Moyers Misreported Rove Religion -- Taken to Woodshed by Chris Wallace

We earlier reported the partisan screed in which Bill Moyers asserted that White House operative Karl Rove is an agnostic, and that therefore “you have to wonder how those people on the Christian right feel discovering they were used for partisan reasons by a skeptic, a secular manipulator.”

Our view was that it doesn’t much matter what Rove’s personal religious views are. He helped sell George Bush to Christian conservatives as a Christian who shared their policy preferences. Since Bush is a Christian who shares conservative Christian policy preferences, there was nothing wrong with that.

But it seems that Moyers simply got Rove’s religious views wrong. Rove told Chris Wallace that he was an observant Episcopalian who reads a devotional every day.



Hat Tip: Badger Blogger.

Bill Moyers Attacks Karl Rove as an Agnostic

An ill-tempered partisan rant from Bill Moyers is no surprise.

But what is interesting about this one, from a forthcoming PBS special, is that he attacks Karl Rove for being (supposedly) an agnostic.

One would think that liberals would be tolerant of agnostics, but they aren’t tolerant of Karl Rove.

According to Moyers, “you have to wonder how those people on the Christian right feel discovering they were used for partisan reasons by a skeptic, a secular manipulator.”

Of course, Moyers, like liberals generally, believes that Christian conservatives are stupid people who could not make a rational vote choice, which is why Rove was able to “manipulate” them.

Yet somehow he “manipulated” them into voting for a candidate (George Bush) who shared their policy preferences about things like abortion, the homosexual agenda and taking “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Rove may or may not be an agnostic, but Moyer’s argument is a singularly stupid one.

Rove did not sell himself as a devout Christian. He sold George Bush as a Christian, and as somebody who agreed with Christians on key social issues.

No misrepresentation was required.

Had Rove believed that Christianity is evil, then his selling Bush to Christians as a Christian candidate would be immoral. But there is no evidence Rove believes that Christianity is evil. Indeed, he has been quoted as saying he does not have the “gift of faith.”

Not exactly the words of somebody who thinks Christianity is an evil delusion.

We frankly would prefer an atheist president who agrees with us on key issues to a nominal Christian whose worldview is that of the secular left. And most real Christians we know (“real” defined as taking the Bible more seriously than the editorial page of the New York Times) agree with us.

But Moyers believes that conservative Christians are ignorant hicks, and voted for Bush in the belief that everybody with any connection whatsoever to the Bush White House must be a devout believer.

Of course, Christians would be ignorant hicks if they voted for people who think like Bill Moyers.

PBS Ombudsman Admits to Bias on Moyers Show

Via Newsbusters, an admission from the official Ombudsman at PBS about a program from Bill Moyers that essentially promoted the impeachment of George Bush.

This is a subject that gets almost no national media attention, especially from commercial broadcast television. Many will argue, of course, that it doesn’t get attention because it isn’t going to happen; that it has virtually no political traction, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has made clear. That is the conventional wisdom and it is probably true.

But I would argue that it is still a newsworthy topic. So, as a viewer, I’m grateful that it is being addressed. Impeachment is a process spelled out in the Constitution for citizens to use and, although rarely used, the program reminds us that it was used against President Clinton by the House of Representatives just a decade ago for essentially lying to a federal grand jury about his sex life.

On the other hand, there was almost a complete absence of balance, as I watched it, in the way this program presented the case for impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

The program featured two well-informed and articulate guests — Bruce Fein, a Constitutional scholar who wrote one of the articles of impeachment against Clinton, and John Nichols, the Washington correspondent for “The Nation,” a liberal magazine, and the author of a recent book on impeachment. The problem is that both guests favored moving ahead with impeachment proceedings.

We have posted before on the pervasive bias at PBS.

It’s nice that Getler will admit to a bias here.

But what of his point that it was “a newsworthy topic” and that it was good that it was “being addressed?”

In an academic setting, it’s dandy to consider proposals that could not possibly pass the U.S. Congress. It’s dandy to consider proposals that a vast majority of Americans oppose.

So why not on PBS?

The problem comes when far-out proposals that tickle the fancy of the left are considered, but far out right-wing proposals are not.

If Moyers is going to push a policy so extreme that even Nancy Pelosi won’t touch it, why not the hoary right-wing idea that we should get out of the United Nations?

Considering only pet leftist policies, and not pet rightist policies, is simply an attempt to move the discussion to the left.

So when is Moyers going to take up the notion that the U.S. should leave the U.N.?

And have a “liberal” and a conservative, both of whom favor the idea, discuss it?