Ellmers Wins Despite Ham-Fisted Attack on Her Faith by Anderson Cooper
John on November 3, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Remember when Anderson Cooper went for the kill on Catholic Republican candidate Renee Ellmers? He suggested, among other things, that the Vatican was a “victory mosque.” When she refudiated this silly statement, he became outraged. Looks like it didn’t pay off in this case:
Although a recount is possible, in the latest numbers, Republican challenger and political newcomer Renee Ellmers defeated Democratic Congressman Bob Etheridge in the Second Congressional District in North Carolina on Tuesday.
According to the election results as of press time, Ellmers scored 50% of the vote compared to 49% of the vote for Etheridge. Tom Rose, the Libertarian Party candidate received around 2% of the vote.
Votes may be recounted, but the official count for Ellmers was 91,924 compared to 89,829 for Etheridge and 3,419 for Rose.
I wonder if Anderson’s head did a 360 when he saw this?
verumserum.com
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Cooper could have made a point about religions poaching each others converts and building houses of worship to support those converts. That would have been fine. He might even have stuck to the reign of Charlemagne or the Crusades or the conquistadors in South America, when open military conflict and religious conversion and construction sometimes went hand in hand. Had he done so, it would have been an effective question.
Unfortunately for Cooper, he keeps talking about the Vatican, likely because he knows Renee Ellmers is Catholic, as if it were built following a military conquest of pagans. This is demonstrably false.
The site on which the Vatican rests was previously a “circus” or stadium built by Roman Emperors for horse racing (The Greeks called them Hippodromes). If you’ve seen Ben Hur, you have a pretty good idea what it would have looked like. A church was built on the site in 326 AD, about a decade after the edict of Milan made such sites legal. This was done because the circus was believed to be the spot where the Apostle Peter had been crucified in the 1st century.
This is the irony of what Cooper is saying. Not only was the Vatican not built on the site of a military conquest. It was actually–and self-consciously–built on the site of a major defeat, i.e. the execution of the man Jesus had designated the leader of his church. It’s also worth noting that it was another 60+ years before Christianity became the official religion of Rome.
I have no doubt that the author Cooper brought on to back up his absurd statements was aware of this. However, from his tone, it should be obvious that he had a political and/or religious axe to grind. The bottom line is that Anderson Cooper botched history and Renee Ellmers got it right to call him on it. The Vatican is not the Christian equivalent of a “victory mosque.”
verumserum.com |
