Friday, June 29, 2007
Brownback's Hatred Of The Clintons
Sam Brownback says he harbored a "hatred" of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton until he experienced a religious awakening in the mid-1990s. Brownback, a Republican presidential hopeful, details in a new book how the change in outlook led him to make a stunning apology to Hillary Clinton a few years later during a Senate prayer breakfast.
Religion permeates nearly every corner of Brownback's book, written with Jim Nelson Black and officially slated for release July 3. His soul searching began in 1995, hastened by two dramatic events in his personal life. His marriage was in real trouble — he was "on track" to getting divorced — as he devoted all his energy to the conservative agenda that fueled the Republican takeover of the House in 1994.
Even more traumatic was his 1995 bout with cancer and surgery to remove malignant melanoma from his right side. Brownback says he finally found peace when he resolved to devote himself to God.
"One night I got down on my knees and said 'OK, Lord, that's it. I give up. It's all Yours,'" Brownback writes.
Ok. This story is supposed to be heartwarming, but I have questions. Brownback proposes the very same extreme right wing agenda but he is super religious now. Glad the devotion made him stop hating Bill and Hillary Clinton. Why should I be impressed by a born again cafeteria catholic who basically just hates the gays and loves the fetus, and ignores all the social gospel including the Church's teachings on pre-emptive war and capital punishment?
Brownback lovingly opposes social programs for the poor. Their bellies feel so much fuller at night knowing that Sam didn't hate them for their poverty as he fights for more tax cuts for the wealthy.
The thing that drives me bonkers is how people's religious faith is to be treated with reverence even when they pick and choose what parts to follow. Brownback may think homosexuals are bad. He's not a serious Catholic. If he was, he would have joined the pope in speaking out against Iraq.
A religious conversion that doesn't change any fundamental(ist) position you already hold doesn't impress me that much.
Oh, and other than not tossing stones at sodomites, what did Clinton do in 1994 and 1995 that ticked Brownback off so much? How was he destroying the country? The economy was doing better, crime was lower, unemployment was down, the stock market was booming, racial healing was occuring.
That bastard.
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