Karl Rove: The Rapture in the Rose Garden


George Stephanopoulos should not have been surprised last Sunday morning when Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson opined that liberal judges are a far greater threat than are terrorists. Pat is telling the truth; he is, however, fudging the context of these facts. Those facts reveal that liberal judges are a threat to Pat's second job, the one that has made Robertson and Reed both politically powerful and wealthy. Both support this administration no matter what it does. Why is that?
Either for more than a generation Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed have worked covertly as political operatives for the powers of and behind this administration. Or they believe that the Rapture is coming and that it is their responsibility to make sure all of the Jews return to Israel to die so that Pat and Ralph and George Bush can be bodily lifted up into the arms of the Almighty.. Do they all believe this? If Bush really believed this he would have been far less likely to install off the grid solar technology at his 20,000 square foot ranch house in Crawford Texas. And they would be planning a meet up with the Almighty in the Rose Garden.
I know how I vote. Given the long term investments and off the grid retirement homes they are not expecting to go anywhere. Historically, those who believe the Rapture is coming divest. This has been true of sects throughout the last 2,000 years. True Believers buy white robes and head out to the hills to meet their Maker. Are there white robes hanging in the otherwise empty closets of these august leaders of pious prose?
In that case they are political operatives strutting their stuff in the vestments of virtue while living the lavish lives of plutocrats. Their work is creating cover for this administration as it continues to place politically useful judges on the federal bench and NeoCon insiders in other seats of influence. Bolton into the United Nations would be an example of the kind of work their ilk undertakes.
We need to recognize how pervasive the use of unidentified PR flacks has become. As the independent voices continue to be muted the decibels emitted by NeoCon flunkies is going up. This administration is desperate to change the present course of opinion. Just 100 days into his second stolen term George W. Bush has won the distinction of a vote of least confidence from the American people. Around the world he is hated, feared, and despised.
The NeoCons are therefore pulling out all of the stops and using all of their formerly covert weapons of truth realignment.
How many journalists clustered around the seats of power in Washington D.C. and the Wall Street Journal in New York are actually political operatives? Someday soon a real investigative journalist with an honest and fearless editor at a paper not owned and controlled by management that leads back to the NeoCons will dig out the connections and how the payoffs took place. Then we will start to get a grasp on just how deep and wide this conversion of journalism to public relations personnel has gone.
Churchmen present a more complex problem. Churches are not liable to the same kind of reporting and their parishioners are going to be a very long time believing it. Some truths are too painful to face.
One wonders what Jesus would do if He were here now. We know He had no problem throwing the moneychangers out of the Temple. What would the Man who walked among us teaching simple love, charity say to Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed? If it is true, stealing through deceit by using the pretensions of journalism and the sanctity of the church is worse than money changing.
Through their actions shall we know them. What we don't yet know is doubtless much worse.
How the Rove Cadre view such institutions as the church and journalism explains a lot. They have taken the job a nd responsibilities of “journalist' and converted that to a tool useful to them. They have taken a religious viewpoint that was apolitical and converted it into a tool of foreign policy and electoral power.
They have established pundits, think tanks, writers, radio talk show hosts, and experts of all kinds who, for very nominal amounts of money paid out in respectable salaries, royalties on books, and huge speaking honorariums, produce the interpretations that affirms the NeoCon spin. We have had inklings of these through the hysterical rantings of such writers as Anne Coulter whose books they promote.
So what else are they doing we haven't noticed yet? That is the six trillion dollar question. It is the question that should remain in our minds as the deficit continues to climb towards overload and the chattering and nervousness in markets around the world stretch the economy to breaking.
We are in the middle of a book that would have been too scary for Stephen King to write. And unless something is done the end is going to be very, very bad.