The Next GOP Card to Drop...

Lee Atwater with Ronald Reagan.

Just checked out the survey results of the Public Religion Research Institute. Wow. People identifying as "unaffiliated" at 22%, the 3rd largest group behind Catholics, who have dropped to 23%. And Protestants at less than 50%. I'm guessing that GOP Presidential candidates catering to the religious right (Huckabee, Perry, Carson, Santorum, Pence) will get favorable attention only in the South (excluding Florida), and maybe Indiana, Kansas, Utah, and West Virginia. That attention will not translate into significant primary votes.

Lee Atwater played the race card to help Reagan and Bush, Sr.. Remember the line from from this 1981 interview? Atwater said: ''You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff." And who from my generation can forget the infamous Willie Horton attack ad?

Karl Rove with George W. Bush

Then Karl Rove played the religion card for Bush, Jr:

NARRATOR: Both Rove and Bush knew that the election of 2000 had depended upon a core constituency, the conservative wing of the Republican Party, particularly the religious right.

DEBATE MODERATOR: Governor Bush, a philosopher-thinker. And why?

GEORGE W. BUSH: Christ, because he changed my heart.

When you accept Christ as your savior, it changes your life.

NARRATOR: George Bush had the genuine faith to appeal to religious conservatives. Karl Rove had the political instincts to see their campaign potential.

WAYNE SLATER, Dallas Morning News: Karl never really talked about religion very much. In fact, I got the clear impression that he was a person who was not religious at all.

DANA MILBANK: Now, where Karl's interest is, is in the mechanics of this. And I think it's fair to say that religious conservatives, evangelical churches, have become sort of the new labor unions (from this 2004 Frontline episode, "Karl Rove: The Architect").

See also David Kuo's Tempting Faith. Kuo was the Deputy Director of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives from 2001-2003, and claimed that "some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as 'the nuts.'

What will be the next card? Those scary undocumented immigrants? Denizens of places outside of Sarah Palin's "real America?" All those treasonous people who don't think the US of A is the most splendiferous country in the history of the universe? NPR addicts? Spongebob Squarepants enthusiasts? We'll soon find out...

One possible GOP card: depict the Democrats this way.
Maybe add some Beanie Babies for good measure.

Those Scary Three Rs

Blog Song for the Moment

Don McLean, Everybody Loves Me, Baby (American Pie, 1971).

Heard Jack Lessenberry's commentary last week about opposition in the Michigan State Legislature to adopting the Common Core.  He called this opposition, to my surprise, the "lunatic fringe."  Lessenberry's a pretty moderate guy, so for him to label it this way was strong stuff.

What's the Common Core?  Basically, it's what they, way back when, used to call the "Three Rs." Reading, 'riting, and 'rithametic.  According to the Common Core website,

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort that established a single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and mathematics that states voluntarily adopt. The standards are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to enter credit bearing entry courses in two or four year college programs or enter the workforce. The standards are clear and concise to ensure that parents, teachers, and students have a clear understanding of the expectations in reading, writing, speaking and listening, language and mathematics in school.

In other words, this is a pretty conventional attempt to assure that high school students are better prepared to enter the workforce or higher education.  The standards try to ensure, given the now wild mobility of Americans, and that some states were cheating on their report cards, that college admission officers and employers across the country can have some sort of solid expectation of what a high school diploma actually means.  It's also an effort to make the US education system more competitive in the global arena.

But this Common Core has run into the localism that has long prevailed in US education.  Michigan adopted it back in 2010, but renewal of its funding comes up in August.  A Republican faction in Michigan opposes that, and a Tea Party Republican on the Michigan House Education Committee, Tom McMillin, took the lead, slipping some lines into the budget bill that erase funding for Common Core initiatives.

In an op-ed, McMillin presents the Core--what some right-wing wits are calling "obamacore"--as a federal takeover of education, an opportunity for the Feds to steal student data, but what really has pissed him off was the lack of transparency around the development of the Core.  At the Statehouse hearings, he badgered  Department of Education officials, repeatedly asking about the process by which the Common Core was adopted, to such an extent that a chair, a fellow Republican Tim Kelly, cut him off.

