Bill Maher: "Now We Know Where They Get All The Screwups: Pat Robertson"

Posted by Bruce Wilson at 11:25 AM on April 15, 2007.

In this video clip, Bill Maher savages the "Pat Robertson Law School Army" within the Bush Administration ; Maher is funny enough, and it's worth a watch.

But what's really funny, in a sick sort of way, is the fact that people who specialize in actually paying attention to the Christian right, rather than simply mocking it during periodic outbreaks of evangelical sex scandals, have known for years that the Bush Administration has been stuffed with religious ideologues. Below, you'll find the perspectives of five people who spend most or all of their time observing, studying, and writing on the Christian right : specialists even ! What did they think about the Monica Goodling hullaballoo ?

Well, from my perspective let me tell you ; when the Monica Goodling "story" broke, I thought to myself : "That's a story ? Isn't it common knowledge that the Bush Administration is crawling with acolytes from Regent University, Liberty University, Patrick Henry College, and so on ? " I didn't even bother to write about it initially. Why bother ? There are cows in fields too, all over America. Is that a notable phenomenon, or a startling one ? That's how I thought of the Bush administration's religious ideologue packing, and that was due in large part to the fact that a number of people who track the religious right noted the proliferation of religious ideologues in the Bush Administration, years ago. Indeed, the Christian right began a concerted effort to take over the GOP over a decade and a half ago, and by this point the Republican Party is, as a matter of course, stuffed with Christian conservative activists anyway. The main reason the Goodling "story" didn't come out years ago, I'd assert, is because there's mass collective resistance to the concept that studying the religious right might just be a specialty all to itself.

Actually, the political movement of the Christian and religious right is an entire field of study. Try wrapping your head around not just politics but religion... simultaneously ; learn about many different theologies, myriad cults and sects, organizations, scams, rackets, televangelist personalities, methods of slyly advancing religious ideology... Politics alone is vastly complex, so try adding the adding dimension of religion to the mix. That's a vast field of study, and it's vastly complex. Or, if you will, it doesn't exist at all ; pick door #2, though, and you get a media and political culture that's collectively dumb as a bag of hammers to such ongoing phenomenon as the penetration of US government by religious ideologues working to advance partisan and even theocratic agendas. Oddly, observes 3-decade long veteran religion and politics researcher Chip Berlet, American public awareness of the Christian right may be outstripping that of pundits and journalists who have recently been declaring the Christian right, as a movement, dead. Another observer now into his 3rd decade of tracking the Christian right, journalist Frederick Clarkson advocates for an approach that moves past the crisis du jour and advises: "It is long past time to get very serious; and take a look at how politics might play out over the long run; consider what it will take for constitutional democracy and the values of democratic pluralism to prevail".

So, here's how five people who spend a lot of time paying attention to the Christian right, specialists in the field if you will, addressed and thought about the Goodling flap.

In Yet Another Sleeper Cell, Jeff Sharlet, who has a fine article in this month's Rolling Stone on Ron Luce's quasi-fascistic "BattleCry", writes:

There's much concern that the Bush administration has been allowing the infiltration of federal government by Christian fundamentalist "sleeper cells," political appointees whose first loyalty is not to the Constitution, but a reductionist understanding of the Bible. It's true, of course, and here's another one..... In my latest Rolling Stone story, "Teenage Holy War" (only the first quarter of it's online, here; the rest is in the issue on the stands now) I wrote of one such character, Rebecca Contreras, whom I saw "lecture" at the east Texas Honor Academy of Ron Luce, a fundamentalist youth leader....

Notice Sharlet's wry point, that Regent University isn't the only "training camp" ? OK, let's move on to Max Blumenthal's treatment:

IN The Press Discovers Pat Robertson's Real Influence (Thanks to the Other Monica) Max Blumenthal wrote:

When Monica Goodling's name erupted into the news last week, the mainstream press discovered suddenly that Pat Robertson's Regent University exists. Not only that, the press learned that it has made a deep footprint in George W. Bush's Washington.....

....While Robertson's hysterical episodes deserved all the coverage they generated, with a few notable exceptions, the mainstream press habitually ignored his political machinations. Robertson and his cadres exploited this lack of scrutiny to quietly erect a sophisticated and far-reaching political network that today propells the Christian right's ongoing march through the institutions.

The mainstream press could not have made its recent discovery of Robertson's influence on its own, of course. As is so often the case, they needed a little push from the blogosphere and independent media.

Hint, hint. OK, now to my take:

I had a rather acerbic take on the Goodling satori, and I hope I didn't put off potential allies but sometimes these things must be said:

My GOD ! There are about 150 graduates of Pat Robertson's Regent University within the Bush Administration, almost like a huge Al Qaeda sleeper cell !.... Well, not really ;  for one thing, Al Qaeda terrorists don't, as far I'm aware, publish their affiliations on public websites, and a "sleeper cell" that can be outed by a few minutes of Googling isn't much of a sleeper cell, is it ?

