July 26, 2006 -- Christian televangelist huckster Pat Robertson has announced plans to build a 500-acre shopping and residential complex near his Virginia Beach-based Regent University. The complex, called Blenheim Park, is slated to include two hotels, a movie theater, a department store, and a gated community with high-end condominiums and single homes. It is estimated that Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and "Operation Blessing," both tax-exempt religious organizations, would earn some $20 million per year from the complex.
Robertson, who has called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the nuclear bombing of the U.S. State Department, has engaged in similar questionable business deals in the past. He was involved in a joint gold mining project with former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, who now awaits an international trial for war crimes, and a diamond mining project with Zaire's late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
The only "light" Pat Robertson ever sees is a big green one with dollar signs flashing on it.
Robertson, who is grooming his son Gordon to eventually assume control of his tax dodging business contrivances, is a prime example of why the U.S. government should phase out tax deductions for churches and other religious institutions. http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
AS the leader of the Republican party in the US Senate and a possible presidential candidate, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee has a reputation for sober rectitude. The same cannot be said of his son Jonathan, a Vanderbilt University student who recently appeared on the internet wearing six cans of beer strapped to his belt.
Nor has Jonathan’s brother Bryan done much to help his father’s attempts to strike a reasonable note about US involvement in Iraq. “I was born an American by God’s amazing grace,” wrote Bryan Frist in an online profile. “Let’s bomb some people.”
While the Bible warns that the sins of the father may be visited upon their sons, the injunction may need to be revised in the age of the teenage blogger and online social networks. The sins of the sons — not to mention the daughters — are making the titans of Washington and Wall Street nervous as the internet opens public doors to what would once have been private family business.
Frist is one of at least half a dozen US politicians — and at least one US Supreme Court judge — whose public images have been dented in recent months by the internet antics of their offspring. Pictures of scantily clad daughters whooping it up have become a staple of internet gossip.
The popularity of teenage networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook is proving a goldmine for political bloggers keen to compare the pious proclamations of candidates running for office with the blogs and picture-sharing websites maintained by their children.
No sooner had Congressman Louie Gohmert, a conservative Republican from Texas, unleashed a tirade against the moral inadequacies of Democrats opposed to the war in Iraq, than someone found internet pictures of his daughter Caroline dancing on a bartop and posing with a man in his underpants.
There was also embarrassment for Justice Samuel Alito, the conservative Supreme Court judge appointed by President George W Bush earlier this year. Alito is opposed to gay marriage, but a Facebook entry by his Georgetown University student daughter Laura declared, apparently tongue in cheek, that her relationship status was “Married to Kate Tice”.
While much of the internet sleuthing has produced largely harmless evidence that teenagers like to party even if their parents are famous, more awkward incidents have been picked up by mainstream media.
Roll Call, the Washington insiders’ newspaper published on Capitol Hill, recently reported that Jonathan Frist’s Facebook entry declared him a member of the “Jonathan Frist appreciation for ‘Waking Up White People’ Group”. It also mentioned a group where there were “No Jews allowed. Just kidding. No seriously”.
The Washington Post discovered last week that the son of a prominent Wall Street executive had been posting awkward criticisms of his father’s company, the telephone conglomerate AT&T, in a personal blog.
Jared Watts, 21, an employee of an AT&T subsidiary, complained in his blog about policies that were “abusive to the customer”. His father, Wayne Watts, is a senior vice-president who is currently attempting to defend AT&T’s service record to industry regulators examining a takeover bid.
Errant children have long been a fact of Washington political life, but have rarely caused any lasting scandal. Bush was untroubled by the underage drinking exploits of his twin daughters Jenna and Barbara. The president’s brother, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, was not seriously damaged when his daughter Noelle was arrested on drug charges. His son John was arrested for having sex in a car in a shopping centre car park.
The US media has in the past treated adolescent follies as largely a private matter, but the mushrooming trend towards public self-exposure on the internet is beginning to make life a misery for celebrities with children who blog.
Even Marie Osmond, a devout Mormon and squeaky-clean American family singer, was caught up in MySpace turmoil when her teenage daughter Jessica, writing under the pseudonym “F off”, declared she was bisexual and that Adolf Hitler was one of her heroes.
Perhaps the unluckiest victim of blogger sleuthing was Mike Huckabee, the Republican governor of Arkansas who is believed to be considering a presidential run in 2008. Earlier this year there were unconfirmed reports that his daughter Sarah was quitting her job in Washington to return to Little Rock to begin fundraising.
