Glenn Greenwald
Thursday May 31, 2007 06:54 EST
Fred Thompson, "tough guy" and "folksy cultural conservative"
Newsweek's Howard Fineman -- last seen expressing admiration for the "reassuring" "male" qualities exuded by the GOP presidential field -- was on Hardball last night heaping praise on Fred Thompson. According to Fineman, Thompson not only is "tough on defense," but he himself is "a tough guy." Fineman also swooned: "He's got a strong record on cultural issues as a cultural conservative from the South."
What, in Fineman's mind, makes Thompson "tough on defense" and gives him credibility as "a tough guy"? Fineman obviously means that as a high compliment, but what -- in actuality -- has Thompson ever done that warrants such praise for his alleged "tough-guy-ness"?
Here is Thompson's biography -- his own official, endorsed version. He's been a government lawyer, an actor and a Senator. Though Thompson does not mention it, he also has been -- for two decades -- what a 1996 profile in The Washington Monthly described as "a high-paid Washington lobbyist for both foreign and domestic interests." This folksy, down-home, regular guy has spent his entire adult life as a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington, except when he was an actor in Hollywood.
And -- like the vast, vast majority of Republican "tough guys" who play-act the role so arousingly for our media stars, from Rudy Giuliani to Newt Gingrich -- Thompson has no military service despite having been of prime fighting age during the Vietnam War (Thompson turned 20 in 1962, Gingrich in 1963, Guiliani in 1964). He was active in Republican politics as early as the mid-1960s, which means he almost certainly supported the war in which he did not fight.
So what exactly, in Fineman's eyes, makes Thompson such a "tough guy"? Fineman clone Mark Halperin, in a fawning piece in Time last week -- hailing Thompson's "magnetism" and praising him as "poised and compelling" and exuding "bold self-confidence" -- provides the answer:
Even before his Law & Order depiction of district attorney Arthur Branch, Thompson nearly always played variations on the same character -- a straight-talking, tough-minded, wise Southerner -- basically a version of what his supporters say is his true political self.
And he is often cast as a person in power -- a military official, the White House chief of staff, the head of the CIA, a Senator or even the President of the U.S. It could be called the Cary Grant approach to politics. As the legendary actor once explained his own style and success, "I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be, and I finally became that person."The only thing that makes Thompson a "tough guy" is that he pretends to be one; he play-acts as one. There is nothing real about it. But in the same way that George Bush's ranch and fighter pilot costumes (along with his war advocacy) sent media stars swooning over his masculinity and "toughness," the Howard Finemans and Mark Halperins, along with the Bush followers in need of a new authoritarian Leader, are so intensely hungry for this faux masculine power that the illusion, the absurd play-acting, is infinitely more valuable to them than any reality, than any genuine attributes of "toughness."
Last week, in response to Michael Moore's request that Thompson debate him over health care, Thompson -- showing what a tough guy he really is -- filmed a forty-second You Tube video where he smoked a cigar and told Moore to check into a mental hospital. Chris Matthews had Mark Halperin on his show (who, it is always worth noting, was until recently the Political Director of ABC News and is now at Time) to giggle like sixth-grade boys high-fiving each other after the cool kid they are desperate to be near (played by Thompson) unleashed some adolescent prank on the nerdy kid in the corner:
MATTHEWS: Wait till you catch this. . . .
Mark Halperin, is Thomas' cigar-chomping chide a sign that he's serious about getting in this race?
HALPERIN: Chris, I've got to see your, "Ha ha!"
MATTHEWS: I have to tell you, Mark, it's for real. I can't fake it. But let me ask you this...
HALPERIN: I agree.
MATTHEWS: Is this the kind of winning performance that the avuncular Fred Thompson needs to win this thing?
HALPERIN: I echo your "Ha ha." Mega "ha ha" to you, Chris. Because that is exactly what this kind of campaign is going to have to be. He said he has said he's going to run in an unorthodox campaign.
That kind of video gets the net roots totally in a lather. They hate Michael Moore. They like the jab. They like the cigar. It's a total winner.
MATTHEWS: So there is a right-wing net roots as well as a left-wing net roots?
HALPERIN: Look, it shows that this guy has the flair for the dramatic. He understands what the net roots cares about. He was aggressive on immigration. I think right now that this guy is poised to come in and be a key player in this.
