October, 2007

Concerned Women for America's Matt Barber explains to his younger brother that the Right's anti-gay agenda, while purely defensive, is necessary to fight the "relentless homosexual propaganda [which] goose-steps along, trampling upon those who observe traditional notions of sexual morality."

Liberty Counsel announces that is has launched its "Fifth Annual Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign."

The Swamp notes that Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee have suddenly started saying nice things about one another, with Giuliani saying that Huckabee makes him laugh and that he has “great respect for him” while Huckabee appeared to defend Giuliani’s anti-abortion claims.    

It is not surprising that Giuliani would be making nice with Huckabee, considering that Huckabee is a becoming increasingly popular with the right-wing base Giuliani so desperately needs to win over, having come out on top at the Values Voter Debate in Florida, which Giuliani blatantly snubbed, and having “won” the straw poll at the Values Voter Summit, where Giuliani came in second to last.  Perhaps Giuliani is recognizing that, in the words of Rich Lowry, Huckabee could be a “natural fit” as his vice presidential candidate should he win the GOP nomination. 

But it is odd that Huckabee would return the favor, considering that elsewhere he is criticizing Sam Brownback for even thinking of supporting Giuliani:

During a lunch with reporters on Tuesday in which a confident Huckabee insisted he can win the GOP nomination and general election, the former governor said that he reached out to Brownback the day the senator withdrew from the race and that he wants Brownback’s support.

“It makes perfect sense. It’s a good fit for a lot of Sen. Brownback’s supporters,” Huckabee said. “I would be shocked if he endorsed Mayor Giuliani.”

Huckabee said he would be surprised because on the issues Brownback was so “adamant” about during his failed presidential run, namely abortion rights, Brownback and Giuliani are “at opposite ends of the political spectrum.”

Huckabee also refused to say definitively that he would support whoever the eventually GOP nominee is, calling that a hypothetical question. He did say he would have trouble supporting the candidacy of Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) in the unlikely event the insurgent candidate won the nomination.

Huckabee is clearly feeling confident about his chances in light of his increased fundraising and rise in the polls - so much so that he is amping up his criticism of those right-wing leaders who have so far refused to back him:  

Huckabee continued to dismiss the criticisms of social conservative leaders like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Gary Bauer of American Values. The conservative leaders have said in recent weeks that Huckabee lacks the foreign policy credentials to win their support or that of the American people.

“They would never have gotten behind Ronald Reagan,” Huckabee said, adding that some past presidents like Reagan who were originally thought to be novices on foreign policy emerged as heroes in that arena because they had “character and clear convictions.”

This is not the first time Huckabee has gone after the Religious Right’s political leaders over this, but this is a pretty hard hitting criticism … after all, saying they wouldn’t have supported Reagan is the political equivalent of calling them Pharisees.   

Over the weekend, the New York Times published two pieces – one by David Kirkpatrick, the other by Frank Rich - suggesting that the Religious Right’s long political relationship with the Republican Party is unraveling and that the movement is facing the possibility of complete destruction heading into the 2008 election.  

If that prediction sounds familiar, it is probably because the media wrote wove exactly the same narrative a little over a decade ago heading into the 1996 election.  

Back in 1995, Ralph Reed graced the cover of Time Magazine where he was declared “The Right Hand of God” for his role in helping Republican capture control of Congress the previous year from his position as the head of the Christian Coalition.   

The Religious Right, it seemed at the time, were the new political powerbrokers in Washington, DC; a movement that had fundamentally altered the balance of power and was set to dominate the scene for the foreseeable future. 

But then, just one year later, the press was reporting that they were in complete disarray and on the verge of imploding.   

Just a sampling of articles from that period demonstrate how little has changed since then, with GOP candidates pandering to James Dobson and the Right split over which candidate, if any, to back:   

In the past, Mitt Romney has blamed the media (along with those “who would like to establish a religion of secularism in this country to replace all others”) for raising questions about whether his Mormonism will hurt his electoral chances—a claim that doesn’t hold water, as we pointed out. A Bloomberg article today makes clear that he might start with his own friends:

“I told him, you cannot equate Mormonism with Christianity; you cannot say, ‘I am a Christian just like you,’” said Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina, which is scheduled to hold the first primary among the Southern states. “If he does that, every Baptist preacher in the South is going to have to go to the pulpit on Sunday and explain the differences.”

