I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Stranger still Jesus being Jewish.
Religious tolerance and understanding, what a strange concept indeed.
Death to Cal Thomas
the Wurlitzer is warming up.
How come when Dean talks about the same regional stereotypes that conservatives revel in, they're wrong?
Also, is Cal Thomas basically saying that there should be no such thing as religious intermarriage, and Christians should not tolerate Jews?
And, uh, wasn't Jesus George W. Bush's favorite philosopher, a sort of dismissive reference in and of itself? Or are we just supposed to "know" that Bush luvs The Jesus?
I feel very pessimistic that the Reich Wing will use this as an issue against Dean. Watch out for many hidden messages and subtle jabs at his wife's religion. Watch out for fascist pundits (Cal Thomas just got the kickoff) questioning Dean's "electability" because of this.
Dean likes "Fruits and Nuts"?
As a Californian, that's strangely compelling...maybe I should reconsider my candidate?
Sickening, absolutely sickening. And yet, so naturally written that we know its just the tip of the iceberg for this sanctimonious attack. I've seen several references to this CS Lewis piece recently, I think it must be in some RNC handout. CS Lewis, by the way, was one of the most twisted and, to my mind, sadistic Christian writers. He takes a postive delight, especially in his science fiction, in proposing and defending the existence of a distant, cruel, and unforgiving god whose entire purpose seems to lie in tricking large numbers of people into falling into error. They are then condemned eternally.
"Christ was someone who sought out people who were disenfranchised," he told the Globe, "people who were left behind." Dean makes it sound as if Jesus might have been a Democrat.
Probably not, but he straight off wouldn't have been a Republican either.
I love the bold way in which Cal Thomas, who presumes intellectual authority on the subject of Christian Theology, proceeds to pass judgement on the religious views of a doctor and physician in the land of the free and the home of the brave. That teaching of Paul, "Bretheren, be babes in the Spirit, but in thinking, be mature", seems to have escaped him. After listening to his version of Christian practice, I think I'll convert to Islam--its more tolerant.
Jesus most likely would have been a Christian Libertarian leaning Democratic, at least in today's parlance.
He probably also would have broken into a few televangelist tapings and straight-up gone post-apocalyptic on 'em.
Dean is from a Congregationalist background, a liberal denomination that does not believe in ministerial authority or church hierarchy. Each Okay, given this:
"Dean is from a Congregationalist background, a liberal denomination that does not believe in ministerial authority or church hierarchy. Each Congregationalist believes he is in direct contact with God and is entitled to sort out truth for himself."
How does it conflict with this:
"Dean's wife is Jewish and his two children are being raised Jewish, which is strange at best, considering that the two faiths take a distinctly different view of Jesus."
I mean, just as a point of consistency?
Ummm..... Jeezus no give me turkee?
Cal Thomas is a motherf@cking lowlife. Check out this quote from that article:
Democrats worry that they suffer from a "God gap."(...)
Who can forget Easter Sunday 1996, when Clinton emerged from church flashing a Bible for the cameras and later returning to the White House, where Monica Lewinsky got down on her knees to perform an act that did not resemble prayer?
SCUMBAG!!!!
Apparently there's nothing wrong to claim "Jesus is your favorite philosopher" as Junior does, making sure the cameras catch him going to church often, and then LIE to your country about the reasons for a war, and launch an unprovoked attack (shock and awe) that killed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.
No "God gap" there....
Republicans = Hypocrites
Can you say "Jews for Jesus"?
"He was a person who set an extraordinary example that has lasted 2,000 years, which is pretty inspiring when you think about it," [said Dean.]
Not really. If that is all Jesus was (or is), then he is just another entry in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, to be read or not, according to one's inspirational need.
C.S. Lewis brilliantly dealt with this watered-down view of Jesus and what he did in the book Mere Christianity.
Said Lewis, who thought about such things at a far deeper level than Dean: "I'm trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I can't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must m
Dean's as good as a Jew. Jew, jew, joo. No Jew can ever be allowed to be the leader of our Christian Nation. Jews killed Jesus. Jew, jew, jew. Jews are only good for aiding in the Second Coming of Our Savior, after which we will finally be rid of those Jesus-killing kikes. Jew, jew, jew.
Dean should be forced to wear a Star of David when in public. Jew, jew, jew.
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God -- or else a madman or something worse."
Hmm, I remember reading something about that earlier today. Ah, yes...
Well, can?t we just set aside both views and call him a great teacher? Wrong-o. Jesus? teachings aren?t a salad buffet. You don?t just pick what you want. You can?t hold onto ?do unto others as you have them do unto you? and ignore the fact that Jesus said he sits at the right hand of God and that he?ll return someday. Believe it all or don?t believe at all.
Yep, non-Christians can't possibly find value in the Beatitudes or the Golden Rule.
I happen to be in direct contact with God, and is she ever pissed.
And, given that most Southerners are Baptists, or heavily influenced by Baptists, who also "do not believe in minsterial authority or church hierarchy," how is Dean misrepresenting himself?
And finally, can anyone point to anything Dean has said publicly to deny the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth? Everything he quotes Dean saying, I learned in seminary. A "liberal" seminary, but a religious one, nonetheless. Thomas really sets up a pretty flimsy straw man here. He jumps from Congregationalist to Unitarian by way of C.S. Lewis. A bravura performance, if it weren't so stupid.
More to the point: How many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin?
I want to hear more from Cal Thomas on the subject of "strangeness."
I dunno, Sovereign, how does the Enterprise travel at warp speed?
Especially like the way Thomas writes off California. "Fruits and nuts, anyone?"
Would that Thomas were in charge of WH political strategy....
I heard that Howard Dean allowed terrorists to sabotage the local nuclear power plant because he was preoccupied with skiing, performing partial-birth abortions with his bare hands, tom-catting around with Jewish trollops, and performing homosexual matrimonial services. I also heard that as governor he signed an exeutive order that forced anybody that used the bike paths to convert to his church of satan worship. The man is the devil!
Gotta get the word out to the Trailer Park. Kinda like that Coulter piece a while back.
I'm confused... if I'm supposed to hate Muslims, and it seems that Jews can't be trusted either... does this mean I'm supposed to hate everyone in the Middle East now?
Wow. He managed to slur Californians, gays, New Englanders, Unitarians, Congregationists, Jews, and Dean all in one column. That must be a record!
Cal Thomas'd domain is served by ChristCentral.Com need I say more?
He has no easily available, published email address
His hate mail is good though, here are some snips:
//**
Mr, You are freaking sellout! You go to church on Sunday and 6 of the other days you do the Jews work. You are a damned disgrace!
...your very existence proves to me that abortion should be employed.
how thomas got a journalism job is beyond me. his articles read like hate pamphlets left on suburban lawns. he voted for bush - need i say more?
**//
opiate of the masses = religion
opiate for fat asses = OxyContin
So, Dean does not believe in minsterial authority or church hierarchy ?
Neither did Jesus: Matt. 2:20.
According to Thomas, we should dislike Jews who marry Christians without converting to the "true" faith, and not vote for Christians who don't force their Jewish spouses to raise the kids Xian. (In Jewish tradition, the "line of descent" runs through the mother, which means the kids are "Jewish" because Mom is. So Dean is at the bare minimum being tolerant of his wife's wishes, assuming she is religious at all).
Yet another line of attack that will go over big in the country at large.
Well, Jesus was a Liberal Jew.. there's not much arguement there. Dean's faith? Not an isue and should be laughed at loudly when brought up. Anyone cheap enough to play it up, is obviously unimaginative, intolerant and just plain low-rent. This is one we LAFF down with vigour. Only the bigots think this should be an issue.
Two of these "Dean's wife's a dirty jew" pieces this weekend.
And there are similar phrases used in both.
Geee, you don't think there'll be more of these in Sunday papers tomorrow, eh?
Who on the RhiteHouse staff decided that Jew-baiting was a good theme to start off the year?
Wow. He managed to slur Californians, gays, New Englanders, Unitarians, Congregationists, Jews, and Dean all in one column. That must be a record!
GFW | 01.03.04 - 6:51 pm | #
Nah, it's all in a day's work for the right-wing hate mongers.
You know what I find funny? If Jesus ever did return and taught much the same things he did in the Bible, he'd probably be deried and verbally crucified for being an anti-war pacifist hippy communist liberal traitor by the Right who oh-so-love his teachings.
"Who on the RhiteHouse staff decided that Jew-baiting was a good theme to start off the year?"
If the Boy Genius is not behind this, who is? If he is behind this, why is he the "Boy Genius?"
I hope nobody makes too big of a deal over this. I like to see this kind of thing migrating out of Freeper land and into the mainstream.
Go ahead Republicans and play this hand. Start this meme up where you declare that there's just something not right with Dean's wife being Jewish and their kids being brought up in the Jewish tradition.
Good move.
"You know what I find funny? If Jesus ever did return and taught much the same things he did in the Bible, he'd probably be deried and verbally crucified for being an anti-war pacifist hippy communist liberal traitor by the Right who oh-so-love his teachings."
They love the ones they pick from the salad buffet. They'd hate the rest, and probably denounce Jesus Redux as a charlatan.
He'd be, once again, much too critical of the status quo.
You know what I find funny? If Jesus ever did return and taught much the same things he did in the Bible, he'd probably be derided and verbally crucified for being an anti-war pacifist hippy communist liberal traitor by the Right who oh-so-love his teachings.
Probably?
He'd be picked up as a Palestinian terrorist and indefinitely detained under the Patriot Act. Perhaps shipped off to Gitmo.
Cal Thomas wishes Hitler had won the war.
