I still can't determine with any finality if yesterday's op-ed in the Washington Post by that paper's former religion reporter was an over-the-top attempt at objectivity or merely abject ignorance of American constitutionalism. It seemed to lean so far to the latter that perhaps it was only a poorly written stab at the former. No one, I thought, could be this unschooled in the American political tradition, especially a WP reporter -- and one who had covered religion, which, sadly, has become inextricably and organically tied to modern politics.
Its author, Hanna Rosin, could, I suppose, muster the defense that she was only relating a new reality in American politics -- that right-wing Christian ideologues in government, such as Monica Goodling, are here to stay -- yet the tone of her piece seemed so warm and fuzzy toward this theocratic trend, I initially read it as nothing more than an endorsement. It was shocking and horrifying, so much so that I kept wanting to believe in my "objectivity" hypothesis.
Ms. Rosin set the tone in her opening sentence: "To the Bush haters of America, the young Monica Goodling is a footnote of this wretched era, one of the many Washington types that they'll be happy to get rid of come January 2009: Venal Vice President, Ex-Lobbyists Turned Regulators and, in Goodling's case, Young Evangelicals in High Places."
Under hot lights Ms. Rosin could claim she was only reporting a contemporary reality: that most Americans do hate Bush, that this is indeed a "wretched era," and that for excellent reasons we'll be delighted to "rid" ourselves of these political malefactors and their enabling "Young Evangelicals in High Places." In effect, she could say, you can't blame her for simply reporting how bad things have gotten.
But again, it was the overall tone of Ms. Rosin's piece that disturbed, and appallingly so.
"Goodling," she wrote, has been "mocked" by comedians and commentators as "one of a 'bunch of hayseeds' staffing the administration." But for Ms. Rosin's money, we should properly "Call them the Goodlings: scrubbed young ideologues, ready to serve their nation, the right's version of the Peace Corps generation."
Nowhere in the piece does the author question if the wholly biblical worldview of these "scrubbed young ideologues" just might conflict with the wholly secular U.S. Constitution. Did the author just assume that anyone with any rudimentary schooling in American political and constitutional history would already know this?
And there were passages such as these: "Even after this administration is gone, they can work for one of the more than 150 members of Congress who call themselves evangelical or dozens of conservative think tanks and activist groups. Or they can run for office.... They will be around long after Bush is gone.... They are embedded firmly enough into Washington to provide jobs for smart young Christians for generations to come."
Was that a warning; or an objective statement only of what's coming, like it or not; or an expression of her own ideological relief?
To decide, you'll have to read it for yourself. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after reading it the first time. But then, with a severe case of incredulity that the Washington Post would ever have hired a right-wing Christian mole to report on religion -- meaning too often, these days, politics -- and then try to pass her off as a serious editorialist, I reread it trying to find "objectivity" loopholes.
Was I wrong? Is it really as bad as it read? Could it actually be that today we have in the mainstream media purportedly educated reporters who really can't distinguish between the Bible and the Constitution? Between Thomas Jefferson's vision and that of Pat Robertson's? Between age-old republicanism and creeping theocracy?