So Senator Bill "Cat Killer" Frist sent a videotape to the "Justice Sunday: Stop the Filibuster Against People of Faith" meeting in Lexington, Kentucky, yesterday. This provided a nice symmetry to his videotape diagnosis of Terri Schiavo some weeks ago. Frist may be attempting to become the first totally virtual political figure in his detachment in space and time from those things that he desperately needs for his future presidential run, but which he also understands are somewhat radioactive should the public zeitgeist turn against him. He did get burned on the Schiavo business. What competent physician would dare to diagnose the condition of any patient on the basis not of just a video, but video that was two or three years old? That didn't stop Frist, of course, because he recognized that to be sure the extreme religio-fascist wing of the Republican Party was firmly in his pocket, holding to medical ethics or just plain sense was unnecessary; in fact, he dumped his medical ethics faster than Newt Gingrich dumped his second wife to wed his intern.
But frankly, I'm puzzled that Frist and so many other Republicans are anxious to invoke this so-called "nuclear option" to deny the filibuster on judicial appointments. Methinks that they are feeling a little too cocky for their own good. Imagine that they jam this thing through. Then imagine that in the 2006 election a giant backlash against the looming theocratic juggernaut that Frist, DeLay, et al. are threatening causes the Repubs to lose their majority in the Senate and the House. Thanks to their castration of the ethics committee in the House and the nuclear option in the Senate, won't they find themselves even more disempowered than all their current whining would have us believe? Yes, even in the face of all this blustering by DeLay and the Christian right in a baldfaced grab for power, they cry about persecution at the hands of all of us meanie secularists who actually believe in the First Amendment. Hence the corruption of language in "Stop the Filibuster Against People of Faith." As usual, they conflate faith and religion, specifically right-wing ideological religion, so that people of faith who are not right-wing ideologues are by default on their side as fellow targets of people like me. The way the religious rightwingers whine, you'd think we were forcing them to have sodomy parties with SpongeBob and Tinky Winky, paint themselves with the blood of virgins, and bite the heads off of Christian babies.
Atheists are the people who deserve to be complaining about unfair treatment. Mike Whitney over at the Smirking Chimp makes the case for atheism to be included in the mainstream debate. Atheism isn't even afforded the courtesy of mention in any discussion of church and state in America. I think that's pretty damned bigoted.
But getting back to the cluster-fucky in Kentucky. So what if they want to jam a few cartoon-crazy judges onto the federal bench? I'm beginning to think that maybe it's time to do a little Rope-a-Dope and let them be as extreme as they want to be. Let's get a real demonstration of what a Taliban Christian nation will be like with the James Dobsons and Tony Perkinses calling the shots. I'd love to see the real teeth and talons of these fanatical totalitarian absolutists who claim the completely delusional notion of talking to and for God and for all people of faith. People this mentally ill should be treated, not allowed to run tax-exempt organizations and influence crafty and amoral politicians like Frist and DeLay.
If Dobson and Perkins want to talk to their invisible friends and rant and rave about the coming apocalypse, let them do it where it belongs--in subway tunnels and under bridges, not with duly elected representatives of a secular democracy.
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