Finally. A frame that fits my portrait of Jesus.

Or more specifically, the snapshot of the practice of American politics and religion.

From now on, as Andrew Sullivan has established and Phillip Martin has advanced, "Christians" will be replaced with Christianists and "Christianity" is discarded in favor of Christianism.

You're going to have click on the links to get the frontstory. Here's my summary: the new words most accurately describe the co-optation of selected religious tenets by (mostly -- well, virtually exclusively) the Republican Party and their various acolytes in order to advance their political agenda, but which betray the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Christianists, in short, are hypocrites, and I believe Jesus would have spit them out of his mouth.

Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about:

• Christianists like Bill Frist -- and his buddy James Dobson -- really don't give a cat's ass about domestic animals -- or poor people, for that matter.
• Christianism is Tom DeLay grinning through his mugshot, letting us "see Christ through him", while lobbyists pour champagne on his daughter in a hot tub.
• Christianists like Rick Perry go to church to sign a bill that outlaws marriage except between heterosexuals while our children go without the proper schoolbooks to pass the state-mandated tests to advance to the sixth grade.
• Christianism is when Greg Abbott argues before the United States Supreme Court that a monument to the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state Capitol doesn't violate the First Amendment. And a majority of Justices agree.
• A small group of Christianists gathered just this past weekend in Pasadena to choose the man -- sorry, Dr. Sekula-Gibbs -- who will try to fill the golf shoes of The Hammer. The Seven District Twenty-Two Apostles, minus the Sugar Land mayor who was saved from the dead by prayer, dutifully answered their questions (.pdf).

Gee, I'm sure there's more examples of Christianism but I haven't even Googled yet.

Can you think of any?

Porter de Mayo

It wasn't the resignation I was hoping for, yet in a development mentioned here last week, The New York Daily News has a good summary of the GOP's latest scandal, this one involving hookers and Texas Hold 'Em and the now-former CIA director:

Porter Goss abruptly resigned (Friday) amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.

Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, could soon be indicted in a widening FBI investigation of the parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham, law enforcement sources said.

A CIA spokeswoman said Foggo went to the lavish weekly hospitality-suite parties at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels but "just for poker."

Intelligence and law enforcement sources said solid evidence had yet to emerge that Goss also went to the parties, but Goss and Foggo share a fondness for poker and expensive cigars, and the FBI investigation was continuing.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA operative and a Bush administration critic, said Goss "had a relationship with Dusty and with Brent Wilkes that's now coming under greater scrutiny."

Most of the rest of the corporate media is tap-dancing around the salacious allegations, so we'll see if they intend to report the full story or gloss over it a la Jeff Gannon.

Why do you suppose prostitutes -- even male ones in the White House press corps -- don't seem to find any media traction in the new millenium? How is that "a blue dress and some DNA" -- as Goss indicated would be enough to launch an investigation (but not the felonious leaking of an undercover CIA agent to the press) -- could have attracted so much outrage just ten years ago? Were we -- well, the Republicans, anyway -- really that prudish then?

Is this just points on the scoreboard, or losing one's "mojo", as Josh Bolten pointed out? Or is it something more, such as the decline of our democratic republic?

How can it be that the man who is on the front line for our nation's security is so ethically compromised and the news is so slow to come out?

But then, how is it that a President who lied about WMDs in Iraq is joined in laughter by the press corps at their annual dinner when he portrays himself looking under his Oval Office desk for said weapons, but if a comedian likens his administration to the Hindenburg it's "not funny"?

And does this have anything remotely to do with the fact that the company that builds the machines that process our ATM transactions with an accurate receipt every single time cannot do the same for our ballots? And nobody reports the story?

Is our media just as broken and corrupt as the ruling party? You think they'll ever wake up and start doing their jobs and you know, save democracy and maybe the Constitutiton?

Or is it too late already?

Greg Abbott referees a catfight between Grandma and MoFo

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott took a break from the weighty responsibilities of protecting Texas consumers this week and provided a constitutional opinion on the catfight between the Governor and the Comptroller.

Specifically, on the legality of the investigation by Carole Strayhorn's office into the viability of Rick Perry's Texas Residential Construction Commission. Strayhorn had taken a look into the TRCC (pronounced 'trick'), called it a 'builder protection agency' and declared, "If it were up to me personally, I would blast this Texas Residential Construction Commission off the bureaucratic books."

Abbott said Strayhorn had no business investigating the TRCC unless Perry asked her to do so -- which he hadn't. Both grandstanding Republicans claimed that members of the Lege asked them to look into TRCC, and Strayhorn challenged Abbott to sue her: "(I)f the attorney general wants to take me to court, let's go," she said.

Texans already knew that the two Republicans running for Governor don't have anything more important to do than trade petty insults, but the real shocker is that our Attorney General has inserted himself in the political one-upsmanship. After all, it's not like the man who went to the United States Supreme Court to argue the case for a monument to the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state Capitol has a political agenda or anything.

And that's when Abbott can be bothered to do anything at all on behalf of Texas consumers.

John Cobarruvias, President of HADD Texas (Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings) said, "I find the Attorney General's opinion hollow at best. If his office had investigated the homebuilding industry when asked by consumers, the Commission wouldn't have been necessary, much less the Comptroller's investigation of it." Cobarruvias claims to have personally delivered complaints to the AG's office and was greeted with profound indifference.

Is anybody else -- such as you conservatives lurking -- fed up with this crap?

Six months to go before we get the chance to elect responsible representation in Austin.