Will Evangelicals Vote Morman in 08?

Many people have asked my opinion of Mitt Romney's presidential bid. Each and every time it boils down to the "Mormon" issue. Will Christian conservatives vote for a Mormon in a presidential election? I regularly respond by asking them a few questions of my own. Most common in this line of inquiry is whether or not Christian conservatives would have (or would have had) any hesitation voting for a mason, a Catholic, a deist, a Unitarian, or a nominal Christian. The answers are normally no, maybe, no, no, and maybe.

As pietistic as they may claim to be, the truth of the matter is that when push comes to shove and the rubber hits the road we often do things that contradict what we profess. This is especially true in the realm of politics. Most of the people I speak with love George Washington, yet he was a mason. So is Newt Gingrich. They talk highly of JFK regardless of the fact that he was a member of the "apostate" Catholic Church. They would refuse to vote for a deist, yet they revere Thomas Jefferson. These people wouldn't vote for a Unitarian, yet almost all of them talk about how great Abraham Lincoln was. What of the nominal Christian? One need not look any further than Ronal Reagan. He, along with Lincoln, didn't care much for church attendance. In every one of these cases, Christian conservatives were far less concerned about a persons orthodoxy than they were about how he compared to the person he was running against.

So here is my answer: If the Mormon Mitt Romney wins in the primaries over the Roman Catholic RINO from NYC or the Episcopalian RINO from Arizona then the vast majority of Christian conservatives will have no problem voting for him. Then again, Christian and conservative pietism normally goes the way of the dodo on Election Day.

Operation "Do the Wrong Thing"

This is Bannister's op-ed piece that will run in next week's edition of the Echo

"Failure is when your best just isn’t good enough," or so says the demotivational calendar I bought my father for Christmas. While the maxim is meant to be a joke, I couldn’t help but to think that in a very strange way it summed up Bush’s tenure as commander in chief. Regardless of how hard he tries, it appears that his every effort results in a worsening of an already horrific situation.

Unfortunately, his “new direction” for the Iraq war is no exception. To be honest, prior to seeing his speech on Thursday, January 11, my hopes were at a 4-year-high. With the pounding the Republicans received from the Democrats in November, the overwhelming public disapproval of the war and the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group getting praises from both sides of the political aisle, I bet my chips that Bush would abandon the neoconservative mantra for a more political and diplomatic approach. Time magazine had the same enthusiasm, publishing a cover story entitled, “The Iraq Study Group says it’s time for an exit strategy. Why Bush will listen.” Even neocon flagships like the Weekly Standard and National Review were biting their nails over the possibility of Bush “backpedaling.”

Unfortunately, those predictions were dashed to pieces when Bush made it clear that he would continue flying with the war-hawks. The Kagan-Keane report, a plan concocted by the same cabal that got us into this infamous fiasco, was the game plan our president ended up embracing. With Baker-Hamilton’s 79 recommendations tossed to the side and Colin Powell’s recent criticisms disregarded, the president chose to call for tours to be lengthened, deployments to be stretched and recruiters to go hog-wild in hope of bolstering the floundering enlistment numbers. This, contrary to popular demand, was the new direction for our policy in Iraq.

Will the plan work? Not likely. It emphasizes a surge that, like its predecessors, will not resolve the problems in Iraq any more than a Band-Aid would stop the bleeding of an amputated leg. With over 3,000 American soldiers dead, 25,000 wounded, over 100,000 Iraqi civilians six-feet-deep and the cost of the war surpassing $400 billion dollars, it would appear the that only surge worth pursuing is one that would include soldiers coming home. Then again, Bush is about as fond of conventional wisdom as he is of reading the newspaper.

In the end, my father’s calendar hits the mark when it says, “Quitters never win, winners never quit, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.” Unfortunately, these folks often end up dictating our foreign policy.

Olivet College & Vagina Monologues

The extremely controversial "Vagina Monologues," a play written by Eve Ensler, will be performed at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 14, at the Oaks Theatre. The show is being directed by an Olivet student, Anabel Montalvo, and produced by Professor Joanne Williams, assistant professor of theatre and journalism/mass communications. The proceeds of this V-Day program will go to help the Siren-Eaton shelter in Charlotte, Michigan. The "V" in V-Day stands for Valentine, vagina, and victory against the abuse of women.

The Olivet news source says, "Those wishing to audition should bring a short monologue to perform, preferably not from 'The Vagina Monologues.'" I am curious to know what the school would do if the one auditioning reenacted the notorious "good rape" scene? This scene from the original production has since been banished from the official program and Eve Eusler vows to press charges against any group that includes it in their rendition. The controversial monologue was entitled, "The Little Coochie Snorcher that Could," and described a lesbian dominatrix affair between a 13-year-old and a grown woman.

I am curious to know whether or not the Olivet production will include the additional transgender monologue, "They beat the girl out of my boy, or so they tried."

It appears that Olivet College believes that fighting domestic abuse by putting on a play that was described by one feminist as a "blast of hatred for men and heterosexuality" is a good idea. Welcome to Bizarro-World...

Read comments about this post on Bannister's blog, HERE.

Yankama Interview Tonight @ 6:30

Make sure to watch this evening's edition of Bannister and Sutherby! We had the honor to interview our favorite city commissioner, Andrew Yankama. To top it all off, he bought us some truffles as a Christmas gift! Can't get any better than this...