So it has come to this. The president's apologists rationalize even his most obvious and egregious illegalities, mendacities and bungling with straight faces and earnest demeanor and the rest of us are left posturing for history, trying to make certain that when the official record is written, we are not indicted by our silence.

Your humble correspondent, by the by, doesn't mean to cast aspersions when he talks about folks posturing for history. He's been doing the same thing.

People - conservatives, the occasional liberal - sometimes ask me why I bother. Another column on the sins of George W. Bush? What's the point? What will change? The people who disagree with him already know. And there's not enough evidence in the world to convince his believers - the word is appropriate - that he does not, in fact, walk on water.

Still...You cannot be a student of history without ruminating on some of the more dubious episodes of the American past and wondering how in the world such things were allowed to happen.

Was the whole country napping when Joseph R. McCarthy's bullying, innuendoes and lies cast a pall on this nation and made a mockery of the Constitution? Didn't anybody speak out when Franklin Roosevelt sent Americans to concentration camps? Where were the good people when Americans of African descent were being lynched in horrific numbers and the president and the Congress stood by and did nothing?

You read about these failures of will, of courage, of spirit and you keep asking ... how? How could that which is so obviously wrong now have been so quietly accepted then?

From that question, it is only a short hop to another, more pressing one: What will tomorrow say about today?


When I decided to speak out, my voice joined a growing chorus of voices raised in protest over not just the war, but the travesty that was the George W. Bush administration, and the desperate need to do what we could to stand in the way of his imperial presidency as it attempted to dismantle our governmental protections, wage war without our consent, strip us of our civil liberties, and subvert the Constitution.

Talking Points Memo, HuffingtonPost.com, the Daily Kos, and other websites were powerful public squares for the voices to be raised.

Although so many who did not take the Internet seriously scoffed at bloggers, I took what we do seriously.  I thought it no different from what Thomas Paine and so many like him did in the days leading up to the Revolution, when they met clandestinely around printing presses, and churned out pamphlets and tracts protesting British rule, that were hand-distributed to friend and foe alike.

There is a reason that the very first ammendment to the Constitution is one guaranteeing us the freedom to speak out.

When Barack Obama recognized this growing power, and harnessed it to energize, empower, and fund his campaign, he was stepping up to a moment in the destiny of this country's history, a moment when The People took back their government and their rights, and in so doing, brought an unjust war to an end and began the slow painful rollback of so many Bush disasters.

This new incoming administration also recognizes the impact that the Internet can have on transparency and accountability in government (more about that later, when I have time to provide links), and has indicated a willingness to provide that kind of access.  Working across the aisle as senator, Obama has already passed one law that provides Internet access to government funding--where it goes, who gets it, and how much.  (Again, links later.)

The blogging community made up their minds, both individually and collectively, that when history's verdict came in, when tomorrow called today into account, we would be the ones who would be able to say:

WE STOOD UP.  WE CALLED OUT.  WE WERE NOT SILENT.

*cross-posted at TPM Cafe: 

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/deanie_mills/2008/11/historys-verdict-is-all-we-hav.php

"Aicha Samrhouni is a legal permanent resident, one of about 12 million in the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security estimates. They enjoy almost all the benefits of citizenship -- except the right to vote.

"Less than half of the almost 1.1 million foreign-born residents in the Washington area are citizens, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Although a sizeable but unknown number are believed to be illegal immigrants, thousands are legal but have not been naturalized. They include foreign students, temporary workers, people granted political asylum and permanent residents such as Samrhouni, among others.

"Although noncitizens can't vote, they are not barred from participating in elections in other ways. Those with green cards, who have achieved legal permanent status, are permitted to make campaign contributions. And anyone can knock on doors, hand out fliers or register voters."

"(Campaign volunteer Mukit Hossain) came to this country to attend Duke and graduated with degrees in philosophy, mathematics and economics. Now he is a telecommunications consultant between jobs.

"Underneath, he says, he is a human rights activist, fighting not just for Muslims but for other ethnic groups, which share a common experience, facing discrimination in a society that seems to not want "otherness," no matter what that looks like.

"'Over the last eight years, whatever the ugly underbelly of society used to be has become more public and acceptable,' Hossain says. 'Presidential candidates have not been immune to that. It's acceptable to make racial slurs and not flinch about it. I hope whoever the next president is makes a tremendous effort to bring back basic decency."


The overwhelming turn-out within the African-American community is, of course, very moving on many levels, but perhaps one of the most powerful is the way elderly blacks are feeling about casting this historic vote.  In the Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/01/AR2008110101984.html


91-year-old Ruth Worthy of Washington, D.C. is profiled, among others.  Every week for the past month, she has been going door-to-door in her neighborhood to campaign for Barack Obama.  Sometimes she goes by wheelchair, sometimes on the arm of her nurse, but she goes.


