Too Busy Being Crooked To ‘Dream Big’ Or, Bush’s Other “Base”

Five articles, interconnected and brutal with warning (if we care to heed) about where America is going and where America has been lately. These ‘Republicans’—no, that’s not fair—these ‘Democrats’—no, wait—these ‘Neoconservatives’---wait, that’s not fair either. Let’s call them criminals, conspirators, traitors, greedy bastards, neo-neo-Nazis—whatever appellation fits for the moment.

These traitors to America, these disparate and singularly vicious criminals have come awfully close to destroying this country and at the least have visited further misery upon the poor and under-represented masses living at the very base of the socio-economic triangle, due to the autocratic and simple-minded goal of getting richer at the expense of the poor.

No logic and not an ounce of rational thought has been given to the premise that in order to succeed in the long-term, you start with the bottom in order to secure the folks occupying the top, else the denial of wealth and privilege continues like a tsunami right up to the top 1%.

That this inexorable march of loss from the bottom percentage of the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable into and beyond the higher layers of society, economic and otherwise, is the only reason people are starting to cry “foul”, and perhaps the reason why the criminals who are perpetrating this destruction-from-within of America should be tried, not just for malfeasance, but for treason.

As long as Diaspora concerned only the ignorant and helpless poor of say, New Orleans, rich, educated, newspaper writers rarely noticed until Hurricane Katrina forced those writers to take the most obvious and least open-to-criticism stand of lamenting the demise of a major American city and its population of mostly black folks, while simultaneously decrying what that demise means in strictly human terms as reported in words and photographs of horrified and desperate mothers clutching dehydrated and limp babies in America.

Where were these reporters when those same mothers had to leave those same babies in the hands of inadequate childcare providers in order to go to minimum wage jobs? Where were these reporters and recently concerned politicians when those same mothers and those same babies had to get up before dawn to ride a bus to daycare and then another bus to a job that barely pays monthly bus fare?

Try boarding a bus driven by an harried and impatient bus driver—who is forced to maintain a strict schedule in order to keep his/her job—with an infant, a stroller, a purse, a diaper bag, and if you can afford it, a teddy bear, and a pacifier intent on falling to the dirty pavement and stowing all that paraphernalia before the bus driver takes off and throws you, your child and all that crap you have to carry to the floor.

Try that, Mister Man and Miz Editorialist. And then, when you get to your stop, try unloading your baggage and your child while a bus full of similarly burdened and stressed passengers look on as you struggle to disembark while trying to ignore the guilt that your time to unload from the bus may be costing your fellow passengers their minimum wage jobs if they are late to work.

Do that twice a day for a very long time and then talk to us about America today.

Rosa Parks, God bless her, had it easy compared to what the poorest of our women and children have to overcome in order to survive on a daily basis in these so-called modern times, and a statue of a single mother with an infant in her arms and a stroller in the other, along with the miscellaneous but necessary detritus of single motherhood stacked at her feet, may well be the statue for these times when the future rolls around to being the present.

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Dreaming Big to Keep America Rolling

