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Institute on Religion and Democracy leads serious breach of ecumenical good will
 When President George W. Bush met with religious journalists in May of 2004, the religious authority he cited most often was not a fellow United Methodist or even another Protestant. It was a man the president affectionately calls "Father Richard." He is Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus, who, the President explained, "helps me articulate these [religious] things". A senior administration official confirmed to Time magazine that Neuhaus "‘does have a fair amount of under-the-radar influence' on such policies as abortion, stem-cell research, cloning and the defense-of-marriage amendment"
Father Neuhaus, 69, has been a leading culture warrior in the Neoconservative camp. Although his ideological positions have been challenged by fellow Catholics as inconsistent with church teachings, few mainline Protestants are aware of his activities or those of other influential Neocon Catholics such as Michael Novak, George Weigel, and Robert P. George. Fewer still realize that these Catholics direct a group of paid political operatives who work ceaselessly to discredit mainline Protestant leaders and their Christian communions.
The Washington-based think tank that they lead is the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD - website).
Six of the 17 current members of IRD's board of directors, a full 35 percent, are prominent conservative Catholics. They include founders Father Richard John Neuhaus of the Institute on Religion and Public Life and Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute, along with George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University, Mary Ellen Bork (wife of Judge Robert Bork), and board chair, Professor J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas at Austin (IRD, 2006). In addition, four other conservative Catholics sit on the IRD advisory board: Professor Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard University School of Law; Opus Dei evangelist and Catholic priest, Rev. John McCloskey; Russell Hittinger, Warren Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, as well as Jesuit priest and professor, Rev. James Schall at Georgetown University.
Read the full report >
In a series of columns in Ideas in Action, Connor, the former head of the Family Research Council, lambastes Tom DeLay, GOP opportunism and the Christian Coalition, and suggests engaging in civil debate with an emerging 'Christian left'
In early April, Ken Connor expressed his dismay that the scandal-ridden former Congressman Tom DeLay had been rapturously received by the crowd at the late-March "War on Christians and the Values Voters in 2006" conference. In a column, he observed that "the willingness of far too many Christian conservatives to cast a deaf ear and a blind eye" to DeLay's misdeeds was extremely disheartening.
In another column, Connor criticized the Christian Coalition of Alabama for its "series of scathing attack ads" that were an "inaccurate and unfair attack on trial lawyers." And in another, he suggested that liberal religious leaders shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, and should be engaged in a sincere and civil debate. In yet another column, he maintained that it would be mistaken if "some conservatives ...dismiss Al Gore's arguments [about Global warming] simply because he is Al Gore."
Last week in his column for the Center for a Just Society's Ideas in Action newsletter, Connor cautioned Christian conservatives about becoming total pawns of the Republican Party.
Ken Connor is a trial attorney and Chairman of the Center for a Just Society, who knows the powerful organizations of the Religious Right from the inside, having once headed the Family Research Council (FRC), Washington, D.C.'s most prominent "family and faith" lobbying group.
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For years, President Bush has being going around the country touting his faith based initiative (FBI), claiming that it has been achieving remarkable results delivering social services to the needy. Few reporters have bothered to ask what the president meant by "results." Well, the results are in on the FBI and they are decidedly not positive. A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has affirmed what many critics of President Bush's faith based initiative have long asserted: too many religious groups that have received government grants have been mixing religious activities with their social work; and the government has not yet established a concrete process to monitor grant recipients to see if they are being effective.
The GAO study entitled "Faith-Based and Community Initiative: Improvements in Monitoring Grantees and Measuring Performance Could Enhance Accountability" found that "While officials in all 26 FBOs [faith-based organizations receiving federal grants] that we visited said that they understood that federal funds cannot be used for inherently religious activities, a few FBOs described activities that appeared to violate this safeguard. Four of the 13 FBOs that provided voluntary religious activities did not separate in time or location some religious activities from federally funded program services."
The report also noted that "[L]ittle information is available to assess progress toward another long-term goal of improving participant outcomes because outcome-based evaluations for many pilot programs have not begun."
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who along with Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., requested the report, said "The Bush administration has failed to develop standards to verify that faith-based organizations aren't using federal funds to pay for inherently religious activity or to provide services on the basis of religion."
