Wow, I could’ve told them that. Well, here’s yet another government organization Bush and the Republicans have used as just another campaign mouthpiece.
You think people would catch on that all they care about is winning. Republicans can’t even govern anything, they just want to be in power. Why? Who knows. I don’t think they even know anymore.
Exclusive: Book says Bush just using Christians – Countdown with Keith Olbermann – MSNBC.com
Kuo, who has complained publicly in the past about the funding shortfalls, goes several steps further in his new book.
He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”
“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,’” Kuo writes.
More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.
According to Kuo, “Ken loved the idea and gave us our marching orders.”
Among those marching orders, Kuo says, was Mehlman’s mandate to conceal the true nature of the events.
Kuo quotes Mehlman as saying, “… (I)t 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 [of faith-based initiatives] to request the visit.”
Nineteen out of the 20 targeted races were won by Republicans, Kuo reports. The outreach was so extensive and so powerful in motivating not just conservative evangelicals, but also traditionally Democratic minorities, that Kuo attributes Bush’s 2004 Ohio victory “at least partially … to the conferences we had launched two years before.”
With the exception of one reporter from the Washington Post, Kuo says the media were oblivious to the political nature and impact of his office’s events, in part because so much of the debate centered on issues of separation of church and state.
One Response
I have been pulled two ways about this — either it was an unashamed sham or Bush is just stupid enough to believe it. The quashing of science could either be motivated by faith or by a desire to allow corporations to foul the environment.
I do think that this administration uses evangelicals shamelessly, but I wouldn’t bet that Bush isn’t trying to speed up the Rapture.