By David Ignatius
Friday, December 2, 2005; A23

Economist Philip Verleger was traveling in Asia last month when the news broke that General Motors was slashing 30,000 jobs to try to reverse its death spiral. A Japanese economist he had known for many years asked him a stark question: "What great nation will allow its major manufacturing company to fail?"
The convulsions wracking GM are scary, but they're getting surprisingly little attention amid America's sea of other troubles. Certainly, we've heard barely a peep out of the Bush administration, which evidently worries more about keeping energy companies happy than Rust Belt manufacturers. Commentators have blamed GM management for being too shortsighted and its workers for being too greedy. But few people seem to appreciate that the nation as a whole has a stake in maintaining a dynamic industrial base, or that government policies could help reverse our industrial decline.
GM's crackup is a snapshot of where we're all heading unless people take the country's economic problems more seriously. America's role in the global economy increasingly is that of the freeloading consumer, gobbling up what's produced overseas by more frugal and industrious people. We take out another mortgage on the house, buy another Toyota and think, what the heck? But then, who can expect individuals to act responsibly when we have an administration that asserts, in apparent sincerity, that the proper response to our massive deficits is more tax cuts that plunge us even deeper into debt? We've become so inured to public-sector mismanagement that the idea of government solving problems is almost laughable.
But suppose we took GM's near-death experience as a national wake-up call and decided to get serious about reviving the long-term health of the U.S. manufacturing sector. What if political leaders treated this as a fundamental national mission, equivalent to President John F. Kennedy's call to put a man on the moon? Could government make any difference?
Try this thought exercise: Suppose a government plan could revitalize the automobile industry and the rest of the transportation sector, encouraging it to leapfrog several generations of technology; suppose this same plan could cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil to zero; and suppose, finally, that the plan could develop new technologies that would bump our economy to a higher growth path and foster U.S. economic leadership in the 21st century. Would that idea be worth exploring?
This strategy for revitalization was proposed last year in a study by Amory Lovins called "Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for Profits, Jobs and Security." It got too little attention at the time, but I found myself rereading it this week as I pondered the mess at GM and tried to answer the question posed by Verleger's Japanese friend.
Lovins's plan is precisely the sort of thing a great nation should explore as its biggest manufacturer is skidding off the road. The details are complicated, but the essence is pretty simple: Lovins argues that by radically transforming the materials used in cars, trucks, airplanes, office buildings and factories -- substituting carbon-fiber composites and other lightweight products -- the United States could cut its oil use by 29 percent in 2025 and an additional 23 percent soon thereafter.
These ultra-light vehicles would be nearly twice as efficient as today's hybrid-electric cars, with better performance and safety, Lovins argues. Fuel savings would pay for the extra cost of the vehicles in about three years. Meanwhile, Lovins proposes using biotechnology and other new techniques to replace hydrocarbons with biofuels -- cutting 25 percent more from U.S. oil consumption.
To stimulate the transition to this new industrial paradigm, Lovins proposes revenue-neutral "feebates" that would apply fees for inefficient vehicles and rebates for lightweight ones; he suggests a subsidized government program to lease or sell efficient cars to low-income Americans. To foster the new technologies, he proposes government measures that have worked well in the past: Pentagon procurement policies that drive innovation; federal loan guarantees to encourage retooling by automakers and others, and similar loan guarantees for the purchasers of new fleets of airplanes and trucks; and a $1 billion government prize (the "Platinum Carrot") to reward the most important innovations.
The bottom line, Lovins says, is that by investing a total of $180 billion over the next decade to end foreign oil dependence and stimulate strategic industries, the United States could save $70 billion every year starting in 2025. That's a pretty good payback.
I'm no technologist, so I can't evaluate the technical details of Lovins's proposal. What I like is that it's big, bold and visionary. It would shake an America that is sitting on its duff as foreign competitors clobber our industrial giants, and it would send a new message: Get moving, start innovating, turn this ship around before it really hits the rocks.
davidignatius@washpost.com
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal
Voting Rights Finding On Map Pushed by DeLay Was Overruled

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff WriterFriday, December 2, 2005; A01

