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April 11, 2008
Dobson’s Defenders
Back in 2006, right around the time Republicans were losing control of both the House and Senate, a minor conflict erupted between the economic and social conservative wings of the GOP’s base. It began when Dick Armey lashed out at James Dobson and his allies in the Religious Right, saying that “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies” and that “being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid.”
Dobson didn’t bother to respond personally at the time, but Focus on the Family responded with an article in which members of Congress defended Dobson and bad-mouthed Armey. Then Armey responded with a column calling Dobson a power-hungry egomaniac, and Focus on the Family responded with another article featuring proxies criticizing Armey and praising Dobson. Eventually Dobson felt compelled to speak up for himself, penning a column entitled “Mr. Armey, You've Become a Bitter Man,” that basically accused Armey of selling out and trying to make a name for himself, to which Armey quickly replied with his own accusations that Dobson and his ilk were harming the conservative movement with their incessant harping and ill-informed statements.
And then it ended.
Now, two years later, it looks like another feud may be brewing - not between the differing factions of the GOP’s base represented by Dobson and Armey, but between two allies in the social conservative movement: Dobson and World Magazine.
Earlier this week, Alisa Harris wrote a post from World’s blog entitled “Religious Right Flip-Flops” that chronicled Dobson’s constantly-shifting pronouncements on the upcoming election:
Baffling, but Christian Right guru James Dobson has flip-flopped, too [see Focus response below]. First, Dobson said he would vote for a third party candidate if neither party nominated “an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life.” Then Dobson said he would vote for (but not endorse) either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. After Romney dropped out, Dobson endorsed Huckabee — too late to make a difference.
The GOP nominated a candidate with an unimpeachable pro-life voting record, but Dobson still isn’t happy. He backed off his threat to vote third party and said he wouldn’t vote at all this November. Then he changed his mind and said he will vote, despite the fact that McCain supports embryonic stem cell research.
In what is becoming standard operating procedure for Dobson, he did not respond personally to the insinuation that he is being a hypocrite, but instead dispatched Focus on the Family Vice President Gary Schneeberger to defend his honor:
Dr. Dobson has spent 35 years “in the arena,” as Theodore Roosevelt said, defending the value of all human life and the importance of traditional marriage as a building block of society. He’s taken his fair share of hits from the media (even the Christian media, including World) for the stands he’s taken. Those positions spring not from expediency, but from conscience and principle. It is an honor to serve such a man, because he is the antithesis of a flip-flopper. He is guided by deeply held biblical convictions — and is unafraid to defend his beliefs against those who would mock or misrepresent them.
It remains to be seen if this will escalate into a Dobson/Armey-like tiff, and that probably depends on whether or not World tries to defend itself (and surely, they are aware of what happens to those who dare to criticize Dobson.)
Oddly, Dobson and his proxies never seem to bother to respond at all when we call him a hypocrite. Wonder why that is?
Posted by Kyle at 4:30 PM | Permalink
April 10, 2008
McCain Brags of “Close Relations” With Evangelicals, Hagee
Earlier this week, the New York Times ran an article noting that, after working hard to win the endorsement of controversial pastor John Hagee, both Hagee and McCain ”have been silent about his endorsement.
For his part, McCain tried to distance himself from Hagee’s anti-Catholic views while Hagee seems to have gone on some sort of outreach mission by meeting with Deal Hudson, who said Hagee “seemed genuinely hurt that he was being seen by the nation as anti-Catholic” and working to win over Jewish leaders concerned by his Christian Zionist rhetoric and activities.
While Hagee is busy trying to salvage his reputation and McCain has tried to distance himself from the pastor, it doesn’t mean that McCain isn’t willing to tout Hagee’s endorsement when he thinks it’ll be to his benefit politically, as he did in a recent interview with The Jewish Journal:
McCain also defended his support of the controversial Rev. John Hagee, a staunchly pro-Israel evangelical who has been criticized for his anti-Catholic comments. I asked the senator how he would get pro-Israel evangelicals, who have been staunchly opposed to Israel giving up territory or compromising on the status of Jerusalem, to support any peace agreement.