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A year after attempting to capitalize on the Terri Schiavo case, Response Unlimited's Philip Zodhiates has taken to peddling anti-Semitic mail lists to conservative groups
Last March, shortly before Terri Schiavo -- the woman who had been in a "persistent vegetative state" since 1990, and whose case was dominating the political/media landscape -- died, her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, inked a pact with Response Unlimited, a Waynesboro, Virginia-based direct mail marketing firm.
Run by longtime conservative activist Philip Zodhiates, the deal would have allowed Response Unlimited to market the names and e-mail addresses that the Schindlers had garnered during their campaign to save their daughter's life.
Before the names and addresses of donors could be sold -- the company planned to charge $150 per thousand names (6,000) or e-mail addresses (4000) of people who responded to an e-mail fundraising appeal from Terri's father -- the New York Times' David Kirkpatrick exposed the arrangement, and the company quickly removed Schindler's list from its catalogue.
At the time, Media Transparency reported that the company had advertised the fund-raising potential that the list represented: On its website, Response Unlimited pointed out that "These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri." The people on the list "are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!"
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Facing an unexpectedly strong challenge from Jim Webb in the Virginia Senate race, Sen. Allen hires Scott Howell, the hardball playing 'Hitler' media guy, to craft his campaign advertising
It is no deep secret that Virginia's junior Republican Senator George Allen -- who is up for re-election this November -- is interested in the GOP's 2008 presidential nomination. Over the past several months, Allen has been out raising money, boosting his public profile through a number of appearances on television's talking head programs, courted the GOP's base -- which included an appearance at a gathering sponsored by the ultra-conservative and ultra-secretive Council for National Policy, and put together a hardball playing dream team of political advisors, strategists, and media consultants.
However, before Allen can make waves nationally, he must take care of business at home. Once considered a shoo-in for re-election, Allen is instead facing a formidable challenge from Democratic Party candidate James Webb. A Republican - turned - Democrat, Webb is a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran whose record of public service includes serving Secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan.
Over the past several weeks, spokespersons for Sen. Allen have been sticking close to Karl Rove's Democrats - are - vulnerable - on - the - war - on - terrorism playbook. To punch home that theme, Allen's campaign has hired Scott Howell, who according to the Washington Times, "is credited with being the mastermind of the happy, family-guy political ads that helped John Thune unseat Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in 2004, but also is responsible for the so-called 'Hitler' ads that were a factor in the gubernatorial loss last year of death-penalty advocate Jerry W. Kilgore."
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White House appears set to name Susan Dudley of GMU's anti-regulatory Mercatus Center to a key post at the OMB
When the George Mason University Patriots played their way into the final four of this year's NCAA men's national basketball championships, some called it the biggest NCAA Cinderella story of all time. While that feel good moment brought the university massive amounts of media attention, a lesser-known campus outfit has not so much been making headlines, as it has been making political waves.
George Mason University's Mercatus Center, which was recently described by the Washington Post's Al Kamen as "the staunchly anti-regulatory center," owes much of its existence to Koch Industries Inc., the oil and gas company run by the Koch (pronounced "Coke") brothers of Kansas.
Kamen's July 12 column reported that the Bush Administration is poised to name Susan Dudley, the director of the regulatory studies program at the Mercatus Center, as head of the Office of Management and Budget's powerful regulatory office.
"If appointed, Dudley would be the most anti-regulatory zealot within the Bush Administration, bar none," Scott Silver, the executive director of Wild Wilderness told Media Transparency in an e-mail exchange. "Her ideology is based upon a core belief that regulations are generally bad and there should be no regulation unless it can be proven to be cost effective and supported from within the market place."
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Leading Bush non-profit political ally changes name, plans expansion and new hires
Last week, in a move akin to the establishment of a George W. Bush Center for Intellectual Curiosity & Open Government, a Barry Bonds Center for Organic Medicine, a Rosanne Barr Center for the Study of the Singing of the National Anthem, an OJ Simpson Center for Criminal Justice, or an Ann Coulter Center for Combating Plagiarism and Encouraging Civil Discourse, the Board of Directors of David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture announced that it was changing the organization's name to The David Horowitz Freedom Center.
