Pentecostal Calvary Gospel Church in Madison, Wisconsin
is the subject of allegations of widespread sexual assault
occurring over 30 years, (Ferral, The Capital Times).
Madison, Wisconsin — We all have encountered youth obscured in high school, who later become police, court services investigators, for example, or a member of the Republican Party and a fundamentalist church.
But nowhere have we seen the partners-in-violence work of authoritarian institutions become so codified as the white fundamentalist churches and the Republican Party.
Not many saw it coming four years ago, but the triumph of the white supremacist Trump taking over the Republican Party seems natural in retrospect.
The same dynamics are to be found in Wisconsin.
Spiteful, petty and pathetic, the Republican Party has become a repository for the bullied and dull, now seeking revenge.
But no institution is as woefully destructive as the white Christian fundamentalist.
A Pentecostal church, [Calvary Gospel Church], on Madison’s east side has concealed allegations of sexual assault among its congregants for over 30 years, and continues to perpetuate a culture of fear and control that fosters abuse, former
members say. ...
Children were told the end of the world was always near — that Jesus would soon return and choose who to send to heaven and hell. They were taught that they would go to hell and send others there, too, for dishonoring the church and its leaders — which some believe are divinely appointed by God — by reporting abuse outside the church.
The fascist, the abuser, the cult member, the Republican — all find refuge in authoritarian institutions requiring obedience in exchange for minor authority and the chance to seek revenge. The innocent suffer the most.
PTSD is not functional to the war-making enterprise, so many less-than-sophisticated religious fundamentalists say, pray it away.
Even better god loves war, so praying as a weapon in the long tradition of killing for Christ continues for young servicemembers in training. See Trump to ask for $716 billion in defense spending in 2019 budget as Trump works for a war with Iran. It's what god wants.
One really nutty religious fundie coming next week to Fort Jackson, Feb. 1, to give the troops the word epitomizes our religious-military-industrial complex.
Now that he has a new private jet, televangelist Kenneth Copeland is heading to Fort Jackson, South Carolina — to the nation’s largest training installation — to headline a National Prayer Breakfast event.
That alone may not be a huge deal, but Chris Rodda points out that Copeland is an awful choice to speak at any military event — even a Christian one — because he’s said in the past that soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are kidding themselves because God would never let that happen.
Reading from Numbers 32: 20-22, Copeland said, 'So this is a promise — if you do this thing, if you arm yourselves before the Lord for the war … you shall return, you’re coming back, and be guiltless before the Lord and before the nation.'
'Any of you suffering from PTSD right now, you listen to me,' Copeland said as [pseudo-historian David] Barton affirmed him. 'You get rid of that right now. You don’t take drugs to get rid of it. It doesn’t take psychology. That promise right there will get rid of it.'
Video of Copeland's medical brilliance on PTSD:
Below is the text of the letter Mikey Weinstein sent to the Commanding General of Fort Jackson to work for the freedom our service-members in a secular military.
--
Dear Major General John P. “Pete” Johnson,
Sir, it is with deep respect that I earnestly write to you this morning on behalf of 56 of your U.S Army subordinates (Officers, NCOs and U.S. Army civilians), directly under your command, with an expeditious, rational and reasonable demand in your official capacity as the Commanding General of Fort Jackson, South Carolina. For the record, sir, 32 of these complainants practice the Christian faith (Protestant or Roman Catholic), 6 are Jewish, 8 are Muslims, 2 are Hindus, 1 is a Native American spiritualist and the remainder would describe themselves as nontheist, agnostic, atheist, secularist or humanist.
By way of brief introduction, sir, my name is Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein and I am the Founder and President of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). As you may know, MRFF is a large, civil rights advocacy, nonprofit organization founded in late 2005 which vigorously protects and defends, inter alia, the Constitutional, First Amendment civil rights of DoD servicemen and women for Church/State separation in the United States armed forces. Presently, including the 56 servicemen and women mentioned above, MRFF proudly represents over 53,400 United States soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the active duty, reserve, national guard and civilian components of our nation’s military as well as veterans. Approximately 96% of MRFF’s total clients are devoted practitioners of many varied denominations of the Christian faith; about 3/4 of that number are from a large spectrum of Protestant sects and the bulk of the remaining 1/4 are Roman Catholic.
