Month: April 2007

A Moment

by digby

Suzanne Malveaux of CNN just compared President Bush’s appearance today at Virginia Tech to his famous “bullhorn moment” where he allegedly brought the country together after 9/11.

John, you may recall that what was called the “bull horn moment” when the president shortly after 9/11 stood on that pile of rubble and called out and really united the country at that moment, firefighters and others who recognized that that was a very significant moment for the country. This is again one of those moments Don, where a lot of people are looking at this wondering, you know this could have been my son or daughter…

Ugh. The bullhorn scene was not a “healing moment” in tragedy. It was a war cry, a far different thing. It did not bring the country together — virtually the entire world was united after 9/11. Within months Bush’s policies, especially the preposterous invasion of Iraq, began to tear the country apart and made us loathed throughout much of the world. God, I hope this isn’t one of “those moments” because his track record is just terrible.

I think it’s appropriate for the president to appear there today, it’s in nearby Virginia, and it’s a national tragedy. But the only slightly political dimension you can find in this is guns, which have been taken off the table as a political issue, (although gun owners have achieved their agenda so thoroughly that they now seem to be lobbying to actually require people to be armed at all times and shoot first and ask questions later.) I suppose that there will undoubtedly be some immigrant bashing too.

But from what we know now, we seem to be dealing with a crazy man and there’s nothing the president can say about that or do about that other than speak for the people as its leader and express our sorrow. For Malveaux to evoke Bush’s famous bullhorn moment is fluffing of the highest order. (She seems to have developed some sort of Stockholm Syndrome lately, so it’s not surprising.) But it would behoove the White House to keep a low profile on this and not encourage such talk. The country has had quite enough of the Bush administration trying to raise its approval rating on the backs of dead people.

Update: Apparently this is a common theme among the DC press corps.

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Guess What Caused Virginia Tech?

by tristero

That’s right:

We live in an era when public high schools and colleges have all but banned God from science classes. In these classrooms, students are taught that the whole universe, including plants and animals–and humans–arose by natural processes. Naturalism (in essence, atheism) has become the religion of the day and has become the foundation of the education system (and Western culture as a whole). The more such a philosophy permeates the culture, the more we would expect to see a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness that pervades people’s thinking. In fact, the more a culture allows the killing of the unborn, the more we will see people treating life in general as “cheap.”

I’m not at all saying that the person who committed these murders at Virginia Tech was driven by a belief in millions of years or evolution.

Of course he isn’t. Anyone who’d conclude he was is just twisting his words. He’s just having one of those theological discussions, like Falwell and Robertson had after 9/11.

Time to hear from Dinesh D’Souza who’ll tell us that if Pelosi hadn’t gone to Syria, none of this would have happened. It’s liberals’ lack of respect for authority that caused the slaughter.

That and, of course, the fact that the entire campus wasn’t packing. That would have solved everything.

Oh, Idiot Wind. It’s a wonder they still know how to breathe.

Vic-To-Ree

by digby

Glenn Greenwald wrote a good piece today about the surge protectors among the neocon think tank crowd. He discusses this article in the Washington Post by a retired marine general who turned down the job of “war czar” because he wasn’t clear on what they meant by victory.

The fact is that victory in Iraq has never been seen as an actual event — a surrender of the enemy, for instance. It’s a PR strategy that was used by the Bush Administration to try to keep the country on board with the occupation until Bush could hand it off. Long time readers of this blog will remember this article, which I have discussed more than once:

When President Bush confidently predicts victory in Iraq and admits no mistakes, admirers see steely resolve and critics see exasperating stubbornness. But the president’s full-speed-ahead message articulated in this week’s prime-time address also reflects a purposeful strategy based on extensive study of public opinion about how to maintain support for a costly and problem-plagued military mission.

The White House recently brought onto its staff one of the nation’s top academic experts on public opinion during wartime, whose studies are now helping Bush craft his message two years into a war with no easy end in sight. Behind the president’s speech is a conviction among White House officials that the battle for public opinion on Iraq hinges on their success in convincing Americans that, whatever their views of going to war in the first place, the conflict there must and can be won.

“There’s going to be an appetite by some to relitigate past decisions,” said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. But the studies consulted by the White House show that in the long run public support for war is “mostly linked to whether you think you can prevail,” he added, which is one reason it is important for Bush to explain “why he thinks it’s working and why he thinks it’ll win.”

