“Just get me a f-ing faith-based thing,” eight words attributed to Karl Rove by author and former special assistant to the president, David Kuo, that could by themselves very well decide those midterms. In our fifth story on the COUNTDOWN, part two of our look inside Mr. Kuo‘s extraordinary new book, “Tempting Faith,” written from his earlier vantage point as the number-two man in Bush‘s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.
And though it‘s a very large tip, the Rove quote is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As we reported last night, Mr. Kuo is making several explosive claims, among them that, behind their backs, the nation‘s top evangelical Christians were regarded with routine mockery and contempt by White House staffers, called “nuts” and “ridiculous.”
We also told you that Kuo writes that the faith-based office was so starved for support from the Oval Office that it was forced to transform itself into a political arm of Republican campaign efforts.
David Kuo is himself a self-described conservative Christian. His personal and his religion assessment of Mr. Bush is nowhere near the most newsworthy of Kuo‘s revelations in our report tonight, but it might be a valuable key to understanding this president. |
