"This ?compassionate conservative? line is horseshit. It may be conservative but it sure ain?t compassionate."- Bill Haber, co-chairman of the Parole and Prison Committee of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association

"It?s one thing to lurch to the right. It?s another thing to lurch back 60 years." - Conservative Commentator William Kristol on Bush?s visit to Bob Jones University

"I look forward to publicly defending our conservative philosophy." - George W. Bush speaking at Bob Jones University

"I believe ? the Pope is in conscious service to the Antichrist." - Bob Jones Jr., then chancellor of Bob Jones University

Bush has tried to claim the mantle of a "Compassionate Conservative" and has lunged desperately back to the center as the campaign has moved from the primaries to the general election. He has tried to claim that he is a different kind of Republican (is that, then, a tacit admission that your regular, run-of-the-mill Republican lawmaker really is such a bad thing?). But is it real? Is he really a compassionate centrist? A look back at others who have claimed this same mantle (Orin Hatch, Bob Dole, Jack Kemp, Pete Wilson and even Newt Gingrich have all tried to claim that they too were "Compassionate Conservatives") gives us an indication of just how compassionate Bush really is. Moreover, his record as governor and his primary campaign rush to the right belie this notion.

Looking back on Chapter 1, we can see just how compassionate Bush has always been. Texas is a state that could use a lot of compassion. Bush hasn?t provided it.

Remember, Texas has the 2^nd highest rate of hunger in the nation. What was Bush?s reaction to this news? He was snooty, indignant and in denial. ?You?d think I would know,? he told us; ?it must be those Washington people trying to set me up,? he whined; ?I don?t believe it?, he insisted. All of this after he had vetoed a bill that would have helped Texas authorities understand the problem better. What kind of compassionate attitude is that?

Recall, Texas has a few hundred thousand citizens, mostly Hispanic, who are living is squalid conditions on the border with Mexico. Bush hasn?t visited them, hasn?t fought for them. He has basically ignored their plight when they needed him most. That?s compassion?

Recall, it was Bush who told us that "incarceration is rehabilitation." It was Bush who vetoed a bill that would have given some modest aid to indigent defendants facing Texas? backwards court system. It was Bush who denied a pardon to Kevin Byrd when everyone from his original prosecutor to the Board of Pardons and Parole agreed that Byrd was wrongly imprisoned. That?s compassion? It is also Bush who has presided over nearly 150 executions and who has spared only two people despite often having significant reason to doubt the guilt of those he was executing. It was Bush who went forward with the executions of those who committed their crimes as juveniles, with those who were mentally ill and even with one inmate who had to be taken out of intensive care to be put to death.

Bush is so compassionate that he even mocked one of the two women he has put to death. Karla Faye Tucker was without doubt guilty of her crime, but she also became a changed person on Death Row and began a prison ministry that grew so large that she was eventually corresponding with inmates in several other states and even other countries. The fact that she was put to death is not the issue, she was guilty and she had a fair trial, but Bush?s behavior in an interview with Tucker Carlson in Talk Magazine is simply disgraceful. This is a partial transcript

What is even more shocking than Bush?s mocking of Tucker is that the exchange he describes between Tucker and King never happened. He made it up for the express purpose of mocking her! This is compassionate? Carlson is a conservative commentator and even he sees that this action is "odd and cruel." It?s hard to be compassionate when you?re being cruel.

Aside from the record discussed in Chapter 1, there are plenty of other examples from Bush?s tenure as governor that he is, indeed, the same old kind of Republican. Take, for instance, the aftermath of the tragic James Byrd murder, when Byrd, a black man, was dragged to death behind a pick-up truck simply because two racist assholes decided they would get their jollies off by savagely killing a black man. The Byrd murder prompted minority communities to demand, in 1999, that Texas pass a bill that would required more strict punishments for crimes motivated by hatred based on bigotry against minorities, Jews or gays and lesbians. Bush, according to Jake Tapper of Salon, "orchestrated the demise" of just such a bill. The Texas House had passed the bill overwhelmingly and Bush, who had already come out in opposition to the bill (because, he said, he didn?t consider crimes based on bigotry to be any more hateful than others crimes) said he would consider the bill if it passed the Senate. Meanwhile, Bush made sure it would never pass the Senate. Several senators who had voted for the exact same bill two years earlier (when Bush wasn?t desperate to win the bigot vote in South Carolina) were suddenly staunch opponents. After the bill died in the Senate, one moderate Senate Republican admitted that he had been acting at the behest of the governor.

Now, the hate crimes bill wouldn?t exactly have been the most productive bill ever enacted. Texas, as I have noted, already has the harshest laws on the books so it?s not as if this bill would have drastically changed the type of punishments being handed out in Texas. But this bill meant more than that. It had an incredible symbolic significance and it really would have been a good first step towards healing what is often a serious racial divide in Texas. Bill Minutaglio, the author of the favorable Bush biography "First Son," saw the reaction Bush?s opposition to the bill drew around the state, "I would hear people complain all the time that it would have been a perfect opportunity for Bush to come forward in a broader and more aggressive way by taking a stance on something so clearly racial and taking a strong stance against the entrenched bigotry you often see here in Texas." For Bush, there was no need to stand up against bigotry.