"Worthy belongs to a generation of African Americans who have journeyed from some of the rawest and brutal eras of racism to the present, when they find themselves relishing the idea of a black man possibly becoming president.

"For many blacks ages 90 and older, Tuesday will be one of the most historic events of their long lives. They lived through Jim Crow, the Depression, world wars, the horrors of Emmett Till and the promise of the civil rights movement. Now, they're watching Obama (D-Ill.) lead in the national presidential polls.

"Be they women of relative privilege, such as Worthy, or those of working-class roots, many share the same awe at how far the world can come in a lifetime."

Another acivist group within the African-American community has been those voters who have long felt disenfranchised from the political process, as if their votes didn't matter, and that nothing would ever change for them even if they did vote.

They all have a strong sense of taking part in history, of sharing the moment they cast their votes for Obama with their children and grandchildren, according to a piece in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/us/politics/02first.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print


"Across the country, black men and women like Mr. Derrick Battle who have long been disaffected, apolitical, discouraged or just plain bored with politics say they have snapped to attention this year, according to dozens of interviews conducted in the last several days in six states. They are people like Percy Matthews of the South Side of Chicago, a 25-year-old who did vote once but whose experience was so forgettable that he cannot recall with certainty whom he cast a ballot for or even what year it was. Now an enthusiastic Democrat, he says the old days are gone.

"And Shandell Wilcox, 29, who registered to vote in Jacksonville, Fla., when she was 18, then proceeded to ignore every election other than the current one. She voted for the first time on Wednesday.

"Over and again, first-time and relatively new voters like Mr. Matthews and Ms. Wilcox, far past the legal voting age, said they were inspired by the singularity of the 2008 election and the power of Mr. Obama’s magnetism. Many also said they were loath to miss out on their part in writing what could be a new chapter of American history — the chance to vote for a black president.

"Mr. Battle, for one, remembers growing up in the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis and how intimidated the adults were about voting, and that left an impression on him. The older women he knew were afraid to walk to the polls, he said, for fear of being attacked. 'I didn’t think it was for black people, period,' he said of politics before the Civil Rights era. 'We didn’t have any rights, really. We were just coming into voting and everything.'

"Fast-forwarding to the present, he continued: 'I never thought that I’d see this day. I never thought I’d see the day where an African-American was standing at the podium getting ready to be president.'”


But of all the groups who have cast their votes in recent weeks or who will cast them on November 4, perhaps no other group has been more energetic, enthusiastic, and hard-working than our nation's young people.  And Barack Obama deserves the credit, not just for inspiring them to get involved, but for providing tech-friendly inter-connected multiple-media-savvy formats streamlined for their own modern sensibilities. 

In other words, he didn't just rely on top-down, we've-always-done-it-this-way party politics to reach young voters.  He reached them where they LIVED--MySpace, YouTube, text messaging, e-mail, and blogging.

Articles in the Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/31/AR2008103103840_pf.html

and the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/business/media/03media.html?adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1225746211-96P6Sildp9OXqc2/LzYqpg

tell how:


"If Obama becomes the first Democrat in 44 years to win the state, it will be in large part because of the Chrisi Wests of the world. They have sent e-mails, made phone calls and knocked on doors. They have texted and Twittered. And the Obama campaign has helped make it happen by speaking the language of cellphones, text messages and e-mail accounts -- and by giving thousands of young Americans who communicate this way the power to participate."


The Post describes how Chrisi West, 29, and millions more like her, set up their own e-mail distribution lists, brainstormed ideas with friends on how to spread the word about Obama, and, sometimes side-stepping obstructionist local political machines, came up with creative ways to get out the vote:


"'Chrisi. I was the guy who stood out in front of the King Street Metro passing out literature the day before the election in Virginia,' a supporter posted to one of West's call-to-action blog entries. Wrote another: 'And I'm the person in Alexandria walking the cat on leash wearing Obama buttons!'

"...The foundation of that network is the site My.BarackObama.com, where activists can set up home pages, post blog items and sign up for or post events such as canvassing, phone-banking and debate-watching parties. Known as "MyBO" within the campaign and among the activists who use it, the network boasts 1.5 million users and has advertised 100,000 distinct events. West has hosted 61 events advertised through MyBO, she has attended 93 and she has joined 32 of MyBO's groups."


The article points out that this outreach paid out dividends the Obama campaign could not have anticipated.  For instance, when the campaign opened a Virginia office, "the staff walked into the arms of a large family of volunteers who had been organizing through MYBO for nearly a year."

The article in the Times, "Campaigns in a 2.0 World," explains how this media-savvy appeal to the youth vote spread from just MYBO and Facebook to such innovations as effective uses of YouTube:


"Perhaps drawing on Mr. Obama’s background as a community organizer, his campaign decided early on to build a social network that would flank, and in some cases outflank, traditional news media.

