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Cursor.orgMediaTransparency.org sponsor More stories by Bill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs' Media Transparency writersAndrew J. Weaver FundometerEvaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement. |
ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz Coral Ridge Ministries new "documentary" featuring Ann Coulter attributes Hitler to Charles DarwinADL calls it "an outrageous and shoddy attempt by D. James Kennedy to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust"The buzz before and after the broadcast of "Darwin's Deadly Legacy" -- on Christian cable networks and about 200 television stations around the country -- centered just as much on the film's In a statement, Kennedy said: "To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler. Hitler tried to speed up evolution, to help it along, and millions suffered and died in unspeakable ways because of it." The documentary aired August 26-27 during Coral Ridge Ministries' "Coral Ridge Hour," accompanied by a book titled "Evolution's Fatal Fruit: How Darwin's Tree of Life Brought Death to Millions." The film "connects the dots between Charles Darwin and Adolph Hitler," a pre-broadcast CRM statement claimed. The statement boasted that "the program features 14 scholars, scientists and authors who outline the grim consequences of Darwin's theory of evolution and show how his theory fueled Hitler's ovens." In a statement, Kennedy said: "To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler. Hitler tried to speed up evolution, to help it along, and millions suffered and died in unspeakable ways because of it." CRM spokesman John Aman contended that "Darwinism is a philosophy, it's a worldview, and one of the key things in it is that evolution advances by death, so death is a good thing. Hitler thought he was doing civilization a favor by eliminating lives that were not worth living. We of course think that is an egregious moral tragedy and a consequence of the worldview that was initiated by Darwin and popularized by his followers." Hosted by Kennedy, "Darwin's Deadly Legacy" (website) features Ann Coulter, author of "Godless"; Richard Weikart, author of "From Darwin to Hitler"; Lee Strobel, author of "The Case for a Creator"; Jonathan Wells, author of "Icons of Evolution"; Phillip Johnson, author of "Darwin on Trial"; Michael Behe, author of "Darwin's Black Box"; and Ian Taylor, author of "In the Minds of Men." According to the CRM website, the accompanying book was written by Tom DeRosa, Executive Director of the Creation Studies Institute -- "Reaching the World with the Truths of creation" (website) -- (an outreach of Coral Ridge Ministries), and it "explains how Hitler tried to use genocide to speed up evolution and reveals how the American eugenics movement is likewise indebted to Darwin." CRM sandbags scientistOne scientist, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute for the NIH, was "absolutely appalled" at how his comments were used in the film. "I had no knowledge that Coral Ridge Ministries was planning a TV special on Darwin and Hitler, and I find the thesis of Dr. Kennedy's program utterly misguided and inflammatory," Collins told the Anti-Defamation League. "I would not have agreed to participate if I had understood that the program would promote the concept of a direct connection between Darwin's theory of evolution and the evils of the Holocaust and the massacre at Columbine High School. "My own views on evolution and faith are...strongly discordant with the perspective put forward by the producers of this documentary." A CRM statement disputed Collins' version of events: "A producer told Dr. Collins in person before the interview began that he was being interviewed for a program that would address the adverse social consequences of Darwin, the August 24 statement read. "In addition, he was asked specifically, during the interview, about the Darwin-Hitler connection and responded on tape that he did not agree with that view. Dr. Collins also signed a Talent Release, which gives Coral Ridge Ministries the right to use his interview ‘without limitation in all perpetuity.'" In an article in the Baptist Press dated the August 24, Jerry Newcombe, a co-producer of the program, said that CRM "interviewed a number of scientists for the science section [of the program]." He pointed out that "We didn't interview Dr. Collins ... about Hitler. In hindsight, we would not have put Dr. Collins in the program. But he understood it was Coral Ridge Ministries. He understood we were doing a special about Darwinism.... We're sorry we had this misunderstanding and we wish him well." According to the Washington Post, CRM agreed to pull the Collins segment from "any future airings of the documentary and would stop using his name to promote it." "We consider him a fellow Christian and have reached a friendly understanding with him about this matter," Kennedy's organization said. A few days before the film aired, Abraham H. Foxman, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), issued a statement calling the film "an outrageous and shoddy attempt by D. James Kennedy to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust. Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people. Trivializing the Holocaust comes from either ignorance at best or, at worst, a mendacious attempt to score political points in the culture war on the backs of six million Jewish victims and others who died at the hands of the Nazis. "It must be remembered that D. James Kennedy is a leader among the distinct group of 'Christian Supremacists' who seek to 'reclaim America for Christ' and turn the U.S. into a Christian nation guided by their strange notions of biblical law." Lapin leaps inOn August 24, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the head of the conservative Jewish organization Toward Tradition (website), a close friend of the indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and the go-to-rabbi for conservative Christian evangelicals, stepped into the fray. In a statement called "Help or Harm - Which Jews Does the ADL Really Represent?" and published both at the CRM and Toward Tradition websites, Lapin called the ADL's statement on the film an "intemperate and hysterical attack" against Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries, and apologized for Foxman's behavior: "On behalf of all those American Jews who feel misrepresented by the ADL, I apologize to Dr. D. James Kennedy for Foxman's ad hominem attack. Dr. Kennedy has always been friendly and supportive towards Jews and has courageously defended the Biblical values shared by both Judaism and Christianity." In addition to criticizing Foxman, Lapin also stated his backing for the film: "I believe it appropriate for thoughtful Jews to support the Coral Ridge documentary and perhaps even for it to be shown in Jewish schools because there really are only two ways to account for human presence on our planet. One is that God created us in His image. The other is that by a lengthy and random process of totally unaided materialistic evolution, primitive protoplasm evolved into Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven. This approach, ruling out any role for God, is simply incompatible with Jewish values." "Serious people are asking these three questions," Lapin's statement read: "Why is a movie that shows how Darwinian thought helped shape Hitler's murderous mind, dangerous to Jews? Why is it necessary to insult so harshly one of America's most prominent Christian leaders? Or to put it more bluntly, how exactly does it help Jews when the ADL humiliates an Evangelical leader whom as many as forty million Americans revere? Especially since Christian conservatives are virtually alone in acting benevolently towards Jews and standing with Jews in support of Israel. "Finally, had some Protestant pastor said in 2000, ‘Vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman is a leader among a distinct group of Jewish supremacists who seek to eradicate Christianity from America and turn the U.S. into a secular society based upon their strange notions of Jewish socialism,' would Mr. Foxman not have decried it as anti-Semitic? Intellectual honesty, if not a sense of decency, surely compels us to acknowledge that if anti-Semitism is an evil, so is anti-Christianism -- bigotry is, after all, bigotry." Stop ‘bashing Christians' say conservative JewsDistress that critical comments by Jews about conservative Christian evangelicals will threaten their support for Israel is not just Lapin's concern. In a late-May interview with Ed Lasky of the American Thinker, David Brog, the newly appointed Jewish executive director of Christians United for Israel pointed out that Christians, while supporters of Israel "do not expect any kind of quid pro quo from the Jewish community" and "it [their support] comes with no strings attached," nevertheless it is important to keep in mind "that Christians are human beings with normal human emotions." "When they spend a great deal of time supporting Israel and fighting anti-Semitism, they are disappointed when these efforts are ignored by the Jewish community, and when the only time they hear from representatives of the Jewish community is to attack them because of their positions on social issues," Brog said. "This cold reception doesn't sway evangelicals from their course of support for Israel. But it does cause a certain disappointment, a certain feeling of rejection, that I think is unfortunate. We in the Jewish community should try to express greater appreciation for what our Christian friends are doing on our behalf." In a recent commentary, David Klinghoffer suggested that the reason the ADL's Foxman "stoke[s] our fears?" about evangelicals wanting to Christianize America is to mobilize his followers and raise money. Headlined "Why tout ‘menace' of evangelicals? To raise money" and posted by the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, Klinghoffer, a columnist for the Forward, a senior fellow at the anti-evolution Discovery Institute and the author most recently of "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History," argued that the reason the ADL "wildly exaggerate]s the] menace of Christian evangelicals ... [is] a financial one." Klinghoffer added that "For whatever reason, hyperventilating about Christians makes Jews open their wallets." Klinghoffer has criticized the ADL in other venues. In a June 2002 piece for National Review Online he wrote that Christians should be able to "ask" groups like the ADL, the American Jewish Congress, and Wiesenthal Center to "lay off a bit." Since Christians provide significant support for Israel, "at least until the Mideast crisis has subsided," Abe Foxman should stop "bashing Christians." sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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Daniel Lapin: The Right's favorite Rabbi
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