MATTHEWS: He's also brilliant, because the attack from a defensive position is one of the smartest moves in politics. There you go again. He posed as if he was defending himself against Michael Moore and took his head off.Chewing on a cigar in front of a camera and telling someone to go to a mental hospital is, to them, what makes someone a "tough guy" -- "aggressive" and "avuncular." And the discussion which Fineman and Matthews had about Giuliani last night, in exactly the same way, was so creepy that it bordered on pornographic:
FINEMAN: I mean, "commanding daddy" is not the phrase I would use because "daddy" implies some generosity of spirit.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: What's appealing about Rudy Giuliani is not the generous side, what's appealing about him is the tough cop side.
MATTHEWS: Right. You just wait until daddy gets home.
FINEMAN: Yes, that part...
MATTHEWS: That Daddy.
FINEMAN: ... of the daddy. It's the tough cop side, so...
MATTHEWS: Yes. Yes.They are right in one sense. For the authoritarians comprising the Republican base and the faux-masculine-power-worshipping media pundits, what is "appealing" about Giluliani is that he conveys: "You just wait until daddy gets home." Craving a stern "daddy" as a political leader is the root of the authoritarian mind. Yet these are the warped images that not only dominate their psyches, but their political "analysis" as well.
The same is true for Fineman's mindless claim that Thompson is "tough on defense." What does that even mean? Marvel at this quote from Thompson, from CNN on March 1, 2003, when he was urging the invasion of Iraq:
Can we afford to appease Saddam, kick the can down the road? Thank goodness we have a president with the courage to protect our country. And when people ask what has Saddam done to us, I ask, what had the 9/11 hijackers done to us -- before 9/11?That is quite an incredible mentality, and it has applicability for all sorts of situations. One can easily extend it:
THOMPSON: I think we should invade and bomb Uruguay.
QUESTION: What has Uruguay done to us?
THOMPSON: When people ask what has Uruguay done to us, I ask, what had the 9/11 hijackers done to us -- before 9/11?That mindset can be described by many adjectives, but "tough" is not one of them. "Toughness" can be demonstrated by actually fighting in a war. "Toughness" is demonstrated when a political candidate tells people what they do not want to hear. "Toughness" is not demonstrated by sending other people to war. But people like Fineman (i.e., media purveyors of Beltway conventional wisdom) reflexively, and incoherently, equate blind militarism and warmongering with "toughness" even though it is anything but.
This is what Thompson said last month when interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News:
WALLACE: What would you do now in Iraq?
THOMPSON: I would do essentially what the president's doing.Outisde of the dwindling band of dead-ender neocons and other assorted Bush followers, the only people who mistake that sort of mindset -- " I would do essentially what the president's doing" -- with "toughness" are Beltway pundits who continue to promote the view that the more wars one urges, the more militarism one embraces, the "tougher" one is. Conversely, the more one wants to avert sending fellow citizens into war, the "weaker" or "softer" one is, or -- to use Fineman's post-debate formulation -- the less "masculine" one is.
And then there is Fineman's assurance that Thompson has "a strong record on cultural issues as a cultural conservative from the South." In what way, exactly, is Thompson a "cultural conservative"?
Unlike, say, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards -- all of whom are still married to their first spouse -- Thompson divorced his wife (and the mother of his two children) after 25 years of marriage and then proceeded to marry a woman 25 years younger than he. And according to The Washington Post's Lloyd Grove in 2002:
Fred Thompson and Jeri Kehn met six years ago on the Fourth of July in Nashville. Since then, the Republican senator and the GOP media operative have been romantic, rocky, stormy, passionate, hot and cold, but never lukewarm.
