When Idiots Attack

The crazies are still trying to stir the pot about Obama's speech (actual information about said speech here). That's understandable. I expect this kind of thing from O'Reilly, Hannity, and their intellectual counterpart, that gum I stepped on last week.

But in trying to explain just why "We are not (exclusively) a Christian nation" was just so offensive, John "we can't trust Obama because he doesn't like nachos" Kasich said something that totally got me by surprise: apparently the "Heartland" thinks its Jewish.

Let's go to the transcript:

John Kasich: Well, I think it's another problem with the heartland when you start talking about -- we have a Judeo- Christian ethic. Our values basically flow from the Jewish faith more than even the Christian faith.

Really? That's news to us (especially given the increasing crazy rhetoric every Christmas). So how come the Christian right, self-appointed champions of everybody’s supposed values, don’t seem to have any concept of halachic flexibility or moderation, such as in the area of abortions?

Kasich: And we are Jewish and Christian. And when you say, you know, we're really not that anymore, and we're Buddhist or Hindu, we're not Buddhist or Hindu. They're welcome here. But the value structure, the value system that we have in America, flows from the Jewish and Christian tradition.
So you're living in the heartland, you know, you're a mailman carrying mail, and you hear somebody say that, it just reinforces this notion he's not in touch with those blue-collar working folks, I think.

Um, not to disparage America's noblest of public servants, but I have a hard time believing that the mail carriers in, say, Eminence, Indiana, Arnold, Nebraska, or Coney Island, Missouri have ever seen a Jew, much less know anything about Judaism, two things I would imagine are major requirements in order to identify your value system with "Jewish values."

How about naming some Jewish values for us, John? Besides the obvious ones from the Ten Commandments like "Honor your parents" and "Don't Covet" you're cribbing from Sunday school.

Colmes and the liberal guest, Dave Pollak, pointed out that the actual content of Obama's speech was pro-religion and that he was encouraging liberals to recognize that faith doesn't have to be dismissed or disparaged. Hannity and Yudel Kasich would have none of it.

Colmes: Dave's got a point. He actually said in the speech that secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King. The majority of great reformers, they were motivated by faith.

I would think conservatives, who talk so much about faith, how important it is, and blah, blah, blah, would embrace the very speech they're now criticizing.

But you'd be wrong, because they're political whores. Also, apparently, Crypto-Jews.

Kasich: First of all, I think that it's what people ought to talk less about what their religion is and be better role models. It's what they do, not what they say.

Amen. Tell all your heartland buddies to get on that.

Kasich Alan, the point of this discussion, though, is we do have a Jewish-Christian tradition. That's where our values flow from. They don't come from Buddhists. They don't come from Hindus.
...I think I know where Obama is going. He didn't say it right, though. And you know, there's an element of political correctness. Everything is inclusion. Everything is politically correct. And in my sense, you know, my sense of it is I'm not sure it sells on Main Street.

So why don't we ASK the folks on Main Street? Why don't we let them hear or read the ENTIRE 9-page speech instead of the three lines you dillholes have cherry-picked and flooded the airwaves with? Why is Yissachar Kasich, by virtue of being a former Congressman of an Ohio district which includes the the CAPITAL and largest city in the state (Kasich lives in one of Columbus' richest suburbs- the median incomes for households and families are 20-30 K higher than the capital's- with its own private liberal-arts college and 13 city-designated shopping centers; very small town), declared spokesperson-for-life for small town residents everywhere? Why isn't that called elitist? Why isn't that called patronizing?
[Sidebar for an interesting factoid: Kasich's suburban Potemkin village of a "small-town" doesn't even have a Main St. It has an East Main and West Main. Extensive research via Google Earth and a virtual drive-by via Google Maps revealed that East Main mostly passes through residential neighborhoods. The few commercial highlights included a bike shop, a pizza place, a vintage doll shop, and a supermarket. West Main is a highway overpass over 200,000 dollar housing developments.]
BTW, Yosef, what's WRONG with inclusion? I get why you don't like PC, fine. We don't have to rewrite history to say the Founders consulted the Bhagavad Gita. But it is undebatable that America is made up of more than JUST Christians, and saying we have to find some way to and acknowledge and value that doesn't seem like it should be beyond the pale.

Pollak: Would you disagree with what he said, that we are not just a Christian nation, we are a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation?
Kasich: No, I think they're welcome. I think -- are you trying to tell me you think we're a Hindu country?

Pollak: He did say that. He said, "We are not just a Christian nation." That's what he's talking about, including all religions.

Kasich: Do you think that we're a Hindu country?

Someone should tell this numnutz that no one thinks we're a Hindu country, especially not Hindus. But what would that MEAN? How do you define it? What does it mean to be an "X" country, versus a "country of X"? Kasich doesn't want to define his terms, he just wants to yell.

Colmes: The point of the story is -- isn't the point that we're not defined by any one religion? We're a great mosaic, as David would say. No one religion defines who we are.

Kasich: Let me answer that for you. Alan, I said we have a -- we're Judeo-Christian ethic. You ever heard of that? It's been said over and over again.

Everybody else is welcome. And we should celebrate our commonality, but the bottom line is what is our ethic? What is our culture?

...It should be steady.

First, why? Second, how are we defining such things? A gradual expansion of what/who America is in light of the fact that we are a very different country than we were 200 years ago doesn't seem that unreasonable. And the fact that you keep rambling about the Judeo-Christian tradition, ethic, cheese danish, whatever, doesn't make it true.

Colmes again tries to argue with Kasich using facts, not realizing Kasich: A- isn't listening, and B- doesn't care.

Colmes: What Obama said has its roots in a treaty which has defined exactly what we are, the Treaty of Tripoli. It goes back centuries.

And that says Article 11, "As the government of the United States of America is not in any case founded on the Christian religion. The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."

This has its roots back in a treaty we signed years ago.

Kasich: Alan, if you really want to get into who the founders were, George Washington, OK, he prayed to God almighty. He didn't pray to Mohammed.

Yasser Kasich showing his brilliant grasp of both Arabic and theology there. And, for the record, Washington was a Deist.

Colmes: They didn't define which God -- define which God we pray to.
Kasich: I'm going to kill this for the sense of repeating myself. Let's not be confused. The values that we have in this country -- telling the truth, you know, honoring your mother and your father -- it comes from the great Jewish tradition. And it is a Jewish and a Christian tradition, not Brahman, not Buddhist, not Hindu.

Yeah, because Brahmans, Buddhist and Hindus eat their fathers when they get old. Didn't you get that memo, Colmes? Only us Godfearing Jews and Christians treat our parents right. We're also apparently the only people who are taught not to lie.

Hannity is apparently feeling left out, because he feels the need to interject something totally irrelevant:

Pollak: Can you -- I just would caution you to read the speech where he actually agrees with you... and says 90 percent of Americans believe in God...Thirty-eight percent of Americans identify themselves as committed Christians. More Americans...

Hannity: One last point. I have one last point. Do you mean those bitter people that were clinging to their guns and religion, with their antipathy towards those who aren't like him? That's what he said in private when he didn't know he was being recorded.

Brilliant AND topical! Could Kasich possibly top this?

Kasich: I'll tell you one thing he should have done in the name of religion. He shouldn't have sat in that church...

Bravo.

In a truly rare moment, Colmes gets the last word AND makes an astute observation:

Colmes: Coming up -- coming up -- they'll keep arguing.

Yes, they will. And unfortunately, some people are going to keep listening.