[Dialogue] Spong takes off the political gloves (corrected)

[KroegerD@aol.com]

February 22, 2006 
Truth and the Present  Administration

“Thou shalt not bear false witness” That is the ninth commandment in the  
famous group of ten that are so frequently invoked by members of that Republican 
 political coalition known as the “Religious Right.” Somehow the Ten 
Commandments  anchor the ethical basis of life that they want to impose on the 
American  nation. However, spokespersons for the Religious Right are not 
particularly even  handed in the application of these ancient laws. If it is the 
adulterous  misconduct of former President Clinton, they are livid with righteous 
rage. If  it is the deceit, the misinformation, and the attempt to hide or bend 
the truth  to the point where it says something quite different from reality on 
the part of  the current administration, they are remarkably restrained if not 
completely  silent. Lies do not seem to be covered by the Commandments if 
their conservative  allies utter them.  
The way the shooting accident in Texas involving Vice President Richard  
Cheney was handled is only one more illustration in a long line of manipulating  
truth for political gain. May I say quickly that I have no reason to doubt that 
 the shooting of Mr. Whittington was anything more than a tragic accident for 
 which I am sure there is deep regret. I grieve for both the Vice President, 
for  the guilt and pain that foolish mistakes bring to others is intense. My 
sympathy  also goes to Mr. Whittington and his family. Human beings must always 
embrace  the fragile quality of existence. The prayer book of my church warns 
us to be  aware constantly of “the shortness and uncertainty of human life.” 
This accident  makes that phrase quite apt.  
However, the way this tragedy has been handled is clearly and deliberately  
misleading, obviously placing political need into the dominant position over  
both truth and Mr. Whittington’s well being. First, the news was suppressed for 
 18 hours. Suppression always lends intrigue and heightens suspicion. Second, 
an  investigation of the episode was not conducted by the sheriff’s office 
until the  next day. When the information was presented to the public, we were 
first told  that the injury was slight; that was not so. Those claiming to be 
witnesses then  told us that the victim himself was to blame. Not only did the 
Vice President  ultimately accept responsibility for this action, but we also 
learned that the  ‘witnesses’ were at least a hundred yards away at the time. 
Next we were told  that alcohol was not involved although no tests were done 
and tests done 24  hours after the event would hardly be conclusive. Mr. 
Cheney later said that he  “had one beer” at lunch and “a high ball” that evening 
before sitting down to a  roast beef dinner.  
Finally, the news was broken by the Vice President’s hostess who called a  
personal friend at the local paper to give her a “scoop.” The fact that members 
 of this family are registered lobbyists was not noted until later. This “
scoop”  effectively kept the national news media at bay, missing all of the high 
profile  Sunday political shows that are so often filled by members of this  
administration when they want to get their story out. It would be 36 hours  
later, on Monday morning, before the national press and television got the story  
fully, or so they thought, to the public. New details, however, dribbled out 
as  each day passed. Surely, if all we had been told was all there was, the  
political price would have been only embarrassment, destined to disappear  
quickly in the rush of history. The stalling, delaying, misinformation, however,  
gave the clear impression that more was involved than embarrassment. As 
details  did become public, the story grew more ominous. The injury was serious. It 
took  the Vice President four days to own his responsibility on a friendly Fox 
News  program, still avoiding a national press conference. More importantly, 
this  episode reminds us that truth has been battered by this administration 
on  numerous occasions; indeed the violation of truth has been a constant 
tactic.  Things we accepted at face value, because we trusted our sources, may need 
to be  revisited.  
When Mr. Bush ran for Governor of Texas, his military records with the Texas  
Air National Guard were mysteriously and permanently lost. Bureaucratic  
incompetence, they claimed. He had an honorable discharge that would have to do.  
When Dan Rather later developed more data on this subject, he did not check 
his  sources adequately. He apologized for this mistake but the truth about this 
 matter is still suspicious and undisclosed.  
In the 2000 Republican primary Governor Bush, bankrolled by politically savvy 
 American business leaders heavily concentrated in the oil and energy 
industries  including Enron and Halliburton, put up a war chest for the Bush campaign 
of  $200,000,000. This effectively scared away most serious Republican 
challengers  like Elizabeth Dole, Lamar Alexander, John Ashcroft, Dan Quayle and 
Orrin Hatch,  clearing the field substantially for Mr. Bush. The one contender 
who did not  take the hint was Arizona’s Senator John McCain. After declining to 
compete in  the Iowa caucuses that year, Senator McCain defeated Governor 
Bush in the New  Hampshire primary by a 49% to 31% vote, with the relatively 
unknown Steve  Forbes, Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer running far behind, thus stopping 
the Bush  juggernaut in its tracks and necessitating the raising of even more 
money for  the Bush effort. On to South Carolina they moved and there the 
character  assassination of John McCain by the Bush operatives took place. McCain’
s war  record was challenged and minimized. His life as a tortured prisoner 
of war for  five years in what was called the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ was said to have 
been no  hardship. He was accused of fathering an illegitimate child by a 
Vietnamese  woman, making that child brown skinned, thus playing to the overt 
racism of many  South Carolina Republicans among whom there are almost no people 
of color.  Governor Bush meanwhile went to speak at Bob Jones University, 
famous for its  racism and support of segregation as well as its anti-Catholicism 
and rabid  fundamentalism. Senator McCain’s religion was attacked so vigorously 
by such  religious Bush supporters as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell that he 
