Why, Clinton's Christmas Message Was More Evangelical Than Ours!

[journalist3072]

I subscribe to Roll Call's email newsletter, and this was a part of it yesterday! A Repug trying to explain that Harriet Miers opposed the Christmas message he wrote on behalf of the Bush White House, and saying that he looked at President Clinton's old Christmas messages, and they were more "evangelical" than Bush II's.

"Former aide to Miers claims his Christmas message was too Christian for her

Writing for www.christianworldviewnetwork.com, a Christian Evangelical website, a young social conservative expressed his frustration and doubt about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' conservative credentials based on an incident when their paths crossed early on in the Bush administration. Ned Ryun is a 30-something conservative activist who heads Generation Joshua, a group that encourages young, Christian conservatives to get involved in politics. He wrote correspondence for Bush when Meirs served as Bush's staff secretary (the staffer responsible for reviewing the paperwork that presidents review and approve). In 2001, Ryun was assigned to write the President's Christmas message. "After researching Reagan, Bush, and Clinton's previous Christmas messages, I wrote something that was well within the bounds of what had been previously written (and in case you are wondering, Clinton's messages were far more evangelical than the elder Bush's)," he wrote, adding that his immediate superiors approved the message. But Miers had a problem with it because "the message might offend people of other faiths, i.e., that the message was too Christian. She wanted me to change it. I refused to change the message (In my poor benighted reasoning, I actually think that Christmas is an overtly Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Christ and the beginning of the redemption of man.)," Ryun wrote. Ryun said he took his complaint to Ken Mehlman, who is Jewish and served as the political director at the time. "He was not offended by it in the least. Miers insisted that I change the tone of the message. I again refused, and after several weeks, the assignment was taken out of my hands," Ryun wrote. "I was later encouraged to apologize to Miers. I did not apologize." Ryun uses the incident to illustrate why the conservative base is less than thrilled with Mier's nomination. He concludes that, "Some will probably write that incident off as an insignificant, almost meaningless, occurrence. And perhaps it is. But Miers purposefully sought to dilute the Christianity of the message, thus revealing to me at least a willingness to compromise unnecessarily without outside pressure. That is my opinion based off that experience and I would be more than happy to be proved wrong."

[DanCa]

1. Deed's not words

I find the people that some of the people who shout jesus the loudest are the ones who have him least in thier hearts.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. If you're impressed with Clinton's Christmas messages, Harriet,

you oughta take a look at all the notes on the National Security Briefs he was given.

[journalist3072]

3. Just to clarify

It wasn't Harriet Myers that was impressed with Clinton's Christmas messages. It was Ned Ryun, the one who was responsible for writing the message for Bush II's Christmas cards.

And he had to submit the text of what he wrote, up the chain for approval. He's aruging that Harriet Myers disapproved his Christmas message because she said it was "too Christian" and might offend some people.

And he said he research a few former President's Christmas messages, and he said Clinton's Christmas messages were more "evangelical" than the ones he wrote for Bush.

[MrBenchley]

4. LOL!!!

I love this stuff!!

""Some will probably write that incident off as an insignificant, almost meaningless, occurrence. And perhaps it is."
But not to the screwloose pieces of shit that the GOP have spent the last 35 years pandering to!

"thus revealing to me at least a willingness to compromise unnecessarily without outside pressure."
And that would be bad because....(snicker)

[shifting_sands]

5. What do you mean "Christian"

I am an evangelical Christian and have wondered for 4 years what was wrong with me. My church was suggesting I support a government and administration who was clearly operating against the principles I had been taught as a Christian, principles I taught my children, principles I believed in and tried to follow in my own life and believing every single person has the right to follow their own spiritual path. Suddenly it seemed it's "Christian" to hate, corruption became "Christian," greed became "Christian," torture became "Christian" living by the sword became "Christian" as did power hungry men and women who said they were "leading" this country and I haven't been able to reconcile their words with the deeds, and forcing others to believe as I do became "Christian." I hear nothing of "judge not least ye be judged," or "love thy neighbor as ye would love thyself." Those who say they are Christian seem filled with hatred, greed, fear, judgment and a strong focus on robbing from the poor to give to the rich.

It isn't enough to say I'm a Christian, I strive to live the Commandments and the Beatitudes, sadly, I am not seeing that same commitment among evangelical Christians these days. I pray everyday as Christ prayed "forgive us Father for we know not what we do," and I have faith that God will lead us out of this black wilderness into His light once again. I certainly don't intend to follow a church or the leader of a political party that don't seem to have even a nodding acquaintance with the teachings of God, much less Jesus.

Since when do we have the moral superiority to tell anyone what their path toward God should be? The United States is a country, one country among many, we are a government. Show me in the Bible where Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John became part of a government. Show me in the Bible where its even suggested that "religious" people should even become politicians.

Outside of the "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's" we don't even know what Jesus thought of any government. We do know how He felt about the "money changers" in the churches, we know how He felt about the Pharisees who "prayed loudly in the streets." All I see from today's so-called "Christians" are Pharisees, and money changers, and would be Caesars fighting among themselves to rule the world.

While politicians and so called Christians fight over where the Ten Commandments should go, and if it would make us better if we had "one nation under God" in the pledge, let's talk about the Beatitudes, where will they go?

If people want to be a Republican then find out what that means and be a Republican, be a Democrat, be an Independent, Green Party, Socialist Party, whatever, but don't pick a leader out of a political party and tell yourselves you are following God or Jesus Christ. The New Testament speaks of the "ultimate sin" that could be it, it could also be the killing of the spirit of any of your fellow man. Can anyone think where we are doing that?

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. What happens when militant, atheist

Socialist councillors and the like seek to suppress Christianity, as they frequently do in the UK (the same "beggars on horseback" who are the first to pull up the ladder, once they have "made it", and in the UK, can't wait to sell out to the far right), one of their main approaches is to feign deep concern that the religious sensibilites of citizens of other faiths should not be offended.

Of course, citizens of other faiths are as baffled by this as the Christians themselves, and understandably despise our degenerate culture more than ever, sinking ever deeper, as it is, into anomie and its inevitable consequences, namely, violence, depravity, widespread injustices of every kind, including economic polarisation.

I know it troubles American atheists, but there is no substitute for state-sponsored Christianity, officially taught in schools, and underpinning education at the tertiary level and indeed the courts, as the bedrock of the national culture. Much as I admire the Moslems for their commitment to their faith and its ties with Christianity, I would not want Moslem judges in UK courts, or judges adhering to other religions, presiding over our courts. Jews are different, since their faith is the bedrock of the Christian faith and the best aspects of our culture (not least, its being the germ of the welfare state).

In this context, what people choose to believe in after they leave school matters not one jot - indeed, while they are still at school - but it is important that we are (citizens of all faiths and no faith) all imbued with a certain understanding of our best historical, Christian cultural values. I say, "best", since theory need not be other than pristine, however much individuals or groups of Christians may - and being defectible human beings - and often do, fall short.

I know that one of the fears in America is that Christianity will be, still is, used as a front by the neocons - just as they like to wrap themselves in the flag. The left use the Second Commandment, rather than the First, as a front, but however villainous some of them may be, they used to have to give some substance to their "front", to the benefit of the whole of society. While the institutional church has, at different times, both vocally and tacitly, condoned and effectively supported some of wickedest regimes in history.

On the other hand, I believe it was, for the most part, the non-conformist churches which led the way, in combating slavery and rescuing people from it in the South. And I wonder to what extent the help to the FEMA survivors in New Orleans was given by Christian churches.