Huckabee’s ‘preaching to the choir’ draws more conservative criticism

December 21, 2007

In her Wall Street Journal column last week, Peggy Noonan lamented the fact that religion was quickly becoming too important to Republican voters. “[T]here is a sense in Iowa now,” she wrote, “that faith has been heightened as a determining factor in how to vote, that such things as executive ability, professional history, temperament, character, political philosophy and professed stands are secondary, tertiary.”

Noonan added that “things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far” towards over-valuing religious faith over secular qualifications. She warned that if this trend continues, Republicans may soon find themselves in “a different kind of party.”

Noonan raised a related point today, noting the “famous floating cross” in Mike Huckabee’s TV ad this week, the former Reagan speechwriter called the commercial “creepy.”

I wound up thinking this: That guy is using the cross so I’ll like him. That doesn’t tell me what he thinks of Jesus, but it does tell me what he thinks of me. He thinks I’m dim. He thinks I will associate my savior with his candidacy. Bleh.

The ad was shrewd. The caucus is coming, the TV is on, people are home putting up the tree, and the other candidates are all over the tube advancing themselves and attacking someone else. Mr. Huckabee thinks, I’ll break through the clutter by being the guy who reminds us of the reason for the season, in a way that helps underscore that I’m the Christian candidate and those other fellas aren’t. […]

Was the cross an accident? Please…. The cross is the reason you saw the commercial. The cross made it break through…. Does Mr. Huckabee understand that his approach is making people uncomfortable? Does he see himself as divisive? He’s a bright man, so it’s hard to believe he doesn’t.

The Republican establishment freak-out, in other words, continues.

To be sure, I find myself in the awkward position of agreeing with Noonan about a leading Republican presidential candidates exploiting religion for partisan gain. But at the same time, I can’t help but remind Noonan that she had a hand in creating Frankenstein’s monster, and it’s a little late to complain about it now.

Steve M. had a real gem a week ago, noting several examples of Noonan doing before what Huckabee is doing now.

There was, for example, this piece after Bush’s 2001 inaugural:

The tone was properly ecumenical, but the content was God-filled….

… his speaking so much and so feelingly of God’s place and precedence, his speaking so explicitly of poverty and disadvantage as failures of love, puts the Democrats of Congress in another interesting position. If you don’t give room to faith-based help, and freedom-based assistance to children in trouble in school and on the streets, God and I gonna open up a can of whupass on you.

And this one, from three years ago:

Stop the war on religious expression in America…. The Constitution says we have freedom of religion, not from religion. Have Terry McAuliffe announce that from here on in the Democratic Party is on the side of those who want religion in the public square, and the Ten Commandments on the courthouse wall for that matter…. The Democratic Party should put itself on the side of Christmas, and Hanukkah, and the fact of transcendent faith.

I’m also reminded of Noonan’s piece about the Elian Gonzales controversy, in which she mocked the Clinton administration for rejecting the notion that God may have directed dolphins to help guide Gonzales’ raft from Cuba to the United States.

Noonan fanned the flamed of the culture war, specifically on matters of faith, when it suited her purposes.

And now that the religious right yahoos are prepared to disregard qualifications and competence, and override the Republican establishment, Noonan sees a dangerous trend in which the religious emphasis is “shifting too far.”

It’s a shame Noonan hadn’t thought of that before.

Guess Noonan never read Frankenstein.

  • Too funny. A religious propagandist decrying the use of religious propaganda? Methinks she realizes what’s going to happen in the general to a guy who gets all his support from the fundies.

    But here’s my questions: Why does Peggy Noonan hate baby Jesus so much? Doesn’t she believe that God will help a guy who’s so faithful?

    I would remind Ms Noonan what happens to people who lose faith: According to the Good Book, one minute you’re walking on water, and the next minute you can’t. Noonan needs to go back to church and let God worry about the number of voters who will support the Republican nominee. Have faith, Peggy!

    Heh.

  • Too bad Peggy Sue’s dance card is already filled. She now laments she has to dance with the partner who brung her. Now she and her ilk are getting cold feet – can’t dance very well with cold feet! -Kevo

  • Noonan, Novak and Will have all bluntly told the Christian Evangelicals that they can’t have a candidate from their wing win the nomination of the Republican’t party.