"...The campaign mined its online community not just for money, but for content. A video titled 'Four Days in Denver' about the Obama campaign had the kind of access that journalists would kill for, including the candidate working over his acceptance speech with a staff member and showing the family backstage making ready for their moment in the spotlight.

"It looked like a big-time network get, but it was produced by the campaign itself.

“'We’re constantly experimenting with videos,' said Joe Rospars, Mr. Obama’s new-media director."
 

In one brief but telling sentence, the article points out that McCain's campaign made much sparser use of the web, "in part because he appealed to a less digital demographic."

"Less digital."  What a euphemism for the over-65 crowd.  (My apologies to all you over-65ers out there who ARE tech savvy and therefore, most likely Obama supporters.  You are obviously hip and cool.)

All of these disparate groups of people, and many others besides, will be coming together for one brief shining moment on November 4th to cast their votes.  Turn-out in early and absentee voting has already been spectacular, and election officials are bracing themselves for record voting numbers.

As for me, well, there won't be any lines.  I'll be casting my vote at the tiny cinder-block one-room community center building that sits squarely in the middle of two vast cotton fields out here in the wilds of West Texas. 

Inside, there will be a couple of lunchroom-type tables set up with folks I know manning them.  Most likely, no other voters will be there when I show up.  We'll visit a moment.  I'll show them my voter registration card and my driver's license, and I'll sign the sheet.

On the other side of the room, in opposite corners, will stand the two voting machines.  They're the computer kinds, which always makes me nervous, but they are easy to read and understand.

For a moment, I'll stand there, remembering how, two years ago, I was a terrified Marine mom whose son was fighting in a war I opposed when I first read a speech given by Sen. Barack Obama, about how he opposed the war, too.  I'll remember how I put my head down then and sobbed because, until that moment, I'd felt so alone, so helpless, so powerless.

I'll remember how I'd read his two books, cried some more, and jumped on board his campaign as soon as he declared his candidacy on a cold winter's day in 2007.

I'll think about how hard I worked through the months for him through a grueling primary season and an emotionally exhausting election season, how I quit working full-time as an author and turned all my energies, talents, and skills to getting this man elected, while my son fought yet again in Iraq and our family sent two of our nephews into war four more times.

I will know how, slowly through the months, even with the frustrations and the aggravations and the campaign fatigue...for the first time, I felt hope.

I felt empowered.

I did not feel helpless anymore.

I'll cast my vote for Barack Obama, (as will everyone else in my family, including my son) and I'll walk out of there with tears in my eyes and my head held high, and I will know that what Obama says is absolutely true, no matter who you are, where you live, how you volunteer, or where you place your vote:

One voice DOES matter.

And one person CAN change the world.

*(cross-posted at HuffingtonPost.com:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deanie-mills/two-years-of-inspiration_b_140682.html  under the title, "Two Years of Inspiration"

Back in 2000, with co-author Lou Dubose, Ivins wrote a book called, Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush. The premise of the book was stated in its introduction:

"Youthful political reporters are always told there are three ways to judge a politician. The first is to look at the record. The second is to look at the record. And third, look at the record."

Of course, nobody wanted to look at the record, since Dubya was just such a fun guy to have a beer with.

A few years later, she and Dubose wrote, Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, in which she decried his "crony capitalism" and the resulting disaster of his presidency.

But again, America and especially Texas, ignored Molly, to their own peril, and put Shrub right back in the White House because hey, he just hadn't done enough damage the first four years to suit us.

You can't just blame the right-wingers who flooded to take over the state in the wake of Bush's gubernatorial hurricane. At the same time, Texan Democrats refused to leave their creaky old party houses in spite of numerous storm warnings, and seemed surprised when they lost not just the governorship, but the state House and Senate too, while the Wicked Wizard of the West, Tom DeLay, worked his dark magic to jerrymander the entire state to Republican hell.

After that, Democrats everywhere seemed to give up on Texas. It's so reliably red on all the polling maps that I'm surprised they even bother including it anymore.

Back in 2004, I tried in vain to find a state headquarters office for the John Kerry campaign. When that didn't work, I drove a hundred miles to attend a John Kerry meet-up.

Six people showed up.

Next, I drove a hundred miles in the opposite direction to find a local Democratic party field office. There was one in that city. I know because I called 'em on the phone. Then I drove up and down, up and down the street where it was supposed to be located, finally driving back home in disgust when I couldn't get an answer to my increasingly frustrated phone calls for help.

Later, I learned that the Democratic field office had been located in a spare room at the rear of a local government office. I guess you had to know a secret password to get in because there wasn't even so much as a blue bumper sticker in the window informing you that this was the Democratic Party field office for that city.

