Ya Think?

David Kuo, who we all know has been possessed by evil, liberal demons, presents some interesting statistics in today's NYT:

Evangelicals are beginning to see the effect of their political involvement on those with whom they hope to share Jesus' eternal message: non-evangelicals. Tellingly, Beliefnet's poll showed that nearly 60 percent of non-evangelicals have a more negative view of Jesus because of Christian political involvement; almost 40 percent believe that George W. Bush's faith has had a negative impact on his presidency.

Wow. That's a surprise, huh? You present Jesus as some kind of sex-obsessed, militia-adoring, consumer-spending-icon who hates on women, hates on gays, and hates on brown people and then you're surprised that a majority of other folks don't want to have anything to do with your religion? You evangelicals help install the Bush junta because you believe patent bullshit about his "deep xianity," he destroys our country and the Middle East, insists that his wrong-headed policies come from "a higher father," and you're amazed to find that lots of people would probably just as soon have someone from the local UU church sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? You people must be drinking the communion wine, because there's really no other excuse for such blindness and stupidity.

Kuo also gets something that I'd think would have been clear to most evangelicals, especially if Falwell, Dobson, et al., desperate to hold onto power, weren't working very hard to make sure that they didn't notice:

There is also the matter of the record, which I saw being shaped during my time in the White House. Conservative Christians (like me) were promised that having an evangelical like Mr. Bush in office was a dream come true. Well, it wasn't. Not by a long shot. The administration accomplished little that evangelicals really cared about.

Nowhere was this clearer than on the issue of abortion. Despite strong Republican majorities, and his own pro-life stands, Mr. Bush settled for the largely symbolic partial-birth abortion restriction rather than pursuing more substantial change. (War is apparently A-OK with conservative xians (like Kuo) because he doesn't mention that. Who would Jesus bomb and waterboard?)

Gee, Mr. Kuo, feel used much? Feel like a chump, much? Why would Bush have delivered on his promises to criminalize all abortion? If he'd done that, he wouldn't have been able to whistle every election season and get chumps like you to donate, vote, and turn over your church directories to Karl Rove.

And the rest of us are supposed to let geniuses like you run our lives? Control our bodies? Run our schools? Spend our tax dollars?

I.don't.think.so.