seemed  little better than the anti-Christ. One of America’s genuine military 
heroes had  his reputation gutted by those who posed as the “disciples of 
Jesus,” including  the one who announced in the campaign that “Jesus Christ is 
my favorite  philosopher.”  
That primary turned the tide and assured the Bush nomination. Governor Bush  
tried to extract himself from some of his “false witness” by apologizing to 
New  York’s Cardinal O’Connor for playing the anti-Catholic card in that 
primary.  
When the killing fury of September 11, 2001 struck, this administration used  
that attack to move its already developed plan to invade Iraq to the front  
burner. As the case for war was made to the public, truth once again was  
sacrificed. War is necessary “because Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass  
destruction, including chemical, biological and atomic weapons.” None of that  was 
true. “Iraq was behind the 9/11 attack,” was the particular theme of the  Vice 
President. That too was and is not so. Then the war began and truth  continued 
to be battered.  
“We do not do torture!” Then the Abu Ghraib photos became public and the  
Guantanamo abuse uncovered. “We are defeating terrorism,” yet the evidence  
reveals that Iraq in general and Abu Ghraib in particular are today major  
citadels for recruiting terrorists. “The mission is accomplished,” a statement  our 
president made in combat gear on board an aircraft carrier on the West Coast  
in May of 2003 when less than half of the casualties that our armed forces 
would  sustain had been inflicted. “We are building democracy in the Middle East,
” yet  now we know that when the ineffectual Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim 
Al-Jaafari  was re-elected by one vote in the new Iraqi Assembly, it was with the 
help of a  block of 32 votes delivered by Islamic cleric Moktada Al-Sadr, 
whose militia  dominates most of Baghdad and Basra today and who has been a 
leading force in  the insurgency. Then we watched the terrorist organization Hamas 
achieve power  in Palestine and the President of Egypt postpone elections for 
two years to keep  the Muslim Brotherhood from taking over his government. 
That is building  democracy?  
We were told that ‘executive privilege’ prohibited this administration from  
revealing who was on the Vice President’s energy advisory board when one of 
the  advisors, Ken Lay of Enron, became a political liability. We are now told 
that  ‘executive privilege’ forbids the release of the details of why the 
response to  Hurricane Katrina was so inept that mobile homes costing the 
government  $850,000,000 are stored today in Hope, Arkansas while the homeless of New 
 Orleans are being evicted from hotels because the hotel bills have become so 
 large. We are told, “the president meets many people in social gatherings 
and  receptions and barely knows Jack Abramoff.” Then the pictures of the two of 
them  almost arm in arm are published and details are released about how Bush 
 regularly asked Mr. Abramoff about his children whose names he appears to 
know  well and Karl Rove’s top assistant appears to be Abramoff’s former top  
assistant. The distortion of truth goes on and on.  
The primary reason that “bearing false witness” is part of the Ten  
Commandments is that no society survives unless the words of its citizens are  
trustworthy. The commitment to truth on the part of its elected leaders is even  more 
important. The way this embarrassing shooting episode was treated by this  
administration brings their constant inability to be truthful front and center  
once more. I see no evidence that this administration has the ability to 
correct  itself. The subversion of truth to power is too deep a mark of its 
character.  Correction must come from the confrontation by other parts of our checks 
and  balances form of government including the Republican Senate, the 
Republican  House and yes, even the Republican Supreme Court. The integrity of truth 
is more  important than party loyalty. I hope Senator William Frist, Majority 
Leader John  Boehner and Chief Justice John Roberts are listening.  
John Shelby Spong  
_Note from  the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at 
bookstores everywhere  and by clicking here!_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060762055/agoramedia-20)   
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Linda via the Internet writes:  
My dear friend of 25 years is a fundamentalist Christian who has prayed about 
 my position on the gay rights issue (I am a gay rights advocate). Her 
position  is that if God had made her a gay person, she would still not be free to 
indulge  in sex. Also, if everybody got to do whatever made them happy, then 
where do we  draw the line? She has challenged me to go to God and basically ask 
God which  one of us is right. As a member of the church alumni, I really don’
t know what  to say to her. Complicating matters is the fact that my son is 
gay but she  doesn’t know that yet. Can you help?  
Dear Linda,  
I waste little time engaging in arguments about homosexuality. That  
enterprise is generally nothing more than an ill-informed emotional debate. My  
recommendation to you is that you say, “I simply do not agree with you and I see  
nothing further to be gained by future conversation on this subject.” If your  
friend is not willing to observe that boundary then your only choice is to move 
 out of that friendship.  
For the record, the fundamentalist Christian position assumes that sexual  
orientation is a choice. There is not a shred of evidence to support that. You  
do not go to God to determine truth. You go to the commonly accepted knowledge 
 that is available to you in the fields of science and medicine. My bet is 
that  by “going to God,” she means consulting the Bible, which was quoted to 
condemn  Galileo and Darwin and to support slavery and a second-class 
citizenship for  women. That is not a very impressive set of credentials. If we followed 
the  Bible, we would put all homosexuals to death (see Lev. 20).  
If you told her your son is gay, she would assume that he chose this way of  
life or that you were the cause of his ‘deviation’ by being an inadequate  
parent. Either way you lose.  
My advice is to love your friend. Be kind and sensitive but on this issue  
simply tell her you do not wish to discuss it further since your two  
understandings are mutually exclusive.  
John Shelby Spong 
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