In article <PltXg.22040$Ij.14441@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
"Bush is God?" <PissedOff@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
white house.org> wrote:
> To link me to George Bush is like linking me to an Oscar. That's
> ridiculous."
> -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,
> 10/11/06
>
> VERSUS
>
> "Our president, George W. Bush, has worked hard to protect and preserve
the
> American dream for all of us. And that's why I say, send him back to
> Wa****ngton for four more years. Four more years!"
> -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), address to the Republican National
> Convention, 8/31/04
>
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=206456487&url_num=10&url=ht
>
tp://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=televisionNews&storyID=2006-
>
10-12T024735Z_01_N11424242_RTRIDST_0_TELEVISION-LENO-DC.XML&WTmodLoc=EntNewsTV
> _C1_%5BFeed%5D-3
>
> Do republicans ever even consider the truth?
>
>
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but
inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.
Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" - Matthew
7:15-16
Great timing for this latest book by Kuo :-) What Foley did not crack
and splinter in Bush's base, this book hopefully will.
Trident
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Olbermann Exclusive: Dissecting new Book: Tempting Faith
By: John Amato on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 4:59 PM - PDT
According to Kuo, Karl Rove's office referred to evangelical leaders as
'the nuts.'
Tonight on Countdown-David Kuo, who was the number two guy at the
Office of Faith Based initiatives in the White House writes a scathing
account of how the administration used Christians to grab and maintain
power. This story validates Tucker Carlson's admission that: "The deep
truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for
the evangelicals who put their party in power."
[Transcript]
When President Bush touched on Iraq at his news conference this
morning, he may have been revealing more than he knew.
[video] BUSH: The stakes couldn't be any higher, as I said earlier, in
the world in which we live. There are extreme elements that use
religion to achieve objectives.
He was talking about religious extremists in Iraq. But an hour later,
Mr. Bush posed with officials from the Southern Baptist Convention.
It is described as the largest, most influential evangelical
denomination in a new book by the former number-two man in Bush's
Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.
The book, "Tempting Faith," not out until Monday, but in our third
story tonight, a Countdown exclusive we've obtained a copy and it is
devastating work.
Author David Kuo's conservative Christian credentials are impeccable;
his resume sprinkled with names like Bennett and Ashcroft. Now, as the
Foley cover-up has many evangelical Christians wondering whether the
G.O.P. is really in sync with their values, "Tempting Faith" provides
the answer: No way.
Kuo, citing one example after another of a White House that repeatedly
uses evangelical Christians for their votes - while consistently
giving them nothing in return;
A White House which routinely speaks of the nation's most famous
evangelical leaders behind their backs, with contempt and derision.
Furthermore, Faith-Based Initiatives were not only stiffed on one
public promise after another by Mr. Bush - the office itself was
eventually forced to answer a higher calling: Electing Republican
politicians.
Kuo's bottom line: the Bush White House is playing millions of American
Christians for suckers.
According to Kuo, Karl Rove's office referred to evangelical leaders as
'the nuts.'
Kuo says, 'National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in
person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as
'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy.' "
So how does the Bush White House keep 'the nuts' turning out at the
polls?
One way, regular conference calls with groups led by Pat Robertson,
James Dobson, Ted Haggard, and radio hosts like Michael Reagan.
Kuo says, "Participants were asked to talk to their people about
whatever issue was pending. Advice was solicited [but] that advice
rarely went much further than the conference call. [T]he true purpose
of these calls was to keep prominent social conservatives and their
groups or audiences happy."
They do get some things from the Bush White House, like the National
Day of Prayer, "another one of the eye-rolling Christian events,"
Kuo says.
And "p***** to be in the crowd greeting the president when he arrived
on Air Force One or tickets for a speech he was giving in their
hometown. Little trinkets like cufflinks or pens or pads of paper were
passed out like business cards. Christian leaders could give them to
their congregations or donors or friends to show just how influential
they were. Making politically active Christians personally happy meant
having to worry far less about the Christian political agenda."
When cufflinks weren't enough, the White House played the Jesus card,
reminding Christian leaders that, quote, "they knew the president's
faith" and begging for patience.
And the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives?
According to Kuo, "White House staff didn't want to have anything to
do with the Faith-Based Initiative because they didn't understand it
any more than did congressional Republicans . They didn't lie awake at
night trying to kill it. They simply didn 't care."
Kuo relates one faith-based promise after another - billions of
dollars in funding and tax credits - that goes unfulfilled year after
promise after year.
He recounts one specific funding exchange with Mr. Bush:
Bush: "Eight billion in new dollars?"
Kuo: "No sir. Eight billion in existing dollars for which groups will
find it technically easier to apply. But faith-based groups have been
getting that money for years."
Bush: "Eight billion. That's what we'll tell them. Eight billion in
new funds for faith-based groups."
Why bother lying?
Kuo says, "The faith-based initiative had the potential to successfully
evangelize more voters than any other."
According to Kuo, the Office spent much of its time on two missions:
One-Trying-and failing-to prove Mr. Bush's claim of regulatory
bias against religious charities hiring who they wanted. Quote:
"Finding these examples became a huge priority. ...[but] religious
groups had encountered very few instances of actual problems with their
hiring practices." "It really wasn't that bad at all."
Another mission: lobbying the President to make good on his own
promises.
How?
Kuo says they tried to prove their political value by turning the
once-bipartisan faith-based initiatives into a political operation.
It wasn't just discrimination against non-Christian charities. (One
official who rated grant applications told Kuo, " when I saw one of
those non-Christian groups in the set I was reviewing, I just stopped
looking at them and gave them a zero...a lot of us did. ")
The Office was also, literally, a taxpayer-funded part of the
Republican campaign machinery.
In 2002, Kuo says the office decided to "hold roundtable events for
threatened in***bents with faith and community leaders ... using the
aura of our White House power to get a diverse group of faith and
community leaders to a 'nonpartisan' event discussing how best to help
poor people in their area."
White House Political Affairs director Ken Mehlman "loved the idea and
gave us our marching orders. There were twenty targets." Including
Saxby Chambliss in Georgia and John ****mkus in Illinois.
Mehlman devised a cover-up for the operation. He told Kuo, "It can't
come from the campaigns. That would make it look too political. It
needs to come from the congressional offices. We'll take care of that
by having our guys call the office to request the visit."
Kuo explains, "this approach inoculated us against accusations that we
were using religion and religious leaders to promote specific
candidates."
Those roundtables were a hit. Republicans won 19 of those 20 races. 76
percent of religious conservatives voted for Chambliss over decorated
war hero Max Cleland.
And Bush's 2004 victory in Ohio? That "was at least partially tied to
the conferences [they] had launched [there] two years before."
By that time, Kuo had left the White House, concluding that "it was
mocking the millions of faithful Christians who had put their trust and
hope in the President and his administration. Bush knew his so-called
compassion agenda was langui****ng and had no problem with that."
If you would question Mr. Kuo's credibility, you should know his former
boss also quit the White House complaining in his one public interview
that politics drove absolutely everything in the Bush administration.
There is more, much more revealed in Tempting Faith... how Jack Kemp
was tricked into sounding like a religious conservative without even
knowing it; Jerry Falwell's astoni****ng behavior at the 9/11 Day of
Remembrance and considerably more as our Countdown exclusive of
Tempting Faith continues here tomorrow night.
you can foley some of the children some of the time.
time to vote some off the island.
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