A Prayer For Palin
| Sat Sep. 6, 2008 4:24 PM PDT
A PRAYER FOR PALIN....Ross Douthat enthusiastically recommends John Podhoretz's review of an article in the NYT today about Sarah Palin's religious beliefs:
Today, the New York Times published an article that, should it receive wide circulation (and it might, on the web), will do a great deal to harden evangelical attitudes against the supposed leftward swing [of younger evangelicals] — because it is an act of secular aggression against a believing Christian.
Headlined "In Palin's Life and Politics, Goal to Follow God's Will," the article has about it the wide-eyed wonder that anyone might actually be crazy enough to believe in a Creator Who still plays a role in human affairs.
OK, I read it. I detected no wide-eyed wonder at all. In fact, it struck me as an almost painfully straightforward look at Palin's church and her religious beliefs. There were no value judgments, no subtle word choices to suggest a point of view, and the authors even took pains to point out that Palin had changed churches a few years ago in order to attend one that was lower key and more discreet than her previous church. You might object to the article if you think that merely describing Palin's beliefs will automatically damage her — an odd belief for a social conservative to hold — or if you believe that religion has no place in politics — which would be even odder — but it's hard to see what other grounds there might be for grumbling about it. After all, religion plays a major role in American political culture; the Christian right is a powerful segment of the Republican Party base; other presidential candidates (Obama, Huckabee, Romney) have been put under the same microscope; faith is plainly a significant part of Palin's life; and her particular brand of Christianity is equally plainly a huge factor in her popularity within the GOP. It would be journalistic malpractice not to write a profile of Palin's religious views.
So what's going on here? Answer: it's yet another attempt to rally the troops by making up a fictitious (but plausible sounding!) narrative about coastal elites looking down their noses at them. This is something I expect we're going see a lot more of over the next couple of months.
UPDATE: Ross reconsiders. That's what makes him worth reading.
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
Submitted by Keith M Ellis (not verified) on Sat Sep. 6, 2008 11:15 PM PDT.
Yeah, I think lampwick is right. And I'd bet five bucks that Johnson, Severson, and their editors have never known anyone who goes to the kinds of churches Palin has gone to. For them, this is exotic. Like lampwick says, a similar perspective on similar kinds of African American churches would have the same vibe. And it would be mildly offensive in its cluelessness. They're not sneering, really, but they're clearly describing things that seem very alien to them.
And the attitudes that the right attributes to the entire left are exhibited in this thread. They don't represent the entire Left; but it's disingenuous to claim that there's not large portions of the left that are hostile to Christianity and especially hostile, sneering, and bigoted against any sort of Christian fundamentalist, evangelical, or others associated with conservative cultural beliefs.
I personally find it very odd that people would sneer at those who believe in speaking in tongues or faith healing when the same folk usually don't sneer at transubstantiation. I mean, really, at least faith healing has a strong NT basis. My point?and I'm speaking as an atheist myself?if one accepts that a belief in the metaphysics of a God is reasonable, then it's silly to claim that other metaphysical beliefs, including apparently magical things, are unreasonable. And the vast majority of the world believes in the metaphysics of theism.
I've known a large number of people who believe what Palin believes and they aren't all nuts. Some of them are very rational and informed. They're not even all right-wing.
There actually is a leftward shift among young evangelicals and it's founded in an idealistic impulse toward social justice while at the same time holding to certain inviolable beliefs like being anti-abortion and such. To these young people, it's about Jesus ministering to the sick and poor and they're very turned off by the big money politics that the old-guard conservative Christians have been enmeshed with as well as a dislike of and fatigue with the hating and vilification that has been the norm from the Christian Right for a long time, now. These young evangelicals don't want to hate other kinds of people. But if the middle and the left looks down their noses at these evangelicals, they'll feel forced to move back to the right and come to mistrust their social justice impulses. That would be bad for everyone.
and . . . how can anyone forget the creepy, theo-totalitarian V.O. of the video introducing McCain @ the RNC:
The stars are aligned for John McCain . . .
which would have sounded hilariously reminiscent of B-horror flicks . . . except that these folks are deadly serious
(note to "a" above:)
Is it any wonder we educated folks on the coasts are gobsmacked @ the ludicrous pap the fly-overites suck up? Please do get a grip.
