Westmoreland’s defense

June 17, 2006

We all had a little fun yesterday poking fun at Rep. [tag]Lynn Westmoreland [/tag](R-Ga.), who wants Congress to endorse the [tag]Ten Commandments[/tag], but when asked by Stephen Colbert to name them, admitted, “I can’t name ’em all.”

Reader D.C. alerted me this morning to the official response from Westmoreland’s office.

[Reached Friday, Westmoreland press secretary Brian Robinson] said that, during the interview, Westmoreland actually got up to about seven of the Ten Commandments before petering out, but that part was edited out.

“I challenge anybody outside of the clergy to try to (name them all),” Robinson said.

“The Colbert Report” showed Westmoreland naming three, and according to his office, he actually named seven. That’s better, I suppose, but the bottom line remains the same: asked to name the Ten Commandments, Westmoreland couldn’t.

But what about the press secretary’s second point, that only pastors can name all 10? It’s a pretty weak argument. According to Westmoreland and the legislation he supports in Congress, the Decalogue includes the nation’s guiding principles. They offer instructions to moral people on how to behave. They’re so important, Westmoreland and lawmakers like him believe Congress should ignore church-state separation and officially endorse and promote the Commandments in the House and Senate chambers. And now Westmoreland’s office believes no one can actually name all 10? Shouldn’t Westmoreland have bothered to commit them to memory a long time ago?

If Westmoreland had been quizzed, apropos of nothing, I’d happily give him a pass. But he’s the one who brought this up by pushing the legislation in the first place.

Really? No one outside the clergy? My ordination ceremony was pretty understated, then, because I didn’t notice it.

  • How ridiculous is that? I’m an atheist who hasn’t set foot in a church in 25 years, and I just rattled off the list without missing a beat.

  • Looking at Westmoreland’s district, he comes from that part of Jaw-ja where single-line family “trees” can often be found. Obviously, this hillbilly is one of them and shows the product of eight generations of morons interbreeding.

  • A. I don’t believe the congressman’s press office when they said Westmoreland got up to seven. But I’m guessing Colbert could play the unedited full answer to the question if there’s a dispute.

    B. I think it’s pretty generous to grant Westmoreland three given what he’s been shown to have said on camera. He quotes none of the commandments’ actual language, instead giving a general two-word phrase summing up an approximate meaning. “Don’t lie,” one of his offerings, is only vaguely related to the actual commandment, which enjoins “bearing false witness against ” others. Bearing false witness is only a subset of all the types of potential lies (“I didn’t chop down the cherry tree” for example, doesn’t bear false witness against anyone).

    Of course, the commandments Westmoreland isn’t shown quoting are interesting in themselves, in that they show how idiotic it is to be putting these commandments up in a courtroom, because the majority of them deal with subjects that have no meaning in any secular law code. There are no laws banning the worship of a non-judeo-christian god, or against graven images, or forbidding adultery, or forcing observance of the sabbath, or telling us to honor our parents, or telling us not to “covet” things.

  • Westmorland is saying, “Congress must endorse what I don’t comprehend”.

    God should have added an eleventh commandment

    Thou shalt not be an idiot in my name.

  • You’re all missing the point entirely– this is precisely why we need to have the Ten Commandments plastered all over every public building, because otherwise no one will bother to learn them. Forget all that conservative nonsense about rugged independence and taking responsibility for one’s own life; the religious right’s attitude on this issue seems to be that if the government doesn’t spoon-feed us a moral education, no one will (or should be expected to) take it upon themselves to learn the very basics of the religious dogmas they profess. Makes perfect sense.

  • In a quick office poll, I (a lapsed Jew) and a friend (a more-than-lapsed Southern Baptist) could name eight. Another coworder (practicing Catholic) got all ten, plus the seven deadly sins. I don’t think that knowing the decalogue is that uncommon among people who actually practice their religion, as opposed to self-righteous asshats who run around trying to forece everybody else to practice it.

