Today's Sermon, Part One: Values Boaters

Per Frank Rich (free from the wall of payment) in the NYT, their boat is, if not sinking, taking on water:

[T]he political clout ritualistically ascribed to Mr. Perkins, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of American Values and their ilk is a sham.
These self-promoting values hacks don’t speak for the American mainstream. They don’t speak for the Republican Party. They no longer speak for many evangelical ministers and their flocks. The emperors of morality have in fact had no clothes for some time. Should Rudy Giuliani end up doing a victory dance at the Republican convention, it will be on their graves.
[...]
If they really believed uncompromisingly in their issues and principles, they would have long since endorsed either Sam Brownback, the zealous Kansas senator fond of using fetus photos as political props, or Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who spent 15 years as a Baptist preacher, calls abortion a “holocaust” and believes in intelligent design rather than evolution. But they gave Senator Brownback so little moral and financial support that he folded his candidacy a week ago. And they continue to stop well short of embracing Mr. Huckabee, no matter how many rave reviews his affable personality receives on the campaign trail. They shun him because they know he’ll lose, and they would rather compromise principle than back a loser.
Backing a loser, they know, would even further diminish their waning Washington status in a post-Rove, post-Bush G.O.P. The more they shed their illusion of power, the more they imperil their ability to rake in big bucks from their apocalyptic direct-mail campaigns. They must choose mammon over God if they are to maintain the many values rackets that make up their various business empires.

Ooooh, snap!! The NYT Magazine visits Wichita, where we see that lesser-known fire & brimstone-preaching bible-thumpers are not doing so well either, although we're not surprised, if this is what their message has come to:

“I think the Gospel is offensive, and I think the cross is offensive,” Wright continued. “I think Jesus loved everybody and I think he loved the Pharisees, but he certainly told them how the cow eats the cabbage.”

W/ its mouth, like most other mammals? Is rumination a specific biblical value? And though there are references to the "mainstreaming" of evangelicals (though today's god-squadders aren't as poor & stupiduneducated as those of 30 to 40 yrs. ago, it seems as if much of that "education" is still coming from Oral Roberts or Bob Jones Universities):

In the Wichita churches this summer, Obama was the Democrat who drew the most interest. Several mentioned that he had spoken at Warren’s Saddleback church and said they were intrigued. But just as many people ruled out Obama because they suspected that he was not Christian at all but in fact a crypto-Muslim — a rumor that spread around the Internet earlier this year. “There is just that ill feeling, and part of it is his faith,” Welsh said. “Is his faith anti-Christian? Is he a Muslim? And what about the school where he was raised?”
“Obama sounds too much like Osama,” said Kayla Nickel of Westlink. “When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!’ ”

“There is just that ill feeling, and part of it is his faith.” The other part would be? Well, what is it? Cmon, what's the "ill feeling?" Can't you say it? "Political correctness" got your tongue? If Jesus could tell the Pharisees how the cow eats the cabbage, can't you call a spade a spade?

We're still wondering whether all of this will result in an evangelical candidate to fulfill the H. Ross Perot function & get a Democrat (sadly, probably Hitlery) into the White House.

But don't count Jeebus & his earthly warriors out yet:

But liberals, he said, should not start gloating. “Some might compare the religious right to a snake,” he said. “We may be in our hole right now, but we can come out and bite you at any time.”

Please come out here & bite this!!