    Mike Huckabee, who amazingly seems to remember at least parts of the Sermon on the Mount, promotes a populist/Christian sort of evanglicalism which, when converted into policy in backwoods Arkansas meant some tax increases and some increased government. Whether he will find a similar need in Washington D.C. is an open question, but it’s clear that the GOP doesn’t want to risk it, even after the proof of twelve years of legislating and six years of Bushite incompetence shows they will increase the Government and borrow whatever it takes to keep power.

    Sad little hypocrits who demand the votes of evangelicals while denying them a seat at the big folks table.

  • Noonan wrote:

    Stop the war on religious expression in America…. The Constitution says we have freedom of religion, not from religion.

    Just in case any conservatives are reading this, or other people who are persuaded by Noonan’s intentional deception, this is what the Constitution has to say about religion:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

    The “freedom of religion” phrasing is just a thing people commonly say- it’s not actually worded that way in the document, and people don’t, of course, say it to mean what Noonan claims it means- we don’t, of course, all think we can be forced by the government to be religious or to encounter religion. So Noonan just pulled this right out of thin air to deceive people, and she either doesn’t know what America is really about, or she is against it, like Al Qaeda is.

  • Re #5.

    One article, by KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL claims that Huckabee is too ethically challenged to withstand a Democratic assault in the General election, or at least would make it impossible to attack Clinton.

    Amazing. If the Republican’ts cared about electability McCain would already have the nomination.

  • Noonan flatters herself too much by thinking she is some cunning manipulator of the political process who can turn on and turn off the power of the religious right. She jumped on a bandwagon years ago when it was opportunistic to do so and is now whining the bandwagon is taking off in a direction she doesn’t approve. Silly girl. Peggy no longer wants to dance with who brung her to the ball. Next time pick a date that isn’t as controlling and power-hungry as you.

  • Personally, I don’t care how people come to reason, just so they do.

    Though I have said it before, the Huckster was well within his right to free speech with this ad, that doesn’t make it a good idea. Wearing one’s religion on one’s sleeve in this manner demeans the religion, whatever that religion is. Worse, it demeans the believers of that religion by assuming people are too dense to see the add for what it is, a ploy to make people associate their faith with his candidacy.

    Sure, faith can give us some idea of the principles that guide a person’s thinking. But at the end of the day, public office is a secular post. A person’s capacity to fulfill the duties of the office is most important. Do they have the intelligence, the education, the wisdom to do the job?

  • Sometimes people’s opinions are not based in fact, but on subjective things like whether they “like” someone – and maybe Noonan just doesn’t like Huckabee. Maybe she thinks Huckabee’s trying to invoke Reagan, and since she still worships Reagan, is pissed that Huckabee is even trying to go there, consciously or unconsciously – there was only one Ronald Reagan, after all.

    That what she writes now is 180 degrees different from what she wrote in years past doesn’t mean that what she writes now makes no sense – it makes all kinds of sense.

    I really think this is all about her feeling that Huckabee is treading on Reagan territory.

  • Ha, ha! [/Nelson Muntz]

    The Party of Dumb Jocks & Cheerleaders went to the Evan-nerds when they needed help: “Plz help me win th election! I thik ur the coolest eva!1!” But now the geeks have become a complete drag on their social life: Showing up univited to parties, sitting next to them in the school cafeteria, waving to you when you’re out shopping with your real friends. ZOMG, it’s sooooo embarrassing!!1!

    But at the same time the DJs & Cs don’t want to tell the nerds to just go away and leave them alone ‘cos they know that before long they’ll need help again. It’s not like they have time to study for the election.

  • For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind
    Hosea 8:7

    Peggy should actually read her bible. It would have warned her. For now she better get her ruby slippers and hope she can find her way home because I don’t think she is going to find herself in Kansas when the ride is over.

  • Noonan aside.

    I am literally shocked that the Christian ad has created this stir from the right. Where the fuck have I been ?? I may have misjudged an entire political party because I thought this would have warmed their hearts and finally brought the party together under one candidate.

