|
|||||||||||||||||
RELATED LINKSInternal LinksGrants to:
Profiles: Related stories:
External LinksAmericans United tape of Bill Frist at at FRC event Debra J. Saunders: "DeLavish, DeLoutish, DeLayly" Family Research Council website FRC's Tony Perkins' Washington Update Harper's magazine story on "The Family" National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy website People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch on Focus on the Family Sojourner Magazine report on James Dobson Truthout.org "Secret Society" report on the Council for National Policy 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 Secret and TiesGOP Leaders' Pledge Loyalty to the Religious Right's Agenda at Secret Meetings with the Family Research Council and the Council for National PolicyIn the mid-1990s, during a speech to the Montana Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, then the national Christian Coalition's executive director and more recently a top advisor to President Bush, advised the group to heed the words of the ancient Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu. "The first strategy and in many ways the most important strategy for evangelicals is secrecy," Reed suggested. "Sun Tzu says that's what you have to do to be effective at war and that's essentially what we're involved in, we're involved in a war. It's not a war fought with bullets, it's a war fought with ballots." Reed, who is currently a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, has long been a champion of stealth politics. In a November 1991 interview with the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, he colorfully summarized the Christian Coalition's political strategy: To fool voters, Religious Right-backed candidates should hide, or disguise, their religious agenda by promoting popular issues such as tax reform: "I want to be invisible," Reed said. "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." In 1999, Republican Party presidential candidate George W. Bush gave a closed-door by-invitation-only speech in San Antonio, Texas, to members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a highly secretive right wing organization. Try as they might, neither interested members of the press nor Democratic Party insiders were able to wrest the text of Dubya's remarks, or a tape of the speech away from Team Bush. Nevertheless, rumors surfaced that Bush had promised the CNP that he would faithfully implement its agenda and he vowed to appoint only anti-abortion judges to the federal courts. While secret meetings with constituents isn't the sole provenance of the Republican Party, running stealth campaigns combined with private meetings with high-powered constituents has been a hallmark of the Christian right's success. Many of these gatherings are about more than merely massaging the faithful: The private/secret meetings between Vice President Dick Cheney and representatives of the oil industry -- clearly intended to plot out an energy policy faithfully reflecting the interests of America's energy corporations -- have been the subject of a number of legal proceedings and yet the transcripts have yet to see the light of day. "Extremism is best conducted behind closed doors," the Rev. Barry Lynn, the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Americans United), told Media Transparency in a recent telephone interview. "When you get hardcore right wing GOP representatives from Congress and their staffs meeting with luminaries of the religious right, you know that they are going to be discussing the best ways to move their radical agenda forward." In late March, a tape of Republican Party leaders kowtowing to another powerful Religious Right group surfaced. While it isn't the president's voice we hear sermonizing to the faithful, the tape -- obtained and released by Americans United -- has generated a fair amount of political buzz, particularly in light of the fact that the meet-up was held during the height of the hubbub over the Terri Schiavo case. According to Americans United, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), offered their remarks during a Family Research Council (FRC - website) -- "closed-door Washington Briefing" March 17-18 at Washington, D.C.'s Willard Hotel. At the gathering, "The pair plotted strategy and talked about a range of political promises, using Mrs. Terri Schiavo's case as a springboard." Both Frist and DeLay "assured attendees that they would do what it takes to keep Schiavo connected to a feeding tube and also would exert great power to push a whole host of issues central to the Religious Right's agenda," Americans United reported in a Press Release dated March 23. "DeLay urged the gathering to contact lawmakers in both chambers to support legislation that would allow churches to become much more involved in partisan politicking" and he "blasted current federal tax law, which bars both secular and religious nonprofit groups from endorsing political candidates." "It forces Christians back into the church and that's what is going on," DeLay claimed. "That's not what Christ asked us to do. We have to fight back." DeLay was particularly high on the blessings wrought by the Schiavo case: "One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," DeLay said. "This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others," DeLay pointed out. DeLay, the subject of several investigations about his questionable ethics, "complained that 'the other side' was leading the attack, with a goal 'to defeat the conservative movement,'" Americans United noted. DeLay said that a "whole syndicate" of "do-gooder" forces was attacking him as part of "a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in." Senator Frist, who addressed the gathering by speaker phone, told the FRC attendees that they "stand up for our families, our children, [and that they]...never back down. "That's why we are winning these larger battles today. Together we are leading our nation forward. We have a president, a House of Representatives, a Senate that shares our values and the American people are on our side. In this Congress we are going to continue to work on the issues that are important to you, to me and above all, America's future," Frist continued. (Listen to Sen. Frist and Rep. DeLay, as well as the FRC's Perkins and Connie Mackey, the FRC's vice president for government affairs.) Why were Sen. Frist and Rep. DeLay sucking up to the Family Research Council? Sen. Frist clearly has a run for the presidency in mind for 2008, and he is doing all he can to shore up his radical right wing credentials with the GOP base; Rep. DeLay, on the other hand, needs all the right wing support he can get in order to withstand the cascading ethics charges being leveled against him. (For recent developments see "DeLavish, DeLoutish, DeLayly" by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders.) The other reason these two GOP leaders met-up with the FRC is because the organization has become the premier Christian right lobbying outfit in Washington. In 1983, Dr. James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family (website), founded the Family Research Center to lobby for "traditional family values" in the