Religious right running the presidency

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.h...ugman.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26hp&OP=4a90cdefQ2FtQ7Ew)tQ27Q5E2jjQ27thPP5tPyt@HtjBSpSjpt@HQ512Q3AaQ3DQ2ApQ2B1Q27Q3D0

OP-ED COLUMNIST
For God’s Sake
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 13, 2007

In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement — the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right — suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure,” he wrote, “and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.”

Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide “Christian leadership to change the world,” boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.

Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university’s law school. She’s the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter.

The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.

But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.

Kay Cole James, who had extensive connections to the religious right and was the dean of Regent’s government school, was the federal government’s chief personnel officer from 2001 to 2005. (Curious fact: she then took a job with Mitchell Wade, the businessman who bribed Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham.) And it’s clear that unqualified people were hired throughout the administration because of their religious connections.

For example, The Boston Globe reports on one Regent law school graduate who was interviewed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Asked what Supreme Court decision of the past 20 years he most disagreed with, he named the decision to strike down a Texas anti-sodomy law. When he was hired, it was his only job offer.

Or consider George Deutsch, the presidential appointee at NASA who told a Web site designer to add the word “theory” after every mention of the Big Bang, to leave open the possibility of “intelligent design by a creator.” He turned out not to have, as he claimed, a degree from Texas A&M.

One measure of just how many Bushies were appointed to promote a religious agenda is how often a Christian right connection surfaces when we learn about a Bush administration scandal.

There’s Ms. Goodling, of course. But did you know that Rachel Paulose, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota — three of whose deputies recently stepped down, reportedly in protest over her management style — is, according to a local news report, in the habit of quoting Bible verses in the office?

Or there’s the case of Claude Allen, the presidential aide and former deputy secretary of health and human services, who stepped down after being investigated for petty theft. Most press reports, though they mentioned Mr. Allen’s faith, failed to convey the fact that he built his career as a man of the hard-line Christian right.

And there’s another thing most reporting fails to convey: the sheer extremism of these people.

You see, Regent isn’t a religious university the way Loyola or Yeshiva are religious universities. It’s run by someone whose first reaction to 9/11 was to brand it God’s punishment for America’s sins.

Two days after the terrorist attacks, Mr. Robertson held a conversation with Jerry Falwell on Mr. Robertson’s TV show “The 700 Club.” Mr. Falwell laid blame for the attack at the feet of “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” not to mention the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. “Well, I totally concur,” said Mr. Robertson.

The Bush administration’s implosion clearly represents a setback for the Christian right’s strategy of infiltration. But it would be wildly premature to declare the danger over. This is a movement that has shown great resilience over the years. It will surely find new champions.

 

Not that I believe Krugman, but if it is true, then I guess this explains the sheer incompetence displayed by Bush.

he has got a bunch of dopes running the show.

I would care less if these people had attended more rigorous institutions.

We should have I.Q. tests for important govt posts. Liberal republican - thats up to the voters, but smart enough to understand their job, that should be a requirement.

 

How comfortable would you be if all scientists and students were taught by this creed:
"if conclusions contradict the word of God, the conclusions are wrong no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."biology textbook printed by conservative Christian publisher Bob Jones University Press

 

The article is largely nonsense, except for the fact that it reveals Krugman to be a proud religious bigot. A U. S. Attorney actually quoted Bible verses in the office? Quick, somebody call the ACLU. I suppose if she were a muslim it would be ok with Krugman and his crowd.

There is nothing wrong or sinister about committed Christians serving in government. They have as much right as anyone else. To all those who go around screaming like Krugman that they are establishing a "rightwing Christian theocracy", my response is "show me." Were they establishing one in Iraq and Afghanistan when they set up explicitly islamic governments?

Can you imagine for a minute if someone wrote this article about the Clinton administration but substituted homosexual and black for Chrisitan? Certainly the NYT would never publish it. Bashing Christians is fine with them however.

 

Anyone that doesn't know the difference between a democratic republic and a theocracy only shows their ignorance by writing such drivel.

Anything gets changed in this country, it will be by vote or by supreme court ruling. If you don't like the results, try winning people to your side with arguments for your position. Just calling the other side a theocracy is ignorance personified.

 

Excellent points AAA

 

If you actually look into it, most of the top neo cons are Israeli citizens, NOT US citizens. Like Paul Wolfowitz, and more.

You guys are weak, you let a private company (the Fed) run your money, and non-citizens run your government.

HAL just opened a plant in Mexico. Check their news releases.

You guys are surrender monkeys, you surrender to corporate criminals.

Blackwater security, no-bid, thugs earn $1000 per day in iraq. Meanwhile you send your kids willingly to risk death for $50/day. Maybe you should call them martyers?

 

The vast majority of your posts are anathema, and usually you are sucking up to terrorists in them, but on some level I can find common ground with you on this one, perhaps its from my great frustration with my govt.

You mention Wolfowitz as an Israeli citizen, another Israeli is Michael Chertoff - head of Dept. of Homeland Surrender, who has no problem with the US being overrun by illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America, and won't do anything about it. ANy anyone who does, is smeared as a racists by the media, threatened by the latino supremists, and in the worse case of the border patrol - thrown in jail.

By HAL, you mean Halliburton?? It doesn't surprise me. I hope they are just as good to the Mexicans as theyve been to the US.

Corporate criminals (like Steve Jobs) get away with the kind of things that normal citizens would do hard time for. No bid contracts . . . good grief. Blackwater security has done a fine job of securing Iraq at top tax payer $, all while the soldiers get 50 a day to catch bullets.

I'm sure you take great delight in all of this, but you shouldn't, your countries problems are going to get much worse. We may seem weak now, and that doesn't bode well for you at all.

 

Chertoff is jewish, born in Elizabeth, NJ and never lived in Israel. How does it make him an Israeli citizen? While I agree with you on the issue of illegal immigration - open borders is Bush's, not Chertoff's policy.

 

Dddooo,

I believe Chertoff has dual citizenship - US & Israel, doesn't matter though, he is the head of Dept of homeland surrender, and he SUCKS and you are wrong about Chertoff - he's open borders all the way, along with Bush - and you can read about his crimes at these links:

DHS Disaster -- Chertoff in Mexico While Border Chaos Continues

DHS Rebellion -- Chertoff Refuses to Obey the Secure Fence Act

Mutiny on the Border -- Chertoff Ignores Secure Fence Act of 2006 ...

Chertoff Spins While Invasion Continues (Bush's Absurd Amnesty ...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff downplayed reports by the U.S. Border Patrol of more than 200 incursions by the Mexican military over the last ...