"He'd be picked up as a Palestinian terrorist and indefinitely detained under the Patriot Act. Perhaps shipped off to Gitmo."
Especially if he still looked like Arafat! (Much as he probably did the first time, only thinner!)
I don't have the stomach for it right now- but anyone care to venture over to LGF to see how this might play over there?
(and report back?)
I just how Rove mixes up:
Fundraising letter number #1: This will be sent to Jewish groups accusing Dean of being anti-semitic and pro-Arafat.
Fundraising letter #2: This will be circulated in the red states hinting that since Dean is bringing his kids up Jewish he's a traitor to the Anglo Saxon race and not really a Christian.
Of course Rove won't send these letters out in any official capacity, but through some third party group but if I were God I'd switch the envelopes.
They love the ones they pick from the salad buffet. They'd hate the rest, and probably denounce Jesus Redux as a charlatan.
He'd be, once again, much too critical of the status quo.
Yep. Like the one of...ya know, outright blatantly flauting your religion and prayer and making a big deal about it. Jesus was sort of critical of religious attention whores like that.
Renato makes a good point too. The teachings would only be the nail in the coffin.
And they dare criticize people of picking and choosing teachings like a salad bar.
darkview:
I can't imagine that the neocons or the LGFers will be leaping to the defense of Dean marrying a Christ-killer, any more than the family values types will be picketing the governor's mansion in Sacramento.
The Jewish right will be about as conspicuous in this debate as a pro-lifer at an adoption agency.
Oh for fuck sake, doesnt anyone take Philosophy anymore? I cant believe anyone still falls for this infamous CS Lewis regurgitation of the ol' "Lord, Liar or Lunatic" fallacy..
Crushed completely at url below :
http://www.infidels.org/news/
ath...uments.html#LLL
I'm betting Jesus *if he did exsist* (the only official record is the census taken by Josephus but it's completely open to question) had temporal lobe epilepsy.. (often includes dellusions of being god or the son of god).. 
Lunatic it is then!
But seriously, I cant believe they're going to play this card. It seems a failure in the end. Most Americans arent fundamentalist Xians, I dont think this kinda shit will sit well with them..
but who really knows these days..
If Holy Joe has any true principles, he'll start complaining loudly. Bets?
Cal Thomas is an inclusive man.
Also, is Cal Thomas basically saying that there should be no such thing as religious intermarriage, and Christians should not tolerate Jews?
Yes to the first one, the second one is more complicated (that is, Jews are great cause we're necessary to help bring on Christ's return, after which time we will all burn in Hell).
The religious right is very much against religious intermarriage (that is, one in which the Jew does not convert). (To be fair, I am guessing that most conservative rabbis would not perform an interfaith wedding unless the gentile was going to convert.)
A very sweet, very religious evangelical friend of my wife's gave here a pamphlet called "Unequal Yoke" earlier in our relationship, about why a Christian cannot marry a non-Christian. Scary stuff, but very sincere.
I'm with those who say that Dean was foolish to bring this stuff up; it is a no win situation for him.
(I am a committed Deaniac.)
"And they dare criticize people of picking and choosing teachings like a salad bar."
Well, you know, as long as you pick and choose the "right" way.....
Well, you know, as long as you pick and choose the "right" way.....
Because if you choose the left way, you're a Christ-hating traitor, right? :P
Cal Thomas is one of the christians that made me root for the lions.
They did this to Dukakis in '88, too (How can he profess to be Greek Orthodox when his wife's a Jew?).
I sense a JAP joke renaissance in the next few weeks...
Personally, I hope the wingers harp on this a lot more. It only makes them look worse (if that is possible).
Many, many Christians believe in religious tolerance (despite what we are led to believe by Robertson, Falwell and their ilk) and this is *not* going to play well with them.
Bashing Jews, Judaism, and religious tolerance is a stupid, stupid move for the right. Hope that it continues.
"I'm with those who say that Dean was foolish to bring this stuff up; it is a no win situation for him."
Dunno; the people you describe (and I know the type well) are unlikely to vote for Dean anyway. Thomas's attempt to make Dean's wife's Judaism into a "weapon" is a big mistake, and harms Dean not one whit.
As for Lewis the "philosopher:" Anyone who comes to the argument relying on C.S. Lewis for any intellectual credentials already signals they are unarmed, as far as I'm concerned. I don't bother with Thomas's citation of Lewis because it is so lame it's like kicking away Tiny Tim's crutch.
Actually, I think this is great and further attacks should be encouraged. The latent antisemitism (or maybe not so latent) among so many on the right ought to be encouraged into full flower. Let's attack Dean's family for being filthy Jews. Should make for a great Dean campaign commercial.
No wonder Dean's wife wants to keep a low profile.
"Because if you choose the left way, you're a Christ-hating traitor, right? :P"
PRECISELY!
It seems perfectly natural to me. I did it too. I raised my children as Jewish but didn't convert. You hear lots of Old Testament stories. The best thing about Judiasm is that you are responsible for you own actions. You have to ask forgiveness of the person you offended. No second hand forgiveness.
perhaps a shorter Cal Thomas would be, "Dean is unelectable because he's insufficiently intolerant."
It's been abundantly clear for some time that Jesus was not a Christian.
Cal, God and I were out drinking last night, and after we smoked our last cigarette and played our last game of darts, we agreed that it was a tough choice, but you're the biggest asshole either of us has ever met.
A.
As for Lewis the "philosopher:" Anyone who comes to the argument relying on C.S. Lewis for any intellectual credentials already signals they are unarmed, as far as I'm concerned. I don't bother with Thomas's citation of Lewis because it is so lame it's like kicking away Tiny Tim's crutch.
Yes, well, Lewis is widely perceived as a tower of the Christian faith (because he wraps pseudo-ecumenicalism in a pseudo-intellectual wrapper). So unfortunately, you have to kick the sand castle over in order to advance the dialog.
These attacks are GREAT. Fantastic. Brilliant, even, and I hope we see more of them.
Why? Because it proves everything we've been saying about right-wing lunatics. Most Americans would recoil in horror at this thinly-veiled anti-Semitism. It also allows Howard Dean to play a victim role that will draw him sympathy - 'how dare they attack my family like that!'.
They're making it so easy. They equate true Christianity with anti-Semitism. Talk about throwing a fat one down the middle of the plate!
Or that Christian's don't really believe in the teachings of Jesus.
"Dean's wife is Jewish and his two children are being raised Jewish, which is strange at best..."
What is it at worst?
I look forward to Cal Thomas's next article attacking Fundamentalist Christians for their enthusiastic support of Israel, which is strange at best, considering that the two faiths take a distinctly different view of Jesus.
Shorter Cal Thomas:
My Jesus is better than your Jesus.
I'd like to see Bush's 'faith' put under the same microscope as Thomas puts Dean's under.
Oh, but that would require Thomas to not be a flaming hypocrite. How silly of me!
On the subject of the return of Jesus, McSweeney's has a letter from Pat Robertson (who today predicted a landslide for Bush in November). Jesus, it seems, has decided to run for President of the USA (so much for pre-destination), but his policies are way, way, way, way, way too liberal for Smilin' Pat, who must object.
"And so, loyal followers, I say, "We who are without sin, let us cast the first ballot. And may that ballot be a "no" on Jesus. He may be the Son of God, but He is no Ronald Reagan."
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/
1...23mcintire.html
The Jewish right will be about as conspicuous in this debate as a pro-lifer at an adoption agency.
And we should allow them to remain silent? I want to hear justification for the tolerance they have for bigotry in their wonderful Republican party. I am constantly having to defend the "communists" who attend my peace marches. Yet they should get a free pass for their (far more offensive- and dangerous) associations?
The Jewish Right-- much like the Log Cabin Republicans-- I will never completely understand. Yet the poor, white man is constantly derided for voting against his class interests?
Everyone in the Republican's "big tent" should explain why they stand together.
Arghhh....... (I hate hypocrisy)
By the way, GMT,pretty funny line- "... pro-lifer at an adoption agency."
Many Americans (including Jews) seem to think that anti-semitism is bad only when it comes from Muslims or Arabs.
They tend to think that white Christians are anti-semitic only on a verbal level.
And the litmus test a lot of conservative Jews have is uncritical suppor for Israel. Nixon was an anti-semite but he sent the C5As to Israel to pull their shit out of the fire. Dean is obviously not an anti-semite but he just might undermine Arial Sharon, might just turn out to be another Jimmy Carter.
This cognitive dissonence would probably be called "tough mindedness" but people who subscribe to it.
"Most Americans would recoil in horror at this thinly-veiled anti-Semitism."
Dammit ...
Bush didn't say Jesus was his favorite philosopher.
He said he was his favorite POLITICAL philosopher.
And, it would appear, got away with it.
What amuses me is knowing that the wingnuts who will be feeding this "debate" over Dean's religious loyalties are almost certainly the same people who profess to think that Lieberman is a great guy for a Dem.
They're probably also the same people who accused Dean of anti-semitism for daring to suggest that we should be a more impartial broker in the Middle East peace process.
Don't know why the cognitive dissonance of it all isn't knocking around in their empty heads like a clapper in a bell. I wonder if Cal Thomas suffers from a persistent ringing in his ears? I know Pat Robertson does. He just thinks it's Jesus.
That gurgling noise is cal thomas gasping for breath as the republican "house organ" deposits senor thomas's latest installment.
Well, IMHO, the Republicans are free to play the "Dean's wife is a Jew" card at their leisure, and at their peril. Bring it, as they would say, on. It was my understanding that the Dean children were pretty much free to pick which religion they wanted to follow, and they ended up being raised Jewish.