After the hearing, Kelly said it was "unfortunate when you have some members that aren't listening to the answers that are beingprovided. You may not like the answer, but that doesn't mean you keep repeating the question."

Other legislators (both Republican and Democrat) wondered whether the federal government would use Common Core implementation to gather data on individual students.  There are more hysterical critiques out there, too.  Predictably,  Glenn Beck has labeled it "an extreme leftist ideology," connecting the dots of Obama, Common Core, and a retinal scan kerfuffle in a Florida school district.

It's odd that McMillin focuses on the process rather than the content of the Common Core.  No questions about whether the Core will improve educational outcomes, just veiled unsupported accusations that the Michigan officials lied about public input in the development of the standards, and that they represent a massive federal intrusion in local governance.  He bases his argument on two members of the Common Core Validation Committee who refused to sign off on the final version, neglecting to mention that there were 27 other members who did sign off, along with a bipartisan executive committee of six governors and four state superintendents.  This is a very centrist, technocratic policy proposal that only in feverish minds constitutes a left-wing conspiracy.

But there are good reasons to question the Common Core.  It is a top-down effort, orchestrated by governors, top education officials, academics, and funded by an array of organizations, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the NEA to the Aspen Institute and the New American Foundation.  So I suppose one could dismiss the Core as yet another elitist effort that is not in touch with the daily grind of education.  In other words, how capable are school districts of implementing the Core, and will it ameliorate or exacerbate the growing inequality in our country's educational system?  Also, The No Child Left Behind Act has already incentivized 'teaching to the test,' and will the Common Core standards turn into goals that teachers end up mechanistically trying to realize?

As well, the Obama administration made a political mistake, I believe, in contributing funds to the Common Core initiative, and in compelling states bidding for "Race to the Top" education grants.

But, heck, I'm just sniping here.  There is faction of Americans that will criticize the Obama administration for whatever it does, and I'm glad some people with expertise and money have tried to do what so many local school boards have failed to do--raise the bar on education outcomes.

DOMA's Dead, Long Live....What?

The Leave it to Beaver Cleaver Family

 A few nights ago we had dinner with some of our extended family--a sister-in-law of my two adopted nuyorican children, along with her her half-sister, whose mother is Colombian.  This is just the beginning of a complicated skein of relations and social origins that make up my extended family featuring numerous second (or more) marriages, step and half-siblings, adoptions, mixed couples, and so on.  There is not much "normal" in it, if by "normal" we mean the mythical US family made up of a nuclear couple in its one and only marriage, with two children, all the same race or ethnicity, all straight.  Now, we know that this is not always the typical family, but it is the norm--we can see it in the TV families of the 1950s and 60s (think Leave it to Beaver).  We can see this norm invoked in the non-traditional families that began popping up in the 1970s, ones that were edgy (One Day at a Time), comedic (Brady Bunch), or quaintly cute (The Courtship of Eddy's Father). They were--or tried to be--edgy, comedic, or cute precisely because they were not normal families.

Same-sex couple with two adopted children.
From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/
gay-family-photos-project_n_3436299.html

Though less powerful today--this norm still holds a sway over many Americans.  Witness the anger and grief over the Supreme Court's recent rulings dooming the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Proposition 8.  A narrow majority, 5-4, declared DOMA unconstitutional.  Another 5-4 decision, with a different mix of judges, refused on procedural grounds to deliberate a suit regarding California's Prop 8, a ban on same-sex marriage.  This turned the case back to a lower court that had already ruled against the ban.  In effect, this legalized same-sex marriage in California (NPR story).

The narrow splits in the Supreme Court reflect the seeming polarization of the American people on the matter LGBT issues and their connection to marriage and family.  A recent Pew Survey finds that a narrow 51% majority supports the legalization of same-sex marriage.  But I said "seeming" because this percentage shot up dramatically from 32% in 2003.  Moreover, 2/3 of Americans support the idea of civil unions for same-sex couples, and 60% agree that "society should accept homosexuality." So there's a social sea change out there that the Court does not appear to reflect regarding the issue of homosexuality.