While it must have taken a linguistic contortionist to create the new name -- one doesn't think of Horowitz -- the sixties radical lefty turned right wing provocateur/entrepreneur -- when thinking about freedom -- the Center's Board Chair decided the time was right for the change.
"We decided on a name change for two reasons," said Board Chairman Jess Morgan. "First, when the Center began, just as the Cold War was ending, we thought that the significant issue of our time would be the political radicalization of popular culture. The culture is still a battleground, but after 9/11, it is clear that freedom itself is under assault from the new totalitarianism: Islamic fascism. Secondly, David Horowitz, the Center's founder, has become increasingly identified with issues of freedom at home and abroad. We wanted to honor him and also support the efforts he has undertaken. The name change does this and rededicates us to the mission at hand."
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In strong language, District Court judge ordered prison rehab ministry shut down
After serving time in prison for Watergate-related crimes, Charles W. Colson embraced Christianity, founded Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976, and has since become a high profile, well-respected and oft-quoted Christian conservative leader. Over the past several years, Colson's InnerChange Freedom Initiative has partnered with prison authorities in several states, including Texas, Minnesota, Kansas, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri, to provide prisoners with a Christ-centered rehabilitation program.
In June, however, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt, chief judge of the US District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, handed Colson's operation a setback. Judge Pratt ruled in favor of a suit filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Americans United) which claimed that IFI's operation at Iowa's Newton Correctional Facility violated the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution.
Judge Pratt ordered an "end" to the program within 60 days, and also ordered InnerChange to reimburse more than $1.5 million to the state of Iowa.
"For all practical purposes, the state has literally established an Evangelical Christian congregation within the walls of one its penal institutions, giving the leaders of that congregation, i.e., InnerChange employees, authority to control the spiritual, emotional, and physical lives of hundreds of Iowa inmates," wrote Pratt. "There are no adequate safeguards present, nor could there be, to ensure that state funds are not being directly spent to indoctrinate Iowa inmates."
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School voucher proponent James Leininger has spent millions trying to buy political power in Texas
While the philanthropic community has been abuzz about recent reports that billionaire investor Warren Buffett, the world's second wealthiest man, will be giving a large part of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a less well-known Texas billionaire, James Leininger, has allocated his millions for different purposes: He's dedicated a large chunk of money to insuring that the religious right maintains its dominance over the Texas political landscape.
Buffet's gift to the BMGF, according to Business Week, "could ultimately double the size of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to $60 billion, creating a mega-philanthropy the likes of which the world has never seen." The money, the magazine pointed out, will allow the Gateses foundation to "hand out a staggering $3 billion a year in grants ... [and] create unprecedented resources ... [to be] use[d] to address such vexing problems as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in developing nations, and the high school dropout rate in the U.S."
Meanwhile, back in Texas, the relatively unknown Leininger, a San Antonio-based physician and businessman who made a fortune largely by selling specialty hospital beds, and who has been a major contributor to conservative causes and candidates for years, is becoming much more visible due to his quest to spread school vouchers throughout the state.
According to the Texas Freedom Network, Leininger initiated an "unprecedented effort" to "buy a Legislature that will turn his obsession -- a reckless private school voucher plan -- into law."
Read the full report >
Larry Ross' A. Larry Ross Communications brings Christian marketing into the twenty-first century
You've probably never heard of him or his public relations company, but you've certainly heard of many of his clients. Over the years, he has represented such heavy hitters as the Rev. Billy Graham, Pastor Rick Warren of Lake Forest, California's Saddleback Church, Texas's African American MegaChurch Pastor T.D. Jakes, and the up-and-coming Ohio Pastor, Rod Parsley, the head of Ohio's Center for Moral Clarity.
He has worked with the Promise Keepers, the international men's ministry, as well as such movies as "Left Behind," a film based on the popular series of apocalyptic novels of the same name, "The Prince of Egypt," and actor/director Mel Gibson's blockbuster, "The Passion of the Christ."
He is Larry Ross and he heads up the Dallas, Texas-based A. Larry Ross Communications. For more than 25 years, Ross has been marketing conservative evangelical Christianity.