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.
The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.
"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," the memo concluded.
The memo also found that Republican lawmakers and state officials who helped craft the proposal were aware it posed a high risk of being ruled discriminatory compared with other options.
But the Texas legislature proceeded with the new map anyway because it would maximize the number of Republican federal lawmakers in the state, the memo said. The redistricting was approved in 2003, and Texas Republicans gained five seats in the U.S. House in the 2004 elections, solidifying GOP control of Congress.
J. Gerald "Gerry" Hebert, one of the lawyers representing Texas Democrats who are challenging the redistricting in court, said of the Justice Department's action: "We always felt that the process . . . wouldn't be corrupt, but it was. . . . The staff didn't see this as a close call or a mixed bag or anything like that. This should have been a very clear-cut case."
But Justice Department spokesman Eric W. Holland said the decision to approve the Texas plan was vindicated by a three-judge panel that rejected the Democratic challenge. The case is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"The court ruled that, in fact, the new congressional plan created a sufficient number of safe minority districts given the demographics of the state and the requirements of the law," Holland said. He added that Texas now has three African Americans serving in Congress, up from two before the redistricting.
Texas Republicans also have maintained that the plan did not dilute minority votes and that the number of congressional districts with a majority of racial minorities remained unchanged at 11. The total number of congressional districts, however, grew from 30 to 32.
The 73-page memo, dated Dec. 12, 2003, has been kept under tight wraps for two years. Lawyers who worked on the case were subjected to an unusual gag rule. The memo was provided to The Post by a person connected to the case who is critical of the adopted redistricting map. Such recommendation memos, while not binding, historically carry great weight within the Justice Department.
Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Texas and other states with a history of discriminatory elections are required to submit changes in their voting systems or election maps for approval by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
The Texas case provides another example of conflict between political appointees and many of the division's career employees. In a separate case, The Post reported last month that a team was overruled when it recommended rejecting a controversial Georgia voter-identification program that was later struck down as unconstitutional by a court.
Mark Posner, a longtime Justice Department lawyer who now teaches law at American University, said it was "highly unusual" for political appointees to overrule a unanimous finding such as the one in the Texas case.
"In this kind of situation, where everybody agrees at least on the staff level . . . that is a very, very strong case," Posner said. "The fact that everybody agreed that there were reductions in minority voting strength, and that they were significant, raises a lot of questions as to why it was" approved, he said.
The Texas memo also provides new insight into the highly politicized environment surrounding that state's redistricting fight, which prompted Democratic state lawmakers to flee the state in hopes of derailing the plan. DeLay and his allies participated intensively as they pushed to redraw Texas's congressional boundaries and strengthen GOP control of the U.S. House.
DeLay, the former House majority leader, is fighting state felony counts of money laundering and conspiracy -- crimes he is charged with committing by unlawfully injecting corporate money into state elections. His campaign efforts were made in preparation for the new congressional map that was the focus of the Justice Department memo.
One of two DeLay aides also under indictment in the case, James W. Ellis, is cited in the Justice Department memo as pushing for the plan despite the risk that it would not receive "pre-clearance," or approval, from the department. Ellis and other DeLay aides successfully forced the adoption of their plan over two other versions passed by Texas legislators that would not have raised as many concerns about voting rights discrimination, the memo said.
"We need our map, which has been researched and vetted for months," Ellis wrote in an October 2003 document, according to the Justice Department memo. "The pre-clearance and political risks are the delegation's and we are willing to assume those risks, but only with our map."
Hebert said the Justice Department's approval of the redistricting plan, signed by Sheldon T. Bradshaw, principal deputy assistant attorney general, was valuable to Texas officials when they defended it in court. He called the internal Justice Department memo, which did not come out during the court case, "yet another indictment of Tom DeLay, because this memo shows conclusively that the map he produced violated the law."
DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden called Hebert's characterization "nonsensical political babble" and echoed the Justice Department in pointing to court rulings that have found no discriminatory impact on minority voters.
"Fair and reasonable arguments can be made in favor of the map's merits that also refute any notion that the plan is unfair or doesn't meet legal standards," Madden said. "Ultimately the court will decide whether the criticisms have any weight or validity."
Testimony in the civil lawsuit demonstrated that DeLay and Ellis insisted on last-minute changes during the Texas legislature's final deliberations. Ellis said DeLay traveled to Texas to attend many of the meetings that produced the final map, and Ellis himself worked through the state's lieutenant governor and a state senator to shape the outcome.
In their analysis, the Justice Department lawyers emphasized that the last-minute changes -- made in a legislative conference committee, out of public view -- fundamentally altered legally acceptable redistricting proposals approved separately by the Texas House and Senate.
"It was not necessary" for these plans to be altered, except to advance partisan political goals, the department lawyers concluded.
Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, said he did not have any immediate comment.
The Justice Department memo recommending rejection of the Texas plan was written by two analysts and five lawyers. In addition, the head of the voting section at the time, Joseph Rich, wrote a concurring opinion. Rich has since left the department and declined to comment on the memo yesterday.
The complexity of the arguments surrounding the Voting Rights Act is evident in the Justice Department memo, which focused particular attention on seats held in 2003 by a white Democrat, Martin Frost, and a Hispanic Republican, Henry Bonilla.
Voting data showed that Frost commanded great support from minority constituents, while Bonilla had relatively little support from Hispanics. The question to be considered by Justice Department lawyers was whether the new map was "retrogressive," because it diluted the power of minority voters to elect their candidate of choice. Under the adopted Texas plan, Frost's congressional district was dismantled, while the proportion of Hispanics in Bonilla's district dropped significantly. Those losses to black and Hispanic voters were not offset by other gains, the memo said.
"This result quite plainly indicates a reduction in minority voting strength," Rich wrote in his concurring opinion. "The state's argument that it has increased minority voting strength . . . simply does not stand up under careful analysis."