Actually, I doubt Monica Goodling or her other Regent University cohorts worried about secrecy much. It actually wasn't, up to now, at all necessary because nobody was paying attention

Researchers and journalists Frederick Clarkson and Chip Berlet have been studying the Christian right or more than three decades and provide the long view. Berlet, Senior Political Analyst for Political Research Associates, writes about a recent speaking tour, his appearance on a University Of Colorado panel, and his sense that American public awareness on the religious right may be outstripping the awareness of the phenomenon held by opinionizing elites (who Maggie Thatcher once referred to as the chattering classes) :

The audiences were interested in exploring the aspects related to the Religious Right, and many of the audience questions touched on the subject. It’s amazing to me that so many political pundits and journalists are declaring the passing of the Religious Right just as more and more people are waking up to the problems posed by the aggressive Dominionist and Theocratic tendencies we discuss here at Talk2Action.

It is heartening to see columnist Paul Krugman warn about the power of the Religious Right within the Bush Administration, even if this is old news to us. (See: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/13/504/) Even more heartening is the interest in and level of knowledge about the Religious Right I am finding in audiences across the country, at conferences and speeches, and on radio programs.

Frederick Clarkson, writing on how the American mainstream views and copes with the Christian right movement, takes both Democratic Party wisdom but also public and media reactiveness to task and asks : are such manic, collective freakouts, as in by the recent, belated realization that there are 150 graduates from Pat Robertson' regent university within the Bush Administration, really necessary ? Is there another, more productive way of coping with the Christian right ? Well yes, explains Clarkson:

It is currently fashionable to talk about the "think tanks" of the right, and new ones of the sorta left. But the success of the right has always been about much more than think tanks. And contrary to certain of the Conventional Wisdom in the Democratic Party, a few think tanks are not a panacea in response to the right in general, and the religious right in particular....

One of the reasons the religious right will have staying power as a political and social movment for a long time to come, is the creation of a variety of sustainable institutions that have a vision for the long term....

Clarkson cites an assessment on the Christian right he wrote back in 2001 for Public Eye Magazine and notes that it is still relevant today. Indeed, I'd add, Clarkson's take is still, for many probably, news:

Several main trends are evident in the current fortunes of the Christian Right. First, the major institutions of the Christian Right, once bastions of fire and brimstone rhetoric and a transcendent vision of the once and future Christian Nation, have become practitioners of political compromise and coalition building. This is especially true in the case of national electoral politics. Second, the Christian Right has been largely incorporated into the Republican Party apparatus. Finally, and perhaps most important, the Christian Right is now largely institutionalized throughout society. The movement has come a long way in a short time....

...the quiet institutionalization of the Christian Right is a far more dramatic, if less visible trend than any single clash in the culture war.

Is it really necessary for public and media attention to lurch from scandal to scandal and from one collective freakout on the political power of the Christian right to the next ? Pat Robertson's Regent University, notes Frederick Clarkson, is far from the only institution on the Christian right training the next generation of leaders in the culture war ; from Liberty University to Patrick Henry College, numerous institutions are grooming crops of young leaders-to-be and we don't yet know their names but we soon may. So, is there a less reactive way to deal with the Christian right as a movement, a way that avoids avoidance and dismissal, and collective, manic, freakouts ? Calm down, advises Clarkson, who is into his third decade of tracking the Christian right, we're in it for the long haul :

While politics necessarily takes on a certain short-term urgency, often driven by the crisis du jour in the media, people across the political spectrum are kidding themselves if they think that one or another scandal, such as Ted Haggard, somehow ultimately discredits the religious right. Additionally, the fortunes of the religious right are not entirely synonymous with the Republican Party, or the outcomes of one or another state or national election. The movement will exist far beyond the lifetimes of everyone reading this blog post, and the tale of these two universities, among others, are among the reasons why.

It is long past time for people concerned about these things to calm way down; it is possible to sustain a sense of appropriate urgency without getting manic about these things. While people have different psychological make-ups, from what I have observed over 25 years is that this is the main way to be able to pay attention to these things in an ongoing fashion and learn to become effective; without burning out.

It is long past time to get very serious; and take a look at how politics might play out over the long run; consider what it will take for constitutional democracy and the values of democratic pluralism to prevail, and even advance in response to the theocratic movements of our time....

Take a few deep breaths. We are in this for the long haul.

Tagged as: goodling

Bruce Wilson writes for Talk To Action, a blog specializing in faith and politics.