let's criticize bush for awhile
True Christian conservatives are intellectually honest. We are not forever wed to a particular political party. We are, in fact, deeply committed to the governmental ideals espoused by our Founding Fathers and to the teachings of God's Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It just so happens that the modern Republican Party is more committed to those principles than is the Democrat Party (Democrats, in fact, are diametrically opposed to all of the above), so Christian conservatives do tend to vote Republican. When a Republican goes against those principles, however, it would be dishonest not to criticize the Republican in question. That leads me to President Bush and the summit he has convened on school violence.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush made the comment that, "When people hurt, government has to move." That comment almost made me lose my lunch! It reveals the fact that Pres. Bush, contrary to conventional wisdom, is not a conservative. He is a moderate, big-government, strong-defense, low-tax Republican. His daddy calls that being a "compassionate conservative." I say there is nothing conservative about it. The concept of federalism is embodied in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution; "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." That seems pretty clear to me, but not to Pres. Bush.
Pres. Bush's goal with this summit is to come up with a federal plan/program/bureauacracy that will "solve" the problem of school violence. I've got news for the president. First of all, the Constitution doesn't give the federal government the right to get involved in the education of our children in any way, shape or form. Second, government can't solve the problem. So, with that in mind, what should the President have said?
The President should have issued a call to all Christians everywhere to pray to God for peace in our schools. He should have called for prayer seeking God's forgiveness of our sins as a nation, and he should have called for Christians to pray for our children to be blessed and protected. Prayer is the most powerful, most effective weapon we have against the evil that so often brings death and tragedy to our schools. Government is not the solution, God is.
President Bush should have quoted from the book of Habakkuk in the Bible. The prophet Habakkuk cried out to God in despair about the evil that surrounded him in those ancient times. Why did evil and wickedness so often seem to be successful, while goodness and righteousness seemed not to succeed? God answered that true justice would reign eventually, and that we should not become discouraged by the evil in this world. God is in control and He will bless those who are faithful to him and who continually seek Him in prayer and in His Holy Word.
President Bush could have called for a national period of mourning and repentence for our sins, and for continuous prayer for God's blessings. Instead, he called for more taxpayer-funded bureauacracy that will bloat the federal government and that will be unsuccessful in solving the problem. That, my friends, is a national tragedy.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush made the comment that, "When people hurt, government has to move." That comment almost made me lose my lunch! It reveals the fact that Pres. Bush, contrary to conventional wisdom, is not a conservative. He is a moderate, big-government, strong-defense, low-tax Republican. His daddy calls that being a "compassionate conservative." I say there is nothing conservative about it. The concept of federalism is embodied in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution; "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." That seems pretty clear to me, but not to Pres. Bush.
Pres. Bush's goal with this summit is to come up with a federal plan/program/bureauacracy that will "solve" the problem of school violence. I've got news for the president. First of all, the Constitution doesn't give the federal government the right to get involved in the education of our children in any way, shape or form. Second, government can't solve the problem. So, with that in mind, what should the President have said?
The President should have issued a call to all Christians everywhere to pray to God for peace in our schools. He should have called for prayer seeking God's forgiveness of our sins as a nation, and he should have called for Christians to pray for our children to be blessed and protected. Prayer is the most powerful, most effective weapon we have against the evil that so often brings death and tragedy to our schools. Government is not the solution, God is.
President Bush should have quoted from the book of Habakkuk in the Bible. The prophet Habakkuk cried out to God in despair about the evil that surrounded him in those ancient times. Why did evil and wickedness so often seem to be successful, while goodness and righteousness seemed not to succeed? God answered that true justice would reign eventually, and that we should not become discouraged by the evil in this world. God is in control and He will bless those who are faithful to him and who continually seek Him in prayer and in His Holy Word.
President Bush could have called for a national period of mourning and repentence for our sins, and for continuous prayer for God's blessings. Instead, he called for more taxpayer-funded bureauacracy that will bloat the federal government and that will be unsuccessful in solving the problem. That, my friends, is a national tragedy.
posted by hondo at 12:36 PM
3 Comments:
Nice try, Hondo: Here is the real reason why Christian conservatives will be p.o.'d with Dubya by the end of next week:
Olbermann: Bush Played Christian Conservatives for Chumps
This does not come from a liberal source... this comes from a Christian conservative who worked as an aide to Bush, and has excellent credentials on the right.
From Crooks and Liars. com
Tonight on Countdown–David Kuo, who was the number two guy at the Office of Faith Based initiatives in the White House writes a scathing account of how the administration used Christians to grab and maintain power. This story validates Tucker Carlson's admission that: "The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power."
TRANSCRIPT:
When President Bush touched on Iraq at his news conference this morning, he may have been revealing more than he knew.
[video] BUSH: The stakes couldn't be any higher, as I said earlier, in the world in which we live. There are extreme elements that use religion to achieve objectives.
He was talking about religious extremists in Iraq. But an hour later, Mr. Bush posed with officials from the Southern Baptist Convention.
It is described as the largest, most influential evangelical denomination in a new book by the former number-two man in Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.
The book, "Tempting Faith," not out until Monday, but in our third story tonight, a Countdown exclusive we've obtained a copy and it is devastating work.
Author David Kuo's conservative Christian credentials are impeccable; his resume sprinkled with names like Bennett and Ashcroft. Now, as the Foley cover-up has many evangelical Christians wondering whether the G.O.P. is really in sync with their values, "Tempting Faith" provides the answer: No way.
