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Mother Bird answers Kathleen Parker | Poem

 The making of the Christian-jihadist myth by Kathleen Parker

Rebutt by Summer Breeze

K.P. - Following days of spin and commentary, we can confidently declare a new urban legend: George W. Bush

If this is George W. Bush's  "legend"...Remember it came out of the pen of Kathleen Parker...let all word crafters gather 'round:
 

K.P - George W. Bush was elected

S.B. - The votes are still being counted as the date of Her writing and a petition has been filed for a statewide recount in Ohio (remembering mistakes made in Florida 2000. Bush II has yet to be elected legally - pundits declaring him the winner does not make it so, nor does Kerry's concession speech make this election of 2004 final.
K.P - by right-wing...
S.B. - any self respecting bird cautions flight without a left-wing
K.P - science-hating...
S.B. - Bush had the EPA report on global warming altered.  "We" call it corporate pay back...
K.P. - vengeful Christian zealots...
S.B. - "vengeful" meaning "seeking revenge" like in Bush's use of a megaphone "We will hunt them out and kill them."? shock and awe bang bang yer dead
K.P - "revved up by rectitude,"
i.e. prepared for an honest debate
K.P - as one pundit put it...
S.B. - one pundit calling another pundit black?
K.P. ...and America is embarked on a hatchet-wielding jihad against heathens, pagans and infidels.
S.B. - ...and NO it is NOT "America is embarked" - - it is an eagle with only one wing and "infidels" is a "crusade" word and "jihad" is from the same cut of cloth as "crusade"
K.P - Colorful.
 
S.B. - Exactly. Colorful becomes possible when light is added to black and white.


K.P. - But then so is pollution in certain lights.

S.B. - In the light of the Money God?
K.P. - It's also wrong and awfully ignorant coming from the side of the political spectrum that considers itself the more intelligent segment of the American population.
 
S.B. - In this case K.P. chooses to ignore the poll that showed O'Reilly's audience to have a lower I.Q. than other talk shows.

Here is a an example of "awfully ignorant": debates are won by intelligent people because they are intelligent.

K.P. - Not only did the right wing not elect Bush - only slightly more evangelical Christians (5 percent) voted for Bush this time around than in 2000 - but Bush himself is far to the left of the so-called "moral right."

But my oh my how "moral right" shouted it out during the campaign! (in this, K.P. can believe the poll)

K.P - As former secretary of education William J. Bennett pointed out Monday in a speech at the Heritage Foundation,
 

S.B. - hmmm? this is not a "right-wing think tank" card carrying member?
K.P. - Bush's election was a slightly-right-of-center mandate, rather than a far-right one. Of nearly 60 million votes for Bush, some 20 million came from evangelical Christians. The other 40 million votes came from others, including increased numbers of Jews, Catholics, blacks and Latinos.
 
S.B. - This is, assuming none of the blacks and Latinos were evangelical Christians. We call this "fuzzy math". (note to K.P. it is time to put a capitol B in blacks). How many of the (nearly) 60 million votes where not Christian against abortion and gay marriages. (For the sake of clarity - NO one is FOR abortions - but the CHOICE - Christians against abortion want to protect a sperm and egg, no matter how VIOLENTLY  united! (note: that does not include ALL Christians)
K.P - Yet all the chatter in recent days is about those weird Christians and their bizarre "agenda." Always preaching about duty to family, making a fuss about pornography and promiscuity, carrying on about homosexual marriage. What's wrong with those people, anyway?
 
S.B. - WHAT'S WRONG - is voters who were convinced war and killing for the security of our opulent way of life (i.e. the only country in the world where even poor people are fat) while shuddering at the sight of loving gay couples getting married in a court house etc...

...even as the solution is simple - the government should only perform civil unions, whether gay or herto sexual - let the churches put the sanctity into marriage if they wish - besides, no government, no church or piece of paper can put "sanctity" into any union - only those united can do this.

K.P - The media seem suddenly, if belatedly, obsessed, approaching the evangelical Christian voting block as anthropologist Margaret Mead did the Samoans.
 
S.B. - NOT - we only had to watch the drama unfold i.e. Swift Boat Vets against Kerry seeking revenge? tell me true Kathleen Parker - what percent of the "Swift Boat Vets against Kerry" were "enlisted" and what percent "con-scripted"?

YES - not "suddenly...belatedly...obsessed" but surely as diligently as Margaret Mead, that is  "some" of the media.