nation's capital. Gary Bauer, the former head the Reagan Administration's Office of Policy Development and Reagan's chief adviser on domestic policy, was named to head the operation. Under Bauer's leadership the FRC "became a division of Focus on the Family from 1988 until October 1992, when IRS concerns about the group's lobbying led to an amicable administrative separation" People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch has reported. In 1999, Bauer left the organization for an ill-fated run for the GOP's presidential nomination. Tim Goeglein, President George W. Bush's deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison, was Bauer's chief campaign spokesperson. (For more on Goeglein, see "Tim Goeglein: Selling Brand Bush to the Christian Right".) The FRC is currently headed by former Louisiana State Representative Tony Perkins who has traveled the country stamping the organization's imprint on all things right wing. According to PFAW, Perkins' agenda in Louisiana included: "author[ing]...legislation requiring public schools to install filtering software"; "author[ing the]...American History Preservation Act, which 'prevents censorship of America's Christian heritage in Louisiana public schools'"; "author[ing] legislation providing 'a daily time of silent prayer in Louisiana public schools'"; and he was the "author of the first Covenant Marriage Law." The FRC's daily Tony Perkins' Washington Update is a must read and provides a window into the right's most immediate concerns. These days, in addition to the Terri Schiavo case, the FRC is actively promoting the "nuclear option" in the Senate -- the cut off of filibustering by Democrats by a mere majority vote -- which would allow President Bush's radical right wing judges to be confirmed, and a nationwide campaign in support of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. According to "Funding the Culture Wars: Philanthropy, Church and State," a new report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP - website), the Family Research Council has received more than $1.7 million in grants from right wing foundations in the past few years. The GOP's Secret History with the CNPOne of the GOP's best-kept secrets is its relationship to the Council for National Policy. In August 2004, during the Republican National Convention in New York City, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), received the CNP's "Thomas Jefferson Award." According to a report by Americans United, "the media weren't notified [and]...in fact, they weren't welcome to attend." The membership list of the CNP is "strictly confidential," reported Americans United Jeremy Leaming and Rob Boston. "Guests can attend only with the unanimous approval of the organization's executive committee. The group's leadership is so secretive that members are told not to refer to it by name in e-mail messages. Anyone who breaks the rules can be tossed out." Now nearing its 25th anniversary, the tax-exempt Fairfax, Virginia-based CNP was founded "as an umbrella organization of right-wing leaders who would gather regularly to plot strategy, share ideas and fund causes and candidates to advance the far-right agenda." While "members have come and gone [they]...all share something in common: They are powerful figures, drawn from both the Religious Right and the anti-government, anti-tax wing of the ultra-conservative movement." "The real crux of this is that these are the genuine leaders of the Republican Party, but they certainly aren't going to be visible on television next week," Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United told the New York Times. "The CNP members are not going to be visible next week, but they are very much on the minds of George W. Bush and Karl Rove every week of the year, because these are the real powers in the party." The New York Times reported that the organization's current membership roster includes Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association and Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. According to the Times, a CNP financial disclosure form for 2002 listed Norquist and Howard Phillips, founder of the ultra-conservative Constitution Party, as directors. The current president of the group is Donald P. Hodel, former executive director of the Christian Coalition. "Other CNP directors include names that would not mean a lot to most people, but they are key players in the right-wing universe," Americans United's Leaming and Boston reported. "Becky Norton Dunlop is vice president for external relations at the Heritage Foundation. James C. Miller III is former director of Citizens for a Sound Economy. Stuart W. Epperson owns a chain of Christian radio stations. E. Peb Jackson is former president of Young Life. T. Kenneth Cribb Jr., vice president of the CNP, was a domestic policy advisor to President Ronald W. Reagan and runs the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a group that funds right-wing newspapers on college campuses. Ken Raasch is a businessman who works in partnership with popular artist Thomas Kinkade. According to an April 2002 an online ABC News report, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was the keynote speaker at a CNP meeting in a Washington, DC suburb, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales -- now Attorney General -- and Timothy Goeglein, a White House liaison to religious communities, also spoke. (For more on the CNP see "Secret Society" at Truthout.org). Two other GOP/Christian right groups operating behind closed doors are The Family and the Values Action Team. According to BuzzFlash.com's Maureen Farrell, The Family holds "prayer groups at both the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense...and is an 'invisible' association of mostly public officials who have 'strong ties' with 'the oil and aerospace industries.'" According to Harper's magazine, its members include a dozen Senators and Congressmen who, like those preferring theocracy, consider "democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride". At the behest of Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson, the Values Action Team (VAT) was established in 1998. Operating out of Rep. Tom DeLay's office, "Family" member Rep. Joseph Pitts was chosen by DeLay to head up the VAT, which "reportedly funnels concerns of like-minded Christian conservatives into Capital Hill," according to BuzzFlash.com's Farrell. An August 2004, Sojourner Magazine report explained that the VAT gave Dobson and "30 or so other Religious Right member organizations a direct lobbying line to the U.S. Congress". Now that the GOP has a strangle-hold on political power, secret meetings with the Family Research Council and the closed door activities of groups like the Council for National Policy and the Values Action Team raise serious questions about how public policy is being crafted, Barry Lynn pointed out. "When public policy is involved, the public has a right to know what is going on behind those closed doors." sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
|
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.
|
|||||||||||||||
Tim Goeglein: Selling Brand Bush to the Christian Right
Printer friendly
