NYC Letter: The New Civility -- Liberal Theologists

Day 1,123 of CHOPE

Saturday commenting on Mr. Obama's environmental policies, Republican candidate Rick Santorum said:

This is what the president’s agenda -- It’s not about you. It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your job. It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.

Well that won't do, questioning a person's policy theology.

The left immediately jumped on this, jumped all over it.

Campaign Barry spokesman Ben LaBolt sent the press an unsolicited tongue cluck:

This is just the latest low in a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness, and searing pessimism and negativity.

SANTORUM: OBAMA FOLLOWS
A "PHONY CHRISTIANITY"
February 18, 2012 (Daily Kos)
By DowneastDem

That isn't what Mr. Santorum actually said, but it jazzes the headline.

SANTORUM 'THEOLOGY' QUIP
A SIGN OF FEAR-BASED GOP POLITICS
February 19, 2012 (HuffPo)
By Brian Normoyle

OBAMA AIDE: SANTORUM FAITH
COMMENTS 'WELL OVER THE LINE'

February 19, 2012 (USA Today) - President Obama's former spokesman denounced Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum today for questioning the president's "different theology." Mr. Gibbs:

I think it is time in our politics in which we get rid of this mindset that if we disagree, we have to disqualify each other. ... I can't help but think that those remarks are well over the line. It's wrong. It's destructive. It makes it virtually impossible to solve the problems that we all face together as Americans.

Mr. Santorum is just too, too much, because there is no place for fear, distortions, ugliness, searing pessimism and negativity, or line crossing in a political campaign. No place. [Pause.] Except in those places where Democrats are driving their message.

FEAR

NANCY PELOSI: REPUBLICANS WANT
WOMEN TO DIE ON THE FLOOR

WASHINGTON October 13, 2011 (LifeNews.com) - Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA, 8th) took her pro-abortion rhetoric to a new level, today saying Republicans "want women to die on the floor" in expressing her opposition to a bill stopping taxpayer funding of abortions in Obamacare.

For a moment, I want to get back to what was asked about the issue on the floor today that Mr. Hoyer address. He made a point and I want to emphasize it. Under this bill, when the Republicans vote for this bill today, they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and health care providers do not have to intervene if this bill is passed. It’s just appalling.

DISTORTION

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: GOP TO "RIG" ELECTIONS
BY REQUIRING A PROPER I.D. TO VOTE

December 1, 2011 (RCP) - DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL, 20th) says the Republican party is trying to disenfranchise and "suppress" the votes of minorities and other groups in the Democratic voting bloc by enacting laws requiring a valid I.D. at polls.

"It's very transparent who they're trying to block from the polls and who they want to smooth the path for," Wasserman Schultz said in an interview with MSNBC's Martin Bashir.

"They know they can't win elections on the merits, so they're trying to rig elections by blocking people's access to the polls," Wasserman Schultz charged.

State Republican legislatures are passing bills that require a valid I.D. in order to vote to prevent voter fraud. However, Wasserman Schultz denies that charge, saying fraud is "simply a problem that doesn't exist." [No problem here either.]

UGLINESS

BIDEN COMPARES REPUBLICAN
ECONOMIC POLICIES TO
BLAMING RAPE VICTIMS

PHILADELPHIA March 18, 2011 (TDC) - According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Biden compared Republicans’ economic policies to insensitivity toward rape victims. "When a woman got raped, blame her because she was wearing a skirt too short," Biden said, drawing a parallel.

"We’ve gotten by that," Biden continued. "It’s amazing how these Republicans, the right wing of this party – whose philosophy threw us into this god-awful hole we’re in, gave us the tremendous deficit we’ve inherited – that they’re now using ... the very economic condition they have created to blame the victim, whether it’s organized labor or ordinary middle-class working men and women. It’s bizarre."

Rape is a favorite point of comparison for Mr. Biden (and here).

SEARING PESSIMISM

(A) The way I think about it is, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft and we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. We need to get back on track.

(B) We used to have the best stuff. Anybody been to Beijing Airport lately? Or driven on high-speed rail in Asia or Europe? What’s changed? Well, we’ve lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam and unleashed all the potential in this country.

(C) The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don’t work even harder than we did in 2008, then we’re going to have a government that tells the American people, you are on your own. If you get sick, you’re on your own. If you can’t afford college, you’re on your own.

Mr. Obama,
glum on America
(A) INTERVIEW
WASHINGTON September 29, 2011 (ABC News/WESH-TV)
(B&C) REMARKS AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT
SAN FRANCISCO October 26, 2011 (White House)

NEGATIVITY

OBAMA SAYS CHRISTIANITY
HAS BEEN “HIJACKED” BY
THE “CHRISTIAN RIGHT”

June 25, 2007 (Hot Air) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) spoke Saturday to a national meeting of the United Church of Christ, of which he’s a member. Since the 1970s the UCC has adopted positions on socials issues that put it to the left of the average Christian, and of the average American.

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

"Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Illinois senator said.

"At every opportunity, they’ve told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design," according to an advance copy of his speech.

CROSSED LINE

JOE BIDEN LIKENS TEA PARTIERS
TO TERRORISTS

August 1, 2011 (Politico) - Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having "acted like terrorists" in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit, according to several sources in the room.

"We have negotiated with terrorists," an angry [Mike Doyle (D-PA, 14th)] said, according to sources in the room. "This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money."

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies' misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded:

"They have acted like terrorists."

You get the idea. Political discourse routinely employs fear, distortions, ugliness, pessimism, negativity, and line crossing. The Democrats employ these most especially and with relish. The only time they leave off is to mount their high horse to complain about the opposition doing likewise.

Could Mr. Santorum have used more politic language, yes. But why? The Republican race doesn't need another Tim Pawlenty, one sufficed. Mr. Santorum wants to draw a sharp fundamental difference between himself and Mr. Obama. To do so he has questioned the framing liberal principles of Mr. Obama's thinking. The left is having a snit because Mr. Santorum has likened liberal thinking to a theology, suggesting liberals worship their own thinking. Mr. Santorum further infuriated them by saying that that thinking stood apart from the moral system of the Bible.

But liberals make a point of standing apart from the moral system of the Bible or any religious moral system. They contend liberal thinking beats out religious morality. Mr. Santorum has simply conceded their point.

CHOPE.

Don't question their -- anything!

Posted by Damian at February 19, 2012 11:45 PM