From: Dave Screwtape

To: Subscribers

Subject: Thanksgiving Thoughts

As Democrats, we should be thankful for many things this year. I’m of course thankful we have a President-elect who subscribes to progressive principles and is aggressively bringing change to Washington with his appointment of former Clinton Administration officials. I have to be thankful for my son being hired to work in the Obama White House. While I was nearly completely absent for his childhood, I’m more than happy to share in his accomplishments.

Also, great work by the staff of both our House and Senate campaign committee will contribute to the most Democratic Senate since 1993, or since 1997, depending on how the Franken Recount and the James Martin-Saxby Chambliss runoff go.

However, as thankful as I am for the resurgent Democratic might across the country, it wouldn’t have been possible but for the hard work of our opponents. The ability to have more than half the Congressional Districts in the country gerrymandered to favor you, and still find yourself nearly 80 seats behind the other party is a feat of incompetence that deserves an admittance into a Hall of Fame.

I’m excited by much of the cross-talk I’ve observed from the right which indicates the right’s issues are just beginning:

• Secular conservatives blaming Republican defeat on the religious right. My Thanksgiving prayer to every deity, or to none at all if you prefer, is, “Please let them kick the religious right out.” If hot-button issues, such as abortion or gay marriage, are thrown out of the political sphere, it will be to our benefit. There is a word for many of these “Values Voters,” if social issues are thrown out of the political equation. “Democrats” or “Non-voters.”

There are simply not enough voters who agree with Republican economics, but have their vote swung by the Democrats’ stance in favor of abortion. If the Republicans can’t win with the religious right, they can’t win without them, either. The most secular conservatives will win is the ability to lose in an intellectually satisfying matter.

The best thing about this scapegoating is that it distracts from what caused the Republicans to fail (incompetence in government) and makes a constituency that is vital to any future electoral success feel persecuted. As I said, heck of a job.

• The urge for unity from figures such as Michael Reagan. This actually raises many more philosophical questions than it provides. What is there to unify around? What does it mean to be a Republican? Does anyone know anymore? From what I gather, being a Republican means that you support bailouts for everyone but the middle class. What do they expect people to rally to? A strong and abiding belief in the letter “R?” Or how about standing firm behind the clueless leadership that led them over the cliff?

Again, heck of a job.

• Finally, the attempt by some to scapegoat the GOP voters. It was “their fault” for not getting more energized. It was the fault of several million Republican voters who decided to “take their ball and go home.” Or the voters who were just so misinformed and confused they voted for Obama.

The arrogance of the argument is astounding (even for me.) It’s the fault of voters that they didn’t vote your way or weren’t inspired? We have to be thankful to think that it’s their voters jobs to inspire themselves to come out and vote. Or they believe it’s the job of volunteers to motivate themselves. Of course, neither volunteers nor voters are the professional in this matter of elections. It is the job of candidates and party officials to win the support of enough voters. It seems some are saying it is the job of these voters to materialize and vote Republican. It’s the fantasy land rules of politics that our Republican opponents believe in that allow them the luxury of such idiotic ignorance.

With such an inept opposition from the Republicans, we should accustom ourselves to the wine of victory, and those of you in Congress should get used to the calls of Mister Chairman, Madam Speaker, etc. Despite whatever flaws the years reveal in our party, we’ll always have one advantage: We’re not Republicans.

Best Personal Regards,
Dave Screwtape

The Screwtape Report is written by Adam Graham. The Screwtape Report is written from a Democratic perspective by a conservative in order to reveal Democratic strategy and thinking.

Podcast Show Notes

Obama claims change comes from him, so he can surround himself with old time Washington hacks.

More Charlie Rangel corruption. (Hat Tip: Red State.)

The cost of the bailout.  

Georgia ackowledges the need for strong marriages.

One woman’s decision not to be an abortionist. (Hat Tip: Jill Stanek.)

The perfect holiday gift: Planned Parenthood gift certificates.  (Hat Tip: Hot Air.)

A university pro-life club threatened. (Hat Tip: Right Mind.)

