Babbling Braindead Robots
by digby
MATTHEWS: Well, under the “equal whack for both parties” rule of this show, let’s go to the Democrats. Joe Biden, who tends to be very honest — whatever you think of him as the next president, although I think he’s a fine guy — he very clearly said the other day, yesterday, that the people like Al Gore and John Kerry, the last two Democratic candidates for president, said — created an image that they were somehow — we’re looking at it right now — that if they were — as he put it, when they’re sitting next to the pew, that maybe he really doesn’t respect your view. In other words, they’re not really religious people. They don’t share your evangelical views and your deeply religious views. They’re too secular.
DUFFY: Yeah. Well, I think, for the last 25 years, Democrats have done everything they can to alienate religious voters, faith-minded voters, and the —
MATTHEWS: Not a smart move politically.
DUFFY: Oh, no. And it seemed to be part of the program. They did it to woo a secular left that they thought didn’t want to have anything to do with that.
MATTHEWS: Was turned off by the religious people, yeah.
DUFFY: Starting with Jimmy Carter and the —
MATTHEWS: I hear it. I’ve heard —
DUFFY: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: — years of people —
DUFFY: Right. Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: — making fun of Jimmy — [the Rev.] Jerry Falwell and people like that, but you knew it was a broader brush than that.
DUFFY: Of course.
MATTHEWS: They were really making fun of the people in the churches, in the tents, in the megachurches.
DUFFY: Right. It was a really stupid thing to do — and they have begun to realize that.
MATTHEWS: Elitism doesn’t really work in politics, does it?
Yes, it’s just awful how the liberals have spent the last 25 years laughing at the Real Americans isn’t it? Big mistake. We’ve been so rude. I’m ashamed of myself.
This is the way decent people conduct political discourse:
Liberals become indignant when you question their patriotism, but simultaneously work overtime to give terrorists a cushion for the next attack and laugh at dumb Americans who love their country and hate the enemy.
This is a winner too:
Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America’s self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.
As for the left wing heathens who spend all their time laughing at people who pray, may I quote from Bill Clinton’s inaugural address?
And so, my fellow Americans, at the edge of the 21st century, let us begin with energy and hope, with faith and discipline, and let us work until our work is done. The scripture says, “And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not.”
From this joyful mountaintop of celebration, we hear a call to service in the valley. We have heard the trumpets. We have changed the guard. And now, each in our way, and with God’s help, we must answer the call.
Thank you and God bless you all.
That Christian bashing bastard. Of course, he’s not really religious. Neither is his phony wife —- according to Cal Thomas Methodists aren’t real Christians. Obama too, is suspect. In fact, it seems that unless you are a Republican your religion just doesn’t count.
One of the things that is so incredibly irritating about Matthews’ and Duffy’s lazy, braindead trope is that it is so disrespectful to the millions and millions of religious Americans who vote for Democrats. And it makes a truly egregious assumption that there is only one way that people can be religious, and that is by being an evangelical Christian (or maybe a Catholic.)
I’m not a religious person, but I was raised in the church and it was a cultural norm that we didn’t make a big deal out of it. I don’t think it was particularly theological, it was just the way we were. You didn’t wear your religion on your sleeve. We were uptight Episcopalians. But, you know, that isn’t a crime. It’s as legitimate to keep your religious feelings and beliefs private as it is to talk about them publicly.
Furthermore, the most solid part of the Democratic base are African Americans who share much of the same religious tradition as the Southern baptists like Jerry Falwell. Are they idiots who are voting for people who hate them?
That nasty little conversation reveals a lot more about the “savvy” DC insider elitism than it does about politics of the last 25 years. Like Michael Duffy and Chris Matthews know fuck-all about the “regular folks” in the pews. Matthews has grown old among the DC congnoscenti selling some outmoded blue collar Irish identity that hasn’t been relevant since the 70’s. Duffy is clearly on his way to the same thing.
Honestly, are any of these people capable of an original thought. Ever?
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