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"Scam" ads the norm Trail Mix: Hillary haters spam cyberspace Gunning for the center Democrats make Hillary legit The blundering pundit Don Giuliani Campaign video: |
Mud-slinging with a spin | page 1, 2 But Rudman, the former Republican senator from New Hampshire, never said "about the Christian Coalition that they're bigots." In 1996, four years after he retired from the Senate, Rudman's book "Combat: Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate" was published. In it, Rudman argued that "in my experience, religious zeal and politics don't mix. Look at Belfast, Beirut and Bosnia if you want proof." Rudman decried the presence on the political right of "anti-abortion zealots, would-be censors, homophobes, bigots and latter-day Elmer Gantrys." But he never tied any of those pejoratives to any group or name, certainly not the Christian Coalition.
Rudman's harshest analysis came when describing a press conference held in November 1995 by a number of Christian conservatives to denounce retired Gen. Colin Powell, and to discourage him from even thinking about running for president. These leaders included Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer, David Keene and Grover Norquist. Rudman wrote that "in a remarkable display of political obtuseness, a group of far-right leaders called reporters in and denounced" a possible Powell candidacy. "Not only did these political pipsqueaks question Powell's views on such issues as abortion and gun control," Rudman wrote, "but they challenged his character and his military record. This from people who not only have never heard a shot fired in anger, but have never even dropped by a PX for an ice cream cone. It was an amazing display not only of arrogance but of fear, because these people know that Colin Powell embodies the very opposite of the ignorance and bigotry that they represent." That's it. That's the passage on which Bush based his accusation that Rudman "said about the Christian Coalition that they're bigots." That hasn't stopped Bush from squeezing as much political energy out of it as he can. A taped phone message from televangelist Pat Robertson told Michigan voters that McCain's buddy Rudman is "a vicious bigot who wrote that conservative Christians in politics are anti-abortion zealots, homophobes and would-be censors. John McCain refused to repudiate these words." But, again, Rudman never "wrote that conservative Christians in politics are anti-abortion zealots, homophobes and would-be censors." He wrote that there are some "conservative Christians in politics" who fit that description, but he certainly never said that all of them do. Matthews, however, argues that the shot against Rudman is a fair one. "Clearly Warren Rudman is a man of tremendous individualism," Matthews says. "And when he left office, he decided to clear the decks, and I think he was too broad-brushed in [what he wrote]." You can't expect people not to factor their religious views into their political perspective, Matthews argues, so Rudman's argument that "religious zeal and politics don't mix" is fallacious. "Metaphysically and philosophically, a person who believes that abortion is the taking of a human life, one that's indefensible ... to say that that person shouldn't let that view guide them in their voting -- I mean, of course it should affect their ideology and philosophy. Rudman made the mistake of being so unaware of what he wrote that he didn't know it would hurt his candidate." Still, when it comes to Bush’s refusal to condemn the policies of Bob Jones, Matthews says, "I hear the same silence that you do." McCain staffers point out that Bush's tactic accomplishes its goals, which are to change the subject from Bush's tolerance for indisputably racist and anti-Catholic sentiment and to muddy the waters by saying that if Bush's buddies are racist and anti-Catholic, McCain's are anti-Christian and therefore bigoted as well. McCain is "pitting people against each other in this nation on the basis of religion," says Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. But that's not quite what's going on. McCain is trying to pit Catholics against Bush for cozying up to anti-Catholics. "Bush has proven to be a master at taking any criticism McCain throws at him and hurling it back twice as hard, painting McCain as negative in the process," says Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz. "The success of Bush's effort in South Carolina was gauged by the remarkable fact that more people thought McCain had run a negative campaign than Bush, even as Bush was bombarding the state with negative ads. The problem in all this for McCain is that the more he's involved in a mud-throwing contest with Gov. Bush, the more he loses the reformer's aura that had powered his campaign until recently." It’s a skillful game of spin, and Bush is already trying it out against the man he might oppose in November. Campaigning in Michigan on Sunday, Bush was told that Vice President Al Gore had derided his willy-nillying on the Confederate flag and his palsy-walsying with Bob Jones. "What Vice President Gore likes to do is the typical Washington politics of calling people names," Bush said. "He likes the politics of personal destruction and the people are sick of it. I look forward to debating -- his kind of politics are so stale and so negative." "Shame on him. Shame on him," Bush said.
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