Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Conservative Blessing for Clinton?

Michael Gerson, my favorite Evangelical columnist, writes approvingly today about Hillary Clinton as “the most religious Democrat since Jimmy Carter,” citing “her Methodist upbringing as a formative experience, with its emphasis on ‘preaching and practicing the social gospel.’"

Gerson, alarmed by Rudy Giuliani’s iffy pro-life conversion, may be grasping at ecclesiastic straws here, pointing out that Clinton “participates regularly in small-group Bible studies and is familiar with the works of Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer--the theological heroes of mainline Protestantism (and of some stray Evangelicals like myself).”

Sen. Clinton may be surprised to learn how much she has in common with George W. Bush’s favorite speech writer, in light of the fact that she wrote her senior thesis about an non-believing Jewish radical, Saul Alinsky, in what most would consider her “formative” years.

Gerson’s subtext here is clearly a warning to Giuliani to get more fervent with promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v Wade.

Hillary as a darling of the Religious Right? Gerson had better start looking for a needle with a very big eye.

No comments: