Christian Coalition, Christian Values? 0
From the Annenberg Center; follow the link for the full story, a detailed analysis, and links to the ads in question:
Reed falsely accuses Cagle of “failure to pay his taxes,” which isn’t so. Reed also accuses him of “unethical banking conflicts” for being both a banker and a state senator working on banking legislation, but that’s common in many state legislatures. Reed also falsely attributes to Cagle a quote – “everybody does it” – which actually came from a newspaper editorial and not Cagle. And Reed’s ads refer snidely to “millionaire Cagle,” even though Reed himself is a multi-millionaire worth more than twice as much as his opponent.
Cagle’s ad accuses Reed of taking millions from Abramoff to help casinos and working with Abramoff to deny legal protections to women and children in garment factories in the Mariana Islands where forced abortions and forced prostitution have been reported, all charges that are well documented. We found only one misstatement in Cagle’s ad, which uses a phony newspaper quote to imply that Reed confirmed acceptance of money from Indian casinos. In fact, Reed still denies that he knew the money he got from Abramoff came from gambling, despite ample evidence to the contrary contained in a recent Senate report.
We had a substitute preacher this week. (He is quite a neat guy, by the way.) In the course of his sermon, he discussed those who wrap themselves in the name of God and, in particular, differentiated between followers of Christ (who try to live a life of Christian virtue) and admirers of Christ (who honor Christ from 11:00 a.m till noon on Sundays, but forget about Him the rest of the week, except maybe occasionally).
I would add yet a third category, and visualize a continuum with followers of Christ on one end, admirers of Christ in the middle, and users of Christ (’nuff said) at the other end.
Where along the continuum would our buddy Ralph fall?