I’m not sure how much this is driving the train in the White House these days considering that two years later support for the war is scraping around somewhere in the mid-20’s. But it’s still operative in certain right wing circles (and with John McCain and Huckleberry Graham) because it validates one of their central theories of “what goes wrong,” when the nation fails to properly heed their bloodthirsty calls for endless war.

In fact, it may be the central tenet of neocon thinking, as perfectly illustrated by this seminal work of the godfather himself, Norman Podhoretz, called “World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win” a piece that needs to be read again in light of recent events and appreciated for its almost perfect wrongness. Many others have noted the similarities between their argument then and now, but this passage reflects specifically how the neocons saw the folly of Vietnam (and telegraphs today how they are attempting to set up the failure of the Iraq occupation):

Contrary to legend, our military intervention into Vietnam under John F. Kennedy in the early 1960’s had been backed by every sector of mainstream opinion, with the elite media and the professoriate leading the cheers. At the beginning, indeed, the only criticism from the mainstream concerned tactical issues. Toward the middle, however, and with Lyndon B. Johnson having succeeded Kennedy in the White House, doubts began to arise concerning the political wisdom of the intervention, and by the time Nixon had replaced Johnson, the moral character of the United States was being indicted and besmirched. Large numbers of Americans, including even many of the people who had led the intervention in the Kennedy years, were now joining the tiny minority on the Left who at the time had denounced them for stupidity and immorality, and were now saying that going into Vietnam had progressed from a folly into a crime.

To this new political reality the Nixon Doctrine was a reluctant accommodation. As getting into Vietnam under Kennedy and Johnson had worked to undermine support for the old strategy of containment, Nixon—along with his chief adviser in foreign affairs, Henry Kissinger—thought that our way of getting out of Vietnam could conversely work to create the new strategy that had become necessary.

First, American forces would be withdrawn from Vietnam gradually, while the South Vietnamese built up enough power to assume responsibility for the defense of their own country. The American role would then be limited to providing arms and equipment. The same policy, suitably modified according to local circumstances, would be applied to the rest of the world as well. In every major region, the United States would now depend on local surrogates rather than on its own military to deter or contain any Soviet-sponsored aggression, or any other potentially destabilizing occurrence. We would supply arms and other forms of assistance, but henceforth the deterring and the fighting would be left to others.

On every point, the new Bush Doctrine contrasted sharply with the old Nixon Doctrine. Instead of withdrawal and fallback, Bush proposed a highly ambitious forward strategy of intervention. Instead of relying on local surrogates, Bush proposed an active deployment of our own military power. Instead of deterrence and containment, Bush proposed preemption and “taking the fight to the enemy.” And instead of worrying about the stability of the region in question, Bush proposed to destabilize it through “regime change.”

The Nixon Doctrine had obviously harmonized with the Vietnam syndrome.

This is the basis for the Iraq escalation. Bush was convinced to keep pushing by people who believe that the only problem Americans ever have in the world is a lack of resolve. Acknowledging failure or error translates into cowardice and “cutting and running” which is a sign to everyone on the planet that we are weak and vulnerable. (The failure itself can be papered over, apparently, with a lot of swaggering and tough talk about “staying the course.”) They see Vietnam as the beginning of a long road of humiliations which led inevitably to 9/11 because the US did not have the cojones to fight on and keep killing in order to save face.

Let’s check in and see where they think we are right now. As it happens in this month’s Commentary we have an update by Arthur Herman called “How to Win in Iraq—and How to Lose”.

To the student of counterinsurgency warfare, the war in Iraq has reached a critical but dismally familiar stage.

On the one hand, events in that country have taken a more hopeful direction in recent months. Operations in the city of Najaf in January presaged a more effective burden-sharing between American and Iraqi troops than in the past. The opening moves of the so-called “surge” in Baghdad, involving increased American patrols and the steady addition of more than 21,000 ground troops, have begun to sweep Shiite militias from the streets, while their leader, Moqtada al Sadr, has gone to ground. Above all, the appointment of Lieutenant General David Petraeus, the author of the U.S. Army’s latest counterinsurgency field manual, as commander of American ground forces in Iraq bespeaks the Pentagon’s conviction that what we need to confront the Iraq insurgency is not more high-tech firepower but the time-tested methods of unconventional or “fourth-generation” warfare.1

In Washington, on the other hand, among the nation’s political class, the growing consensus is that the war in Iraq is not only not winnable but as good as lost—Congressman Henry Waxman of California, for one, has proclaimed that the war is lost. Politicians who initially backed the effort, like Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Joseph Biden, and Republican Congressmen Walter Jones and Tom Davis, have been busily backing away or out, insisting that Iraq has descended into civil war and that Americans are helpless to shape events militarily. A growing number, like Congressman John Murtha, even suggest that the American presence is making matters worse. The Democratic party has devoted much internal discussion to whether and how to restrict the President’s ability to carry out even the present counterinsurgency effort.

