"Christian soldiers for the Bush campaign" Blumner, St. Pete Times.

[madfloridian]

One of my favorite columnists.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/13/Columns/Christian_soldiers_fo.shtml

SNIP..."The byplay was as inevitable as chickens being provided to the barrios of Mexico just before the eleccion. President Bush first opens the spigot of public money to churches and other faith-based groups to the tune of over a billion dollars last year, then he knocks on the faith community's door for a political favor, por favor.

The Bush-Cheney re-election campaign is not a bit embarrassed at being caught trying to organize a brigade of (mostly) Christian soldiers in houses of worship throughout Pennsylvania who would act as point people for the campaign. After reports emerged that the Bush campaign's national headquarters asked the Pennsylvania contingent to identify "1,600 "Friendly Congregations' in Pennsylvania where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis," Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush administration, told the New York Times: "People of faith have as much right to participate in the political process as any other community."

Of course they do, Steve, but that misses the point....."

[banana republican]

1. As a person of faith

I find this to be type of behavior to be typical of the CHENEY OF BABYLON.....

[madfloridian]

3. I am also a religious person, but this is offensive. You are right.

:hi:

[AirAmFan]

2. Go Robyn! This 'faith-based vote buying'

story could by DYNAMITE!

More from http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/13/Columns/Christian_soldiers_fo.shtml :

'The re-election campaign is essentially trying to organize a church-based political apparatus, where congregations are a new kind of Chicago-style ward....

As churches are being recruited, Republicans in Congress are doing their part to wave off the IRS. A bill that would allow religious denominations to support political candidates has been slipped into a larger jobs measure in the House. The Safe Harbor for Churches provision would reduce tax penalties for a set number of political endorsements from the pulpit and eliminate them if the endorsement was "unintentional."'

[foolmeonce]

4. the thing i don't get

my own religious beliefs, although a bastardized amalgamation of life experiences, come somewhat from the same well as those of el capitan.

why, oh why, aren't those who pray at a somewhat different altar than his holiness of 1600 penn APPALLED at his obvious irreverence for the separation of church and state on which this rock was built?

[AirAmFan]

5. Some pastors are making secret deals with Republicans even though their

congregations agree with Democrats on most issues.

Remember when Ronald Reagan campaign manager and "Geraldo" regular Ed Rollins let the truth silp out about how Republicans bribe the clergy to help "win" elections?

From http://archives.cjr.org/year/94/1/cynicism.asp

Columbia Journalism Review January/February 1994

"Insider Cynicism: Ed Rollins Meets the Press, by Christopher Hanson

Rollins is, or was, a Republican political consultant. The Sperling breakfast is a Washington institution of sorts -- held some 2,600 times over the past twenty-seven years -- in which journalists, hosted by The Christian Science Monitor's Godfrey "Budge" Sperling, gently question figures like Rollins and report the responses they find newsworthy.

At a November 9 Sperling breakfast, Rollins, boasting about how he had just helped win a governorship for New Jersey's Christine Todd Whitman, said the campaign had spent about $500,000 to suppress the black vote. He said GOP operatives had made payments to Democratic precinct workers in black areas on condition they sit on their hands on election day. And he said the Whitman campaign had contributed to church charities in return for black ministers keeping mum on the virtues of Democratic incumbent James Florio.

[AirAmFan]

6. Kick