Staff writer R. Jeffrey Smith and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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Business As Usual: Corrupt

By Michael Kinsley
Friday, December 2, 2005; A23

It used to be said that the moral arc of a Washington career could be divided into four parts: idealism, pragmatism, ambition and corruption. You arrive with a passion for a cause, determined to challenge the system. Then you learn to work for your cause within the system. Then rising in the system becomes your cause. Then, finally, you exploit the system -- your connections in it, and your understanding of it -- for personal profit.
And it remains true, sort of, but faster. Even the appalling Jack Abramoff had ideals at one point. But he took a shortcut straight to corruption. On the other hand, you can now trace the traditional moral arc in the life of conservative-dominated Washington itself, which began with Ronald Reagan's inauguration and marks its 25th anniversary in January. Reagan and Co. arrived to tear down the government and make Washington irrelevant. Now the airport and a giant warehouse of bureaucrats are named after him.
By the 20th anniversary of their arrival, when an intellectually corrupt Supreme Court ruling gave them complete control of the government at last, the conservatives had lost any stomach for tearing it down. George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" was more like an apology than an ideology. Meanwhile, Tom DeLay -- the real boss in Congress -- openly warned K Street that unless all the choice lobbying jobs went to Republicans, lobbyists could not expect to have any influence with the Republican Congress. This warning would be meaningless, of course, unless the opposite was also true: If you hire Republican lobbyists, you and they will have influence over Congress. And darned if DeLay didn't turn out to be exactly right about this.
No prominent Republican upbraided DeLay for his open invitation to bribery. And bribery is what it is: not just campaign contributions but the promise of personal enrichment for politicians and political aides who play ball for a few years before cashing in.
When Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty this week to accepting a comic cornucopia of baubles, plus some cash, from defense contractors, the vast right-wing conspiracy acted with impressive speed and forcefulness to expel one of its most doggedly loyal loudmouths and pack him off to a long jail term. Even Bush, whose affable capacity for understanding and forgiveness on the personal level is one of his admirable qualities, seized an unnecessary opportunity to wish the blackguard ill. There was no talk of "sadness" -- the usual formula for expressing sympathy without excusing guilt.
This astringent response would be more impressive if the basic facts about Cunningham's corruption hadn't been widely known for months. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in June that a company seeking business from the Pentagon had bought Cunningham's Southern California house from him, held it unoccupied briefly and sold it -- in the hottest real estate market in human history -- for a $700,000 loss. You didn't need to know that Duke's haul included two antique commodes to smell the stench. Yet all the Republican voices now saying that Cunningham deserves his punishment were silent until he clearly and unavoidably was going to get it.
Like medieval scholastics counting the angels on the head of a pin, Justice Department lawyers are struggling with the question of when favors to and from a member of Congress or a congressional aide take on the metaphysical quality of a corrupt bribe. The brazenness of the DeLay-Abramoff circle has caused prosecutors to look past traditional distinctions, such as that between campaign contributions and cash or other favors to a politician personally. Or the distinction between doing what a lobbyist wants after he has taken you to Scotland to play golf and promising to do what he wants before he takes you to Scotland to play golf.
These distinctions don't really touch on what's corrupt here, which is simply the ability of money to give some people more influence than others over the course of a democracy where, civically if not economically, we are all supposed to be equal. So where do you draw the line between harmless favors and corrupt bribery?
It's not an easy question if you're talking about sending people to prison. But it's a very easy question if you're just talking: The answer is that it's all corrupt bribery. People and companies hire lobbyists because it works. Lobbyists get the big bucks because their efforts earn or save clients even bigger bucks in their dealings with the government. Members of Congress are among the world's greatest bargains: What is a couple of commodes compared with $163 million worth of Pentagon contracts?
Perhaps conceding more than he intended, former Democratic senator John Breaux, now on K Street, told the New York Times that a member of Congress will be swayed more by 2,000 letters from constituents on some issue than by anything a lobbyist can offer. I guess if it's a lobbyist vs. 1,900 constituents, it's too bad for the constituents. That seems fair.
kinsleym@washpost.com
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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December 2, 2005