In short, if the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqis still continues and is showing signs of improvement, the battle for the hearts and minds of Congress, or at least of the Democratic majority, seems to be all but over. In the meantime, still more adamant on the subject are many of our best-known pundits and media commentators. According to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, who speaks for many, Iraq “is so broken it can’t even have a proper civil war,” and America is therefore now left with but a single option: “how we might disengage with the least damage possible.” To the left of Friedman and his ilk are the strident and often openly anti-American voices of organizations like moveon.org.

It is indeed striking that war critics like Senators Harry Reid and Joseph Biden, who in 2005 were calling on the Pentagon to mount a proper counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, and to send enough troops to make it happen, should now be seeking ways to revoke legislative authority for that very operation. Exactly why they should have changed their minds on the issue is not obvious, although they and their colleagues do claim to be expressing not only their own judgment but the opinions and sentiments of the American people at large. If recent polls are to be trusted, however, these politicians may well turn out be wrong about popular sentiment.2 And if past history and our current experience in Iraq are any guide, they are certainly wrong about the war on the ground.

In fact, the historical record is clear. The roots of failure in fighting insurgencies like the one in Iraq are not military. To the contrary, Western militaries have shown remarkable skill in learning and relearning the crucial lessons of how to prevail against unconventional foes, and tremendous bravery in fighting difficult and unfamiliar battles. If Iraq fails, the cause will have to be sought elsewhere.

Well, that’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. But that’s really not the point. They are rationalizing this failure the same way they rationalize all their failures, by blaming them on the cowardice of their countrymen. It’s worked very well for hawks and neocons of all stripes for decades now. They think up some hare-brained scheme that inevitably goes awry and they blame the people when they refuse to allow blood and treasure to be spilled indefinitely just to prove their misbegotten theory.

In this case they tried to make a comparison with the cold war in the length and commitment required, but refused to accept its rather restrictive parameters, containment, which they always loathed. They wanted an ongoing hot war for inscrutable reasons and that is something that is never going to fly among reasonable modern people who have a choice in the matter. These strangely primitive intellectuals insist the nation must commit to “victory” which they fail to define as anything more concrete than “happily ever after.”

This is why Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Sheehan, whom Greenwald discusses above, refused the position:

We cannot “shorthand” this issue with concepts such as the “democratization of the region” or the constant refrain by a small but powerful group that we are going to “win,” even as “victory” is not defined or is frequently redefined.

And with that, in Herman’s eyes, he has taken his “place in another ‘long line,’ joining the shameful company of those who compelled the French to leave Algeria in disgrace and to stand by as the victorious FLN conducted a hideous bloodbath, and of those who compelled America to leave Vietnam under similar circumstances and to similar effect.”

The hawks and neocons see the writing on the wall and they know that the US is unwilling to “stay the course” on their word alone. So they are pivoting from their position as joyous flag waving patriots to making their usual sour excuses: blaming Americans first.

I suspect they will have a harder time selling that than they have before. This war was an amateur job, run by second raters, urged on by fools and everyone knows it. It’s going to be very hard to lead the charge against the “anti-war” movement when it consists of everyone from Dennis Kucinich to General Sheehan to Jean Kirkpatrick. When your only allies are the editorial boards of Commentary and the Weekly Standard your argument clearly has some holes in it.

But they’ll try. In that sense, they do practice what they preach. When it comes to being wrong about everything, they never give up.

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Photo Shopping Armageddon

by digby

Does this seem like a good idea to you?

As the JTA news service reports today, “Christians United For Israel, a pro-Israel evangelical group, features on its website a photo of Jerusalem with the city’s holiest mosques wiped out.” The JTA story actually misses the nub of the controversy ; the Dome of The Rock, considered the 3rd holiest Islamic site in the world, has been removed from the image of the Wailing Wall and environs featured in CUFI’s website logo. The symbolism inherent in the logo casts a disturbing light on the tactical alliance between American Jews and CUFI founder John Hagee’s new political lobbying group. The possibly incendiary nature of such symbolism to the Islamic world raises the question of why American Jewish groups and leading American politicians have associated with a leader such as John Hagee whose political views would be considered within Israeli society to be out on the extremist or even violent political fringe.

