Gore-d to Death

Al Gore has assumed his place in this election as the Democrats' hired gun. He carries with him the perceived charm of the jilted lover - the man who should have been president, had he not been cheated and left at the altar. His emotional outbursts now make him look like a guest on the next Springer show. In some ways, the ultimate irony is that while he delivers attacks on the President's public affirmations of faith, Gore himself looks for all the world just like your average televangelist. The kind that tells you what your relative position in heaven will be if you don't immediately send him a hundred bucks.

For a guy like me, a guy like Gore is embarrassing. His speeches have taken on the near-spittle-emitting hysteria of a crazed dictator as he tries to fire up his crowds. He gives the kind of performance that makes me want to leave the theater and not even bother to ask for my money back. I'll be in that big of a hurry to get out of the parking lot.

Still, it's his attacks on public expressions of faith that bother me most.

I can live with the rest of it. I understand his positions on domestic and foreign policy, even if I don't agree with a word of it. I agree to disagree with Gore (and most of the rest of Democratic party) on most such issues.

But faith? Brother, if ever something was needed in this country, and especially in this government, it's faith.

It has always amazed me that those who most loudly claim to be protectors of the Constitution have so little understanding of the men who framed it. How did the phrase "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" become an absolute separation between religion and government?

Interesting question: Who said: "I am Catholic and have personally always believed life begins at conception, but I have never believed that that is something that should be translated as a matter of faith, an article of faith, into everybody else’s behavior for those who don’t share that faith ..." Sen. John Kerry, Campaign Event, Des Moines, IA, 1/9/04. (Hat tip: Kerry Wrong For Catholics.) I guess that pretty much means the entire Constitution of the United States should never have been made a matter of public policy, since the Founders all injected their faith into that document and the policy of the day. Why should that faith be any less valid in our day?

The founders understood, even if Gore liberals don't, that even if the United States can never say "the entire nation shall worship the god of the Church of England (or the Catholics, or even the Mormons)," there's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't publish the Ten Commandments in a courthouse. I would think that liberals, of all people, would love to see the phrase "Thou shalt not kill" inscribed in such a public place. But wait! To do so might offend some poor athiest who might otherwise vote for me in the next election! Horrors! (One of my favorite lines from 1776: John Adams utters, "This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend someone!")

But Gore carries it even farther than that. He now declares that any public expression of faith is tantamount to Islamic extremism. Yes, I believe in a merciful God (a God who is, nevertheless, angry with this country), and that makes me an extremist. If that's true, I hope there's no cure for it.

I do hope, however, that there's a cure for Gore. He's really starting to get under my skin.