Apparently not happy with just creating their own facts, the brain trust that brought us Conservapedia is now launching a new project: rewriting the Bible without that annoying liberal bias:

The eager young men at Conservapedia are p.o.'d that the Bible might be seen as too liberal. So they've come up with the Wiki-style Conservative Bible Project, to make sure the Lord doesn't go all wobbly on us. Excerpt:

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[1]

• Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
• Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
• Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[2]
• Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[3] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle"
• Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[4] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
• Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
• Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
• Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
• Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
• Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities

[..]

"The liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio"? Hoo-wee! Elitists like to use words, and lots of 'em! "Unnecessary ambiguities"? But how are you going to abide by the conservative mandate to avoid "dumbing down" Holy Writ while at the same time avoiding big words liberals use? More seriously, the insane hubris of this really staggers the mind. These right-wing ideologues know better than the early church councils that canonized Scripture? They really think it's wise to force the word of God to conform to a 21st-century American idea of what constitutes conservatism? These jokers don't worship God. They worship ideology.

The Bible without all that liberal bias? I thought the Bible was the inviolate Word of God? Wouldn't taking out any liberal teachings violate the inviolate? How much of Jesus's teachings will actually make it into the book? How will these boneheads re-write these statements (courtesy of Jesus is a Liberal)?:

• Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. [Matthew 5:9]
• Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Matthew 5:39]
• I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you, and persecute you; [Matthew 5:44]
• If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone at her. [John 8:7]
• Do not judge, lest you too be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. [Matthew 7:1 & 2.]
• Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy [Matthew 5:7]
• But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. [Matthew 6:15]
• Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. [Luke 12.15.] Truly, I say unto you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 19:23]
• You cannot serve both God and Money. [Matthew 6:24.]
• Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. [Matthew 22:21]
• Love your neighbor as yourself. .[Matthew 22:39]
• So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you. [Matthew 7:12.]
• If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. [Matthew 19:21]
• But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. [Luke 14:13&14.]

Oh yeah, this is gonna be a HUGE success in publishing.

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Aug. 18, 2009 with winner, the Texas State School Board. Runners up Glenn Beck and Tom Coburn.

Oh boy:

On January 28, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), founder of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, introduced H. Con. Res. 34, a resolution "Calling upon the Capitol Preservation Commission and the Office of the Architect of the Capitol to place the Lincoln-Obama Bible on permanent display upon the Lincoln table at the Capitol Visitor Center for the benefit of all its visitors to fully understand and appreciate America's history and Godly heritage."

Now, I have no objection whatsoever to this Bible being displayed in the Capitol Visitors Center. It is an historical fact that this was the Bible that Abraham Lincoln used at his second inauguration, and an historical fact that Barack Obama chose to use this same Bible at his inauguration, so displaying it on the table used to hold it at Lincoln's inauguration, which is already in the exhibit, and adding a sign saying that Obama also used it, is absolutely appropriate. I don't think anyone could reasonably disagree that the symbolism of our first black president incorporating in his inauguration this connection to the president who freed the slaves is something that should be seen by future generations visiting the Capitol, and putting the Bible on the table used to hold it at Lincoln's inauguration would add to the accuracy of the exhibit's recreation of that event.

What I do object to in H. Con. Res. 34 are some of the reasons given by Forbes for displaying the Bible, in both the resolution's title and its "Whereas" clauses, the most objectionable of which is:

"Whereas the Holy Bible is God's Word"

This is nothing but a sneaky way of getting the Congress of the United States to declare that the Christian Bible is the word of God, which, of course, for many Americans, it is not. This "Whereas" should be struck from the resolution entirely.

That whole "Separation of Church and State" clause really is soooo hard to grasp, isn't it? Rodda has since introduced HR 397 affirming our "rich spiritual and religious history" and designating the first week of May as "America’s Spiritual Heritage Week". He also issued a challenge to Obama or any takers to debate when we stopped being a Judeo-Christian nation:

"I challenge the president or anyone else -- come up, either debate me on this issue or simply tell me where that single moment in time was when you can say we crossed the threshold -- we ceased being a Judeo-Christian nation -- and you can't do it."

Oh ye of too much faith and too little information. Your challenge has been accepted by Chris Rodda of Talk To Action and she's ready to rumble:

Mr. Forbes, just name the time and place -- your turf, my turf (up here in NJ-6), DC, or anywhere else -- and let's debate your resolution clause by clause and see how well that very impressive looking list of footnotes you keep boasting about stands up to scrutiny.