"You can't jump ahead here," he said. "I know they favor a peace process. I know they favor that because of my close relations with them, and pastor John Hagee ... is one of the leaders of the pro-Israel-evangelical movement in America."
I started to correct him -- Hagee and other evangelicals most certainly don't support compromise on territory or Jerusalem, and McCain must know this. That's when I got my first taste of the famous McCain technique: I'll-talk-so-you-can't.
"Look," he cut me off, "I just have to tell you that we should be so grateful for the support of the evangelical movement for the state of Israel, given the influence that they have, beneficial influence that they have over millions of Americans, and then we'll worry about a peace process later on, but I know that they are committed to peace between Palestinians and Israelis as well."
Posted by Kyle at 4:28 PM | Permalink
More On Keyes' Major Announcement
The Standard Speaker reports that Alan Keyes has chosen Hazleton, PA to make his major announcement because of the city's infamous anti-immigration policies ... and also that Keyes hasn't yet gotten around to reserving the space for his press conference: "He is planning a press conference at the Best Western hotel in Hazleton, Pa., the site reports. A representative of Genetti Best Western Inn and Suites on Route 309 in Hazle Township said, as of Wednesday afternoon, the Keyes campaign had not reserved space for Tuesday."
Posted by Kyle at 2:53 PM | Permalink
Schaffer, Abramoff, and TVC
The Denver Post reports that The Traditional Values Coalition financed then-Congressman, and curent Senate candidate, Bob Schaffer's trip the to Mariana Islands on behalf of Jack Abramoff: "Schaffer's $13,000 trip was paid for by the Orange County, Calif.-based Traditional Values Coalition, which Schaffer described as a religious group 'concerned with human rights.'"
Posted by Kyle at 2:45 PM | Permalink
Nobody Asked Him
Gary Bauer offers some advice to those pressuring John McCain not to tap Mitt Romney as his VP, despite the fact that nobody asked him: "Former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer -- now a McCain supporter -- says if those social conservatives had asked for his advice, he would have recommended they find better ways to use their money. 'I think it's very hard to pressure a presidential candidate into either taking or rejecting a vice-presidential possibility,' Bauer contends. 'And quite frankly I would be worried about a presidential candidate who allowed public pressure to affect his or her decision, which is really one of the first important decisions that they make.'"
Posted by Kyle at 2:25 PM | Permalink
Huckabee's Got Talent
From CNN: "Former Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee has signed a contract with Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles, daughter and senior advisor Sarah Huckabee tells CNN ... Huckabee follows former rival Fred Thompson’s lead by inking a post-campaign deal with a talent agency. But unlike the former Tennessee senator, this is Huckabee’s first official foray into show business."
Posted by Kyle at 2:22 PM | Permalink
April 9, 2008
Eagerly Awaiting April 15th
Everyone is looking forward to April 15th this year not only because it is traditionally the day that taxes are due, but also because there are going to be some big Right Wing announcements made that day.
First off, Alan Keyes is scheduled to make a “major announcement”
Alan has chosen April 15 to make a major announcement about his intentions, and his reasons for them, in this year’s U.S. presidential race — a highly irregular, undemocratic, media-controlled electoral process that appears aimed at giving voters little or no say about who ultimately governs them.
…
Alan’s announcement will take place in a press conference that will be streamed live at AlanKeyes.com from the Best Western hotel in Hazleton, PA, Tuesday evening, April 15. The exact time is still pending.
It has already been reported that Keyes intends to leave the Republican Party; so that, coupled with the announcement on Keyes’ website that he “will be among those considered for the presidential nomination of the Constitution Party” Convention on April 23-26, it is not too hard to figure out what he intends to announce, especially since he is seeking donations in order to “keep his presidential candidacy on track for a possible third-party bid!"
Unfortunately for Keyes, it looks like he might be overshadowed by Mike Huckabee, who likewise has an announcement to make that day about what he plans to do with his future that is even more enticing and mysterious. If you go to his new website, MikeHuckabee.com, all you see is this:
Will Keyes really leave the GOP? Will Huckabee be unveiling an organization that will "focus on activating people around the nation to take a stand" or will he be seeking to establish himself as a challenger to the current Religious Right leaders? Or perhaps both?
