Two unbiased observers, Joe Scarborough and Michael Smerconish, just pointed out that it’s sickening to see Democrats whining about election irregularities when they do exactly the same thing, even worse. Like in Philadelphia where they are allegedly “mining votes” left and right as we speak. Or New Jersey where they have rigged the voting machines.
The one thing Republicans unbiased observers can’t bear is Democratic hypocrisy and election stealing. This is why it’s good that Laura Ingraham told her listeners to crank call the Democratic Voter protection hotline. They’ve got to stop the madness by any means necessary.
Earlier David Gergen pointed out that if the Democrats win this election, even if it’s a huge win, it won’t be because anyone wants them in power or even likes them. (How could they? They’re Democrats.) This, of course, is completely different than the 1994 Republican Revolution which was a national affirmation of conservative ideals.
Oh, and FYI, heavy turnout always favors Republicans.
You can feel the foundations of the status quo crumbling and all the panicked insiders looking around frantically for purchase.
The Theocracy Movement: Redefining Marriage Exclusively As Religious Sacrament
by tristero
We’re gonna have a little fun along the way in this post, maybe even a few yucks as we ponder a few of the ideas surrounding the opposition to gay marriage. But the subject isn’t funny in the slightest. Not in the slightest. And opposing gay marriage, that’s only part of what makes it so awful. I apologize up front for the length.
In responding to David Klinghoffer’s defense of evangelical condemnation of same sex relationships in the wake of the Haggard affair, Jonah Lehrer notes several blatant flaws. Among the more bizarre is Klinghoffer’s argument that assumes a priori that a desire to have sexual intimacy with a person of your own gender is “just another temptation to be denied.” In fact, Klinghoffer goes so far as to compare the irresistible lust of woman for woman to – I’m not making this up, people, I am not that imaginative – the alluring scent of pepperoni pizza to an observant Jew.
Hmm…well… Yes, it’s true, and I’ll be the first to admit it. Certain limitations make it impossible for me absolutely to confirm that indeed sapphic desire is not like a near-uncontrollable urge to stuff your face with a high calorie, high cholesterol convenience food topped with cured pig parts (their exact provenance you don’t want to know) which your religion forbids you from eating. But I really, really, doubt it.
Now here’s another argument David makes. But this one isn’t silly. This one’s ominous, once you start to look at it for a minute:
This is why gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. When the awe in which people once held matrimony is diluted, by treating it as a man-made and thus amendable institution rather than a divinely determined one, heterosexuals find sexual sins of all sorts harder to resist.
Ok. I’m gonna ignore debuking David’s logic here ’cause it’s simply too obvious. It’s the notion of marriage as a “divinely determined” institution that is deeply troubling, the assumption David tosses off as a patently obvious given while on the way to the “therefore” part of his logical assertion. Let’s think about that a bit.
Yup, David is saying that if Ted Haggard married you, you’re married. But if instead, you went to the Justice of the Peace, a nice little old woman who’s lived with her pepperoni pizza – sorry, I meant her partner, I got confused – for 30 years and raised three kids, if she marries you in a civil ceremony, you’re not married. Why? Being exclusively “secular,” there’s been no “divine determination,” that’s why. But, what’s exactly meant by “no divine determination?”
Well, it can only mean “not by Pastor Haggard or some other cleric” because what else could it mean? Two people can’t just go off and get “married in the eyes of God” without someone pious third party agreeing that yes, God was looking. Otherwise, who’s to say, other than the couple themselves, that God really was looking? That couple may not be as pious as they should be. They can’t themselves determine divine imprimatur.
And that someone else, who could that be? Someone like a priest or a rabbi. It certainly can’t be merely some possibly atheist clerk in a government office, even if she’s straight because… What’s her religion? If she’s not in good with God, then there you are, the marriage has not been divinely determined. (Okay, may not be. As you’ll see, it hardly matters ’cause marriage licensing is only one part of it.)
