The NYT Anoints Fringe Christianist Dobson

Saturday, January 01, 2005

When, exactly, did right-wing religious screwball James Dobson, the fruitcake who claims that homosexuality 'will destroy the Earth', among other idiocies, get to be 'the nation's most influential evangelical leader'? When the NYT says so. And why would the NYT want to elevate a fringe wacko to star status? Because Dobson's threats against Bush and the Democrats wouldn't be much of a story if they acknowledged that Dobson is out there where the buses don't run.

Dobson, you see, who claims to be not just a minister but a child psychologist (that's a degree I want to see for myself), has just demanded approval of any SCOTUS nominees Bush might name in his second term, and threatened to attack any Democrats who dare to filibuster or vote against nominees he finds acceptable. If he wasn't 'the nation's most influential evangelical leader', who would care?

Dobson's Focus on the Family evangelicals are the ones responsible for 98% of the complaints to the FCC about Janet Jackson's tit and other insults to Dobson's supposed piety, the same complaints about our lack of 'moral values' that have received so much attention lately. Jimmie-Boy has a lot of influence with Michael Powell, maybe, but that's not saying much. Or does whining the loudest now prove you're the one with the greatest 'influence'? Does Dobson wield more 'influence' than fellow Christianists Falwell and Robertson? With whom, may one ask? The millionaire wingers who donated $150Mil to FF last year? The million people he claims have 'joined' his organization? That turns out to be the number of email addresses in his data bank. It's a paltry number compared to your average spammer; does that mean the NYT is going to decide that one of the many relatives of Sonny Abacha is 'Nigeria's most influential industrialist'?

There is real reporting in the NYT still--check out the series on China currently running--but this tripe doesn't qualify. Apparently the Times saves most of its waning interest in old-fashioned reporting for foreign issues because its domestic coverage is sinking deeper into mere sycophancy every day. Pretty soon we'll be able to play a game with the NYT called 'How Many Ways Did the Times Kiss the Bush Ass Today?', and the one who finds the most will get a free subscription to the Guardian so they can see what a real newspaper used to look like.

Posted at 10:50 am by Ethel, the Early-Warning Frog


	Dan January 2, 2005 05:27 AM PST Lookit, it says in the bible the meek shall inherit the earth, okay? Well, I'm one of the meek (I can tell because when the boss tells me to go do something I say "okay boss" real sheepishly) and I just don't want the homosexuals to ruin the earth before I inherit it. Okay, lookit. It's like this. Suppose your old man says he's going to let you have his car, but before he can a bunch of gays take it on a joyride through gaytown and bring it back all crapped up. Well, this is what the Right Rev. Dobson will fix, so buy your own car. Or something.


	Mick January 2, 2005 07:56 AM PST Well, I guess that's a good point there except--some gays can be pretty meek. What if gays inherit the earth? Then what? The Rev Dobson would be up the creek with a leak, and then your old man's car would belong to them and they could do a makeover on it and put plush pink carpet on the floor and furry seats and spider plants in the back window and stuff, and then where would you be? Or something.


	Dan January 2, 2005 09:27 AM PST Okay, well, if there are any meek gays, and I'm not saying there are, but if there are any meek gays then they oughta have the meekity to go straight. I mean, most people are straight. Most straight people like hanging with other straight people. Being gay right out in the open takes a lot of gall, and like the bible says, Pride goeth before a gall. Or something.


	Mick January 2, 2005 04:10 PM PST No, that's Pride goeth before a Gaul, I thought. See, Julius Caesar (or Yulious Kizer Sose, as he's known in Brooklyn for his habit of trick-or-treating at Xmas) used to take non-meek people who were getting kind of uppity and make them go before a French waiter who would take them down a few pegs and make them feel all meek over not being French, which got to be, you know, a thing he was famous for doing. Kizer Sose, I mean not the waiter, altho him, too. Anyway, doesn't it say in the bible that the wind will inherit the earth? Hurricanes never seemed particularly meek to me, so like Cane said to Mabel, 'What we have here is a conflict of interest'. Or something, and then she killed him, which also doesn't qualify as meek in my book.


	eRobin January 2, 2005 10:40 PM PST What bugs me is that they don't run down Dobson's illustrious career. They don't link him at all to any of the other "God Hates Fags" crew - like that asshole, Fred Phelps.


	Dan January 2, 2005 11:21 PM PST Mick, I'm laughing my a** off. You win.


	Mick January 3, 2005 02:52 AM PST Rob--You're the one who showed me how they leave anything out that doesn't fit the chosen narrative. This is David and Goliath, and in that story David isn't supposed to be a raving lunatic who hangs around with other raving lunatics who likewise escaped from the asylum and who are all burning with the unquenched flame of hatred for and paranoia about anybody who isn't also a raving lunatic filled with hatred. See, that would destroy the audience's sympathy for the Underdog, and that would make David, like, not a Great Leader of Daring and Imagination but an ordinary flake with delusions of grandeur and a mean streak. Kirkpatrick could have chosen a Don Quixote scenario instead, I suppose, which would have been a bit closer although it would still have to eliminate Dobson's unhinged hate. Hate doesn't sell newspapers unless it's all dressed up like a hero. Xena, the Warrior Queen, for instance. This is one of the consequences of Babwa Wawa injecting hard news with the values of entertainment reporting.


	Dan January 3, 2005 03:10 AM PST I knew it. Lefty is pro-Goliath.


	Mick January 3, 2005 06:09 AM PST He's bigger.


	thatcoloredfella January 5, 2005 08:13 PM PST When I started reading this 'nation's most...' tag about Dobson in AP and Yahoo stories, and then on cable, my first thought was who got the ball rolling? I'm gonna go check the time stamps from the NYTimes, Wash Post and others, cause now I'm real curious. But, following thru on the good point eRobin has made, whomever is responsible for the tag, may have just done us a huge favor!

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