"Hollywood Fred" -- as the divorced Thompson was nicknamed because of his successful movie career -- has been linked to a variety of women, including country singer Lorrie Morgan, pundit-pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, Time magazine writer Margaret Carlson, Nathans restaurant owner Carol Joynt and Washington PR executive Sydney Ferguson.Grove continued:
Now we're pleased to report that Kehn -- whom we've occasionally imagined strapped to a fighting chair on a metaphoric fishing boat, gripping her metaphoric rod and reel -- landed the big one Saturday. The 35-year-old Kehn and the 59-year-old Thompson were married at the First Congregational Church of Christ in the bride's home town of Naperville, Ill. Yesterday the newlyweds were bound for a week- long honeymoon on the French Riviera.In the very same show where Thompson was hailed as a "cultural conservative," Matthews continued his insatiable obsession with the Clintons' marriage, and one of his guests referred to "the incredible fascination that the American public has . . . on the private lives of the Clintons." Matthews, as he does on a virtually nightly basis, dredged it all up -- Gennifer Flowers; Kathleen Willey; the Weekly Standard cover story this week that "calls the Clintons 'a riveting saga of lust and ambition'"; "the women who want us to know about the relationships with Bill," and -- as Matthews put it -- the "pair of new books [which] exquisitely expose Bill and Hillary Clinton as a couple of soap opera characters."
But Fred Thompson? Fineman: "He's got a strong record on cultural issues as a cultural conservative from the South." Matthews: "he fits the need for a Bible Belt candidate." And last week, Matthews provoked this exchange:
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about your party and the cultural right. I noticed that there is no cultural conservative southern Baptist type running this time. The president isn't quite in that category, but people are very comfortable with this president, in terms of his beliefs, his Christian beliefs, his cultural values. Is there a candidate out there now that shares the president's cultural values.
KEN BLACKWELL, FMR OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE: It seems as if Fred Thompson, who has yet to declare, is starting to build a momentum among social conservatives. But I will tell you --
MATTHEWS: Well, he's from Tennessee. He's from the buckle of the bible belt. I believe he is Baptist. He fits. He is pro-life. He has been for many years. He fits all of the categories. There's nobody else like him.
Beltway pundits are so easily fooled, because they are so eager to be. Their brains and emotional reactions -- and thereafter their political statements -- are dominated by these shallow and inauthentic symbols of masculinity and piety which overwhelm reality. They search so desperately for these attributes that they find two-dimensional cartoon images which are just archetypes -- really caricatures -- deeply satisfying.
Thus, parading around in military costumes or excitedly talking about sending people to war is infinitely more important for showing "toughness" than actually doing anything that evinces toughness. Warning in a Southern drawl that God wants marriage to be between a man and a woman is infinitely more important for demonstrating one's "cultural conservatism" than the question of whether one's behavior is actually "culturally conservative."
There is nothing in Fred Thompson's life that he has actually done that makes him "a tough guy" in the sense Fineman means it, nor is there anything that makes him a "cultural conservative." If anything, what his life actually is -- his behavior in reality -- seems to negate those characterizations.
But the illusion of manliness cliches, tough guy poses, and empty gestures of "cultural conservatism" are what the Republican base seeks, and media simpletons like Fineman, Halperin and Matthews eat it all up just as hungrily. That's how thrice-divorced and draft-avoiding individuals like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh become media symbols of the Christian "values voters" and "tough guy," "tough-on-defense" stalwarts.
And it's how a life-long Beltway lobbyist and lawyer who avoided Vietnam, standing next to his twenty-five-year-younger second wife, is held up by our media stars as a Regular-Guy-Baptist symbol of piety and a no-nonsense, tough-guy, super-masculine warrior who will protect us all.

Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert
(updated below - updated again - Update III)
NBC News, yesterday:
An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003. . . .
The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to [Directorate of Operations - Counterproliferation Division], Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA" . . . .
The unclassified summary of Plame's employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, "Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."
The right-wing noise machine spent the last two years repeatedly, continuously and emphatically telling their followers the exact opposite: Fred Barnes, Fox News Special Report, November 3, 2005 (via Lexis):
The CIA made such a big deal out of Valerie Plame and her name being published. She wasn't even an covert agent or anything.Fred Barnes, July 17, 2005 - Fox News roundtable (via Lexis):
Well, wait a minute, though. I mean, look, if they were really pushing this case, really trying to get her name out and discredit and disclose that she was a CIA agent, really out her -- and I don't think she was a covert agent. She worked at a desk in Langley at CIA headquarters.Mark Levin, National Review, July 18, 2005:
Despite all the hype, it appears that Plame works a desk job at the CIA. That's an admirable and important line of work. But it doesn't make her a covert operative, and it didn't make her a covert operative when Bob Novak mentioned her in his July 14, 2003, column, or the five years preceding the column's publication, during which time she hadn't served overseas as a spy, either.Washington Times Editorial, July 19, 2005:
What is known thus far suggests that . . . In July 2003, when columnist Robert Novak first mentioned in passing that Mrs. Plame worked for the CIA, she was not functioning as a covert agent and her work for the CIA was common knowledge.Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, July 15, 2005:
Since it seems as clear as anything in this affair that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent the day before Novak's column either, I think we can chalk this up to Joe Wilson's habitual disingenuousness. . .