They did this to Dukakis in '88, too (How can he profess to be Greek Orthodox when his wife's a Jew?).
In this case, Kitty Dukakis herself admitted that neither of the two were particularly religious. Also, while I don't know the specific circumstances of the Dukakis marriage, the Orthodox Church will not marry an Orthodox Christian to a unbaptised spouse. So presumably Dukakis was no longer practicing or hadn't been participating in church life for quite a while.
How completely repulsive and inane Cal Thomas is. What's next, a constitutional amendment requiring presidents to be born again?
I hope Dean jumps on this big time.
This is no laughing matter.
Richard Nixon began the process of racism in order to convert white southern Democrats to Republicans. Every Republican president since followed through. Today the vast majority of Democrats in the South are black.
Dean is fighting this. See Dean Battles Racism
What Republicans did with racism they are capable of doing with religion. It does not matter what Dean believes or does. He will be attacked as a Jew in order to get the votes of far right Christians - and also of others who hate Jews. Anything to get votes.
It's truly disgusting. The only way to fight it is to demonstrate the gross intolerance of the Republican Party. We will then attract people of good will.
Sovereign Eye: More to the point: How many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin?
Six.
So where can one get a list of which newspapers carry his column? I've tried his website, but no dice.
Google News:
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/d...ion/
7609108.htm
other stuff
http://news.google.com/news?hl=e...+dean%
22+jewish
Interesting quote:
"Howard Dean was baptized Catholic and raised as an Episcopalian. . . . and now he is a Congregationalist, though his kids consider themselves Jewish. . . . If George Bush and Howard Dean met each other on a political platform, they would fight and feud. If they met in a Bible study group and talked about their eternal souls, they'd probably embrace." -- David Brooks, The New York Times
When Brooks speculates that Bush and Dean might embrace each other as brothers in Christ, he neglects to mention that Dean is a Democrat and homos do it up the ass and other icky stuff.
Why o' why did Dean allow the right-wing loonies to once again set the national discourse?
"I have a deep and abiding faith in God which I don't intend to bring into my presidential campaign." End of story.
Oh, Lordy, Lordy.
When (ever?) is anybody going to grasp the simple fact that Dr. Mrs. Dean might have had some really serious issues about marrying a Christian????
I agree about C.S. Lewis, whom I was encouraged to read when I was young. He specialized in sly, evasive, self-serving arguments, ingeniously pretending to beat secularists at their own game. You had to believe the stuff already to be convinced y it.
The possibility exists that Jesus was a great teacher who was misquoted and interpreted by his followers, especially the later ones. The Bible is true because it's the word of God and Jesus is God because the Bible says so.
"I want to hear more from Cal Thomas on the subject of strangeness."
Well, he's at least 60 and HASN'T GOT A SINGLE GREY HAIR ON HIS FRIGGIN' HEAD! That strange enough? I mean really, what IS that? It looks like he used a felt-tipped marker to color each strand! (And yet, he neglected his eyebrows.) 
"The Bible is the absolute truth?"
How do you know?
"Because it says so right in the Bible!"
Oh, well, I can't argue with that...
Breaking news:
Howard Dean: "Jesus is a Democrat"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/...4/
ixportal.html
(sorry if its been posted)
Keep it up, and we'll sweep Florida. Lots of Jewy Jewy Jews in Florida.
Anyone who would allow this to be an issue in deciding whom to vote for would never vote for any of the democratic candidates anyway.
The GOP is trying to have it both ways:
To AIPAC and RW Jewish orgs: Bush is great for Israel (b/c of the Iraq war and supporting Sharon),
To Mr. Redneck Bible Belt guy: he's married to a dirty Jew.
Neat trick
To Paul Siegel and sUbversive:
I think Paul nails it. The Repubs are already doing the same thing with religion as they did with race. They'll get the religious bigot votes just like they got the racial bigot votes. And what about the "moderate", "tolerant" Christians? Hey, I'm a Catholic-turned-mainline-Protestant, and I can tell you that a big chunk of them might act pretty tolerant (as in, they're not likely to torch synagogues, and they will be quite friendly to people of non-christian faiths). But if you really pin them down, they'l be very likely to say something like "It's too bad about all those people who don't believe in Jesus, they won't be saved!" A guy I've considered a good friend for 30 yrs. thinks along these lines. For them, Cal Thomas isn't saying anything that radical at all--he's just commenting on one of those sad facts in the world today...
>>sigh
The possibility exists that Jesus was a great teacher who was misquoted and interpreted by his followers, especially the later ones. The Bible is true because it's the word of God and Jesus is God because the Bible says so.
zizka | Email | Homepage | 01.03.04 - 8:00 pm | #
That's exactly what I think about Jesus. He was merely a man. Albeit, a very extraordinary one, but a man nonetheless. The New Testament books are by no means a primary source of Jesus' words. They were all written by his followers. Hence there will be some skewing.
...and in another strange twist, one of my in-laws is a BIG Dean booster--and a cherished family tradition at hi house is reading "The Chronicles of Narnia" to his kids at night. I think he's going to be wincing a lot lately...
I have a lot of questions about Dean, a matter of fact...
I'll stick with Sen. John Kerry, still Catholic since his baptism, and not pandering to anyone about it!
So to sum up:
Clinton was a hypocrite because he flashed a bible and got a blowjob not from Hillary.
Bush is pure, because he just makes jokes about those condemned to death, bears false witness, kills (indirectly) the innocent, steals by giving the governments money to corporate thieves, etc.
Gore is also a hypocrite because, um, well, uh, just because. All democrats are hypocrites apparently. All republicans are pure.
Just checking.
I'll stick with Sen. John Kerry, still Catholic since his baptism, and not pandering to anyone about it!
It's sad to read this kind of comment, because religion should be in the background. Pandering? How is he pandering?
I want a religious man who makes it a private, personal issue.
Bush is hardly what I would call religious. Pharisee, yes.
This is a great opportunity, folks. thomas just revealed himself as an intolerant antisemitic pig.
Write letters to the editor. I just wrote one to the Star Telegram, the paper Atrios linked to. Thomas is syndicated, so this bigoted op-ed piece will likely run in a paper near you. Take the bull by the horns and speak out.
Most Americans don't like bigots. And most will not think highly of somebody like Thomas who so brazenly spouts out intolerant garbage like this.
If you write a letter, and ONE person reads it and thinks, Gee, these conservatives really ARE intolerant hypocritical bastards - I'll vote for the Democrats" then you'll have done some good.
While you're at it, write angry letters to Cal Thomas. He has his own webpage, and a "contact" link. Let him know what you think. He's a bigot - tell him so.
All Christians are jews that believe Christ was/is the messiah.
Cal and Company ought to have to read this over and over and over again and maybe have it tattooed to their hands so they will get it through their fat heads that a particular religious belief is not required for elective office in these United States.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
--Article 6, Section 3, Constitution of the United States of America
Next bit of bullshit being generated by the wingnut pundits: "HOWARD DEAN SAYS HE INVENTED JESUS!!"
Nothing would surprise me anymore.
Keep it up, and we'll sweep Florida. Lots of Jewy Jewy Jews in Florida. -- Anonymous
If they could manage not to vote for Patrick Buchanan by accident this time, that would also be helpful.
I wonder what the problems with the Florida ballots will be this time? Not whether there will be problems, mind you -- just what kind and how many.
You could raise them Southern Baptist, as my parents did me, and watch them turn to atheism as adults in pure revulsion from the narrow-minded, racist teachings of the so-called Christians from their formative years. Just a suggestion, Cal.
Cal Thomas is an idiot.
The right-wing can't talk issues; they'd rather go into irrelevant stuff.
You know, like...
Gore's a serial exaggerator
Did you hear him (Gore) sighing during the debates?
I don't like Dean 'cause he's a doctor!
Now it's...
Dean's a Congregationalist and his wife is Jewish.
So what, Cad...uh, I mean Cal?
I hope Dean throws this garbage back in the wingnuts' faces.
Peanut:
Funny you should ask:
http://tinyurl.com/2n5tl
This is so f******** wrong Cal"Adolf lookalike" Thomas needs to be smacked upside the head.
These people will stop at nothing.
If the Pope was running against them the Pope would autmoticallt become become labeled "that dirty little Catholic man who gassed the Jews in Poland and abused little boys in Boston"
BTW I wonder how this goes down with the neocon Jews in Bushco and its supporters -Perle,Wolfowitz,Kristol,M Novak etc.
What exactly does Dean believe about Jesus, and how is it relevant to his presidential candidacy? "Christ was someone who sought out people who were disenfranchised," he told the Globe, "people who were left behind." Dean makes it sound as if He might have been a Democrat. "He was a person who set an extraordinary example that has lasted 2,000 years, which is pretty inspiring when you think about it."
I've gotten over my intial outrage and have realized Cal is scared to death of Dean. He is terrified that if this strategy is effective the control of the religious right will melt away, along with Fox's ratings. They continue to panic.
God spoke to me and told me not to worry that I was in fact right, Cal Thomas is an idiot and I shouldn't pay any attention to anything he has to say.
Make it stop Make it stop Make it stop Make it stop Make it stop
Let these fringe idiots keep their racist and homophobic rhetoric because the mainstream will reject Bush if they think he's the same way.
Bush is a failure - Deselect!
>BTW I wonder how this goes down with the neocon Jews in Bushco and its supporters -Perle,Wolfowitz,Kristol,M Novak etc.
They stood shoulder to shoulder with Pat Robertson in the 80's, a sell-out so egregious that it drove Michael Lind (Up from Conservatism) out of the movement.
Why would that change now?