It's like they were embarrassed to be there or something.

So yeah, Bush took the state with something like a thousand points.

But it's different now, and if Molly could see what's going on in Texas these days, she'd let out a hoo-rah and a big laugh.

Texas politics are on the move, and for the first time in years, it's exciting to be a Democrat in this very red state. I'd like to tip my hat (as you can see in the photo, I actually have one), not just to Molly's memory, but to Sen. Barack Obama for making it happen.

I have already blogged here about how Texas is changing colors.

In that post I mentioned that in 2006, Dallas county turned completely blue--with every elected office going to the Democratic candidate, from judge to dog-catcher. Now, Harris County, home to Houston, is working hard to follow in Big D's footsteps. The idea, according to the Texas Observer (Molly's old stomping grounds):

"Harris County, which encompasses the city and its suburbs, is home to 3.9 million people, outnumbering the populations of 23 states, and is roughly the same population as Oregon. Now consider that Harris County--in theory, at least--is already Democratic. Surveys and polls repeatedly show that more of its eligible voters identify with Democrats. It's just that many of those people don't vote. Moreover, the area is growing. Subdivisions are sprouting at the city's edge like weeds. The people moving in are mostly Democrats. Harris County is undergoing a demographic shift that will soon put Anglos in the minority.

"Practically speaking, a Democrat can't win a statewide race in Texas without carrying Harris County. If the party can increase its turnout just enough in this presidential year to turn Harris County blue, Democrats will control five of the state's largest counties and could become competitive again in races for governor, lieutenant governor, and U.S. Senate. Democrats are feeling the urgency to capture a statewide race and at least one chamber of the Texas Legislature by 2010 to gain a say in the next round of legislative and congressional redistricting.

"But Houston's size and shifting demographics have local Democrats dreaming well beyond the Governor's Mansion. They talk of a day when Houston could be for Texas what Philadelphia has been for Pennsylvania--a metro area that votes so overwhelmingly Democratic it provides a large enough advantage to deliver the state almost by itself. (In the 2004 election, Philadelphia handed Democrats a 400,000-vote edge in the state's largest population center--a margin Republican areas of Pennsylvania couldn't surmount.)"

Statewide, Democrats are poised to make a number of legislative gains, says the Austin American Statesman:

"There are too many close races to predict which party will end up with a majority, but old Bush allies and GOP newcomers alike now find themselves in surprisingly tight House and Senate races, giving Democrats their best chance in a decade to make big gains and perhaps even reclaim the gavel from powerful House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland.

"'The only question here is how bad Republicans are going to hurt,' said Democratic strategist Harold Cook. 'George Bush has fouled the entire nest and the voters are really starting to notice -- even in Texas.'"

Molly would have loved that part about Bush fouling the nest.

The article goes into detail on how many formerly-secure Republican seats are in jeopardy now, which I won't go into here, but one important point it makes is that Texans are, by and large, accustomed to voting a split-ticket. In other words, they may pull the lever for John McCain, but then vote for a Democratic house or senate member.

And it all adds up, baby.

Enter the brilliant young senator from Illinois with his bright ideas about a 50-state strategy.

You guys may not remember this, but when Obama first talked about that strategy, he was roundly criticized by many Democratic party bosses, who grumbled about the idea that fund-raising might go to frontier outposts like, oh I dunno...Texas? When they wanted all the money for their usual loser Kerry-state strategy. Obama persisted, and he had to fight against his own party in many cases to prove that there was indeed a method to his madness.

Fortunately, Howard Dean had the same idea, but he, too, had been criticized LOUDLY by such party bigwigs as Rahm Emmanuel, who felt that precious funds needed to go to closely contested races and not wasted out in red state boonies like, I dunno...Texas?

But Obama knew that if he could energize not just the party base (which took some doing, since so many of them were Hillary supporters), but also lots of new people who hadn't paid much attention to politics before, he could start a movement that could become an avalanche. It would not only put supposedly solid-red states in play that had not been so in 40 years, but it would help those down-ballot candidates in places like, I dunno...Texas? to run against entrenched Republican seats that now appeared suddenly very shaky.

One of Obama's biggest new energized segments of the population is students. I keep hearing pundits mouth about how apathetic they were in the past, how notoriously lazy about turning out blah blah blah. That's fine. Let 'em talk. The kids are working too hard on the Obama campaign to pay any attention.

According to the Austin American Statesman:

"After the youth vote remained the same in 1996 and 2000 -- 36 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted -- it jumped to 47 percent in 2004, the biggest four-year increase of any age group, according to the institute. And this year's primaries attracted twice the number of voters in that age bracket as the 2000 primaries in states where data were available for both primaries, according to a study by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

"Some political analysts say politics have become more important to young voters since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and politicians have become better at reaching those voters through the Internet. Austin-area students say Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama first drew in thousands of young voters through well-organized grass roots efforts.