General Johnson, sir, please allow me to cut to the chase as I know you must be very busy as, likewise, we are at MRFF.
General, every year at this time like clockwork MRFF is usually inundated with a plethora of complaints about matters associated with the so-called “National Prayer Breakfasts” (NPBs) and “National Prayer Luncheons” (NPLs) which so many military installations hold on an annual basis. It has been MRFF’s experience that such events, though billed as “non-mandatory” and pure-as-the-driven-snow “voluntary” are very often QUITE the opposite, in all actuality, for so very many unfortunate military subordinates who are “VOLUNTOLD” to attend by their command chains. (I will leave alone, for the moment, the array of serious issues of illicit, First Amendment breaches associated with all of these NPBs and NPLs as they are SO often misused and abused for sinister, twisted purposes of fundamentalist Christian proselytization.)
This new year of 2018 is no different from all of the prior years vis-a-vis the NPBs and NPLs and Fort Jackson’s version of the NPB is currently scheduled for a week from today on Thursday, February 1, 2018. These NPBs and NPLs always feature a special “guest speaker” and THAT, sir, is PRECISELY why I am writing to you this day with a respectful demand for your kind attention and timely help to right an absolutely egregious wrong.
General, do you have ANY idea, sir, whom your staff has selected to be the Fort Jackson special “guest speaker” at your Feb. 1, ’18 NPB?
Assuming you do not, sir, let me please advise you that it is the universally despicable, discredited, fundamentalist Christian extremist/supremacist Kenneth Copeland. Do you know ANYthing of moment about this feckless, religious bully/provocateur, General Johnson? To aid you in your further research, please see the excerpt in red highlight below from a breaking news article publicly published this VERY morning by MRFF’s Senior Research Director, Ms. Chris Rodda (the full article will be immediately sent to you, as well, this morning for your further review):
--
“Will Kenneth Copeland Tell Soldiers at Fort Jackson Prayer Breakfast that PTSD Isn’t Real?”
He’s been investigated by the Senate for financial misconduct. He’s called himself a “Christian extremist.” His fraudulent practices have been exposed by his own employees. He’s Islamophobic, homophobic, and believes that America is a Christian nation. He needs a private jet because commercial airplanes are filled with demons.
Any one of the above things should make televangelist Kenneth Copeland an obviously inappropriate and outrageous choice to be the speaker for the National Prayer Breakfast observance at any U.S. military installation. And yet Copeland has been invited to do just that, and is scheduled to speak at the February 1 prayer breakfast at Fort Jackson, South Carolina — the U.S. Army’s largest training installation and home to the Armed Forces Army Chaplaincy School and Army’s Drill Sergeant School.
But there’s something else that makes Copeland an even more outrageous choice to speak to any military audience. He has claimed that PTSD isn’t real because it isn’t biblical, saying on a 2013 Veterans Day episode of his TV show:
“Any of you suffering from PTSD right now, you listen to me. You get rid of that right now. You don’t take drugs to get rid of it, and it doesn’t take psychology. That promise right there [referring to a Bible verse he had just read] will get rid of it.”
Copeland’s guest that day, Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton, wholeheartedly agreed, adding that warriors in the Bible fighting in the name of God were “esteemed” and in the “faith hall of fame” because they “took so many people out in battle.”
---
Oh, General Johnson, there is just SO much, much more about this disgusting Copeland person which MRFF could expand upon but suffice it to say that this great homage and special invitation proffered by your command staff to honor a miserable, fundamentalist Christian wretch like Copeland as the special “guest speaker’ at Fort Jackson’s NPB is TOTALLY antithetical to the United States Army’s vaunted “7 Core Values” of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage. Indeed, General, the SHOCKING selection of such a divisive and corrosive individual/religious predator and bully to be the main speaking attraction at your NPB at Fort Jackson is nothing less than a terminal and swift cancer to the bedrock good order, morale, discipline and unit cohesion of your command at Fort Jackson.
The 56 U.S. Army personnel under your direct command, sir, at Fort Jackson who have pleaded for MRFF to intercede on their collective behalf regarding this sordid matter justly fear punitive reprisal and retribution if they try to express their outrage over Copeland’s selection via their respective chains of command or by “outting” themselves via Inspector General/Equal Employment Opportunity (IG/EEO) complaints.
