John Cole thinks he’s got me by the sensitive bits in a recent post wherein he calls me an “itinerant fool” and says that I have apparently reversed my position on religion and politics in criticizing Mike Huckabee. Let’s take a look at his evidence, shall we?
He cites this post and this one in his dime-store Poirot imitation but, tell me, where in either of them did I criticize the “unhealthy fusion of right-wing politics and religion”? I went back and read each of those posts again, thinking “Wait. Did I really go after Huckabee that way?”. It turns out that I didn’t and Cole’s somehow managed to read something that’s not there.
Let’s review. And since I’m sure many of Cole’s visitors will become my visitors, too, I’ll speak slowly and use small words. I have not criticized Huckabee’s religion. I have not criticized Huckabee for blending faith and policy. Given the history of American presidential elections, I’d be a fool to do so. American democracy is plenty strong enough to withstand a Presidential candidate who uses his religious affiliation as a reason to vote for him. It certainly withstood it when the candidate’s name was John F. Kennedy and it held up pretty well when it was Jimmy Carter, too. It seemed to hold up when Abraham Lincoln used religious principles to make his case for ending the great injustice of slavery. It’ll survive Mike Huckabee.
More to the point, you can’t honestly read the posts that Cole’s waving about with such glee, and get that I’m criticizing Huckabee for mating his faith with his politics? When you read the posts, I’m betting you might notice a certain frequent use of the phrase “passive-aggressive” which, to my layman’s knowledge, is not a religious belief. You might also see the word “dirty” as in “dirty trick” a few times, too. What you won’t see is what Cole insists is there. In fact, one of the posts doesn’t mention his religion at all. Not anywhere. It’s kind of tough to criticize a guy’s religion without actually mentioning it at all, don’t you think? Cole’s leet writing skillz may be up to that task, but mine aren’t. I’ll need to write about a guy’s religion if I’m going to…well…write about a guy’s religion.
It’s clear to anyone who can handle the treacherous prose of a Dick and Jane book that I was not talking at all about an “unhealthy fusion” of politics and religion. I was very clearly pointing out Huckabee’s passive-aggressive ways and asking my fellow Christians whether they wish to be associated with another fellow Christian who behaves in what I believe to be a decidedly un-Christlike manner. I was critizicing his tactics as undesirable, not his politics. I haven’t, to this point, even addressed Mike Huckabee’s politics nor his religion in more than a fleeting fashion (if at all).
Of course, if Cole were to fess up to that, half his post would be utter nonsense. So I suppose he has to make stuff up. I just wish he’d do me the slight honor of tethering his fabrications to reality at least a little bit, though.
Who the hell is john cole? And more important why do we care. The liberal side is always trying to find contradictions on the RIGHT side because most of the Democrat politicians do it everyday. We, or at least I, believe that consistent core values, which mostly emanate from religion, is the foundation not specifically for the right-wing side.
And instead of a unfounded hate which the left has for Bush it was a consistent, inconsistent frustration with Bill C. and a lack of core values.
Be it right or wrong, Bush believes being in Iraq to be correct, and no unclear mandate or inaccurate public opinion poll will change that. Huckabee while exploiting his christian faith does not have a consistent set of conservatve values, you could say his values are “passive-aggressive” depending on how the wind is blowing.
Personally, I will not support him and if he is selected then I will most likely not vote.
drWNC – I think that’s a very good brief analysis.
To clarify, though, I don’t think Huckabee’s values are passive-aggressive. I think the way he’s conducted his campaign is that way. It’s the difference between belief and tactics.
I haven’t really discussed his beliefs here because I don’t know enough about then yet to really dig into them. I don’t think we’ve seen more than the very outer layer of his beliefs at this point.
Thanks, I understand you did not say his values are passive-aggressive but I wanted to tie it in:
It’s about honesty, and “staying-the-course” recognizing when you are wrong, being able to change but not changing positions just for the aspect of the “mood”.
This is why I support Fred T.: Romney and Gulianni are not bad but they have changed positions, I am unable to tell if it is because of a true change in philosphy or playing to audience. I can support John too, even though I do not aggree with him he is mostly consistent so I’ll know what I am getting by electing him for president.
Democrats, John E. picks the platform of the year and runs on it, one in 2004 and another one this year. HC, like her husband, try to capitalize on Day!
I can write technical step by step procedures but when it comes to commentary the words become jumbled with the thoughts, so I typically just read but this one needed a comment. Keep up the good job!