Huckabee has not confirmed that he is interested in running but someone went to Sarah’s Facebook entry and found entries from her Arkansas friends. One read: “Hey girl, I heard you were back down.” Another said: “Yay for moving home!”
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd. (emphasis added) (. . .)
Why do you want to be United States Senator for Florida?
I’ve served in the State Senate, I’ve served statewide as Secretary of State and now I’m serving in Congress.
Every single office I’ve fulfilled every one of my promises that I made. I’ve been able to pass bills that they’ve said would take six years in the Congress and I’ve done it in six months. Like for housing for low income folks or making sure child predators stay in prison a lot longer. And if I could do that in the House, I can do so much more in the Senate with my experience.
The fact is that Bill Nelson has done nothing. And when you look at my accomplishments and my voting record, versus Bill Nelson’s, it is a clear indicator where Florida will want to go.
Floridians ... are not, the Democrats even, are not –the party of Ted Kennedy. And Bill Nelson has voted lock-step with Ted Kennedy.
In fact, according to the National Journal, a well-respected non-partisan publication, last year they rated Bill Nelson’s voting record to the left as more liberal than Hilary Clinton or Charles Schumer. Hilary was at 70, Schumer was at 71, Bill Nelson was 76.7. ... That’s how far to the left—and the newspapers in Florida are just so disingenuous about his being moderate. I’m the only one who’s voted to support marriage in this entire race, primary and general.
Why are you the best-qualified candidate?
I have the experience to hit the ground running in the United States Senate. I have the record of accomplishments that proves that I deliver my promises. I have the voting record that matches up head to head with Nelson and crushes him in Florida.
And I have proven that I will not kowtow to the media and all the pressure. I won’t kowtow to even the part of the elite in my own party when they want to do something that’s not right for Florida. And I think that I have a history that proves I’m not going to do what’s popular. I am going to do what’s right. The other candidates have no records and while they have certain stands there is no evidence that they are going to be able to stand as I have proven.
What is your personal religious faith?
I am Christian.
Are you involved in a local place of worship? If so, in what way?
Calvary Chapel in Sarasota is my base. I grew up as a Presbyterian, in the PCA (the USA is more liberal), and here I attend the Calvary Chapel. My heritage, my grandfather was a missionary in Africa and my aunt and uncle were missionaries in India and now they head up Arab World Missions. My brother-in-law is a Christian singer who has won number one song of the year, every year, his name is Wes King. So, I had a godly family. But I think what changed me the most was I had a chance to study under Dr. Francis Schaeffer. I studied under him at L’Abris. So, it’s a faith that is active and real and not just on paper. It’s the most important thing in my life.
Some day all of us have to give an account before God for what we have done. Are you certain in your own heart that when you come to that point of accounting that you’ll spend eternity with God in Heaven?
No question.
One day when you stand before God, if He says to you, “Why should I let you into my Heaven?” What you would say in response?
That’s an interesting question. Because I loved Your Son and because I know He died for my sins. I know He was resurrected at Your right hand and I served Him. You know we’re covered with, our sins are covered with His blood and so we are blameless before Him. We are as white as snow.
How does your faith impact the way you view your responsibilities as a public official?
They animate. Clearly, I wish I could tell you I never made a mistake in my walk every day, but in terms of my votes, my faith and my actions have to animate everything I do. I sponsored and passed the parental consent bill in the Florida Senate. The first time it has ever passed the Florida Senate. I have a 100 percent voting record with the Christian Coalition. I have a 100 percent voting record with the traditional values groups. Bill Nelson will have a 0-20 percent. Bill voted against the partial-birth abortion ban. He voted against the marriage between a man and a woman, not once, but twice. He voted against the Lacey and Connor act which would say that if you murder a pregnant woman…it’s a double murder. He voted against parental consent and he voted against Judge Alito, which is really remarkable. A representative of Florida.
What role do you think people of faith should play in politics and government?