Therefore, sir, on behalf of our 56 U.S.Army clients, MRFF is officially demanding that you immediately rescind this invitation to Kenneth Copeland to speak at the Fort Jackson NPB. General Johnson, sir, the good news is that there is still time to do the right thing here! Sir, please replace this hideously reprehensible fundamentalist Christian charlatan cum exclusivist bigot with another more respectable and inspiring, inclusive individual. General, please pick SOMEone else, ANYone else who, unlike Copeland who gleefully brags about being a “Christian extremist”, clearly represents and buttresses the aforementioned Army’s “7 Core Values” whilst concomitantly strengthening the “Army Strong” foundations of strength-through-diversity inextricably intertwined with supporting and enhancing good order, morale, discipline and unit cohesion.
General Johnson, I am happy to discuss this urgent matter of MRFF’s demand that you rescind Kenneth Copeland’s Fort Jackson NPB speaking invitation with you at your earliest opportunity should you have any additional queries or desire, for any other reason, to further communicate.
Sincerely and respectfully submitted with best wishes and standing by for your decision,
It's great reading an author, feeling like he just read your mind.
Writes Brown:
From the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to American politics—the name Jesus had been hijacked as an ally in all kinds of power struggles. Since the beginning of time, the ignorant had always screamed the loudest, herding the unsuspecting masses and forcing them to do their bidding. They defended their worldly desires by citing Scripture they did not understand. They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now, after all these years, mankind had finally managed to utterly erode everything that had once been so beautiful about Jesus. - p 327
Draper reports that Rumsfeld’s monomaniacal determination to protect his Pentagon turf led him to hobble and antagonize America’s most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia, and even to undermine his own soldiers. But Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.
Onward Christian Soldiers! These never-before-seen documents from the Rumsfeld Pentagon mixed religion and war.
In the days surrounding the U.S. invasion of Iraq, cover sheets—like the ones in this exclusive GQ.com slideshow—began adorning the top-secret intelligence briefings produced by Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon. The sheets juxtaposed war images with inspirational Bible quotes and were delivered by Rumsfeld himself to the White House, where they were read by the man who, just after September 11, referred to America's war on terror [sic] as a 'crusade.'
Let's hope each revelation leads to Obama reversing the wars and crimes against humanity that Bush-Cheney-Rice-Rumsfeld committed with impunity.
Watching the GQ.com slideshow, a reader laughs, scoffs, and sadly ruminates on the degree to which these depraved lies are going to continue under Obama's administration.
Bishop Robert Morlino must get his entitlement to impose bigotry from some sacred place indeed. And a new sign of the Cathlic Church ought to read "all are welcome, except women."
As a girl, Ruth Kolpack said she so loved her Catholic faith she played church with her friends during recess at a parochial school.
Often, she was a member of the congregation. Occasionally, she pretended to be an altar server, a role not available to girls at the time.
Now 64, Kolpack is still grappling with the role of women in the Catholic Church, although the circumstances are much more serious than a playground game. On March 12, Madison Catholic Bishop Robert Morlino fired Kolpack from her position as the full-time pastoral associate at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Beloit. The termination came after Kolpack said she refused the bishop’s request to renounce a 2003 college thesis in which she argued for more gender-inclusive language at Masses and harshly criticized the Catholic hierarchy’s doctrine of only ordaining males.
You can't just mock the Lord like Google is doing in its graphic today (above) honoring Charles Darwin's 200th birthday.
Right. Amazing, the astounding ignorance and fear of the religious mind.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor, I think it was Ronald Numbers, pointed out to me some eights years ago that George W. Bush and Al Gore shared a position on teaching evolution in public schools: That the federal government should leave it to local school districts to decide [out of fear of offending the fearful among us] and the candidates studiously avoided taking a position on the merits of evolution as an explanatory theory.
It was worse in Darwin's time, but only in degree. As David Brown writes in the Post in his excellent piece:
In biology's most famous book, ‘On the Origin of Species,’ Charles Darwin steered clear of applying his revolutionary theory of evolution to the species of greatest interest to his readers -- their own.
He couldn't avoid it forever, of course. He eventually wrote another tome nearly as famous, ‘The Descent of Man.’ But he knew in 1859, when ‘Species’ was published, that to jump right into a description of how human beings had tussled with the environment and one another over eons, changing their appearance, capabilities and behavior in the process, would be hard for people to accept. Better to stick with birds and barnacles.