The suspense is driving us mad!
Posted by Kyle at 4:35 PM | Permalink
Weyrich Repents, Again
Things have not been going very well for Paul Weyrich lately. First, he endorsed Mitt Romney for President, but when Romney was forced to drop out, he threw his support behind Mike Huckabee. Then, when Huckabee too dropped out, Weyrich apparently had a crisis of conscience and confessed his sins to his allies on the Right at a meeting in New Orleans last monthy:
Weyrich, a Romney supporter and one of those Farris had chastised for not supporting Huckabee, steered his wheelchair to the front of the room and slowly turned to face his compatriots. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "Friends, before all of you and before almighty God, I want to say I was wrong."
In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.
In what was perceived to be a public act of penance for his earlier support of Romney, Weyrich signed on to an ad warning John McCain that the idea of naming Romney as his running mate was “utterly unacceptable” and that doing so would destroy the GOP’s long-standing ties with its right-wing base.
And that seemed to be the end of it … until The American Mind reported that Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation had quietly sent out a press release trying to distance Weyrich from the anti-Romney ad:
Recently I received a phone call from someone asking if former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney should be Arizona Senator John McCain’s selection for Vice President of the United States.
I said, “No” because I did not think this was the best path for Romney right now; nor was it, in my view, the right fit for McCain. My understanding was that this was to be a personal letter to the Senator; it was not clear to me that this was to be an advertisement.
Thus, I now request that my involvement in this effort be disregarded as this effort to influence the Senator moves on.
If Weyrich is to be believed, he either didn’t read the letter or didn’t know that it was going to be made public. Of course, even if that was the case, the text of the ad, with Weyrich’s signature attached, was made public a few days before it ran, giving him plenty of time to disavow it or demand that his name be removed. He did neither, choosing instead to furtively issue a press release to a conservative blog begging that his role in this entire imbroglio simply be "disregarded."
Posted by Kyle at 3:32 PM | Permalink
April 8, 2008
Pat Robertson: 'Islam Is Not a Religion'
Today’s “700 Club” featured Bernard Lewis discussing what he calls the “clash” of civilization between Christianity and Islam, and host Pat Robertson added his own commentary afterwards, repeating his claim that “Islam is not a religion” but “a political system bent on world domination." He warned viewers that "what they’re going to do to you will be more horrible than anything you can imagine."
Added Robertson, “To say, ‘Well, it’s a religion and you should leave religion alone,’ that’s just not the way it works.”
Posted by Ezra at 5:54 PM | Permalink
McCain’s “Committee of 50”
Today, the New York Times (finally) got around to running an article about John McCain’s courting of John Hagee which suggested that the McCain campaign was essentially unaware of Hagee’s record and unprepared for the controversy that ensued:
The controversy surrounding Mr. Hagee seemed to take the McCain campaign by surprise, said David C. Leege, an expert on Catholic voters and an emeritus professor of political science at Notre Dame.
Mr. McCain began seeking Mr. Hagee’s endorsement more than a year ago, trying to bolster the campaign’s support among evangelical voters. Republican leaders are concerned that evangelicals will sit out the election in November, depriving Mr. McCain of votes that may be crucial to beating the Democratic nominee.
Mr. Hagee has a large following and a vast reach on radio and television. But he has also been criticized by Catholics for comments about the church and, recently, by some Jews for his views on Israel.
After Mr. Hagee endorsed Mr. McCain, the criticism was fierce and Mr. McCain soon distanced himself, issuing a series of statements until he announced he was “repudiating” those of Mr. Hagee’s views that might be considered anti-Catholic.
A McCain adviser acknowledged on Monday that the campaign had failed to look into Mr. Hagee’s background adequately and said that as a result the campaign’s procedures for vetting endorsers had improved.
It is imperative that the McCain campaign ensure that its vetting procedure has improved, because The Brody File reports that it is hard at work putting together a “Committee of 50” Religious Right leaders that McCain intends to try and win over:
The Brody File has been accumulating information about how John McCain is planning to reach out to Evangelicals.
An informed source tells me there's a plan developing to come up with something called a "Committee of 50."