K.P. - Chris Matthews suggested on "Hardball" that reporters should be sent out to cover the red states as one might a foreign country. You can imagine the scramble. Among least coveted assignments, embedding with Real Americans would be second only to spending August in Crawford, Texas.
S.B. - ah so, "among least coveted" - lockstepping flagwaving self proclaimed patriots...but the Newspaper of Crawford, Texas would offer some relief from the "assignment".
K.P - Because I live in South Carolina, I've gotten a few calls myself from television and radio producers seeking insight.
S.B. - Because you live in South Carolina we know nothin' can be blinder than black and white issues with nobrainer in sight with insight (but we all know it is NOT because ALL South Carolinians are clones of K.P.'s "notoriety")
K.P. - I feel like Jane Goodall being summoned from the hinterlands to report on the behavioral habits of the indigenous wildlife.
S.B. - Kathleen Parker is no Jane Goodall . But she could be - if she would come and play? or sing? The human voice is a musical instrument.
Sing us your soul song colleen.
 K.P. - "Fascinating,"  I picture them saying as they stroke their chins.  "They even go to church on Wednesdays, too? Whatever for?!"  Why, for the beheadings, of course. OK, I'm kidding. It's the snakes.
S.B. - OK you like sick jokes - try this: Play two news stories on the same day "US soldier shoots injured Iraqi" and CARE worker shot in head instead of beheaded. It is the belief in "God is on our side" that is sick sick sick!
K.P. - Just as Samoan women are alleged to have lied to Mead about their freewheeling, premarital sex romps,
S.B. - the key word here is "alleged" - and, you can not have "premarital" if there is no marriage


K.P. - red staters may be sorely tempted to offer exaggerated tales to curious intellectuals. They're so cute when they're perplexed.

S.B. - there was nothing "perplexing" about the "red staters" reaction to the add for "Desperate Housewives" before Sunday's football game - TV football fans found embarrassment in sexuality as they prepared to watch bone breaking steroid musclemen "go at it"
K.P. - Alas, their own interpretations are sufficiently exaggerated without my help, as this typical reader e-mail suggests:

"We will just have to adjust to a new world that was created in six days, where women were created from a man's rib and where global warming does not exist according to science advisor Rush Limbaugh. Scientists like myself will just have to be wary of stakes with brush piled underneath, and suppress any sign of intellect while mumbling something about being saved and born again."

S.B. - not ready to "adjust" - has something to do with being leary and weary of humans that do not want to die for their own sins.
K.P. - The urban myth has taken hold even among scientific minds, it seems. Yet objectively, the myth is holier than Peter's net.
S.B. - what is holier to us is what Christians refuse of Jesus' teaching:
"Love your enemies"
See...like we understand...when we learn to love our enemies we won't have any enemies. Heaven only knows how much lovin' that'll take!
K.P. - Bush, though he identifies himself as an evangelical Christian, isn't nearly as conservative as those on the far right might wish him to be, nor are Christian evangelicals all knuckle-dragging throwbacks. Last time I checked, not a single one had ordered the murder of an infidel. But you knew that.
S.B. - What we know...is George Bush originally called his war a crusade.  We also know thousands of nonChristians are dying in Iraq and around the world millions of nonChristians are starving to death, being raped etceteras.
K.P. - Despite our near-pathological need to label and categorize, the United States isn't really a far-left and a far-right country, bright red and bright blue. While such demographic labels are convenient for political debate - and indispensable to column writing - the fact is that most Americans dwell in that vast lavender (purple?) area in between.
S.B. - What I do know about my very own state of New Mexico: our state Catholic Cardinal sent out an edict to New Mexico churches that they could not be a practicing Catholic and vote for Kerry (which does not include our local Mission posting in front of their poor patrons a sign telling them why Kerry bad/Bush good.)
K.P. - In that middle, people are complex and hold a variety of views, some liberal, some conservative, depending on the issue. Most don't cleave to an either-or position on even the hot-button issues. Many Americans still support a woman's right to abortion, for instance, but think reasonable limits can be set without condemning women to life terms in the kitchen.
S.B. - all nice and fuzzy - but it was the "hot-button issues" of sexual preference and the results there of that seemingly one the day, and, "middle of the roaders" were very turned off by the extremes hand, as usual, half of eligible voters prefer not to vote for evil...lesser or greater.
K.P. - The debate, meanwhile, about whether "moral values" was the compelling force behind Bush's victory seems slightly off point. Exit polls showing "moral values" as the most important issue for voters (22 percent cited it) were refuted subsequently by other polls, leading some to insist that the election wasn't about values after all.
S.B. - "leading some..." are the key words...Fox News (cable) used this phrase often i.e. "some people say"...in lieu of a source - if truth be told in "exit polls" - they have a higher percentage of being right than pre election polls. If we really want the truth re moral value voters it would be only a two part question.
K.P. - What they mean, probably correctly, is that the election wasn't only about far-right concerns such as same-sex marriage, abortion and stem cell research. But of course it was about moral values - what's right and what's wrong, from war to national character - and the vote took us right of center.
S.B. - NO - what "they" mean is all the values that were talked about concerned sex while ignoring "blessed are the peacemakers".
K.P. - As for Bush's alleged "jihad," only true jihadists have reason to protest. As Christopher Hitchens wrote, Bush fights religious fanaticism while the left apologizes for it. Amen to that.
S.B. We do not apologize for wanting to de-throne Bush's "Oil for Blood Program"

clue:  the leader of the Islamic "religious fanaticism" was last reported in Afghanistan

How many cities are you willing to see destroy to save them?

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