Bush White House: Evangelicals are "nuts", "just plain goofy"

Eryk

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“Tempting Faith’s” author is David Kuo, who served as special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003. A self-described conservative Christian, Kuo’s previous experience includes work for prominent conservatives including former Education Secretary and federal drug czar Bill Bennett and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

From the book:
Some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“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,’” Kuo writes.
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Eryk

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Wow, they are really trying hard to separate the Republicans from their base. Good luck :)
"They" are conservatives like Kuo and his boss at the Office of Faith Based Initiatives--"they" are fed up with being used.
 
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reverend B

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fits right in with public persona of the party as a whole and the private truth of graft (abramoff), questionable sexual character (foley), graft, (delay), gambling excess (bennett), cover-ups (hastert et.al.) and racism (allen and the former senate leader).
what a long strange trip it's been.
 
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Eryk

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The Abramoff emails referred to them as 'Whackos'.

Abramoff also set up fictional entities with names like "Christian Action Network". Volunteers would call Christians and ask if they were concerned about issues, like abortion. Then the caller tells them to donate to The Christian Action Network at such-and-such a number. That number was to a phone near the volunteer (sometimes in a drawer), who answers, "Hello, Christian Action Network" and then takes the donation. This all came out in the hearings before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee [PDF]. I Betcha didn't see THAT on Fox.
 
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Eryk

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David Kuo:

There was minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda.

Capitol Hill gridlock could have been smashed by minimal West Wing effort. No administration since LBJ's has had a more successful legislative track record than this one. From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants. It never really wanted the "poor people stuff."

Conservative Christian donors, faith leaders, and opinion makers grew to see the initiative as an embodiment of the president's own faith. Democratic opposition was understood as an attack on his personal faith. And since this community's most powerful leaders - men like James Dobson of Focus on the Family - weren't anti-poverty leaders, they didn't care about money. The Faith-Based Office was the cross around the White Houses' neck showing the president's own faith orientation. That was sufficient.
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MikeMcK

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Maybe now people will realize that this administration doesn't care for anyone but themselves.
Why? Because someone claimed in a book that somebody said something?First of all, Karl Rove is not "the Bush White House".Second, none of these statements have been demonstrated to be true.
 
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Voegelin

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More fall-out from 2004 when, as Washington Post reporter E.J. Dionne wrote, Democrats "found God" after Clinton's pollster Stanley Greenberg (husband of Rosa DeLauro, D-CT) crunched the election polling results.

First Jim Wallis and Rabbi Michael Lerner formed a "Network of Spiritual Progressives" to try to regain the religious vote (which had gone in a landslide for Bush). Then Nancy Pelosi had 54 Catholic Democrats sign a statement of faith. Then Senators Obama and Kerry began giving speeches on how important faith is to them. While this was going on, a plethora of liberal books were in the works, detailing how the "religious right" wants to create a theocracy in America. Most recently we have had Democrats astounded that their Foley campaign has not driven, as expected, the religious vote from the GOP. Now we have this book and comments by a few other alledged conservatives which disparage people of faith. All of this has been promoted widely by George Soros and Podesta's "Center for American Progress" (CAP) and reported on extensively by a breathless liberal media.

This latest campaign, which is about 4 days old now, won't be as sucessful as any of the others.

20 or even 15 years ago. when liberals owned the media, Democrats may have peeled off some of the religious vote with these smarmy campaigns.

Not today.

Democrats would be better off running on what they believe.

Whatever that is.
 
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Eryk

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Now we have this book and comments by a few other alledged conservatives which disparage people of faith.
Actually, it's Republican political strategists who are disparaging people of faith, as reported in this book. If these words had come from Democrats, and if a Democratic lobbyist had defrauded Christians the way Abramoff did, there would be an uproar.
 
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Eryk

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Karl Rove is not "the Bush White House."
Wikipedia: The White House Office of Strategic Initiatives is a staff unit within the Executive Office of the President of the United States established during the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush immediately following his inauguration. Its members report to the President's Senior Advisor; presently Karl Rove holds this position.
 
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reverend B

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More fall-out from 2004 when, as Washington Post reporter E.J. Dionne wrote, Democrats "found God" after Clinton's pollster Stanley Greenberg (husband of Rosa DeLauro, D-CT) crunched the election polling results.

First Jim Wallis and Rabbi Michael Lerner formed a "Network of Spiritual Progressives" to try to regain the religious vote (which had gone in a landslide for Bush). Then Nancy Pelosi had 54 Catholic Democrats sign a statement of faith. Then Senators Obama and Kerry began giving speeches on how important faith is to them. While this was going on, a plethora of liberal books were in the works, detailing how the "religious right" wants to create a theocracy in America. Most recently we have had Democrats astounded that their Foley campaign has not driven, as expected, the religious vote from the GOP. Now we have this book and comments by a few other alledged conservatives which disparage people of faith. All of this has been promoted widely by George Soros and Podesta's "Center for American Progress" (CAP) and reported on extensively by a breathless liberal media.

This latest campaign, which is about 4 days old now, won't be as sucessful as any of the others.

20 or even 15 years ago. when liberals owned the media, Democrats may have peeled off some of the religious vote with these smarmy campaigns.

Not today.

Democrats would be better off running on what they believe.