    What I can’t fugure out, are they upset with the religious pandering or are they discrediting a candidate they don’t like ? I know, I am laughing as well.

    This is classic Rove. Going after a candidate on their strongest assets. What gets me is that it is so fricken transparent. Noonan with all of her non-secular rants against liberals now wants to play the ‘no room for religion’ card. Give me a fucken break.

    I am all about the Huckster, the harder he pushes, the bigger the backlash. And political christians, take note, if you think all this religious non-sense is not going to come without a price tag, you are as retarded as Noonan, there is going to be a huge push back. maybe not today or tomorrow, but as all the faith based non-sense is exposed for what it truly is, people are going to want you guys back in the corner where you belong.

    What people are failing to realize, is all the politicalization of our government has only opened doors for both parties. I doubt the D’s will taint like Bush, but I suspect there is going to be a cleansing of evangelicals from political appointments on a scale never seen before.

  • More shameless mendacity from the establishment Rethugs, who only care about power and the money they can steal with it. Religious pandering is fine when it gets their candidates elected, but is worrying when one of the wingnuts looks like he’s getting some traction. Huckabee is not a total wingnut, however, and that’s what’s making them go through rapid underwear changes.

    The inherent hypocrisy of libertarian and corporate Rethugs sucking in the religious right was bound to run up on the rocks eventually. Let’s hope it happens in 2008. Bush leaving the Rethugs in a total shambles maybe the only positive legacy he can have. The Iraq war, shredding of the constitution, and torture raised to a national virtue may become footnotes to a major realignment of national politics.

  • “What I can’t figure out, are they upset with the religious pandering or are they discrediting a candidate they don’t like ?”

    I’m going to go with religious pandering. There is a strong gust of wind of religious fatigue in this country. The wingers know it and that’s why they’re going after the Huck. That and he’s not really their candidate. He’s not authoritarian enough. They think the Huck is a pussy. My feeling is that the public has seen with their own eyes a (a-hem) man who claimed the mantle of Christ but then lied to them his entire presidency. And people got killed because of his lies. One thing you can say is that the wingers are really good and reading the tea leaves of political fortunes.

  • Noonan added that “things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far” towards over-valuing religious faith over secular qualifications. — CB

    Who decides what’s “too far” and which amount is “just right”? Goldilocks Noonan? If we had kept *all traces* of religion out of the public sphere — as the Founders had intended — then we wouldn’t have the problem now of parsing the amounts which are/are not acceptable and could concentrateon only those secular qualifications she seems to yearn for.

  • Re Noonan’s comments… How rich is that? I’m loving every minute of these guys getting hoisted by their own petard.

    By the way, what is a petard? I heard it was Mormon underwear…

  • Nonplussed – from http://www.bartleby.com:

    To be caught in one’s own trap: “The swindler cheated himself out of most of his money, and his victims were satisfied to see him hoist by his own petard.” A “petard” was an explosive device used in medieval warfare. To be hoisted, or lifted, by a petard literally means to be blown up.

    Hope that helps.

  • Noonan added that “things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far” towards over-valuing religious faith over secular qualifications. — CB

    For the pundits like Noonan, perhaps, but it is a little hard to argue with Huckabee strategically: since he started openly emphasizing that he would be a “Christian Leader” he has gone from 4th or 5th to the top of the polls in Iowa. I suspect at Huckabee headquarters they are loudly singing “If politicizing God is wrong, I don’t want to be right!”

  • Regarding Elian and “dolphins”:
    I’m in the TV business in Miami, shooting everything from news to reality to commercial television. I covered the Elian Gonzalez cluster f*#k and don’t remember how many times I had to remind people that the dolphins in question were fish, not mammals. Mahi mahi, dorado, fish. Not cute bottle nose dolphins or spinners. The fisherman who found them were fishing for dolphin/mahi mahi, not Flipper. But people love their own mythologies.

    On another note, being in the business, Huckabee’s cross was not, I repeat NOT, an accident. When you set your frame, everything is considered. This was well planned and well lit. The cross was the front face of a book shelf, and the brightest image on screen. The dolly shot was timed to obscure the “cross” toward the end of the add.

    This guy is scary.

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