So it should be no surprise to see those on the Religious Right who are not on Romney's side kicking up dust. Richard Land, who leans toward Fred Thompson, said Romney is “picking a fight” when he states a basic tenet of his beliefs. “When he goes around and says Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior, he ticks off at least half the evangelicals. He's picking a fight he's going to lose,” Land said. In Max Blumenthal’s entertaining video report on the Values Voter Summit, Huckabee booster Janet Folger is heard excitedly denouncing Romney: “I mean take a look at really what he believes. He believes that Jesus Christ is Satan’s brother—are you kidding me?”

“Mitt Romney … is not a Christian. Mormonism is not Christianity. Mormonism is a cult,” one prominent Dallas pastor said earlier this month. “It's a little hypocritical for the last eight years to be talking about how important it is for us to elect a Christian president and then turn around and endorse a non-Christian.”

But if Romney can convince the Religious Right that he’ll fight for their political causes, why does it matter what else he believes?

One answer to that is provided by Roy Moore, a staunch proponent of government endorsement of sectarian religion:

“We need more injection of an understanding of God in our political life,” said Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and a potential third-party, anti- abortion presidential candidate. “I am looking for a candidate that understands that this nation is established on a particular God.”

While many on the Right are busy telling everyone to go see the new film “Bella,” a God-friendly “moral masterpiece” said to be the “next Passion of the Christ," others are busy attacking the forthcoming film “The Golden Compass” because the author of the series of books upon which it is based is reportedly an outspoken atheist:

[Sophia] Sproule sees "The Golden Compass" and the other books in Mr. Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy as a source of concern for Catholic parents, describing the books' negative portrayal of God and the church as potentially damaging to the spiritual well-being of young readers.

"[Philip] Pullman, an outspoken atheist and critic of religion, offers in these novels a vitriolic denunciation of religious faith in general, especially of Christianity and most pointedly of the Catholic Church (a version of it, anyway)," Miss Sproule said.

"Whether or not one believes that 'mere fiction' should be cause for alarm, the simple truth is that to enter into a fantasy realm is to accept the world presented on its own terms," she said, adding that the Pullman books represent "not merely a wholesale rejection of religion — it is an invitation to reject God."

In what comes as a surprise to absolutely nobody, the opposition is being driven mainly by Bill Donohue:

Pullman's work, says William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, promotes an atheist agenda that is profoundly anti-Church.

True, he hasn't seen the movie, which comes out Dec. 7, and he has little reason to doubt the filmmakers' claims that it considerably waters down the book's more controversial aspects. But the possibility that the movie could persuade some unsuspecting parents to buy the book for their children makes him furious.

"It's selling the virtues of atheism," Donohue says over the phone from the league's New York office. "The real person we want to get on this is Pullman. I don't want to see these books flying off the shelves at Christmas. I want them to be collecting dust."

And, as if to demonstrate that there is just no pleasing him, Donohue is even upset that the studio has reportedly watered down some of the book’s atheist themes:  

But the removal of the Godless themes from the movie has some Christian organizations seething.

"They’re intentionally watering down the most offensive element,” Donohue said. “I'm not really concerned about the movie, [which] looks fairly innocuous. The movie is made for the books. ... It's a deceitful, stealth campaign. Pullman is hoping his books will fly off the shelves at Christmastime."

Since Donohue’s entire career is based on intimidating those with whom he disagrees, it is entirely predictable that he would go after someone like Pullman for daring to produce something that does not reflect his own views on religion and the Catholic Church.  

But if you thought that efforts to “water down” the “offensive” elements would at least please him, you don’t know much about Bill Donohue.  

Center for Immigration Studies head says "immigrant communities ... serve as the sea, as Mao might have put it, within which the terrorists swim as fish."

It’s not a good month for Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, a virulent anti-immigrant group we first noticed last year when they targeted the undocumented mother of a 7-year-old U.S. citizen for deportation. “Our beautiful Nation has been turned into a jungle by the mass invasion of illegal aliens,” warned the group’s mission statement at the time, although it has been updated to dial-down the hate speech (while keeping the references to “Aztlan”—“We are not only at war with Iraq, but we ARE at WAR with MEXICO”).

Last week, the Anti-Defamation League released a report, titled “Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream,” which describes how anti-immigrant groups “borrow from the playbook of hate groups” in their quest to demonize Hispanics. ADL’s first example is Mothers Against Illegal Aliens.

