Armtwisting For Jesus
by digby
There’s lots of speculation about what “conservative organization” Tom Delay is going to work for in northern Virginia. Most people think he’s going to become a lobbyist, but I would imagine that someone with his legal problems is not going to do that under the advice of his lawyers.
Delay said in his interview with TIME:
DeLay:I made a speech last week, and that pretty much cinched it for me. A good friend of mine, Dr. Rick Scarborough, who started—and I urged him, and we’ve worked together over the years—an organization called Vision America, which is out recruiting pastors to get involved in the political arena. He asked me to come speak. He was having a conference on the war on Christianity. So I made a speech on Wednesday. It was covered by C-Span and, frankly, a bunch of cameras. I felt very good, very free about giving that speech. The reaction was incredible—just an outpouring of love and support from the audience. It was probably the one single event that convinced me: I can DO this. I could keep fighting for the things I believe in, outside of Congress.
TIME: What was it that made you feel free, and what was your main point?
DeLay:My main point was that this country was built on morals and religion. Our greatest leaders were very strong believers. There is a connection between religion and politics, and religion and government. There has to be for this country to have accomplished all it’s accomplished and for its future. How many times have the great leaders—Ronald Reagan, Roosevelt, Lincoln, George Washington—have said there is a connection between morals and religion. And there has to be. The people that go to church understand that a country has to be based on some sort of religion and fear of God because they understand that.
Christine DeLay: They’re accountable.
DeLay: Yeah. If you know that we’re all sinners, then you know that we have to work hard to have a moral foundation. So I felt very liberated in being able to say that. I didn’t have to worry about being the spokesman for the Republican Party and all that kind of stuff.
Christine DeLay: Plus, they were all your friends.
I know. It’s amazing.
I think Delay is going to join Vision America, his good friend Rick Scarborough‘s organization. He’s going to reinvent himself as a preacher. And I have a sneaking suspicion he’s going to be involved with this.
The interesting thing about this is that the religious right in general is a tiny bit spooked by this thing — not Scarbororugh, an operator who makes Elmer Gantry look like Ghandi. But Dobson’s dauchshund, Tony Perkins, was a little flustered last week in this interview:
MATTHEWS: So you want to identify with Rick Scarborough’s, Reverend Rick Scarborough’s claim that the reason Tom DeLay is in trouble with the courts, with the Democrats, with the media, is because he’s a Christian. Are you going to identify with that argument?
PERKINS: I would not say that in total.
MATTHEWS: But he did.
PERKINS: I’m just saying that I think that that has made him a target.
MATTHEWS: It has?
PERKINS: I think it has.
MATTHEWS: His religion?
PERKINS: The fact that he has been so out front on many of these issues. Now in terms of his legal problems or what he’s facing today, those stand on their own. But I think that clearly anyone who stands up and identifies with the evangelical community if a very pronounced way as he has and …
MATTHEWS: … Is Abramoff in trouble because of his religion?
PERKINS: No.
MATTHEWS: He just got five years and 10 months today.
PERKINS: No, and he’s pleaded guilty to committing crimes. Tom DeLay has not been convicted of anything, nor has he said.
Even if he’s convicted of crimes, he’ll just do a Chuck Colson. It’s quite the racket these rightwing Christians have going. When you think about it, it’s perfect for Tom Delay.
Oh and in case you wonder what Rick Scarborough’s all about, I think this says it all:
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