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader; Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the House speaker; and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader.Ah, yes, Ohio, where anti-gay social conservatives made the difference for Bush in 2o04. George needed to go on national T-V to assuage rising tempers since...
No one expects the same-sex marriage amendment to pass this year. Republican leaders have not scheduled votes on a measure to outlaw transporting minors across state lines for abortions, and the proposal faces long odds in the Senate. A measure to increase obscenity fines for broadcasters is opposed by media industry trade groups, pitting Christian conservatives against the business wing of the party, and Congressional leaders have not committed to bring it to a vote.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and another frequent participant in the Council for National Policy, argued that Christian conservatives were hurting their own cause.
"If the Republicans do poorly in 2006," Mr. Norquist said, "the establishment will explain that it was because Bush was too conservative, specifically on social and cultural issues."
Dr. Dobson declined to comment. His spokesman, Paul Hetrick, said that Dr. Dobson was "on a fact-finding trip to see where Republicans are regarding the issues that concern values voters most, especially the Marriage Protection Act," and that it was too soon to tell the results.Ha! Maybe too many corporations have had to spend big marketing bucks or have lost revenue due to the radical agenda of the Religious Right. In the long run, discrimination isn't good for business or the economy and eventually that may lead to loosening the claws of the theocons on the party that favors corporate interests. But in the meantime, the heart and soul of the GOP continues to be held hostage by power-wielding Christian evangelical leaders.
Had enough of being ruled by the dueling banjos? If you haven't realized the entrenched hatred wrapped up as "for your own good" oppression and bigotry of the aggressive Anti-Christ movement masquerading as Christians (Warren Jeffs), read GOP strategist Kevin Phillips. Or read New Testament scholar, Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, to understand that the Bible isn't so inerrant as to be taken literally and rigidly as the Religious Right would have people to believe. I daresay, given their ambition for power and influence, Dobson theocons would sell Jesus to Pontias Pilate to advance their anti-Jesus agenda and some of their ilk would crucify Christ again mistaking him for a liberal traitor to their cause. These folks are cultists legitimized by the auspices of "church." Shame on whatever so-called Christian church sanctions their activities.
Re-examine the life of Christ and tell me where he extorted politicians with threats to accept his teachings. He didn't. He advocated forgiveness, good works, and compassion as the Way to witness to the un-believer. No one can be "saved" by coercion or mandates and that's why I accuse Dobson and his Judas Gang of being ruthless hypocrites. Someone, please, enlighten the GOP that Republicans are in bed with false prophets.
Americans, especially
Freedom of religion is just that. Dobson is free to believe that Jesus taught political dominance. My religious belief is that Jesus would not only advocate gay marriage but would gladly marry my partner and me and bless our sacred union without giving politics a second thought.
Whose religion gets precedence according to the Constitution? If my religion can be overruled by another's beliefs, then so can yours.
God help us.
UPDATE: Ari Berman convinced me. Bush is the farthest right president in recent memory but evidently not enough for Dobson.
|