In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the
Christian Reconstructionist move-
ment - the openly theocratic wing of
the Christian right - suggested that
the movement could achieve power
by stealth. "Christians must begin to
organize politically within the present
party structure, he wrote, "and they
must begin to infiltrate the existing
institutional order.
Today, Regent University, founded
by the televangelist Pat Robertson to
provide "Christian leadership to
change the world, boasts that it has
150 graduates working in the Bush ad-
ministration.
Unfortunately for the image of the
school, where Mr. Robertson is chan-
cellor and president, the most famous
of those graduates is Monica Good-
ling, a product of the university's law
school. She's the former top aide to
Alberto Gonzales who appears cen-
tral to the scandal of the fired U.S. at-
torneys and has declared that she will
take the Fifth rather than testify to
Congress on the matter.
The lnfiltratiun of the federal gov-
ernment by large numbers of people
seeking to impose a religious agenda
- which Is very different from sim-
ply being people of faith - is one of
the most important stories of the last
six years. It's also a story that tends
to go underreported, perhaps because
journalists are afraid of sounding like
conspiracy theorists.
But this conspiracy is no theory.
The official platform of the Texas Re-
publican Party pledges to "dispel the
myth of the separation of church and
state. And the Texas Republicans
now running the country are doing
their best to fulfill that pledge.
Kay Cole James. who had extensive
connections to the religious right and
was the dean of Regent s government
school, was the federal government's
chief personnel officer from 2001 to
2005. (Curious fact: she then took a
job with Mitchell Wade, the business-
man who bribed Representative Ran-
dy "Duke Cunningham.) And it's
clear that unqualified people were
hired throughout the administration
because of their religious connec-
tions.
For example, The Boston Gjobe re-
ports on one Regent law, schqol gradu-
ate who was interviewed by the Jus-
tice Department's civil rights divi-
sion. Asked what Supreme Court deci-
sion of the past 20 years lie most dis-
agreed with, he named the decision to
strike down a Texas anti-sodomy law.
When he was hired, it was his only job
offer.
Or consider George Deutsch, the
Thomas L. Friedman is off today
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presidential appointee at NASA who
told a Web site designer to add the
word "theory after every mention of
the Big Bang, to leave open the possi
bility of "intelligent design by a cre
ator. He turned out not to have, as he
claimed, a degree from Texas A&M
One measure of just how many
Bushies were appointed to promote a
religious agenda is how often a Chris
tian right connection surfaces when
we learn about a Bush administration
scandal.
There's Ms. Goodling, of course. But
Invasion of the
theocrats.
did you know that Rachel Paulose, the
U.S. attorney in Minnesota - three of
whose deputies recently stepped
down, reportedly in protest over her
management style - is, according to
a local news report, in the habit of
quoting Bible verses in the office?
Or there's the case of Claude Allen,
the presidential aide and former dep-
uty secretary of health and human
services, who stepped down after be-
ing investigated for petty theft. Most
press reports, though they mentioned
Mr. Allen's faith, failed to convey the
fact that he built his career as a man
of the hard-line Christian right.
And there's another thing, most re-
porting fails to convey: the sheer ex-
tremism of these people.
You see, Regent isn't a religious
university the way Loyola or Yeshiva
are religious universities. It's run by
someone whose first reaction to 9/11
was to brand It God's punishment for
America's sins.
Two days after the terrorist at-
tacks, Mr. Robertson held a conversa-
tion with Jerry Falweli on Mr. Rob-
ertson's TV show "The 700 Club. Mr.
Falwell laid blame for the attack at
the feet of "the pagans, and the abor-
tionists, and the feminists, and the
gays and the lesblan," not to mention
the A.C.L.U. and People for the Amer-
ican Way. "Well, I totally concur,
said Mr., Robertson.
The Bush administration's Implo-
sion' clearly represents a setbtk for
the Christian right's strategy of infil-
tration. But it would be wildly prema-
ture to declare the danger over. This
is a movement that has shown great
resilience over the years. It will sure-
ly find new champions.
Next week Rudy Giuliani will be
speaking at Regent's Executive Lead
ership Series.
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