As a possibly intentional provocation, the elimination of the Dome Of The Rock from CUFI’s website logo is consonant with John Hagee’s repeated vilification of Islam. But is it consonant with US foreign policy or the foreign policy positions American Jews would choose to support ? The troubling nature of CUFI’s logo raises the issue of the extent to which Hagee has been granted a place, recently, on the American national political stage and of his access to prominent US politicians. CUFI’s founder, Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee, spoke before a substantial portion of the US House and Senate, as a keynote speaker at the Israel America Public Affairs Committee convention in Washington DC in February 2007, and Hagee routinely enjoys private meeting with top members of the GOP such as Senator John McCain and House GOP Minority Speaker Roy Blunt. John Hagee has also repeatedly discussed, publicly and in his writing, his belief that, because history is unfolding exactly as described in Biblical prophecy, the destruction of the Dome of The Rock and the subsequent rebuilding of a Jewish temple on the site is inevitable.

You know, there are kooks and weirdos in all aspects of politics. Up until recently the really cracked ones were kept away from any real influence. Something changed in our politics during the conservative era. In the liberal years, Democratic politicians weren’t pandering to revolutionaries like the Weather Underground or the SLA and they sure as hell weren’t holding private meetings and making common cause with them.

These crazy people (and I don’t care if they do it in the name of religion, they are still crazy) really believe that all-out war is a positive thing and they are doing what they can to bring that about, including meeting with important American politicians. I believe in free speech, even for nuts. But for AIPAC, John McCain and Roy Blunt to pander to and fete people who are going out of their way to provoke a religious war for their own reasons by pulling ridiculous stunts like that really should be beyond the pale. And politicians of both parties should give their AIPAC pals some friendly advice about what their allies are doing — literally helping terrorists:

Pastor Hagee’s, and CUFI’s, political positions have no counterpart within Israel mainstream society. Rather, such views are held, in Israel, by groups considered to be on the extreme political fringe. A veteran Israeli journalist consulted for this story stated that, in mainstream Israeli political sentiment, actions, conspiracies, or even thoughts concerning the destruction of the Dome Of The Rock are considered “abhorrent” and repeatedly stressed the extremely marginal nature of such beliefs within Israeli society.

The Democrats would gain a lot of credibility around the world, I think, if they did a Sistah Soljah on this (rather than taking another tired whack at Hollywood or the dirty hippies.) This is actually important and might prepare the ground for a more reasonable foreign policy if the Dems take over in 2009. Nobody says that we should repudiate Israel. But we damned sure can repudiate the marginal Israeli fringe and the marginal American fringe that supports them for their own purposes. This stuff should be way out of bounds and somebody should speak out against it.

Update: And then there’s this fool.

Update II: It has come to my attention that this photo might not have been photoshopped. If so, I take back the criticism of the photo, but the criticism of their nutty stated positions and their influence on American politics stands.

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Missouri House Passes The “Respect The Stupid When They Waste Everyone’s Time” Act

by tristero

Words truly fail me:

The Missouri House of Representatives has passed a bill that would impose new rules on state colleges to “protect diversity” that includes this most interesting clause:

(1) The report required in this subsection shall address the specific measures taken by the institution to ensure and promote intellectual diversity and academic freedom. The report may include steps taken by the institution to:

(a) Conduct a study to assess the current state of intellectual diversity on its campus, including diversity-related criteria used in admissions, scholarship awards, and hiring which shall include racial and gender diversity;

(b) Incorporate intellectual diversity into institution statements, grievance procedures, which may include filing a complaint directly with the governing board, and activities on diversity;

(c) Encourage a balanced variety of campus-wide panels and speakers and annually publish the names of panelists and speakers;

(d) Establish clear campus policies that ensure that hecklers or threats of violence do not prevent speakers from speaking;

(e) Include intellectual diversity concerns in the institution’s guidelines on teaching and program development and such concerns shall include but not be limited to the protection of religious freedom including the viewpoint that the Bible is inerrant;

(f) Include intellectual diversity issues in student course evaluations;

Some background:

Last year, a student complained that she was being forced to express views that differed from her religious views, and this month an outside panel that reviewed the social work program at Missouri State found that students felt fearful of expressing views that differed from their professors, especially on spiritual and religious matters.

