SUPERSTITION, IGNORANCE, AND REPUBLICAN RULE

Lisa Anderson writes in today’s Chicago Tribune that recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup polling shows 53 percent of adults surveyed said "God created humans in their present form exactly the way the Bible describes it." And polls consistently show a majority of Americans favor teaching both evolution and creationism.

Perhaps this explains another mysterious poll finding. In the latest AP-Ipsos Poll in which only 1/3 of Americans gave congress “Good” ratings for its ethics and honesty, the vast majority of those 1/3 are Republicans. I extrapolate this to mean, the 1/3 of Americans who consider congress to be ethical and honest are mostly those “Family Values” voters who helped to re-elect George Bush in 2004.

Will Lester, Associated Press Writer, filed a story today on those Poll findings. Lester writes:
…Republican pollster Ed Goeas said recently that it's lucky for the GOP that voters won't be focused on elections for another 10 months. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to take a positive view of the honesty and ethics of Congress.

"I hear so many people talking about how dishonest they are, but I have a hard time believing they're as bad as people say," said Krista Gneiting, a Republican from Caldwell, Idaho. "I have not heard much specifically about Bill Frist and Tom DeLay."
(Emphasis added)

So, it seems, that superstition coupled with ignorance is the glue binding the Bush Base together.

What this means, of course, is that as long as Bush and congress is perceived by these Americans as serving a larger, Divine purpose, the corruption and duplicity of his administration are not only tolerated—they are excused. "I'm Not Perfect, Just Saved" so goes a smug bumper-sticker, popular with Evangelicals. So Bush and Congress are not Perfect either. And we have it on Karl Rove's well-orchestrated assurances that Bush is "Saved". Adding to the smugness of salvation is the unifying theme of persecution. In case you haven’t noticed, Christians consider themselves the victims of persecution at the hands of a scheming, godless Left cabal. That cabal includes all of those carping Liberals and overzealous prosecutors picking on DeLay and Scooter Libby.

Average Americans who get their news from sources other than James Dobson might be surprised to hear that those who effectively control both houses of congress and the presidency—the evangelical Right-- see themselves as victims of political persecution.

But keep in mind; Krista Gneiting has a “…hard time believing [congress] is as bad as people say”

....Keep in mind; Mississippi legislators stated, for the record, with straight faces, that Hurricane Katrina was visited upon the Gulf because it was God’s Wrath for the Gambling Casinos that were prospering on the coast.

I wonder what these portentous observers of the American scene make of this story out of Waco, Texas today:

WACO, Texas - A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his church Sunday morning after grabbing a microphone while partially submerged, a church employee said.

The Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, was standing in water up to his shoulder in a baptismal at University Baptist Church when he was electrocuted, said Jamie Dudley, a church business administrator and wife of another pastor there.

Doctors in the congregation performed chest compressions, she said. Lake was taken by ambulance to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, where nursing supervisor Pat Mahl said he was pronounced dead.

The woman Lake was baptizing was not injured, Dudley said.
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Since I am not a believer in intelligent design or a person who can interpret Divine Signs like the average Mississippi Republican state legislator, I would say that meaning of this story is “…Thou shalt not grab an electric microphone when the cord of the microphone is in the holy waters…”

But keep in mind; I’m a secular humanist who doesn't trust George Bush or congress as far as I can throw them, so what do I know...?