At the same time, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the large grassroots advocacy group that changed attitudes about drinking and driving in the 1980s, sent a letter demanding that MAIA cease and desist from exploiting the “Mothers Against” reputation. According to MAIA founder Michelle Dallacroce, “You've got La Raza infiltrating MADD. MADD's now into seatbelt safety instead of deporting illegal drunk drivers.”

Last week, the Senate voted to confirm controversial appeals-court nominee Leslie Southwick, whose disturbing record led civil rights groups such as PFAW and the NAACP to oppose him. Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu was among the majority of Democratic senators to vote against Southwick, and conservative columnist Robert Novak claims that this proves her “reliance” on black voters—“even though” many black voters have not returned since Hurricane Katrina and the stalled rebuilding of New Orleans.

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, the only incumbent Democrat considered vulnerable in 2008, showed this week she continues to rely on African-American voters even though well over 100,000 of them left her state in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Landrieu not only voted Wednesday against confirming former Mississippi Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick as a U.S. Appeals Court judge but also opposed bringing his nomination to a floor vote. Civil rights groups lobbied against Southwick's confirmation. He was confirmed, 59 to 38.

Landrieu and other Louisiana Democrats long have counted on a 100,000-vote margin or more out of Orleans Parish (New Orleans). But because of the heavy black emigration, its total vote was around 75,000 last Saturday and was carried by Republican U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal in his election as governor.

Mitt Romney may have officially “won” the straw poll at the Values Voter Summit; Mike Huckabee may have been the crowd favorite; and what to do about Rudy Giuliani may have been the biggest question mark; but of all the presidential candidates, the one most talked about at the right-wing conference was Hillary Clinton. “Bill Clinton,” Tom Tancredo warned, is “now measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.” Rep. Jean Schmidt urged Giuliani rejectionists to realize “how important it is that we stand behind whatever candidate comes out that will be her rival, and stand behind that person, whether we agree with all their opinions and values or not. Because if we don’t, you will have that woman in power.”

Libertarian journalism David Weigel, moonlighting at the paleoconservative American Conservative magazine, notes that the visceral hatred many on the Right have for Sen. Clinton could be the only thing that holds the movement and the GOP together, at least in the hopes of Republican strategists:

It’s a balmy, beer-drinking evening in the middle of August, and the conservatives trickling in to a meeting of the Robert A. Taft Club can’t enjoy it. They’re mostly under-30 Washington professionals, and they’re fed up with the Republican Party. They think George W. Bush’s bumbling and ideological hat-trading have reduced the conservative movement to a pitiable, piddling state. If Karl Rove stepped inside, he’d come out looking like Oscar de la Hoya after a bout gone wrong.

They settle into a debate about the future of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Panelists take turns whipping the party for its sins. “We beat them on immigration,” says Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail pioneer, “but right now, we just don’t have the strength or the resources to affect public policy the way we want to.” He beseeches the crowd to help save the movement, but that gets a muted reaction. So he steps it up: “I still think that in the short term, as many problems as we have right now, Hillary Clinton can bring conservatives back together.”

The name does the trick: soft laughter moves around the room. Keeping Hillary out of the White House is literally the only motivation some conservatives have to pull the Republican lever in 2008, especially if their party nominates a pro-choice candidate for the first time since 1976.

While many Republicans are crossing their fingers that a Clinton nomination will stir up the right-wing id into a frenzy of resentment, bringing back the anti-Clinton rhetoric of the 1990s—whether about Vince Foster or strong women—is not necessarily a recipe for victory. There will always be a core group that feeds off of even the most disgusting anti-Hillary marketing, but as Weigel points out, translating that into broader political success is another matter. GOP hatchet men started Stop Her Now and the Stop Hillary PAC to raise millions to prevent Clinton’s reelection to the Senate in 2006, but they hardly raised thousands. Even the steady stream of anti-Clinton books have fallen flat in sales.

That doesn’t mean it will stop. The Republican National Committee is already running against Clinton. We can probably expect Republican candidates, especially Giuliani, to keep taking Clinton as their de facto running mate unless and until the primaries prove otherwise, providing a foil always good for applause lines.

Fresh off his resounding victory at the Values Voter Debate in Florida and his first place (depending on how you count) finish in the straw poll at the Values Voter Summit, it seemed as if Mike Huckabee’s campaign was gaining traction – for a while, at least.

After all, following the Summit, a group of right-wing leaders met to discuss their options going into the 2008 election and many appeared ready to come out in favor of Huckabee:

Phil Burress, president of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values and member of the executive committee of the Arlington Group, declined to talk about the meeting but said he has personally decided to support Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister. Another well-respected Christian conservative leader, Kelly Shackleford, a Texas lawyer, is also expected to come out on behalf of Mr. Huckabee in the coming days.