Whatever that is.

very desperate post, to my way of thinking.
though i agree with you that the left has made a very transparent mad dash toward the altar to combat the evangelical wave, there is plenty of evidence that the desire for a theocracy exists out there, and just as much evidence that desire has made the right ripe for picking for an unscrupulous cabal that has no shame.
why you think the foley scandal is having no impact i'm not sure. is there any evidence that they are not recoiling from the very obvious cynicism and contempt their chosen party has showed them and is now being revealed? you say it has not driven the vote. did i miss an election? what vote has been made that you base your statement on?
your next strategy is to conclude that if someone is critical of the party then they must be faux conservatives. can they not simply be conservatives with conviction? conservatives that recoil against the blatant manipulation of their ethics? you suggest that the book is disparaging people of faith, when in fact it is exposing people who have none, and as a Christian i would think you would be first and foremost interested in finding out if these "alleged conservatives" had been playing you like a fiddle in an effort to take your vote in return for cynicism and disrespect. if this is true, if david kuo is what he says he is, a committed evangelical who served under both bennett and ashcroft and rose to the number 2 spot in the office of faith based initiatives, and if the reporting of what he saw is accurate and unbiased, don't you want to know? since you love history, perhaps you remember this quote from a previous republican scandal:
at long last, sir, have you no shame?
 
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nvxplorer

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More fall-out from 2004 when, as Washington Post reporter E.J. Dionne wrote, Democrats "found God" after Clinton's pollster Stanley Greenberg (husband of Rosa DeLauro, D-CT) crunched the election polling results.

First Jim Wallis and Rabbi Michael Lerner formed a "Network of Spiritual Progressives" to try to regain the religious vote (which had gone in a landslide for Bush). Then Nancy Pelosi had 54 Catholic Democrats sign a statement of faith. Then Senators Obama and Kerry began giving speeches on how important faith is to them. While this was going on, a plethora of liberal books were in the works, detailing how the "religious right" wants to create a theocracy in America. Most recently we have had Democrats astounded that their Foley campaign has not driven, as expected, the religious vote from the GOP. Now we have this book and comments by a few other alledged conservatives which disparage people of faith. All of this has been promoted widely by George Soros and Podesta's "Center for American Progress" (CAP) and reported on extensively by a breathless liberal media.

This latest campaign, which is about 4 days old now, won't be as sucessful as any of the others.

20 or even 15 years ago. when liberals owned the media, Democrats may have peeled off some of the religious vote with these smarmy campaigns.

Not today.

Democrats would be better off running on what they believe.

Whatever that is.
Yes indeed!

Because of course, as we all know, as everyone can see, it's plain as day, read my lips, the OP is about Democrats!!!!!


Oh...almost forgot...

I see your George Soros and raise you two Richard Mellon Scaifes. ;)
 
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christalee4

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Like other wanna-be dictatorships, this administration keenly uses and abuses its evangelical "base" to the cynical tune of supporting family values, while the real music is the tinkle of money.

One example is the gap in values between the staged rush to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case, and then supporting sweatshop abuses in the Marianas Islands and Saipan, such as forced abortions and prostitution:
http://www.slate.com/id/2115879/

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/09/real.delay/
http://www.alternet.org/story/13140/
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=647725&page=1

Now while the government and federal deficit grow at an obese pace, it's clear that this administration only worships the Money God and continues to spout lies not only to its faith-based supporters, but also to the American public in general:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901770.html
 
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Eryk

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Most recently we have had Democrats astounded that their Foley campaign has not driven, as expected, the religious vote from the GOP.
Pew:

57 percent of white evangelicals are inclined to vote for Republican congressional candidates in the midterm elections, a 21-point drop in support among this critical part of the GOP base.

Gallup:


The Democrats made gains across all groups in the October poll compared to the averages in previous months. But the Democratic gain (or Republican loss depending on how one looks at it) is more significant among religious whites than among the other two groups. Religious whites went from an average Democratic disadvantage of 23 points across the June through September months, to dead even in October. Less religious whites shifted only seven points across these two time periods, while the group of "all others" shifted 9 points.

A comparison of the September average to October shows a 22-point gain for the Democrats among white frequent churchgoers, a six-point gain among white less frequent churchgoers, and a 14-point gain among all others.
 
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oldbetang

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"I served in the White House for two-and-a-half years as a Special Assistant to the president and eventually as Deputy Director of the Faith-Based Initiative. I have deep respect, appreciation, and affection for the president. No one who knows him even a tiny bit doubts the sincerity and compassion of his heart. Likewise, the people around the president are good and caring people. I know this firsthand because I experienced it during a health crisis in my own life when their kindness was evident." - David Kuo
 
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Eryk

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"I served in the White House for two-and-a-half years as a Special Assistant to the president and eventually as Deputy Director of the Faith-Based Initiative. I have deep respect, appreciation, and affection for the president. No one who knows him even a tiny bit doubts the sincerity and compassion of his heart. Likewise, the people around the president are good and caring people. I know this firsthand because I experienced it during a health crisis in my own life when their kindness was evident." - David Kuo
And the next line says, "That is why writing this is difficult." The previous paragraph details broken promises to help the poor with faith-based initiatives.

Yes, George Bush is good to his staffers. When his oil company went under, he did everything he could to help everyone get new jobs.

I am posting all this because I do not like it when Evangelicals are made to look like rubes. C'mon people!! The party of tax-breaks-for-the-rich is using you!
 
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oldbetang

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And the next line says, "That is why writing this is difficult." The previous paragraph details broken promises to help the poor with faith-based initiatives.

Yes, George Bush is good to his staffers. When his oil company went under, he did everything he could to help everyone get new jobs.

Kuo wasn't referring to how good Bush was to his staffers. It was a much more encompassing description.
 
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