Nobody ever said that she wasn't working for the CIA -- the question is whether she was a covert spy or a paperpusher, and the answer seems pretty clearly to be the latter.Rich Galen, Republican strategist, CNN's Situation Room, October 6, 2005 (via Lexis):
GALEN: At the time she was not undercover. She was not a covert -- and we call them officers, not agents. . . We're arguing whether or not she was a covert agent at the time and I'm saying she was not.Alexander Haig, CNN, October 30, 2005 (via Lexis):
Now, let me tell you, he didn't lay a finger on anyone about a conspiracy associated with the war, or about an effort to get the so -- called State Department official's wife, who was really a bureaucrat and not a covert operator.John Hinderaker Powerline, November 5, 2005:
When CIA leaks hurt the administration, these papers have gleefully passed them on. It was only when Scooter Libby mentioned the name of a non-covert CIA employee, Valerie Plame, that the Post, the Times, and other MSM outlets suddenly developed a faux concern about lapses in security.Barbara Lerner, National Review, March 19, 2007:
The charge was false, and the CIA knew it was false from the get-go. Valerie Plame was their employee; they knew she was not a classified agent because she was not covert and had not worked abroad for more than five years.Robert Novak, CNN's Crossfire, September 29, 2003 (via Lexis):
According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, and not in charge of undercover operatives. So what is the fuss about? Pure Bush-bashing.Many people who listen to right-wing commentators such as these get their "news" about the world primarily, even exclusively, from these sources. And these sources, knowing that, routinely create their own self-affirming though wildly warped realities, in the process denying the most established facts or asserting propositions for which there is no factual basis (Fred Barnes: "The CIA made such a big deal out of Valerie Plame and her name being published. She wasn't even an covert agent or anything" -- Glenn Reynolds: "Since it seems as clear as anything in this affair that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent the day before Novak's column").
And there are countless identical statements about Plame that are not included here where the commentator confined their assertion to whether Plame was "covert" within the parameters of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Victoria Toensing, for instance, repeatedly made misleading statements insinuating that Plame was not covert -- even calling for Senate Democrats to investigate the CIA's criminal referral of the Plame disclosure -- but typically couched those claims as a statutory analysis, rather than a straight-forward claim about her employment status with the CIA.
But the above-listed right-wing pundits simply made clear, unequivocal statements about Plame's status with the CIA that were outright false. They had no basis at the time for making such statements. But, as they so often do, they made them anyway, because those statements helped to defend the Leader and bolster their political agenda. Most of all, they know that their readers will trust what they say even when those statements are demonstrably false.
That is the purpose they serve -- to say whatever needs to be said, whether true or false, to diffuse concern among their followers that the Leader has engaged in any real wrongdoing. That is why Tim at Balloon-Juice -- who last night said: "I could entertain myself for hours looking up the hair-singingly civil manner that countless conservative blogs attacked the idea that Valerie Plame was a covert agent. If one in twenty corrects their error you can color me shocked" -- can rest easy. No shock is forthcoming. These falsehoods are never acknowledged, let alone retracted, because they are a critical part of the role they play. UPDATE: This morning, I read through roughly 50 or so (at least) panel discussions and "news" items from Fox News over the last couple of years on the Plame matter. If Fox were your principal source of news, you would believe that the proposition that Valerie Plame was not considered "covert" by the CIA was a fact so established that nobody really questioned it:
Fox "moderate" Mort Kondracke, Special Report with Brit Hume, September 1, 2006 (via Lexis):
I don't think we know that Karl Rove knew and I assume that Scooter Libby may have known but he may have -- you know, she was not a covert officer, she was not a covert agent, and she was not covered by the intelligence agent's identities act. So, all of that is beside the point.Laura Ingraham, Hannity & Colmes, March 7, 2007:
This is bizarre that this case would have gone this far when they knew who leaked this information, and they knew that this was not a situation where Valerie Plame, at this point in time, at least, was a covert agent.