  • These are peculiar to Western monotheism:
    1. You shall have no other gods but me.
    2. You shall not make unto you any graven images
    3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain
    4. You shall remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
    These are expressed by some form in every culture.
    5. Honor your mother and father
    6. You shall not murder
    7. You shall not commit adultery
    8. You shall not steal
    9. You shall not bear false witness
    10. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor

    Posting numbers 1-4 in public spaces clearly violates the Constitutional separation of church and state, no matter what Westmoreland says. Consider some counter-examples: There is no god but Allah or Yahweh or Zeus or Huitzilopochtli? You shall make statues of The Prophet Muhammed but not of the Virgin Mary? You shall say “Allah be praised” repeatedly. You shall keep holy Fridays (Muslim), Saturdays (Jewish), Sundays (Christian).

    It might be in the public interest to post numbers 5-10, though there hardly seems a need: murder is wrong? theft is wrong? And what about what’s left out: why isn’t cheating on your taxes prohibited? or being mean to the newsboy or waitress? or buggering the altar boy? or fighting an illegal war? or executing anyone, let alone finding glee in the act?

  • “The Colbert Report” showed Westmoreland naming three, and according to his office, he actually named seven. – CB

    9. You shall not bear false witness

  • My guess is that he flailed, hemmed and hawed enough in the process of getting to seven that it would have been extraordinarily embarassing, and painful to watch, and Colbert probably did him a favor by editing it.

  • The interview reminds me of Mel Brooks History of the World Part One.

    Lynn: “I have ten…” Thud “No, seven….” Crash “No Three Commandments!

  • I’m with jimBOB, he came nowhere near the 3 he tried to name on camera. Reciting the commandments means reciting them, not paraphrasing them badly.

  • “1. You shall have no other gods but me.”
    Bush fanatics, people who support Pat Robertson, and the corporate community are going to burn for this one….

    “2. You shall not make unto you any graven images.”
    Goodbye, Wall Street!

    “3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
    Dick Cheney’s going to a very warm place….

    “4. You shall remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.”
    Hey—we just fragged the FOX Sunday Morning talking-heads….

    “5. Honor your mother and father.”
    Stay away from George Jr—he’s a veritable lighting rod….

    “6. You shall not murder.”
    Goodbye, Rumsfeld!

    “7. You shall not commit adultery.”
    That just wiped out most of the GOP, now didn’t it?

    “8. You shall not steal.”
    The entire Bush Cabinet, and all of their hideous little underlings, just went up in flames….

    “9. You shall not bear false witness.”
    Wow. The Rapture just ruptured, big-time. Evangelicals all over the place are about to imitate lemmings—and fling themselves into the sea. This probably also includes Condie Rice, by the way….

    “10. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
    The government wants this; the church wants that. Maybe we “should” do away with church-state separation. Toss ’em both in the same burlap sack, and toss them from a bridge into a very deep body of water. Sort of a “killing-two birds with one stone” sort of thing.

  • You know, guides to conduct are not unuseful, but there’s a far better set in the Buddhist vinaya. They’re divided into actions of body, speech and mind.
    The three of the body go:
    Don’t kill
    Don’t steel
    Don’t rape
    The four of speech go:
    Don’t lie
    Don’t alienate (people from each other)
    Don’t insult
    Don’t gossip
    The three of mind are:
    Don’t covet
    Don’t hate
    Don’t misconstrue
    I like them a lot. They are so easy to remember, because they make sense, they’re logical, and they’re useful.
    Their corresponding virtuous aspects are: Protect life; Give; Respect feelings; Be truthful; Reconcile (enemies); Be civil; Be sensible; Be content; Be kind; Be wise.
    I tag these on in this thread just for the record.

  • Look up the word “graven” and then ask yourself just what a monument to the ten commandments is.

    Irony is the eleventh commandment,

  • I particularly liked the Colbert question “Is there any place more suitable to put them?”

    Westmoreland seemed to forget about churches in his rant.

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