The bill passed by the House is called the “Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act,” in honor of the Missouri State student who raised the issue last year. (Critics of the legislation don’t defend the way Brooker was treated, but say that her case is an exception. Further, they point out that her case has been resolved, and the department involved has received considerable scrutiny and faces likely changes, without legislation.)

The Missouri House vote was praised by Anne D. Neal, president of the American Council of Alumni and Trustees, which drafted versions of the bill (without calling for Biblical inerrancy) that have been introduced in a number of state legislatures this year. “For years, the academic establishment has refused to take action to protect the free exchange of ideas,” Neal said. “It is no wonder that now, confronted with real problems, Missouri legislators have asked for a measure of accountability.”

“Protect the free exchange of ideas…” I guess pretending to care about core liberal values is what’s known as humor in christianist circles.

Not Today

by digby

This massacre in WestVirginia is so terrible I can hardly watch the footage. There’s nothing much to say at the moment, and the immediate second guessing and criticisms are making me see red.

I find it especially distasteful that the denizens of the right are immediately launching into political polemics saying that this wouldn’t have happened if the students had been armed. That argument is always specious and never more than on a day like today. Sure this shooter might not have been able to kill so many people if someone had killed him first but somebody innocent would still be dead.

Today these people need to STFU. You might believe that an unfettered constitutional right to bear arms is embedded in the constitution (a belief I actually share) but it’s just wrong to downplay what a lethal goddamned right it is. Nobody wants to hear sermons about how many fewer kids would have been shot to death today on that campus if only there had been more guns around. Not before the bodies have even been counted. Not today.

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And So Soon

by digby

It was inevitable:

Steve Spurrier does not want to be a politician.

But the USC football coach believes the state would be a better place to live if the Confederate battle flag were removed from the State House grounds.

Spurrier brought up the flag issue Friday while accepting a leadership award from City Year at the service group’s Ripples of Hope banquet at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.

Spurrier said Saturday that he believed he was in an appropriate setting to voice his opinion.

“It would make us a more progressive, better state, I think, if the flag was removed. But I’m not going to go on any big campaign to have it removed. That’s not my position,” Spurrier said in an interview with The State. “But if anyone were to ask me, that would certainly be my position. And I think everyone in there, it was their position, too.”

Spurrier said it was “embarrassing” last year when someone waved a Confederate battle flag behind the set of ESPN’s “GameDay” before the Gamecocks’ home game against Tennessee.

“Some clown or some dude was waving that big ol’ Confederate flag right behind them about the whole time they were on,” Spurrier said.

[…]

Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, who sponsored the bill that moved the flag from the dome to the grounds, said Spurrier’s timing was “100 percent wrong,” given the presidential campaigns coming through the state. Candidates have more important issues, Ford said. “He threw a monkey wrench in this campaign and I don’t like it,” Ford said. “It don’t look right. It don’t sound right. It don’t feel right.”

The 61-year-old Spurrier, who grew up in east Tennessee, said he did not know anyone in South Carolina who was in favor of flying the flag, “but I guess there’s a lot out there somewhere.”

Don Gordon is one of them.

Gordon, a state officer with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said Spurrier’s call for the removal of the flag was “the moral equivalent of calling our ancestors ‘nappy-headed hos.’”

You have to give him credit. That comment is so outrageous that I’m in awe of the sheer audacity of his actually saying it out loud. I’m sure he believes it too. Who could be more aggrieved than a white southern confederate these days? Why they hardly get any respect at all…

H/T to JM
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Remembering To Lie Right

by digby

Alberto Gonzales “wrote” an op-ed for today’s WaPo and now they’ve released his prepared statement (for reasons that seem obscure to me as a matter of damage control, but whatever.)

You will find in both of these documents that the Attorney General of the United States has serious problems with his memory and he’s very sorry about it but he really, really means well.

Here’s a good rundown from Michael Sherer at Salon:

But don’t expect Gonzales’ appearance to settle all the outstanding questions about U.S. Attorney-Gate. Gonzales is clearly planning to spend a lot of time Tuesday dwelling on everything that he does not think he remembers, or is sure he doesn’t know, or maybe only knew in some way, for which there was a vague memory he might have had, but now no longer possess, or whatever. The phrase “I do not recall” shows up three times in the prepared remarks, a preemptive strike before any senator has even asked a question. “I have not spoken with nor reviewed the confidential transcripts of any of the Department of Justice employees interviewed by congressional staff,” Gonzales plans to say. “I state this because, as a result, I may be somewhat limited when it comes to providing you with all of the facts that you may desire.”