Basically this will be a key list of 50 religious and opinion leaders that the McCain camp will target when it comes to their outreach. It will be made up of "new guard" and "old guard" figures.
The list is still in development, but the bottom line here is that the McCain camp has no desire to start a dialogue with folks who want to beat up the senator over some of his views. They're looking for people who are open to listening to him, convinced that they will like what they hear.
Don't expect the McCain team to set their sights just on national leaders. The team that is currently being assembled will really be active on the local level, going pastor to pastor, church to church.
Whether McCain and his staff actually bother to thoroughly vet this list remains to be seen. Not that it matters really, because if it turns out to cause him problems, he can just do what he has done in the past by either flip-flopping, offering a politically expedient, after-the-fact repudiation, and simply claiming that his outreach to the Right is all just for show.
Posted by Kyle at 4:02 PM | Permalink
The Dangers of "Wacky Week"
Who would freak out about an elementary school's traditional "Wacky Week"? The good folks at VCY America, that's who: "Students at Pineview Elementary in Reedsburg [WI] had been dressing in costume all last week as part of an annual school tradition called Wacky Week. On Friday, students were encouraged to dress either as senior citizens or as members of the opposite sex. A local resident informed the Voice of Christian Youth America on Friday. The Milwaukee-based radio network responded by interrupting its morning programming for a special broadcast that aired on nine radio stations throughout Wisconsin. The broadcast criticized the dress-up day and accused the district of promoting alternative lifestyles."
Posted by Kyle at 3:01 PM | Permalink
Perkins for Senate in 2010?
Matt Lewis, writing for Politico, suggests that Pat Toomey might be considering making another Senate run Pennsylvania while the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins might be considering his own run against embattled Louisiana Senator David Vitter in 2010:
Former Louisiana state Rep. Tony Perkins, president of the socially conservative Family Research Council, and former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), president of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth, are both rumored to be considering leaving their positions to run for the U.S. Senate — an office both have unsuccessfully sought before.
Perkins would presumably seek to “primary” Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter, who was linked to the “D.C. Madam” prostitution scandal last summer. After all, who better to challenge the first-term senator than the head of the Family Research Council? “Social conservatives in Louisiana would be pleased to support a candidate like Tony Perkins, who would have just as strong or stronger of a voting record than Sen. Vitter has had in the Senate but who comes to the race without all the personal baggage,” said Gary Marx, who has served as conservative coalitions director for the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.
And if Vitter’s personal peccadilloes aren’t enough of a contrast to satisfy fiscal conservatives, Perkins can also bring up the fact that the senator opposed the one-year ban on earmarks recently championed by presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
Of course, Perkins might have a hard time attacking Vitter, since has claimed that he would gladly vote for Vitter, provided he can prove he has "moved on" from his scandal and that Vitter last year earmarked $100,000 for the Louisiana Family Forum, which was founded by Perkins in 1999, for its efforts to “combat evolution.”
Posted by Kyle at 12:04 PM | Permalink
It Never Ends
It is no secret that, when it comes to the issue of judicial nominees, the Right just likes to fight. And one of the way the GOP and the Right try to gin up their base in an election year is to make judges an issue, and make unfounded accusations of bigotry against any opponents. They’re at it once again:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday he has not ruled out the option of shutting down the chamber to put fresh pressure on Democrats to confirm President Bush’s stalled judicial nominees.
…
His statement came after Republicans brought a Judiciary Committee meeting to a near-standstill to vent their frustrations with what they said was Democratic foot-dragging to confirm 10 pending nominees to federal appeals courts. They complained that there have been no committee hearings on nominees since last September, and say that at least nine more nominees need to be confirmed by the end of Bush’s term in order to match the 15 judges the Republican-controlled Senate approved in the final two years of the Clinton administration.
Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters last month that one of the options to force Democratic action is “shutting down the Senate.” He reiterated that threat this week in an interview with the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
In an interview with The Hill on Thursday, Specter said it was “a possibility” that the GOP would object to motions that allow routine business to proceed on the floor, a move that would stifle Senate action and effectively bring the chamber to a halt.
