"Crazy Doctors and Crazy Christians"

As he often does, Nicholas Kristof makes a point for American decency in his New York Times column today:

"Liberals believe deeply in tolerance and over the last century have led the battles against prejudices of all kinds, but we have a blind spot about Christian evangelicals...

"Scorning people for their faith is intrinsically repugnant, and in this case it also betrays a profound misunderstanding of how far evangelicals have moved over the last decade. Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur.

"Bleeding-heart liberals could accomplish far more if they reached out to build common cause with bleeding-heart conservatives."

Of all the damage George W. Bush has done to our national character, least visible is how his faith-based meanness has obscured traditional admiration by Americans of all religions, or none, of figures like Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa, whose beliefs lead to humility, self-sacrifice and good works rather than contempt for those who fail to share their self-serving political certainties.

“Cheap grace,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a minister hanged by Hitler for denouncing the comfort his Church was conferring on believers while turning a blind eye to the inhumanity of the Nazis, "is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance...absolution without personal confession.”

That the cheap grace of Bush, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson is being superceded by the working faith of a new generation of evangelicals is heartening.

"In parts of Africa where bandits and warlords shoot or rape anything that moves," Kristof writes, "you often find that the only groups still operating are Doctors Without Borders and religious aid workers: crazy doctors and crazy Christians."

Their devotion is good news in every sense.

Revelations

Pat Robertson has returned from his annual State of the Universe meeting with God, and there is good news:

"What I'm praying about is China. I'm asking for 250 million in China. We haven't had that breakthrough yet but I think we're going to get it. God's going to give us China. And China will be the largest Christian nation on the face of the earth. They're going to come to Jesus."

In November, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network received heavenly guidance that led him to endorse Rudy Giuliani as the best candidate for President to defend the country against “the blood lust of Islamic terrorists.”

The devout 76-year-old Robertson claims the ability to leg press 2000 pounds. Is it possible that God is pulling Robertson's leg?

Republican Squeaky Wheels

The overhyped story of the 2008 elections so far is the role of the Religious Right in picking a GOP candidate, fueled by headlines about Huckabee's commercial cross, Romney's speech on "Faith in America," Pat Robertson's underwhelming endorsement of Giuliani and the Rev. James Dobson's serial excommunication of each aspirant as he edges toward supporting his fellow preacher.

But this media melodrama may be obscuring the decline of the so-called God Vote in Republican politics, starting last November when opposition to the war in Iraq overwhelmed candidates of the Bush theocracy and gave control of Congress to the Democrats.

Even as Huckabee rises in the polls, prominent Republicans are questioning what Peggy Noonan calls his "creepy" appeal and, in New Hampshire, the resurgence of the resolutely secular John McCain is threatening Romney.

A new Gallup poll offers some perspective, showing only 32 percent of Americans now feel religion is increasing its influence in national life, compared to the Eisenhower era half a century ago when 69 percent felt that way.

A recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that "younger white evangelicals have become increasingly dissatisfied with Bush and are moving away from the GOP."

In October, Mike Huckabee told the Values Voters summit, “I come today as one not who comes to you, but as one who comes from you. You are my roots.” Nonetheless, Romney won the straw poll after the meeting.

Now that Huckabee is surging and real voting is about to begin, Republicans will give us some answers about what kind of President they want after George Bush's pious pronouncements and disastrous performance. "Cultural conservatives" may be in for some surprises.

Strangest Bedfellows

Pat Robertson, icon of the Religious Right, today endorsed a thrice-married, cross-dressing, pro-choice Catholic for President in 2008.

"I thought it was important for me to make it clear that Rudy Giuliani is more than acceptable to people of faith," said Robertson. "Given the fractured nature of the process, I thought it was time to solidify around one candidate."

The move was foreshadowed in June when Giuliani addressed a leadership conference at Robertson's Regent University and, according to its web site, the founder "reflected on the Mayor’s legendary performance after the tragic events of September 11th, citing the world’s recognition of his extraordinary leadership in a time of unthinkable crisis. With his trademark good humor, Dr. Robertson related the story of their shared prior cancer diagnoses, and his hospital-room call from the Mayor to offer words of encouragement."

The Robertson endorsement will go a long way to consummate Giuliani's courtship of the Religious Right and fend off the challenges on that front from Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.

Giuliani's Base Campaign

America’s Mayor wants to become America’s President in the worst way, and it’s beginning to show.

With Mitt Romney’s money producing results in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls, and Fred Thompson’s footsteps getting louder, Rudy Giuliani is pressing his case to the Republican Right with a prosecutor’s zeal.

Exaggerating his 9/11 presence and then having to apologize for it are only the latest signs that he is feeling the heat.

After saluting the Confederate flag in Alabama, taking on a racist adviser in South Carolina and puckering up to Pat Robertson, Giuliani has now turned to out-Bushing Bush on bellicosity by bringing aboard as foreign policy adviser Norman Podhoretz, who wants to bomb Iran yesterday and, just in case the Base should doubt his conservative conversion, adding to his retinue the rabid Admiral who swift-boated John Kerry in the 2004 elections.

When Fred Thompson announces, it is sure to get uglier as the Senator-actor’s new pal Alfonse D’Amato starts slinging 9/11 mud from his firefighter friends at Giuliani.

Up to now, the former Mayor has had Right Field pretty much to himself, but Mike Huckabee is gaining traction and Thompson is set to drive his pickup-truck appeal onto the scene.

Before long, the Republican rumble may make the Clinton-Obama feuding look like a Sunday picnic.

Giuliani Strategy Going South

America’s Mayor wants to come off as what used to be known in the New York neighborhoods as a stand-up guy. His entire campaign is about character, and Giuliani keeps reminding voters that on 9/11 they saw he has plenty of it.

But as he pursues a “Southern strategy” to make the Hard Right forget he is a multiply married New York liberal who sometimes dresses in drag, Giuliani is finding bumps in the pickup-truck road and has to keep swerving to avoid them.

Yesterday he was backing away from Sen. David Vitter, his Southern chairman and wannabe running mate, just as quickly as the Mayor dumped his South Carolina chairman last month after he was accused of dealing cocaine.

Vitter’s prostitute problem, Giuliani said, was “a personal issue.” So it is. But then again, the candidate has been distancing himself from so many issues of personal preference--from abortion to flying the Confederate flag-—that it may be casting doubt on his don’t-tread-on-me image.

While puckering up to Pat Robertson last month in his leadership lecture at Regent University, Giuliani stressed the importance of optimism. If his new Southern friends keep tripping him up on the run to the White House, he’s going to need it.

Slight Glitch in Homeland Security

If we are going to be safe from terrorist attacks, Pat Robertson’s law school will have to expand.

According to a Congressional report released today, the Bush Administration “has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a ‘gaping hole’ in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat.”

"One of the continuing problems appears to be the over politicization of the top rank of Department management," the report concludes.

In the Justice Department, as we learned from the case of Monica Goodling, the Administration’s preference has been for graduates of Regent University where professors “integrate biblical principles into areas of the law.”

This year’s student body at Regent was inspired by a lecture on leadership by America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who told them that terrorists “planned to kill us, and they want to do it again.”

But there won't be enough of such highly trained and motivated recruits to fill the Homeland Security void, which may be partly due to the fact that the Department’s employees reported the lowest job satisfaction among 36 federal agencies earlier this year.

But not to worry. The Senate’s Homeland Security Committee passed a bill in March based on the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations that Chairman Joe Lieberman called “a critical step toward building a safer and more secure America for the generations to come."

That nobody is around to implement them is just a minor housekeeping detail.