Ah, the Serpents of Conservatism coil and strike at anything that moves. Keep the Government out of the Church, but by all means put the Church into the Government.
Perhaps Mr. Thomas would prefer it if, instead of educating their children in a fashion of their choosing, the Dean's cleaved their children in two. Cal could watch the butchery while on his way to the Stoning.
Whomsoever would proscribe the circumference of God hath worn Hubris for a Hat. A big floppy one.
***
Speaking of the salad bar--I always reached for the spiritual enlightenment and connection with the world beyond, then the putting into place of good works for all mankind. (my attempts at loving God and neighbor). My friends at the salad bar, right wing and military family, liked the church to be easy on moral rules and their government hard on slackers like welfare cheats that they thought they saw at the store buying the really big shrimp. A pattern I have seen repeated.
Whenever I hear of christian-jewish mixed marriages I reach for my "Cal Thomas Official Jewish Nose Measurment and Semitic Detection Kit".
Oh, Cal. I thought you were better than that. Mind you, you never set the bar very high, but I thought you were better than that.
I want to wash my brain with soap now...
pie,
I appreciate how someone like Kerry doesn't use religion all of a sudden to pander to Southern voters, as Dean has admitted to recently!...
Let's face it, that's a sleazy tactic and it all doesn't add up with Dean never attending church and downplaying religion throughout his career, then whipping it out about how he finally found a Congregationalist church that he never attends??? This sounds just plain phony to me.
There are so many questions with Dean... I prefer how Kerry has always been a Catholic, married to a Catholic, doesn't make a big deal about it, respects the separation of church and state, but has practiced his religion constantly throughout his life. I really respect that! (and I'm not even Catholic!)
I want Kerry to appoint the next U.S. Supreme Court Justices, among other Presidential duties! He has a great depth of judgment, stability, vision...and imminently respects Constitutional principles.
Time for all the Right wing Jews to denounce this stuff. I don't care if they are Orthodox and don't support interfaith marriage. This is a slur, and the Jews who support the Repubs have to call Thomas on this. They can't just sit there like Andrew Sullivan and take it. The deal with the fundies is a deal with the devil, plain and simple. There have to be limits to what people will stomach for power.
furthermore--
I am still reeling over the npr interview some time before Christmas, a man who was going to vote for Republicans because Democratic party might support legal rights for gay couples and he said that was a sin. So somehow again the party of Human Misery cloaks itself in piety and gets the godly vote.
i haven't gone over every single post here, but is lieberman catching similar shit? i think he married jewish, too....
I saw this yesterday and am quite pleased that it's getting the attention it deserves.
As usual: one could only imagine what would happen to a nominally progressive pundit for a roughly comparable sin. (Although it would be unlikely to be comparable to a serious flirtation with old-fashioned antisemitism.)
I somehow doubt that we'll see Cal Thomas drummed off the editorial pages or losing his job on, God help us, 'Fox News Watch'. Especially if Pat Buchanan provides any kind of example.
OT to cat,
Thanks for the link. I especially loved:
County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore said their analysis was deeply flawed.
"It's just a bunch of lies," she said.
LePore said it would be impossible to rig the machines.
She should talk to the people dealing with the problems in Georgia or California. Or not. Security might not be LePore's number one priority. I also loved how the reporter felt it necessary to say that the Dems voicing their concerns had "partisan interests". Because fair elections aren't in everybody's best interests, right? Hmmm...well maybe he has a point about that. I can't speak for the Repubs best interests, after all.
God help us!
Apocalypse approaches. Betty Bowers and I are heading for the hills!
So if he were married to a Jew or an Episcopalian that make him less desirable?
Since Dean went to medical school in New York, the pool of women he was going to meet was pretty limited. You don't date outside your occupational pool that much when you're working the kind of hours you work so it wasn't likely that Dean would marry a nice Christian church lady. Most don't go to medical school.
If Dean were 25 years younger, he might have married a Hindu or an Asian American.
If he had gone to business school and stayed on Wall Street, he might have married a WASP.
"I prefer how Kerry has always been a Catholic, married to a Catholic, doesn't make a big deal about it."
Is the well of political discourse poisoned, or what? This is, I feel, a bleak development.
Cal's screed is so incredibly pessamistic on some pretty freightening levels. What he implies is the useage of something not unlike the criteria that determined which family members went off to concentration camps under bloodline laws.
Some folks in this country are going off the deep-end, Cal apparently among them.
yikes-
My post should read -Kerry eminently respects Constitutional principles [on religion]!
Sorry, I'm not a big blogger, just a big voter! :-D
I'm glad Kerry's back up in the national polls again, but they're so fluid..."Not sure" is still winning overall.
I also like the strong odds for Kerry in Carville's estimation. And Carville is one of the best minds ever in the Dem party!
Hope,
Dean has already been asked and will continue to be asked the question on religion, because he is married to a Jew. Whether he frames the issue or the right does is his choice. He has chosen to frame it and the freepers are pissed because he beat them to the punch. So now they are twisting what he is doing and you're buying the twist.
You can interpret it as pandering if you want, but you are missing the point when you argue that Kerry's situation compares to Dean's. The fact that Dean is married to a Jew makes him vulnerable on this issue in a way Kerry isn't. The only reason Kerry doesn't address the issue of religion is because he doesn't have to.
"Strange at best"? Thanks for the winking hint that you're giving Dean the benefit of the doubt by saying that his marriage may only be "strange." Why, a less charitable writer might suggest that Dean's marriage is ... WHAT for god's sake? What is it at worst? Idolatry? Blasphemy?
There are some things that just boil my blood and this is one of them.
I look forward to writing a response attacking Mr. Thomas for his distinctive anti-American religious intolerance.
I know the Mr. Thomas, who sports the ultimate Hair-Hat from Hell, is published in numerous publications.
Does anyone know how I can find a list of all of the publications?
that Dean's marriage is ... WHAT for god's sake? What is it at worst? Idolatry? Blasphemy?
Under canon law, if Dean were Catholic, he'd not be married at all, his wife would be a mere concubine, and his children both illegitimate.
Thank God for the separation of church and state.
Zev Chafets (Zionist hawk columnist for Daily News) preceded Cal Thomas with this scurrilous line of attack in
a column titled "Having a Jewish wife won't save Dean." It's on Jewish World Review or one of those sites.
Whether or not Carville is one of the best political minds in the Dems party is a matter of opinion. I've seen him on more than one occassion contradict strategies he espouses in his own book "Had Enough."
Carville's snarking about Dean on Tim Russert's show because Dean said America was no safer after Saddam Hussein was captured tells me all I need to know about Carville's great mind. I'm not impress with anyone who can argue Saddam's capture made America safer with a straight face. Carville is clearly in the DLC camp, in my opinion, another group I have a very low opinion of.
Does anyone know how I can find a list of all of the publications?
Where o' where has our 56K gone?
I used to read Cal Thomas as a teenager in my hometown rag. He was a right-wing looney back then as well. Thankfully they published a Conrad cartoon every day.
Peanut, glad to oblige. I wrote to the reporter a couple of days ago with some non-partisan information. Haven't heard back tho'.
WHILE YOU WERE OUT
When Will Jesus Return?
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/
ar...RTICLE_ID=36303
I don't know, but if you'd like to leave a message, I'll have him return your call.
And Carville is one of the best minds ever in the Dem party!
Well, not so fast. That remains to be seen.
Carville-Matalin. Hmmmmm.
Gee, I'm hanging my head in shame for using a word out of CS Lewis' book for my handle... but so bet.
I have a Modest Proposal.
Bush gets a free pass for being "born again". He gets to make inane comments about being chosen by God. He gets to dismiss anything that took place during the first, oh, 30something years of his life... because he's a changed man. He's been Born Again.
So... my proposal is this: upon being Born Again, one has to wait an additional 35 years before being eligible to run for President.
After all... you have to wait that long after being born the first time.
I bet we'd see a whole lot fewer born again candidates.
Time for all the Right wing Jews to denounce this stuff.
There have to be limits to what people will stomach for power.
Mimikatz
Those limits are only a theoretical possiblity, we don't know for sure if they exist. There are some undiscovered particles that will probably be found first.
This is going to get a lot uglier, and the media will be fanning the flames. Jew-baiting isn't anything new to the right, it's a constantly recurring leit motif in their discourse. If they thought it would get them somewhere they'd call for yellow arm bands.
Course, if Dean had African blood in him it would be that.
Dean and Clinton call themselves Christian, but they're not our kind of Christian, so they're evil.
That's the wonderful thing about calling yourself 'a Christian'. When it serves your purposes, it can be a very wide category: 'Most Americans are Christians', 'The Founding Fathers were all Christians'. But when your enemy claims membership, it magically narrows to something very strict and exclusive: blow job recipients and parents of Jews need not apply.
I wonder if any of the Founding Fathers would fit Cal Thomas's narrow view of the term.
I sent the following to letters@star-telegram.com
Dear Editors,
Cal Thomas' musings on Dean's religiousness ("Dean's Religious Accent") hit all the right notes:
Call Dean's stated religious beliefs into question, mention that his wife is Jewish, and insinuate family conflict by relaying that their children were being raised as Jews while Howard is a Christian.
Mr. Thomas seems to have little faith in God's creativity--I mean, if the Lord's son could be raised as a Jew and then become the eponymous root of Christianity, who am I to tell Him this style of child-rearing is questionable? Oh, right--I'm no Cal Thomas.
If we really want to waste time on the road to perdition by playing the Jew card or the Christ card, I think we are in for some cultural earthquakes, the size and impact of which are as yet heretofore unimagined. Seriously, would God approve of being a pawn in a small man's political hatchet job on a fellow American? Or would God allow the darkening
(continued)
Or would God allow the darkening of counsel to go unpunished?
