I don't know if there is any reason to believe
claims by former Bush aide David Kuo that the Bush administration basically exploited conservative Christians. Says MSNBC:
He 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.
More
seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director
Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and
taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in
reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20
targeted races.
Wow.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that these accusations are true.
As I said above, there is no reason to believe them at the moment, but
for this post's sake, we will treat them as true.
The
troubling thing about this is not so much that Bush played Christians
-- he's a politician, this sort of stuff unfortunately happens all the
time -- but that the administration is basically using tax dollars to
finance its own re-election. Many Republicans may think, "Wait, what's
wrong with this? Finally, tax dollars being put to good use."
No.
There is no reason for anyone who believes in limited government,
democracy, or both to condone this use of government funds. As far as
limited government goes, this will assuredly open the door to more
abuse (as if the door isn't already wide open). Concerning democracy, a
defining feature of democracies is the ability of the opposition party
to compete and have a legitimate chance at winning. Will the
Republicans do this for their candidate in 2008? What happens if they
do and the Democrats still manage to sneak in? Can we really condemn
them if they do the same thing?
Right now, Republicans really
shouldn't be worried, as not enough is known about these charges. They
could be completely bogus. However, I'm just posing these questions to
Republicans in case the charges do turn out to be true.
Here's the segment on yesterday's Countdown:
A few things to say about this segment. First: 1) It's Keith Olbermann,
so obviously we should be skeptical of whatever he is saying. 2) Notice
his feigned offense at the fact that high-ranking Republicans were
calling evanglelical leaders "nut"? Think Olbermann probably agrees
with them? 3) Is it really possible that Bush has been pretending to be
a Christian for this long? If yes, then he's one messed up individual.
But, it's probably not the case. 4) Kuo claims to know about the inner
workings of his office and how it worked to help the GOP get re-elected
in tough races. Unfortunately, he left in 2003. Can we really believe
him?