This is bad enough. But the implications of what David is saying are far more worrisome. He is challenging the basic principles upon which the United States government rests. He is asserting that the United States is actually a theocracy ruled by divine law, that the US has forgotten that it must adhere to divine law, and it must stop pretending that it is a civil, i.e., secular, government. Especially when it comes to such vital issues as marriage, which is clearly “divinely determined.”
But the Declaration of Independence is extremely clear; the power of the American government resides in the people, not in some kind of divine will. The binding agreement of marriage did not descend from God. And even if it had, the Declaration asserts that the legal power for that agreement resides not with God but with the people.
Therefore a couple married in a civil ceremony is deemed married in the eyes of American society. The divine determination? That’s between the couple and God (or not, depending upon their beliefs). It’s optional, as far as the American government is concerned. And thank God for that.
Therefore, the laws that govern marriage most certainly can be changed to enable any two people that love each other to get married in the eyes of the US government. If the people so choose. (And, of course, sooner or later they will. And I hope I live to see it.)
Stepping back for a moment to the larger picture, there is nothing that says American conservatism, as a political philosophy, must embrace the overthrow of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. However, today’s Republican party, dependent upon religious nuts for political support, have created a kind of radical conservative worldview, paradoxical as that sounds, as opposed to the older reactionary one.
David’s little tucked away assumption actually is a radical assault on bedrock American political philosophy. And I assure you, he and and his pals know it.
I’d also like to note one final thing about David Klinghoffer’s worldview, which was glossed over.
For the sake of argument, let us grant that the only genuine marriages are not civil marriages but only those that are “divinely determined,” i.e. religious. Well, there’s a huge question here that Klinghoffer sidesteps: Whose religion?.
Surely, David realizes this problem. An in his book*, David provides numerous sophisticated theological arguments to postulate the basic, and eventually real, unity by the people of the Book. No, I haven’t read David’s book, but here is some of Commentary’s description in their careful review of his ideas**:
Rather than thinking of their respective faiths as related but rival systems, [Klinghoffer] believes that the time has come for them to realize they are in the same boat; whatever their doctrinal differences, they are engaged in promoting the same truths, defending the same values, and worshiping the same God.
Not exactly an original observation, but it’s not exactly a trivial one, either, especially when combined with David’s extraordinary ability to synthesize and extrapolate. Here is Klinghoffer himself describing how the three religions are essentially one:
Being a “kingdom of priests” [as the Bible commands Israel to be] means ministering to others in a priestly role, for who can claim to be a priest if he has no congregation? God’s instruction to the Jews at the moment of the revelation of the Torah was to serve the congregation of humanity, bringing the knowledge of the Lord to them. It would seem that the Christian church now plays the role of congregation … with the Jews serving in the ministerial position. Christians and Muslims alike know of the God of Abraham only because they met him in the Bible…. It served God’s purposes that there be a unique religion [Christianity], acknowledging Him, for the people who spread out from Europe. It was not Judaism. It departs from Judaism in many ways. But in revering the God of Israel it contains the seeds for an ultimate reunification of the people [of the earth] in God’s service.
By now, I’m sure the parallels between David’s worldview and some of the more apocalyptic utopian ideas of the evangelicals is clear. In fact, Klinghoffer’s borrowings of Christian evangelical tropes makes his description of the meta-religion sound something like a pepperoni knish. (I couldn’t resist, sorry.)
And now, let’s take David’s breathtaking vision of one super-religion that potentially re-unites all of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and apply it to that pesky question of exactly whose religion is the real divine determinant of marriage. It’s easy. Obviously, anyone married as a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim is married.
Well, I’m gonna not argue Talmud with David Klinghoffer, I wouldn’t know where to begin. But I certainly know bullshit when I read it and his ideas sure as hell stink to high heaven.
First of all, there is a big “No Duh!” Klinghoffer simply cannot escape.
