Rod Dreher Notes a New Meme

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCIX

In a blog at The Corner today (emphasis in original):

President Bush's support for the Federal Marriage Amendment is now being linked by the media to "The Passion of the Christ," and not in a complimentary way. Exhibit A, from today's Boston Globe, is this analysis excerpted here: But in choosing to wade so deeply into the cultural divide, Bush also gave a nod to the more than 45 percent of Americans who were likely to vote for him anyway — the same people in the evenly divided electorate to whom he reached out in his remarks before the Super Bowl last month, in his NASCAR visit in Florida, and in his expressing interest in seeing "The Passion of the Christ." The Globe connects the dots for you. Being "uncompassionate" (their formulation) about gays is tied to enjoying NASCAR and wanting to see the Jesus movie. The subtext is: "Look at the auto-racing, Jesus-loving gay-bashers and the president who panders to them." Exhibit B is today's hysterical Maureen Dowd screed, which implies that Bush is in league with Jesus-loving, "Passion"-watching gay bashers who secretly harbor a desire to bash Jews. Expect this theme to be repeated ad infinitum from here through November. It's Red vs. Blue all over again — but this time, Blue is going for the jugular.

Here are the cited articles.

First, from today's Boston Globe (brackets in original):

In declaring his support for a constitutional ban on gay marriage, President Bush followed a developing pattern in his campaign — an emphasis on the "conservative" part of his message rather than the "compassionate" aspect he relied so heavily on in the 2000 race.

Bush advisers say that the decision about gay marriage was largely driven by current events and that he probably would have refrained from speaking out so soon if same-sex couples in San Francisco were not getting married and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court wasn't forcing the Legislature to wrestle with the issue.

But in choosing to wade so deeply into the cultural divide, Bush also gave a nod to the more than 45 percent of Americans who were likely to vote for him anyway — the same people in the evenly divided electorate to whom he reached out in his remarks before the Super Bowl last month, in his NASCAR visit in Florida, and in his expressing interest in seeing "The Passion of the Christ."

At this stage of seeking reelection, Bush is clearly focused more on Republicans than the narrow slice of the electorate that is up for grabs — a distinct shift from his approach in 2000.

"You can spend a lot of time and money trying to appeal to that 10 percent of voters who are in the middle, or you can spend it on that 45 percent who are for my team, half of whom don't remember to vote," Grover Norquist, a political analyst and close White House ally, said. "The gay marriage issue doesn't really switch votes. It reminds his voters why they should remember to vote. This speaks to 'the base.'"

In practical terms, Bush's stance toward gay marriage may not do much more than that.

History shows that presidents rarely influence the fate of constitutional-amendment proposals; the Constitution gives them no role in the process at all. It is also a lengthy ordeal that, in this case, will almost certainly last beyond the November elections.

As a result, it is relatively easy for Bush, like presidents in the past, to embrace the idea of a constitutional amendment during election season without having to follow up with any real time investment — or suffer the blame if it passes or fails.

"Presidents really don't have much effect on the amending process," said Richard B. Bernstein, a constitutional historian who is a specialist on that process. "Most presidents play games with the process; it happened a lot in the 1980s and 1990s."

For example, Bernstein said, "Ronald Reagan talked a lot about a balanced-budget amendment, but he never fully committed to making it a reality. The same with [the first] President Bush; he never committed his political capital to that amendment."

Bush has expressed his desire to block attempts to legalize gay marriage for more than a year, and there is little doubt that Bush sincerely opposes an expansion of marriage beyond the union of a man and a woman.

Once the SJC decision came down, followed by the San Francisco mayor's issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples in violation of California law, Bush believed it was urgent for him to step in as a leader, advisers said. Apart from his own moral code, Bush also needed to assure his sometimes-restive conservative supporters, irritated by spiraling federal spending and a growing budget deficit, that he would be willing to take a stand on an issue as important as this. In so doing, he also erased the last grievance that social conservatives held against Bush.

The risk of inaction for Bush, according to Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, was that "when a cultural crisis unfolds without leadership, there becomes a fear that is immobilizing, and that would carry over into the election."

"That fear has turned into energy" among social conservatives, Perkins said.

"The only issue with the base — the religious, conservative base — was, 'When is he going to make this announcement?'" said Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis magazine and an ally of the White House. "Now that it's been made, there aren't any other issues pressing."

At the same time, Hudson said, Bush is "doing something that makes his conservative base very happy, but it comes at the cost of potentially discouraging people in the party coalition who are afraid of this issue or disagree with it," such as moderates and gay Republicans.

Several of his political advisers believe strongly that it is just as important, if not more so, to appeal to the Republican base than to potential swing voters, who make up no more than 10 percent of the electorate, or as little as 4 percent.

Advisers also say his focus on Republicans is essential as a counterweight to energized Democrats and to begin rallying supporters to turn out and vote. Advisers say the key is to have more Republicans at the polls than Democrats, which alone would win the race for Bush regardless of how many independents or last-minute deciders there are.