Bush only further compounded the damage he had done with his treatment of the Byrd family after the murder and while the bill was languishing in the Senate. Bush didn?t attend Byrd?s funeral because, he said, it would have created "a highly charged political event." He claimed to have at least called the family and offered his condolences, but the Byrd family says that is a lie. Renee Mullins, Byrd?s daughter, flew in from Hawaii (where her husband is stationed) to testify in front of the Legislature and to meet with Bush. But Bush refused to meet with her. Only when US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson stepped in did Bush reluctantly go ahead with the meeting. At the meeting Mullins asked Bush why he had opposed the bill. Bush told her that he hadn?t even read it! So Mullins took a copy and threw it on his desk and asked "will you help us?" Bush?s terse response was "no." According to Diane Hardy-Garcia, a lobbyist for the Lesbian & Gay Political Caucus who was helping Mullins lobby for the bill, Mullins "was crying and [Bush] didn?t try to console her or even offer a Kleenex. He was cold, icy, to her." Compassion indeed.

Bush has also seemed to forget about his compassionate side with some of the few appointments he has the power to make.

Charles Williams was appointed by Bush in 1999 to head the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education (thus he was in charge of the state?s law enforcement training). Williams has been sued by officer Ricky Mitchell, who claimed that Williams punished him because he is black and had complained about the discriminatory atmosphere that Williams fostered. Williams admits that he used the term "porch monkey" to describe Mitchell but insists that it is not a racially derogative term. He also said, in defending himself in his sworn deposition, that blacks hadn?t minded being called "nigger" 50 years ago and that "It wasn't any big deal back then."

Bush?s most questionable appointee is William Archer III, who Bush appointed as Texas?s Health Commissioner. This is the same William Archer who downplayed the importance of making sure that all children have health insurance. That has not been Archer?s only controversial comment.

In the early ?90s, Archer was a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Health and Human Services (it?s funny how so many members of President Bush?s administration have found their way into W.?s entourage in one way or another). While there, he served as point-man for the gag rule that the Bush administration implemented banning doctors from so much as mentioning abortion if they received federal funds. These doctors couldn?t tell their patients of the option even if there was a hospital a mile away that offered the procedure and even if the woman?s life was in danger. That?s right, Archer was the guy that made sure that doctors who got federal dollars were not allowed to direct a woman to have an abortion even if it was the only means of saving her life. This is who Bush wanted running health services in Texas.

That?s not it when it comes to Archer, though. When he ran his own practice he was just as unbending on abortion. His philosophy on the women who came to him for family planning advice: "I would talk to them and if they did not bend to my will I would tell them to go elsewhere." He was also unyielding on birth control, once claiming that "when it became possible for women to buy contraceptives of their own, men lost their manhood." Damn that birth control pill!!!

Archer also has some interesting theories about the non-white population of Texas. He says that to understand why there is such a high percentage of black children being born out of wedlock we need to understand "why it is when blacks were more segregated and had less opportunity" the out-of-wedlock birth rate was lower. He also thinks that part of the problem these days is that blacks simply "don?t buy" cultural and legal institutions like marriage. Archer has also blamed Texas? high teen pregnancy rate on the fact that the state?s Hispanics lack the belief that "'that getting pregnant is a bad thing."

Perhaps the group that Bush has been the least compassionate to, at least officially, are gays. Gays, of course, would have benefited from the hate crimes bill that Bush killed (the bill would have passed, in fact, had its supporters been willing to take gays off of the list of groups protected). But Bush?s "compassion" didn?t stop there. Bush has supported a ban on gay adoption that included the rather nasty provision that would have forced gays who had already adopted to give up their own children. Bush opposed a bill that would have outlawed firing someone based upon their sexual orientation and also opposed including sexual orientation in the state?s anti-discrimination laws. Additionally, he has said that he would oppose a repeal of the state?s ban on sodomy (which means that sex between two consenting men is still illegal in Texas) as a "symbolic gesture of traditional values." What other gesture does he mean than a gesture of his support of discrimination against gays?

Bush has done his utmost to stymie, or at least ignore, gays in his own party as well. The Log Cabin Republicans are the GOP?s largest gay group and have been quietly working towards acceptance in a party filled with people who believe that their lifestyle is evil. From Bush?s actions, you would think that he falls into this group.

One place the Log Cabin Republicans have always faced stiff resistance in the Texas GOP convention. Every year, it seems, they are either denied a booth or otherwise shunned and degraded. 1998 was no different. The Texas Republican Party told the Texas Log Cabins, a group of their own party members, that they could not set up a booth at the convention. Texas GOP spokesman Robert Black justified the ban saying, "we don?t allow pedophiles, transvestites or cross-dressers either." Bush, according to conservative commentator Robert Novak, gave the decision his approval.

Bush has also refused to meet with national Log Cabin leaders during his campaign. Both Steve Forbes and John McCain agreed to at least meet with the Log Cabins even though they made it clear that they disagreed with their lifestyle. Bush was, of course, willing to meet with representatives of the Christian Coalition and other of the GOP?s more extreme elements though. It?s enlightening to see just how much Bush waffled over his reasons for dissing the Log Cabins.