From ELISABETTA POVOLEDO and LAURIE GOODSTEIN in the Times:
The Vatican issued the most authoritative and sweeping document on bioethical issues in 20 years on Friday, taking into account recent developments in biomedical technology and reinforcing the church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research.
I realize the Vatican's feeling towards sodomy, but in the face of what science can offer the world, the Vatican's profound ignorance and foolishness offends me.
So here are other instructions: Stick your suggestions up your collective ass.
Your child molester-protecting outfit is out of its league when talk of ethics arises. How about the Vatican issues a disclaimer on the bottom of every official document for the next 50 years apologising for its collective sin?
Has Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy S. Lederman been getting too much sun or is she seeing the light?
Judge Lederman ruled on a legal case challenging a Florida law that bans lesbians and gays from adopting, finding the statute unconstitutional.
The case raises the big question Republicans are pondering as they decide which way forward for their battered Party: Embracing ignorance and authoritarianism or some manner of qualified libertarianism.
[Pictured above-right is Martin Gill with the two brothers he hopes to adopt in Florida.] From the ACLU:
Judge Lederman "struck down a Florida law that bars lesbians and gay men from adopting. The court granted adoptions to a gay man, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, who has been raising two foster children since 2004," reads a ACLU press release.
"The court ruled that the ban violated the equal protection guarantees of the state constitution because it singles out for different treatment gay people and the children they raise for no rational reason. The court also found that the ban denies children the right to permanency provided by federal and state law under the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997."
In 2005, the US Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the Florida law. So, the US Supreme Court that ruled an equal protection violation in Bush v. Gore did not get to rule on a violation in this case.
The case will likely end up in the Florida Supreme Court where four of the seven members were appointed by the late Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles.
We'll get there.
Times are changing, ultimately, such discriminatory laws as Florida's adoption law and the many anti-gay marriage statutes and state constitutional amendments will go the way of laws banning inter-"racial" marriage that were struck down in Loving v. Virginia, (1967) on equal protection grounds by the the US Supreme Court.
Change is gonna come, and likely the GOP will be left behind.
Barack Obama received a higher share of the Protestant vote, 45%, than any other Democratic nominee since at least 1972, the earliest year for which I have data. By comparison, in 2004 Kerry received 40% of the Protestant vote and in 2000 Gore received 42%.
Even though McCain honed his campaign message to appeal to the religious right, alienating much of the country in the process, there was at a significant increase in Obama's share of the religious vote over Kerry's, especially among Catholics.
McCain's lack of appeal to the religious right and his poor people skills have been obvious since the inception of his campaign.
Democrats are looking forward to a John McCain GOP nomination for president.
McCain faces the impossible task of disentangling himself from George W. Bush and presents the close-to-impossible task of bringing along the religious right.
You can bet that not just McCain but the remaining congressional Republicans will have similar results as McCain when they try to appeal to the American people through obstruction, assuming they are as sociopathic as Bush which is a fair assumption.
Sarah Palin: McCain's won't let her near a press conference or an unscripted forum facing questions.
At least let her speak in tongues.
As Steve Hanson writes: I swore that I wouldn't pile on to the Sarah Palin story, despite her and John McCain's need to lie continually in their speeches - but I think this should be seen. I think a person's religion is their own business - but when we're being asked to elect someone who would ask her church to pray for a pipeline because it's part of her political agenda --- it raises a lot of questions.
A woman's right to choose is dead if John McCain is elected president.
But the Bush administration is fighting to inflict as much damage as possible on women prior to that sickening possibility of choice disappearing, including decreasing the availability of contraception.
The Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing a draft regulation that would deny federal funding to any hospital, clinic, health plan or other entity that does not accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in care that runs counter to their personal convictions, including providing birth-control pills, IUDs and the Plan B emergency contraceptive.
"The breadth of this is potentially immense," said Robyn S. Shapiro, a bioethicist and lawyer at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "Is this going to result in a kind of blessed censorship of a whole host of areas of medical care and research?" ... Critics charge that the proposal is the latest example of the administration politicizing science to advance ideological goals. ... Others said the rule could have additional implications, including justifying discrimination against gays, single women or others seeking health care. "As soon as you have a definition in one part of federal law, it can become the inspiration for the reinterpretation of other statutes," said R. Alta Charo, a lawyer and bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
McCain is even more anti-choice than Bush. It will be interesting to see where McCain lines up on this initiative.
