by TChris

An evangelical Christian, Randall Balmer, takes a thoughtful look at the relationship between evangelical Christianity and the Republican party. Among other questions raised in his essay, Jesus Is Not a Republican, Balmer asks why the religious right hasn't taken a stand against the Bush administration's reliance on torture.

Surely, I thought, this is one issue that would allow the religious right to demonstrate its independence from the administration, for surely no one who calls himself a child of God or who professes to hear "fetal screams" could possibly countenance the use of torture. Although I didn't really expect that the religious right would climb out of the Republican Party's cozy bed over the torture of human beings, I thought perhaps they might poke out a foot and maybe wiggle a toe or two.

I was wrong. Of the eight religious-right organizations I contacted, only two, the Family Research Council and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, answered my query. Both were eager to defend administration policies.

Balmer's conception of Christianity differs from that promoted by right-wing evangelists.

As President Bush flew off on his cheerleading trip to Iraq last week, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq sent a cable with some very distressing information about problems employees are facing. The Washington Post published a copy of June 16 cable.

John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" sentenced to 20 years is doing his time at Victorville Prison under the most severe restrictions.

In the new issue of Esquire, Tom Junod pens a very long portrait of Lindh, from his conversion to Islam through his capture, court case and now, his jail sentence.

Very bad news from Iraq. The AP reports that a farmer in Iraq witnessed the kidnapping of two U.S. soldiers missing from Yusufiyah, a mostly Sunni town about ten miles south of Baghdad.

The White House promised to do everything it could to find the soldiers and said it had a message for anybody who may have taken the two men: "Give them back."

Gunmen, meanwhile, kidnapped 10 bakery workers in Baghdad, and a mortar attack killed four people in the capital. Police also found 17 bodies around the city, including four women and a teenager handcuffed and shot in the head - apparently the latest victims of sectarian death squads.

It has been more than two years since a U.S. soldier has been kidnapped in Iraq.

Observer reporter David Rose was en route to Guantanamo when the suicides occurred and the Pentagon cancelled his pass. He has a very powerful article on what happened and what might have happened.

Here are some snippets from Rose's report:

Newsweek has a new detailed analysis of the Duke lacrosse players' alleged rape case, asking whether it has collapsed. The facts revealed to date don't seem to support the charges. But DA Nifong is sticking to his guns:

Asked for an interview last week by NEWSWEEK, Nifong declined, but sent an angry e-mail accusing the national media of getting spun by defense lawyers and sticking to his earlier comments to the press. "None of the 'facts' I know at this time, indeed, none of the evidence I have seen from any source, has changed the opinion that I expressed initially," he wrote. He lashed out at "media speculation" (adding, "and it is even worse on the blogs"). He said that he was bound by ethics rules against commenting any more about the case or evidence.

There's a good editorial in the Des Moines Register on our vanishing privacy rights:

President Bush dismisses the privacy implications of this government spying by calling it a "terrorist surveillance program." That suggests only those guilty of something are affected. But there's no way to know for sure in advance of a search that the party is guilty of anything. Besides, that makes a mockery of the American system of criminal justice, which contains elaborate safeguards that protect even the guilty from unconstitutional searches.

Even if government spying is intended to be directed only at criminal or terrorist plots, there is no way to guard against abuses when the process is done in total secrecy and there are no checks by either Congress or the courts.

Is this enough to make you sick, or what? I take it with a grain of salt, since Joe DiGenova seems to be the one pushing it.

To put this out in the media through DiGenova now, Team Libby (the p.r. team, not the lawyers) is either testing the waters or hoping to demoralize Team Fitz by making them wonder if Libby's prosecution is all for naught.

One thing I agree with: If the Dems take the House and Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, a pardon before his last day in office may be too dangerous for Bush -- it could have severe adverse consequences for the Republicans in 2008.

If you have any doubts about DiGenova's rooting for Libby, check out Libby's website, which touts these quotes by DiGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing:

As if it's not bad enough that at least one of the Guantanamo detainees who committed suicide last week didn't know he had been cleared for release, now we find out some of them didn't even know they had lawyers.

The Yemeni captive who killed himself at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had an attorney arranging to visit him in August, but did not know it when he committed suicide. One of the Saudis, Mani Shaman al Utaybi, 30, had been approved for transfer to a jail back home, but also had never been told he was cleared to depart the U.S. detention center.

The military first maintained the men who hanged themselves did not have lawyers.

Jamison Foser of Media Matters has the must read article of the day. He writes about why progressives should make the media the defining issue of our times.

I just finished being on a panel "Leakers and the Press" at the American Constitution Society convention in D.C. There was one conservative law professor, Maimon Schwarzchild, on the panel, which also included Law Prof Geoff Stone, 9th Circuit Justice Stephen Reinhardt and Constitutional and Media Law attorney Laura Handman.

Professor Shwarzchild asserted the mainstream media has an overly liberal bias. I challenged him on thatand asked him if he had read Lapdogs or What Liberal Media? I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to get a third reference in....it would have been to Media Matters.

The point being, it's a myth that there is liberal bias in the media. Read Media Matters and learn how to refute the myth with facts.

TL readers may remember that my first foray into investigative reporting occurred after Jason Leopold's May 13 article stating that Karl Rove had been indicted. After Byron York reported that Mark Corallo, Karl Rove's media spokesman, denied speaking with Jason, I spoke with Jason and published his account of his conversations with Corallo. Then I spoke with Corallo and published his denials.

Corallo said Jason had misrepresented himself as Sunday Times (London) reporter Joe Lauria.

In Sunday's Washington Post, Joe Lauria details his encounter with Jason and conversations with Mark Corallo, which he says he learned about from my post on Corallo's statements.

The Washington Post paints a fairly glowing portrait of Karl Rove today. His involvement in PlameGate? No big deal. His position as chief architect of Bush's failed social security revamp? Water under the bridge. Bush's low poll numbers while he was in charge? So what? And no one will remember Harriet Who by 2006.

Now that we have the non-negatives out of the way, here is what uber-strategist Karl is planning for his 2006 election strategy:

He hopes to make the election a choice between the philosophies of the two parties, especially on national security, rather than a referendum on Bush's performance. He also aims to stoke the Republican base with such issues as tax cuts, same-sex marriage and judicial appointments.