Kuo, citing one example after another of a White House that repeatedly uses evangelical Christians for their votes — while consistently giving them nothing in return; A White House which routinely speaks of the nation's most famous evangelical leaders behind their backs, with contempt and derision.
Furthermore, Faith-Based Initiatives were not only stiffed on one public promise after another by Mr. Bush — the office itself was eventually forced to answer a higher calling: Electing Republican politicians.
Kuo's bottom line: the Bush White House is playing millions of American Christians for suckers.
According to Kuo, Karl Rove's office referred to evangelical leaders as 'the nuts.'
Kuo says, 'National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy.' "
So how does the Bush White House keep 'the nuts' turning out at the polls?
One way, regular conference calls with groups led by Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Ted Haggard, and radio hosts like Michael Reagan.
Kuo says, "Participants were asked to talk to their people about whatever issue was pending. Advice was solicited [but] that advice rarely went much further than the conference call. [T]he true purpose of these calls was to keep prominent social conservatives and their groups or audiences happy."
They do get some things from the Bush White House, like the National Day of Prayer, “another one of the eye-rolling Christian events,” Kuo says.
And “passes to be in the crowd greeting the president when he arrived on Air Force One or tickets for a speech he was giving in their hometown. Little trinkets like cufflinks or pens or pads of paper were passed out like business cards. Christian leaders could give them to their congregations or donors or friends to show just how influential they were. Making politically active Christians personally happy meant having to worry far less about the Christian political agenda.”
When cufflinks weren't enough, the White House played the Jesus card, reminding Christian leaders that, quote, “they knew the president's faith” and begging for patience.
And the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives?
According to Kuo, “White House staff didn't want to have anything to do with the Faith-Based Initiative because they didn't understand it any more than did congressional Republicans . They didn't lie awake at night trying to kill it. They simply didn 't care."
Kuo relates one faith-based promise after another — billions of dollars in funding and tax credits — that goes unfulfilled year after promise after year.
He recounts one specific funding exchange with Mr. Bush:
Bush: "Eight billion in new dollars?"
Kuo: "No sir. Eight billion in existing dollars for which groups will find it technically easier to apply. But faith-based groups have been getting that money for years."
Bush: "Eight billion. That's what we'll tell them. Eight billion in new funds for faith-based groups."
Kuo says, "The faith-based initiative had the potential to successfully evangelize more voters than any other."
According to Kuo, the Office spent much of its time on two missions:
One—Trying–and failing–to prove Mr. Bush's claim of regulatory bias against religious charities hiring who they wanted. Quote: "Finding these examples became a huge priority. …[but] religious groups had encountered very few instances of actual problems with their hiring practices." "It really wasn't that bad at all."
Another mission: lobbying the President to make good on his own promises.
Kuo says they tried to prove their political value by turning the once-bipartisan faith-based initiatives into a political operation.
It wasn't just discrimination against non-Christian charities. (One official who rated grant applications told Kuo, " when I saw one of those non-Christian groups in the set I was reviewing, I just stopped looking at them and gave them a zero…a lot of us did. ")
The Office was also, literally, a taxpayer-funded part of the Republican campaign machinery.
In 2002, Kuo says the office decided to "hold roundtable events for threatened incumbents with faith and community leaders … using the aura of our White House power to get a diverse group of faith and community leaders to a 'nonpartisan' event discussing how best to help poor people in their area."
White House Political Affairs director Ken Mehlman "loved the idea and gave us our marching orders. There were twenty targets." Including Saxby Chambliss in Georgia and John Shimkus in Illinois.
Mehlman devised a cover-up for the operation. He told Kuo, "It can't come from the campaigns. That would make it look too political. It needs to come from the congressional offices. We'll take care of that by having our guys call the office to request the visit."
Kuo explains, "this approach inoculated us against accusations that we were using religion and religious leaders to promote specific candidates."
Those roundtables were a hit. Republicans won 19 of those 20 races. 76 percent of religious conservatives voted for Chambliss over decorated war hero Max Cleland.
And Bush's 2004 victory in Ohio? That "was at least partially tied to the conferences [they] had launched [there] two years before."
By that time, Kuo had left the White House, concluding that "it was mocking the millions of faithful Christians who had put their trust and hope in the President and his administration. Bush knew his so-called compassion agenda was languishing and had no problem with that."
If you would question Mr. Kuo's credibility, you should know his former boss also quit the White House complaining in his one public interview that politics drove absolutely everything in the Bush administration. There is more, much more revealed in Tempting Faith… how Jack Kemp was tricked into sounding like a religious conservative without even knowing it; Jerry Falwell's astonishing behavior at the 9/11 Day of Remembrance and considerably more as our Countdown exclusive of Tempting Faith continues here tomorrow night.
Did I hear Hondo say something about "useful idiots"...
"Satanopoulos" I like that! Makes me want to adopt a screen name of "Satanoros" when I take the piss on right-wingers...
Yeah, Hondo, what about the news from a BUSH APPOINTEE that the Republicans are laughing at you? This isn't an evil liberal Democrat who's saying it. Kuo didn't get fired and write a get-even book. He replaced another Bush appointee who got disgusted by the politicisation of religion and quit. Sounds like they were the true believers and Bush/Cheney/Rove are the deceivers. (I tell ya -- mark of the Antichrist, mate!)
What will it take for you to admit that these criminals you idolise are playing you for a fool? At least we liberals ridicule you openly. Why, it's enough to make you not want to vote in November! That would teach them not to mock you...
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