Is this late initiative intended as a way for McCain to shore support with the religious right, though this would hurt him with political independents?
Or is this George W. Bush just being the fool to whom we have become accustomed?
One thing is certain, all women and all who value women's civil rights should be outraged.
Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone discusses the failure of John McCain to consolidate his position as GOP nominee with the religious right, asking: Is this the end of the GOP's unholy alliance?
As written here before, though I happen to disagree with their descriptive facts of the world, those of the religious right whom I have met personally (here in Wisconsin) are earnest and well-intentioned, disdainful of cynicism and involved in the concept of community. And they do not respect liars.
And that's why McCain is not playing well.
(H)is basic stump speech doesn't contain a single line about God or religion. McCain is probably the first Republican in modern history to talk more about 'green technology' than about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ. ...
... Here's the thing about John McCain, and it's never easy to tell whether this is a good quality or a bad one. He's a shitty liar. He may be willing to change his position on anything from immigration to torture to campaign finance at the drop of a hat to win votes, and he may have no problem aiming below the belt — below the knees even — to impugn an opponent's patriotism. But this is not a guy who can get up in front of a churchgoing crowd in Asscrack, Arkansas, and start weeping to Jesus. In fact, he appears to deeply resent the implication that he needs to genuflect to the baby savior at all. As in, 'Hell, I already lived through five years of torture! You want me to do more?'
I’ve been wondering what the Religious Right is going to do about John McCain. These groups are clearly not crazy about the guy. But I predicted months ago that the fear of a Democratic president would terrify them so much that they would come around. That’s what appears to be happening.
Not true.
McCain will underperform, and Obama will overperform with the grassroots of the religious right, which is all that has to happen to destroy the GOP nominee.
As much as I disagree with the religious right’s grassroots on just about everything, from personal experience in speaking with some of these people (in Wisconsin), my conclusion is that commitment to “community” matters and perception of authenticity matters.
That McCain does not have to a sufficient degree, though their campaign is working on it.
Good to read McCain still having trouble with the religious right.
Though I happen to disagree with their descriptive facts of the world, those of the religious right whom I have met personally (here in Wisconsin) are earnest and well-intentioned, disdainful of cynicism and involved in the concept of community.
Perhaps the key question about the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nominee is: How badly will the Republican nominee under-perform with the religious right in the general election?
Looking at the nominee, the answer appears to be very badly.
Though the religious right voters arguably comprises merely some 15 percent of the electorate in the general election, absent their enthusiastic support, the Republican nominee is dead.
The religious right has found no acceptable candidates in the GOP's first-tier candidates, so Democrats had some fun observing their nomination process while Obama emerged as the Democratic nominee and the GOP winner John McCain took the mantle.
"Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," said James Dobson last year. Few religious right leaders have forgiven McCain for his wildly unpopular (in Republican circles) McCain/Feingold bill, and his April 9, 2000 speech trashing the religious right (that’s the Robertson/Falwell “agents of intolerance” speech).
The Republicans are going to lose this fall, and they are right to be very afraid.
In a message that is a thinly veiled attack on the dishonesty of George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter offers a message on lies and the American presidency in the Washington Post late last week.
Though referencing modern history during the era of Carter's presidency, it is George W. Bush, not named by Carter, who comes to mind for his execution of the presidency and his active subversion of the Constitution that make his administration, without question, the most dishonest and anti-democratic in modern American history.
Jimmy Carter
Presidents Should Not Be Liars
I do not think the President of the United States should be a liar, and believe that the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens agree with me. For security reasons, the whole truth cannot always be revealed, but it is quite obvious that lies are seldom made to protect our nation. Almost invariably, the political fortunes of the prevaricator are at stake.
During my campaign for the White House in 1976, veracity was a very important issue, because of the known falsehoods having been told during the Vietnam War and the revelations of the Frank Church senatorial investigation that our government had, through the CIA, committed murder and other crimes. I habitually told my small groups of supporters, "If I even make a misleading statement, don't support me."