In a harsh dissent, Justice Scalia called the ruling a "judicial distortion," but what really irked him was the subtext he saw in it.  The ruling painted pro-DOMA people as "hateful," as an "enemy of human decency," as "monsters" (Politico).  I didn't read the entire 77 page decision, but summaries (e.g. Huffington Post) of the decision can be boiled down to two issues.  The majority found that DOMA violated the the Fifth Amendment's "due process" clause, and that it unjustifiably denied a class of people equal standing before the law.  That is unconstitutional discrimination (it's not surprising that the decision cited the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case that struck down a state law banning inter-racial marriage--Washington Post).

Justice Antonio Scalia
http://www.oyez.org/justices/antonin_scalia

Scalia came up with those terms characterizing those opposed to full equality for homosexuals, exaggerating the language of his judicial opponents.  I think he did so in order to make the point that he should be allowed to be morally comfortable with discrimination.  It is not hateful or indecent to treat LGBT folks as second-class citizens, and how dare you suggest that...

Other reactions were equally visceral.  Mike Huckabee, former governor and presidential contender and current Fox commentator, tweeted "Jesus wept," a curious equation of Lazarus and DOMA (what Christ-like figure will appear to call to DOMA "Come forth!"?).  American Family Association radio host, Bryan Fischer, trotted out the tired saw that the ruling would lead to a sexapocalypse: "The DOMA ruling has now made the normalization of polygamy, pedophilia, incest and bestiality inevitable. Matter of time."  More sedate, the Conference of US Catholic Bishops called it a "tragic day for marriage"  (Tweets at Religious News).  Or you can go over to Rightwingwatch.org and wade through a slew of all sorts of dire predictions and accusations, starting with Focus on the Family James Dobson, who claims that the DOMA ruling "threaten[s] the entire superstructure of society" (Superstructure? Apparently, he doesn't know what the term means, but I prefer to think he's channeling Marx...).

I could go on like this, but I'll just get more sarcastic and snarky.  On this issue there's a gulf between a sizable minority and slim majority of Americans.  Those opposed to full equality for homosexuals depict their discriminatory position as moral or legal while those in favor of that equality see it as immoral or illegal.  There's no easy way over this gulf.  Every advance of equality has involved failed efforts to reason with one another, and ensuing conflict and bitterness.  We'll just have to endure it, and know that people in a generation or two--just as we do now looking back on the civil rights movements--will shake their heads at us, wondering how we could have been so obdurate

By the way--this decision has had immediate consequences here in Michigan, where a

...federal judge has ordered Michigan to stop enforcing a law that has barred community colleges and many other government agencies (though not universities) from providing any benefits to the same-sex partners of employees (Inside Higher Education).

This is perhaps a sign that all states that have passed laws designed to deny government benefits to same-sex couples--that is, trying to DOMA them at the local level--will face legal challenges in the near future.

A Limber State, a Wounded Body Politic

Blog Song for the Moment

Hans Zimmer, Time, from Inception (2010)

Some Republicans have been trying and trying to Watergate President Obama with the Benghazi Affair (though they may be really aiming at Hilary Clinton), but the administration has just handed them something even better--a real scandal.  Actually two.

One is the revelation that the IRS has been targeting some conservative organizations, giving their requests for tax-exempt status as non-profits extra scrutiny, such as requesting the identity of their contributors.  In response to complaints from constituents , GOP lawmakers questioned IRS commissioners last year, who replied that the IRS did have the authority to request donor information.  Though they didn't mention targeting, at least one commissioner knew about it as early as May 2012. As reported in Politico:

Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS division the oversees tax exempt groups, acknowledged that groups seeking nonprofit status were flagged for additional review if their applications included phrases like “tea party” or “patriot.” She told reporters that requests for donor information isn’t standard practice at the IRS.

On top of this, we have the DOJ seizing private records from AP reporters and wire services.  According to the AP

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

Apparently the DOJ was after the source of a leak that it deemed a threat to national security, that is, a leak about a proposed operation in what ever we're calling the "War on Terror" these days.  But what a stupid, heavy-handed way of going about it.

So, along with the IRS handing Tea Party groups their "biggest victory yet," as Slate's David Weigel suggests, the DOJ has given the GOP one more reason--a good one this time--to investigate the hell out of the Obama administration, gumming up government operations, along with distracting Congress from crucial matters that need its attention--say, immigration reform for starters.