Apropos those uppity elitist Obamas, the coastal snobs @ the San Francisco Chronicle noted yesterday that Cindy McCain's get-up for the RNC cost just shy of $300,000 ? which certainly is no less indicative of clueless elitism than being uncertain how many houses one owns. Michelle Obama, on the other hand, dropped a whopping $149 for a new frock to appear on The View.
Dear "a":
Your assignment is to compare and contrast. One so hopes that a glance @ the facts will be of long-term use to you.
Submitted by Keith M Ellis (not verified) on Sat Sep. 6, 2008 11:15 PM PDT.
Yeah, I think lampwick is right. And I'd bet five bucks that Johnson, Severson, and their editors have never known anyone who goes to the kinds of churches Palin has gone to. For them, this is exotic. Like lampwick says, a similar perspective on similar kinds of African American churches would have the same vibe. And it would be mildly offensive in its cluelessness. They're not sneering, really, but they're clearly describing things that seem very alien to them.
And the attitudes that the right attributes to the entire left are exhibited in this thread. They don't represent the entire Left; but it's disingenuous to claim that there's not large portions of the left that are hostile to Christianity and especially hostile, sneering, and bigoted against any sort of Christian fundamentalist, evangelical, or others associated with conservative cultural beliefs.
I personally find it very odd that people would sneer at those who believe in speaking in tongues or faith healing when the same folk usually don't sneer at transubstantiation. I mean, really, at least faith healing has a strong NT basis. My point?and I'm speaking as an atheist myself?if one accepts that a belief in the metaphysics of a God is reasonable, then it's silly to claim that other metaphysical beliefs, including apparently magical things, are unreasonable. And the vast majority of the world believes in the metaphysics of theism.
I've known a large number of people who believe what Palin believes and they aren't all nuts. Some of them are very rational and informed. They're not even all right-wing.
There actually is a leftward shift among young evangelicals and it's founded in an idealistic impulse toward social justice while at the same time holding to certain inviolable beliefs like being anti-abortion and such. To these young people, it's about Jesus ministering to the sick and poor and they're very turned off by the big money politics that the old-guard conservative Christians have been enmeshed with as well as a dislike of and fatigue with the hating and vilification that has been the norm from the Christian Right for a long time, now. These young evangelicals don't want to hate other kinds of people. But if the middle and the left looks down their noses at these evangelicals, they'll feel forced to move back to the right and come to mistrust their social justice impulses. That would be bad for everyone.
and . . . how can anyone forget the creepy, theo-totalitarian V.O. of the video introducing McCain @ the RNC:
The stars are aligned for John McCain . . .
which would have sounded hilariously reminiscent of B-horror flicks . . . except that these folks are deadly serious
(note to "a" above:)
Is it any wonder we educated folks on the coasts are gobsmacked @ the ludicrous pap the fly-overites suck up? Please do get a grip.
Apropos those uppity elitist Obamas, the coastal snobs @ the San Francisco Chronicle noted yesterday that Cindy McCain's get-up for the RNC cost just shy of $300,000 ? which certainly is no less indicative of clueless elitism than being uncertain how many houses one owns. Michelle Obama, on the other hand, dropped a whopping $149 for a new frock to appear on The View.
Dear "a":
Your assignment is to compare and contrast. One so hopes that a glance @ the facts will be of long-term use to you.
after peggy noonan's unfortunate brush with reality, we get to subdivide rightwing pundits into two groups: those who know what they are propounding in public is sheer propagndistic bs and those who actually believe the propagandistic bs they propound.
i'm 99% sure that podhoretz falls into the latter group.
Submitted by Randy Paul (not verified) on Sat Sep. 6, 2008 4:34 PM PDT.
Given that Palin trashed Obama's work as an organizer for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, she has no basis for anyone taking potshots at her beliefs, especially when none are even made.
Podhoretz is an example of nepotism run amok.
Submitted by cleek (not verified) on Sat Sep. 6, 2008 4:41 PM PDT.
remember all the aggression directed toward analyzing Obama's religion? yeah, totally different, i'm sure.
The Times article mentions that the church Palin attended from age 12 until six years ago dabbles in faith healing, and Thursday's WSJ noted that its members speak in tongues. Palin left that church when she moved from local to state politics with her failed run for Lt. Gov.; her husband left the Alaska Independence Party at the same time.