The Bible says we are to be salt and light. And salt and light means not just in the church and not just as a teacher or as a pastor or a banker or a lawyer, but in government and we have to have elected officials in government and we have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected than we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s certainly isn’t what God intended. So it’s really important that members of the church know people’s stands. It’s really important that they get involved in campaigns. I said I’m going to run a campaign of integrity. I’m not going to run it like all of the campaigns that I’ve seen before…. And you know, it’s hard to find people that are gonna behave that way in a campaign and be honorable that way in a campaign. But that’s why we need the faithful and we need to take back this country. It’s time that the churches get involved. Pastors, from the pulpit, can invite people to speak, not on politics, but of their faith. But they can discern, they can ask those people running for election, in the pulpit, what is your position on gay marriage? What is your position on abortion? That is totally permissible in 5013C organizations. They simply cannot endorse from the pulpit. And that’s why I’ve gone to churches and I’ve spoken in four churches, five churches a day on Sunday and people line up afterwards because it’s so important that they know. And if we don’t get involved as Christians then how could we possibly take this back?
Do you support civil rights protections on the basis of sexual preference?
Civil rights have to do with individual rights and I don’t think they apply to the gay issues. I have not supported gay marriage and I do not support any civil rights actions with regard to homosexuality.
Do you support a federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as being only between one man and one woman? Why or why not?
I fully support a federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as being only between one man and one woman. I have voted in support of the Marriage Protection Amendment because we should not undermine the uniqueness of an institution that continues to serve as an essential thread in the fabric of our society.
Do you support the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment?
Absolutely. I have signed on the amendment, I have promoted the amendment. I have stood with them and done press conferences for that amendment and no other candidate has in the primary or the general. They may have signed it but obviously not done press conferences and such.
Setting aside for the moment the public policy questions related to abortion, is abortion a moral evil? Why or why not?
Yes. Because it’s a life, it’s a life. Life begins at conception.
What public policy limits on abortion have you supported or will you support in order to decrease the number of abortions in our nation?
First and foremost, one of the most important things we can do is encourage abstinence in the schools. That’s really important. The Promise Keepers and some of the things that they’ve been able to do with dads and their daughters, it’s really important. We need to do more, so much more, with adoption and counseling so that women really know what is at stake and the opportunities that exist and have such opportunity for adoption. Because many of the couples throughout the country, they go abroad because that just isn’t available and abortion is so readily available. Clearly I would only, from a public policy standpoint, I would limit abortion to rape and life of the mother and incest, but for my personal standpoint, I would not have an abortion for any of those cases.
What is your view of Gov. Bush’s efforts on behalf of Terri Schiavo?
Well, we voted in the United States House of Representatives to preserve her life. I voted to support her life. I supported (Bush’s) efforts. I took a more pro-active stance than any primary or general election candidate because I actually voted to support her life.
Is there something wrong with Florida and federal statutes when a severely brain-damaged woman who’s not in the process of dying can be starved and dehydrated to death by her husband with the assistance of the courts?
It’s unconscionable. Having a feeding tube and being hydrated are not life-sustaining. If that were the case then you’d have to take a look at prisoners. I mean, we provide them food and hydration. It is unconscionable. That is normal living. That is what we require to live and to allow that kind of death was truly devastating.
Should food and water be defined as extraordinary care, thus permitting such care to be denied to persons like Terri Schiavo?
It’s not extraordinary care or we should take a look at our own life.
What is your view on state funding of embryonic stem cell research?
I am adamantly opposed to embryonic stem cell research and voted as such. I’m the only candidate in the primary or general who’s voted against embryonic stem cell research and has voted for cord blood research and adult stem cell research. We’ve had enormous successes with nasal cells, other things in terms of adult stem cell research as well as cord blood. There are no successes for embryonic. That is why the private sector is not involved and there is no justification for taking a live embryo and destroying it.
Why should Florida Baptists care about this primary election?
They should care about this election period. I will tell you that everywhere I go throughout the state and even the nation, people say the pollsters, the politicians and spiritually—that Florida is the forerunner state. That what happens in Florida sets the trend for what happens nationally. And with this election, if Bill Nelson wins, it’s going to be a very frightening proposition in 2008 in the presidential elections because whoever wins Florida will win the presidency. And he’ll be in a position to largely influence. No other candidate can beat Bill Nelson except for me. No one even has a chance because of name identification and fund raising abilities and things like that. But the real issue is why should Baptists care, why should people care? If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin. They can legislate sin. They can say that abortion is alright. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don’t know better, we are leading them astray and it’s wrong. ...