Although stigmatized as naïve and often having to suffer the consequences, I maintained this commitment to truthfulness during my term in office, and it paid off in many ways. One example was the trust aroused in me by President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menachim Begin, which was instrumental in orchestrating the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. I've observed at other times that the exploding consequences of a small lie can result in political catastrophe, as was shown in President Nixon's effort to conceal the Watergate break-in. There have been other examples since I left office.
The author was the 39th President of the United States.
From the London Independent comes word of a breakthrough in treating Parkinson's disease. The Catholic Church, predictably, does not like such fare.
Reports Steve Connor:
A potential cure for Parkinson's disease has come a significant step closer today with a study showing that it is possible to treat the degenerative brain disorder with cells derived from cloned embryos – a development condemned by the Roman Catholic Church.
Obama advocates concerned about the recent pro-McCain coverage on CNN and MSNBC as a precursor of biased media treatment to come in the general election can relax.
McCain is a fatally weak GOP candidate to face Obama, and it’s likely that many GOP movement wingers see him as a 2008 sacrificial sheep happily slaughtered to the 2012-2016 gods.
There's no open talk from GOP insiders of course, but there is a secret let-McCain-fall program: Call it McCainCon [a play on the secret EComCon conspiracy from the Seven Days in May movie based on the Fletcher Knebel- Charles W. Bailey II book].
I'm suggesting a plot by conservative movement officers to sabotage the GOP nominee for president of the United States.
And many conservatives need only participate with faint energy in the campaign to add their support to this McCainCon conspiracy, watching a man they dislike take the fall in a Goldwateresque election for the GOP.
Consider some structural election facts and Democratic capabilities.
GOP Coalition
McCain has always been one of the least likely candidates to assemble a winning GOP coalition for a presidential run.
Consider the religious right.
"Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," said James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who reiterated his determination to not work and vote for McCain a few weeks ago.
And religious right leaders have not forgiven McCain for his wildly unpopular McCain/Feingold bill, and his April 9, 2000 speech trashing the religious right (that’s the Robertson/Falwell “agents of intolerance” speech).
Looking forward to the Ohio/Texas races this Tuesday, its bears noting that in the last GOP primary in Wisconsin (Feb. 19), McCain barely exceeded the margin of victory over Mike Huckabee that Obama scored over Hillary, 18 percent, and 17 percent respectively.
With respect to the religious right, the question is not whether, but how badly McCain will underperform in the general election. In McCain the GOP has picked a candidate arguably as bad as Rudy or Romney.
With overwhelming majorities (including active duty personnel and veterans) calling for a pull-out from Iraq, how do you think an anti-Iraq War, pro-veteran Obama will do against a man calling for troops in Iraq for as long as 100 years?
Bush
McCain has now tied himself so intimately with Bush with accompanying flipflops on torture and tax cuts for the super-wealthy, that no amount of September/October spinning can extricate McCain from the political sinkhole that is George W. Bush.
No Election for Old Ways
On both style and substance, Obama offers a change away from the last eight years of government under Bush/Rove/Cheney. Does anyone believe that McCain in both style and substance offers something different than the Bush regime?
Conclusion
There are other weaknesses—the economy, unemployment, education, health care, as well as desired changes of political tone, attitudes toward government being the peoples’ instrument, and pro-Democratic disparity in party enthusiasm—in which McCain offers no match for Obama.
Honest GOP players know this, though saying it out loud would be silly; and the fact of the matter is that many GOP movement warriors simply do not like McCain for a variety of personal and political reasons and are happy to watch him take the fall in a silent and deadly political plot of inaction.
Hillary and Obama supporters can take solace from today's words of the religious right's most important figure, James Dobson, founder and chair of the influential Focus on the Family.
Should the presumptive GOP nominee McCain win the nomination, James Dobson says he will sit out the campaign:
"I'm deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, who voted for embryonic stem cell research to kill nascent human beings, who opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, and who has little regard for freedom of speech, who organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.
"I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has at times sounded more like a member of the other party. McCain actually considered leaving the GOP in 2001, and approached John Kerry about being Kerry's running mate in 2004. McCain also said publicly that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.
"But what a sad and melancholy decision this is for me and many other conservatives. Should John McCain capture the nomination as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime. I certainly can't vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life. These decisions are my personal views and do not represent the organization with which I'm affiliated. They do reflect, however, my deeply held convictions about the institution of the family, about moral and spiritual beliefs, and about the welfare of our country."