Not only liberals look askance at religions like Palin's -- as she well knows.
Sorry, but anyone with Palin's religious beliefs should be disqualified from public service. Period.
If you make policy decisions based on (your interpretation of) "God's Will", you're a lunatic, unfit to serve.
Perhaps the worst part of McCain's insane VP choice was that it opened Pandora's Box for a 2012 or 2016 Palin-For-Pres run. McCain once derided the extreme "agents of intolerance". Now he's enabled & legitimized them.
Thanks John. That's a helluva legacy you've Left Behind.
This "elistist" narrative needs to be countered by identifying the behavior, then mocking it: for example, this is a new neocon con, which amounts to "idiot chic." This b.s must be countered, not with more whining ("hey, no fair"), but with derision!
Why is everyone afraid to say the words our forefathers did; in fact one of the main premises on which the U.S. was founded: Separation of Church and state. I truly don't care what religon my president is; just do the job well. I don't even care if the pesident receives oral and does funky things with cigars in the oval office; I just want him/ her to serve the American people to the best of his/her ability.
ANYONE WHO MAKES GOVERNMENT DECISIONS BASED ON THEIR RELIGON SHOULD BE THROWN OUT OF OFFICE.
And hasn't Palin stated derogatory remarks against Jewish poeple? Does anyone have a clip of this? I'd like the link if you do. And then we should all forward it multiple times to Cafferty or the Situation Room- Bill Mahr, Daily show, Colbert, etc. that needs to be publicized.
Palin is just a pageant queen going for the crown at all costs, and pretty soon she will be debunked. Her family will suffer the most, and that is a shame. I think I'll scream if I see her again with that poor Downs Syndrome baby, who is basically being used to try to win an election. That is so sickening. You mean to tell me thay couldn't find a sitter for that poor infant who they constantly dragged at all late hours to various conventions and rallys?
It's really F'n sick.
I'm a little confused. Isn't Alaska part of the "coast"? From my brushes with geography, it always seemed to be way out in the west and surrounded by water on three sides. "Coastal elites attacking the heartland" wrt AK just seems surreal.
As far as her religious views, I support "seperation of church and state", ie the state ought to seperate the church from the state, ie throw every one of those theocratic, fundamentalist, pentacostal anti-God, anti-American, anti-humanity dickweeds out of the US, preferablt by the tried and true approach of tying them to stakes and playing long-pig BBQ. But then I'm just an apostate Methodist, so what do I know.
She changed churches 6 years ago? Did she think she was going to be moving up politically? She was forced on McCain who wanted Lieberman to be veep? The core of the party forced her onto the ticket?
Sounds like the Republican party core knew who she was for a long time and it sounds like the 23%ers are in charge over there. Sounds like the Maverick is just along for the ride, despite being his party's "leader".
No wonder we get such screwed-up Republican political outcomes.
The elitist argument against Obama is so absurd I can't even believe they are trying to make it stick. Here we have John McCain, who is married to a beer heiress worth hundreds of millions of dollars (who wears $300,000 outfits) and who has 7-8 properties, accusing Obama of being an elitist - the guy who was raised by a single mother, attended one of the best universities in the world by taking out loans and has one house. And we are supposed to believe that Obama is an elitist?
I guess I can't blame Republicans for bringing out this tired argument again, since it has worked for them in the past, but this is absurd.
I understand why it's offensive: just by trying to be neutral and objective, it comes off as anthropological; it assumes readers will find all these practices foreign. Imagine an article of the same sort talking about an African-American church; you'd definitely get a "look at these weird people" vibe from it.
The article would have been better to leave out the "reporting from Mars" stance altogether and just focus on the most extreme bits of practice; it would be more intellectually honest if it read more like a DKos diary.
If you think "clelebs" shouldn't be in government, Sarah is far more the celeb than Barack right now.
For those who are worried that the Obama-Biden campaign is not striking back hard enough, not to worry. Their strategy is more sophisticated. They are not crushing McCain-Palin head on, but rather turning the public eye to what a dishonest bad joke the McCain-Palin (or Palin-McCain, whatever) campaign really is. So far the Obama-Biden campaign has proven to have a deft touch with the issues (just ask HRC), but then again, if they are wrong we (the U.S. and the rest of the world) are totally screwed, so strike my not to worry comment.
"ficiticious"? Did you really claim that?