Does God need Cal Thomas? I pity the God that does.
***
Ladies and Gentlemen, First Lady of the United States, Haddassah Lieberman.
Trust me, if he could have found a way not to be an asshat and to be the nominee, this would have been a huge issue.
>If Dean were 25 years younger, he
>might have married a Hindu or an Asian
>American.
Hindus or Asians didn't kill the J-man.
And the hindu religion is by
definition 'Aryan' anyway...
Actually, C.S. Lewis made the only argument for the existence of God that has ever given me a moment's pause. He wrote that a creature would not be created if its deepest needs could not be fulfilled, and since the large majority of human beings have needed deeply to believe in superior beings, therefore a God of some kind must exist.
As I say, a moment's pause. Not much longer. But it's better than anyone else has ever done.
It just crossed my mind, will this kind of thing turn into 2004's version of "Rum, Rome and Rebellion" or however that quote runs. It saved the nation from Jas. G. Blaine of Maine, and I mean saved. New York was the key to that salvation. I'd guess Cal's statement won't go down well there either.
Demonstrations against religous bigotry at the Republican convention, anyone?
What the fuck does Thomas know about Jesus? If such a person actually existed (which some historians dispute), he certainly would have nothing in common with this simpering asshole who uses his so-called belief in Jesus' divinity for his own personal aggrandizement. If Jesus was a real person, and not a composite figure, he was born a Jew, lived his life as as a Jew, and died as a Jew. If Jesus wanted to found a "Christian religion," why didn't he do it while he was still alive and kicking?
Oh gee...who'd ever think that a conservative journalist would stoop this low?
anyone?
Oh...and how the FUCK does Rush Limbaugh's brother get a column in the Washington Times!?
Oh wow...an anti-Dean article written by Rush's brother...that caught me completely by FUCKING surprise!
But they take our jobs and they bombed Pearl Harbor.
When you really think about it, the United States is probably the most successfully multicultral nation in history. Jews are safer here than they are in Israel. Catholics and Protestants intermarry without anybody even blinking an eye.
American popular culture was created by blacks and Jews and even WASP intellectuals in the 19nth Century (Emerson and Whitman) were ferociously in favor of a polyglot culture. Just take a look at Emerson's salad bar lists of heros and intellectuals and Whitman's lists as poems and poems as lists.
YET, in the entire history of the United States, we've had one non-WASP as president.
"Hindus or Asians didn't kill the J-man. And the hindu religion is by
definition 'Aryan' anyway..."
Oh...and how the FUCK does Rush Limbaugh's brother get a column in the Washington Times!?
kneepads and a willing mouth.
Look at the advantages of this. He can actually say whatever he thinks is the right thing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without being vulnerable to charges of anti-semitism.
Actually, C.S. Lewis made the only argument for the existence of God that has ever given me a moment's pause. englishprofessor
Unless God is a part of the physical world and subject to its properties rational argument won't apply.
I can't get into C.S. Lewis. Not even the Narnia stories, which is a shame because my niece wants me to read them to her. Now that I've refused to read another page of Harry Potter to her (four times!). I don't buy his Christianity.
I don't think God cares if people believe or not. A professional priest-class might have a mighty strong reason to care but the author of the universe would have better things to think about. No one can know, though.
Thomas is syndicated by Tribune Media Service
Corporate Headquarters:
435 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1500
Chicago, IL 60611
800.245.6536 or 312.222.4444 Fax: 312.222.2581
If you ask me, Cal Thomas just bent Jesus over a chair and brutally ass-raped him.
What a dumbfuck.
My favorite paragraph: "Who can forget Easter Sunday 1996, when Clinton emerged from church flashing a Bible for the cameras and later returning to the White House, where Monica Lewinsky got down on her knees to perform an act that did not resemble prayer?"
I mean...
"Who can forget?!?"
Who, besides the slavering 0.001% of the citizenry that memorized the pornographic Starr report ever knew that kind of detail in the first place?
Here is a dude, cut from the same cloth, that Mr Bush thinks would make a great Chairman for Food & Drug Administration's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee
Hagar Watch
Cal Thomas writes:
Who can forget Easter Sunday 1996, when Clinton emerged from church flashing a Bible for the cameras and later returning to the White House, where Monica Lewinsky got down on her knees to perform an act that did not resemble prayer?
He's wrong of course.
Receiving and giving blowjobs (especially wet and sloppy ones) sure do resemble prayer, although I can't vouch for the giving part (most likely it's difficult to yawn "oh, god" with your mouth full).
This kind of sectarianism and the wars it spawned is precisely why we have the First Amendment. Evangelism has no place in our governing system or conversation. Cal Thomas is a scoundrel
Cal Thomas doesn't understand love between a man and woman regardless of whatever beliefs, or the strength and passion of a Jewish or Catholic mother (to just name two).
To my knowledge, there is nothing unusual with Dean's family situation. Mothers usually get their way in these kinds of situations.
The boys are Jewish, they ought to learn the customs in regards to that, and nothing can stop them from considering their father's faith when they are adults and becoming Christians.
There are many Jews For Jesus.
All letters to the editor about this column should be sure to ask the question if Dean's children being raised Jewish is "strange at best," what pray tell, is it at worst?
Shorter Cal Thomas:
You're not really a Christian unless you believe all Jews go to hell.
Look at the advantages of this. He can actually say whatever he thinks is the right thing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without being vulnerable to charges of anti-semitism. -- steve kyle
Where you been? Dean suggested in a conversation with reporters that maybe the U.S. should stop sucking Sharon's tasty, tasty dick (paraphrasing here) and he was immediately reamed out for it. People were not shy about saying that refusing to orally gratify Mr. Sharon was a sign of Dean's anti-semitism, either.
Cognitive dissonance. It's what's for dinner.
Using this logic, I'd like to know how any good Christian fundamentalist or Christian Republican generally can snuggle up to Dr. Laura, or Israel for that matter. Isn't that putting yourself in bed with people who have a distinctly different view of Jesus than you? More importantly, when will the f****** Democratic party leadership take this golden opportunities and run with them - good God, the Republicans are now Jew-baiting in the presidential race. Hello? Anybody sense a PR opportunity here?
Heres what I sent to the Star Telgram:
Dear Editors,
As a reader of the Star Telegarm I write this in response to Cal Thomas' repugnant column entitled "Deans Religious Accent" recently printed in your publication
Mr. Thomas writes:
"Dean's wife is Jewish and his two children are being raised Jewish, which is strange at best, considering that the two faiths take a distinctly different view of Jesus."
Does Mr. Thomas realize that he trashes ALL inter-faith marriages as "strange at best" when he makes such bigoted comments? Is he aware of the number of inter-faith marriages which currently exist in the United States? Are they illegitimate in his opinion?
I could go on with more but suffice to say that I will avoid ever reading Mr. Thomas' bigoted columns in the future...
It's funny that Thomas doesn't take a similar tack questioning Bush's Christian faith.
For example, why don't we see a sentance from him that reads like this:
"Bush's two daughters are public drunks, and he himself, through the use of lies, has started a war that has killed thousands of people, which is strange considering the facts that Jesus tells his followers that they should "love their neighbor as themselves" and that one of his main apostles spoke strongly against habitual abuse of alcohol."
"The Bible is the absolute truth"
Uhhhh, which one?
And didja notice that sneaky throw away lie he managed to include? About the South being the land of Confederate flags and pickup trucks which Dean recently disparaged? And wanting the Democrats to learn to appeal to them and wanting to be their candidate is disparagement how?
MKK
I find it ironic that Thomas, the ultra-Xian Bushies, and even Tom DeLay, fully embrace the Sharon-loving neocon Likudniks running our foreign policy and fomenting our wars, but then are quite willing to paint Dean and his wife with an anti-Semitic brush. I guess it's OK to be a Jew with these vile people, ... as long as it's the RIGHT kind of Jew.
I also wonder if Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Abrams, et al, think the partial discrimination and anti-Semitism practiced among their compatriots, is acceptable? As a Jew, I fear what the Likudniks are doing, for the embrace of the Xians can turn into a chokehold in a moment's notice,....whenever it suits their needs.
Holy flaming dogshit.
This definitely needs watching. A person can trumpet the virtues of the current Israeli government all day, and still be an anti-Semite who doesn't want a Jewish family member, or boss, or first lady, and would much prefer they eventually go to "their ancestral home". I can think of several strong and weak parallels, historical and contemporary, all of which scare the living crap out of me.
I hope that the information on our website will be of help to you. I strongly encourage you to register and exercise your right to vote. Remember, our forefathers fought long and hard to preserve our freedom and our right to vote! USE YOUR POWER -- REGISTER AND VOTE!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Theresa LePore, Supervisor of Elections
Palm Beach County, Florida
I guess it's OK to be a Jew with these vile people, ... as long as it's the RIGHT kind of Jew.
For example, say the name "Noam Chomsky" to a Christian theocratic intellectual, and watch the vitriol fly.
Thomas doesn't bother me at all. He's a second-rate hack with a shrunken little mind. And he's definitely not a theologian--not by a long shot. So his assessment of Dean's personal religious beliefs mean as much as a music review written by a deaf man.
By the by--wasn't 'cal' the slang phrase for 'shit' in A Clockwork Orange?
Cal Thomas is strange at best.
"More to the point: How many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin?"
Well, none, if they are Baptist. People might think they are having sex while standing up.
I guess it's OK to be a Jew with these vile people, ... as long as it's the RIGHT kind of Jew.
