Posted on 09/02/2011 5:22:09 AM PDT by markomalley
The fundamental facts of the presidential race at this moment are that unemployment is high, the economy is by far the most important issue to American voters, and President Obama's handling of economic questions is overwhelmingly unpopular. Republican presidential hopefuls Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and others are hammering the president daily on matters of job creation and economic growth.
Now some of Obama's activist allies and supporters in the press are engaged in a sharply focused effort to change the subject. Even as economic anxieties continue to rise, some of the nation's premier political journalists are consumed with the alleged influences of obscure religious philosophers on Republican candidates; on questions of creationism, evolution, and the age of the Earth; and on the fantasy that a Republican president might transform the United States into an Iranian-style theocracy.
For example, the Daily Beast/Newsweek recently published an article titled "A Christian Plot for Domination?" claiming that Perry and Bachmann are "deeply associated with a theocratic strain of Christian fundamentalism" known as Dominionism. A widely discussed article in the Texas Observer claimed that Dominionists -- a "little-known movement of radical Christians" -- are readying an "army of God" to "commandeer civilian government," with Perry the "vessel" for their ambitions. Finally, the New Yorker published a long article claiming that Bachmann believes "Christians, and Christians alone, are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns."
Surveying those articles, the executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, concludes that "an unusually large number" of Republican candidates "belong to churches that are mysterious or suspect to many Americans." Perry and Bachmann, in particular, are connected to "fervid subsets of evangelical Christianity," which Keller says "has raised concerns about their respect for the separation of church and state, not to mention the separation of fact and fiction." Fearing that Perry or Bachmann could be a "Trojan horse" for a religious takeover of the government, Keller advocates strict questioning of candidates on doctrinal issues.
Put aside whether there is some bias against Christianity in these baseless charges, or whether liberals are proposing the kind of religious test for office that the Founders explicitly rejected. It has often been remarked that, given today's terrible economy, Barack Obama cannot run in 2012 on the theme of hope, as he did in 2008. With his record, he'll have to run on fear -- that is, on convincing voters that Republicans are just too scary to elect.
This is what running on fear looks like. Could the president's political strategists be anything less than delighted with the work of Keller and his colleagues?
Out on the campaign trail, Democratic activists are trying to maneuver the candidates into statements to feed the Republicans-are-religious-nuts narrative. For example, in New Hampshire a few weeks ago, a young boy approached Perry with a series of questions about science. How old is the Earth? the boy asked. As Perry answered (he said he didn't know), the boy's mother pushed her son to confront the governor. "Ask him about evolution," she ordered the boy. "Ask him why he doesn't believe in science." Perry's answer -- that evolution is a theory that has "some gaps" -- provided more material for Keller and the subject-changers.
Elsewhere on the trail, so-called "trackers" from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, David Brock's American Bridge, and other organizations follow Republicans around, sometimes posing out-of-the-blue questions in hopes of throwing a candidate off message. "It's all about homosexuality, Islam, anything that is remotely sensitive socially," says Ellen Carmichael, spokeswoman for frequent target Herman Cain. "That's what they usually ask about."
Not even the longest of longshot candidates is immune. Back in May, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson spoke at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, S.C., touting his record on job creation and cutting spending. After Johnson's talk, a staffer for the Center for American Progress approached him with questions about Shariah law. Johnson was baffled.
Meanwhile, with the economy still tanking, some liberal commentators have worked themselves into a virtual panic over religion. On Wednesday alone, one Washington Post columnist declared flatly that "Rick Perry is a theocrat," while another discussed the urgent task of "saving America from Rick Perry."
Will these diversionary efforts succeed? Political journalists can talk about theocracy all they want, but Americans are still overwhelmingly concerned with jobs. The more hysterical the religious speculation becomes, the more voters will be able to spot an effort to change the subject.
My idiot mother was quoting this Dominionism crap the other day. Was wondering where she got it. She was saying Rick Perry wants to institute the death penalty for blaphemy. Just goes to show—you can’t debate a liberal. They’re out of their minds crazy.
Liberalism is a mental disorder per Michael Savage and he’s absolutely correct.
The death penalty for Blasphemy? That would be Islam. Point that out to her.
The redneck's Opus Dei.
self-ping
Spoken from a point of blazing biblical ignorance.
If we stop to think about it, many things can be framed in the context of a religious war. Religion determines people’s decisions from debates to world events. Consider the Vietnam War, for instance. The French set up an infra-structure putting Catholics in charge. Buddhists didn’t like this and forced the French out leading to an all out religious war.