"But regardless of whom they plan to vote for, a number of area students agreed that they want to see a change from the policies that led to the war in Iraq and the country's economic crisis.

"Students are realizing the financial crisis doesn't just affect those on Wall Street; it also affects tuition rates and employment opportunities, said 20-year-old Andy Jones, public relations director for the University Democrats at the University of Texas at Austin. He said they are also realizing "that the war in Iraq is not just some distant conflict. It's real and tangible. Our brothers, our sisters, our friends in ROTC are going there."

I don't mean to imply that there aren't any young people supporting McCain, of course there are. But Obama was so tech-savvy from the get-go, so attuned to the tech-world inhabited by the young, and his message so energetic, youthful, and optimistic, that he has managed to captivate a much larger segment of the young demographic.

Here in Texas, there are numerous websites that follow Democratic politics in our state, and one of the most popular is a site begun by college kids in 2003 called Burnt Orange Report: Our Eyes Are Upon Texas Politics that has since become a serious voice in Texas politics.

In the meantime, through Obama's interactive website, blogs for each state are running strong, no matter how red they are, as you can see on the Texas blog.

Through e-mail and text messages, those of us who live in predominantly Republican areas like Texas are fully in tune with the Obama campaign. Even when McCain is running nine points ahead, as he is here in Texas, we can not only keep up with what the campaign is doing, but we are encouraged to volunteer and get involved.

In other words, the Obama campaign is treating us red-staters like our votes count, too.

You have no idea how good that feels.

We're given all sorts of options, depending upon our individual situations. We can call battleground states from home, or visit one of many Obama call centers in the state to work with other volunteers. We can participate in voter registration drives, or in voter canvassing, or in call-center phone banks. Or just donate to support a volunteer who has more time and energy to give than money.

The idea is that just because Texas has been reliably red in the past doesn't mean it has to stay that way. By dovetailing with the exciting developments on the state-office level, and taking advantage of growing demographics like the Hispanic vote, the Obama campaign and Texas Dems can begin to tilt the popular-vote balance...maybe, in time, all the way over to the blue side.

A few weeks ago, Obama supporters here in Texas were given the opportunity to attend training camps, which have been highly successful. Naturally, these camps were being held all over the country, but for Texans to get the opportunity to attend one even in a state as red as ours is a thrill.

It sure beats driving a hundred miles to search in vain for a blue bumper sticker in a window. Participants of all ages and abilities--even one blind lady who showed up with her dog and her fired-up attitude,  have trained at the camps.

The most exciting new development here in the red state boonies this campaign, are the bus convoys provided that enable those of us who are adventurous enough and have the ability to take the time, to travel to battleground states and help to get out the vote for Obama.

*Austin to Springfield, MO
*Austin to Cincinnati, OH
*San Antonio/Austin to Albuquerque, NM
*Austin to Albuquerque, NM (weekend only)
*San Antonio/Austin to Albuquerque, NM
*Fort Worth/ Amarillo to Albuquerque, NM
*Dallas/Texarkana to St. Louis, MO (weekend only)
*Houston to FL
*Houston to Dayton, OH

Kath25 wrote:

"Texas is sending buses of volunteers to battleground states across America. All travel and lodging is provided. Volunteers will spend their days knocking on doors, turning out Obama supporters to vote. I took one of these trips to Denver last weekend, and it was amazing. The people are wonderful, and it feels so great to know we're making a real difference in the election.

"I'm not a big believer in the Electoral College as a system--living in New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Texas, I've never really "mattered" in the outcome of a Presidential election--but knocking on those doors in a battleground state felt like I was making a tangible difference in the election. "

You can sign up to get on the bus at the Texans for Obama link above, or at the Texas for Obama official website page.

My only regret about all this is that Molly Ivins isn't around anymore to crack wise about all the frightened little Republicans in the state house, clinging precariously to their seats while new hurricane warnings are posted.

For Texas Dems, revenge is sweet.

You should have heard them, those statehouse Reps, lording it all over their arrogant selves when their lord and master, Tom DeLay, was ramming through redistricting and Texas Dems of principle fled the state in order to prevent a vote from going forth. Those Dems held out for as long as they could, at their own personal expense and political cost, while DeLay ordered Homeland Security to chase after them and his little Republican lackeys in the Texas state house and his favorite altar boy, Governor Goodhair (as Molly called him) bowed and scraped.

His Dark Lord wizardry gained the U.S. Houst of Representatives five more Republican seats.