Administration officials are to blame, and I imagine some heads will roll, but I think their are also some systemic problems behind these humongous gaffes.  The role of big money in campaigns, combined with political polarization, created an environment encouraging what was likely illegal behavior in the IRS.  As for the DOJ--it's serving the needs of an executive trying to combat terrorism with means that violate domestic and international norms and laws.

Writing during WW I, Randolph Bourne pointed out the paradox for democratic regimes waging war.

Democratic control of foreign policy is therefore a contradiction in terms. Open discussion destroys swiftness and certainty of action.  The State is paralyzed. . .(from "War is the Health of the State")

Bourne was talking about growing restrictions on civil liberties as the Wilson administration geared up for war in Europe.  Today it's the Obama administration, like the previous one under Bush, working mightily to avoid this paralysis.  They have succeeded so far in keeping the State limber, but at the cost of wounding our democratic body politic.

Latest poll reports 47% of Americans can chew gum but walk only "poorly" at the same time, the rest are awesome at it

Unless you're lobotomized you've heard of the secretly taped video Mother Jones recently released (accessible here).  Most of the press has been about his characterization of 47% of Americans as slackers, and therefore will never vote for him, the uber non-slacker.  But Ruben Navarrette (at CNN) focuses on this Romney comment:

My dad, as you probably know was the governor of Michigan and was the head of a car company. But he was born in Mexico... and, uh, had he been born of, uh, Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot at winning this ... I mean I say that jokingly, but it would be helpful to be Latino.

It's a bizarre conjecture, as if there were a single Latino voting bloc, as if Romney's whiteness has been such a detriment to his political career.  Talk about playing the victim.  Anyway, Navarrette points out that being Latino certainly didn't help Bill Richardson, and adds:

. . .if Mitt really wants to get in touch with his inner Mexican, I think he'll find that it's not all churros and chocolate or pinatas and pan dulce. You see--and you might find this hard to believe, Mitt--but there is still a lot of discrimination in this country against Latinos as whites hunker down and try to hold on to what they have in the face of changing demographics.

This response, though, would probably roll right off Romney's back given his belief that this slacker 47% of Americans see themselves as victims--that's the narrative, people who link inequality to discrimination are simply whining about being victims rather than taking individual responsibility for their position in life.

Doesn't matter that data on structural inequality are readily available.  For example, poverty rates for Black and Hispanic children (something for which these children can hardly be held responsible) are significantly higher than those of whites, respectively 34, 27, and 10% (see p. 16 in this NCES report).  Poverty is associated with physical health, and therefore with the capacity to learn. Impoverished children have lower school completion rates and have more learning disabilities, both which affect employment chances down the road.

This still doesn't matter in this narrative of victimhood where there are no structural conditions, just atomized individuals who manage well a string of circumstances, or don't.  Interestingly, though, Americans as a whole are of two minds about this.  According to a Pew survey, a sizable majority disagree with the statement "Hard work offers little guarantee of success" (see chart below)

Pew Research Center: Trends in American Values, 1987-2012

However, the lower one's income, the more likely she or he would agree that "Success if pretty much determined by forces outside our control (see chart below).  Still, over the years near half of low income people disagree with that statement.

Pew Research Center: Trends in American Values, 1987-2012

However, when asked about whether its "circumstances" or "lack of effort" that explains poverty, more Americans say the former over the latter (46 to 38%).  Predictably, answers vary significantly by gender, race/ethnicity, income education, and party identification. Women, Blacks and Hispanics, low income folks, and Democrats are more likely to attribute poverty to circumstances.  Men, whites, and Republicans are more likely to say lack of effort (chart below)

Pew Research Center: Trends in American Values, 1987-2012

Clearly, the way the question about poverty is framed shapes American responses.  And it also gives us a clue as to why Romney's 47% comment resonates with a broad spectrum of Americans, but also why it got so much criticism.  As well, when put into a simplistic either-or sort of way, we're bound to get a picture of polarization and contradictions.

Let me illustrate with a quick story about a young Latina I know.  Her early years were passed in poverty, in urban projects and shelters, surrounded by addiction.  She moved in with a foster family, already behind in school, and with some severe learning disabilities.  She did earn her high school degree and get a job in a restaurant chain, but she also had a couple of abusive boyfriends, and two children out-of-wedlock, one of whom had serious health problems.  Now in her mid-twenties, she owns a home, has a partner whom she adores, her children are doing well in school, and she is poised to become a manager.

