The GOP's 800 Pound Gorilla

by DarkSyde [courtesy of Daily Kos]

Being a science writer, I can't help but gravitate toward scientific metaphors. So imagine for a second if two famous primate experts were interviewed for a nature program while an 800 pound gorilla tore the studio apart in the background. And in the midst of that chaos, the scientists avoided any mention of gorillas, while Calmly and Seriously discussing the theoretical danger posed by bunny rabbits.

Something like that happened last weekend: NBC News "chief" Tim Russert interviewed two leading 'conservative intellectuals,' Andrew Sullivan author of The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back, and Christopher Hitchens who wrote God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Both guests have been incessantly congratulated for, as the title of their books indicate, their admirable courage in transcending previously defined conservative boundaries and confronting the pernicious influence fringe ideologues and religious fundamentalists exert on the conservative movement.

Amazingly, during an hour long show, I can't recall either ‘critic’ or host raising a single question or making one comment concerning the stranglehold the religious right has on the modern Republican Party. Just for example, there was not one word spoken about conservative foreign cult figure Sun-myung Moon, his ownership of the Washington Times, its sister publication Insight which published the false story that Obama attended a hard-line militant Madrassa as a child, or any of the dozens of other scandalous connections joining ultra right wing religious icons -- some of whom who routinely concoct wild and ugly religious fabrications -- irrevocably to the Republican Party. The fact that McCain political adviser Charlie Black organized a coronation where Moon was literally crowned the Messiah in a US Senate building, and duped two US lawmakers into not just attending, but physically placing a crown on Mister and Mrs. Messiah's head did not rise to the attention of Russert or his guests. Not like there's any shortage of material.

Instead, two or three full segments of the program were exclusively dedicated to Pastor Jeremiah Wright's comments on the electoral prospects for democratic front runner Barack Obama. (To be fair, Sullivan, an outspoken Obama supporter, took time to at least try and put the issue in context.)