Since the summit, Huckabee has hit double digits in the polls for the first time, saw his fundraising skyrocket, and even picked up the endorsement of Joe Carter, who is not only Director of Web Communications for Family Research Council but also an influential blogger in his own right.

His progress appears to have prompted others on the Right, such as the Club for Growth’s Pat Toomey, to take his campaign seriously and mobilize to stop it:

The speculations swirling around which Republican candidate would win the favors of the religious-right activists gathered at the Values Voter Summit last weekend obscured what was the ceremonial centerpiece of the event, a “Faith, Family & Freedom Gala Dinner” honoring James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and perhaps the most influential leader on the Right. Featuring a serenade from Lee Greenwood, the singer most famous for “God Bless the USA” (which he called “the nation’s anthem”), the tribute was rounded out by speakers attesting to Dobson’s personal qualities and thanking him for his leadership in political fights, and if anything, it certainly sounded like a fond farewell to the 71-year-old activist.

The AP reports that

out of public view, a new generation of executives is laying the groundwork for sustaining the conservative Christian group as a cultural and political force once the 71-year-old Dobson has left the scene. Most of their efforts are concentrated not in the political realm, but on finding new ways to deliver marriage and parenting advice to a younger generation of families, many of whom distrust institutions or dislike evangelical engagement in politics.

Is Sam Brownback going to endorse Rudy Giuliani? The Hill reports that the two are slated to meet: "Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) is considering endorsing Rudy Giuliani for the GOP presidential nomination and will meet with him Thursday in Washington to hear his views on abortion."

When WorldNetDaily decides to write about a book by right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton, you just know the results are not going to be pretty – or accurate:  

KKK's 1st targets were Republicans: Dems credited with starting group that attacked both blacks and whites

The original targets of the Ku Klux Klan were Republicans, both black and white, according to a new television program and book, which describe how the Democrats started the KKK and for decades harassed the GOP with lynchings and threats.

An estimated 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites died at the end of KKK ropes from 1882 to 1964.

The documentation has been assembled by David Barton of Wallbuilders and published in his book "Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White," which reveals that not only did the Democrats work hand-in-glove with the Ku Klux Klan for generations, they started the KKK and endorsed its mayhem.

"Of all forms of violent intimidation, lynchings were by far the most effective," Barton said in his book. "Republicans often led the efforts to pass federal anti-lynching laws and their platforms consistently called for a ban on lynching. Democrats successfully blocked those bills and their platforms never did condemn lynchings."

And on and on is goes about how “the Klan was established by Democrats and that the Klan played a prominent role in the Democratic Party” until Barton finally gets around to accusing the Democrats of hiding from their own history:

"Why would Democrats skip over their own history from 1848 to 1900?" Barton asked. "Perhaps because it's not the kind of civil rights history they want to talk about – perhaps because it is not the kind of civil rights history they want to have on their website."

That is a good question - almost as good as the question we raised in our report on Barton asking why his “history” of the Democratic Party’s animosity toward African Americans suddenly stops after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and makes absolutely no mention of the political transformation that overtook the country in its wake and the rise of the Republican Party’s “Southern Strategy”:

Harper’s correspondent Ken Silverstein has more on Mitt Romney’s efforts to buy his way to the nomination, from the straw poll “ballot-box stuffing” supporters of struggling candidates gripe about, to contributions to South Carolina politicians via his personal PAC, to massive expenditures on consultants. Writes Silverstein:

[B]ased on filings with the Federal Election Commission, as of this summer, Romney’s campaign has employed more than a hundred different consultants, making combined payments to them of at least $11 million—roughly three times the amount spent by John McCain or Rudy Giuliani. …

Romney’s game plan in South Carolina depends on winning a large share of the social-conservative vote, which makes up at least a third, and perhaps even two fifths, of the state’s G.O.P. electorate. To that end, his PAC has also funded the Palmetto Family Council, which, according to its website, “works in the centers of influence (church, government, media, academia, and business) to present biblical principles through research, communication and networking.” Another $5,000 was delivered from Romney’s PAC to an organization sponsoring a statewide ballot initiative, passed in 2006, that added an amendment banning gay marriage to the state constitution. The PAC also sent money to South Carolina Citizens for Life ($500), South Carolina Club for Growth ($1,000), a school-choice group called South Carolinians for Responsible Government ($1,000), a Republican GOTV effort called South Carolina Victory ($2,000), and a group of conservative school-board candidates in Charleston ($2,000) called, humorously enough, “The A-Team.” (One pities the fool who might oppose them.) Moreover, the Romney campaign in June formed a national “faith and values steering committee” that includes four South Carolinians, among them a pastor, Mark White, and a Christian political activist, Dee Benedict. Both White and Benedict—whom Romney also put on the payroll as a consultant—are from upstate, the heart of South Carolina conservatism.