How did she get from the potentially disastrous point A to the promising point B?  Hard work, behavior changes, and perseverance.  Instead of lamenting what she could not do (learning disabilities), she found other intellectual strengths to get her through.  She stopped going out with unemployed guys with shady backgrounds, and found a dependable, caring partner.  Despite her heavy workload, she has remained deeply engaged in her children's lives, including their schooling.  She has bravely taken on managerial roles where she works, even though the training required scared her to death, since it reawakened all that insecurity and angst she had felt for years in school.  She has learned how and where to get help and advice on managing the home and finances.  Through force of will, she has turned her life around.  That's the narrative of individual responsibility (the inverse of victimhood) that Romney touts.

But it's not the whole story, of course.  We could start with observing that the conditions she lived with in those crucial early years of her life meant she had more barriers to achievement than her white middle class schoolmates.  And while, happily, she made it over those barriers, she didn't do this on her own.  She learned and earned her high school degree with care and attention of public high school teachers.  She has enjoyed free childcare from family and friends over the years.  She got a couple of rent-free years by living with her parents.  The court assured her at least some child support.  Medicaid covered much of the expensive healthcare for the children (as well as her two difficult deliveries).  The federal earned income credit allowed her to amass money for a downpayment on a home, and HUD subsidized her mortgage. So this is the other narrative, one of structural inequality.  She started out behind, but a combination of her family's social and financial capital, and local and federal government programs, enabled her to, if not catch up, at least not be so far behind in terms of economic and social stability.

Clearly, these two versions are compatible, yet the way we are talking about inequality makes them incompatible.  Thus we end up with Romney's facile line about that 47%, and responses like that of Navarrette which become more fodder for Romney's victimhood narrative.  I don't expect the campaigns to take this conversation to a more useful place, but we can.

Republicans at play in the fields of the Lord

Jon Stewart showed a clip of Fox News commentators ripping into Democrats for not mentioning God in their platform ("EXTREME MAKEOVER: Democrats lose 'God' from platform").  The clip ended with Bill O'Reilly saying, apparently mystified, "How there can be an entire section on faith if you don't mention God? What do we have faith in?" Stewart replied, "Uhh, I have faith in a God that's not so insecure he doesn't freak out if you don't mention his name enough."

I agree with the Stewart's sentiment, and have long wondered about the God of orthodox Christians who seems to be a petty, insecure old man who insists his believers constantly stroke his ego.  I'm reminded of the well-known passage from Luke--the "seek, and you will find" one--where Jesus says

"Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Luke 11:11-13, NASB).

I realize this passage is about the nature of God's grace, but I see it also as a way to conceptualize God. If one exists, if God is perfect, beyond our ken, then the best we imperfect people can do is imagine the best kind of character for God.  And for me, that character wouldn't be someone lolling about up there in heaven worried about whether we used its name in a curse, whether we mention its name enough in public, whether we're working hard enough to make others use God-talk in the public square.

However, I still have enough of my Lutheran upbringing in me to think that Stewart missed the point in his rejoinder to O'Reilly. In orthodox Christianity (as with orthodox Judaism and Islam), believers are to acknowledge the presence of God, and God's authorship of the world and their lives.  And they are to confess it.  A consequence of this could be a healthy humility and a source of inspiration to be better vehicles of compassion and justice.  Humans are not sole masters of their fates; their gifts and successes are not just the result of their own efforts; their foibles and failures are evidence of inherent imperfection and a dependence on grace, or undeserved love (". . .all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23).

But the problem for me is that I just don't see much of this humility or inspiration in the GOP's platform.  I just see god-talk for the sake of demonstrating the party's piety, and a specious argument that to vote for the Republicans is a vote for a party that will do the Lord's work.

Fox News' Gretchen Carlson said God was named 12 times in the GOP platform, but I could find only ten. Still, that's enough to suggest that the GOP wants to make it clear to its adherents that religious belief, and therefore God, undergirds its policy positions--and the United States, if under proper leadership.

