( – promoted by odum)

You know, with the complete implosion of the Republican party happening right before our eyes, you’d figure I’d be blogging 24-7.  Been busy lately with school and the Osman campaign, so I haven’t had too much time.  And there’s just too much good stuff to write about. Every day, it’s something new, whether Foley-related (or some other cognitive-dissonance-inducing Repub gay thing), an Abramoff thing, or another 2 or three house races suddenly becoming competitive.

Hands down, my favorite has got to be the ‘GOP done been playing the Christianists for suckers’ thing, something I’ve talked about quite a bit at my own blog, Five Before Chaos . And, with David Kuo’s new book, ‘Tempting Faith’  making waves, the cat is out of the bag. Kuo, a self-described Konservative Kristian, was the #2 man at Bush’s Office of Faith Based initiatives. The most overlooked signifigant thing about his book is when he reveals one of the few moments that Bushco spoke the absolute truth, when he describes many in the administration as describing Falwell, Dobson and others as ‘nuts’ and ‘kooks’.

What’s even more striking is the reaction from some evangelicals,  a shoot the messenger tactic. The White House folks are pedaling the ‘doesn’t sound like the same guy we had working here angle’, and radical cleric James Dobson had this to say, a combination of ‘sour grapes’ and ‘waaahhhh, we’re so persecuted’:

“The release of this book criticizing the Bush administration’s handling of its faith-based initiative program seems to represent little more than a mix of sour grapes and political timing. David Kuo’s book doesn’t hit shelves until next week, but excerpts released by media outlets paint the picture of a dissatisfied federal employee taking shots at the White House effort to connect faith-based nonprofit groups with legitimate societal needs.

“Big media will no doubt play this story to the hilt in the next several weeks, because it allows them to take aim at two of their favorite targets: President Bush and socially conservative Christians. Sadly, Kuo’s characterization of his former colleagues, bosses and mission — mischaracterizations, really — will be fed to the public as truth.”

Carpetbagger has some more on that.

A few other good links on the subject:
Howard Fineman’s ‘For the Faithful, A Trying Time’
Alan Wolfe’s ‘Are Evangelicals Over?’

I have to say that I’m loving the position the evangelicals are put in right now: continue to be played for suckers(which shouldn’t be that hard when you look at what they believe in the first place), or stay home and sit out the election. They really have no place else to go. Gawddamn, it feels good to say that. Maybe they’ll form a third party that will accomplish nothing but draw away GOP votes, another winning scenario for us in the reality-based community.

Finally, Keith Olberman has featured the Kuo book on his Countdown program last week. Here are parts 1 and 2. You’ll enjoy. try not to gloat. Aw, hell, gloat. We’ve been waiting for this a long time.

Part 1 of Olbermann on ‘The Nuts’

Part 2

you can read more of JD Ryan’s stuff at Five Before Chaos

At her press conference on Monday, Rainville feebly tried to distance herself from her national GOP benefactors in the US House leadership. With everyone from Speaker Dennis Hastert on down the leadership rolls seemingly either indicted or implicated in some scandal or other, Rainville confirmed that while she would of course support Republicans for House leadership, she may not endorse the current crop.

Rainville laid out her own leadership dream team of Republicans who “…can get something done without waiting for a perfect bill or a perfect plan.” Who makes up her ethically superior slate? Why, Nancy Johnson (R-CT), Heather Wilson (R-NM), and Charlie Bass (R-NH).

First of all, it should be stated that none of these Reps to my knowledge has indicated an interest in leadership. It should also be pointed out that, given the polling in their districts, it’s possible that not a one of these incumbents will survive re-election. Nevertheless, for those who aren’t familiar with these relatively “clean” republicans, here’s a primer after the fold:

Nancy Johnson:

As the author of legislation to crack down on sexual predators who use the internet, Rep. Nancy Johnson should be among the most vocal critics of the GOP’s handling of the Mark Foley imbroglio.

But the dean of the Connecticut Congressional delegation has been remarkably soft spoken about the scandal – the single statement posted on her homepage is nothing more than an effort to deflect criticism from her colleagues in the Republican leadership.

A little odd?

Not!

Johnson apparently was financially involved with Foley, whose penchant for online chats with semi-nude pages threatens to topple the GOP leadership. Before the Florida representative was publicly disgraced, the congresswoman privately teamed up with him to raise thousands of dollars for her campaign, FEC documents show.

Heather Wilson:

Reminiscent of the still-unfolding scandal involving Rep. Mark Foley — and what many, even on the right, see as a Republican cover-up — is an earlier scandal involving Republican Rep. Heather Wilson (NM-01) and her husband, Jay Hone. The video above shows a KOAT-TV7 (Albuquerque) news story prompted by one of Wilson’s first actions when she was appointed to head the NM Department of Children, Youth and Families. Wilson served as Department Secretary from 1995-1998. On her third day in office, she removed a sensitive department case file, which had been opened on her husband, from the agency’s central records repository in Albuquerque. Although Wilson initially denied doing so, she later changed her story and admitted removing the file. In other words, she lied.

Charlie Bass:

A top aide to Rep. Charlie Bass resigned yesterday after admitting he used a government computer to post misleading messages on liberal Web sites.

Tad Furtado agreed yesterday to resign as policy director, the number-two job in the Republican congressman’s office.

That click clack sound you hear is Martha reloading her M16, as she has shot herself in the foot so many times now, it’s time for new ammo…

Stop the presses!! Republican Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie actually followed through and participated in today’s debate on the Mark Johnson Show! Perhaps he had some extra Wheaties this morning. Or perhaps the choir of voices taking him to task for hiding from a direct confrontation with his opponents finally reached a critical mass. In any event, the Lite Gov, who has only agreed to five debates and has already backed out of two, has finally deigned to throw the democratic process a bone (pesky democratic process).

But how did it go? I couldn’t listen, but I’d love to hear a report. The question is, now that Dubie has poked his head out from his hidey-hole, will he see his shadow and dash back in by cancelling more debates, or will he see that maybe it isn’t so gosh darn scary after all and reconsider his intent to bag this weekend’s scheduled forum at Sterling College? He doubtless has plenty of fans telling him to simply ignore the election (Haik has even suggested that since Dubie had a two week flyover of Baghdad and could also probably beat me up, that he should get a free pass for his abject fear of facing Dunne in a fair fight… not sure how that logic works, exactly…).

But who knows? After today, maybe a sense of honor and respect for our constitutional Republic will suddenly re-emerge, trumping his fear and craven strategy of self-presevation. Maybe he’ll feel some self-consciousness about the patheticly tiny number of debates he’s agreed to and at the very least, reschedule the two he blew off… maybe, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

In any event, the Dunne campaign (which has apparently pulled former Vermonters First blogger and gubernatorial gadfly Adam Quinn out of his short-lived Planned Parenthood gig) has announced a presser tomorrow that will herald the change of heart of a major Dubie supporter to the Dunne camp. No word on who that might be, so we’ll have to wait til tomorrow to see, unless one of you has a tidbit (waddaya think… maybe Illuzzi??).

UPDATE: Nope – according to Freyne, it’s the Vermont Troopers Foundation, which endorsed Dubie two years ago. Great news for Dunne, but maybe not quite as juicy as the press release led us to hope…