Read the full report >
The head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
moves on after successfully promoting and expanding the president's
religion-based patronage system
Unlike the sudden resignation of CIA Director Porter Goss on Friday, May 5 – which caught the media by surprise -- the long anticipated replacement of White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan with columnist and the Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, or the recent replacement of Treasury Secretary John Snow with Goldman Sachs chief executive Henry Paulson, when Jim Towey announced his decision to move on, the media barely blinked an eye.
On April 18, 2006 Towey, who served for more than four years as Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives, announced that as of July 1, he would become president of Saint Vincent College, a small Catholic school in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
In announcing his resignation, Towey told reporters that he expected the faith-based program to continue in the future regardless of who may be in the White House: "I think you'll be talking about this for generations. Because we will never help our poor if we don't give them reasons to change, and government can't love and government cannot bond and connect with our poor. They will never have the trust of the poor like a rabbi or a preacher or some of these grass-roots groups that may have no particular faith at all."
That there was a general lack of media interest in Towey's departure may say more about the media than his record.
Towey has unquestionably left his mark: It would not be an understatement to give him credit for helping set the president's then-floundering faith-based initiative back on track.
Read the full report >
Conservatives having a field day with the release of Al Gore's new film on global warming
If former Vice President Al Gore eventually decides to mount another run for presidency, it may be that the bashing he received from the right during the run-up to and premiere of "An Inconvenient Truth," his new highly-acclaimed documentary film warning of the dangers of global warming, was a motivating factor.
According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Gore's movie "suggests that there are three reasons it's hard to get action on global warming. The first is boiled-frog syndrome: Because the effects of greenhouse gases build up gradually, at any given moment it's easier to do nothing. The second is the perception, nurtured by a careful disinformation campaign, that there's still a lot of uncertainty about whether man-made global warming is a serious problem. The third is the belief, again fostered by disinformation, that trying to curb global warming would have devastating economic effects."
The release of the film has been accompanied by disinfomania from conservatives; an onslaught of anti-Gore and global warming denial commentary. The National Review ran a cover story with the self-explanatory title, "Scare of the Century." And on the May 23 edition of the Fox News Channel's "Dayside," Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis cranked up the volume, calling the film "propaganda." Burnett added: "You don't go see Joseph Goebbels' films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You don't want to go see Al Gore's film to see the truth about global warming."
Another longtime, and leading, purveyor of disinformation about global warming is the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which is attempting to discredit Gore's film, while continuing its campaign aimed at convincing the public that the jury "is still out" on the issue and there is no global warming crisis.
Read the full report >
Former editor-in-chief of the American Enterprise Institute's magazine appointed President Bush's top domestic advisor
We can't say with absolute certainty, but we suspect that unlike his predecessor, Karl Zinsmeister, the Bush Administration's newly appointed top domestic policy advisor, has not been ripping off Target, Hecht or any other D.C.-area department store. We can only assume that his credit card record is clean, and that the vetting process was a lot more thorough than the one used when former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik was nominated by George W. Bush to head up the Department of Homeland Security. Soon after being nominated, Kerik -- a longtime buddy and business partner of former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani -- was forced to withdraw his name after admitting to employing an illegal immigrant as a nanny, and revelations surfaced about extramarital affairs and past conflicts of interest.
So while Claude Allen -- the Black conservative who previously held the job Zinsmeister is taking -- is waiting for the legal system to deal with charges that he committed serial fraud at several department stores in the Washington, D.C. area, Zinsmeister will stroll on over to the White House from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and assume the position.
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From Canada to Great Britain, from Iowa to the nation's capital, Frank Luntz is racking up the frequent flyer miles these days. Luntz, the Republican pollster/consultant and message massager, appears to be at his best when he's darting from one place to another dispensing advice and offering up fanciful political frames.
Recently, after an apparently fruitful meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Luntz met with a group of Canadian conservatives and advised them how to win upcoming elections.
But Canada was only one stop for the Luntzmobile.
In recent weeks, the Toronto Star reported, Luntz weighed in with his "analysis of British Conservative Leader David Cameron's electoral chances, [given] his take on whether New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg could run as an independent for president ... and has tested the appeal of Democrat presidential hopefuls Joe Biden and John Edwards in New Hampshire and Iowa."
