Friday, April 08, 2005
Rooting for the Undertow
Today at Eschaton, Atrios posted this. Also today, Steve Gilliard posted this. Go read both links, then come on back here. ---- Back already? Good! Here's a pair of quotes you all might find interesting. (Here's one of the many links citing them.)
Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson's one-time replacement as chief of the Christian Coalition: "It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night. You've got two choices: You can wear cammies and shimmy along on your belly, or you can put on a red coat and stand up for everyone to see. It comes down to whether you want to be the British army in the Revolutionary War or the Viet Cong. History tells us which tactic was more effective." -- Ralph Reed, Los Angeles Times, March 22, 1992, admitting that he wants to deceive us regarding his true aims "I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night." -- Ralph Reed, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, November 9, 1991The religio-racist right has by and large followed Reed's precepts. Their suburban mega-churches are deliberately designed to seem more like rec centers than churches. They use "intelligent design" instead of creationism to describe what they want our kids to learn instead of actual science. They cloak their anti-Enlightenment agenda in the language of sanity, using words like "choice" and "empowerment". Now, in openly linking their drive to trash the judicial system to their HIGHLY unpopular involvement in the Terri Schiavo case, they have totally, thoroughly, blown their cover. And it's our job to make sure it stays blown. They should have waited until the Schiavo mess had vanished from the minds of the general public. Instead, in the name of pumping up their base, they not only embraced the wrong side of the Schiavo mess -- a side that even most evangelicals and most Republicans say was the wrong side to take -- but they linked it to their plan to "reform" the judiciary. This is too perfect: -- The "moral" people's strongest Congressional spokesman is the blatantly corrupt and doomed Tom DeLay. -- As the American public is soon to discover, a large part of DeLay's corruption is linked to his work for the "moral" people. -- Their agenda is now deliberately, gleefully and irrevocably linked to their taking a universally unpopular stand in RE: Terri Schiavo. Our job is to keep the linkages fresh in the minds of Joe and Jane Normal, and hope that DeLay and his fan base keep thinking that bellowing at the top of their lungs will somehow make their troubles (and Ronnie Earle) go away. The longer and bloodier DeLay's death throes are, the more Republicans will either flee from him or get sucked into his undertow. I'm rooting for the undertow.
More blogs about politics.