At first Bush said he wouldn?t meet with the Log Cabins because it would create a "huge political, you know, nightmare for people." For what people? Would it have been a nightmare for Bush in South Carolina to have met once with a group of gay Republicans?

When Bush realized that it looked just a little weak to admit that he didn?t want to meet with the Log Cabins because it might cause him political trouble, he changed his tune. Now, Bush was saying that he just "didn?t see the point" of meeting with groups that he disagrees with. This is a pretty strange concept from someone who wants to be president; blatantly saying that he has no use for those who disagree with him. It?s also pretty hypocritical considering that Bush?s excuse for going to Bob Jones University was that "It is important" to bring his message "to people? I don?t agree with." So Bush is saying that he went to Bob Jones University (a school that supported bigoted anti-black and anti-Catholic policies) because they disagree with him but that he refused to meet with the Log Cabins for the same reason. That?s quite a double standard.

Finally, when the Bush team realized that this blatant hypocrisy wasn?t going to fly, they claimed that Bush had refused to meet with the Log Cabins because that group had made a commitment to support McCain. The only thing is, at the time Bush refused to meet with them, the Log Cabins had not supported McCain in any way. They began raising money for McCain only after Bush refused to meet with them.

Bush eventually did meet with a gay group, but it was not representative of the national Log Cabin Republicans. He ended up meeting with a few of the hard core Bush supporters who had splintered away from the Log Cabin Republicans. What Bush was trying to do, in effect, was to be seen as being compassionate enough to meet with gays without having to actually face the group that truly represented them within his own party. Robert Stears, the chairman of Log Cabin?s board, called the meeting "a show," and David Hanson, head of Log Cabin California, sent Bush a letter telling him that the meeting was simply "an effort to end the media story concerning Log Cabin Republicans" rather than a serious attempt to "deal forthrightly" with civil rights issues that concern gays.

Bush has also been remarkably silent on an issue that is of great importance both to the gay community and millions of other around the world: AIDS. Even though over 10,000 Texans have died of AIDS during his years of governor Bush has not mentioned the disease in the 60 plus months he has been in office. Not one time! One senior Texas official, who sets policy in the AIDS and HIV field, and who spoke only under the condition of anonymity, said that "in my ... years [in this position], I have not heard AIDS addressed publicly" by Bush. More disturbing was Bush reaction, or lack thereof, from a plea by Dapha Ziman, the chairwoman of Children Uniting Nations.

Ziman, who was recently honored, along with Mikhail Gorbachev, with the Global Peace and Tolerance Lifetime Achievement Award from the Friends of the U.N., sent an urgent letter to the governors of all fifty states asking for any aid they could give in fighting the disease in Africa be it money, resources or simply ideas. Bush was the only one out of fifty that did not respond. "Forty nine governors responded, including his brother," says Ziman. "I mean, it's a crisis for everyone. Ten million children with AIDS, can you imagine? One governor helped to arrange the shipment of 100,000 basketballs. Gray Davis offered me the support from the medical facilities at UCLA. We sent Bush the letter twice. A letter and a fax. We didn't want to take a chance."

Bush has also found it difficult to extend his "compassion" to the Texans most in need of it, its poor children. Texas, as I have noted, has the second highest percentage of uninsured children in the country. In 1999, it also had a $2 billion surplus and was looking at a windfall of money from its settlement with tobacco companies. To me, it seems the compassionate thing to do might have been to use a very little bit of that money to help insure some of those children.

Luckily, Bush had just that opportunity with the Children?s Health Insurance Plan. CHIP, as it?s known, provides health insurance for children who are above the poverty line (and thus not eligible for Medicaid) but whose families are too poor to afford coverage. One half of all uninsured children in America fall into this category.

CHIP is a state?s dream come true. The Federal government puts up most of the dollars but the details of creating and implementing a plan that uses those dollars is left up to the state.

Not surprisingly, this program has been a huge hit among Bush?s brethren of GOP governors. John Engler of Michigan, Christine Whitman of New Jersey, George Pataki of New York, Pete Wilson of California and even Bush?s brother Jeb of Florida all greeted CIP enthusiastically and set the cut off for CHIP eligibility at 200% or even 300% of the poverty level.

The Texas Legislature wanted to match most of these other states and set the level in Texas at 200% (which would be an annual income of $34,100 for a family of four). At that level, 500,000 Texas children would have gotten the coverage they desperately needed. Bush would have none of it. He directed his staff to fight the 200% level and insisted that the level be set at 150% instead. That extra 50% would have meant that a full 200,000 Texas children would have lost out on health insurance thanks to Bush?s "compassion."

Why did Bush oppose the 200% level? Well, he claimed that such an expenditure was "fiscally irresponsible". He said this despite the fact that the state had a $2 billion surplus and that Bush, himself, was pushing for a huge $2.7 billion tax cut. It?s fiscally irresponsible to spend a couple hundred million to insure 200,000 children but it is responsible to blow your entire surplus on a huge tax cut? That tells you a lot about Bush?s priorities. What?s even more baffling is that expanding CHIP to the 200% level would have cost Texas hardly anything. The feds would have paid for $220 million of the $400 million cost while the remaining $180 million would have been covered by the huge tobacco settlement. It would have cost nothing out of Texas? general revenue fund! Yet this is irresponsible and a $2.7 billion tax cut is not?