In addition, the New York Daily News reported, in a "private" meeting with 20 Republican state senators from New York, Luntz told them "to spurn any offers of campaign help made by [Gov. George] Pataki, according to people who attended the Albany gathering last week. ‘He told us if the governor offers help, just tell him you are going to be out of town or on vacation,' said one source."
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Conservative Philanthropy supported group claims show had liberal bias
The 2,195th CyberAlert, issued on Friday May 12, 2006 is a gift to both current and former fans of "The West Wing," from the resolute media watchers at the Media Research Center. When the series premiered on NBC in September 1999 -- toward the end of the Clinton years -- it started off by immediately pressing a political hot button: President Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, told a group of conservative religious leaders to "get your fat asses out of my White House."
"The West Wing"--which ended its seven-year run on Sunday, May 14 -- was smart television; it won scads of Emmys. Critics raved about its fast-paced and intelligent dialogue, its willingness to take on tough political issues, and its magnificent ensemble cast. The show captured the imagination of television viewers across the country, and it soon became a top rated program.
The Media Research Center's crack team of media critics recently characterized the first episode of the series this way: "Viewers saw how the Hollywood Left views conservatives as the show concocted a preposterous plot and series of scenes which portrayed leaders of the Religious Right as anti-Semitic buffoons. The show culminated with an angry Democratic 'President Josiah Bartlet'...indignantly telling some conservative ministers: 'You can all get your fat asses out of my White House.'"
Over the years, as the national political landscape changed and Aaron Sorkin, the show's primary creator, left the program, viewers started drifting away. The plots got thinner, the so-called liberalism got a little washed out, the characters seemed to lose their bearings, and as shows are wont to do in serial television, "The West Wing" grew stale.
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Phil Burress' Cincinnati, Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values goes statewide
 On May 2, 2006 Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's controversial Black conservative Secretary of State defeated current Attorney General Jim Petro in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Phil Burress, the head of an Ohio-based political action committee called Citizens for Community Values Action (CCVA), observed that Blackwell -- the candidate his organization backed -- won because of his longtime support for "family values," particularly his backing of Ohio's anti-same sex marriage amendment which passed in 2004. Burress expects Blackwell to defeat his Democratic challenger, Congressman Ted Strickland, and to help get that done he intends to mobilize legions of "values voters."
A few weeks earlier, members of a Cincinnati, Ohio-based group called Equal Rights Not Special Rights (ERNSP - a 501(c)(3) charity), another of Phil Burress' enterprises, marched into the office of Joe Gray, the city's finance director, carrying some 14 to 15 thousand signatures -- twice the number necessary -- from city residents on petitions calling for the repeal of the city's new lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality ordinance. According to a recent report in Gay People's Chronicle, the "city council passed the ordinance last month" but the intervention by ERNSP -- just before it was scheduled to take effect on April 14 -- will force the ordinance onto the November ballot.
Thirteen years ago Burress' Citizens for Community Values (CCV) played a pivotal role in forcing the removal of "sexual orientation" from Cincinnati's original human rights ordinance, thereby prohibiting the city from protecting gays, lesbians or bisexuals. Voters finally repealed article 12 in 2004.
In fact, Phil Burress, the born again Christian and one-time union leader and porn addict, "is behind almost every anti-gay effort in Ohio," the Gay People's Chronicle recently pointed out.
Read the full report >
The Heritage Foundation plays key role in a new health care initiative that promises to cover 95% of the state's uninsured
A few weeks back UC Berkeley's Nicholas C. Petris Center on Healthcare Markets and Consumer Welfare (named after the former California State Senator whose legislative career was marked by his deep concern with California's health care issues) sponsored a seminar on health care. One panel in particular examined the current status of California's Proposition 63 -- the State's 2004 mental health initiative funded through a tax on millionaires.
While many considered the passage of Proposition 63 something of an electoral "miracle," these days just about everyone involved in health care policy is talking about another "miracle" -- Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's plan to provide healthcare insurance for 95 percent of the state's uninsured.
In mid-April, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to require every individual to have health insurance -- whether they want it or not -- or possibly be subject to financial penalties. The new plan not only will cover the vast majority of the uninsured, but it represents what politicians like to call a "bipartisan compromise." The legislation was crafted by the state's conservative Republican Governor and supported by its Democratic-controlled legislature.