Lobbyist's Role in Hiring Aides Is Investigated

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 - With a federal corruption case intensifying, prosecutors investigating Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist, are examining whether he brokered lucrative jobs for Congressional aides at powerful lobbying firms in exchange for legislative favors, people involved in the case have said.
The attention paid to how the aides obtained jobs occurs as Mr. Abramoff is under mounting pressure to cooperate with prosecutors as they consider a case against lawmakers. Participants in the case, who insisted on anonymity because the investigation is secret, said he could try to reach a deal in the next six weeks.
Many forces are bearing down on Mr. Abramoff. Last week, his closest business partner, Michael Scanlon, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in exchange for cooperating in the inquiry, being run by an interagency group, into whether money and gifts were used in an influence-peddling scandal that involved lawmakers.
Despite charging Indian tribes that were clients tens of millions of dollars in lobbying fees, Mr. Abramoff has told friends that he is running out of money. In a new approach that could contribute to the pressures, prosecutors are sifting through evidence related to the hiring of several former Congressional aides by a lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig, where Mr. Abramoff worked from 2000 to last year, according to people who know about the inquiry. That course could impel a new set of Mr. Abramoff's former associates to cooperate to avoid prosecution.
Investigators are said to be especially interested in how Tony C. Rudy, a former deputy chief of staff to Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, and Neil G. Volz, a former chief of staff to Representative BobNey of Ohio, obtained lobbying positions with big firms on K Street.
The hiring pattern is "very much a part of" what prosecutors are focusing on, a person involved in the case said. Another participant confirmed that investigators were trying to determine whether aides conducted "job negotiations with Jack Abramoff" while they were in a position to help him on Capitol Hill.
Prosecutors are trying to establish that "it's not just a ticket to a ballgame, it's major jobs" that exchanged hands, the participant in the case said. Also under examination are payments to lobbyists and lawmakers' wives, including Mr. Rudy's wife, Lisa Rudy, whose firm, Liberty Consulting, worked in consultation with Mr. Abramoff, people involved in case said.
What began as an inquiry into Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Abramoff's lobbying has widened to a corruption investigation centering mainly on Republican lawmakers who came to power as part of the conservative revolution of the 1990's. At least six members of Congress are in the scope of the inquiry, with an additional 12 or so former aides being examined to determine whether they gave Mr. Abramoff legislative help in exchange for campaign donations, lavish trips and gifts.
It may be difficult for prosecutors to translate certain elements of the case into indictments. Bribery, corruption and conspiracy cases are notoriously difficult to prove. But the potential dimensions are enormous, and the investigation, at a time of turmoil for the Bush administration, threatens to add a new knot of problems for the party heading into the elections next year.
Several people involved in the case, insisting on anonymity because of the plea negotiations, said they anticipated that Mr. Abramoff would try to reach an agreement with the prosecutors in a rapidly closing window of time before he is scheduled to stand trial in a separate federal case in Florida.
Mr. Abramoff and another business partner, Adam Kidan, were indicted in August on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy for reportedly defrauding their lenders as they sought to buy a company in Miami, SunCruz Casinos, that operated a fleet of gambling boats.
That trial is to begin on Jan. 9.
A lawyer for Mr. Abramoff in the case, Neal R. Sonnett, declined to comment on whether his client is conferring with prosecutors, indicating that he is moving ahead as though there will be no plea agreement.
