Former religious rightist, and now enlightened Huffington Post regular columnist, Frank Schaeffer has much to say about politics and religion. Schaeffer, as many likely remember, called out McCain last fall for his campaign hate rallies with Sarah Palin. but in a recent column, an open letter to Obama, he does not mince words, advising our new president that
The lack of cooperation you're getting from the Republican Party will continue. You were right to indulge in a little bit of tokenism when you had to Pastor Rick Warren pray at your inauguration. But if you think that the Republicans in Congress and the Senate are going to do more than their utmost to obstruct everything you are and what you stand for you're dreaming.
I hope that Obama sees this!
It gets even better, as Schaeffer continues with
The Religious Right supply the kind of people who at McCain and Palin rallies were yelling things such as "kill him" about you. That's the constituency to which your hand was extended when looking for compromise on your financial bailout bill.
There's only one thing that makes sense for you now. Mr. President, you need to forget a bipartisan approach and get on with the business of governing by winning each battle. You will never be able to work with the Republicans because they hate you. Believe me, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the norm not the exception. James Dobson and the rest are praying for you to fail. The neoconservatives are gnashing their teeth and waiting for you to "sell out Israel" or "show weakness" in Afghanistan, whatever, so they can declare you a traitor.
The problem is that when you deal with the Republican Party you're talking to the polished characters in Washington. I wish you could see the hate e-mail's that I have received over the last two years because I supported you, letters calling for God to kill me, telling me that I hate God because I supported you and that I am "an abortionist" and worse a "fag lover" because I've written that I believe that you will be a great president.
What those senators and congressmen are telling you is not what their rabid core constituents are telling them. Their loyalty is to a fundamentalist Christian ideology on the one hand and American exceptionalism of perpetual warfare and hatred and fear of the "other" on the other hand. Between the neoconservatives and evangelical Religious Right Republicans you have no friends.
"You need to forget a bipartisan approach and get on with the business of governing by winning each battle." Yes indeed!
"Their loyalty is to a fundamentalist Christian ideology on the one hand and American exceptionalism of perpetual warfare and hatred and fear of the `other' on the other hand." Precisely!
"Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the norm." They truly are.
Frank Schaeffer - an author of a book about bringing diverse peoples acting in good faith so as to to tackle large scale, common problems, i.e., us - and a man who knows the religous right as a former insider, seems particularly suited to examing this particular potential obsticle trying to get in Obama's way and to get him to fail.
And with this sort of cut-to-the-chase analysis, along with the Republicans' near unanimous failure to support Obama on the stimulus package, things are becoming rather clear. The GOP is a hate filled fringe party. Not news to all of us, I realize, but still an eye opener when coming from people on other sides of the ideological spectrum.