Tempting Faith

[Nbadan]

Olbermann Exclusive: Dissecting new Book: Tempting Faith
By: John Amato on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 4:59 PM - PDT

Tonight on Countdown–David Kuo, who was the number two guy at the Office of Faith Based initiatives in the White House writes a scathing account of how the administration used Christians to grab and maintain power. This story validates Tucker Carlson's admission that: "The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power."

Author David Kuo's conservative Christian credentials are impeccable; his resume sprinkled with names like Bennett and Ashcroft. Now, as the Foley cover-up has many evangelical Christians wondering whether the G.O.P. is really in sync with their values, "Tempting Faith" provides the answer: No way.

Kuo, citing one example after another of a White House that repeatedly uses evangelical Christians for their votes — while consistently giving them nothing in return;

A White House which routinely speaks of the nation's most famous evangelical leaders behind their backs, with contempt and derision.

Furthermore, Faith-Based Initiatives were not only stiffed on one public promise after another by Mr. Bush — the office itself was eventually forced to answer a higher calling: Electing Republican politicians.

Kuo's bottom line: the Bush White House is playing millions of American Christians for suckers.

According to Kuo, Karl Rove's office referred to evangelical leaders as 'the nuts.'

VIDEO AND FULL TRANSCRIPT AT:Crooks and Liars

[PixelPusher]

Olbermann Exclusive: Dissecting new Book: Tempting Faith
By: John Amato on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 4:59 PM - PDT



VIDEO AND FULL TRANSCRIPT AT:Crooks and Liars

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Part 1

Part 2

Kuo says the White House was more concerned with the appearance of doing something.

He says the Faith-Based office wasn't even set up during the 2001 transition until Mr. Bush took office and Karl Rove gave a transition volunteer less than one week to roll out the entire Faith-Based Initiative.

The volunteer asked how he should do that, without staff, without an office, or without even a plan.

According to Kuo, "Rove looked at him, took a deep breath, and said, "I don't know. Just get me a f–ing faith-based thing. Got it?"

God Bless the Bush Administration.

[BIG IRISH]

Book says Bush just using Christians

"Tempting Faith" by David Kuo


More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office is going public with an insider's tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.


The office's primary mission, providing financial support to charities that serve the poor, never got the presidential support it needed to succeed, according to the book.

En led "Tempting Faith," the book is not scheduled for release until Oct. 16, but MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" has obtained a copy.

"Tempting Faith's" author is David Kuo, who served as special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003. A self-described conservative Christian, Kuo's previous experience includes work for prominent conservatives including former Education Secretary and federal drug czar Bill Bennett and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Kuo, who has complained publicly in the past about the funding shortfalls, goes several steps further in his new book.

He says some of the nation's most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as "the nuts."

"National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy,'" Kuo writes.

More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly "nonpartisan" events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

According to Kuo, "Ken loved the idea and gave us our marching orders."

Among those marching orders, Kuo says, was Mehlman's mandate to conceal the true nature of the events.

Kuo quotes Mehlman as saying, ". (I)t can't come from the campaigns. That would make it look too political. It needs to come from the congressional offices. We'll take care of that by having our guys call the office [of faith-based initiatives] to request the visit."

Nineteen out of the 20 targeted races were won by Republicans, Kuo reports. The outreach was so extensive and so powerful in motivating not just conservative evangelicals, but also traditionally Democratic minorities, that Kuo attributes Bush's 2004 Ohio victory "at least partially . to the conferences we had launched two years before."

With the exception of one reporter from the Washington Post, Kuo says the media were oblivious to the political nature and impact of his office's events, in part because so much of the debate centered on issues of separation of church and state.

In fact, the Bush administration often promoted the faith-based agenda by claiming that existing government regulations were too restrictive on religious organizations seeking to serve the public.

Substantiating that claim proved difficult, Kuo says. "Finding these examples became a huge priority.. If President Bush was making the world a better place for faith-based groups, we had to show it was really a bad place to begin with. But, in fact, it wasn't that bad at all."

In fact, when Bush asks Kuo how much money was being spent on "compassion" social programs, Kuo claims he discovered "we were actually spending about $20 million a year less on them than before he had taken office."

The money that was appropriated and disbursed, however, often served a political agenda, Kuo claims.

"Many of the grant-winning organizations that rose to the top of the process were politically friendly to the administration," he says.

More pointedly, Kuo quotes an unnamed member of the review panel charged with rating grant applications.

"But," she said with a giggle, 'When I saw one of those non-Christian groups in the set I was reviewing, I just stopped looking at them and gave them a zero... a lot of us did.'"

"Tempting Faith" contains several other controversial claims about Kuo's office, the Bush White House and even the 1994 Republican revolution in Congress.
Credit: MSNBC
http://www.alaskareport.com/z44411.htm


First Foley, then the outing of the Velvet Mafia, and now this. I think a lot of the Religious Right will staying home and not voting on Election Day

[Extra Stout]

This book used a classified NIE report for some of its material. The NIE report was led "Sun Determined to Rise Within Eastern Sky."

[RobinsontoDuncan]

This book used a classified NIE report for some of its material. The NIE report was led "Sun Determined to Rise Within Eastern Sky."

What is an NIE report?

[Nbadan]

White House Says Rove Denies Calling Evangelicals "Nuts"

NEW YORK - Today's press briefing by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was his first since the leaks from a new book appeared, carrying revelations about the allegedly cynical use of the religious right by the White House for political gain. It quotes Karl Rove calling evangelical leaders "nuts," among many other hot charges.

The book is by a former top staffer at the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, David Kuo, and is called, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction."

Naturally Snow was asked about all this early on. He replied, "we've asked Karl, did you say the things attributed to you? He said, no." He added that Rove explained, "these are my friends, I don't talk about them like that." Snow labeled "false" the reports that the president did not take faith-based initiatives very seriously, and denied any political twists.

Editor and Publisher

See, they asked Karl, and he denied it. Case closed.

[Yonivore]

I'm sorry, to what office is Karl Rove seeking to be elected? And, who cares? Some evangelicals are nuts. Some aren't.

[Yonivore]

See, they asked Karl, and he denied it. Case closed.

So, you'd recommend a Congressional Subcommittee to investigate whether or not Karl Rove called evangelicals nuts? Or, better yet, another Special Prosecutor?

Seriously, what does it matter?

[clambake]

It's not very nice to call half of your base nuts.

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