The notion of some kind of transcendent, reunited (!!!) uber-religion of the Book is, in the real world of our lifetimes and our children and their children and so on, utterly preposterous in and of itself – Protestants are still killing Catholics the last I checked, and no one in America can figure out what the Shia’s got against the Sunnis, and Jews: reform Jews aren’t considered Jews by certain powerful sects in Israel.
One unified religion with one God? So, um, what, exactly is the Holy Spirit, David? Chopped liver? Back here on planet Earth, religious belief is eclectic and highly contentious. And “reunited?” Religious belief was eclectic and highly contentious in Jesus’ time, too, fer crissakes. And in the time of his disciples.
And underneath David’s bullshit, dig we must. And we find that the question “whose religion?” wasn’t met with an answer. It just slid and slipped down the drain.
How about Buddhists? Are they married? What about Hindus? What about Pastafarians (disciples of the Flying Spaghetti Monster)? Look at the excerpt from David’s book. These minor religions – as we all know, there really aren’t too many Hindus around – they don’t figure in David’s raputurous vision at all.
And that’s the reason, David, why there is civil marriage in America and I thank God there is.
So that one religion can’t “determine” which other religions have the blessing of the Divine for a marriage and which don’t. Because once you start redefining marriage,*** you have established one religion over all others, namely the religion that the state decrees has the right to marry you.
And that’s not a good thing, David.
Trust me, if marriage is ever redefined as sacred, the folks who do so? They ain’t gonna buy your Jewish “priesthood” crap. Not for one fucking second. You think, it’s gonna be like, “Step aside, Pat Robertson! Here comes the real priest to lead the Christian congregations of the world. Sound the shofars! It’s… Rabbi Klinghoffer!
Uh-huh. Pepperoni pizza will sprout wings long before that day.
Okay. No more ridicule. This is serious:
When you play with American theocracy, David Klinghoffer, you are playing with fire. And I mean that literally, my friend and you know what I’m talking about. So, I’d read that Talmud again if I were you. And read it carefully.
Something tells me you will find nothing in there that requires Jews to construct an elaborate intellectual structure to support their own annihilation. But that is exactly what you are encouraging when you start asserting that civil institutions are in fact, religious ones. Back off, sir. What you’re talking about really is not good for the Jews.
Forgive him, Father. He knows not what he is doing.
— *Please don’t get me started on the title. I could rant on for days at how many awful assumptions it contains.
**If the review gives an inaccurate precis, I’d appreciate a detailed description of exactly how from David himself. Otherwise, I willl assume at least rough accuracy, which is confirmed by a later quote from the book itself.
*** That’s right, Klinghoffer and his colleagues are the ones redefining marriage, as an exclusively religious institution. I am defending the institution of marriage as the traditional civil institution it has been since the Revolution.
So, MSNBC has chosen the most partisan Republican election lawyer in the country, Ben Ginsburg, to be their legal expert. (I’m kind of surprised they couldn’t get Limbaugh to reprise his earlier work with the network.)
In other news, the robo-call aspect of the vaunted 72 hour GOP Suppress the Vote operation seems to have captured the attention of the media. At least for now.
Congressman Steve Chabot found out just how serious elections officials are about the new voter ID law when he showed up to vote at his polling place in Westwood.
Chabot went into the polling place at Westwood First Presbyterian Church about 9:30 a.m. and pulled out his Ohio driver’s license to show the poll workers. They looked at his license, and told the congressman that, even though they know perfectly well who he is, his driver’s license was issued to his business office, not his home, which is his voting address.
Somewhat sheepishly, Chabot went back out into the parking lot, jumped in his 1993 Buick – the one he talked about on his campaign commercials – and drove back to his home a few blocks away to find a proper ID.
“I guess I’ll see if I can find a utility bill,” Chabot said. “That’s the law. You have to have proper ID.”
Chabot returned about 10 minutes later with a bank statement and a Social Security Administration statement in hand.
