For God's Sake--article by Krugman

[dtotire]

For God’s Sake
By PAUL KRUGMAN

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.

Read the rest here:

http://wealthyfrenchman.blogspot.com/2007/04/for-gods-sake.html

[AX10]

1. K & R!

Islamic fundamentalists are not the only threat to us.

[1932]

2. And think how this looks to the rest of the world

Imagine what we'd think of, say, france, if there were some extreme right winger within their justice department who SUCCESSFULLY removed competent prosecutors and replaced them with extreme right wingers.

[rodeodance]

3. Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.”

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.

[lolly]

4. That's why I think no "negotiation" works

It seems as if every time someone posts something about these people, someone has to pipe up and say "see, that's why they don't like you! How will you ever get them to support Democrats if you say MEAN things about them."

They see negotiation as weakness. They are not looking to work towards any common good. They only want to stamp out any diversity of opinion and force their anti-democratic ideas on the rest of the country.

Democrats who try to "reach across the aisle" to toady to these people are only helping them gain power by giving them the legitimacy they don't deserve.

[dysfunctional press]

5. if this 150 regent university grads in the cheney misadministration catches on in the msm...

it WILL be the thing that brings down the house of cards.

but then- i suppose that could have been said about any number of their missteps.

the corporo-fascist media is the REAL enemy. they could EASILY bring down bush with the simple truth. look what they were able to accomplish with clinton and his monica.

[krispos42]

6. K&R

"American Taliban", indeed...