But that was then, baby, and this is now. DeLay's got his own problems, and anyway, there's a Dem in his old seat. The state party machine that backed him so completely is breaking up in the gathering blue winds. Even U.S. Senator John Cornyn hears the howls of the wind on his heels as Rick Noriega, an Aghanistan veteran and Texas representative who has fought hard for children's health insurance, closes that race to within six points.

However it all sorts itself out on November 4, Texas Democrats are on the bus for good. And I know Molly Ivins is up there somewhere, along with her old pal, Ann Richards, and they've got big ole grins on their faces.

"You know, just to put it frankly, the evangelical movement that I grew up in as a child used to be a fairly respectable and respectful group of people. They regarded themselves as Americans and part of the system. And now, I really think it's been taken over by a group of people that have to be described fairly as just wingnuts...And the fact of the matter is, the movement has gone off the rails. "


Mr. Schaeffer raises an important point that cannot be overlooked here.  The advent of home-schooling, once the purvue of only a tiny sliver of the population, has boomed in recent years.  Public schools were considered secularist, even anti-God, and so more and more Christian homes began to teach their children at home, even as private, church-supported Christian schools also began to proliferate. 

Since the rock-bottom line of the fundamentalist teaching is that EVERY WORD IN THE BIBLE IS INSPIRED BY GOD AND IS THE LITERAL TRUTH, then it follows that such things as scientific inquiry must be filtered through that gauze--hence the refusal by many fundamentalists to accept that evolution exists.

You have to understand that such a rigid understanding of Biblical teachings makes it IMPOSSIBLE for Christian fundamentalists to question ANY of it.  To do so is A DIRECT THREAT to their faith.  They are literally afraid that if they ask too many questions, their faith and its belief system will collapse, and they will be left alone in the universe with no God and no direction.

This severe either-or interpretation of life extends into political policy and must be embraced by any politician who courts their vote.

When John McCain got the nomination, this large segment of the Republican establishment was highly suspicious of him, because although he is strongly pro-life, he has not exactly embraced their entire agenda and has certainly not been as strong a proponent of their policies--or as overtly religious--as, say, I dunno...Tom DeLay?

Although it was Ronald Reagan who first saw and exploited this voting block--even though he, himself, never attended church--it was Karl Rove who elevated that exploitation to an art.  (Even though he admits that he is actually an agnostic.  How cynical is that?)

Rove understood that the religious right takes seriously yet another scripture that says, "Believers, be ye not yoked to unbelievers."

This tends to cause fundamentalists to stick strictly to church-oriented settings in their daily lives.  As the commercial world also caught on to the amount of money to be made in this area, a whole new marketing campaign exploded--Christian romance novels, Christian rock music, Christian movies, Christian radio and television stations, Christian toys, and so on.

At that same time, those same marketing forces, aided and abetted by politicians, emphasized the idea that regular news sources--broadcast news, ranking newspapers and news magazines, and the like--were LIBERAL and therefore, NOT TO BE TRUSTED.

This meant that respected news sources such as the New York Times or the Washington Post could all be lumped in with the liberal media and ignored, while "the truth" could be found only on Christian news sources.

So you can educate your children at home, teaching from the same Bible they read in Sunday School and in church on Sunday mornings and evenings and Wednesday nights, driving to and fro while listening to Christian radio in the car, pay attention to Christian news networks while preparing dinner, watch a Christian video with the kids, put them to bed, and read a Christian book before you go to sleep, then wake up to your morning Bible devotional.

Almost all your friends are Christians, and when you go online, you hang out in Christian chat groups.

This is what Mr. Schaeffer meant when he talked about the secession of Christian fundamentalists from the rest of the country.

And with this extremely narrow worldview and lack of exposure to outside influences, it makes this particular voting block very easy to manipulate.

And it is done, for starters, with code-words.

One of the most outrageous moments of last night's debate occurred when John McCain snorted in derision when Barack Obama said that he would not vote for an anti-abortion bill that did not take into account, "the life and health of the mother."

Making air-quotes with his fingers, McCain sneered that "the health of the mother" was an "extreme pro-abortion" concept.

The vast majority of people viewing that moment were repulsed by McCain's comments, and rightfully so--but for the religious right who were watching, this was a moment of high satisfaction.

It has long been a sticking-point with anti-abortion advocates that doctors would only use "health of the mother" as an excuse to provide on-demand abortions.  The idea was that all a doctor had to do was say that the mother's health was in jeopardy, even if it wasn't.  They believed--and still believe--that "health of the mother" is a mere ploy to get away with more abortions.

To religious fundamentalists, it is always either-or.  There is no nuance in their world.

This one moment, more than any other--with the possible exception of lumping Obama in with "extremist environmentalists" because he wants to see to it that nuclear power is safe--was the tell in the poker game that McCain and his handlers are playing.

