Evangelicals Sway White House on Human Rights Issues Abroad

[coda]

Top Stories - The New York Times

Evangelicals Sway White House on Human Rights Issues Abroad
49 minutes ago Add Top Stories - The New York Times to My Yahoo!


By ELISABETH BUMILLER The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 Shortly after George W. Bush took office, an odd coalition came to the White House to see Karl Rove, the president's powerful political adviser, to ask that the United States intercede in the civil war in Sudan. The group included Charles W. Colson, the born-again Christian who spent seven months in jail for his role in Watergate, and David Saperstein, a Reform rabbi and a longtime lobbyist for liberal causes in Washington.


<snip>


Close to three years later, the White House has lived up to Mr. Rove's promise to engage not only in peace talks in Sudan, but on other human rights issues of critical importance to American religious groups, most notably sex trafficking and AIDS).


<snip>


No one disputes that Mr. Bush already cares deeply about those issues and has a personal faith that his advisers say brings a moral dimension to a foreign policy better known for war. "To put it simply, it's a fairly radical belief that a child in an African village whose parents are dying of AIDS has the same importance before God as the president of the United States," said Michael Gerson, Mr. Bush's chief speechwriter and an important White House policy adviser who is a born-again Christian.



<snip>


"You're not going to run into too many people who are smarter than Karl," said Dr. Richard D. Land, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, who is in regular contact with Mr. Rove. "Karl understands the importance of this segment of his coalition, and I think the president understands it. The president feels that one of the contributory factors to his father's loss is that he didn't get as many evangelical votes as Reagan did."





more......

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&e=20&u=/nyt/evangelicalsswaywhitehouseonhumanrightsissuesabroad

[Grins]

1. Good story...

I have been keeping a list of events where I think evangelicals have stepped over the Church/State line. I started it because of this article in the Wall St. Journal: <http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110004182>

It bugged me that the author cannot conceive what upsets many in the “non-religious left” (I wonder if he is concerned about people like me, the religious left?). He fails to see the difference between your local mainstream church or synagogue and the Christian Coalition, or the Constitution and the evangelicals praying to (“to” is the right word for these idolators) the 10-Commandments monolith in Alabama. (I guess, like Bush, he doesn’t get his news from the press.)

What is interesting about both articles are these two lines:
1.
From your link: “…white evangelicals accounted for about 40 percent of the votes that Mr. Bush received in the 2000 presidential election. In 2004, political analysts say, he is unlikely to be re-elected without the strong support of this constituency, which is predominately but not wholly Republican, and which in other years has thrown significant support to southern Democrats like Bill Clinton.”
2.
And this one from the Journal: “In the 1992 election, Bill Clinton got 75% of the secularist vote, while the current President's father received support from traditionalists (churchgoers) by 2 to 1. That pattern held in the 2000 election. "In terms of their size and party loyalty," Messrs. Bolce and De Maio argue, "secularists today are as important to the Democratic party as another key constituency, organized labor."

I think they are right. The Democratic Party has to do a better job promoting the Constitution and the duplicity of the Bush administration to these people. First, to get them back into the fold. Second, to deny them to Rove.

Now, who is going after them?

PS: Had a laugh with this one. The other great line in your link was the White Hose creating the Trafficking in Persons Office, and the evangelicals wanted John Miller to head it. Immediately, ”(Karl) Rove is said to have raised concerns that Mr. Miller supported Senator John McCain in the 2000 presidential campaign, but the groups held fast. Wonder why they never saw this as pandering to their constituency for political purposes only?

[coda]

2. On your P.S.

PS: Had a laugh with this one. The other great line in your link was the White Hose creating the Trafficking in Persons Office, and the evangelicals wanted John Miller to head it. Immediately, ”(Karl) Rove is said to have raised concerns that Mr. Miller supported Senator John McCain in the 2000 presidential campaign, but the groups held fast. Wonder why they never saw this as pandering to their constituency for political purposes only?


That's what I like about Rove. As smart as he is, he has that pathological need for revenge and his base instinct is to impose nasty punishments on those who are not in lockstep. Republican Senators are tired of the crap. There are certainly hints of Repub Representatives getting tired of it, as well as Tom Delay. It's Rove and Delay that will bring the moderates to surface, IMO.

[sam sarrha]

3. if true bush missed a good opportunity to denounce the slave trade by

Arabs of black Africans in Senegal when he was there. you can buy a small black child for $18 to $30..literally on the street, in open slave markets. Bush may have deep convictions... but he seem to keep them to himself.