"This is a marathon, not a sprint," one Bush adviser said of the president's decision to home in on conservatives at this stage of the campaign. As for moderates and swing voters, the adviser said, "There will be plenty of time for that."

In the past, presidents have had almost no impact on the constitutional-amendment process, which tends to be driven more by advocacy groups and members of Congress.

President Carter got some credit for embracing the Equal Rights Amendment, to give women full legal equality, which eventually failed. His role, however, was apparently not much greater than that of his wife, Rosalyn, who signed a resolution endorsing ERA's passage. "The impetus came more from the women's movement, working with their friends in Congress," not Carter, said Sylvia Law, a New York University professor of constitutional law.

Perhaps the only president to move an amendment forward was Abraham Lincoln, who led the way for the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. "He was really involved in getting it through Congress, really exerting pressure," noted Daniel Farber, a constitutional historian and law professor at Boalt Hall, the law school at the University of California.

But even Lincoln was not involved in the process of drafting the changes, a measure of how unimportant a president's stamp of approval can be.

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Second, the "hysterical" "screed" by Maureen Dowd at NYT today (ellipsis in original).

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Mel Gibson and George W. Bush are courting bigotry in the name of sanctity.

The moviemaker wants to promote "The Passion of the Christ" and the president wants to prevent the passion of the gays.

Opening on two screens: W.'s stigmatizing as political strategy and Mel's stigmata as marketing strategy.

Mr. Gibson, who told Diane Sawyer that he was inspired to make the movie after suffering through addictions, found the ultimate 12-step program: the Stations of the Cross.

I went to the first show of "The Passion" at the Loews on 84th Street and Broadway; it was about a quarter filled. This is not, as you may have read, a popcorn movie. In Latin and Aramaic with English subtitles, it's two gory hours of Jesus getting flayed by brutish Romans at the behest of heartless Jews.

Perhaps fittingly for a production that licensed a jeweler to sell $12.99 nail necklaces (what's next? crown-of-thorns prom tiaras?), "The Passion" has the cartoonish violence of a Sergio Leone Western. You might even call it a spaghetti crucifixion, "A Fistful of Nails."

Writing in The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor, scorns it as "a repulsive, masochistic fantasy, a sacred snuff film" that uses "classically anti-Semitic images."

I went with a Jewish pal, who tried to stay sanguine. "The Jews may have killed Jesus," he said. "But they also gave us `Easter Parade.' "

The movie's message, as Jesus says, is that you must love not only those who love you, but more importantly those who hate you.

So presumably you should come out of the theater suffused with charity toward your fellow man.

But this is a Mel Gibson film, so you come out wanting to kick somebody's teeth in.

In "Braveheart" and "The Patriot," his other emotionally manipulative historical epics, you came out wanting to swing an ax into the skull of the nearest Englishman. Here, you want to kick in some Jewish and Roman teeth. And since the Romans have melted into history...

Like Mr. Gibson, Mr. Bush is whipping up intolerance but calling it a sacred cause.

At first, the preacher-in-chief resisted conservative calls for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. He felt, as Jesus put it in the Gibson script (otherwise known as the Gospels), "If it is possible, let this chalice pass from me."

But under pressure from the Christian right, he grabbed the chalice with both hands and swigged — seeking to set a precedent in codifying discrimination in the Constitution, a document that in the past has been amended to correct discrimination by giving fuller citizenship rights to blacks, women and young people.

If the president is truly concerned about preserving the sanctity of marriage, as one of my readers suggested, why not make divorce illegal and stone adulterers?

Our soldiers are being killed in Iraq; Osama's still on the loose; jobs are being exported all over the world; the deficit has reached biblical proportions.

And our president is worrying about Mars and marriage?

When reporters tried to pin down White House spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday on why gay marriage is threatening, he spouted a bunch of gobbledygook about "the fabric of society" and civilization.

The pols keep arguing that institutions can't be changed when, in fact, they change all the time. Haven't they ever heard of the institution of slavery?

The government should not be trying to legislate what's sacred.

When Bushes get in trouble, they look around for a politically advantageous bogeyman. Lee Atwater tried to make Americans shudder over the prospect of Willie Horton arriving on their doorstep; and now Karl Rove wants Americans to shudder at the prospect of a lesbian — Dick Cheney's daughter Mary, say — setting up housekeeping next door with her "wife."

When it comes to the Bushes' willingness to stir up base instincts of the base, it is as it was.

As the Max von Sydow character said in Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters," while watching a TV evangelist appealing for money: "If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Do these articles trouble you, Faithful Reader? Did you expect those folks to do otherwise? Surely, not by now.

But perhaps I should remind you about Core's Law of Old Media:

We see the Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode partly because America's liberals believe their own lying propaganda.

Seriously. Learn to enjoy these kinds of things now. And think of all the fun you're going to have come November. :-)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 02/26/04 10:04:35 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Media.