Frank Rich quells social conservative agenda hype

Frank Rich makes a great point – America is no stranger to Republican-spearheaded symbolic wedge issues in election years, only to see those issues die cold lonely deaths in election-year winters. While it’s true that their most useful function for Republicans is as Democratic tar-pits, Rich may be giving Bush too much credit. Even as Kevin Drum points out that Bush’s first verbally stated initiatives have nothing to do with a social-conservative agenda, it seems clear that the line has moved somewhat. I mean, Tom Coburn is closer to a moderate Fred Phelps than a moderate Republican and would never have ascended to a Senate seat in a less divisive environment. And no, Newt is Chomskyesque next to Coburn. Even scarier than the headline grabbing Coburn is South Carolina’s Jim DeMint, who is a member of the “The Fellowship” DC insider jebus-cult, best known for their sponsorship of the “National Prayer Breakfast”. So while I appreciate Rich’s tempering of the current hypewave, I’m less quick to shove my fear of a nationally supported evangelical agenda away in a corner for four years, for the simple reason that for the first time, we have a president who listens to these lunatics with an unjaundiced and uncynical ear.
Update: More about the super-creepy Fellowship Foundation here and here.