Er, Jimmie. First, JFK never used his Catholicism as “a reason to vote for him”, and Carter used his Christianity very little for it. As for Lincoln, his use of “religious values” to oppose slavery amounted to using the Golden Rule as a reason to oppose it — and the Golden Rule (unlike, say, opposition to gay rights and early-stage abortion) is hardly limited to one particular faction of Christians, or to Christianity in general.
Second, the point Cole was making is that — while YOU may not regard Huckabee’s particular version of Christianity as a reason to vote for him — legions of registered Republicans in Iowa did, and they’re the ones who put him over the top, precisely because they DO think one particular branch of one particular religion should be intimately linked with control of government policies. (See CNN’s exit polls.) And this is precisely the outlook that the GOP Establishment has been deliberately — and in fact feverishly — whipping up ever since the days of Reagan, because it provided them with massive assistance in general elections. Now suddenly the GOP’s carefully gathered and encouraged army of religious myrmidons is rebelling against the Orders from the Top, and you don’t like that at all. Which puts you guys, as Cole says, squarely in the position of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. What a pity.
You’re kidding me, right, Bruce? There was a whole outreach to Catholics based on Kennedy’s Catholicism. It’s not so far in the past that you can’t find living, breathing people who remember it. Ditto Carter. I’m afraid you just don’t know your history very well.
As for the rest of it, well, that wasn’t what Cole was saying when he used me as an example. He was pointing directly to what I was saying, which sort of makes that “while YOU don’t believe” part of your comment a refutation of Cole as well. If it’s obvious that I don’t believe something, don’t point at me and say that I do. Especially when your alleged proof of your assertion refutes you so clearly.
Cole was either being lazy or disingenuous. While that may work on his blog, it doesn’t fly here.
drWNC – I think you’re doing fine. Feel free to comment here as much as you like. Your voice is welcome.
Please, Jimmie. Don’t insist on misinterpreting me that badly. What you (like the GOP as a whole) have had no qualms about peddling up to now is the idea that gay rights, early-stage abortion, and indeed non-Christianity in general are immoral entirely because they ARE non-Christian, or more specifically non-evangelical and non-Biblical-literalist. That is, you and the GOP, had no qualms about peddling that particular brand of religious bigotry. Now, however, that the same type of Biblical-literalist religious bigotry is being used by the GOP’s fundamentalists against the GOP Establishment itself — and particularly against its economic ideology — you, along with the GOP’s masterminds, have suddenly panicked. I now see that Henry Farrell agrees with me ( http://crookedtimber.org/2008/01/05/huckmentum/ ):
“(1) Part 1 of the case against Huckabee winning [the nomination] is that he’s self- evidently clueless about international politics, and has bizarre ideas about domestic politics. But does this really hurt him with a Republican base which has been primed for decades to believe that book-larnin’ and expertise are the tools of Evil Coastal Elites? Attacks on his lack of savoir-faire seem to roll off his back, or perhaps even to make his supporters more enthusiastic. Case in point: his ‘negative advertising without negative advertising’ press conference, which was widely portrayed by media elites as having cooked his goose, but which doesn’t seem to have hurt him one bit. [In this connection, see also Noam Scheiber's interviews with Christian Rightists in Iowa on their reaction to that famous press conference: http://www.tnr.com/politics/st.....2b1432db62 -- Moomaw.]
“(2) Part 2 of the case against [his getting nominated] is that Huckabee doesn’t have any sort of real organization. His decisive win in Iowa demonstrates that he doesn’t need one, at least in states that have a strong evangelical movement. He can rely on the pastors getting out the vote for him. This is one that I’m pretty convinced of – he’s demonstrated that much of the conventional wisdom on the need for organization was wrong. Think of this as the evangelical’s revenge on mainstream Republicans. Much of Karl Rove’s success in 2004 depended on using below-the-radar forms of organization in churches etc to get the vote out. This has created an infrastructure that Huckabee seems to be taking over in the absence of any other real evangelical candidate.”
In the immortal words of Popeye the Sailor: you’ve buttered your bread, and now you’ve got to sleep in it.
Bruce – You keep attributing these beliefs to me even though I’ve said nothing of the sort. No number of quotes from other blogs can get around that one simple and unassailable fact.
In fact, you can go over this entire blog and not find anything I’ve written that posits what you say I believe. Go ahead and look. Take as much time as you like.
You, like Cole, are making up the argument that suits you no matter what my actual posts say.
Until you can come up with something here that proves that I have based any part of political philosophy on solely my religious beliefs, this discussion is over. You lose.
Oh, and again, I’m not a Republican. I haven’t been for eight years.