Rove's New Wedges

[Wwagsthedog]

This scares me.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8713

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s Biblically-inspired defiance of a court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument may be provoking sneers in the Washington-New York microcosm. But in the Bible Belt, Moore’s contempt for the federal judiciary is echoed by millions and has helped erect yet another electoral hurdle for the Democrats in 2004.

The ultimate outcome of the legal battle over "Roy's Rock" -- as the media dubbed the two-and-a-half ton replica of the Ten Commandments Moore had installed at his own expense -- has never been in doubt. In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled definitively that posting the Ten Commandments on public buildings violates the separation of church and state because they are "undeniably a sacred text."

As USA Today noted in a tart editorial: "The high court's authority is no less important today as some state officials use an important part of Jewish and Christian religious tradition in a divisive game of one-upmanship that is an affront both to religion and to the ideals of a tolerant civil society."

But the Supreme Court, never terribly popular with the electorate because it has frequently made unpopular decisions, took a major hit in public opinion after striking down the so-called "sodomy" laws in 13 states. In recent weeks there have been a half dozen national polls measuring a sizable anti-gay backlash and so the Supremes find themselves more unpopular than ever.

In this enflamed context, Moore’s posturing strikes a chord. As the noted Southern historian Shelby Foote remarked to The New York Times, "He made it sound like he stood for God and everybody who opposed him was against God. For a lot of people with simple minds, that makes perfect sense."

More.....

[mike6640]

1. that 'ol black and white thinking again

yer either with us or against us....for some people it is easier than pondering the uncertainties of life.

[damnraddem]

2. We need to use a few wedges of out own.

For example, there are a few Catholics in the South. They should be made fully aware of Moore's 10 -- they're not the same as those Catholics learn.

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. It's God, Gays, Guns...

when it isn't 9/11.

You won't actually hear a GOP policy argument from now until 2005 sometime. All symbolic politics, all the time.

[jody]

4. Add Scary Brady and her bunch of gun grabbers and the three wedge

issues can be very costly in lost votes to we Democrats.

If Moore, Brady, and the Supreme decision did not exist, Karl Rove would have to create and fund them.