Starting on Oct. 16 in bookstores across the nation people can buy “Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction,” a tell-all tale oozing with political drama and behind-the-scenes insight into the wacky world of the White House. The author is David Kuo, the former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, which channels federal dollars to religious charities.
One can smell this scandal from a mile away. Kuo makes many palpable claims in his book, one of them being that the Faith-Based Initiatives were misused to rally evangelical Christian votes instead of helping the needy. He also claims the White House used the taxpayer-funded Faith-Based Initiatives to hold events created to rally the evangelical conservative GOP members in 20 targeted races in 2002.
But that’s not the worst part of it. Kuo also claims that White House officials mocked evangelical leaders behind their backs, calling them “ridiculous,” “out of control,” “nuts” and “goofy.” Kuo says many of these remarks were uttered in the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove. Comments included mockery of such leaders as the Rev. Pat Robertson calling him “insane” and comments that Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family “had to be controlled.” Kuo appeared on “60 Minutes” on Oct. 15 and had much to say about his controversial book.
“You name the important Christian leader, and I have heard them mocked by serious people in serious places,” Kuo stated on the show. He discussed his allegations that the Faith-Based Initiative was used to manipulate the evangelical voters for political power. It was “spiritually wrong,” Kuo told “60 Minutes.” “You’re taking the sacred and you’re making it profane. You’re taking Jesus and reducing him to some precinct captain, to some get-out-the-vote guy.”
Obviously, White House officials blatantly dismiss the idea that any of this actually happened. James Towey is Kuo’s former boss in the Faith-Based Initiative. He suggests that Kuo is bearing false witness. What the book seems to be “describing is kind of a personal animus against evangelicals and a kind of personal insulting behavior,” Towey said. “President Bush would never have tolerated that, and I never saw it in four and a half years.”
Of course, as much as White House officials try and defend their president, it is clear that the Republican domination of the House and Senate is looking a bit shaky at the moment. With the Mark Foley scandal, the president’s ever-dropping approval rating, the overwhelming opposition of the war in Iraq and now the North Korea debate, could this shocking tell-all tale be the icing on the cake?
It does not seem all that surprising that White House officials mock the evangelical Christian leaders they pretend to respect. It wouldn’t even really matter, as politics and religion are supposed to be two separate ideals, right? But because members of our current administration are so adamant about shoving their religious beliefs in our faces, it does make a difference and we should care.
So come Election Day, please make an educated decision on who you will vote for and why. Know the candidates, know their stance on important issues and realize that the future of our country could be in your hands.