For example, say the name "Noam Chomsky" to a Christian theocratic intellectual, and watch the vitriol fly.
Mark Bialkowski | Email | 01.03.04 - 11:21 pm | #
Christian theocratic intellectual. You know, I know all those words, but that phrase makes no sense.
Much like the phrase "right-wing intellectual".
Good example MB. I happen to be a progressive "Chomskyite", and receive an unreasonable amount of vitriol from my own people for my positions, and it seems to be getting worse every day.
Among U.S. Jews, there is as much dissension going on between progressive-liberal and conservative (read: Likudniks) factions, as there is in the general population. Non-Jews need to remember this. Being a Jew, does not automatically make one a Sharon supporting Likudnik neocon.
Dean supporters will be required to wear yellow star campaign buttons.
Non-Jews need to remember this. Being a Jew, does not automatically make one a Sharon supporting Likudnik neocon. -- Hornito
Awww. But stereotypes make everything so simple. Why does everything have to be so darn complicated?
American Jews cannot bring about the Rapture. Only Jews in Israel.
That's the difference for the whackjob christians.
When is somebody going to start asking the Repub politicians the sticky questions about christian apoplectic apocalypse?
"Mr. Bush, do you think a pale rider will come on a pale horse?"
"Mr. Bush, as a Christian hypocrite, do you think the Second Coming is an imminent threat to our nation and what are you doing to protect our non-whackjob citizens?"
"Ummmm,...9/11, ummm,... John 1:16"
I'm unsettled, and always have been, that anyone who believes in an afterlife is making controlling decisions in this one.
Can we please have a candidate who doesn't believe in an invisible superman who lives in the sky and makes it all better?
Rove can play it both ways. He can call Dean an anti-semite for not supporting Arial Sharon uncritically enough. This is entirely the fault of the Democratic party.
Liberals have ceded the debate on the Middle East to the extremists on both sides simply because they're too gutless to address it.
I saw Jimmy Carter being interviewed on TV a few weeks ago and I realized just how far the dialog has gone downhill since the 1970s.
And of course Rove can play to the mouth breathers by implying Dean is not a real Christian because of who he married. Once again, this is entirely the fault of the Democrats for pandering to said mouth breathers. Too bad Dean attempted to do the same thing with his "Jesus is an important part of my life" statement.
"Among U.S. Jews, there is as much dissension going on between progressive-liberal and conservative (read: Likudniks) factions, as there is in the general population."
EPT:
"Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" - Samuel Dickinson Burchard, a Baptist minister and Republican, and one of my many-times great uncles. While his father was a staunch Baptist, his mother was an Episcopalian and the children went both ways. BTW, Uncle Samuel was invited to the White House by President Cleveland and went. [I'm from the Episcopalian side of the family.]
Oh, go ahead and read the Narnia stories to your niece, at least the "Wardrode".
Regarding the number of angels on a pin, angels can't dance. ["Good Omens" Gaiman & Pratchett]
>Being a Jew, does not automatically make one a Sharon supporting Likudnik neocon.
Who and where are these conservative Jews besides the few neocons in the administration and their right wing think tanks? None of the Jews I know and/or are related to are conservative. My dad tells me everyone in his temple is anti-bush and anti-war.
I never forgave Jimmy Carter for interrupting the premier of "BattleStar Galactica" to announce the Camp David Accords.
Right before the big battle.
Are any psychologists doing research on the addictive qualities of hate and rage? It's like I'm in "28 Days After" with these retard Republicans.
Being a Jew, does not automatically make one a Sharon supporting Likudnik neocon.
Hell, for that matter, neither does being Israeli. Anyone hear about the Israeli anarchist shot at the West Bank Wall this week by an Israeli soldier? And does anyone remember that Yitzhak Rabin guy?
Why do Jew-haters love America and Jew-lovers hate America?
Cal Thomas is a pharisee.
Was Pontius Pilate OCD? He was always washing his hands and making sure cooking ovens were turned off.
Ms. LePore, thank you for your invitation:
Both Democrats and Republicans, as well as those of other parties, have a fundamental interest in accurate vote counts, and the ability to request a recount is essential to that interest. Without a paper trail, there is no possible way to perform a legal recount of an election with Electronic Voting Systems.
It would be unthinkable to most people, I daresay, to use ATM machines that didn't generate receipts for transactions. I doubt that many people would want to use debit cards and credit cards if those transactions didn't generate receipts. How could you know how much you were being charged? How could you prove an overcharge?
Are our votes less valuable that a $20 ATM cash withdrawal? Is it partisan to think that it is?
i hope that you all will cut cal and his type a little slack come come 4-30-04! after all this is the aniversary of their dear adolf's death! the 30th of april is always just a long tough day for them.
agonizing about what could have been! what could have been, except for the actions of the liberal fiends who ran our country back then!
anyway, just show em a little understanding&compassion on that day. especially poor cal! i mean the man surely weeps on that day! a pity!
Dean is fearless in confronting assholes like Cal Thomas. He will get right in their face and make them wish they had stayed under their rock.
Can you say "Jews for Jesus"?
--
Religious hypocrites. Bush staff running around the WH corridors with bibles. And Ari Fleisher was a "Jew for Jesus".
What the f is that???
Boy, between this and George Soros, it looks like the GOP is ready to break out the black and red uniforms and patent leather jackboots for election 2004.
Hey, at least Clinton didn't get head *in* the church, which I understand is not unheard of in some parishes.
The Enigma Machine, release 2.0
They say: Rich Hollywood Liberals
They mean: Rich Showbiz Jews
They say: Litigious Trial Lawyers
They mean: Pushy Aggressive Jews
They say: Liberal-Loving George Soros
They mean: One-Worlder, Billionaire, Currency Speculator Jew
They say: We must be vigilent
They mean: I see Free Masons and Baron Nathan Meyer Rothschild under my bed
What planet have these people been living on? They haven't heard of a Christian married to a Jew who raises the children in the mother's faith?
What happened to all that guff about Judeo-Christian values?
Atrios is right. Let's hope they keep up this tactic. It's revolting to see but it seems to be making some of them bare their souls.
Cal Thomas was writing about a Broadway show--something like The King and I--he reported his vast amusement at the presence of black faces among the Siamese children. It's not an act; he really does think that way. Somebody get him on tape. In a generation, people won't believe that people thought that way, the way we can't believe that people watched minstrel shows. There was a story in last week's NYST Style section about the appeal of mixed-race models and performers. I hope Cal saw it; you know he wants to say something, but he knows he'll get fired, or have to take a week or so off.
(What am I saying? He's on FOX.)
What planet have these people been living on? They haven't heard of a Christian married to a Jew who raises the children in the mother's faith?
I've heard the term "Chrismakkuh" twice this recent holiday season, so not only is the arrangement accepted, it's spawning new terminology.
Anyone think W will be push-polling Southerners about this?
I think it's a safe bet.
Yes. The right does and they're in the process of demonizing him as we speak.
Check out Ben Shapiro:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/
bs20031105.shtml
"Meanwhile, the Irgun had loaded a ship, the Altalena, with weapons and Jewish fighters (many of them Holocaust survivors) to join the IDF. Ben-Gurion ordered that the Altalena be fired upon. Rabin carried out his orders to the letter. Later, Rabin bragged how he had "bumped them off on the deck of the burning ship and while they were trying to swim to safety." Sixteen Jews were killed, many shot while swimming to shore."
"And does anyone remember that Yitzhak Rabin guy?"
"Who can forget....where Monica Lewinsky got down on her knees and performed an act that did not resemble prayer?"
Apparently Cal can't, but he will go to his grave hating Clinton. And actually, her act does indeed have a lot in common with prayer, even if you do discout the obvious physical commonalities. Cal really reveals how shallow a thinker he is with this snide remark.
And if that bit from C.S. Lewis was meant to demonstrate the theological power of that writer's work--I'd say not a real good choice.
This is not a "God gap". It is a hypocricy gap, and we dems have fallen so damned far behind. The chances of catching up to the reps in this regard are small indeed.
Funny, Ben-Gurion seems to get a free pass on that incident Benny-boy mentioned. Of course, I think Ben would rather see the Arabs run into the desert and bombed back into the Stone Age, while he lives off some violent nationalist fantasy of glorious, gruesome victory over the Other.
This guy needs to live on the street for a few years, struggling to survive, to get his head on straight. Hell, even a single night out of touch with Mommy and Daddy, forced to live off his wits, might knock some sense into his skull.
The reason right-wing Jews like Ben Shapiro won't protest over anti-semites like Cal Thomas is similar to the reason I used to hear so many Dartmouth Review types openly admire the Soviet Union.
The one thing they all have in common is that they hate liberals, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, anybody who admits to having to deal with vulnerability and complexity.
Right Wing Jews and Christians are all terrified to admit their own vulnerability. If the Likudniks got their way and got to ship all the Palestinians to Jordan, they'd have to find a new other to hate. If Pat Robertson turned the USA into a Christian theorcracy, he'd start looking for heretics.
Believe me, Cal Thomas hates most liberal Protestants as much as he hates Jews. Those idiots who post to Little Green Footballs complain about "self-hating Jews" more than they complain about Arabs.
"Funny, Ben-Gurion seems to get a free pass on that incident Benny-boy mentioned. Of course, I think Ben would rather s
Why is he complaining so much about Dean's insufficiently ethusiastic "Christianity"?
We all know that Cal Thomas worships nothing but money.
They just don't have much on Dean do they? American have a HELL of a lot more uglies on Bush.
Is the best they can do?
Dean respects his wife. Somehow I find that appealing about Dean. The only people that don't respect different people, different faiths are just George Bush Republicans. The US Constitution wasn't written for George Bush Republicans because they don't know how to respect any part of the rules of law.
