Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 2, 222-230

Yeeahh, Uh-huh, Not Buying it

RCP’s Blake Dvorak, commenting on Jonathan Martin’s look at the Huckabee lead anti-Romney effort, carries the YouTube of Huck on FOXNews yesterday. Huck repeats over and over and over and over again that it is not about religion, that it is about Romney’s “swings of position” - something he says rather wryly and with emphasis, as if to say “See I didn’t say ‘flip-flop’ so it’s not code,” attemptinging to avoid the Vanderbilt trap.  Now we are back to Clintonesque!

He says religion should not be an issue and says it is not an issue for the majority of “values voters,” and expands that to include Catholics and other non-evangelical groups, but he stops short of repudiating those that are clearly bigoted. You know, the ones that commented on his campaign web site. He tries to establish plausible deniability, but his plausibility on this one wore out a while ago.

His claims become especially void when the blog of the “Religion in Public Life School” at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut says this - emphasis added:

Huck tells Fox that the Mittster would be a bad choice for VP because of his flip-flopping, but not because he’s a Mormon: “I think there are better choices for Sen. McCain that have the approval of value voters.” It’s time to connect the flip-flop charge to the anti-Mormon thing.

Many values voters–i.e. evangelicals– distrust Mormons. Why? Because, in evangelical eyes, Mormons claim to be something they’re not; to wit, Christians. People who change positions are not trustworthy because they claim to be something they didn’t use to be. The suspicion is they’re sailing under false pretenses, pretending to be something they aren’t. So what I’d say is that by so vigorously embracing all the values values voters embrace–rather than maintaining a certain distance–Romney actually reinforced anti-Mormon sentiment among evangelicals. (As in: “He says he’s just like us? What else would you expect from a Mormon?”) Just the opposite of what he intended. And at this point irremediable.

That is the connect we have heard before, most notably from the only right-leaning bigoted published piece of the campaign - Joel Belz. The logic here is so faulty as to defy reasonable argument. It is simply words wrapped around a presumption that a person is a liar. “Rationalization” is the psychological term that applies here.

As I have said before, I think these people are mostly self-deceptive with this stuff - they sure don’t seem to be fooling anybody else.  It becomes particularly apparent when you see something like Hugh Hewitt’s very cogent and well argued post in favor of a Romney Veep nod from yesterday.  Hewitt analyzes the politics quietly, carefully, and thorughly, and by a simple count on issues comes tot he conclusion that Romney is the best selection.  That means he has to compare to other possibilities along the way and discard them, but it is becasue there is someone better.  When someone’s comments are purely negative (”I don’t so much care who it is, just so it’s not Romney”), one has to wonder.  But when when they are devoid of reason (where in allof this have we seen actual citations of Romney’s “swings of position? - Yeah, we saw a few in the primary but they were convoluted, tortured sorts of things) and only have catch phrases, wonder leaves the room and is replaced by certainty.

But the press is much to blame here as well. They are giving these idiots (Huck now included) air.  They are loving it. Most of the major outlet poliblogs have picked this up, like WaPo and CNN. Their meme seems to be “Mitt v Huck - again.” Well, how about “Huck shoots at Mitt?” I mean Huck is on no one’s short list, including McCain’s. There is no competition here, which is what makes it even more insidious.

The last time I heard TV lend its “credibility” to such rationalization it was not in a news program, it was Jerry Springer on one of his uncountable, and unwatchable, “confront the Klan” episodes. Those guys in white had all sorts of “reasons” why they weren’t racists - they were just good Americans trying to follow the American way.

Yeah well, Huck - sorry - I am not buying this from you any more than I bought that from them.

But There Is Sweet Reason . . .

And, as is often the case here - it is from John Mark Reynolds.

This is not the only lesson Evangelicals have learned from their long history in American politics. They also benefit from the American tradition of no formal state church combined with an informal civil religion that broadly reflects the views of most citizens. Like most Americans, they reject a theocracy, but also the ideological extremism of total secularism. They like singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic and seeing manger scenes on courthouse steps. They don’t want an officially Christian nation, but don’t want a government afraid to admit that the nation is mostly made up of Christians.

Evangelicals want McCain and Obama to ignore the ideologues on both sides. They want to know if either candidate will go too far in either direction. Evangelicals want a candidate who can acknowledge our overwhelmingly religious heritage and nature as a people while allowing as much freedom for the tiny secular minority as possible. They want a candidate whose campaign, and advisors, reflect their values.

Now why is it when JMR says something like I find it far more plausible that when Huck attempts to? Could it be because JMR as consistently and prudently spoken out against the bigoted extreme while Huckabee has ridden their votes to a FOXNews job? Could it be that JMR never made a crack about Mormons believing Jesus and Satan are brothers?

JMR’s piece is entitled:

This Coming Election: What do Evangelicals Want? (Part I)

Well, I know one thing they DON’T want. Numbskulls like Mike Huckabee speaking for them.

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