Day: August 16, 2007

Public Service, GOP Style: Tony Snow Will Quit White House ‘When Money Runs Out’

Jon Ponder

Tony Snow left his job as a mid-profile but extravagantly paid GOP propagandist for Fox “News” radio to take an extremely high-profile job with a salary in the measly $150,000 range as a GOP propagandist for the White House.

It is shocking to hear a top White House official say he’s quitting because the pay is lousy. It not only reveals a lack of class, it shows that the man who speaks for George Bush appears to hold a smoldering contempt for him.

Now he says he has warned his betters at the White House that he will only stay on as press secretary until his government salary no longer supports the lifestyle he became accustomed to as a media elite:

HUGH HEWITT: Your intention to go the distance, Tony Snow?

TS: No, I’m not going to be…I’ve already made it clear I’m not going to be able to go the distance, but that’s primarily for financial reasons. I’ve told people when my money runs out, then I’ve got to go.

HH: How long will that be?

TS: I’m not going to tell you.

HH: Well, come on, make some news.

TS: No.

HH: All right.

It is shocking to hear a top White House official say he’s quitting because the pay is lousy. It not only reveals a lack of class, it shows that the man who speaks for George Bush appears to hold him in contempt. Normally, a White House official making this sort of statement would hasten to add that it is an honor and a privilege to serve the president and so forth, even if he didn’t mean it. Snow didn’t bother.

Ann Coulter: With Rove Gone, We’ll Learn Who to Blame for ‘Stupid Things’ Bush Does

Jon Ponder

And she said this on Fox “News,” according to Raw Story:

“What I think is going to be fun,” she said, “is finding out how much of the architect Karl Rove actually was. I’ve gone back and forth between blaming Karl Rove for the stupid things Bush does and blaming Bush for the stupid stuff Bush does.”

And:

“Rove, they were looking at indicting for a felony [in the outing of Valerie Plame] … which suggests to me that he was not the one involved in that, that that was entirely George Bush’s idea.”

And:

“So you start thinking everything you like about Bush was Dick Cheney or Karl Rove, and the stuff you don’t like is George Bush,” Coulter concluded. “So now we’ll find out.”

Osteen In-Law Preacher Who Canceled Gay Vet’s Funeral Aligns with Notorious AFA Hate Group

Jon Ponder

Under fire because he canceled the funeral of Navy Gulf War veteran after learning that the vet was gay, Gary Simons, the megachurch preacher whose brother-in-law is Joel Osteen, head of the powerful, uber-wealthy evangelical family that operates the 30,000-member Lakeview Church in Houston, is receiving support from the American Family Association (AF), a multimillion dollar non-profit Mississippi-based hate group operated by the professional homophobe, Donald Wildmon.

On Simons’ behalf, the AFA published a statement on its website in which he continues to deny what is self-evidently true: that he was motivated by decidedly un-Christian hatred and bigotry toward Cecil Howard Sinclair, the deceased Navy veteran, when he canceled the funeral:

The decision had nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Sinclair was a veteran. High Point does now, and has always, supported our men and women in the military. This decision was not based on hate, or discrimination, but upon principle and policy.

No one has suggested the funeral was canceled because Sinclair was a veteran. And more falsehoods follow:

The decision was made to retract the offer to host the memorial service based on the fact that the service requested would be an openly homosexual service celebrating the homosexual lifestyle. It is important to emphasize that this was not a funeral service with a body to be buried, but a memorial service. The family was informed of the decision.

There is no such thing as a “homosexual service,” open or otherwise. The relationship between the deceased veteran and his longtime life partner was going to be acknowledged, which is verboten to groups like AFA and High Point Church because if their followers were to learn that millions of gay couples live happy, regular lives it would dampen fundraising.

Joel Osteen was not involved in the decision to cancel the Navy veteran’s funeral. But even though his Tony Robbins-esque “prosperity ministry” message is generally positive, he has not condemned the hate-filled actions by his brother-in-law at the High Point Church.

Simons, who is married to Osteen’s sister, is rumored to have become estranged from his powerful in-laws in the wake of the death in 1999 of John Osteen, the patriarch and founder of the Lakeview enterprise. Simons had been serving as his father-in-law’s youth minister and felt he was being groomed to assume the pulpit — and control of the millions of dollars in annual revenues — at the megachurch.

However, within months of the patriarch’s death Simons was shunted aside by John Osteen’s widow in favor of her son, Joel. Further rumors allege that as a consolation prize the Osteens gave Simons upwards of a purported $13 million to start his own church business, which was to become the High Point Church near Dallas.

Baptist Preacher Models His Style on George W. Bush: Autocracy Rules

Buck Banks

What happens when a Southern Baptist megachurch congregation starts to question the iron-fisted rule of its preacher? Things get nasty in a hurry.

Rev. Jerry Sutton, is facing complaints that he spent church money on his daughter’s wedding. Oh, and he watched pørn on his church computer and had an affair with a female member of the congregation.

Anyone who voiced opposition to leadership was alienated and lost any ministries they may have had in the church.

Sutton has served as leader of Nashville’s Two Rivers Baptist Church for 21 years. The megachurch is located just across the highway from the Grand Ole Opry. In 2005 the church hosted the “Justice Sunday II” rally, where then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and others criticized judicial activism to a national audience of evangelical Christians. Of course, that was before the Supremes got down to rewriting the Bill of Rights, etc.

Sutton’s people deny the pørn and affair, which were investigated by the congregation’s human resources staff and found — surprise — to be baseless. As to maintaining secrecy about the church budget and spending church dough on his daughter’s wedding, Sutton’s tools are unrepentant:

The church’s executive pastor, Scott Hutchings defended the church budget and acknowledged that the church paid about $4,300 for a reception for Sutton’s daughter that was open to all church members. He said Sutton personally paid for another separate reception outside the church.

“When you’re pastor, we feel like you have to invite the whole church,” to avoid the appearance of favoritism, Hutchings said.

But what it really seems to be about is that Sutton wants to wield absolute power and brooks no dissent (sound familiar?) among his congregants:

Church trustee Frank Harris has been leading the campaign against Sutton. Two Rivers “appears to have been manipulated from a people-led church to a staff-run church,” Harris said.

“Anyone who voiced opposition to leadership was alienated and lost any ministries they may have had in the church,” Harris said.

Sounds kind of like the United States gubmint. Hutchings put Sutton’s position succinctly: “There has to be submission and authority.”

“Submission and authority” — could be George Bush’s mantra. Maybe if the church thing doesn’t work out for him, Sutton can probably find something in the administration, say in the Department of Justice ….