A new book from administration insider confirms faith-based initiative is little more than political-religious patronage system
Bill Berkowitz October 20, 2006
Oddly enough, the high point of President Bush's faith-based initiative [ http://www.mediatransparency.com/issue.php?issueID=3 ] may have come on the day it was announced, shortly after his inauguration in 2000. Bush, surrounded by a host of smiling religious leaders, triumphantly launched the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives -- the centerpiece of the president's domestic agenda.
From that day until the present, the initiative has been mired in controversy: Many Republicans were dissatisfied with the appointment of John DiIulio [ http://www.mediatransparency.com/personprofile.php?personID=81 ], nominally a Democrat, to be the first head of the White House Office; a number of religious right leaders withheld their support for the initiative over concerns that organizations such as the Nation of Islam or the Church of Scientology might wind up receiving government money; the Washington Post revealed that the White House had been holding secret meetings with the Salvation Army [ http://www.mediatransparency.com/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=1516 ] aimed at doing an end run around civil rights hiring laws; DiIulio resigned in disgust after a short time in office; the administration over-hyped a report that found religious organizations were being discriminated against by the government; Congress failed to pass a comprehensive faith-based legislative package forcing Bush to resort to a series of executive orders to carry out certain aspects of the program; church/state separation advocates began winning significant court victories against the initiative; a GAO report found that there were no significant procedures in place to hold recipients of government grants accountable for how they were using the money; the only major study [ http://www.mediatransparency.com/story.php?storyID=140 ] showing that faith-based organizations performed better than secular groups was found to have distorted the data.
'Tempting faith'
Now, David Kuo, the former second-in-command of the White House Office and a true believer in the power of faith-based organizations to help the poor, has published a new book titled "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," which provides an insiders look at how the Bush White House politicized the initiative, sometime rejected applications for federal faith-based funds because they came from non-Christian applicants, mocked leaders of the Christian Right, and betrayed the very essence of the faith-based initiative's charge to help the poor.
According to Jonathan Larsen, a producer with MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly 'nonpartisan' events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races."
"Nineteen out of the 20 targeted races were won by Republicans," Kuo reports. The outreach was so extensive and so powerful in motivating not just conservative evangelicals, but also traditionally Democratic minorities, that Kuo attributes Bush's 2004 Ohio victory "at least partially ... to the conferences we had launched two years before."
"With the exception of one reporter from the Washington Post, Kuo says the media were oblivious to the political nature and impact of his office's events, in part because so much of the debate centered on issues of separation of church and state."
While the charges in Kuo's book may be shocking to most of the "oblivious" media, organizations that have been consistently monitoring the faith-based initiative from the very beginning weren't surprised. According to Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Americans United), his group became aware of the politicization of the faith-based initiative as far back as 2002.
In Lynn's new book, "Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom," published earlier this month, Lynn writes, "James Towey, until recently the head of the White House faith-based office, denies there is a political dimension to the initiative. Unfortunately for Towey, there is and he's up to his neck in it. In 2002 and 2004 Towey made a series of campaign appearances alongside Republican congressional and gubernatorial candidates whom polls showed were locked in tight races."
Lynn's information is in part gleaned from an October 2002 story in Americans United's Church & State magazine. Titled "Faith-Based Flimflam," the story documented how the Republican Party was using the initiative to bring more religious voters to the party.
While the administration continues to advocate for the faith-based initiative, it does so while quietly concentrating on partisan political goals in the 2002 election. In fact, Bush's White House seems especially focused on using the larger endeavor as part of an aggressive outreach effort to African-American voters in competitive political states and districts.
In October 2002, after John DiIulio, the first head of the White House faith-based office, left office, he sent a letter to Esquire Washington correspondent Ron Suskind, who according to the Esquire website, "was a key source of Suskind's story about Karl Rove, politics and policymaking in the Bush administration, "Why Are These Men Laughing," which appear[ed] in the January 2003 issue of Esquire:
"[T]hey basically rejected any idea that the president's best political interests -- not to mention the best policy for the country -- could be served by letting centrist Senate Democrats in on the issue...They winked at the most far-right House Republicans who, in turn, drafted a so-called faith bill (H.R. 7, the Community Solutions Act) that (or so they thought) satisfied certain fundamentalist leaders and beltway libertarians but bore few marks of 'compassionate conservatism' and was, as anybody could tell, an absolute political non-starter. It could pass the House only on a virtual party-line vote, and it could never pass the Senate.