The memory lapses could possibly include Gonzales’ own role the scandal. At one point in the testimony, he discusses the deliberations that were conducted about the firings. “To my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign,” he plans to say.

That’s the kind of statement that should give everyone confidence that he’s just the man to run the most powerful police agency in the world. I know I feel better.

(I can sort of understand why he needed all that rehearsal, now. Those are not easy lies to keep straight. Look at the trouble Scooter got himself into…)

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42

by digby

“I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”

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“Substantialicious”

by digby

While we’re on the subject of phony sanctimonious gasbags, I have been remiss in failing to write about the fact that none other than Ann Coulter appeared before the “Reclaiming America for Christ” conference in Florida and repeated her faggot slur against Edwards. Apparently, she didn’t get the big laughs she got at the CPAC but then again, she was speaking from the pulpit of the Coral Ridge Baptist Church so perhaps it was simply the venue that prevented the full throated applause for such lines that she’s used to.

But that’s not the real news. Coulter has been getting away with her nasty schtick for less than half the time Don Imus did, so she’s got a way to go before the TV bookers and mainstream fans in the media realize that they are actually alienating an audience instead of gaining one. The real news is what others said at the conference that hasn’t been widely discussed, as far as I know.

Adele Stan, of the American Prospect covered the conference and reported back on some very interesting developments. It featured all the usual suspects but with some new arguments that I haven’t heard before. I thought this one was quite clever:

Despite a bullet-pointed sheet from [Southern Baptist Convention head Richard] Land in the conference literature that called for Christians to become “good stewards of the environment,” in his speech he tarred today’s environmentalists with the brush of communism.

“[A]ll the pinks,” Land said, “have become chartreuse; that’s the environmental crowd.” In an America run by “secularists,” Land’s hand-out reads, “[h]uman life would become more commoditized.” There would be clone farms and polygamy, all part of “a neo-paganist triumph.”

Environmentalism leads to clone farms and polygamy. That’s a good one. I think I finally understand why the conservative Christians refuse to believe in global warming. They think capitulating to the commie-enviro chartreusers will lead to a world of science fiction cloning. (But if I’m not mistaken, isn’t the Bible chock full of polygamy? What’s up with that?)

But then the vaguely humorous turns very dark:

[Family Research Council’s Tony] Perkins complaining that the Muslim call to prayer is “now broadcast over American cities.” (The use of the word “broadcast” is a bit of a stretch; it’s most commonly announced over a mosque’s own public address system, much like the digital loops of chimes played in the bell towers of modern churches.)

Perkins read the call to prayer aloud, implying it to be something to which a Christian should take offense since it declares that there is no god but Allah. (He omitted the fact that Allah translates from Arabic to English as the word “God.”) Then he repeated it in Arabic.

“Allah akbar,” he said, derisively. “That’s what Islamic terrorists say before they cut off your head.”

Noting that the call to prayer is “broadcast” five times a day while “Christians have a hard time getting a manger scene put up one time a year,” Perkins asked, “How is it that in our nation where Muslims account for about 6 million of the 300 million living in this country, and Christians comprise 100 million, that Muslims can control the public policy and we cannot? I suggest to you that it is because Christians have become apathetic to our role in shaping the policy in our nation, and it could have deadly consequences, not only for the unborn, but for the living as well.”

“How is it that in our nation where Muslims account for about 6 million of the 300 million living in this country, and Christians comprise 100 million, that Muslims can control the public policy and we cannot?

Poor, poor pitiful conservatives. They are always so put-upon. Even if it’s all in their heads. (It reminds me of an old Phil Donohue show I saw years ago in which a woman rose to protest the civil rights movement by saying “you’re giving my rights away to those people” as if there are just so many “rights” to go around.)

But this is where it’s time to pay attention:

Lest any of the assembled miss the point, Perkins offered up the story of Phineas, grandson of Moses’ brother Aaron, from Numbers 25. Phineas was rewarded by God with an “everlasting priesthood” for killing an Israelite and his Midian lover because God had forbidden the mixing of the men of Israel with the women of that tribe.

