Theocrats anonymous

Paul Krugman today writes about the right-wing fundamentalists', theocratic "infiltration" of the federal goverment, "For God’s Sake". (H/t AmericaBlog; Krugman's article is also available at Pottersville.)

Krugman begins,

In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement — the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right — suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure,” he wrote, “and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.”

Infiltration: aye, there's the rub. Thanks to Monica II, The Regime's practice of placing religious fundamentalists in high and not-so-high places has, thankfully, caught the public's attention. Krugman puts it this way:

[The] story . . . tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists. But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.

And there’s another thing most reporting fails to convey: the sheer extremism of these people. You see, Regent isn’t a religious university the way Loyola or Yeshiva are religious universities. It’s run by someone whose first reaction to 9/11 was to brand it God’s punishment for America’s sins.

Sounds like oil isn't the only thing we import from Saudi Arabia, doesn't it?

And sadly it looks like the next (pray God) Democratic administration may have to do more than replace just political appointees, but actually comb through the ranks of career employees who have been hired not for their ability, but for their narrow, anti-democratic faith credentials. Holy Manchurian bureaucrat! The problem is of course that there should not be a faith-test for employment (and some of these hires may be both qualified and legitimate), but now that there has been one, and such a dangerous one. . . .

Let's just say that the right wing canard of the outgoing Clinton staff trashing the White House will seem like nothing. Fundamentalists are especially good at self-fulfilling prophecies: they will howl, religious persecution!

I also have some (professional) thoughts on the whole theocracy thing (fundamentalists try to control public religious discourse-- and frequently succeed-- in the same way that NeoCons do political discourse), but that will have to wait for another day.