"Not only that," DiIulio continued, "but it reflected neither the president's own previous rhetoric on the idea, nor any of the actual empirical evidence that recommended policies promoting greater public/private partnerships involving community-serving religious organizations. I said so, wrote memos, and so on for the first six weeks. But, hey, what's that fat, out-of-the-loop professor guy know; besides, he says he'll be gone in six months. As one senior staff member chided me at a meeting at which many junior staff were present and all ears, 'John, get a faith bill, any faith bill.'"
Mocked and ridiculed
"National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy,'" Kuo writes in his book.
"You name the important Christian leader, and I have heard them mocked by serious people in serious places," Kuo told CBS Television's "60 Minutes" on Sunday October 16.
James Towey [ http://www.mediatransparency.com/story.php?storyID=132 ], Kuo's former boss in the faith-based initiative office, denied Kuo's accusations. The book seems to be "describing is kind of a personal animus against evangelicals and a kind of personal insulting behavior," Towey said. "President Bush would never have tolerated that, and I never saw it in four and a half years."
When he was asked about the book, White House press secretary Tony Snow said that he asked Rove about Kuo's charges and, "Karl made the same point I did, which is, 'These are my friends: I don't talk about them like that.'"
As the mid-term elections approach, more and more evangelical Christians appear to be straying -- or are threatening to stray -- from the GOP. If Kuo's charges that White House officials openly ridiculed Christian evangelical leaders is true, it would be one more reason, on top of the Mark Foley scandal, the Abramoff affair, the quagmire in Iraq and general discontent with the GOP, for them to either vote for Democrats, or sit out the election.
Attacking the messenger rather than heeding the message is a longtime staple of both the White House and conservative evangelical Christian organizations. Kuo told "60 Minutes" that he expected to be attacked over the revelations in his book. He suggested that the White House might say that "He's really a liberal," or, "Oh, maybe that brain tumor really messed up his head."
Susan Jones, a Senior Editor with Cybercast News Service, a subsidiary of L. Brent Bozell [ http://www.mediatransparency.com/personprofile.php?personID=21 ]'s Media Research Center [ http://www.mediatransparency.com/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=203 ], led her story about Kuo's book by saying that "In yet another apparent attempt to suppress the conservative vote in November, a former White House official is out with a new book suggesting that President Bush's top political advisers ridiculed evangelical leaders -- calling them "nuts" and "goofy" behind their backs, while embracing them in public to win votes (as the Los Angeles Times put it)."
Jason T. Christy, publisher of The Church Report magazine, says Kuo's book is "nothing more than the ramblings of a disgruntled former employee looking to sell a few books." In a commentary [ http://www.thechurchreport.com/mag_article.php?mid=789&mname=October ] titled "David Kuo: An Addition to the Axis of Evil," Christy wrote that Kuo is "simply a wolf in sheep's clothing having done campaign work for Democrats and written for liberal web sites."
Days before the book was due to hit the shelves, Focus on the Family's Director of Issue Analysis Carrie Gordon Earll had this to say about Kuo and the book:
The release of this book criticizing the Bush administration's handling of its faith-based initiative program seems to represent little more than a mix of sour grapes and political timing. David Kuo's book doesn't hit shelves until next week, but excerpts released by media outlets paint the picture of a dissatisfied federal employee taking shots at the White House effort to connect faith-based nonprofit groups with legitimate societal needs.
Big media will no doubt play this story to the hilt in the next several weeks, because it allows them to take aim at two of their favorite targets: President Bush and socially conservative Christians. Sadly, Kuo's characterization of his former colleagues, bosses and mission -- mischaracterizations, really -- will be fed to the public as truth.
While Focus on the Family does not participate in the faith-based initiative program, we are allies with many who do -- and they have far different impressions of the people and events documented in Kuo's book. Our support for the program is unchanged, and we applaud the president's hard work in reducing dependency on government programs while connecting people to their communities. It's a commitment that dates back to his time as governor of Texas and one that will be a large and important part of his White House legacy.
Kuo told "60 Minutes" that the "message that has been sent out to Christians for a long time now that Jesus came primarily for a political agenda, and recently primarily a right-wing political agenda -- as if this culture war is a war for God. And it's not a war for God, it's a war for politics. And that's a huge difference."
Although Kuo's book details his disappointment with the president's faith-based initiative, it should be noted that the initiative has taken hold in nearly a dozen government agencies, is rapidly spreading its tentacles to state governments, and has handed out several billion dollars to religious organizations.
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