Oy vey!!
First Paul Saffo sends in this clip from two different news stories about the same guy…
>From a Des Moines County Republican Party press release
October 14, 2004
David Pitt
Associated Press…Bush introduced Mike and Sharla Hintz, a couple from Clive [Iowa], whom he said benefited from his tax plan.
Last year, because of the enhanced the child tax credit, they received an extra $1,600 in their tax refund, Bush said. With other tax cuts in the bill, they saved $2,800 on their income taxes.
They used the money to buy a wood-burning stove to more efficiently heat their home, made some home improvements and went on a vacation to Minnesota, the president said.
“Next year, maybe they’ll want to come to Texas,” Bush quipped.
Mike Hintz, a First Assembly of God youth pastor, said the tax cuts also gave him additional money to use for health care.
He said he supports Bush’s values. “The American people are starting to see what kind of leader President Bush is. People know where he stands,” he said.
“Where we are in this world, with not just the war on terror, but with the war with our culture that’s going on, I think we need a man that is going to be in the White House like President Bush, that’s going to stand by what he believes.
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And now, breaking news from KCCI Channel 8 News….December 7, 2004
A Des Moines youth pastor is charged with the sexual exploitation of a child.
KCCI learned that the married father of four recently turned himself in to Johnston police.
Police said he started an affair with a 17-year-old in the church youth group this spring.Rev. Mike Hintz was fired from the First Assembly of God Church, located at 2725 Merle Hay Road, on Oct. 30. Hintz was the youth pastor there for three years.
Church officials fired Hintz immediately after hearing the allegations.
“They did acknowledge with their congregation that Mr. Hintz had made apparently some admissions to his inappropriate activity, and they took a proactive approach and immediately terminated him from his position,” Johnston police Sgt. Lynn Aswegan said.
Neither Hintz nor his attorney returned KCCI’s calls.
Then K B on a similar wavelength sends in a Michael Kingsley op-ed about “values” and how MK considers it specious or non-issue. Bedtime reading here.
These lines nail it:
Why should anyone care, or care so much, whether the people running the government have good values? Shouldn’t we prefer a bit of competence, if forced to choose?
I could have written a better essay, to be honest, but it gets the job done with that one thought.
related link:
So we should consider Nixon a good President because he was effective (China, Vietnam etc) and ignore any of his other “value” problems? John, I seem to remember you saying that the President provides the “moral tone” for the country. Wouldn’t a President with good values be required for such a role?
This story just hits the nail right on the head. I am so tired of the hypocrisy of the religious right and how they want to tell everyone how they should live their lives, but then don’t bother to follow their own recommendations. This story should be all over the national news.
Usually the ones that are so opposed to something — adult entertainment, drinking, gambling, whatever — are the ones that are the worst offenders.
to Thomas..hmmm, I’m not thinking China was such a good idea. When did I promote Nixon as anything good? You’re confusing me.
The Nixon example is a hyperbole. If values in a President do not seem to matter, then we shouldn’t care that Nixon tried to fix the ’72 election and instead focus solely on his accomplishments (e.g. “opening” China etc.). We shouldn’t care that he intentionally timed the pulled out of Vietnam so that he would get re-elected. After all, why should we care about his values?
The values of the person that “sets the moral tone” of the country should matter to voters.
I agree with “Mike T”.
On the other hand, the following URL/article by Robert Kaplan, that comes via Andrew Sullivan, suggests that the left and media also demand moral perfection: Avoiding human injustice and bureaucratic mistakes while still getting things done. It’s impossible.
Whether your morals come from the Bible or the UN Convention on Human Rights, we’re all hypocrites, simply because we are all imperfect.
http://www.policyreview.org/dec04/kaplan_print.html
This article pretty much defines Dvorak’s milieu.
Meanwhile, If you’re going to entertain Dvorak’s outrage at the Religious Right, I would suggest andrewsullivan.com as a partial counterweight. He’s classically liberal and gay, but has respect for social conservatism, and seems to keep things in perspective.
Ironically, Kaplan’s article seems to belittle Middle American culture
(“the meatloaf world of the old nation-state”) as being run over by media cosmopolitanism, even while it attacks the media. But wasn’t this last election Middle America fighting back against the inevitable tide?
The cultural Right may be winning the battle, but they’ll lose the war. Probably forever. The cultural goal posts keep changing. I don’t see any Victorians around anymore. So “stop worrying and learn to love the bomb.”
I thought the most recent example of the same story being told very VERY DIFFERENTLYwas this recent debate about armored Humvees.
Here was the question asked:
“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?”
This is is what Bush heard,
“If I were a soldier overseas, wanting to defend my country, I would want to ask the secretary of defense the same questions, and that is, ‘Are you getting the best we can get us?'”
Yeah, right, Bush! That’s exactly the same question!