Do you deny that the putative leader of the coastal elites said that stuff about the bitter clingers? Do you deny that his attitude is typical of his ilk?
Kevin, that statement goes down as a bit fat fucking lie. No ifs or buts about it. The coastal elites DO look down their noses at flyover country hickdom.
Weird.
lampwick: thanks for the explanation. I read the article, then Podhoretz's essay, then the article again, and wondered if he and I were even reading the same thing. I still don't think anything in the article is offensive, but your comment helps me see why someone might choose to read it that way.
Submitted by Keith M Ellis (not verified) on Sat Sep. 6, 2008 11:15 PM PDT.
Yeah, I think lampwick is right. And I'd bet five bucks that Johnson, Severson, and their editors have never known anyone who goes to the kinds of churches Palin has gone to. For them, this is exotic. Like lampwick says, a similar perspective on similar kinds of African American churches would have the same vibe. And it would be mildly offensive in its cluelessness. They're not sneering, really, but they're clearly describing things that seem very alien to them.
And the attitudes that the right attributes to the entire left are exhibited in this thread. They don't represent the entire Left; but it's disingenuous to claim that there's not large portions of the left that are hostile to Christianity and especially hostile, sneering, and bigoted against any sort of Christian fundamentalist, evangelical, or others associated with conservative cultural beliefs.
I personally find it very odd that people would sneer at those who believe in speaking in tongues or faith healing when the same folk usually don't sneer at transubstantiation. I mean, really, at least faith healing has a strong NT basis. My pointand I'm speaking as an atheist myselfif one accepts that a belief in the metaphysics of a God is reasonable, then it's silly to claim that other metaphysical beliefs, including apparently magical things, are unreasonable. And the vast majority of the world believes in the metaphysics of theism.
I've known a large number of people who believe what Palin believes and they aren't all nuts. Some of them are very rational and informed. They're not even all right-wing.
There actually is a leftward shift among young evangelicals and it's founded in an idealistic impulse toward social justice while at the same time holding to certain inviolable beliefs like being anti-abortion and such. To these young people, it's about Jesus ministering to the sick and poor and they're very turned off by the big money politics that the old-guard conservative Christians have been enmeshed with as well as a dislike of and fatigue with the hating and vilification that has been the norm from the Christian Right for a long time, now. These young evangelicals don't want to hate other kinds of people. But if the middle and the left looks down their noses at these evangelicals, they'll feel forced to move back to the right and come to mistrust their social justice impulses. That would be bad for everyone.
Kevin,
I agree with your take...I read Ross before I saw the story and expected it to be a hatchet job. I read it and almost laughed out loud at the end. As you said, if a straightforward examination of Palin's views is going to lead to screeds like that from Douthat, it's going to be an awfully long two months becase he's one of the reasonable one's.
penalcolony wroteThe Times article mentions that the church Palin attended from age 12 until six years ago dabbles in faith healing, and Thursday's WSJ noted that its members speak in tongues. Palin left that church when she moved from local to state politics with her failed run for Lt. Gov.; her husband left the Alaska Independence Party at the same time.Not only liberals look askance at religions like Palin's -- as she well knows. penalcolony seems to assume that Ms. Palin changed churches because she thought voters would look askance at her earlier church, but just as reasonably, she simply felt more at home at the second church. She's entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
"There were no value judgments, no subtle word choices to suggest a point of view..."
Well, there ya go. That's what constitutes bias to these people.
"...almost painfully straightforward..." indeed. But poainful to whom?
You're either with 'em or agin' 'em. It's that ol' Jeezo-Republican victismo...
There actually is a leftward shift among young evangelicals and it's founded in an idealistic impulse toward social justice while at the same time holding to certain inviolable beliefs like being anti-abortion and such. To these young people, it's about Jesus ministering to the sick and poor and they're very turned off by the big money politics that the old-guard conservative Christians have been enmeshed with as well as a dislike of and fatigue with the hating and vilification that has been the norm from the Christian Right for a long time, now. These young evangelicals don't want to hate other kinds of people.
Agreed. Unfortunately, their anti-abortion stand (which generally doesn't include opposing contraception or sex education) probably won't pass muster with much of the one-dimensional left, which uses it as the litmus test above all others. Look at how they have treated Catholic progressives over the years.
keith m ellis, i realize it's an old-fashioned concept, but still: rather than assert to us something is true, provide us the evidence. your fantasy life is not an adequate substitute.
same is true for vincent, who any second now is going to repeat the old lie that bob casey wasn't allowed to speak in '92 because he opposes abortion.