He went inside and voted quickly.
“My wife told me to bring two documents just to be sure,” Chabot said. “I guess this just shows the poll workers are really doing their job.”
Easy for him to say. he doesn’t work for a living. He’s a Republican congressman.
Their vote suppression efforts seem to be working out well so far. And we’ll have the likes of Ben Ginsburg explain how this is all necessary to prevent mexicans, blacks and old and working people from voting Democratic voter fraud, so that’s good.
We always had to win big enough they couldn’t steal it. Let’s hope that wave is a Katrina level 5 and it’s enough to carry us over the huge levee of obstruction and suppression they’ve built to hold it back.
If you have a few minutes today, Call For Change. There isn’t going to be any real news for hours.
I have never been one to criticize Laura Bush. I actually feel a little bit sorry for the woman, considering to whom she’s married. I always feel a little bit sorry for Republican wives (except Lynn Cheney…)
But now she’s pissed me off. Via Vegacura and Olberman I see she said of Michael J. Fox that “it’s always easy to manipulate people’s feelings with these awful diseases.”
No, Mrs. Moron it is not manipulation for someone who has a disease to speak out as for treatment or cure of that disease. It’s called advocacy and everytime one of your military widows or one of your preachers do it, it’s the same thing. I’m sorry it’s uncomfortable for your blastocyst worshipping political party to be faced with the real human result of their religious beliefs, but you’re just going to have to face people and explain why a clump of cells that are going to be thrown away are worth more than living, breathing people.
There are a lot of heroes in this election, but my personal vote goes to Michael J. Fox. It takes guts to go up against the GOP character assassination machine and that guy did it with humor and nobility. I hope for their sakes that all those heartless losers who went after him, including the first lady, who didn’t have the class to stay out of the mud, never have to face what he is facing. They don’t have the character to deal with it and they don’t care about curing it. It was one of the lowest things I’ve ever seen.
Wow. I’m posting because it is one of the starkest, most chilling examples I know of how close to the mainstream violent, racist extremism has once again come in America. And it is entirely due to the active courtship and encouragement of bottom feeders from the extreme right by some of the Republican Party’s most visible supporters – people the media treat as moderate, thoughtful people. This example features only two of the many who have been tickling the fascist dragon and hoping he doesn’t entirely wake up:
Ward Connerly, the California man leading a ballot measure to end most affirmative action in Michigan, accepts Ku Klux Klan support for his position in a video clip posted this week on the Internet…
“If the Ku Klux Klan thinks that equality is right, God bless them. Thank them for finally reaching the point where logic and reason are being applied instead of hate.”
Who, besides the Klan, also supports Ward Connerly in his efforts to end affirmative action in Michigan?
Ward Connerly is a California businessman and former member of the University of California Board of Regents. He propelled to victory the measures mandating colorblind government [translation into consensual English: anti-affirmative action measures] in California and Washington state.
With Gratz as its executive director, and Connerly lending hard-earned expertise, MCRI collected 508,000 signatures, more than ever gathered for a Michigan initiative.
… a white woman rejected by the University of Michigan, Jennifer Gratz, teamed up with anti-preferences [translation into consensual English: anti-affirmative action] crusader Ward Connerly to take the question to the voters.
The Klan supports Connerly’s effort to eliminate affirmative action in Michigan. George Will supports Connerly’s effort to eliminate affirmative action in Michigan. Rich Lowry supports Connerly’s effort to eliminate affiirmative action in Michigan.
Does this mean that Will and Lowry are Klansmen in Republican drag?
It most certainly does not and I am very serious. Just as ACLU is not pro-pederast, Will and Lowry are not pro Klan. Nevertheless, Will and Lowry have – almost surely unwittingly – openly aligned themselves with a man who, for whatever twisted reason, actively courted and is now openly praising and working with one of the most sickeningly racist organizations this country has ever produced. It’s time for both of them to back off fast, and let Connerly court the Klan alone.