Bush fought tooth and nail to keep the CHIP level at only 150%. According to Cindy Mann from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Bush "did the smallest amount [he] could without losing [his] claim to the funding." He had his staff lobby the Legislature hard and put plenty of pressure on it himself. In the end, the Legislature decided to buck Bush?s wishes and set the level at 200% anyway. According to Representative Maxey, when the Legislature finally passed the bill, Bush told him, "congratulations, you crammed it down our throat." Having it crammed down his throat was the only way he would have allowed it.

A more sinister motive for Bush?s opposition has floated around Texas since the whole CHIP fiasco transpired. One side effect of CHIP is that advertising its availability also brings in many who people who aren?t eligible for CHIP only because they are below the poverty level and thus eligible for Medicaid. The higher the level for CHIP is set, the more potential there is to bring in people who are eligible for Medicaid. Thus, setting the level at 200% brought the possibility that Texas? Medicaid ranks would have swollen (with people who should have been getting it all along). This, the theory goes, would have looked bad for his presidential campaign and left him open for attacks from the right during the primaries (remember that, according to Maxey, Bush pushed for harsh welfare sanctions because a softer stance would have left him open to the same kind of attacks). This theory gained credence when, after being defeated on the cut-off level for CHIP, Bush fought just as hard to keep the applications for CHIP and Medicaid separate. If your goal is to make sure that everyone eligible gets insured, then a common application in the only sensible approach. But if you?re trying to keep people who are eligible for Medicaid off of Medicaid, then separate applications make perfect sense. So, the way Bush wanted to set it up, CHIP applicants who found out they were eligible for Medicaid would have to make an appointment at a Medicaid office and fill out yet another more complicated application. "The real fear was Medicaid spillover," Maxey said. "All the studies show that 66 percent never return" to fill out the second application. "They were terrified of the Medicaid spillover because they want to be able to say welfare rolls are dropping." Thankfully, Bush lost on this too and a common application was created. But Bush had the last laugh, a month after the program began, application forms were still unavailable in the most logical places, branches of the Department of Health and Human Services. It?s hard to get spillover, after all, if there are no applications of any kind.

One aspect of Bush?s "compassion" that he chooses to highlight with no end is his deep and sincere faith in Christianity. He played this card many times, trumpeting it in Iowa debates (where he named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher) and repeating it in the deep south. While faith is a wonderful thing, I found, at least, Bush?s use of Christianity as a political prop to be offensive both to the non-religious and to the religious. After all, wasn?t it Jesus himself who said "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them?" It seems this isn?t the only tenant of Christianity that Bush got wrong. For someone who is Bush?s favorite political philosopher, Jesus certainly doesn?t seem to be Bush?s political role model. Reverend Madison Shockley took a look at Bush and Jesus for the LA Times.

Jesus was rightly wary of his followers trying to use their faith as an accessory. Such a use demeans a faith. Christianity, or any faith for that matter, is supposed to be something that you hold close to you heart and sacred. How can it be sacred if you are using it to try to impress people? You practice Christianity because it is what you believe, not because it is what you want people to believe about you. I?m not suggesting that Bush is not a devout Christian; by all accounts he is very true in his faith. There is no question, however, that he used his faith for political gain in Iowa and elsewhere and that is exactly the kind of behavior that Jesus warns against in Matthew?s Gospel.

Jesus also preaches true compassion in Matthew?s Gospel, "For I was hungry and you gave me food? I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me." Shockley argues that this suggests Jesus would have supported lax immigration laws, and more "compassionate" welfare and health care laws. He certainly would not have supported vetoing a hunger fighting measure and then making excuses when the news comes out that your state is bringing up the rear in the fight against hunger.

Jesus? Sermon on the Mount teaches "you have heard that it was said ?an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,? but I say to you ?Do not resist an evil doer.? But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also." Shockley doesn?t find this to be a ringing endorsement of executing 150 people.

In fact, Shockley finds Bush to be severely lacking when it comes to emulating Jesus, "I discovered that Bush had not taken the ?political? teachings of Jesus seriously. Indeed, he betrayed no knowledge of their content." Perhaps Bush should reread this portion of the Bible: "not everyone who says to me ?Lord, Lord? will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father."

For five years now, Bush has been the governor of Texas. For some reason, you never heard Bush describe himself as a "compassionate conservative" when governor was his only role. That?s a good thing, because that would have been a total misnomer. Bush has managed to figure out where compassion lies and run just about as far away as possible in his five years as governor. Be it crushing hate crimes legislation which could have made a real start at attacking some of the serious bigotry that still exists in Texas; be it appointing people to powerful positions who have displayed behavior that, at best, is terribly backwards and, at worst, is simply sexist and racist; be it opposing any and all civil rights for homosexuals or be it fighting tooth and nail to keep 200,000 poor kids from receiving health insurance, Bush has been passionately uncompassionate.

The most ironic thing, I think, is that when Bush adopted the mantle of "compassionate conservatism" he followed this quite quickly by launching himself just about as far to the right as one can go. Bush has always demonstrated a willingness to cozy up to the extreme elements of his party, but he has never been more enthusiastic about doing so than he was when he had a primary or three riding on it. Meanwhile, he has continued with his pattern of avoiding stances on important, but controversial (at least controversial to bigoted people), issues.