In February of this year, Tony Snow chatted with Bill O'Reilly and said this (h/t Zack):
Very quickly -- very quickly, you got this Valerie Plame case. Now, it turns out that [special counsel] Peter (sic: Patrick) Fitzgerald doesn't -- can't even identify any harm. She wasn't a covert agent. She wasn't compromised. . . She wasn't covert anymore.Are there any consequences at all for the White House Press Secretary to tell outright lies like that? Does that prompt any media scandals? Why can Tony Snow say with impunity that Plame "wasn't a covert agent" when their own CIA confirms that she was? Really, how can that be allowed?

Money matters - Bush tax cuts of 2003 showing signs of paying dividends
By Steve A. Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The federal treasury had its biggest day and biggest month in history for tax revenues in April. On April 24 nearly $49 billion (that’s with a “b”) rolled into the treasury to make it the biggest revenue day ever.
The Wall Street Journal called it “An April Shower of Revenue” and “the surge you’re not reading about” as receipts totaled $70 billion over the same month in 2006. April receipts were about $384 billion and federal spending totaled $206 billion — leaving a surplus for the month of $178 billion.
The big dollars rolling in have helped cut the projected federal deficit by more than half vs. last year. The WSJ reports that taxes from capital gains and other investments are up nearly 30 percent. That’s one of the areas President Bush cut rates for in 2003.
John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan cut tax rates during their presidential terms with similar revenue growth results.
If the federal government can hold spending to current levels plus inflation, projections are the deficit will be eliminated by 2012. That is, of course, unless Congress fails to make the tax cuts permanent.
I think the record-breaking stock market success can also, in part, be attributed to people and companies keeping more of their hard-earned money to spend, invest and build.
lll
Speaking of taxes, ABC News reports that in a break with the tradition of recent presidential campaigns, most the major presidential candidates aren’t releasing their income tax filings.
Since 1984, only one major party candidate — Bill Clinton in 1992 — refused to release tax forms.
John Edwards has indicated he’ll keep his forms private while John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton “aren’t saying” but have not released tax forms filed this year. Gov. Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have not said “no” but have not come forward with the information.
In fact, Sen. Barack Obama is the only top line candidate to make this year’s tax forms public so far.
Full disclosure of tax forms is not required by law, but many think releasing the forms gives “protection against potential conflicts of interest.” Showing honesty and building trust are also mentioned by political observers.
lll
Keeping with a national theme this week…
There ain’t much love for folks inside the “Beltway.”
According to a Gallup Poll released last week, President Bush’s approval rating is hovering at 33 percent. But he’s flying high compared to his friends across town. When asked how Congress is doing its job, a 29 percent approval rating is all they could muster as a group.
I’ve observed, and elections seem to validate, that in general people like their representatives but don’t necessarily like the “group.”
lll
Former TV presenter Daniel Shore tried to make a comparison between a wall at the Mexican or Israeli borders to the former Berlin Wall on a recent PBS “essay.”
A major difference that Shore failed to mention: The Berlin Wall was built to keep people in. The Mexican and Israeli border walls were designed to keep illegals and terrorists out. Legal travel or immigration would be welcomed.
lll
Did you hear about that poor Hoosier who missed his sixth grade graduation?
He had jury duty.


My response:


I read with amusement Steve Austin's article in the paper today. If I wanted to know Republican National Committee talking points and propaganda I would go to their web site. He doesn't need to repeat them in the Gleaner. Bush has done nothing for our economy. He was given a three trillion dollar surplus when he came in office and he and the republican congress promptly spent it and went into debt to heights not seen in US history. Now you want to claim there is an economic miracle taking place due to his irresponsible tax cuts. Ask the average person how the economy is doing? The deficit was caused by him and until he generates more than a three trillion dollar SURPLUS and gives that to the next president he has accomplished nothing. His administration predicted a deficit twice as high as it presently is so that when it came back half of that number they could claim they had really made progress on it. What a joke. A war time economy is one that can not be sustained. I know war is good for the economy but please. This administration has been about as successful economically as they have been in the Iraq War, finding Bin Laden, moderating gas prices and helping Katrina victims. Editorials as biased as the one Mr. Austin wrote are an insult to the intelligence of the people of this community.