Among Romney’s consultants are well-known religious-right figures like Gary Marx, Jay Sekulow, and former Christian Coalition board member Drew McKissick.

If the Family Research Council intended its Values Voter Summit to be a demonstration of the persevering influence of the Religious Right on the Republican Party, the group can claim some success: “all 9 major Republican candidates” came to pander to the activists, as they have for most of the past year. And, despite the best efforts of Gary Bauer to cool the waters, some leaders still hold out their threat to bolt the party—and, we are to presume, sabotage the election—if fellow Republicans nominate Rudy Giuliani. “[T]his is not a bluff. If Giuliani is the nominee there will be a third party,” Richard Land told Newsweek this week.

So what in the world is an FRC senior fellow doing claiming that a totally different right-wing faction will “decide” the 2008 election?

Christopher Gacek, writing in the Politico, identifies “Lou Dobbs voters” as the critical bloc, the politics of whom

are still fluid, because neither party has moved to gain their support. The Democrats are too busy kowtowing to immigration interest groups as they look to import future voting blocs, and the Republicans are too beholden to big business globalists, trade ideologues and open-border libertarians.

If the CNN host is indeed their spokesman, we can probably pin them down as people worried about immigrants starting a leprosy epidemic, immigrants attempting to “reconquer” western states for Mexico, and of course, the secret plan to create a North American Union.

Richard Land gave a wide-ranging interview to Newsweek in which he discussed the Religious Right’s current disarray and the possibility that they will leave the Republican Party if Rudy Giuliani becomes the nominee:  

NEWSWEEK: So we wanted to ask you, first of all, about the third party idea and whether it's serious. A number of people are suggesting it is just a threat.

Land: My intuition [is that] this is not a bluff. If Giuliani is the nominee, there will be a third party. There are things that Giuliani could do to help mitigate the damage … This is not a bluff.

While Land sees it as inevitable that many of his ideological allies will bolt the GOP if this happens, he does not appear to be among them, saying that he “won't do anything to help formulate a third party.” 

Land also had an interesting view on why Mike Huckabee isn’t gaining more traction among the Right: 

We met with Gov. Huckabee recently, and he said, "Well, why don't they vote for me right now? They've got me. Why do they need a third-party candidate?"

Land : Well, I think if anybody other than Giuliani is the nominee, there won't be a third party.

NEWSWEEK : But his point is that you are not helping him to beat Giuliani.

Land : Well, that's not my job. That's Governor Huckabee's job. I just encourage people to vote their values and their beliefs and their convictions, and when I am asked why Huckabee isn't doing better, I can only answer that that's up to the voters.

Land obviously doesn’t think this standard applies to Fred Thompson, since he has spent months gushing over Thompson and defending him at every opportunity in an effort to help him win over “values voters.”   

Newsweek then asked Land what Giuliani might be able to do to possibly win them over, to which Land set out a series of anti-choice benchmarks, among them a pledge to “only appoint strict constructionists” to the federal courts.  When Newsweek pointed out that Giuliani has, in fact, done that repeatedly, Land was not impressed and responded by comparing support for reproductive choice to the KKK:  

NEWSWEEK :  When Rudy says "I will appoint strict constructionist judges," you are not hearing that?

Land: I hear it. I hear it.

NEWSWEEK: Well, you don't hear Hillary saying that.

Land: [Land turns to question a Newsweek reporter] Could you vote for a Klansman?

[Reporter responds] No.

You've answered my question.

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays pleads for tolerance of anti-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin: "'Ex-gays have the same right to participate in the political process as other Americans and should not have to endure this type of abuse because they chose to leave homosexuality,' said Regina Griggs, PFOX executive director. 'Gay rights groups demand hate crimes laws and sexual orientation non-discrimination legislation, but would deny the same protection to ex-gays who want full inclusion in society at the same level that gays currently enjoy.'"