tempting faith: david kuo on ’60 minutes’

Crooks and Liars has video of last night’s “60 Minutes” interview with David Kuo, the former second in command of Bush’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. It’s not exactly filled with earth-shaking revelations, but it’s interesting to hear Kuo, the author of the new book “Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction,” confirming that the Bush administration has cynically played along Christian fundamentalists for political gain from the very beginning. Apparently, after being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Kuo decided that he’d better start trying to undo some of the shit he had been responsible for, and that’s what accounts for this book. Maybe I’m a sucker for believing him, but he really does sound genuine when he talks about not only of how Bush failed the evangelicals, but how the evangelicals failed themselves and God by turning their focus from helping the poor to attacking the gay. It’s worth watching.

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13 Comments

  1. Jack
    Posted October 17, 2006 at 10:13 am | Permalink

    I’m surprised Pat Roberston hasn’t suggested that Kuo’s brain tumor is “The Wrath of God” yet. Oh crap, does P.R. read you blog? Not sure I want to give him any ideas.

  2. Ted Glass
    Posted October 17, 2006 at 3:05 pm | Permalink

    I think the brain tumor came before his departure from the Bush camp, but I suppose God, being all knowing, could have foreseen that.

  3. Ted Glass
    Posted October 17, 2006 at 3:51 pm | Permalink

    Either way we’re fucked though. Either he (Bush) really believes this Left Behind bullshit, or he just pretends to in order to stir up the evangelicals to obtain and then stay in power. The end result is the same. It’s dangerous, disgusting, and antithetical to the real teachings of Jesus Christ.

  4. egpenet
    Posted October 17, 2006 at 4:17 pm | Permalink

    November 7 should be interesting, because the fundies DO feel let down … by how much we’ll seee. The ultimate dream is a world apocalypse in the Middle East … so Jesus can come … so believes the Monohans, Gibsons, Robertsons and their ilk.

    Getting for himself is Bush’s (power corrupts) only goal. Two more years and he’s on Easy Street. Like Clinton, who’s making some attempts to make up for his sins while in office.

    Democrat … Republican … today there is very little difference. Nothing gets done in Lansing or Washington. It all stays the same … unless they get caught with their hand in the till, or continuing to rape the Indians, or fondling senate pages.

  5. mark
    Posted October 17, 2006 at 8:49 pm | Permalink

    The existence of Pat Robertson and the rest of them is proof that God does not exist.

  6. mark
    Posted October 17, 2006 at 8:53 pm | Permalink

    I don’t really mean that. The existence of Robertson and his ilk is not proof that God does not exist, just that God does not care… at least about us.

  7. egpenet
    Posted October 17, 2006 at 9:56 pm | Permalink

    Mark, now you see the strange appeal of the atheist Darwinists like David Dawkins, who would dismiss anything Pat Robertson says or does as chemicals misfiring or axons and dendrites run amok. Neither God nor Robertson are issues. Chemistry is the secret of life.

  8. mark
    Posted October 17, 2006 at 11:14 pm | Permalink

    Chemistry doesn’t promise 73 virgins upon death though.

  9. ol' e cross
    Posted October 18, 2006 at 8:35 am | Permalink

    But Sidetrack says beer is the proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy … confusion setting in … Ben Franklin versus Mark Maynard, can God make a weight so big he can’t lift it … malt, televangelists, pterodactyl porn, roses, roses, roses, … worldview breaking down … metaphysical cataclysm … darkness of heart … all is darkness … all is need … need dark beer…

    Aaaah, beer. Thank you Jeebus.

  10. ol' e cross
    Posted October 18, 2006 at 8:35 am | Permalink

    But Sidetrack says beer is the proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy … confusion setting in … Ben Franklin versus Mark Maynard, can God make a weight so big he can’t lift it … malt, televangelists, pterodactyl porn, roses, roses, roses, … worldview breaking down … metaphysical cataclysm … darkness of heart … all is darkness … all is need … need dark beer…

    Aaaah, beer. Thank you Jeebus.

  11. egpenet
    Posted October 18, 2006 at 9:58 am | Permalink

    Aquinas fans …

    Beer IS chemistry. “God” (according to Dawkins) is chemistry. Therefore, beer is God.

  12. ol' e cross
    Posted October 18, 2006 at 10:12 am | Permalink

    I’ll drink to that.

  13. ol' e cross
    Posted October 18, 2006 at 10:12 am | Permalink

    I’ll drink to that.

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