MORE ON SUCKERS. David Kuo's recent turn as Disillusioned Bush Follower du jour offers another welcome addition to the burgeoning literature as to why you wouldn't hire anyone still employed by this carnival of charlatans to park your car, let alone govern the country or play with the Army. I have adopted the Karl Rove quote -- "Just get me a f***ing faith-based thing" -- as my personal favorite quote of the Avignon Presidency.
Nevertheless, there is something almost pathetic about Kuo, a true believer in the employ of true deceivers. Egged on by Lesley Stahl, he recounts how regularly famous television preachers were treated with disdain in the West Wing. Pat Robertson was called insane and Jerry Falwell, ridiculous. James Dobson was somebody who needed to be leashed. Name a serious Christian leader, Kuo told Stahl, and that person got smack talked about him in the White House.
Well, first of all, Robertson is nutty, Falwell is ridiculous, and the polity would be infinitely better if Dobson were personally Raptured away on the next cloud. However, what Kuo fails to mention is that these are not serious Christian leaders. Robertson and Falwell wouldn't last 10 minutes in theological debate with any Jesuit I ever met, and most of the folks at places like Candler would eat the two of them on toast. They are -- or were -- serious political leaders. Their public Christianity is television performance art aimed at rendering unto themselves that which is Caesar's -- to wit, money and political power. Back in the 1970's, American fundamentalist Christianity had withdrawn itself from the profane secular world. It exploded back into politics specifically as a secular voting bloc, following leaders -- like Richard Viguerie -- who were explicitly political. As such, these folks could be (and, apparently, were) played largely for the suckers they are. Gussying up your poltiics with Scripture doesn't make them any less political. It just makes you more of a sap when the obvious bills come due.
--Charles P. Pierce
