Termites
The Sheep's Crib links to a potentially damaging tale:
More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office is going public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.
The office’s primary mission, providing financial support to charities that serve the poor, never got the presidential support it needed to succeed, according to the book....
“Tempting Faith’s” author is David Kuo, who served as special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003. A self-described conservative Christian, Kuo’s previous experience includes work for prominent conservatives including former Education Secretary and federal drug czar Bill Bennett and former Attorney General John Ashcroft....
[Kuo] 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.
Here's what Kuo says in his blog:
Almost no one has seen the book yet...save for a guy on MSNBC who somehow got a copy and spent several nights telling his audience what my book was about. Others in the media picked up on it and, since they didn't have copies, simply repeated his lines....
In the book, I lay myself bare in describing my own journey with Jesus through politics. It is, fundamentally, a spiritual book. But it has - against my own wishes - been released in a highly charged political environment where what everyone wants is simply more ammunition with which to beat up the other guy...
And the highly charged political environment - I wouldn't call it a religious environment - remains charged:
James Dobson, Charles Colson and other stalwarts of the conservative Christian movement defended the Bush administration and questioned the timing of the book’s publication, a month before the midterm elections. Some suggested Kuo had betrayed the White House.
“I feel sorry for him because once you do something like this, you get your 15 minutes in the spotlight, but then after that nobody will touch you,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group in Washington.
And then it gets really tangled:
So which is it, Democrats? Are Bush and Co. religious fanatics who wish to turn us into a theocracy? Or are Bush and Rove deviously using the "religious right" for selfish, political gain?
Medved derides Leslie Stahl for labeling David Kuo as "a card-carrying member of the religious right". Medved points out that Kuo has worked for Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart, as well as for conservatives such as William Bennett and George W. Bush. He was hardly a member of the hardcore Christian religious right.
Comments
Here's some red-hot ink for your pen. Now help me "vanquish the sword!"
More stunning proof that Christians are easily duped into supporting blatant evil
The latest book of stunning revelations titled "Tempting Faith" by former Bush Administration insider David Kuo presents compelling first-hand evidence that the Christian Right was purposely duped into providing pivotal political support and cover for a host of crimes and excesses by Republican leaders and the Whitehouse. This book and the Foley fiasco are serving to awaken Christians to the undeniable fact that they have been deceived into abetting the evil deeds of duplicitous scoundrels, once again.
The events of recent years and the several millennia before them have provided us with comprehensive proof that religion is the chosen and purposeful tool of great deceivers. Whether we view the actions of the Temple priesthood of ancient Israel that conspired with Greco-Roman invaders, the sad and sordid history of the Vatican and Papacy, Christian crusaders and colonizers, injustices by leaders and followers of Islam, the oppression of Palestinians by the State of Israel, or the more recent activities of the so-called Christian Right and Republican Party, religious followers are regularly and easily misled into supporting obvious evil.
In recent years, I have produced stunning and comprehensive proof of purposeful deception in the canons of all three Faiths of Abraham and struggled to alert people to this and to related upcoming events and situations. Due to "poisoning of the waters" by deluded religious leaders and followers over the centuries, most have greeted my efforts with derision or indifference, thereby failing to pay attention long enough to discern the accuracy of my research and assertions. Starting with the perfectly timed Atlantic hurricanes of 2004 and 2005, a small number of people, some of them in government leadership positions, began to recognize the truth of my conclusions and assertions. The events of the last year-plus, starting with the ramifications from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, have helped to sweep away many of the facades erected by the Bush-Cheney crew and cohorts. Many of their deceptions have been exposed, their greed and arrogance proven, the myth of their competence destroyed, and most recently the depths of their duplicity and hypocrisy have been illuminated by a series of stunning revelations.
Nonetheless, the so-called Christian Right has continued faithfully supporting them, in spite of mountains of evidence that should have dissuaded any clear-thinking soul. The recent non-stop flood of stunning evidence leaves little doubt that the so-called liberals and the left were 100% correct about the Bush-Cheney crew. Despite assertions to the contrary, conservatives and the Christian Right are now exposed as having arrogantly and foolishly supported blatantly evil scoundrels. We now have proof, beyond disproof, that Republican leaders viewed them as little more than marks and dupes to be milked of their faith, money, political support, and the lifeblood of their son's and daughter's on the battlefields of Bush's and Cheney’s deceptive wars.
It is a sad but true statement that deceived and deluded Christians are much more responsible for the evils perpetrated by the Bush administration than any other group. They have arrogantly and foolishly supported those who simply pretended to have the same beliefs, even though their deeds provided stark and irrefutable evidence to the contrary. My recent articles and book expound upon the reasons why religious followers are so easily duped into doing and supporting blatant evil. Now the events of recent weeks have provided stunning evidence that these assertions and conclusions are true. Christians and conservatives must now come to grips with the sickening reality of the great harm they have caused to everyone else because of their blind support of scoundrels who merely pretended to serve the Creator, as a purposeful ploy to gain wealth and power.
What then is the purpose of "faith" but to prevent otherwise good people from seeking to understand truth and wisdom?
Read More...
Here is Wisdom !!
Peace...