Ann Coulter's "We should kill their religious leaders and convert them all to Christianity. And as we all witnessed with Bush, being a redneck Republican means HATING everyone that doesn't agree with you. Bush is an Ann Coulter Republican. Thomas is an Ann Coulter Republican too, what with that stupid columns based on someone's issues with God. Thomas should tell us, did God appoint Thomas to throw stones?
Cal Thomas...the greatest thinker of the 14th century...
'I'm an American atheist.'
'Atheist?'
'Sure, atheist. I don't believe in the Wrong God.'
'You don't believe in any God?'
'No, that I decline to state. But I don't believe in the Wrong God. That's why I'm an American atheist.'
'The Wrong God? I don't believe in the Wrong God either.'
'No, actually you do.'
'I do not!'
'You do. You believe that the God of Islam or Hinduism or any other religion other than your own believes in the Wrong God, right?'
'Of course!'
'See? You believe in the Wrong God. I told you so. Unlike you Wrong God'ers, I won't say what I believe (I even think it's impossible to talk about deep spiritual matters without becoming an ass, or without a LOT of listening to silence first). But I know for SURE that I DO NOT believe in the Wrong God. No such entity. I'm certain of that. That's why I'm an American Atheist. Decline to state, ESPECIALLY when it comes to politics. I wish they would just shut up,
I wish they would just shut up, that's my prayer. ESPECIALLY when they talk about their Wrong God, because that's truly unAmerican bullshit. Heresy, in my church.'
Who wants to listen to politicians or journalists talk about God? VERY few of either are going to the Good Place after this latest debacle. Why don't they shut their damned pie holes.
Especially the four generations south of Nazis. Bx and Lord Krove and this Frankinegger peckerwood -- they're under God's damnation. That guy Bx is a warcriminal, and they don't get rebirthday cake. They get poisonous snakes and spirochetes. The whole damn White House is crawling with worms. Bx has vomited over the whole country, and his farts stink up the atmosphere. His threats have made the entire world hate him. And justifiably and naturally so.
What the hell do any of them know about religion? They're hypocrites, and their religion is falsehood. Ye shall know them by their acts, and their acts STINK.
They should have rooted for the lions at the Colosseum.
What does Cal Thomas mean when he says it is "strange, at best"? Is he implying that there is something morally wrong with Dean's children being raised Jewish? That comment borders on being anti-semitic.
I never forgave Jimmy Carter for interrupting the premier of "BattleStar Galactica" to announce the Camp David Accords.
I never forgave Jimmy Carter for not interrupting Battlestar Galactica every week. Gawd, was that show awful.
Re the Lewinsky business--does anyone know offhand what year that was? Is Thomas still fixated on a BJ that happened eight years ago? Nine years?
Would he be this fascinated by it if he'd ever had one himself?
The thing that cracks me up about these Christian fucks is the extent to which they seem to miss the point of the new testament. It's not that subtle. Read the damn thing! A guy using magic powers to what? -- to feed a crowd of paupers and poor schmucks with loaves and fishes. A guy saying what? -- the chance of a rich man entering the kingdom of heaven is the same as a camel walking through the eye of a needle... christ. Jesus was a socialist.
It was my understanding that the Dean children were pretty much free to pick which religion they wanted to follow . . .
Apparently the Deans are co-religionists of mine. I come from a long line of mixed marriages myself (three generations and counting) and I understand what it is to feel your loyalties are to your own flesh and blood instead of some rabbinate/bishopric/synod/what-have-you dogma-spinners a thousand miles away and a few centuries dead.
(I observe all the holidays, Jewish and Goyische. I was raised on both, it's my house and anyone who doesn't like it can get stuffed.)
It's possible the Dean kids, having the same choice I did, observed this advantage of Judaism: telling some tract-passing Holy Joe that you're Jewish is much nicer than telling them to jump in a lake and just as effective.
(Real invective may be saved for Jews-for-Jesus. There's a perfectly good name for people who are "for Jesus" in that sense; they're called "
I hate Haloscan.
. . . There's a perfectly good name for people who are "for Jesus" in that sense; they're called "Christians." Jews-for-Jesus is, how you say, an anti-semitic organization.)
What does Cal Thomas mean when he says it is "strange, at best"? Is he implying that there is something morally wrong with Dean's children being raised Jewish? That comment borders on being anti-semitic.
Borders on?
You give him too much credit.
Cal Thomas only likes big Jewy-Jews that know their place. Wolfowitz, et al.
Free thinkers and (gasp!) libruls? to the ovens with them.
Wow.
This is IINNSAAANNNNEEEEE.
just curious, where are the trolls?
I heard that Howard Dean allowed terrorists to sabotage the local nuclear power plant because he was preoccupied with skiing, performing partial-birth abortions with his bare hands, tom-catting around with Jewish trollops, and performing homosexual matrimonial services. I also heard that as governor he signed an exeutive order that forced anybody that used the bike paths to convert to his church of satan worship. The man is the devil!
Annie Nomus | 01.03.04 - 6:48 pm | #
DON'T FORGET THE MOOSES!!!!
Who are these writers analyzing Dean's religion? By taking any view one has assumed that he (the writer) has a direct line to God, and there is only one religion (mine). The voters will use the info they have, but the writer's should keep their intolerant yaps shut.
but the writer's should keep their intolerant yaps shut.
No, no.
They should keep saying such stupid shit. They should be more honest about how they feel. People need to see the true face of the modern Republican party.
Cal Thomas has never said anything that didn't reveal his anger at being born too late and in the wrong country to wear that lovely black uniform with the silver runes. He is convinced he could've been a real star.
The Bible is the absolute truth?"
How do you know?
"Because it says so right in the Bible!"
Oh, well, I can't argue with that...
Bill S, thanks for reminding me the hilarious kissing Hank's ass movie
"If Jesus ever did return and taught much the same things he did in the Bible, he'd probably be deried and verbally crucified for being an anti-war pacifist hippy communist liberal traitor by the Right who oh-so-love his teachings."
The wingers pratice not one wit of the teachings of Jesus - but are well versed and practiced in exactly the opposite.
It is best that wingers do harp on such things and that such wingers be closely associated with BushCo, further alienating creating suspicion in the middle third of the voters that will decide the elections.
Shorter comment: the wackier the wack-pack, the better for sending 'em packing.
It is now open season on the sincerity of Bush's religious faith.
Why anyone would be dumb enough to make this an issue is beyond me.
Yeah, this is great, a little more of it and Dean can't lose.
Seconded on the Narnia books, read 'em to your niece. They never did any harm to this atheist, nor to his sister. "The last battle" is a bit eye-rollingly overwrought but the rest is great for kids, and you can slog through with a couple of explanations that Lewis was a bit of a jerk to other religions.
Also someone brought up Pilate's hand-washing.. This is a pagan ceremonial washing-of-the-hands. It's intended to announce to the Gods that you are about to do something morally repugnant to you, and you'd like the gods to know that you are under duress and are not willingly doing this evil act. Y'know, so they don't size you up for a big rock and a hill in Hades. Pilate didn't want to execute Jesus, but the crowd was close to rioting, and Pilate's #1 duty was to keep order (or answer to the Emperor if he failed) so he had to give them blood to stop it turning into a general insurrection in the tinderbox th
How can we elect a man who willingly condems his own children to hell?
As we know real Christians love Israel and pity, or hate, Jews. Of all of histories strange political bedfellows that of America's fundamentalists with Jews is one of the strangest. They adopt anything Israel as proof of old testament ramblings yet simply love the idea all Jews are condemmed to hell. Go figure.
Someone should tell Thomas that the "Heart wants what the heart wants" and then flip him the bird.
Shouldn't Major League Lieberman be having something to say about this? Keep it up, Republicans, and you will lose whatever small fraction of the Jewish vote you thought you would pick up in 04.
I don't find this amusing or beneficial at all--maybe if we lived in saner times, but we don't. Hatred, like selfishness, is a human emotion that needs to be controlled. This article will feed into the insanity even more. People like Thomas need to go back into the woodwork where they belong.
Meanwhile, how does Cokie Roberts weigh in on this? She's a Catholic married to a Jew.
Called-Jehovah, nameless male Sky God of Israel, we haven't talked in a while, not since we learned about that Philistinian woman whose territory you occupied, and the atrocities against the goddess-worshippers you condemned as whores, and the logical flaws in your childish rants, and the superior morality of not...anyway, it's been a while.
But as we asked of you so often as children, ya gotta do something for us.
Please. For your chosen people and all your children.
The Reich Wing once forgot themselves in their Clenic obsessions. As Grover "Holocaust" Norquist or Ann or Sean could tell you, there seems to be a tendency in cryptoNazi culture to overstep bounds of good taste, not to speak of logic, in their immature passion.
Please, please, PLEASE, God who let the 97-year-old Iranian woman survive the Bam earthquake, PLEASE let the Reich Wing try to play the Jew Card.
We'll never mast-well, we'll think of some way to thank you, that is if you give a damn about good works
I'm just waiting to hear how First Lady Judy Dean would not be able to do the annual christmas tree lighting and how that would harm America.
Does Bush think that Jesus was a "uniter" or a "divider"?
Maybe the press corps could work its way towards asking the question at a White House briefing in the months ahead.
The questioner can cite exactly when it was that GWB stated that JC was his favorite politcal philosopher: at the December 13, 1999 GOP debate in DesMoines Iowa.
The questioner can then remind GWB of the obvious point that during his 2000 campaign he portrayed *himself* as a uniter, not a divider.
