Protest too much

This morning I saw a funny video, posted it, and used the opportunity to talk a bit about how Rick Perry and Michel Bachmann are candidates of the religious lunatic fringe, because it’s important to know who’s behind the candidates and what agenda they’re all pushing. As Michelle Goldberg, senior contributing writer for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, wrote on The Daily Beast, “If you want to understand Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, understanding Dominionism isn’t optional.”

So it’s not surprising that the rightwing has entered full denial mode, devoting far too much energy to dismissing Dominionism. As luck would have it, I happened to land on Fox “News” this afternoon (when surfing after my regular programme on another news channel was pre-empted). Appearing on “Hannity”, Ann Coulter, above, was in full flight dismissing Dominionism with her trademarked condescension, sarcasm—and deflection.

She dismissed Dominionism as “a leftwing conspiracy theory”, claimed Evangelicals had “never heard of” the father of Dominionism (the link above has more details on him) and said that if journalists left “the Upper East Side” (of New York City, one assumes—her failure to specify suggests her own elitism) and talked to Evangelicals, they wouldn’t report on Dominionism.

I wondered at the time that if Dominionism is really just “a leftwing conspiracy theory”, why would journalists even bother talking about it? The reason for her dismissiveness is to deflect attention: Her argument is that there’s no truth to the story because the evil “leftist bloggers” and “ultra liberal journalists” are talking about it.

Her claim that “no one has heard of” the father of Dominionism is utterly absurd, given how much of his rhetoric and ideas are central to far right “Christian” theocrats. Her attempt to divert attention amounts to a “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” tactic. Actually, at the time what ran through my mind was, “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for…” (references to two different movies for the same thing—I think that’s a first).

During the rest of the segment, Annie criticised the newsmedia for looking critically at the records of the Republican Clown Car Cavalcade, with both her and Hannity agreeing that “we still don’t know anything about Obama”. Yes, really: They say that seven years after he burst on the national scene and more than halfway through his first term as president, we still don’t know anything about Obama or his background. Riiiiiight. Personally, I think they should have stopped with “we still don’t know anything”—except how to attack anyone who dares to criticise Republican politicians or to expose the truth about who is behind them.

The quotes I attribute to Annie and Seany above are paraphrases. I wouldn’t soil my DVR with a Fox programme, even if it was just so I could transcribe it. The photo at top is—quite literally—a screen shot of the programme: I took a photo of the TV. I laughed when I saw the description of her as "'Demonic' author". I concur.