Face it: she's a paper pitbull running with a toothless old white guy. She says she's against abortion, but when it gets down to it, she wimps out. Saving the life of a mother and killing an unborn child, what's with that? Those mothers need to suck it up! It's God's will! Rejecting the bridge to nowhere but taking the money, I call that stealing. You can put lipstick on a pig, but when you look at the pork it's still pork. I don't know much about community organizers, but they seem to be able to properly vet their VPs. Small town mayors on the other hand seem to do everything they can to conceal their pasts. Time to take off the designer frames (let's put them on eBay) and the lip gloss and face the music, Ms. Palin. Sometimes even the vice presidential candidate of the United States must have to stand naked and stop hiding behind a moose and a ruse.
and . . . how can anyone forget the creepy, theo-totalitarian V.O. of the video introducing McCain @ the RNC:
The stars are aligned for John McCain . . .
which would have sounded hilariously reminiscent of B-horror flicks . . . except that these folks are deadly serious
(note to "a" above:)
Is it any wonder we educated folks on the coasts are gobsmacked @ the ludicrous pap the fly-overites suck up? Please do get a grip.
Apropos those uppity elitist Obamas, the coastal snobs @ the San Francisco Chronicle noted yesterday that Cindy McCain's get-up for the RNC cost just shy of $300,000 which certainly is no less indicative of clueless elitism than being uncertain how many houses one owns. Michelle Obama, on the other hand, dropped a whopping $149 for a new frock to appear on The View.
Dear "a":
Your assignment is to compare and contrast. One so hopes that a glance @ the facts will be of long-term use to you.
one more minor, off-topic thought . . .
It might be considered off-limits for being medical or personal or something
(or perhaps purely bad-taste tabloid fodder?), but has anybody looked into the number of times that old crone Cindy has had "work" done to mold her aged visage into such a slick silicon mask? She makes Joan Rivers (there is some resemblance) look like a "procedures" newbie.
While the S.F. Chronicle mentioned the 1st Lady Wannabe's quarter-million dollar plus pricetags for clothes and accessories for just one night, they neglected to speculate on the tab for Cindy's wardrobe stylist, hair and make-up for 4 days of the RNC, which, considering the magnitude of the job, surely far exceeded that for any Oscar-attending Major Hollywood Diva.
Jeesh! and the McCainists grouse about Barak being a celebrity!
Can you imagine how much it would enhance the McCain's gravitas if the rich,
ex-painkiller pilfering Budweiser-babe looked, dressed and acted more her real age (and less manufactured by Mattel)?
Is anyone really surprised that the religious right is screaming they've been persecuted?
The religious right was shoved in the corner by Bush eight years ago. Their hopes in Bush were thwarted as their two main goals were not realized - Roe was never overturned and gay marriage never banned nationally. And their hopes for ever seeing these things happen were dashed when McCain became the Republican candidate for President.
This bunch has been nursing resentment for years now and they are very, very touchy. Victimhood is the cross they bear (pun intended). Look through their guide book for life, the Bible, which frequently points out how they will be persecuted for thier beliefs (Matt 5:10-12; John 15:18-20; 2 Corinthians 4:8-11). They ooze victimhood and are always on the lookout for any sign of "agression."
This reaction to the NYT article is par for the course, but I expect it to be even more exaggerated because now they have a live person to serve as the poster girl for persecution - Sarah Palin. She is their new martyr and represents their hopes of the nation "getting right with God."
Kevin wrote: "... it's yet another attempt to rally the troops by making up a fictitious (but plausible sounding!) narrative about coastal elites looking down their noses at them."
I think it is also two other things.
First, it is part of the Rove-Palin campaign's overall insistence that any inquiry into any aspect of Palin's "personal life" or her "executive experience" is illegitimate. It's either "sexist" or "partisan" or in this case, an attack on her religion. The media is not supposed to say anything about Palin except what the GOP tells them to say.
