THIS MODERN WORLD

One of these things just doesn’t belong.

Jack Hitt ponders:

The question is bizarre, of course, but the fact that many prominent religious and political leaders believe that there is an answer surely marks our time as pretty strange.

How quickly it has all happened — that the media, particularly television, has convinced itself that Christianity is little more than a Republican political action committee. When the pope died, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer introduced former Clinton aide Paul Begala and right-wing pundit Robert Novak this way: “Bob is a good Catholic; I’m not so sure about Paul Begala.” At the bottom of the screen, CNN ran an informative factoid for the audience: “Many Catholic doctrines are conservative.”

Broadcast media prefer to cast Christianity in the role of “right-wing values PAC” because it’s so neat and tidy. They don’t much like even to say the name Jesus on air because then we might have to talk about his ideas. “Evangelical Christianity” is much simpler because you can treat it as just another special-interest group, like the Teamsters or the neocons.

Leaders such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson have used the media to redefine Christianity as the “Republican base” — all between commercials hawking family-values videotapes or pleading for more contributions.

Gosh, WWJD? It makes me wax nostalgic for the days when people wore those bracelets and asked the question, “What would Jesus do?” At least people said his name then and pondered his ideas, using the question as the beginning of an engaged moral debate. Few would have appreciated those bracelets as much as the man himself — Jesus, who preached a new way of thinking about religion. Instead of taking orders from temple chieftains, Jesus provoked his followers into thinking for themselves. His preferred media outlet? A literary genre called the parable. It’s a style of Q&A wherein the teacher doesn’t give the answer but challenges the listener with a half-finished story that forces him to think through to the answer by himself. The radical right has swapped out this genius preacher for some easy listening. They insist that everything will be fine if we just nail the Ten Commandments above every courthouse.

Curious. Jesus updated the Ten Commandments in his most famous speech, the Sermon on the Mount. In it, one finds the Eight Beatitudes. Why don’t we ever hear about nailing those somewhere? Here’s why: It’s not simply the law in the Ten Commandments that attracts fundamentalists. Rather, it’s the syntax. The authoritarianism of so many “Thou Shalt Nots.”

The syntax of Jesus’ Eight Beatitudes is not so easy (Blessed are the poor in spirit…. Blessed are the peacemakers). These words invite the kind of hard questions that Jesus loved to tweak his followers with. How are they blessed? And why? It’s just like Jesus to leave us with questions instead of answers.

More, go read.

Guckert made more than 200 appearances at the White House during his two-year tenure with the fledging conservative websites GOPUSA and Talon News, attending 155 of 196 White House press briefings. He had little to no previous journalism experience, previously worked as a male escort, and was refused a congressional press pass.

Perhaps more notable than the frequency of his attendance, however, is several distinct anomalies about his visits.

Guckert made more than two dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings. On many of these days, the Press Office held press gaggles aboard Air Force One — which raises questions about what Guckert was doing at the White House. On other days, the president held photo opportunities.

On at least fourteen occasions, Secret Service records show either the entry or exit time missing. Generally, the existing entry or exit times correlate with press conferences; on most of these days, the records show that Guckert checked in but was never processed out.

In March, 2003, Guckert left the White House twice on days he had never checked in with the Secret Service. Over the next 22 months, Guckert failed to check out with the Service on fourteen days. On several of these visits, Guckert either entered or exited by a different entry/exit point than his usual one. On one of these days, no briefing was held; on another, he checked in twice but failed to check out.

More here. But remember, the only thing interesting about this story is that it shows how much liberals hate gays. Or something like that.

…as someone said somewhere, if Gannon were a drug dealer or an embezzler getting this kind of access, it would be news. Don’t let the right wing noise machine convince you that his specific alleged criminal activity should be politely overlooked. There’s something going on here, and if this exact set of circumstances had occurred eight years ago, a special prosecutor would already have been preparing the case for impeachment. And the news media would have been camping out on G/G’s doorstep 24/7.

Apparently quite a few readers were unhappy with Cityview’s decision to drop the strip — enough so that they’ve reconsidered, and will continue to run TMW after all.

I’m really grateful for the outpouring of support. And as for the paper itself, as far as I’m concerned this was just a little bump in the road, rapidly receding in the rear view mirror. If you’re in Des Moines, it’s time to shower the new owners of the paper with encouragement and support and all around best wishes for their new venture. They listened to you, let them know you appreciate it.

My condolences to everyone affected by this. Seriously. This has been a tough winter, and after a week of warm weather, I think I would really lose my shit if it suddenly started snowing again here.