Reflect, if you will, on the Romney Debate. So many Mormon-haters would rather have someone other than a Mormon, without considering shared values, as a President, we end up with someone like Obama. Look, it was the Evangelicals in Iowa that took Romney out and the Huckster turned his supporters over to McCain as a result of the South Carolina primary leaving us with a tired old quasi-liberal McCain to run against Obama. Does anyone think that Romney could have been worse than Obama or McCain?
Many times we will trust someone, or distrust someone for that matter, simply because of our religious faith. Carter never would have made it past peanut farming if the Southern Baptists would not have propelled him past his level of competency.
I have an ex-Catholic now atheist associate who abhors the idea of any elected Christian proposing laws that would affect him. Tell him your religious faith and you’re done.
Like it or not, most debates are religious ones and the coming election will be no different unless it is more pronounced.
Well, they don’t have anything objective to offer. ~9% (real ~20%) unemployment for a decade, when we should be easing down to 4% by now? $2T deficits with no end? More wars? Tanking $? Time to switch to “my opponent is evil and will eat your children” mode.
Of course the lib anti religious zealots are absolutely correct. We are engaged in a religious war. The forces of evil are aligned against the light of the world. Their arguments have no merit because they oppose the dark imaginings of their own black souls.
Every Republican candidate save 1 is a devout Christian. Even Romney considers himself a Christian.
The Christian faith informs good government. It is the foundation of this nation’s morality and its laws. It is a guiding spirit in our Constitution.
Atheists are right in saying that we are engaged in a religious war. They are on the wrong side.
The liberal agenda revolves around three tools:
Racism
Envy and hatred of anyone who has more of anything
Fear mongering
Liberalism is a religion of nihilism. Liberals are not really for anything but are instead against whatever is.
As Reagan said, Liberalism has the goal of making everyone equally miserable. There is no hope in Liberalism.
And Obama´s an islamist muslim. I´ll take a Christian any day.
Been there, done that (with a lib):
“Oh, but we must be tolerant of Islam, because they are oppressed.”
And no amount of further argument is possible, because they will never concede that Islam is NOT oppressed. And that somehow, oppressed victim status makes the target immune to criticism. (I guess this is a standard tenet of liberalism)
O.K., let’s bring it on. Let’s discuss Mr. Obama’s “church” before he ran for President.
Yep, there's a strange religion that allows men to marry children as young as six - and men can have children with four women - and call all of those women 'wife'. Even more mysterious, the women must cover their faces to hide their sexual shame. Daughters who are caught with men are often killed by their fathers. And women who are raped without four witnesses are often raped again by a 'judge' before being put to death. OH WAIT - THAT'S ISLAM. The 'suspect' Christian groups have prayer meetings on Wednesday nights...
Bill Keller - you Christaphobe - you bigot - put up or shut up. Do a side by side comparison - Islam vs Christianity. Their 'normal' - our 'normal' - their 'extreme' our 'extreme' and the numbers of people in each group.
And for good measure Keller, here's the stats on terrorists in the last two years:
126 people were indicted for being terrorists in the last two years. NOT ONE of the 126 was Christian. Not one was a white middle class man. Not one was an upper class white woman ( as depicted in 'homeland security' PSA's). Not one was Republican. Not one was conservative. Every person indicted for terrorism in the United States in the past two years - (all 126 ) - was Muslim.
The Left paints the campaign as a religious war, and American leftists are usually campaigning and voting for their currently hoped-for savior, not for a mere president.
If they want to judge the candidates on whether the church they belong to is "radical" just ask them to find any pastor of a church they attended that preached as much hatred as Obama's Rev. Wright.
The fascists know that this election is a real threat to their pagan humanist gods of self and hedonism even if the great mass of numb skulls in the middle don't. Of course they're going to frame this as a religious war, only the religious beliefs of the majority can derail the fascist nobility system that Barry and his Congressional super-majority have finally managed put into law. Obamacare isn't about health, it's about the fascists eighty year struggle to establish a eugenics based nobility and plantation system to replace the plantation system they lost in our Civil War. The same mindset that ran the democrat fascist party prior to that War, established Jim Crow after that war, and created welfare plantations to take black folks out of their own communities under LBJ, still runs the fascist party in this country.
Ever since, "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" was the must read book among Federal and State employees the fascists have been quite open about their dedication to the same eugenics theories Hitler espoused. What's really ironic is how black folks unfailingly support the very eugenics crowd that is so clearly dedicated to eliminating black folks via the mass murder of infants at abortion clinics. Since they've accepted the Judas Goat in Chief as their own they've become the most enthusiastic providers of human sacrifice victims in history, fully supporting and cheering on their own executioners.
For once they are right. He is coming to dominate the world and they will find themselves on the wrong side.
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