Then the questioner can quote the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 10, verse 34-36, where JC says:
"I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother . . . a man's enemies will be the members of his own household."
The above passage sounds a lot like Co
[continued]
The above passage sounds a lot like Congress these days, especially on the Republican side of the aisle.
So which of the two JC's, the uniter or the divider, is GWB's role model? Per GWB's supporters Grills and Thomas, Bush can only choose one.
Cal Thomas is an anti-semitic bigot and an assclown. Dean is a man who respects his wife's cultural and religious traditions enough to be comfortable with her raising their children according to those beliefs. I guess he's not subjugating his wife adequately for the ignorant fundie masses like Cal.
God told me last night that I'll be making another small contribution to the Howard Dean campaign
Meanwhile Dean is caving in to the pressure: "Little by little, the Lord is seeping into Howard Dean's presidential campaign."
This is the letter I wrote to Paul Harral, editor of the Star-Telegram's editorial page. His e-mail is harral@star-telegram.com.
"Dear Mr. Harral,
Unlike many of the irate people I imagine are writing you today, I do understand that Mr. Thomas' column comes to you from a syndicate, and that you're not responsible for his content.
I would like to ask, however, since you work for a reputable news organization I read on the internet regularly, if you'd reconsider publishing his column in your paper.
I find his assertion that former Vt. Gov. Howard Dean having married a Jewish woman is "strange at best" to be an ignorant slap the Democratic presidential candidate that does not take into account the thousands of Jewish-Christian marriages in this country, marriages in which the participants have had to make difficult decisions about faith and family, decisions Mr. Thomas seems to feel are "strange." I'm a Catholic married to another Catholic, but I was deeeply offende
cont. ... offended by that view. Mr. Thomas's America, one in which marriages between people who take different views of Jesus are regarded as oddities, is not a comfortable place.
You serve an adimirable purpose in publishing all points of view and I fully support that. However, in choosing conservatives to appear in your pages, I would hope you'd avoid those who are not only overtly anti-Semitic, but seemingly ignorant of the rich melting pot that is the American religious community and insulting to interfaith married couples. There are smart conservatives out there. I would hope a newspaper of your caliber would be able to find one of them to publish in Mr. Thomas' stead.
I will be writing Mr. Thomas to express these thoughts directly, but hope that they are useful to you as you go about your selection of syndicated columnists. Thank you for your time.
A.
Besides C.S. Lewis, did you notice that Thomas also quoted that great religious mind...Charles Colson? What, the people in the Northeast are supposed to repent because an ex-con and associate of the most amoral president in history doesn't think their religion is dogmatic enough?
Cal Thomas is a craven, spineless, lying weasel-dick sack of shit.
At best.
i went over to LGF and looked to see if they'd defend cal thomas. they didn't.
Hmmmm. I'm a New England Protestant married to a Jew, and y'know what? What Dean says about Jesus makes a whole lot more sense to me than what Cal Thomas says...
At the same time, unfortunately, I think many of you are overestimating the American public in assuming people are going to be so offended by this brand of attack on Dean. Outside of the circles of Atrios readers, academics, NE liberals, etc., I don't think all that many people in the middle of this country are intermarried or know anyone who is [just speaking demographically, it's unlikely, given relative group sizes], and I'm not sure how accepting people really are of it, at least when it doesn't involve conversion by one partner or the other. Unfortunately, I think a lot of Americans WILL find it strange that a person could be married to someone who doesn't believe Jesus is God, or allow his kids to grow up believing that. Sad, but true.
Also, I'm not sure you should be holding your breath waiting for
...Also, not sure you should hold your breath waiting for Holy Joe to come to Dean's defense on this. Orthodox and conservative groups are pretty down on intermarriage themselves.
Even bigots are offended by Cal Thomas.
n69: What about the Mooses? To what are you referring? Anything that concerns Mooses concerns me!
Please, e-mail me directly, or respond on this thread. WHAT ABOUT THE MOOSES?
I get the feeling there is a sub-text in Cal Thomas's message that would be obvious to those who are in tune with him. You know how big guys like Thomas are on the "man is the strong Christian head of the household" thing, so Thomas would probably think a "real man" would not allow such a loose ship with regard to religion.
It is interesting to see Calvin Thomas paraphrasing C.S. Lewis. Didn't Lewis remind us that you don't become a better person, merely by being religious - and that if you think being religious of itself makes you a better person than you were before, or moreso makes you better than other people, it isn't God's message that you are receiving - it's that other guy's.
When Calvin attacks Dean for having a Jewish wife and children, because of the different Jewish perspective on Jesus, is he expressing that it would be okay to have a Jewish wife but only if the children were raised as Christians? Or is he launching a broadside against Judaism?
Katie,
I think people "in the middle of the country" live pretty much the same lives as "NE liberals." I really don't like this argument, whether it comes from Republicans trying to pass themselves off as "just folks" or Democrats trying to reassure themselves they're smarter than "middle America." I'm not trying to attack you, I just think it's a little too simplistic.
However, I do agree that many, many people will not be paying attention this. But I think it's because they will not have read Cal Thomas' bullshit or be aware of this stupid meme, and that is a comforting thought.
A.
"Strange at best"? How about "how it's done"? My mother was Episcopalian, my father was Catholic, and my sister and I were raised in my mother's faith. I asked her why one day, and she said, "children are always raised in the faith of the mother." She didn't know why; it's just how it was done. I mentioned this to a Jewish friend of mine one day, and she commented, "We have that tradition in Judiaism, too. It's because there's never any question of who the mother is."
"WHAT ABOUT THE MOOSES?"
You mean the guy who parted the Red Sea?
Please remember Cal "strange at best" Thomas spent gallons of ink trying to keep Nelson Mandela on Robin Island. He is Pat"conflict diamond smuggler" Robertson's sock puppet.
He is Pat"conflict diamond smuggler" Robertson's sock puppet.
Don't forget Pat "terrorism supporter" Robertson.
Athenae,
Although I grew up in the NE, I live in the middle of the country now. I agree that it does us no good to make unduly broad or charicature-ish generalizations, and I'm sorry if what I wrote earlier came across that way to you.
At the same time, I don't agree that the lives of people in all parts of the country, and in all walks of life, are pretty much the same. I think there are regional [not just regional, but that's one division] differences in our cultures and beliefs--
differences that matter to people.
For political purposes, I think we're better off trying to understand what some of those differences are than papering them over... And it's things like the fact that something like intermarriage, which might not seem like such a big deal to some of us, may turn out to be a big deal for people who aren't like us, that we should understand better, because otherwise we're not adequately armed against the kinds of Rovian attacks to come (most people
[continued]... (most people won't see the Cal Thomas thing, but eventually, this theme is going to get around, if Rove, etc., decide it's working).
Katie,
Understood. Wasn't trying to jump all over you.
The trouble is, I think, any attempt to understand cultural differences between different parts of this country comes off as divisive. Witness all the shit Dean took for his "Confederate flag" comment, which was clumsy, but no less insulting than when Republicans talk about how their support comes from "real Americans" and not "city-dwelling liberals" or "East Coast liberals" or "liberal elites" as though those people don't have lawns to mow and mortgages to pay as well. I get a property tax bill like everybody else. But every time it goes up, there's a Republican in office.
I agree with you that there's gotta be a way to talk about this. Somehow it always seems to descend into "us" versus "them."
A.
We wouldn't have any of these problems if we had followed the demands of Christian extraordinarie Cal Thomas and nuked Iraq. Nuked Iraq, as in dropped atomic bombs on the people of that country.
What a guy.
We wouldn't have any of these problems if we had followed the demands of Christian extraordinarie Cal Thomas and nuked Iraq. Nuked Iraq, as in dropped atomic bombs on the people of that country.
Well, that would have made occupying Iraq a little easier, at least until the giant radioactive sand mites energed to crush our armies and steal our women.
Being familiar with the evangelical mindset as I am, this is very much a defensive column by Thomas.
He is having to reassure the base that Dean is not a "real" Christian. He plays the cards of being "unequally yoked" and of Dean's being an ineffectual family spiritual leader by allowing his kids to be raised Jewish.
What Dean is doing is working. The right has played the strategy of pandering to extremists in code for a long time in order not to alienate moderates and fiscal cons, but Dean is forcing them to be more overt in their rhetoric. Political judo.
Wait a minute. Jews have a different view of Jesus than the Christians do? I did not know that.
Jesus told me to skin Cal Thomas alive. We must do as Jesus demands.
Well, that would have made occupying Iraq a little easier, at least until the giant radioactive sand mites energed to crush our armies and steal our women.
Ray Radlein
Now THAT is a fucking classic.
A.
plan nine from the white house ...
Oh, PLEASE Herr Rover, attack Dean for marrying a Jew. PLEASE!!!
I think this could be the best thing to happen to Democrats since forever. Yes, Americans will respond to an anti-mixed-marriage message from Herr Rover: they will conclude that the right wing is populated by religious bigots.
Dean will slug this one out of the park if it gets anywhere near the plate. A simple, "My opponent doesn't like that I'm in a mixed-religious-marriage....Is he against Christians marrying non-Christians? Is that very American?"
What we have in this attack on Dean's wife and children, is the spark that could ignite Dubya's implosion.
If the mother is Jewish, the children are Jewish, by tradition. My children were raised in this way as well. Startling how agressively ignorant Punditrons can be.
I hope you are not implying anti-semitism, no matter how good it feels to make those sorts of implications about people you disagree with.
Inter-faith marriage is strongly discouraged in many strands of Christianity, and the same comments would be made if his wife were an agnoistic, etc.
But I'm sure you already knew that.
Characters Remaining:
Commenting by HaloScan
