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Sunday, December 05, 2004

Mort Zuckerman nails it down

This should be my final post re: the values issue in the recent election. Some in blue America have a hysterical vision of redstate nazis turning DC into a Christian camp meeting revival, complete with inquisitions, witch burnings, replacing science texts with Bibles, and madated prayer everywhere, simply because of an exit poll question. Mortimer B. Zuckerman ( one of the truly levelheaded and incisive editiorialists today, imho) puts the brakes on this with a couple of common sense observations, the first being a question:

1) why fear a "mandate" based on an exit poll that got the election itself wrong?
2) the poll question was so poorly worded that it could have meant almost anything.
3) a general concern for values issues does not equate to Christian values (though there is a correlation)

Doubtless Bush will bring his own religious convictions into play when it comes to issues that affect the bedrock of society (definition of marriage), but he has clearly shown that he is unwilling to incite hysteria in the 49% that did not vote for him (as if some of them needed help!) by hamfisted moral legislation. He has repeatedly said that legislative action on issues like this must be accompanied by widespread change in the hearts of the people.

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