Bush speech writer Gerson hits Trumpsters with a holy sledge hammer

[Cicada]

His column tonight in the Washington Post is as powerful a knock out punch of the immoral, dishonest elements of his Republican Party as you will ever see. If possible it’s even more devastating than Steve Schmidt’s sermons. It is flat out killer bee.

[Chasstev365]

1. Link?

[fierywoman]

2. or a 3 paragraph quote?

[tblue37]

3. Here:

"The Russia investigation’s spectacular accumulation of lies"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-russia-investigations-spectacular-accumulation-of-lies/2017/11/16/741024bc-cb0e-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.cec6973cacfd

snip

What does public life look like without the constraining internal force of character — without the firm ethical commitments often (though not exclusively) rooted in faith? It looks like a presidential campaign unable to determine right from wrong and loyalty from disloyalty. It looks like an administration engaged in a daily assault on truth and convinced that might makes right. It looks like the residual scum left from retreating political principle — the worship of money, power and self-promoted fame. The Trumpian trinity.

But also: Power without character looks like the environment for women at Fox News during the reigns of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly — what former network host Andrea Tantaros called “a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny.” It looks like Breitbart News’s racial transgressiveness, providing permission and legitimacy to the alt-right. It looks like the cruelty and dehumanization practiced by Dinesh D’Souza, dismissing the tears and trauma of one Roy Moore accuser as a “performance.” And it looks like the Christian defense of Moore, which has ceased to be recognizably Christian.

This may be the greatest shame of a shameful time. What institution, of all institutions, should be providing the leaven of principle to political life? What institution is specifically called on to oppose the oppression of children, women and minorities, to engage the world with civility and kindness, to prepare its members for honorable service to the common good?

A hint: It is the institution that is currently — in some visible expressions — overlooking, for political reasons, credible accusations of child molestation. Some religious leaders are willing to call good evil, and evil good, in service to a different faith — a faith defined by their political identity. This is heresy at best; idolatry at worst.

snip

[Achilleaze]

9. "power without character" - The republican way

republican morals, ethics and character are right out of the cesspool.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-russia-investigations-spectacular-accumulation-of-lies/2017/11/16/741024bc-cb0e-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.7d12018ae67f

Most recently, we learned about Donald Trump Jr.’s direct communications with WikiLeaks — which CIA Director Mike Pompeo has called “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia” — during its efforts to produce incriminating material on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. But this is one sentence in an epic of corruption. There is the narrative of a campaign in which high-level operatives believed that Russian espionage could help secure the American presidency, and acted on that belief. There is the narrative of deception to conceal the nature and extent of Russian ties. And there is the narrative of a president attempting to prevent or shut down the investigation of those ties and soliciting others for help in that task.

In all of this, there is a spectacular accumulation of lies. Lies on disclosure forms. Lies at confirmation hearings. Lies on Twitter. Lies in the White House briefing room. Lies to the FBI. Self-protective lies by the attorney general. Blocking and tackling lies by Vice President Pence. This is, with a few exceptions, a group of people for whom truth, political honor, ethics and integrity mean nothing.
...

But also: Power without character looks like the environment for women at Fox News during the reigns of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly — what former network host Andrea Tantaros called “a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny.” It looks like Breitbart News’s racial transgressiveness, providing permission and legitimacy to the alt-right. It looks like the cruelty and dehumanization practiced by Dinesh D’Souza, dismissing the tears and trauma of one Roy Moore accuser as a “performance.” And it looks like the Christian defense of Moore, which has ceased to be recognizably Christian.
...

Many of the people who should be supplying the moral values required by self-government have corrupted themselves. The Trump administration will be remembered for many things. The widespread, infectious corruption of institutions and individuals may be its most damning legacy.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

5. Powerful article, thanks! n/t

[ATL Ebony]

6. WOW, awesome article. Thanks for posting.

[pansypoo53219]

7. oh please. as if georgee was not a partisan ass who favored the rich too.

torture, iWaq, osama who?

[Cicada]

8. Gerson too is a sinner but his words here still soar

Michael Gerson is a gifted speech writer whose words have too often been deceptive, pursuing evil in the name of good. He is guilty of some of what he decries in his Post column. Those in the Bush administration surely lied us into a disastrous maelstrom of death and suffering in Iraq, for instance, sped forward at times by Gerson’s mendacity. But what he wrote in his Post column was still a powerful takedown of evil.

If you want a more honest, intelligent, reasoned former George W Bush speech writer then you need to read David Frum. Frum, unlike Gerson, rarely strays from undeniable logic. I have at times viewed Gerson’s columns with contempt. I have never had contempt for Frum. When I disagree with Frum, which I often do, I always know there is a real chance he is right and I am wrong. Frum is essential reading, the best opponent we have.