I'll be sending a registered, return receipt letter to Mr. Forbes's office formally accepting his challenge to make sure he knows that I, as an "anyone else," have stepped up to accept it.

For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Forbes's "spiritual heritage" resolution, it's a re-introduction of H. Res. 888, the "religious heritage" resolution he introduced in the last congress. In a series of pieces last year, I debunked the dozens of instances of historical fiction in that resolution, and thanks to the efforts of a few organizations and a whole bunch of bloggers who joined in the fight, H. Res. 888 never made it to the floor. But, a few months ago, outraged over President Obama's statement in Turkey that America is not a Christian nation, Mr. Forbes reintroduced the same resolution as H. Res. 397. It currently has 74 co-sponsors.

I recently re-posted my debunking of H. Res. 888, as soon as I saw that Mr. Forbes had re-introduced it as H. Res. 397, so, if anyone wants more details about the resolution, or to see why I'm thrilled that he has issued a challenge for someone to debate him on it, you can find it here.

You can contact Forbes here to encourage him to schedule the debate. Better yet, let's get it up on video and we'll be happy to air it here.

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Rep. Paul Broun, R-GA, was on Fox and Friends yesterday touting his proposal to have Congress officially designate 2010 "The Year of the Bible", and he had an interesting rationale for it:

Broun: Well, it's all about freedom, actually. The Bible was the basis of our laws, it was the basis of the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence -- the Bible was the founding source.

Hmmmmm. Well, some of us have heard otherwise, but OK, whatever.

You may remember Rep. Broun. Last November he won lots of friends on both sides of the aisle and in the White House when he warned that Obama was preparing a Hitler-like dictatorship with his civilian-youth-corps proposal: "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did ... When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

Broun is, of course, asking President Obama to issue this proclamation. And what will Obama achieve by issuing it?

Broun: The Bible was the basis of our nation. And as we look to the future, and as we deal with our economic problems, as we're stealing our grandchildren's future, we need to look at the principles that were taught Biblically. When our Founding Fathers established this country, they established it on freedom. That's what the Bible teaches. Every single one of our laws are based on the Biblical precepts. And we need to turn back to those precepts if our country's going to be strong and great again.

It's absolutely critical for us to understand what freedom's all about, what our own responsibility is all about, and what government's function within our society is supposed to be. And we have forgotten that in Washington. We are heading down a road that's going to destroy our nation. We are headed toward a total government control of everybody's lives -- a loss of freedom, a loss of our money, a loss of our private property -- and it's extremely critical now for us to go back to those foundational principles that this country was founded upon.

That's the reason a proclamation of "The Year of the Bible" will help people understand what the importance of those, um, principles are all about as we go forward to make our nation secure, free, and great again.

Oh. OK. So you want President Obama to issue this proclamation so right-wing nutcases like yourself can hijack the entire text of the Bible to promote your teabagging brand of politics. Whose entire purpose is to undermine the agenda of both the president and the Democratic Congress.

Right. Well, lots of luck with that, Rep. Broun.

You can't make this stuff up.

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Via Frank Rich today:

This Sunday, GQ magazine is posting on its Web site an article adding new details to the ample dossier on how Donald Rumsfeld’s corrupt and incompetent Defense Department cost American lives and compromised national security. The piece is not the work of a partisan but the Texan journalist Robert Draper, author of “Dead Certain,” the 2007 Bush biography that had the blessing (and cooperation) of the former president and his top brass. It draws on interviews with more than a dozen high-level Bush loyalists.

Draper reports that Rumsfeld’s monomaniacal determination to protect his Pentagon turf led him to hobble and antagonize America’s most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia, and even to undermine his own soldiers. But Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.

Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.) What’s up with that?

As Draper writes, Rumsfeld is not known for ostentatious displays of piety. He was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”

And speaking of Rumsfeld, Rich also mentions this:

In a highly unusual reversal, the Defense Department’s inspector general’s office has withdrawn a report it issued in January exonerating a Pentagon public relations program that made extensive use of retired officers who worked as military analysts for television and radio networks.

Donald M. Horstman, the Pentagon’s deputy inspector general for policy and oversight, said in a memorandum released on Tuesday that the report was so riddled with flaws and inaccuracies that none of its conclusions could be relied upon. In addition to repudiating its own report, the inspector general’s office took the additional step of removing the report from its Web site.