In addition, if Bush increases the stock market 3 times what it was when he took over in 2001 you could say the market had duplicated what Clinton did. It tripled under Cliniton and he inherited the largest deficit in history. It would have to go to 33,000 for that to be a reality for Bush. In essence it has only gone from 11,200 to 13,400, around 17%, and that is in war time. Not during peace time. Ask the average person at the gas pump or at the hospital emergency room how the economy is. Bush's approval ratings are at 28%, about the same as Carter's during the Iran hostage crisis. Even during Clinton's impeachment his never got lower than double what Bush has now. Under Reagan and both Bushes the federal deficit exploded and Clinton had to pay off all their debt. Their tax cuts only made matters worse. The fact is when Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy and practiced budgetary restraint he created the largest surplus in history and added millions to the employment rolls. Try to use unbiased facts in your so called editorials. When you factor in the additional people coming into the workforce every month due to population growth the employment rate and tax income is less than under Clinton. You can't compare apples with oranges as much as GOP'ers and wall streeters like to. It's just not reality. Don't take facts out of context and don't just take GOP propaganda as gospel. That is what has got this country in the shape it's in today. Other than that I liked your article. Ha!

I’ll document Jerry Falwell’s professional life and let his record speak for itself.
March 1980: Falwell tells an Anchorage rally about a conversation with President Carter at the White House. Commenting on a January breakfast meeting, Falwell claimed to have asked Carter why he had “practicing homosexuals” on the senior staff at the White House. According to Falwell, Carter replied, “Well, I am president of all the American people, and I believe I should represent everyone.” When others who attended the White House event insisted that the exchange never happened, Falwell responded that his account “was not intended to be a verbatim report,” but rather an “honest portrayal” of Carter’s position.
August 1980: After Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith tells a Dallas Religious Right gathering that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew,” Falwell gives a similar view. “I do not believe,” he told reporters, “that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.” After a meeting with an American Jewish Committee rabbi, he changed course, telling an interviewer on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “God hears the prayers of all persons…. God hears everything.”
July 1984: Falwell is forced to pay gay activist Jerry Sloan $5,000 after losing a court battle. During a TV debate in Sacramento, Falwell denied calling the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches “brute beasts” and “a vile and Satanic system” that will “one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven.” When Sloan insisted he had a tape, Falwell promised $5,000 if he could produce it. Sloan did so, Falwell refused to pay and Sloan successfully sued. Falwell appealed, with his attorney charging that the Jewish judge in the case was prejudiced. He lost again and was forced to pay an additional $2,875 in sanctions and court fees.
October 1987: The Federal Election Commission fines Falwell for transferring $6.7 million in funds intended for his ministry to political committees.
February 1988: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a $200,000 jury award to Falwell for “emotional distress” he suffered because of a Hustler magazine parody. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, usually a Falwell favorite, wrote the unanimous opinion in Hustler v. Falwell, ruling that the First Amendment protects free speech.
February 1993: The Internal Revenue Service determines that funds from Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour program were illegally funneled to a political action committee. The IRS forced Falwell to pay $50,000 and retroactively revoked the Old Time Gospel Hour’s tax-exempt status for 1986-87.
March 1993: Despite his promise to Jewish groups to stop referring to America as a “Christian nation,” Falwell gives a sermon saying, “We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours.”
1994-1995: Falwell is criticized for using his “Old Time Gospel Hour” to hawk a scurrilous video called “The Clinton Chronicles” that makes a number of unsubstantiated charges against President Bill Clinton — among them that he is a drug addict and that he arranged the murders of political enemies in Arkansas. Despite claims he had no ties to the project, evidence surfaced that Falwell helped bankroll the venture with $200,000 paid to a group called Citizens for Honest Government (CHG). CHG’s Pat Matrisciana later admitted that Falwell and he staged an infomercial interview promoting the video in which a silhouetted reporter said his life was in danger for investigating Clinton. (Matrisciana himself posed as the reporter.) “That was Jerry’s idea to do that,” Matrisciana recalled. “He thought that would be dramatic.”
November 1997: Falwell accepts $3.5 million from a front group representing controversial Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon to ease Liberty University’s financial woes.
April 1998: Confronted on national television with a controversial quote from America Can Be Saved!, a published collection of his sermons, Falwell denies having written the book or had anything to do with it. In the 1979 work, Falwell wrote, “I hope to live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!” Despite Falwell’s denial, Sword of the Lord Publishing, which produced the book, confirms that Falwell wrote it.