If you want extreme, the place you need to go is the Texas Republican Party convention. Aside from banning the gay members of their own party (and calling them pedophiles) here are some stances the Texas GOP has taken in their convention platform:

• Abolish the federal income tax and the IRS
• Repeal all minimum wage laws
• Eliminate Social Security entirely
• Withdrawal the US from the UN, NATO, NFATA and the WTO
• Return to the Gold Standard [the Gold Standard? Who the hells thinks that?s a good idea in this day and age???]
• Make Capital Punishment even more swift and unencumbered [we?re talking faster and easier than it already is in Texas here]
• "Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that have been ordained by God."

Bush has, wisely, tried to distance himself from such extremist rhetoric. A spokesman said, "Those interested in Governor Bush's positions and platforms should listen to Governor Bush on the campaign trail, or listen to him at the National Republican Convention this summer." Yet, Bush hasn?t tried to distance himself from these positions in the past. In fact, this year?s Texas GOP convention is the first one he has missed since 1990. For nine years he?s gone there, he?s spoken and he has supported the Texas GOP. He still sent his wife Laura this year as a proxy, though. If Bush were really interested in compassion he would come out and condemn some of this nonsense. Don?t hold your breath.

Bush has also found time to get close to some of the biggest extremists in the national party as well. In October, Bush spoke to the Council for National Policy. The council calls itself a non-partisan educational organization, but that couldn?t be further from the truth.

The group was founded my Reverend Tim LaHayne, an extreme right wing graduate of Bob Jones University. LaHayne has been actively involved with extreme Religious Right groups for decades - he co-founded the Moral Majority and also headedthe American Coalition for Traditional Values.

Skipp Porteous who, as director of the Institute for First Amendment Studies, moniters hate groups regards the council as an umbrella group that plots strategy for the entire GOP far right. In fact, the council consists of ardent anti-abortion groups, pro-gun nuts and hard core religious fundamentalists. Its membership rolls include such luminaries as Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Jesse Helms, Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, Oliver North, James Dobson and Bob Jones III.

The meeting at which Bush spoke was rather large and included many other speakers. Audio tapes of all the speakers were made available for purchase through a company called Skynet Media. All of the speakers except one, that is: George W. Bush. The Bush campaign says this is because there is no tape of Bush?s speech, "as far as we know," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "there is no tape." That?s not what Skynet says, though. Curt Morse of Skynet says that they do have copies of Bush?s speech, but the Bush campaign refuses to release it for general consumption. Asked if the tape were available for any price, Morse could only reply, "I wish!"

The Bush camp also claims that Bush merely gave his standard stump speech. Why then, are they suppressing the tape? If it?s only his standard stump speech there?s no reasons for them to worry about its contents and certainly no reasons for them to lie about its existence.

While the Council for National Policy afforded a chance for Bush to rub elbows with just about all of the GOP?s most extreme members, he hasn?t avoided doing so on a one on one basis either when it has benefited him politically.

Pat Buchanan is seeking the nomination of the Reform Party. He might not get it and, even if he does, he probably isn?t going to make a great deal of difference in the outcome of the presidential election. A year ago, though, Bush was frantically trying to keep Buchanan in the party because he worried that the fiery Buchanan would siphon away conservative voters.

Buchanan, in truth, has a terrible record of intolerance and anti-Semitism. In a recent book he praised certain aspects of Hitler?s record and argued that the United States should not have opposed him in World War II. Every single major GOP presidential candidate condemned Buchanan?s remarks, every one except Bush. Instead, Bush said that Buchanan "ought to lay out his views. I think we ought to have an honest debate." Bush refused to criticize Buchanan?s record of intolerance in any meaningful way and when Buchanan finally did bolt for the Reform party, Bush stayed silent while the rest of the GOP basically told him "good riddance."

Pat Robertson is, unfortunately, both a force among the extreme religious right as well as among the Republican party. From his position at the 700 club and at the head of the religious right?s table, Robinson has espoused a remarkable assortment of hateful and bigoted rhetoric over the years. He?s taken on all sorts of religions, calling Hinduism "devil worship" and letting us know that "liberal Jews" were mounting "an ongoing attempt to undermine the public strength of Christianity." He hasn?t limited his rhetoric to non-Christians either, in 1991 he focused his sights on Presbyterians, Methodists and Episcopalians, all of whom, he said, represented "the spirit of the Antichrist." Ouch.

Robertson hasn?t stopped there. Maybe we should thank him for, without him, we might never have know about the global conspiracy that has been trying to eliminate all national sovereignty, destroy Christianity and create a "new world order" that would be headed by Lucifer himself! According to Robinson?s book titled "The New World Order," this grand conspiracy has included the unlikely troika of John Lennon, Adolf Hitler and President George HW Bush (along with Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Henry Kissinger) all of whom, apparently, wish to "replace [Christianity] with an occult-inspired world socialist dictatorship." I?m glad he let us know! Robertson?s twisted argument is that the Gulf War was nothing more than an orchestrated set-up designed to cause the US to subvert its own interests to a world-wide body like the UN and that Bush "Sr." was in on it from the get go. Bush was, thus, "carrying out the mission and mouthing the phrases of a tightly knit cabal whose goal is nothing less than a new order for the human race under the domination of Lucifer and his followers."