Though the US Constitution does not mention God, the platform's preamble links the Constitution to its religious vision of politics. The Constitution is "the greatest political document ever written," it is "sacred," and in the same breath, we must "reaffirm that our rights come from God."  It's no surprise that David Barton, the faux historian who has manufactured an idealized Christian origin of the United States, participated in writing the platform.

The platform repeats that affirmation seven more times:

•We offer our Republican vision of a free people using their God-given talents. . .

•We are the party of the Constitution, the solemn compact which confirms our God-given individual rights. . .

•The primary role of government is to protect the God-given, inalienable, inherent rights of its citizens. . .

•We acknowledge, support, and defend the law-abiding citizen's God-given right of self-defense.

•In assessing the various sources of potential energy, Republicans advocate an all-of-the-above diversified approach, taking advantage of all our American God-given resources.

•As the pioneer of conservation over a century ago, the Republican Party believes in the moral obligation of the people to be good stewards of the God-given natural beauty and resources of our country. . .

•A young person’s ability to achieve in school must be based on his or her God-given talent and motivation, not an address, zip code, or economic status.

The platform mentions God twice more, a pledge to protect the Pledge of Allegiance's "under God" from "activist judges," and a salutation ("May God continue to shed his grace. . .").  But religion comes out in other ways besides the number of times God is mentioned.  In the section We the People: a Restoration of Constitutional Government there is the unsurprising declaration about protecting marriage--between one man and one woman--from an "activist judiciary." The platform also defines the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as the GOP's "sacred contract" (the word "sacred" appears six times in the platform).  And there is the expected hostility to abortion.

Republicans are also in a spiritual battle. "Liberal elites" are trying "to drive religious beliefs--and religious believers--out of the public square."  The "current Administration" is conducting a "war on religion," with its rules forcing most health care plans, even those at Catholic non-profits, to provide contraceptives to women free of charge (The NY Times succinctly sums up this issue here).  But it is not only President Obama leading this "war."  It's those people forcing counties to remove the Ten Commandments from their courthouse lawns, who oppose public prayer in schools, who lead "hate campaigns" against businesses and organizations like the Boy Scouts for their anti-gay positions.  

Apparently, it's Americans' God-given right to compel all to accommodate their religious imprimatur on the public square; it is their God-given liberty to discriminate against the GLBT community.

The platform finishes with declarations on foreign policy, which the GOP titled American Exceptionalism, "the conviction that our country holds a unique place and role in human history." What this really means, given the religiosity elsewhere in the document, is that the US plays a providential role in the world.  That is, our country does God's work, but, and this is a big "but," only if American voters make the right choice. "Providence has put us at the fork in the road, and we must answer the question [actually, two]: If not us, who? If not now, when?  That is the choice facing the American people this November. . ."

This exceptionalism is an old, old conception dating back to those Puritans who thought they might be the new "chosen people," building the "city on the hill."  Reagan famously made a similar claim, and since Reagan is in the GOP's pantheon of minor deities, it's not surprising that its platform would make it a central point in their presentation to the American people.

The stark, scary choice is also nothing new, but I guess I'm still surprised by such an overt religious framing.  It reminds me of a county commission race in Indiana where I used to live.  During the debate between the candidates, one person answered the question "Why are you running?" with "I believe Jesus wants me to run." My mouth dropped open, and I looked around to catch the reactions of others.  I saw lots of heads nodding 'yes.'  Guess I had missed the divine memo, and, by the way, the guy won, handily.

I suppose this GOP platform is such a memo letting me know that the Republicans are doing the Lord's work and the Democrats are, well, doing hellish stuff.

So, why I think the GOP platform is arrogant for claiming a role as providential agent, those Christians who support the platform likely think I am an agent of evil (perhaps an unwitting one) given that I am an agnostic who opposes many of the GOP policy positions that further the work of God.  That conversation, were I to have one, is dead on arrival.

But I'm guessing there are a lot of others, hostile to Obama from the beginning, or now disenchanted, who simply ignore the religious aspect of the GOP position.  They just want Obama out of the White House. Or they prefer Republican economic and social policies.  I know platforms are wish lists that are never even partially realized, but I hope these voters think about the whole package they will hand us should Mitt Romney win.