January 1999: Falwell tells a pastors’ conference in Kingsport, Tenn., that the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible is alive today and “of course he’ll be Jewish.”
February 1999: Falwell becomes the object of nationwide ridicule after his National Liberty Journal newspaper issues a “parents alert” warning that Tinky Winky, a character on the popular PBS children’s show “Teletubbies,” might be gay.
September 2001: Falwell blames Americans for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”
November 2005: Falwell spearheads campaign to resist “war on Christmas.”
February 2007: Falwell describes global warming as a conspiracy orchestrated by Satan, liberals, and The Weather Channel.
Say what you will about the man and his life, but he demonized anyone who disagreed with his fundamentalist views. You reap what you sow. I wonder if Robertson will see this as a sign from God that he must turn from his wicked ways?

What’s wrong with being a secular humanist? I know many who are more moral than fundamentalist Christians. A humanist is one who’s way of life is centered on human interests or values. As a philosophy it asserts the dignity and worth of man and his capacity for self-realization through reason. It often rejects supernaturalism as explanation for human actions. This description describes our founding fathers philosophy to a tee. More than any other belief they thought that through reason and logic man could govern himself and if he failed he would have no one to blame but himself. This explains the content of the Constitution. In today’s right-wing political/religious world, humanism is looked down upon as some kind of evil conspiracy to replace religion and supplant it with a Godless lifestyle. Jon Paul Satre was one of the foremost humanists and he wrote much about the philosophy. Like our founding fathers he believed that man was the ultimate arbiter of his own destiny. The basis for his belief was that man is responsible for his actions and he couldn’t blame a God or religion for the evil actions that man takes in the name of God or religion. If we engaged in a little more humanistic behavior in our international relations don’t you think we would have a more peaceful society? How many times do we hear religions’ act viciously toward others and justifying their actions through religious dogma? Muslims and Christians might learn a little from reading some humanist writings. Maybe if O’Reilly, Rev. Dobson and many other uninformed right-wingers stopped attacking things they don’t understand they too could learn something but for those who reject science and embrace superstition that may be a little too much to ask.

It’s too bad so many well meaning Christians believe in such blatantly false statements like America was founded as a Christian nation. The U.S. has never been a Christian nation but instead a nation of religious freedom. Our Founders and the courts have gotten it just about right when it comes to Church/State issues. The 1st and 14 th Amendments limit the power of government to enact laws relating to matters of faith and worship but it doesn’t seem to stop politicians from making more laws for the Courts to strike down. Everyone is free to read the Ten Commandments, the Bible and pray whenever the spirit moves them on public property. You just can’t force others to do it or agree with your particular beliefs. That is not religious freedom. The Founders lived in a time when colonial governments persecuted and executed followers of certain sects like Quakers, Baptists and Catholics. Established “state” Churches forced persons to attend them, collected taxes to support them and permitted Churches to punish sins as crimes. Our courts have done far more to protect religious freedom than those who rant about “godless schools and liberal atheist leaders.” Some Christians subscribe to the “Christian nation” ideology and want America to become a Christian theocracy. There is no Constitutional foundation for that belief. That is why this country was formed.

On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush stood in front of a "Misson Accomplished" banner with his flight jacket and codpiece on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and declared: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."
On May 1, 2007, the president will receive legislation from Congress setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He will veto it.
On May 1, 2007, representatives of the largest bloc of Sunnis in Iraq's parliament Iraqi are threatening to withdraw their ministers from Iraq's cabinet. They say they have "lost hope" that the Shiite-dominated government will treat them fairly.
On May 1, 2007, the Washington Post reports that the number of terrorism incidents in Iraq shot up 91 percent between 2005 and 2006.
On May 1, 2007, gunmen killed 14 Iraqis on a highway outside of Baghdad.
On May 1, 2007, the U.S. cost of the Iraq war will soon exceed $550 billion, enough to pay for college educations for nearly half of the kids in U.S. high schools today.
On May 1, 2007, we close the books on a month in which 104 U.S. soldiers were killed. Approximately 140 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq before the president declared that "major combat operations" were over. Approximately 3,211 have been killed since then.

Wow! When will this madness end?