Now, this is not the kind of man a "compassionate" candidate (let alone the son of one of these accused socialist/occultists) would likely trumpet as a close personal ally. Robertson campaigned vigorously for Bush in Michigan, South Carolina and other Republican primaries. In Michigan he went so far as having his underlings phone thousand of potential McCain voters to tell them one of McCain?s biggest supporters (and a likely cabinet appointee), Warren Rudman, was an anti-Christian bigot. Rudman is one of the more respected civil servants in the country, but Robertson labeled him a "bigot" because he had the gall to denounce a few of the more extremist members of the religious right. The Bush campaign attempted to distance themselves from these phone calls but that was too little, too late. They had already willingly and enthusiastically accepted Robertson?s support in South Carolina and elsewhere and supported his efforts to rally his core constituency (extreme Evangelicals) for Bush. Bush needed those extremist votes in South Carolina and he got them, convictions be damned! This doesn?t say a lot for Bush?s character. As David Corn of Salon wondered, "if any candidate accepts the open support of an outright bigot who accuses the candidate's own father of being part of a Satanic conspiracy to destroy Christianity and enslave billions of people, what won't that candidate do to win an election?"

What won?t Bush do? Well, we know some of the things he will do. We saw them up close and personal in South Carolina. He will pander to one of the religious right?s most lunatic and bigoted leaders. He will embrace the conservative values he shares with a university that bans interracial dating and espouses violently anti-Catholic beliefs. What he won?t do, it seems, is take a stance against bigotry and prejudice if it might cost him South Carolina?s white supremacist vote.

In 1962, the state of South Carolina raised the Confederate battle flag (of Dukes of Hazard fame) above its Capitol dome. It was not raised as a symbol of heritage of any kind. It was not raised to honor anyone. It was raised explicitly in support of the racial segregation laws that were under attack from the growing civil rights movement. It was raised only to show solidarity with forces that were trying to keep blacks and other minorities segregated from white America. Why the flag was still flying in the year 2000 is a mystery to me. The descendents of the segregationists of the sixties had rallied around the flag as a symbol of their state?s heritage (its heritage of slavery?) even though they knew exactly why it had been raised in the first place. Meanwhile, the NAACP had called for a national boycott of South Carolina until the flag was removed.

The status of the flag became a contentious issue in the South Carolina primary. It was an issue that could have been handled in two ways: by standing up for what was obviously right despite the political consequences, or by shamelessly pandering to the segment of the state?s population (a small, but politically powerful segment within the GOP) that had attached their bigoted beliefs to the issue. Bush chose the latter.

Bush attempted to avoid the issue like it was the plague. First he tried to brush questions on the issue aside by claiming that it was a "local issue" that shouldn?t even be addressed by a candidate for national office. Then he explicitly sided with the pro-flag crowed, saying on a South Carolina TV station that "In our state of Texas, you know, when we see the Confederate symbol on the Capitol, we view that as that was part of our history, a part of Texas history." He went even further when questioned about the NAACP boycott, "my advice is for people who don?t live in South Carolina to butt out of this issue."

When Bush says that this is an issue for the state to decide he is, of course, technically right. But that excuse is dangerously reminiscent of the arguments used to justify the segregationist State?s Right movement of the sixties. Besides, the way Bush reacted, you would think Bush had been asked if he would move the National Guard in to forcibly remove the flag were he elected. That?s not what the question was, however. The question was about Bush?s own stance on the issue. It?s certainly valid for the American people to want to know what kind of position our presidential candidates would take on an issue of such importance to race relations. Bush?s weak copout simply tells us that he viewed keeping his prejudiced base happy as more important than taking a stand against bigorty and racism. It only adds to his record of similar actions in Texas. Moreover, Bush?s unwillingness to take a stand sheds further light on Bush?s lack of conviction and his willingness to subvert what convictions he does have to his political interests. Bush has similarly refused to comment on such controversial (or, shall we say, unpopular to his extremist base) issues as affirmative action in California, video gambling in South Carolina, a state income tax in Tennessee and the teaching of evolution in Kansas public schools. He has, however, been willing to comment on issues like school vouchers in Ohio, assisted suicide in Oregon and gay marriage in California. All of these issues are, technically, local issues (meaning that it isn?t a decision for the federal government to make), yet Bush was willing to reveal his stance when it was in tune with the more conservative elements of his party. When Bush faced issues that threatened to alienate this base, he conveniently took the fifth. It?s just another of Bush?s many double standards.

John McCain, who chickened out in South Carolina, at least has since come clean and admitted that he had been less than honest with his silence on the issue and had kept his mouth shut only to avoid losing votes. He admitted that the service of his Confederate ancestors should not be "commemorated in a way that offends, that deeply hurts, people whose ancestors were once denied their freedom by my ancestors." It took a while, but at least McCain eventually got it right. Both the Washington Post and New York Times ran editorials lambasting Bush for his continued silence. The Times argued that "Mr. Bush must understand this [broadening his base] cannot happen so long as [he and the GOP] periodically embrace, for purpose of electoral advancement, the legacy of racial oppression." Even elements of Bush?s own party were appalled. One Republican talk show host in South Carolina (who also happens to be black) said that Bush "had a clear opportunity to take stands. He?s worried about what people will say. But you didn?t see people standing up and cheering when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation?" Bush says that the party of Lincoln needs to better carry the mantel of Lincoln. Maybe he should try to lead by example sometime.