Homeschool harassment. (Hat Tip: Newsbusters.)

30 Marines beat back 250 Afghani Insurgents. (Hat Tip: Right Wing News.)

A message from a brave injured soldier.  (Hat Tip: The Corner.)

A union president fingered for corruption.

A burglar breaks into the wrong house and other second Amendment news.

Music by Admiral Twin via the Podsafe Music Network.

Click here to listen, click here to download.

 This fall, we saw a new sitcom. One where the laughs all came at our expense

(Don’t miss the next exciting episode. The Bailout Bunch takes a vacation to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon! Unfortunately there isn’t enough room on the expensive jets for either the taxpayers or for their own hard working employees who did everything they could do to keep their businesses going. But the execs have a fantastic time!)

“The Values Voter”

The emergence of the flag-waving liberal

Originally published by our Legal Editor, Mike “gamecock” DeVine as Charlotte Law and Civil Rights Examiner for Examiner.com

Black Americans are justifiably proud of their country in the wake of the election of Barack Obama as President. In fact, most Americans, including your truly and other conservatives and Republicans, are proud that the election of a Black man is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that America is not a racist country.

Of this, I am much thankful on this most American of holidays. I have known for decades that America isn’t racist, but do understand, as one African-American columnist put it, that only such an election could convince many blacks that “America loved them back.”

As I wrote on the day after Election Day, we have but one president at a time, and the President-Elect will be my President come Inauguration Day. But we have only one country for all time (if we can keep it), and my patriotic love for it is unrelated to the outcome of elections.

But, not all Americans share this kind of patriotism:

“I felt [Old Glory, pictured] was no longer a symbol of the country I love, but of Bush and support for his war,” said [Ronnie Chapman, a] 48-year-old pharmacist from Cary. “The first thing I did the morning after the election was take it from my den and fly it proudly in front of my house.”

You did the right thing, finally, as did all those that were flying their Star Spangled Banners the day before the election who didn’t take theirs down.

The Raleigh News & Observer considers Chapman’s response as reflecting “the emergence of an unusual – and some might say contradictory – new figure: the flag-waving liberal.”

“For years it’s felt like patriotism was a Republican thing,” said Raven Moeslinger, 21, a senior at UNC Chapel Hill. “Now I feel like we’ve reclaimed it.”

Why did you feel that way for years? Could it be because you have so often heard liberal Democrats complaining of having their patriotism challenged when only their judgment is challenged and remembered Shakespeare’s “Methinks thou dost protest too much” and reached the obvious conclusion?

“We’ve” reclaimed “it”? No, Raven, but hopefully you have joined “it” and that “it” will be a lifelong marriage in love for the extended family we call country. I pray we are not two irreconcilable Americas.

You can build that love by following this example:

“The night after the election, I got in bed and started reading the Declaration of Independence for the first time in a long time,” said Sherry Harmon, 55, of Cary. “I felt I needed to touch base with our roots because I think we need to refresh our ideas of who we are as Americans.”

Bravo. Read the reasons for loving this “Best hope of man on Earth” from the first Independence Day in 1776 thru Election Day 2008.

What you will discover is that, but for the “old” patriotism that led men and women to sacrifice their lives, fortunes and scared honor to found and preserve this Shining City on a Hill, no matter the party of the Commander-in-Chief, there would have been far less to be thankful for.

Here is hoping that the “new” patriots will remain so when the sunshine reflected off Barack’s visage has turned to night.

God Bless America and pass the turkey!

Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com and Charlotte Observer columns.

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Chapter 6 of Do the Right Thing is called “Elections by Ebay” and it’s kind of reversal of Chapters 2-5 which focused on policy with a little bit of campaign story sprinkled in. This tells the behind-the-scenes story of the Huckabee campaign.

Some of the interesting factoids in here include the fact that when Huckabee started his campaign website, he was receiving sixty online contributions per month. The website was programmed to buzz the blackberry of Chip Saltsman and each donation led to a ten second mini-celebration.

