CBS' 60 Minutes: A Month of "October Surprises"

"There is just no question that I, among others, have a liberal bias. I mean, I'm consistently liberal in my opinions. And I think some of the -- I think Dan is transparently liberal. Now, he may not like to hear me say that. I always agree with him, too. But I think he should be more careful."-Andy Rooney on Larry King Live; one of the best things he's ever said...ever! (Hat tip: Bernard Goldberg's Arrogance).

Are they going to do this all the way up through to November Elections? Unbelievable! It's a repeat all over again, of 2004.

A couple of weeks ago, Bob Woodward got to promote his recent release, State of Denial. I posted then about how 60 Minutes has a history of agenda-driven, anti-Bush stories, often running at least a segment a week that is in some manner, an attack on the Bush Administration.

So this past Sunday, and 23 days away from the Elections, 60 Minutes drops their latest "Bush bomb": David Kuo's new book, Tempting Faith. It is published by Free Press, which is a conglomerate of Simon & Schuster, which is a division of CBS Corporation (which, of course, owns 60 Minutes).

Former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, David Kuo, wrote a book, released today, in which he asserts that administration officials have referred to evangelical leaders as "nuts" and that his office was used to curry favor with "Republican base voters," evangelical Christians, rather than to help the poor.- from NewsBusters

I've never heard the President say
anything bad
about religious leaders,
and I don't name names
in the book because I don't want to be personal--"
-David Kuo

In the aftermath of the Foley scandal, which appears to be politically motivated in order to alienate the "values voters" from the Republican Party (forget about the hypocrisy), Harry R. Jackson writes,

Two years ago, I predicted that the October Surprise for the 2004 election would be a major shift among black voters toward a family-values platform. The Washington Times was bold enough to print this prediction as an Op-Ed piece on October 29, 2004. The shift we spoke of was undoubtedly a part of the Bush and the GOP 2004 victory.

Ever since that election, Democrats and liberals have lost sleep worrying about the power of the evangelical Christian vote. They have taken aim at the faith community with two clear strategies. First, they have mobilized a group of left-leaning, “pseudo-evangelicals” to critique our moral, political movement. At least twenty books have been written to denounce evangelical Christian involvement in American politics.

Michael Medved mentions a host of these books including Christian Soul, by Andrew Sullivan (obviously has the wrong take on LotR), pointing out on his Monday program that the Left has been constantly on the attack about how "the religious right" have taken over the White House and how America is being turned into a theocracy.

So which is it, Democrats? Are Bush and Co. religious fanatics who wish to turn us into a theocracy? Or are Bush and Rove deviously using the "religious right" for selfish, political gain?

Medved derides Leslie Stahl for labeling David Kuo as "a card-carrying member of the religious right". Medved points out that Kuo has worked for Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart, as well as for conservatives such as William Bennett and George W. Bush. He was hardly a member of the hardcore Christian religious right.

One of David Kuo's complaints is that President Bush and lobbyists did not deliver on following through with funding for faith-based initiatives. Of the $8 million, only around 10% has been delivered. But different spending priorities have been created after 9/11; and fighting hard for tax cuts and growing the economy has been meaningful to the nation. Building a strong economy is every bit as important to helping the poor as is charitable money. And as Jim Towey told Leslie Stahl,

"He’s [President Bush] not king. He had to work with Congress. It’s naïve to say, 'Oh, because the president asked for it and didn’t get it, that meant he didn’t really want it.'"

It's great that Kuo has a passion for helping the impoverished; but his disillusionment with the political process has made him nothing more than a tool of it. Can anyone seriously doubt that 60 Minutes' "hard-hitting breaking news" hit-piece is nothing short of politically motivated to stem the tide of Christian voter turnout?

Harry R. Jackson concludes his piece by saying he believes the October surprise this year will be evangelical voters returning to the voting booths.

God....I hope that's true. It's a miracle that George Bush won re-election, considering how hard he was hammered in 2004 by a hostile media.

I wonder what other "October surprises" 60 Minutes has in store for Republicans in the next 3 Sundays, before Elections?

For the 60 Minutes David Kuo segment, you can download it at CrooksandLiars.com.

As a footnote on 60 Minutes last sunday, I could not help but roll my eyes at Andy Rooney's icing on the liberal cake:

"I don't understand why we think it is OK for us to have nuclear weapons but it isn't all right for some other countries to have any."

And there ya have it, folks. We begin and end this post with the venerable Andy Rooney. God bless the ol' fossil!