Bush certainly wasn?t leading by example when he went to Bob Jones University in February. In an attempt to shore up his base following his disastrous showing in New Hampshire, Bush went to this bastion of conservative "traditional values" the day after New Hampshie and told them that he wanted to defend the "conservative values" that they shared.

Bob Jones University has, to put it mildly, an interesting idea of just what conservative values are. Basically, BJU, and the various Bob Jones who have run the place, will have you believe that the Catholic Church is nothing more than a Satan worshipping cult. The BJU website has proclaimed the Church to be "a satanic counterfeit and an ecclesiastic tyranny over the souls of men." Bob Jones Jr., who was then the chancellor of the university, said in 1982 , "I believe some of the leaders of the World Council of Churches and the Pope are in conscious service to the Antichrist.... All the popes are demon-possessed." Bob Jones Jr. also headed a fundamentalist groups that took out newspaper ads in 1987 that claimed that Pope John Paul II was "an antichrist and a man of sin" and that mass was a "blasphemy." Jones Jr.?s son, Bob Jones III, who took over operations of the university from his father, has continued with the rhetoric, calling Catholicism a "religious deception" and a "cult that calls itself Christian."

Bob Jones U. and the Joneses also seem to have a problem with blacks (though they haven?t called them minions of Satan just yet). Bob Jones Jr. claimed that "blacks? don?t like discipline." Maybe that?s why BJU would not admit blacks at all until 1975 when they forced to open their doors by a court order.

Even though it was forced to open its doors to blacks, Bob Jones wasn?t forced to like it. So, in 1975, BJU established rules that called for the immediate expulsion of anyone who was caught dating outside their race or who belonged to a group that advocated such dating. This policy would exclude 5.6% of American couples including George W. Bush?s brother Jeb and his wife (who is Hispanic). It defends this policy by claiming that the Bible teaches that interbreeding between races is evil.

BJU lost its tax-exempt status from the IRS in the early 1980s due to its ban on interracial dating. The Reagan administration fought the loss of tax-exempt status on behalf of the university, but lost when the Supreme Court upheld the IRS? decision. Then Vice President George HW Bush refused to take a position on the matter because it was "too dangerous" politically. Like son, like father apparently.

Bob Jones University is, quite simply, a bigoted and racist institute. There are no two ways about it. After losing New Hampshire to John McCain, Bush knew he had to win the much more conservative South Carolina and he decided that the best way to do it would be to pander to the extreme primary voters of the state by speaking at BJU. He knew what he was getting into and he didn?t have a problem with it. Since the fiasco Bush has tried to take it all back by apologizing profusely. But you just can?t take this kind of decision back. That pandering to bigots was W.?s first instinct and that says a lot. "It?s one thing to lurch to the right. It?s another thing to lurch back 60 years," conservative commentator Bill Kristol said. "You could make the case that ?compassionate conservatism? died February 2^nd when Bush appeared at Bob Jones University."

Recently, Bush has tried to burnish this image of his as a "compassionate conservative" by speaking at the national convention of the NAACP, the same organization he told to "butt out" of the South Carolina flag debate. Bush gave a speech long on inclusive rhetoric but completely lacking in specifics. He told the delegates that the GOP needed to do better on racial issues but didn?t say how he would go about making this happen. Eleanor Norton, Washington D.C.?s representative in Congress, said of Bush?s speech, "I didn?t hear him discuss a single one of [our] issues." Bush also failed to mention either his opposition to the removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina?s Capitol or his trek to Bob Jones University, let alone issue any sort of apology. This is sort of ironic, considering how eager Bush was to apologize to Catholics for the same visit. Actually, it isn?t that surprising; unlike Catholics, blacks, as a group, aren?t an important swing vote this year. In the end, Bush?s speech to the NAACP was simply empty rhetoric. He talked a lot about how bad bigotry is, but, as Norton asks incredulously, "we?re supposed to appreciate that, in the year 2000, that there?s a candidate who is against racism?" Basically, what Bush was trying to accomplish at the NAACP is something the major newspapers dubbed the "ricochet pander:" Bush didn?t need to impress the delegates he spoke to (and he didn?t) what he really wanted was a "compassionate" photo-op that swing voters (like white suburban mothers) would see on the nightly news. He got that.

What was really incredible about Bush?s speech to the NAACP was nothing that happened at the convention in Baltimore, but what happened on the same say hundreds of miles away. At the time, Bush?s opponent, Vice President Gore, had been criticizing the GOP Congress for its lack of movement on important issues during the last two years, a tactic that Harry Truman used with great success in 1948. To counter this line of attack, the Bush campaign recruited Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who ran against Truman for the presidency in 1948. Thurmond replied to Gore by aping Lloyd Bentsen?s famous line from a 1988 debate with Dan Quayle, "Mr. Gore, I knew Harry Truman. I ran against Harry Truman. And Mr. Gore, you are no Harry Truman."

