Not "nuts;" just really self-destructive

Some time ago, Bush critic David Kuo wrote a book alleging that social conservatives whose positions arose from their faith were commonly referred to as "nuts" in the Bush White House.

In this absurd piece, Jay Homick of Human Events relates how Kuo was promptly "slapped down" on the Laura Ingram radio program when he made this statement on the air. Homnick bizarrely claims that the Republicans really lost Congress when Robert Novak followed Kuo on the Ingram program- and promptly pointed out that Kuo was right; that he had himself heard Bush staffers use the term.

Now, I have no doubt that cynical secularists on the Bush staff, just as elsewhere, hold those of us whose votes are informed by our faith in contempt- even while working to achieve the very agenda we advocate (more on that point at the end of this post). Why should it be otherwise? In the current culture, those who are not committed to traditional, orthodox Christianity- whatever their politics- are not usually apt to be well-disposed toward those of us who are.

But that is a far cry from concluding that the Bush administration as such holds such a view, or even that it is held by a majority of the Bush staff. It is quite a conclusion to which Mr. Homnick has chosen to leap!

I do not know Tim Goeglein, the administration's liason to the Christian Right, very well. He is a deacon at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Virginia, a wonderful congregation to which I was privileged to belong during my eight-month sojourn in the Washington, D.C. area a couple of years ago. He administered the Blood of Christ to me several times at the Immanuel altar. But despite our mutual attendance at Immanuel's post-worship coffee hour each week, I don't recall ever actually exchanging words with him other than, "Good morning," and once. "Merry Christmas!"

Still, Tim is well-known and well-respected by people in the congregation I respect, and I have a very difficult time imagining him agreeing with the picture Kuo paints, and into which Homnick buys, and still staying in the job.

First, let's be clear on this point: to the extent that the Christian Right defected in the election earlier this month, it posed a problem. We are a major constituency in the Republican coalition; without social conservatives, that coalition is in big trouble. But the Republicans did not lose the election because social conservatives or the Christian Right defected or stayed home, any more than it lost because disillusioned economic conservatives did the same. Exit poll after exit poll reveals that Republicans lost because they alienated moderates and independents, and that the issue that lost Congress for them was Iraq.

But let's stay with Homnick for a moment. despite his faulty premise about the cause of the Republican defeat. He obviously takes Kuo's accusation to heart- and at a moment at which it is fashionable to blame George W. Bush for everything (not that he is by any means unworthy of blame for many things), it is obvious that Homnick's feelings are hurt:

Those of us whose hearts echo with the aborted cry of the unborn, and who think to offer our votes as their proxies, can apparently only participate when on furlough from the asylum. If the eldritch cry of lives snipped before birth or snuffed before death keeps you awake at night, you be hearin’ some strange voices, son; might want to have the nerve doctor check that out. And if you are attuned to a vision of a healthy society being built around a traditional structure of marriage and families, then you are a screaming loon of the most offensive variety.

You think you can snicker at people behind their backs, write them off as a lunatic fringe, and then come around smiling every two years for a vote? No, sirree, Bob. That makes you a huckster and a slickster, and folks down here in the Bible Belt don’t take none too kindly to that kind of moonshine. We have kicked more Bible salesmen and carpetbaggers, phony revivalists and gold-stock peddlers, out of these parts than you city slickers ever seen. Why, look at you boys right now, gettin’ taken by Al Gore for billions with the old Armageddon end-of-the-world grift. Next thing you’ll be sending millions to some e-mail scam artist from Nigeria.

Well, Mr. Homnick, for a moment let us ignore the point that your suggestion (and Kuo's) that the Bush administration (and maybe Republicans generally) "think they can snicker at people behind their backs, write them off as a lunatic fringe, and then come around smiling every two years for a vote" depends entirely on the assumption that Kuo's analysis is correct, that the people in the administration whom Novak has heard speak disparagingly about Christian conservatives represent a view characteristic of the administration or the party as a whole, and that the evidence for the whole premise is, in fact, rather shaky. Let's not consider that Tim Goeglein- a man of integrity whose commitment to the Christian Right far predates his involvement with the Bush administration, having worked for Gary Bauer before he worked for George W. Bush- is certainly in a position to know, and does not seem to agree with you.

Let's just stay with two points, shall we?

First, anybody who thinks that the fact that a small minority of new Democratic members of Congress- Sen.-elect Bob Casey of Pennsylvania comes to mind- are pro-life will mean a thing must have inhaled what Bill Clinton didn't. Go ahead. Name a single pro-life Democratic member of Congress who has done anything to advance the pro-life cause.

It would be as much as his or her career would be worth to try.

New Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, for example, is at least rhetorically pro-life. He hasn't exactly been instrumental in trying to either reverse or modify Roe v. Wade, though. Sen. Reid voted against confirming both Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts. Anybody care do bet which way Reid will vote on any nominee likely to be open to overturning Roe? Anybody care to bet which way Casey will vote?

Voting for "pro-life" Democrats as an option to pro-life Republicans and supporters of the President whose appointments have taken us to within one justice of having a shot at re-visiting Roe is perhaps not the act of a "nut." But it is a very foolish act, and a self-destructive one. The Democratic party is irreversibly pro-abortion, and even the rare pro-life Democrat who is allowed to ascend to a position of prominence in the Democratic party will have to purchase respectability at the price of his or her effective silence on the issue, at best.

Secondly, consider the persistent rumor that Justice John Paul Stevens is about to retire from the Supreme Court for health reasons. True enough, if the rumor is true, his replacement will be nominated by President Bush.

Or maybe several potential replacements. No matter how social conservatives who stayed home or voted Democratic on Nov. 7 may rationalize their course, the bottom line is exactly what Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a member of the Judiciary Committee, has already stated: the new Democratic majority in the Senate simply will not permit another Sam Alito to be confirmed. Any Bush appointee who is confirmed will have to first convince the likes of Schumer and new Chairman Pat Leahy and Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden and Dick Durbin and Russ Feingold and Herbert Kohl that he or she will not consider any course other than upholding Roe.

And so, dear friends "whose hearts echo with the aborted cry of the unborn, and who think to offer our votes as their proxies," but who nonetheless voted for a Democratic Senate candidate or even stayed home, consider the unborn infants whose lives you might have saved by doing otherwise. Consider carefully, before you continue down the self-defeating path you have chosen, that at least some small amount of their blood is likely already on your hands.