From the time the Republicans--carried on the wave of right-wing evangelicals--took over congress in 1994 until only recently, evangelical right-wingers have dictated public policy, Supreme Court nominees, political discourse, and legislation.

But as they have become increasingly isolated even within the Republican party itself, they have failed to understand that the rest of the country is not as conservative or fundamentalist as they are. 

And as their howls of protest grow increasingly more shrill, their message is growing increasingly more extreme, to the point that now, even contraception is considered by many of them to be a form of abortion, and some fundamentalist pharmacists won't even fill prescriptions for women for birth control pills.

It was a good run, for a while there, for the Republican party.  Voter guides passed out in churches, lots of God and flags waved around during speeches and rallies and conventions...consequently, when McCain decided who was going to run his campaign, he aligned himself with those who still believe that to energize THAT "base" for the Republican party is, in effect, to energize the entire electorate, all the way to victory.

But wedge issues, waged so skillfully by Karl Rove in previous campaigns--abortion, gay rights, and gun control--only worked, at the time, because during and for a while after the Clinton years, this country was at peace and in a time of prosperity.  More moderate people could afford to vote against their own economic self-interest and feel righteous doing it, because after all, their candidate was a good, God-fearing man.

It's Rove's protegees now running McCain's campaign, and they've tried mightily to create new wedge issues out of such made-up horrors as Bill Ayers and ACORN, while at the same time, whipping up their rallies into a frenzy with that original secessionist--Sarah Palin.

But they have lived in their own world for so long now that they failed to realize that the rest of the country was moving on.  This is why they keep pushing issues that voters just don't care about--especially now that there are two wars going on and the economy is imploding.  It's why, to the mystification of pundits everywhere--they continue to ignore polls which state--loud and clear--that Americans not only don't care about these things, but that the constant referencing of them is only causing a backlash for their candidate.

They HAVE to ignore the polls now, because the vocal minority of religious right-wingers that dominate their rallies and fund-raisers INSIST upon it.  Even as McCain was tanking in the polls on such non-issues as Bill Ayers, the religious right-wing was demanding that he push it harder.

There's a reason for this, too, and Frank Schaeffer discusses it in CRAZY FOR GOD:


"Fundamentalists never can just disagree.  The person they fall out with is not only on the wrong side of the issue; they are on the wrong side of God...

"A church split builds self-righteousness into the fabric of every new splinter group, whose only reason for existence is that they decide that they are more pure and moral than their brethren...

"And each splinter group within our culture...sees itself as morally, even 'theologically,' superior to its rivals.  It is not just about politics.  It is about being BETTER than one's evil opponent.  We don't just disagree, we demonize the 'other.'  And we don't compromise."


It must be stated here that we can be just as bad on the left sometimes, but the sheer organization and size, and cultural reach of the evangelical movement puts its self-righteousness in bold-face, as Christopher Buckley, son of conservative godfather William F. Buckley found when, after recently endorsing Barack Obama online, he was hounded out of the magazine his father had founded, the National Review:


"Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

"My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman...

"My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much...

"So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

"While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of 'conservative' government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case. 

"So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me."


Christopher Buckley is not the first well-known thinking conservative who is breaking away from the current direction of the party, as I detailed in my own blogpost, "Hell Just Froze Over."  http://deaniemills.com/2008/10/09/hell-just-froze-over.aspx

What we're witnessing right now is a fragmenting of the Republican party as the religious right-wing breaks away from the conservative and/or moderate wings of the party.  They've had power for a while now, and they don't want to let go.  This is part of why there is so much rage and nastiness at their rallies.  And you can bet that if John McCain loses, the religious right-wing will say it was because he wasn't fundamentalist ENOUGH, that he didn't push Bill Ayers and ACORN and other wedge issues ENOUGH, that he didn't get mad ENOUGH, and they will back someone wild-eyed enough for them next time--maybe Sarah Palin herself.

But this country, the world, and the Republican party itself will have moved on by then.  They will have to do some serious soul-searching to rediscover what it means to be conservative.  And if that happens, expect the religious right-wing to put forth a third-party candidate.  (And be stunned when they don't win.)

As Roger Cohen put it in the New York Times, in his op-ed, "Presley, Palin, and the Heartland,"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/opinion/16Cohen.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print


"And it dawned on me that Palin, with her vile near-accusations of treason against Barack Obama, her cloying doggone hymns to small-town U.S.A., her with-us-or-against-us refrain, is really an impostor.

"She’s the representative of a kind of last-gasp Republicanism, of an exhausted party, whose proud fiscal conservatism and patriotism have given away to scurrilous fear-mongering and ideological confusion.

"It’s a party in need of a break from power after the Bush years in order to re-learn what (Branson, Missouri mayor, Raeanne) Presley represents: the can-do, down-to-earth, honest, industrious, spend-what-you-earn civility of the heartland. That civility has been usurped into Palin’s trash talk."