The book was put to bed in June when it wasn’t known who would prevail in the Presidential election, so Huckabee couldn’t have known that the race for the RNC Chairman would be an open seat with Saltsman running. However, this chapter makes a powerful case for Saltsman as Chairman of the RNC.

Saltsman’s work as described by Huckabee is remarkable as he managed to, with next to no resources, keep a national campaign that began behind in the game,  in it until the very end of the primary process.

Read the rest…

Martin King that is.

Originally published by our Legal Editor, Mike “gamecock” DeVine as Charlotte Law and Civil Rights Examiner for Examiner.com

After the most liberal state in the nation rejected same-sex marriage at the ballot box for the second time this decade, protests rallies were held across the nation, including here in Charlotte.

Some gay rights activists point to the defeat of same-sex marriage with the passage of Proposition 8 in California and similar bans approved in Arizona and Florida on this past Election Day as evidence of hate:

“We need a movement in this country,” said Joanie Beasley of Gastonia. “It is time we said no to all bigotry and hate. It is time we demanded our civil rights.”

Bigotry and hate?

Merely to favor maintaining the 5000 year old definition of the institution of marriage, is now considered “hate”?

Civil rights?

There is no civil right to marry a person of the same sex ratified in any State’s constitution (including North Carolina’s) or the U.S. Constitution, although, judges in Massachusetts and Connecticut essential re-wrote their respective Constitutions to find such a previously “hidden” right.

Beasley, 53, sang along with the crowd Saturday, closing her eyes at the chorus of “We Shall Overcome.” She attended the rally with her partner Nancy Leedy, also 53.

As a veteran trial lawyer that has represented gays in discrimination claims, I think many gay activists make a huge mistake trying to marry their cause to the Civil Rights Movement for blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities.

Gay ain’t the new black

First of all, it was not necessary for judges to twist the meanings of words in constitutions to support their claims. Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. (pictured) could point to the 14th Amendment, ratified by supermajorities of Congress and the States, soon after the Civil War, as the basis of their equal rights.

Secondly, many activists in the present movement are essentially demanding that Americans approve of their “lifestyle”, which, translated, means their sexual preferences and behavior. This is a political loser.

Lastly, a distinct, but vocal minority of those hurling bigot and hate epithets at supporters of traditional marriage, resort to the sine qua non of hate: violence.

The real haters have physically harassed churchgoers (especially Mormons), destroyed property and engaged in various other obnoxious physical and non-physical acts that in no way remind one of those that made the tune of “We Shall Overcome” famous.

Clearly, these miscreants in no way represent the overwhelming majority of gays and lesbians, many of whom don’t even favor changing marriage laws. But the leaders of those who do, need to take a page out of MLK’s book and denounce the violence done in their name much as King denounced Black Panthers and the pre-conversion Malcolm X.

Individual, not group, rights is the way

I once counseled an openly gay legislator to seek legal changes based on the American concept of “individual” rather than group rights. This is a proven political winner.

Many states have enacted laws that address concerns of inheritance, hospital visitation, and other issues. Moreover, many Americans have no problem with civil unions, especially if they are available to individuals without regard to inquiries of sexual preference.

These successes are being achieved the old fashioned way, free speech to persuade followed by votes by We the People in states and localities.

One day Americans may favor changing the definition of marriage. That day has not yet come. But some gay rights activists want to force the issue on the states thru the courts and point to President-Elect Barack Obama’s campaign statements of his desire to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

That act, signed by President Bill Clinton, provides that no state could be required to respect same-sex marriages in other states. (There are Constitutional issues under the Full Faith and Credit Clause that the U.S. Supreme Court has never addressed, I would note).

I think this would be a huge political mistake given the overwhelming opposition to same-sex marriage and given the damage court imposed social views anathema to those of most Americans can have on the body politic, such as Roe v. Wade’s instant legalization of abortion that arrested evolution on the issue in the states.

The best path for gays to one day achieve their civil rights goals is to insist on a civil debate worthy of Martin Luther King and which engages all of the body politic, rather than having judges cram their agenda down America’s throat.

Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com and Charlotte Observer columns.

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Podcast Show Notes

Eric Holder’s role in the Mark Rich pardon scrutinized. (Hat Tip: The Corner.)

Ski resorts hoping to get what they want from the one party government. (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

A Republican comeback: The Huckabee way.

The Mormon Church under investigation for Prop. 8 role. (Hat Tip: Red Hot.)

Click here to download, click here to add this podcast to your Itunes.

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Continuing to blog “Do the Right Thing”

 Chapter 5 has one of the best titles in the book, “Welcome to Washington, DC: The Roach Motel.”

Hucikabee’s indictment of Washington and the federal government for overspending and fiscal responsibility is pretty stunning. He quotes New Dealer Henry Hopkins whose mantra was, “Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.”

He write:

Yes, what might be called the Hopkins plan worked—worked, at least, to enlarge the federal government. But as they say, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Somebody has to pick up the check. And that somebody is the ordinary American taxpayer, who is easy to forget amid all the frenzied excitement of a New Frontier, or a Great Society, or a “Yes, we can.”

Huckabee defines his spending philosophy as follows, “I often said that we need to be able to look an elderly widowed lady in the eye and say, ‘Here’s how and why we just spent your money.’ If we can do that with a good conscience, it’s probably a good expenditure. If not, it needs rethinking.”

Read the rest…

We continue our blog of “Do the Right Thing” because while certain people think we shouldn’t do it, others think its useful to take a more broad look at what Huckabee is saying in the book for more reasoned analysis and discussion, rather than taking a few quotes out of context.

Secondly, this book is fairly popular. My brother went into Borders and they were all out, this CNN i-reporter had about 800 people show up in Bentonville, AR and there was record-breaking lines in Cedar Rapids. I think because this is a book that people are reading, it’s important to know what’s in it and what’s it about.

In Chapter 4, Huckabee mentions rivals, but it’s pretty sparing. He briefly discusses Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani’s position on abortion, has a kind work for Former Governor, HHS Secretary, and short-time Candidate Tommy Thompson and then talks about the irony of Bob Jones endorsing Mitt Romney to get a winner when Romney finished with half the votes of Huckabee or McCain and was beaten by Fred Thompson.

The focus of the book is on “Faith Voters.” Huckabee chided the media for labeling everyone concerned about social conservatives as an “Evangelical Voter” writing, “Many of these voters are Catholic, Jewish or even nonreligious.” If some are non-religious, I’m not certain the term “faith voter” is particularly apt, but probably more so than “Evangelical Voter”

Huckabee grabs a hold of the theme of homelessness as an analogy for cultural conservatives suggesting that political operatives running campaigns have a similar understanding that most people do to the homeless. “We know of them, but we don’t really know about them. We know what they are, but not who they are.”

Carrying this forward, he writes:

Increasingly, these voters are expected to be satisfied with a crumb of attention from the ruling class, but no one wants them to show up at the main table. If anything, they are expected not to get in the way, not to be that visible during the day, not to engage in conversations with the political elites. Just like during the holiday season when the swells often show up to dish out a plate of turkey and dressing, the politically homeless can typically expect to be permitted visibility during the two political “Holy Days,” the primary and the genral election, when the unwashed masses of religious zealots are expected to dutifully attend rallies holding signs, pull all-nighters doing yard-sign placement and literature drops, ring doorbells, man phone banks, and stand at polling places. They are expected to make the noise at the election night party in the main room, even though most of them won’t be able to get near the nice finger food being served to those whose large checks have apparently exempted from the kind of street work done in the trenches.

The faith people are driven by a simple desire to preserve simple principles of faith, family, and freedom for their children. They are not expecting to be named an ambassador to a European nation or invited to a sleepover in the Lincoln bedroom. They are not expecting to attend the inauguration, because the trip would cost more than two months of their salary. They have no illusions about sitting next to the first lady during the State of the Union or catching a ride on Air Force One. They did none of what they did in order to get more involved with the government, but rather to keep government from getting even more involved with rearing or educating their children, confiscating their hard earned paychecks, or adding to the burdens on their already stressed-out employers.