The story is, essentially, the vindication of the criminalization of “miscegenation” — a sentiment consistent with Perkins’ past courting of such racist groups as the Ku Klux Klan and the Council of Conservative Citizens, America’s largest white supremacist organization, according to journalist Max Blumenthal. (Perkins bought, on behalf of political client Senator Woody Jenkins, a phone-bank list from former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.)

Coulter’s rhetoric was no less violent. In describing the murders of doctors and health care personnel who worked at abortion clinics, Coulter said the victims had been shot, “…or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure performed on them with a rifle.”

Perkins use of the Scripture was only slightly less menacing than Coulter’s flippant analogy.

“We read that Phineas arose and he took action…,” Perkins said.

“Not only is prayer required…I warn you that if you begin to pray for our nation that, at some point in time, you’re gonna be prayin’ and you’re gonna feel a tap on your shoulder and hear, ‘Son, daughter, I’ve heard your prayer; now I want you to do something about it.’”

Just in case his message should be misconstrued, however, Perkins offered this caveat: “Now, let me be clear, in case the media’s here,” he said, “I’m not advocating you go home and get a pitchfork out of your storage shed and run into your neighbor’s house.” Phineas, the Bible tells us, used a javelin.

That is some creepy stuff, as was Coulter’s full comment:

“Those few abortionists were shot or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure with a rifle performed on them,” Coulter told her audience, which responded with laughter.

“I’m not justifying it,” she continued, “but I do understand how it happened…. The number of deaths attributed to Roe v. Wade — about 40 million aborted babies and seven abortion clinic workers — 40 million to seven is also a pretty good measure of how the political debate is going.”

This, again, was from the pulpit in a church.

I think it’s pretty clear what these fine folks mean when they say they want to “reclaim” the culture. As they wallow in the epic failure of their movement to successfully govern the nation, they are likely to become more inclined to this kind of talk. That’s usually the way it goes anyway.

The National Rifle Association, citing shifting political winds in Congress after the 2006 elections, urged its members Saturday to unite against “the storm that lies ahead” for gun owners.

“Today, there is not one firearm owner whose freedom is secure,” the group’s executive vice president, Wayne R. LaPierre, told thousands gathered for the annual national convention here.

“You will rise and stand and we, together, we will fight them all.”

And we’re going to need a boatload of money to do it, he added.

The Stans piece is via James Wolcott who also flagged this glorious example of rightwing civility from Pamela Atlas:

The other Queen of the Pig people

Bottom line, I left Pajama so that I could sell advertising. Make a couple of bucks. Hellloooooo. GUILTY OF CAPITALISM. I can’t sell ads under my agreement with PJM but don’t let the facts get in the way of your cheap little obsession. That washer woman just can’t keep out of my drawers. The best was Big Pussy accusing me of snuggling up to the Powerline boys. Huh? They are a blog, they are not competition. They are bloggers not a portal of various blogs. And we were on a panel together addressing the Young America’s Foundation.

I love that about Wolcott, he pretends to be in the thick of things in the blogosphere, jumping on that train as his quasi has been star fades. He doesn’t know jack about the blogs. But he has the temerity to comment so authoritatively.

The pajama story is a non story. But don’t tell the Queen, he/she might have to actually write about something substantial.

Hey Big Pussy, get a clue. Start writing about the beheadings, slavery, misogyny, oppression, hangings in the name of the global jihad. Believe me woman, your fat neck will be one of the first to go.

Keepin it real baby, from your substancialious blogger.

Posted by Pamela Geller Oshry on Friday, April 06, 2007 at 11:21 AM

Yes, I know she’s just another blogger. It’s not like she said that stuff in a church. But you’ll note that she was an invited speaker at the Young America’s Foundation and was privileged to interview the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, numerous times, even in the middle of his greatest challenge — the Israeli Hezbollah war. The Young Americans. certainly got a lot out of her talk and I have no doubt they will enjoy her blog immensely:

Students raved about this exciting weekend program. “I feel more devoted to advancing freedom on campus and in America after attending this Young America’s Foundation conference. With the tools I learned, I’ll be better able to win the argument and amplify the [conservative] majority,” says Nate Swanson of the University of Minnesota – Morris.

Young America’s Foundation is grateful to Alice Cox for her generous sponsorship of the 2007 Midwest Conference. Through Mrs. Cox’s support and the generous gifts of many other Foundation supporters, young leaders from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and nationwide were able to hear from some of the Conservative Movement’s top leaders and meet other young leaders who share their values and beliefs.

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