But I think Christopher Buckley should get the last word, part of his original piece, "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama," the one that got him thousands of hate e-mails and letters and threats:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama/


"Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, 'You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.' Well, the dear man did his best."

"Together, we cannot fail."


The fundamental difference between the words of Obama and of McCain (and Hillary, for that matter), is that McCain spoke of HIMSELF, fighting battles FOR us.

He didn't really explain what those battles would be.  Just that he would fight for us.

But what Obama did was, he THOUGHT for us.

While McCain and his closest advisors were brainstorming a fiesty new slogan to go with his fighter-image, Obama and HIS closest advisors were THINKING WHAT WE COULD DO TO GET OUT OF THIS MESS.

Then, Obama took his thoughts to the American people, and he ENLISTED them in the struggle.  He said, WE can do this.  He said, WE have faced bigger challenges before, and overcome them.  He said, HERE IS WHAT WE CAN DO.

Let me put it this way.  McCain says, "I know how it feels to be afraid...I choose to fight."

Obama says, "Don't be afraid."

Do you see the difference?

A fighter fights his own battles.

A thinker understands OUR battles, and reaches out to help.  He notices that WE are afraid, and shows us what he intends to do to chase away the monsters.

On Monday, when McCain gave his speech, he was cheered by supporters, who have enjoyed the whole fighter-idea as they have shouted insults and obscenities at McCain's opponent while, at the same time, urging him to "take the gloves off" and be even meaner.

At the same time, Obama was talking to some supporter-volunteers, and a young woman mentioned that she was a nursing student, and that she'd had to borrow money for school, and didn't know what was going to happen to her.

He stopped and said, "How much money have you borrowed so far?"

She said, "Twenty-five thousand," and suddenly, a great tear tracked its way down the side of her face.

He said, "We're going to try and get you some help."

Then, he put his arms around her and said, "I appreciate all you do for me."  And he held her for a moment while she cried.

This moment was far more powerful than the moment between McCain and his rabid supporters, even though it was quiet.  It captured how most of the public feels right now, and how a potential leader is responding to that anguish.

And in so doing, he brings out the best in us, not the worst.

All of a sudden, on Monday night, McCain's campaign announced that HE had a new program for the economy, too!

Which is real leadership?  The fighter, reacting and lurching from one battle to another while he hunkers down, attacking detractors? 

Or the thinker, putting together working ideas to help real working people who can barely discuss their situations without crying?

At this point in American history, we are in a whole new revolution.  We're in a technological revolution that is rendering obsolete the industrial revolution of last century. 

We are in a revolution in warfare, from conventional battlefields and Cold War stand-offs to guerilla wars, small pockets of terrorism, and information competitions with sophisticated propagandists. 

We're in a political revolution--from Old Guard ways of Party Machines and attack ads to digital cooperation, bloggers, and online communities.

It takes a visionary to not only SEE this revolution, but to FORESEE its outcome, and to be brave enough and smart enough to position the country in the best possible place for that outcome, while at the same time, inspiring us to work together to find solutions.

When Thomas Jefferson and John Adams signed the Declaration of Independence, they and all the other signers were risking their lives, the lives of their families, and everything they owned.  They were openly setting themselves up as traitors and enemies of the Crown.  Had the colonies lost that war, all of them would have most likely been hanged.

And yet, what we needed more than anything else right then from our leaders was THOUGHT.  We needed the Jeffersons and Adams's and Franklin's to put their formidable minds together and figure out how to create a country.

We need something very similar now.  This country is emotionally lost, aimless, confused, frightened, angry--and very divided.  Back in the past century, the leaders believed that by dividing us and setting us against one another, they could get away with a grand theft of power.

But it's a new century now, and a new world that is more interconnected than ever before in history.  We long for a leader who is calm, focused, and capable, who can bring out our best selves, inspire us to be strong, and encourage us to search for common ground in the finding answers to our problems. 

We may admire the fighter, but right now, more than anything else, we need the thinker.

"Time was, the Baltimore Orioles' manager was Earl Weaver, a short, irascible, Napoleonic figure who, when cranky, as he frequently was, would shout at an umpire, 'Are you going to get any better or is this it?' With, mercifully, only one debate to go, that is the question about John McCain's campaign.

"In the closing days of his 10-year quest for the presidency, McCain finds it galling that Barack Obama is winning the first serious campaign he has ever run against a Republican. Before Tuesday night's uneventful event, gall was fueling what might be the McCain-Palin campaign's closing argument. It is less that Obama has bad ideas than that Obama is a bad person.

"This, McCain and his female Sancho Panza say, is demonstrated by bad associations Obama had in Chicago, such as with William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American hous