Steve Clemons reprints a short essay from the Chris Nelson Report (subscription only, apparently) that explains what is happening to America since Bush was elected.
This is the "money Quote" in my opinion:
"What we are seeing is a fight for the political soul of the nation. We've had these before, in the existential sense. . .in my political lifetime, the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women's rights versus, to a certain extent, the right to life movement. But this time it's totally and completely a fight about God. . .specifically, whether God is going to rule in the United States.
The Constitution says that would be illegal, and any serious expert can tell you that not only were the Founders liberal in their interpretation of the Deity, but they intentionally enshrined a purely secular civic government, including the courts. They didn't think that Jesus had an official plan for us, much less did they think that politicians who defined their duties in secular terms were defying the word of God."
[Underlining mine - RB]
Chris Nelson's report should be read by every American who is not a theocrat.
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I have one complaint with Steve Clemon's set up for the report, and I left the following comment on his blog.
The quote is from Steve Clemons. The remainder is my comment.
"...it paints both the Democrats and Republicans amorally triangulating around the White House's winner-takes-all, win-every-battle obsession in the Tom DeLay and John Bolton fiascos."
I'm going to question the term "amorally" that you used in your setup. If that were all this battle is, then it could be fought without ultimate danger to America. But it misses to point.
In fact, this is at the core a battle-to-the-death between two views of morality, being fought by strong partisans, each with their amoral politician allies.
The battle is about whether America will keep its secular Constitution as the basic law of the land, or if there will be a board of theocrats placed in a position to overrule decisions and punish people who violate the law as they see the Bible has established.
It is a battle between the morality of God's law as interpreted by theocrats from the inerrant Bible, as opposed to the morality of the Rule of Law based on the secular law of the Constitution as interpreted by the thousand year tradition of the English Common Law.
In many ways, we are refighting the English Civil War, and the Roundheads already own the Parliament and the Executive.
But the Republican Roundheads have gotten more subtle, so that the Democrats don't dare come right out and attempt to brand them as the anti-American theocrats they really are for fear of sounding so shrill that the American public just shuts them out until too late.
That is the lesson of Howard Dean and many moderate Democrats before him. These Republican roundheads make spirited opposition sound like wackos shouting on a soapbox.
Since the Republicans have such a disciplined sound machine that everyone speaks the same lines, a federation of interests like the Democrats with individuals who attempt to stand on moral grounds in opposition to the Democrats appear to each be lone wackos with crazy messages going up against the common wisdom.
Howard Dean came out with spirited opposition to the War in Iraq and was dismissed as a crazy. Kerry was more restrained and was defeated as too weak to be able to provide America with the security it clearly requires.
That may be ending, since the Republicans are now attacking the "Rule of Law" at its' roots and so clearly attempting to install a theocracy.
But in essence, I disagree with your characterization of amorality. This really is a battle of two contending moralities, one rational, secular, and described as the Rule of Law, and the other irrational and based on the Law of God as expressed by the inerrant Bible - which they interpret.
Since the fundamentalists in power are bat-shit crazy, I know which side I take. Very shortly every American is going to have to choose his side. These people are afraid of the modern world, and fear the loss of any battle they fight. It is going to require an equivalent no-holds-barred war to stop them.
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