Muckroom Follies 12.17.07 Schizophrenia!

What an interesting grouping today over at the TownhallDotCom Muckroom. (And, Dear Gentle Reader(s), what an interesting chance to see the old "stopped clock is correct twice a day" in esse.)

First we have this column by one Charles Mitchell. Here is the operative sentence from the opening paragraph: "Conservative evangelicals need a president who shares our political and moral values and priorities, can win in 2008, and can govern effectively thereafter by articulating and implementing a values-based governing strategy."

Without clearly respecting the "political and moral values and priorities" of the hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens who are not "conservative evangelicals," why on earth would the general public even consider voting for someone who had the backing of such a religious group?

What, exactly, is a "values-based governing strategy?" Whose values? President Bush, largely a product of conservative Christians in 2004, has played fast and loose with truth and responsibility (not to mention lives of an entirely innocent civilian population in Iraq). Is this an example of "values-based" government?

Don't we have enough examples of governments world wide which are dominated by religious organizations and which are deeply disturbing? Just today the news carries the item of the Saudi king setting aside the 200 blow caning of a rape victim, not because the punishment is unjustified, but, in spite of agreeing with the sentence, the king is responding to outrage outside of Saudi Arabia. And that's an example of excessive religious pressure in the country of an ally!

We might have to rephrase the Reagan quip into Verify, but never trust!

We move, DGR(s), down the page to one Star Parker. Now, personally, I think Ms Parker is a bit too strident on her RWN positions, and I also think she's one of the "jail house converts." (That's one of the Charles Colson ilk...good opportunity for you to take a Google detour and check out the backgrounds of Colson and Parker...conversions might be sincere, they might also be convenient--and lucrative!)

Parker's point today is one with which I totally agree (the old stopped clock is correct twice a day phenomenon). She contends that questions asked of Mr. Romney about his religion are fair game. She further contends that criticism of Mr. Huckabee for raising the "Jesus and Lucifer brotherhood" is unjustified; especially since the brotherhood is a Mormon teaching.

I have to agree with Parker. Why is it a "low blow" to ask someone who wishes to lead our nation just how he justifies saying "I believe in the faith of my fathers" when that faith included abject racism as recently as the late 1970's?

Ah, the Muckroom. It is exasperating to shovel through the horse
droppings, but occasionally there are more tangible traces of a pony. We just have to keep digging.

And verifying, before we trust.

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