Thanks, Dave Neiwert, for collecting the information and links that I’ve posted. For those over here at Hullabaloo, if you’re not reading Orcinus, Dave’s blog, I really suggest you do. When Dave talks about the American extreme right, he does so from personal encounters and rock-solid research. He’s one of the Real Guys, as Zappa says, who knows exactly what he’s talking about.
One of our regular commenters here, Sara Robinson, is also posting at Orcinus now, and she’s done some terrific stuff. Even when what she says is something I disagree with, it’s cogent, passionate, and well-argued.
[Updated to correct the tone of one sentence which implied too close a relationship between the Klan and Will.]
‘Twas the night before mid-terms And all through the House Speaker Hastert was ranting The filthy old louse
“Tomorrow they choose, and the future is clear. We’ll be handed our asses by the voters this year” “Coach” Hastert was rattled, his confidence lost For Nancy Pelosi would soon be his boss!
And Bill Frist with his scalpel, and a VERY scared cat Wondered why all the public thought him such an asshat. An irate America arose with such clatter That even Chris Matthews gave up his weak blather!
Away to the polls we all flew like a flash, And showed Dub the meaning of a voter backlash The results were disputed by spinmeister Snow But America just said “the bastards must go!”
When who should to my wondering eyes should appear But a feisty Jack Murtha with a case of cold beer. Wes Clark on his left flank, Charlie Rangle his right, I knew in a moment, it would be a long night!
Their losses now certain, our future so bright… It’s time to pay up KKKKarl, starting next Tuesday night
Gone Chafee, Santorum, Jim Talent and Burns… Plus Kyle and Dewine, ’cause America learns Gone Hayworth and Northrup and Christopher Shays. they’ll all lose their house seats in a matter of days!
And Nancy and Harry, they’ll go straight to their work Of fighting George Dubya, the pustular jerk! Bush, laying a finger upside of his nose Took a huge snort of……..well, you know how it goes…
Bush sprang to Dick Cheney, when “Darth” gave Dub a whistle As the Democrats swamped them both like a “nucular” missile!
And I heard Cheney growl as Bush cringed at his side “Be prepared you dumb asshole for a real nasty ride…..”
Merry Midterms, my friends.
Here’s Charlie Cook’s final prediction, here’s Stuart Rothenberg’s.
The legendarily confident Karl Rove is sounding a little bit frayed this morning. Charlie Christ (R- Closet), running to succeed Jebbie in Florida decided that he’d be better off campaigning with St. John McCain today instead of the Bush Brothers. It looks like the only one who will be seen with them on stage is the kooky Katherine Harris.
CNN caught the Boy Genius on the tarmac as AF1 was heading down to Florida.
Was this a snub?
Call him. All I know is yesterday morning they made a decision that rather than meet with the governor and president and 10,000 people in Pensacola they’d rather go to Palm Beach.
Does this say anything about the president’s popularity?
Let’s look at the comparison. Let’s see how many people show up in Palm Beach on 24 hours notice vs eight or nine thousand people in Pensacola.
One can only imagine what kind of tongue lashing he just took from the spoiled brat in chief over this bungle. The pictures of this trainwreck of a rally with the all-star team of George and Jeb up there alone with nutty election fixer Katherine Harris are going to be precious.
The fall of Rove is one of the big stories of the election. And he knows it. Of course, we’ve known what he was at least since January 2003, when Ron Suskind wrote this article for Esquire right after the last mid-term election.
The calls from members of the White House staff were solemn, serious. Their concern was not only about politics, they said, not simply about Karl pulling the president further to the right. It went deeper; it was about this administration’s ability to focus on the substance of governing—issues like the economy and social security and education and health care—as opposed to its clear political acumen, its ability to win and enhance power. And so it seemed that each time I made an inquiry about Karl Rove, I received in return a top-to-bottom critique of the White House’s basic functions, so profound is Rove’s influence.
