It's the Devil's Way Now...

Using Catholicism

I promise I won't post a link to every left-leaning columnist who writes about Bush--there's no point. But I think this particular article by Eleanor Clift is important, because most of America has not been paying attention to the way that Bush--and by Bush I mean Karl Rove, who decides how Bush's campaign will be run--uses deeply divisive and underhanded methods to obtain and maintain power. The patterns are obscured by the way each new instance of this behavior takes place in a different place, dealing with a different issue, and under the auspices of a different figurehead. But mark my words: this will only get uglier. Bush does not hold power, to use a trite phrase, by appealing to the better angels of our nature. He may try to sound that way, but calling Democrats anti-Catholic (happening right now), questioning the patriotism of decorated and disabled war veterans who question the wisdom of unilateral aggression (happened to Democratic Senator Max Cleland, who Bush cronies brought to defeat in 2002), and calling potential voters under the guise of a pollster and telling them an opponent is a liar, a cheat, and a fraud (happened in South Carolina against John McCain in 2000, where Bush operatives also called McCain "the fag candidate" because he met with the Log Cabin Republicans--the horror!) is the behavior of a divider, not a uniter. This is assuredly not the change in tone in Washington that Bush and so many Republicans (Minnesotans, remember Norm Coleman in the debates?) promised.

Vote for whoever you want. At least know, before you do, how they're playing you for a fool, telling you what Karl Rove knows you want to hear while telling people in South Carolina something else and people in California yet another thing. The Bush campaign is remarkable, and I admire it for two things: 1) The ability to stay "on message" through any crisis, up to and including economic collapse and the presumed intelligence of Cabinet officers like Colin Powell and Condi Rice who must know that half of what they're saying can't possibly be right; 2) The ability to do so while saying inconsistent things to different groups of people based on what those groups want to hear without, in an age where everything that a politician says can potentially be heard by everyone, ever getting called on it by the media or other candidates in a way that resonates with people enough to make them question Bush's honesty or ability to lead.

Enjoy the article. Let me know what you think.