And once again, the Right is deploying its complementary tactic of ignoring the concerns raised about a controversial nominees’ record or judicial philosophy in favor of simply accusing Democrats of opposing the nominee out of bigotry. As we’ve noted before:
The Right sees some nefarious ulterior motive at work – and that is how they manage to convince themselves that opposition to [Leslie] Southwick stems not from concerns about his record but from some sort of deep-seeded hatred of Southern white males … the same way they said opposition to Miguel Estrada was really due to anti-Latino prejudice … and opposition to Priscilla Owen was the result of flagrant anti-woman bias … and opposition to William Pryor was actually due to anti-Catholic bigotry … and opposition to Janice Rogers Brown was in actuality rooted in racism.
And guess what? Here they go again ... this time with a bit of a twist, as Fidelis circularly accuses Sen. Pat Leahy , who is himself Catholic, of accusing Robert Conrad, who is likewise Catholic, of making anti-Catholic statements:
In the latest attack on 4th Circuit nominee Judge Robert Conrad, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), accused Conrad of making anti-Catholic comments in a letter submitted to a Catholic periodical over nine years ago. Leahy’s accusation comes as Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have come under increased pressure to act on President Bush’s judicial nominations … Anti-Catholic bigotry in America is real, and we welcome efforts to confront it where it truly exists. But in the case of Judge Conrad, there is nothing that even remotely resembles anti-Catholicism.
While that complaint is a bit confusing and probably unlikely to generate any sort of outrage, Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice decided to take a different track and simply accuse Senate Democrats of being anti-Semitic for opposing the nomination of Peter Keisler:
Is the fact that Keisler is Jewish similarly contributing to his obstruction by Democrats? There is no way to know. But it’s worth noting that, of the nine appeals court nominees currently being obstructed, three are Jewish.
Of course, it is “worth noting” that three of the nominees are Jewish only if you are attempting to insinuate that opposition to their nominations is rooted in anti-Semitism - despite admitting that you have “no way to know” and absolutely no evidence that that is actually the case.
Posted by Kyle at 9:01 AM | Permalink
Perkins Pal Runs for Congress
Former state legislator Woody Jenkins won the Republican nomination Saturday for the special election to replace Louisiana Rep. Richard Baker, who retired this year to become a lobbyist. During Jenkins’s unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaigns in 1978, 1980, and 1996, he received his strongest support from far-right groups such as the Christian Coalition, Americans for Life League, and the Christian Action Network, and this run is no different: He’s received endorsements from James Dobson, Paul Weyrich, Tim LaHaye, and Family Research Council Action, as well as the Club for Growth’s PAC.
While it’s unusual to see FRC Action making an outright endorsement of a candidate, it should be no surprise, as FRC President Tony Perkins managed Jenkins’s 1996 Senate campaign. Many will recall that Perkins gained some notoriety for his role in buying Ku Klux Klansman David Duke’s phone bank list for Jenkins’s campaign and attempting to cover up the payment.
But what’s not commonly known is that Jenkins helped found the Council for National Policy in 1981, serving as its first executive director. “One day before the end of this century, the Council will be so influential that no president, regardless of party or philosophy, will be able to ignore us or our concerns or shut us out of the highest levels of government,” claimed Jenkins. For the past year, at least, Republican candidates for president have been hard pressed to ignore the secretive Religious Right gathering’s finicky vetting of candidates and its brief threat to ditch the GOP entirely. Even after he won, John McCain felt he had to go back before the council and plead for their grudging support.
What can voters expect from Jenkins? The Weekly Standard wrote in 1996 that he was “best known for leading the 1990 fight to pass what would have been the nation’s most restrictive abortion law and for occasionally bringing a plastic fetus onto the floor of the legislature.”
Posted by Ezra at 8:58 AM | Permalink
April 7, 2008
Hagee Donates $6 Million to Israel
From the AP: "San Antonio televangelist John Hagee announced donations of $6 million to Israeli causes Sunday and said that Israel must remain in control of all of Jerusalem ... Hagee and his group, Christians United for Israel, joined keynote speaker Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's hard-line opposition Likud Party, at a rally in support of Jerusalem remaining united and under Jewish control."
Posted by Kyle at 3:00 PM | Permalink