"I'm preparing for trial," Mr. Sonnett said.
After more than a year of slow progress in what initially appeared to be a case of lobbying excess, the larger scope of the inquiry started to come into view toward the end of September with the arrest of David H. Safavian, chief procurement official in the administration.
Mr. Safavian is accused of lying to investigators and of obstruction of justice. He is pleading not guilty, his lawyer has said. Prosecutors contend that Mr. Safavian did not disclose to investigators business that Mr. Abramoff had before his agency at the time of a golfing trip to Scotland arranged by the lobbyist.
The focus also expanded from Mr. Abramoff's work for Indian tribes with the end of hearings by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. The hearings set out to examine whether the tribes, which paid $82 million to Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon, had been defrauded. The panel, headed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, avoided looking at the ties between the lobbyists and specific lawmakers, leaving that to the inquiry's interagency group.
The Senate hearings uncovered many patterns of Mr. Abramoff's activities, including his offering favors to officials while making deals on government work. In one case, a former senior Interior Department official, J. Steven Griles, testified that Mr. Abramoff had offered him a position at Greenberg Traurig while Mr. Griles was in a position to affect decisions involving Mr. Abramoff's Indian clients. Mr. Griles said he reported the offer to his department's ethics division and rejected it.
Prosecutors are trying to determine whether Mr. Abramoff made similar overtures to other well positioned government workers, especially former aides to Republican leaders in of the House and Senate. Such gestures could be considered as bribery or a conflict of interest, especially if the interests of the two parties were entangled.
Of particular interest, according to several people involved in the case, are how Mr. Rudy, who left Mr. DeLay's office in 2001 to join Greenberg Traurig, and Mr. Volz, who left Mr. Ney's office in 2002 for that firm, obtained their positions. Investigators believe Mr. Abramoff may have solicited help from both men and their supervisors on Capitol Hill while helping arrange for high-paying positions, people familiar with case said.
Mr. Rudy now works for the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm run by Ed Buckham, another former senior aide to Mr. DeLay. Alexander Strategy is also under scrutiny for its ties to Mr. Abramoff and for putting Mr. DeLay's wife, Christine, on its payroll for several years.
As investigators try to unravel the web of relationships between the lawmakers and the lobbyists, they are considering spouses' roles, people involved in the case said.
Neither Mr. Rudy nor Mr. Volz returned calls and e-mail messages seeking comment on Thursday.
Hiring patterns offer a rich and complicated field for investigators. Congressional staff members routinely leave for the private work, with the sole prohibition a one-year ban on lobbying their former supervisors. Mr. DeLay is so renowned for funneling his skilled staff members into lobbying firms across Washington that his political network is known as "DeLay Inc."
Although Mr. DeLay was reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee in the late 90's for pressuring a lobbying firm to hire a Republican, the practice has become so standard in an era of Republican dominance that partisans have given it a name, the K Street Project.
What investigators seek is evidence of a quid pro quo between Mr. Abramoff and the lobbyists he helped hire, lawyers and others involved in the case said. They are especially interested in evidence that Mr. Abramoff discussed hiring Mr. Rudy, Mr. Volz or other staff members before they left the government or around the time they or their bosses were doing favors for Mr. Abramoff's clients.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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Friday, December 2, 2005 - 12:00 AM

