The Heartbreak of False Equivalence
Obama takes the Christianist route, citing religion as the base for his old-school liberalism…
What Obama might represent is a twist on Bush's "compassionate conservatism." That label was always a way to disguise well-meaning big government liberalism. Obama, unlike Bush, need not pretend otherwise. He can raise taxes on the successful as a Biblical injunction. He can increase even further the reach of the welfare state because Jesus is calling him to. It may be that history records the Bush presidency as the breakthrough for a revival of domestic liberalism - because Bush conceded that "when someone's hurt, government has got to move." I'm not surprised many Democrats are now exploiting that concession.
There is a stark difference between bringing one’s faith to bear on one’s political ideas, and looking to religious teaching as a guide for one’s political principles, as it seems Obama does, and believing in Christianity as a “total system” with appropriate teaching for each and every aspect of life, and supporting the writing of that teaching into U.S. law, as Christianists do.
I think what this represents is Sullivan once again trying to demonstrate his vaunted independence by seeing similarities that just aren’t there. While it may have borne a resemblance to old school liberalism, “compassionate conservatism” was, like everything else having to do with the Bush presidency, like everything else that's ever sprung from Karl Rove's big fuzzy head, designed primarily to enhance the fortunes of the Republican Party.
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