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Friday, November 04, 2005
Connecting the dots
Here's a missive from the FRC's Tony Perkins from October 5:
Veteran TV Anchorman Walter Cronkite was called "the most trusted man in America" when he held forth on the CBS Evening News for a generation. Now, he says, he doesn't trust you. "I do not think the majority of our people [is capable] of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course. I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger."
Cronkite's remarks recall those of Washington Post reporter Michael Weisskopf who a few years ago called Evangelicals "poor, uneducated, and easy to command." It's no surprise that the liberal media elite think this way; what's surprising is that they so openly avow their contempt for the American people. It stands to reason, therefore, that such elitists view with horror the thought of anybody except federal judges making the really important decisions in America. That's what these fights over confirmations are really about: Who governs? We have no intention of giving up on democracy in America. Sorry, Uncle Walter, but that's the way it is.
Who govers -- that's an important point. Cronkite doesn't. Weisskopf doesn't. Tom DeLay does. What does his staff think of Perkins' followers?
Consider one memo highlighted in a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday that Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, sent the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to describe his strategy for protecting the tribe's gambling business. In plain terms, Scanlon confessed the source code of recent Republican electoral victories: target religious conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad through complex initiatives.
"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." The brilliance of this strategy was twofold: Not only would most voters not know about an initiative to protect Coushatta gambling revenues, but religious "wackos" could be tricked into supporting gambling at the Coushatta casino even as they thought they were opposing it.
Tick...tick...tick...how long until Perkins condemns Scanlon and DeLay for calling his followers "wackos"? How long until he condemns the legislative strategy of tricking his voters into voting against their interests?
