A Heartwarming Tale of Betrayal and Blackmail

There’s something really quite charming about a group of Christians blackmailing the President, isn’t there?

Well, maybe not so much charming as extraordinarily satisfactory.

It turns out that the Arlington Group, which is, apparently, a coalition of major conservative Christian groups, including Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the Southern Baptist Convention, the American Family Association, Jerry Falwell, and Paul Weyrich, is none too happy about Bush’s recent interview with the Washington Post where his exact position on the “protection of marriage” amendment was, ahem, less than consistent.

In a confidential letter to Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, the group said it was disappointed with the White House's decision to put Social Security and other economic issues ahead of its paramount interest: opposition to same-sex marriage.

Oops! Now the groups says it will withhold support for Social Security reform if Bush doesn’t quit screwing around with his boring old economic plans and get moving on legislating bigotry.

"We couldn't help but notice the contrast between how the president is approaching the difficult issue of Social Security privatization where the public is deeply divided and the marriage issue where public opinion is overwhelmingly on his side," the letter said. "Is he prepared to spend significant political capital on privatization but reluctant to devote the same energy to preserving traditional marriage?”

Goodness gracious. What’s a poor little president-who-pretends-to-be-a-Christian-but-really-only-cares-about-the-votes-of-religious-wingnuts-to-further-his-economic-ruination-of-the-middle-class to do?

Asked to estimate the level of discontent with the White House among the group on a scale from one to 10, [Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council] put it at 8.

Ouch! They sure have put Bush and his Un-Svelte Svengali in a corner. Although, considering that Bush is now on his second and final term, and Dark Lord VP Cheney has indicated no aspirations to the presidency, it looks like they don’t really need to care what the Arlington Group, or any other religious nutjob who foolishly saw Christian sincerity in the president’s empty rhetoric, has to say.

The White House response was probably not as reassuring as the Arlington Group might have hoped.

Trent Duffy, a spokesman for the White House, said on Monday […] the "president remains very committed to a marriage amendment" and added, "We always welcome suggestions from our friends."

Translation: Tears in a bucket, motherfuck it. Bad news, hatemongers…you got punk’d.