The National Review is a right wing rag. It publishes lies regularly, and its
editor in chief Rich Lowry is a wimp who taunted liberals as "sissies" but then
backed down when Al Franken challenged him to a fight. He's also a snot-nosed
tool who - when shown a Forbes list of the richest people in the world - called
them "all great Americans." Of course some rich people aren't great Americans.
Some aren't even American and many just had rich parents or grandparents.
Anyway, here some writer named Paul Kengor makes the astonishingly foolish
and dishonest claim: the "press does not express outrage when Democratic
politicians talk about God, though they certainly do when Republicans mention
religion." He fails to provide even one example of the press expressing
"outrage" in this way, but since he's writing for other right wingers apparently
he expects them to accept this bizarre assertion sans support.
Kengor goes on and on whining that it's not fair to criticize Bush for
talking about his religion because - Kengor claims - Clinton did it! Someday I
hope a psychologist will discover why right wingers think "Clinton did it!" are
magic words that - whether accurate, appropriate or not - automatically excuse
any crime, lie or idiocy by any right winger.
This is odd. I just reread this article and although the writer CLAIMS Bill
Clinton mentioned "Jesus" many many many times more than Bush, he fails to
provide even ONE SINGLE example of Bill Clinton saying the name Jesus in public.
This indicates to me that the writer is just lying. I do recall many of
Clinton's public statements, but I don't recall him mentioning Jesus. Not even
once. It'd be nice if Kengor bothered to give us a date or a link, but like Ann
Coulter and other right wingers, he expects us to just believe him. I don't and
neither should anyone else.
Whenever a right winger says something that seems hard to believe, don't
believe it. Unless and until he or she provides proof - not just a reference or
a vague description about how they Googled, Lexus-Nexused, or poured through
presidential papers - don't buy it. More times than not, the right wing didn't
get it, didn't do the research, and / or is just plain lying. They do it all the
time.
Now, say Clinton DID mention Jesus more than Bush does as claimed. Once
again, other than the word of an avowed right-winger writing for a magazine
known for lying, we have no reason to think that's true. But what if Clinton did
mention Jesus more than Bush? So what? The National Review would have us think
Clinton should be attacked for that because in the National Review's view,
people attack Bush for mentioning Jesus.
Once again, Kengor we have a problem. There's no example of that in the
article. The closest is when Mo Dowd - the product of a right wing
Clinton-hating family who often savagely attacked Bill and Hillary Clinton -
refers to Bush playing the "Jesus card." How is that an "attack?" It isn't.
No one I know attacks Bush for mentioning the name "Jesus," but some do raise
eyebrows if Bush implies Jesus tells him to kill people or something like that.
Bush does claim Jesus talks to him and some see that more like "Son of Sam"
psychosis rather than a matter of religion. Many people question Bush's
oft-spoken devotion to Jesus when so many things Bush does directly contradict
Jesus' teachings. Saying that is not an attack. Why does the National Review
whine on and on about unfairness without substantiating it at all?
Bottom line: this article is crap. There is no "double standard" that says
liberals and moderates can express religious views but conservatives and right
wingers cannot. The mere suggestion indicates a near-paranoid delusion. So why
all the crying from the right wing rag National Review essentially lying about
unfair treatment for Bush? The lying from the right is nothing new, but when did
right wingers turn into such cry babies?
Whatever happened to right wingers like Ronald Reagan? You'd never see him
whining about someone saying he was playing the "Jesus card." He'd make a joke
about it and turn it around. He'd use it to his advantage. I guess all the guts
went out of the right wing when the Gipper quit and the right wingers turned
over their leadership to wimps like Newt Gingrich. Gingrich used to call his
fellow House Republicans sobbing about how people were mean to him. I think I
liked the Reagan right wingers better. The policies still sucked, but you didn't
have to put up with all the boo-hooing.
Here's an excerpt of this pissy little article called "God is O.K. on the
left, but not the right" and a link at the end so you can see I'm correct.
Kengor makes a lot of claims about unfair treatment, but proves nothing. One
interesting note: Zell Miller is a DINO - a Democrat in name only - and his rant
at the GOP Convention was a hypocritical litany of shameful bald-faced lies. For
one thing, Miller listed a series of weapons systems Sen. Kerry supposedly
opposed - which wasn't true - without mentioning that as Secretary of Defense
working for George HW Bush, Dick Cheney demanded that the Congress completely
eliminate many of them. When Chris Matthews called Miller on his obvious deceit,
the traitor to his party mentioned he'd like to shoot Matthews in a duel.
<hr size="1">
God is O.K. on the left, but not the right. By Paul Kengor
It was quite telling that the strongest religious statement made at the
Republican convention came not from a Republican but from a Democrat, Georgia
Senator Zell Miller, who claimed (among other things) that the current president
is the same person on Saturday that he is on Sunday morning. Convention speeches
are carefully managed, and I suspect that a shrewd Republican handler ensured
that the convention's most emphatic statement in support of Bush's faith was
offered by a Democrat. Why? Because the Bush team has learned a crucial lesson:
The press does not express outrage when Democratic politicians talk about God,
though they certainly do when Republicans mention religion. Consider the example
of the two most recent presidents, Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George
W. Bush.
The underreported story at the start of convention week was Bill Clinton's
Sunday talk at the radical Riverside Church in New York. Clinton addressed the
congregation during the worship service, accusing Republicans of bearing "false
witness" and being "the people of the Nine Commandments." The pastor introduced
Clinton as part of an announcement of the church's Mobilization 2004 campaign,
the kind of political activity that drives liberals wild when done by
Republicans or conservative churches.
Liberals in the media must ignore the Clinton-Riverside incident; otherwise,
it becomes harder to vilify George W. Bush as a man who (uniquely, in their
view) drags God into politics for his own purposes. Here's the reality:
Though clearly a devout Christian, Bush is no more outwardly religious than
the vast majority of this nation's presidents, including his most recent
predecessor. I researched the Presidential Documents (the official collection of
every public presidential statement); an examination of the mentions of Jesus
Christ by George W. Bush and Bill Clinton showed that through 2003, Bush cited
Jesus, or Jesus Christ, or Christ in 14 separate statements, compared to 41 by
Clinton. On average, Clinton mentioned Christ in 5.1 statements per year, which
exceeded Bush's 4.7.
[The whining went on and on, but I see no need to repeat it all. You can read
it yourself: http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/comment/kengor200409070843.asp]
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