Second, the Rove-Palin-McCain campaign does not want the vast majority of mainstream Americans to know how bizarre, extreme and hateful Sarah Palin's religious views actually are. They only want their lunatic-fringe, radical Christofascist base to know. So while they do want mainstream Americans to have a general sense that she is "a Christian", they want to discourage any detailed reporting on her actual religious beliefs.
For example, if the mainstream media were to report as extensively on Sarah Palin's pastor as they did on Barack Obama's pastor, mainstream Americans would become aware that Palin has sat through sermons like these:
Sarah Palin's pastor at Wasilla Bible Church, Larry Kroon, said in a July 20, 2008 sermon:
"We're talking about the whole timeframe of the end, when God begins to bring closure to the world as we know it ... that great day of the Lord when God will finally bring closure to human history ... it is a day of wrath ... He is gonna deal with all the inhabitants of the earth. He is gonna strike out His hand against, yes, Wasilla; and Alaska; and the United States of America. There's no exceptions here ... So, how's God going to do this? It's gonna be by His intense anger ..."
Larry Kroon said in a July 13, 2008 sermon:
"It's so very possible that God, instead of responding by granting spiritual renewal and sustained prosperity, could ... raise up a revived, prosperous and powerful Communist Russia with a web of alliances across the Middle East. And our gas pumps would go dry. The dollar would collapse. And the markets would crash ... it could happen in a matter of weeks. That could happen. It could happen by this fall."
Max Blumenthal at The Nation has the links.
Sarah Palin herself delivered a sermon at her previous church, the Pentecostal Wasilla Assembly of God, in which she asserted that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was a "task from God" and that construction of a natural gas pipeline that she pushed for is "part of God's plan."
And Palin attended a sermon at Wasilla Bible Church where an invited guest pastor preached that terrorist murders of innocent civilians in Israel are "God's judgment" against Jews for refusing to accept Jesus as their messiah.
This is why the GOP and their agents will try to discredit and discourage any discussion of Palin's religious views, in any venue where people other than the lunatic-fringe so-called "Christian" right-wing extremists might see it, as an illegitimate attack on religion.
"These young evangelicals don't want to hate other kinds of people. But if the middle and the left looks down their noses at these evangelicals, they'll feel forced to move back to the right and come to mistrust their social justice impulses. That would be bad for everyone."
In a democracy no one forces anyone to vote against their own interests. Unfortunately, they do so voluntarily.
Submitted by low-tech cyclist (not verified) on Sun Sep. 7, 2008 2:30 PM PDT.
These guys are really in love with the victim card this year, aren't they? When no Dem of note, and nobody in the media, made a big deal of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, the GOP pretended Bristol had been attacked anyway. And now this.
Makes you wonder who's the GOP Presidential candidate. I'd thought it was McCain; now I'm starting to think it's Dennis the Peasant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Help, help, I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"
The DNC really needs to make a commercial that makes fun of the GOP for being a pretend victim of nonexistent attacks. Nobody likes a whiner, after all.
Seriously Keith, by that standard, is there any way to write about her beliefs other than in a wildly supportive fashion that wouldn't be taken as condescending and elitist? And wouldn't ignoring her religious views entirely get the exact same response from anyone prepared to ignite a culture war?
Really nice Catch 22.
Coming from a Roman Catholic background, the idea of people "pondering and analyzing the Bible for meaning" instead of, you know, going out and living Christ's message, is strange and foreign to me.
I think a lot of conservative Protestants don't realize that most Christians don't believe the same things they do, and get all upset when their beliefs are presented objectively instead of being presented as The Truth.
"'There were no value judgments, no subtle word choices to suggest a point of view...'
"Well, there ya go. That's what constitutes bias to these people."
Exactly. If you don't congratulate Palin on her goodness and ask where to sign onto the same creed, she and her defensive line will pretend you're attacking her beliefs.
I don't know what he is talking about, but anyone who understands American principles of freedom of religion understands government must be completely secular. We have too much of this BS going on in this country of dual loyalties, with American principles and loyalties taking second place.
You got your Jews like Podheretz and Christian Zionists who put Israel's interests over ours, and the pansy libs are afraid to say anything lest they be considered anti-diversity. You got your Bushie who wants faith-based initiatives and packing of the Supreme court with Catholics who will follow the Pope's instructions. Some talk Bushie is thinking of converting. You got your pro-illegals who have more loyalty to business on the Republican side or votes on the Democratic side than to the well-being of America.