I made these inquiries in part because last spring, when I spoke to White House chief of staff Andrew Card, he sounded an alarm about the unfettered rise of Rove in the wake of senior adviser Karen Hughes’s resignation: “I’ll need designees, people trusted by the president that I can elevate for various needs to balance against Karl. . . . They are going to have to really step up, but it won’t be easy. Karl is a formidable adversary.”
One senior White House official told me that he’d be summarily fired if it were known we were talking. “But many of us feel it’s our duty—our obligation as Americans—to get the word out that, certainly in domestic policy, there has been almost no meaningful consideration of any real issues. It’s just kids on Big Wheels who talk politics and know nothing. It’s depressing. Domestic Policy Council meetings are a farce. This leaves shoot-from-the-hip political calculations—mostly from Karl’s shop—to triumph by default. No one balances Karl. Forget it. That was Andy’s cry for help.”
But now the stunning midterm ascendancy of the Republicans boosts Rove into a new category; a major political realignment may hereby be ascribed to his mastery, his grand plan.
At the moment when one-party rule returns to Washington—a state that existed, in fact, in the first five months of the Bush presidency, before Senator Jeffords switched parties—we are offered a rare view of the way this White House works. The issue of how the administration decides what to do with its mandate—and where political calculation figures in that mix—has never been so important to consider. This White House will now be able to do precisely what it wants. To understand the implications of this, you must understand Karl Rove.
“It’s an amazing moment,” said one senior White House official early on the morning after. “Karl just went from prime minister to king. Amazing . . . and a little scary. Now no one will speak candidly about him or take him on or contradict him. Pure power, no real accountability. It’s just ‘listen to Karl and everything will work out.’. . . That may go for the president, too.”
Never forget that the dysfunction of this White House is not only the fault of Bush and Cheney. Karl Rove turned policy itself into politics in this administration. It’s one of the main reasons why nobody should have ever allowed such a white house to have extra-judicial power — there is no line between politics and national security or anything else. This is why nuclear secrets written in arabic wind up on the internet.
Tomorrow could be the day the country finally repudiates Karl Rove’s style of hyper-partisan political governance. It’s been a total disaster from the very beginning right up until this very minute. Here’s the latest from Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings, on the illegal voter suppression techniques they’ve been using all over the country this cycle. Report your own experiences here at Protect Our Votes.
ALREADY A STORY: Republicans are blanketing key Congressional districts with annoying robo calls. Listen to one here. These calls may result in post-election fines because they do not properly identify themselves early in the script and may also be violating caller id requirements.
NOT YET A STORY: These calls may be a coordinated effort to suppress the vote. What’s the difference between annoying robo calls and voter suppression? Many voters are reporting that the robo callers are calling back immediately when they hang up. The first words of the robo calls are “Hi, I’m calling with information about [Democratic Candidate’s Name]…” followed by a short pause. Therefore, voters receiving these calls could think they are being called repeatedly by the Democratic campaign or a group supporting the campaign.
MISSING PIECE: For this to break through, there needs to be visual evidence that voters are being called back immediately. Bloggers: please tell your readers to get video cameras ready and start rolling when the phone rings. Use the speaker phone so that the call can be heard. We need just one example of that up on YouTube and VideoTheVote.com.
Even better would be emails leaked from the robo call house responsible (or any robo call house for that matter) that offer the service or mention the strategy in question.
This election is Rove’s last gasp* and we are seeing a new round of dirty politics that’s perhaps unprecedented. He isn’t going to go down easily.
* Newt, Delay, Reed(and Rove, god willing) have fallen. The king of the talkshow pigs, Rush Limbaugh, is the last remaining head on their generation’s GOP hydra. We’re getting there.
There are many more like them, trained and waiting in the wings, so it isn’t the dawning of a new day for the Republicans. The new generation is dumber, but even more vicious. We just have to deal with them one at a time.