This is definitely a passage that will resonate with frustrated cultural conservatives and it defines their feelings and where much of the tension comes.

Huckabee then spends several pages talking about his conversations with the Arlington Group, a group of religious conservative leaders which he thought at the time could provide his campaign a shot in the arm. The group, in a move that symbolizes much of the lethargy in the cultural conservative movement, ended up endorsing no one. Huckabee said he was “spared” as the endorsement would have basically turned him into a candidate of the Arlington Group and given the sheer volume of questions asked about his faith, that would not have been good.

Huckabee pays homage to Cultural Conservative movement: Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, and Bill Bright. Huckabee suggests that the giants are dying or becoming less active and the current Arlington Group is wavering as they had “become more enamored with the process, the political strategies, and the party hierarchy than with the simple principles that motivated the founders.”

Huckabee points to several up and coming leaders who are more concerned about principles than the horserace mentality. Some of these names I find kind of odd: Don Wildmon has been around a while, and Michael Farris since the 1990s and Beverly and Tim LaHaye for quite some time, but I think that’s some sense of diplomacy in not lumping them in with some of the other Christian Conservatives who were criticized.

Huckabee’s criticism of Gary Bauer has made headlines. Huckabee went after Bauer for telling he was more focused on national security than traditional cultural conservative issues. Huckabee wrote, “…it occurred to me if a pro-family organization was now focusing on the might of the military and the role of the CIA in combatting terrorism, then it was no longer a pro-family group, but a national security group, just like dozens of others similiarly focus. It would be like the NRA saying, ‘Well, we we still care about guns, but what we really want to focus on is global warming.’ When an organization can’t even focus on its focus, it’s hopelessly lost.”

Bauer has fired backsaying Huckabee wasn’t conservative enough on multiple issues, and furthermore:

Immediately after attacking me for talking less about life and marriage, he writes about Christians like himself who have, “…an expanding concern for issues like human poverty, AIDS, disease, and hunger.”  So the problem is not about whether these newer issues are important.   Rather, it concerns which issues have become so important that they should join the list of most important issues. ”

Actually, this is something wrote about. In the same paragraph Bauer quoted, Huckabee said, “The irony was that while I was being rejected because I thought Christian groups should be addressing this expanded list of issues, those who rejected me for that were the ones who said that my views ought to include a certain orthodox on global warming, terrorism, and torture.” Let the reader decide who’s side irony’s really on here.

Bauer concludes his piece with this statement, “After he is finished attacking all those who he thinks denied him the GOP nomination, I look forward to working with him to reform the GOP and revitalize the conservative movement. ”

Actually, Huckabee doesn’t so much say that the Arlington Group denied him the nomination but rather that current cultural conservative leaders are ineffective, divided, and more focused on Inside Baseball than the issues their constituents care about. Huckabee doesn’t say, “If not for Gary Bauer…” He rather suggests a need for new voices and that new leaders are emerging.

The rest of the chapter includes Huckabee’s feelings on being pegged as the religious candidate, as well as his annoyance at the “game show” style of Presidential debates that in many cases left him with half the time of other candidates and questions that weren’t relevant.

He recognized the key turning point of the campaign was at the Values Voter Debate in Ft. Lauterdale, Fl. where Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain skipped out and the debate was not carried by major TV networks. That, he considered the start of the Huckaboom.

He also pointed to the debate hosted by Tavis Smiley and largely targeted towards minority audiences that Huckabee attended while other candidates dodged. Minority outreach is kind of hard when you won’t go and outreach to minorities.  

If there’s one thing in this chapter, I’ll criticize Huckabee for, it’s the use of somewhat obscure scripture allusions that I’m not even sure most Christians know. Sadly, most of our churches don’t teach the finer points of 2 Samuel and 2 Kings and I’m not sure how many Christians, let alone secular folks,  will get the allusions to Elisha and to King David’s prophet.

A simple prayer this Sunday.