It appears that the reasons this legislative package was put together now was due to the impending loss of more than $300 million in Medicaid funds if it didn't establish a reform plan; a ballot initiative that would have called for a much more substantial payroll tax based contribution from employers was threatened; a strong presence of pro-consumer health care organizations; and the significant role played by Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts' Roadmap to Coverage initiative.
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Former Amway head Dick DeVos hopes Michigan gubernatorial voters will disregard his company's controversial business model and socially conservative views, and instead buy into his talk of economic revival
 In an era where money talks and just about everything else walks, Dick DeVos, the multi-millionaire son of the founder of Amway and the likely Republican Party candidate for governor of Michigan, is hoping to talk his way into the statehouse. As any good political advisor understands, one key to victory is being able to define yourself before your opponents define you, and, define your opponents before they define themselves.
Thus far, DeVos' campaign has spent $2 million on a series of television advertisements that have been blanketing the state's airwaves for several months; it branded current Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's stewardship over the state as the road to economic ruination.
The early ad buy seems to have paid off. Results from a recent EPIC/MRA poll showed that DeVos was in a statistical dead heart with Gov. Granholm.
What was surprising about the poll, however, was the finding that DeVos, who had been at the center of state politics when he funded and supported a controversial school voucher initiative called Kids First! Yes! -- an initiative which failed at the polls-- still appears to be relatively unknown to Michigan voters.
Read the full report >
Are conservative think tanks and advocacy groups glomming on to podcasting as they did with talk radio?
After Apple Computer announced its new video-capable iPod, the San Francisco Chronicle's Mark Morford, a funny, controversial and ever-iconoclastic columnist, enthused that the new "sexy" and "delicious" device would usher in a future where pornography would be available at the flick of a finger.
Morford isn't the only one imagining the future of podcasting. Jennifer Biddison, the Coalitions Manager and Associate Editor for Townhall.com -- one of the oldest and most successful right wing networking websites -- maintains that while podcasting has already become a useful political tool for the conservative movement its potential has yet to be tapped.
Conservative organizations, which have a proven track record of getting their message out via a sophisticated coordinated network -- foundations, think tanks and public policy institutes, the Internet (including the blogosphere), newspapers and magazines, talk radio -- are now "hopping aboard" the podcasting train, Biddison reported in "Podcasting: The latest trend in talk," an article recently posted at Townhall.com.
Thanks to the financial wherewithal and technical savvy of a handful of right wing organizations, conservatives can listen to many of their favorite right wing radio talk jockeys, tune in to a discussion about privatizing social security and other critical policy questions, and catch the latest presentation from the Heritage Foundation, whenever they darned well feel like it.
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You can't stuff the real world into a cramped ideology. It took the Radicalized Republicans 30 years to put their master plan into operation, underwritten by millions of dollars of patronage by far-right foundations and large injections of private wealth. It's only taken less than two years for the plan to catch fire and burn.
Narrow ideology is no substitute for ideas coupled to action, for minds coupled to heart. George Bush had neither. He knew what he wanted to do on taxes -- cut them for the privileged; on government -- turn it into a piggy bank for his cronies; on Social Security and Medicare -- "reform" them into submission; on what to do with kids -- test them into cookie-cutter conformists. But he just sat there when Al Qaeda slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center. He just sat there when his buddies in the Congress sent the deficit plunging into the depths. He just sat there when Hurricane Katrina destroyed a major American city. He just sat there while his bureaucrats rubber-stamped the Dubai ports deal. His ideology couldn't serve up the ready answers to those crises. Nor could his neocon ideologues. They sit there while Iraq spins into hemorrhage of lives, squandered money, and lost opportunities.
Columnist Paul Krugman exults prematurely that this is promising to be a Democrat/liberal Springtime, and concludes that "the high-water mark of a conservative tide...is now receding." But the flood wreckage the Democrats will have to deal with is catastrophic, incalculable. It includes a war without end, a foreign policy and our global repute in ruins, America's petroleum economy confronting chaos, religious division that continues to polarize the nation, and the public in a daze of confusion and anger. For Americans must confront another devastating loss: the End of the American Dream.
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