Free Republic

The only thing scarier than the Christian Right are pundits who believe that they cost the GOP the election. Without anything constructive to do, Republicans have apparently decided that being destructive might not be the wisest course of action but is a far sight better than sitting around and twiddling their thumbs. And that brings us to Kathleen Parker, conservative columnist with the Washington Post Writer’s Group and, lately, the bane of the GOP base. Parker, who became the model for thousands of conservative voodoo dolls when she wrote a few weeks ago that Sarah Palin should resign from the...

It may be time to take a closer look at karmic justice — that mysterious quid pro quo by which good and bad acts are rewarded in kind. One needn't believe in past lives and reincarnation to note that there's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on. Put another way: What goes around comes around. The most obvious manifestation is the 44th president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. I mention his middle name only because Chief Justice John Roberts did during the swearing-in ceremony, a proper time for proper names. It was wholly karmic that those who have been...

December 05, 2008, 1:40 p.m. Enough with the Oogedy-BoogedyReligion, politics, and us. By Shannen W. Coffin Kathleen Parker’s war on religion in the Re-public-an square entered a new phase today. In her syndicated column, she nobly attempted to explain her use of the term “oogedy-boogedy” to describe religious conservatives. It’s not that she is “anti-God.” It’s just that God really shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company. Religion can inform our values (gee, thanks). But reason, not religion, should inform our public debates. I hadn’t realized religion and reason were mutually exclusive. It seems Pope Benedict hasn’t gotten the memo,...

In the several days since I first used the term in a column describing the Republican Party's "religious" problem, oogedy-boogedy seems to have entered the bloxicon. (New word invented right here, meaning: the blogosphere's lexicon.) Google produces more than 26,000 references.... ...While dismissing assertions -- mine and others' -- that the Republican Party has a religion problem, Ponnuru acknowledges that social conservatives "could present themselves more attractively," and "pick their spokesmen more wisely." That's a start, but let's take it another step. How about social conservatives make their arguments without bringing God into it? By all means, let faith inform...

Every time the GOP takes a beating at the ballot box there are calls to get rid of those doggone social conservatives -- or as Kathleen Parker refers to them, the "oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP." This is a fascinating argument -- well, fascinating if you like watching people who don't even realize that they're doing little more than projecting their own personal biases onto the Republican Party and calling it political strategy. Atheists, agnostics, Elvis worshippers, Jedis, Satanists -- it doesn't matter; they're all welcome in the Republican Party (Ok, not the Satanists so much. They're creepy losers). However,...

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit. Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D. I'm bathing in holy water as I type. To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh. Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among...