How to Drive a Deacon to Drink

How is it possible for the whole nation to hold its breath wondering who the Evangelical Republican Tea Party in Iowa is going to choose to be the Next Loser? The Republican caucuses in Iowa have not chosen a successful Presidential nominee in years!

But here we are, going down through the list again: Bachmann? Santorum? Parry? Paul? Romney? Cain? Gingrich? Somebody? Anybody! Help!

Gingrich? How is it possible for earnest, church-going, tea drinkers to prefer Gingrich? Does he not represent almost everything they scorn? Newt's marriage record alone might seem to cause a Dutch Reformed Deacon's moral commitments to scrunch up into a knot. Newt was thrown out of office by his own party the last time he held office. He is a mean-spirited son-of-a-gun who oozes mean comments. He advocates arresting politicians he disagrees with, and says he would refuse to follow laws he does not like.

Newt isn't running for President: he is selling books. His campaign appearances involve inscribing the books his admirers just bought. He reminds then that there are about thirty other titles in stock. He would rather not be reminded that if there is enough money involved--say, at least $13.--he will oppose what he just advocated yesterday. Actually, his fee is more like $60,000. a speech, he says.

But what boggles the mind is not Newt: it is the Evangelical Republican Tea Partiers who support him! What are they thinking? I have almost come to the conclusion that the human brain must have something like a moral corpus callosum that is supposed to communicate between two places in the brain--say the religious closet, and the swamp of politics--and that it gets severed when you enter an Evangelical Republican Tea Party caucus room. How else can you conclude that God and a lot of Iowa Church Republicans want Newt to be President?

Ah! That isn't fair! Maybe it is just that the alternatives would drive a Deacon to drink.

Comments

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