BUSH'S BETTER ANGELS REVEALED
Ever since early reports of David Kuo's new book, Tempting Faith came out, I am liking George W. Bush much, much better. In the book, Mr. Kuo, a conservative Christian and deputy director of the White House office of Faith Based Initiatives tells us that Bush and his team misused the office by channeling federal money to evangelical Christians to get GOP politicians elected.
Well of course he did. Da! It's a politician's job to get votes.
All the while the Bush team thought Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Dr. James Dobson and other prominent Christian leaders were ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,' and calling them so behind their backs. Anyone who believed the president a poor judge of character, think again.
And here I thought the president's pandering to the Religious Right was out of genuine respect for these religious nuts who think a majority of the world's population will rot in hell for not accepting Jesus Christ as their savior. Come to find out Bush knew all along they were nut-cases, and was simply carrying them along to consolidate power. That's my man.
In fact, the Bush team didn't even trust them: James Dobson "needed to be controlled," according to Kuo. What a sly fox that George guy is. I really like that quality in a politician.
With the 2000 election so close he was ultimately forced to steal it, Mr. Bush knew he needed the Christian Right to deliver the goods promised him earlier by Billy Graham. Candidate Bush promised the faithful faith-based initiatives: billions of dollars worth to help the poor.
Once in office, the wily president turned his back on both the Godly and the poor. An excerpt from the book:
Every other White House office was up and running. The faith-based initiative still operated out of the nearly vacant transition offices. Three days later, a Tuesday, Karl Rove summoned [Don] Willett [a former Bush aide from Texas who initially shepherded the program] to his office to announce that the entire faith-based initiative would be rolled out the following Monday. Willett asked just how — without a director, staff, office, or plan — the president could do that. Rove looked at him, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t know. Just get me a fucking faith-based thing. Got it?” Willett was shown the door.
You the man, Karl. Besides Karl using the naughty "F" word, the president ended up delivering less than one percent of the monies he promised ($6 billion promised vs. $40 million delivered). As one priest put it, "I'm still hot under the collar over our man/boy love cover being blown -- and now this!" Protestant clergy felt the same way.
No matter. In 2004, 18 of 20 hotly contested elections, including Ohio, were tipped to the Republicans by the duped Religious Right. Way to go, bros.
There was one hiccup. While I thought that invading the wrong country after lying about its provocation was enough to derail the Republican train, come to find out, it was dirty emails that ended up troubling the party's base. Go figure. One can only scratch one's head as everyone from Conservative talk show hosts to incumbent Republican candidates is finally turning his or her back on our president -- just as I'm starting to like the fellow!
And that's not all. Just when the Holier Than Thou Crowd is struggling with Representative Foley's "Tickle Me Elmo" love syndicate and Speaker Hastert's ongoing cover-up of the affair to maintain control of the House, now it has to get used to new figures coming out of Iraq: that by some estimates, 655,000 have died there since the start of the US Crusade (even with the small sampling's high statistical error rate of 30-40%, PNN must still apologize for it's extremely low working estimate of 100,000 casualties).
One can imagine that Jesus, poor as poor he was born (and the only Christian leader not on the administration's "watch" list) -- is pissed. And here I am getting ready to campaign for Republican candidates.
Tempting Faith comes out today, just in time to savor as we head into the mid-term elections. I know I speak for all of us when I say how thankful I am that the man with the finger on the "nucular" trigger doesn't really believe in the Apocalypse or his largest constituency. Nothing in our Homeland Security plan makes me feel safer than knowing this.
But it is a pity that just when the president's strength of character is revealed, he's going to lose Congress and get his sorry ass impeached.
Ever since early reports of David Kuo's new book, Tempting Faith came out, I am liking George W. Bush much, much better. In the book, Mr. Kuo, a conservative Christian and deputy director of the White House office of Faith Based Initiatives tells us that Bush and his team misused the office by channeling federal money to evangelical Christians to get GOP politicians elected.
Well of course he did. Da! It's a politician's job to get votes.
All the while the Bush team thought Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Dr. James Dobson and other prominent Christian leaders were ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,' and calling them so behind their backs. Anyone who believed the president a poor judge of character, think again.
And here I thought the president's pandering to the Religious Right was out of genuine respect for these religious nuts who think a majority of the world's population will rot in hell for not accepting Jesus Christ as their savior. Come to find out Bush knew all along they were nut-cases, and was simply carrying them along to consolidate power. That's my man.
In fact, the Bush team didn't even trust them: James Dobson "needed to be controlled," according to Kuo. What a sly fox that George guy is. I really like that quality in a politician.
With the 2000 election so close he was ultimately forced to steal it, Mr. Bush knew he needed the Christian Right to deliver the goods promised him earlier by Billy Graham. Candidate Bush promised the faithful faith-based initiatives: billions of dollars worth to help the poor.
Once in office, the wily president turned his back on both the Godly and the poor. An excerpt from the book:
Every other White House office was up and running. The faith-based initiative still operated out of the nearly vacant transition offices. Three days later, a Tuesday, Karl Rove summoned [Don] Willett [a former Bush aide from Texas who initially shepherded the program] to his office to announce that the entire faith-based initiative would be rolled out the following Monday. Willett asked just how — without a director, staff, office, or plan — the president could do that. Rove looked at him, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t know. Just get me a fucking faith-based thing. Got it?” Willett was shown the door.
You the man, Karl. Besides Karl using the naughty "F" word, the president ended up delivering less than one percent of the monies he promised ($6 billion promised vs. $40 million delivered). As one priest put it, "I'm still hot under the collar over our man/boy love cover being blown -- and now this!" Protestant clergy felt the same way.
No matter. In 2004, 18 of 20 hotly contested elections, including Ohio, were tipped to the Republicans by the duped Religious Right. Way to go, bros.
There was one hiccup. While I thought that invading the wrong country after lying about its provocation was enough to derail the Republican train, come to find out, it was dirty emails that ended up troubling the party's base. Go figure. One can only scratch one's head as everyone from Conservative talk show hosts to incumbent Republican candidates is finally turning his or her back on our president -- just as I'm starting to like the fellow!
And that's not all. Just when the Holier Than Thou Crowd is struggling with Representative Foley's "Tickle Me Elmo" love syndicate and Speaker Hastert's ongoing cover-up of the affair to maintain control of the House, now it has to get used to new figures coming out of Iraq: that by some estimates, 655,000 have died there since the start of the US Crusade (even with the small sampling's high statistical error rate of 30-40%, PNN must still apologize for it's extremely low working estimate of 100,000 casualties).
One can imagine that Jesus, poor as poor he was born (and the only Christian leader not on the administration's "watch" list) -- is pissed. And here I am getting ready to campaign for Republican candidates.
Tempting Faith comes out today, just in time to savor as we head into the mid-term elections. I know I speak for all of us when I say how thankful I am that the man with the finger on the "nucular" trigger doesn't really believe in the Apocalypse or his largest constituency. Nothing in our Homeland Security plan makes me feel safer than knowing this.
But it is a pity that just when the president's strength of character is revealed, he's going to lose Congress and get his sorry ass impeached.
posted by R. Reynolds at 8:28 AM
2 comments
