This NRO article is a good illustration of my point that means of organization and identification originating in the Left have now bled to the Right. I think it can be said that Howard Dean is not a big fan of Christian fundamentalists-but is he a bigot? The author even hints that Dean is anti-black through syllogistic means[1]. Just like "racist" or "racism" the term "bigot" has lost all meaning (as did "fascist" decades ago). The author does make a good point, that much of the journalistic elite is out of touch with conservative Christians, but then again, many conservative Christians I have known personally tend to have less than flattering views of people that live in the porn belt or individuals who espouse a sensibility generally considered affinal to the reductio ad absurdum of free speech that is hard-core pornography. True, if the secular Left would make less of a fuss when politicians expressed evangelical religious devotion, then they would be less open to charges of hypocrisy. On the other hand, Dean, as a Congregationalist married to a Jew, is making his own religious statement by taking a stand against the evangelical Protestant subculture which has nurtured G.W. Bush (he of Episcopalian birth, Methodist confession and occasional Jews are going to Hell [this includes Howard Dean’s wife & children] musings) and asserting the validity of the religious liberalism that characterizes his home state. What we have is an angry clash of American cultures-not American bigotries-whatever the latter may mean.
fn1. A) Dean dislikes fundamentalists B) Blacks are fundamentalists…ergo….
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