Lance Dickie / Seattle Times editorial columnist

The tax man vs. religion

The Internal Revenue Service is on a mission to punish religious activities it views as political and therefore legally offensive.
Naturally, I've been worried sick about the tax status of noted Christian evangelist Luis Palau, who was photographed next to President Bush at a church in China.
The celebrated Oregon-based preacher with worldwide ministries is likely an unwitting prop in a cynical White House strategy to play to Bush's political base. Even the Vatican was reportedly miffed at the president's showboating in Beijing on religion.
Maybe presidential guests are off-limits for the IRS, but an Episcopal congregation in Pasadena, Calif., has drawn the agency's wrath.
All Saints Church is under investigation for a sermon delivered by its retired rector the Sunday before the 2004 presidential election. Titled "If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush," the talk goes four paragraphs, and fewer than a hundred words, before the Rev. Dr. George F. Regas declares:
"Jesus does win. And I don't intend to tell you how to vote."
A Los Angeles Times story of church activity nationwide that October weekend said the sermon "delivered a searing indictment of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq." Throw in a denunciation of nuclear weapons and tax cuts and, unmentioned in the story, a blistering lecture on the failure of both candidates to talk about the poor.
Elsewhere in America, the article noted, preachers were rallying the faithful with circumscribed cheerleading for the president and pointing to stacks of voters' guides for the conservative faithful to grab on the way out.
The IRS — officially mum on the Pasadena case — was apparently alerted to the sermon via the newspaper. The agency sent a letter in June to All Saints asking a series of blood-draining questions about how the church conducts its business, and how the sermon came to be.
Offered a chance to admit its guilt and repent, All Saints chose to energetically respond with a team of Washington lawyers to make its case.
The IRS is arguing "any sermon which states a church's core values, when proclaimed during an election season, can be subjectively deemed to be campaign intervention," the Rev. J. Edwin Bacon told his congregation in a Nov. 13 sermon. "If the IRS interpretation stands, that means that a preacher cannot speak boldly about the core values of his or her faith community without fear of government recrimination."
A field agent offended by something in the newspaper can make a federal case out of it. A bullying, intimidating, expensive case out of it.
All Saints is not challenging IRS regulations it has worked with for years and describes as "healthy for our democracy and which we believe protect the precious principles of freedom of speech and freedom of religion." The church rightfully bridles at what it sees as a subjective invasion of its nonpartisan holy space.
Let me acknowledge my condition as a lifelong Episcopalian, the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican church. In the early days of the nation, if those who wanted a state religion had prevailed, it would have been Anglican — the Church of England.
In recent years, the Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations have lost membership. More than a few parishes might welcome extended on-site investigations.
An IRS auditor would run a gantlet of greeters, welcomers and ushers; be asked to sign the guest book, pointed toward the Book of Common Prayer (the red book), chatted up for a work party, invited to the social hour, offered a cup of Fair Trade coffee and officially included in the head count sent to the bishop. They would not come back, but they would be called.
People of good conscience? Yes. Piety with a political agenda? No.
The good folks at All Saints are being supported by leaders of conservative, nondenominational mega-churches who are appalled by what they see and can anticipate. We should all be scared by what this IRS challenge represents to religious freedom.
Maybe Luis Palau should brace for the worst from the IRS. He and the president stood in front of Gangwashi Church, founded by Anglican missionaries in 1921. The church was closed during the Cultural Revolution. I bet it was something somebody said.
Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company