Sideshows, Evangelicals and Republicans.

I think I owe DarkSyde an apology; I had thought he'd over-reacted a bit on the Evangelical Outpost comment section after Katrina, but now, after seeing what Joe Carter thinks about global warming, I believe that DarkSyde was spot on when he said:

When is this much vaunted 'world view' of yours going to actually produce results beside Joe Carter missing the most obvious disaster in 100 years and blabbering on about his superior 'methodology'? Because while you carp and whine and bitch and moan about the evil scientific 'establishment, I and those same materialists were saving lives, predicting the disaster down to the time, place, and details, and putting people up in our homes house and organizing the first online center for evacuees to fund refuge; before you had a clue, before it even happened! How? Why using science!

Yes, if you visit Carter's blog today, you'll find more of the same science bashing- by trying to claim that those evangelicals who recently signed a statement against global warming were somehow snookered into following the wrong problem. Or something like that.

Which brings me to my main point...


I have a suspicion that many folks who refer to themselves as "Evangelicals" or "conservative Christians" - at least many of those with megaphones- are, like those famous "independents" like Bill O'Reilly or Larry Elder- merely shills for the Republican Party.

And I mean that literally; as Wikipedia says:

A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services, who pretends no association to the seller and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage other potential customers, unaware of the set-up, to purchase said goods or services. Shills are often employed by confidence artists.

The term shill of course was first associated with the sideshow, that curiously American institution where people would pay money to see freaks and oddities, and it didn't matter at all if the freaks and oddities were real or not.

I think the sideshow is a good metaphor for the right-wing media these days. The Rev. Lowery "offensiveness" at "THE PRESIDNET" is to the right. The Muslim cartoon oddity's over there. Here's George Bush saying "Mission Accomplished!"

And step right up, folks, come see the brain dead flatliner whose eyes actually follow a balloon! Come see Terri Schiavo! Yesiree, and in that jar over there we have the world's smallest human being -don't leave without catching a glimpse of the zygote!

Of course it all diverts, it's all strangely compelling to watch, and we're poorer afterwards; it's intended that way.

Now I will state flat out that I have never been paid a dime to do anything for any political party- in fact, I've paid money...

And I know that in the big scheme of things, that Joe Carter's audience is nothing compared to Chris Matthews.

But when I see something like Carter wrote today; when I see James Dobson coming down where he did on the issue, and when I see both of them silent as church mice on the issues of Republican corruption, I have to say, can this all be coincidence?

Is James Dobson real or is he merely a shill for the Republican party, with a quid pro quo of cashgivers being sent to and fro?

Hugh Hewitt, I think is an even more obvious example. Can he really be that stupid as to be drawn in by the Terri Schiavo mess? The Harriet Miers mess?



And Carter? Is he a mark or a shill?

The Powerline folks?

You decide.