The Screwtape Reports
By Adam Graham
From: Dave Screwtape
To: House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Democratic National Committee, Friendly Publications
Subject: Bill Bennett
I'm extremely pleased to read the recent revelations concerning Bill Bennett's gambling. Everyone has been doing an excellent job so far and I have to commend you for your efforts.
Attempts to get after the President for his past lapses in judgment have been unsuccessful. More to the point, the President is so popular at this time that we might as well try attacking the Pope's character.
However, Mr. Bennett is fair game. We all know that Dick Cheney is not running for President in 2008, which will leave an open field and one likely candidate is the aforesaid Mr. Bennett. Many of you have correctly seen a major opportunity to knock a top contender out of the running before he even gets started. However, some of you do not realize the magnitude of the opportunity we've been given.
If we can convince Conservatives to crucify Bennett, we'll continue on our way to setting a new standard for moral conservative leadership: absolute and total moral perfection. The beauty of the Bennett case is that Bennett has never been a great anti-gambling spokesman. His public crusades have been in relation to problems in education, the teaching of very general "virtues" such as friendship and faith, "trash TV", and the relentless attacks on our dear former President.
Conservatives will point out that gambling has nothing to do with adultery or perjury, or staging an on-air fight between a Drag Queen's groom-to-be and his ex-wife, but that's the point. If they want to talk to us about any moral issue, you must be blameless in all moral matters.
Thus, we'll raise the bar for all moral conservatives. Whenever any conservatives stand against abortion or gay marriage, we can simply throw their sins back in their face. What about that DUI you got three years ago? What about that failed marriage twenty years ago? Personal growth or change cannot be allowed. We also can't allow them to claim it was simply a moral blind spot. We must establish a principle. After practicing a vice, all people must be bound to one of two labels: moral libertarian or hypocrite.
Upon realizing these new standards, we'll succeed in scaring politicians away from moral crusades like abortion. By getting political leaders to avoid moral issues like the plague, we will demoralize, divide, and destroy the social conservative movement in this country and thus we will defeat social conservatism.
Many of you are wondering how we'll handle the rest of the Republicans. What must be understood is the Republican Party is an army of several factions and each faction is needed for victory. Our goal is to destroy and divide that Army. Whatever we can do to put one faction at the throat of another, or to drive some members to our side or away from the political debate entirely helps us. If we were to drive the Evangelical Christian out of the political arena and back to the backwater churches from whence they came, the Republican Party would lose and we would once again solidify our control of government.
So, if you see a conservative wanting to burn Mr. Bennett at the stake, give him a match. Little does he know that the fire he lights today will eventually consume him.
Remember, we are winning!
Dave Screwtape
The Screwtape Report is written by Adam Graham. The Screwtape Report is written from a Democratic perspective by a conservative in order to reveal Democratic strategy and thinking. .
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