Thurmond is right, he did run against Harry Truman in 1948, but what he failed to say is that he ran on the ticket of the "Dixiecrats." The Dixiecrats were made up of former southern Democrats who had splintered off from the Democrats after the 1948 convention solely because the Democrats were pushing a platform that included aggressive action on civil rights. In short, the Dixiecrats were a one issue party: they wanted to uphold segregation. In fact, the party required anyone voting in their primary to swear an oath that they would fight to uphold segregation. The Columbia (S.C) Record understood the significance of that oath, "only a member of the Nazi paty in Germany could take that oath and mean it." Segregation is the platform Thurmond ran on.

During the campaign, Thurmond accused Truman of "stabbing the South in the back" by integrating the armed forces. He defiantly announced that "all the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches and our places of recreation." Thrumond also railed against the Supreme Court?s decision to throw out South Carolina?s whites only primary, saying, "every American has lost part of his fundamental rights." I guess blacks weren?t real Americans back then (either that or they simply had no rights).

Thurmond managed to ride a tide of racism to victory in four states that November, but Truman still won the White House in the most dramatic election ever. Thurmond didn?t change his spots though. After the Dixiecrats broke up, the GOP absorbed most of them, and their racist beliefs, enthusiastically. Thurmond was not an exception. As a Republican, Thurmond continued to fight against equal rights for blacks. He even filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours on the Senate floor. That is how passionately racist Strom Thrumond was, he fought against this country?s most important civil rights law for 24 hours straight. This is the man the Bush team chose to represent them on the same day Bush was speaking to the NAACP. No hypocrisy there or anything. Even worse, the Bush campaign tried to justify their actions by saying "we?re in a day when people make light of their past." I say it?s pretty hard to make light of a past like Senator Thurmond?s. Julian Bond, Chairman of the NAACP and once a civil rights leader in Georgia, agrees: "The 1948 campaign might be bygones to some people. It?s never bygones to me?. That was a white supremacist campaign supported by the worst kind of white racists. For any presidential candidate in the year 2000 to summon up that memory as a source of humor is a clear example of how much history should matter." Ironically, Bush quoted Lincoln on this same topic on that same day when he spoke to the NAACP, "President Lincoln pleaded to our divided nation to remember that ?we cannot escape history?. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves.?" Bush should have remembered that before calling on Thurmond.

The affinity Bush, and the rest of the Republican Party, have shown over the past few years for men and groups with an extremist right wing bent has already started to drive away some of the party?s rising minority stars. Faye Anderson, one of the few black women activists in the Republican Party, was seen by the GOP as a rising star in the late ?90s. In 1997, the GOP established the New Majority Council with the explicit goal of incorporating more minorities into the party. Anderson was tapped to head the Council and the Republican effort to woo blacks and other minorities. In March, the consistent GOP pandering to extremists finally overwhelmed her and Anderson left not only the New Majority Council but the Republican Party altogether. Citing Bush?s visit to Bob Jones? University and his unwillingness to take a stance against the Confederate flag in South Carolina, along with the continued ties of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group; Anderson explained, "my switch [from the GOP to independent] comes in the wake of a pattern of racial blunders that I cannot dismiss as mere ?mistakes.?" She continued, "The Republican Party should do some serious spring cleaning because the stench up under the ?big tent? with the likes of the CCC, [former Klu Klux Klan leader] David Duke, Confederate flag wavers and Bob Jones has become intolerable."

George W. Bush likes to talk a lot about his "compassion," and he loves his photo-ops with minority children, but the reality was quite different from the perception. If you want a perfect example of this split with reality, just look at the Republican National Convention. It was almost painful to see just what lengths the GOP would go to, to try to create an image of a diverse and inclusive party. It seemed like the only three white males to speak all week long were the party?s nominees themselves and John McCain. McCain?s peers in the Senate and Congress were nowhere to be seen. People like Trent Lott, Tom DeLay and Dick Armey, three of the most powerful men in the party and also three of its most extreme and uncompassionate members, were denied the much coveted prime time speaking slots. Meanwhile, a parade of minorities and women of much lower standing were paraded before the television cameras. Instead of the Senate Majority Leader or the Speaker of the House, we saw a Virginia state senator and a California assemblyman. Now, I would love to see the GOP truly focus on pushing diversity within its ranks. It would be a wonderful thing. I?m also sure that most of these women and minorities who spoke at the convention were able politicians and good people. But I also thought it was sickening to see the GOP and Bush use these people as nothing more than props. A much more realistic view of the Republican Party was on evidence on the floor of the convention hall: the delegates. Of the delegates, who represent the core of the GOP, a full 83% were white! Only 4% were black and 3% Hispanic. The delegation was also overwhelmingly male, by a ratio of almost two to one. That is the real GOP. There are many in the party who are working to change this situation, among them retired General Colin Powell. But there are many more who would be happy to see the status quo remain. Until we see a lot more non-white faces at the GOP?s convention, we?ll know just how inclusive the party really is. Hopefully, in the future, the GOP will not resort to the same repugnant tactics of using people as props merely because of their race as Bush did.

More so than looking at the GOP?s delegates, simply examining Bush?s record completely debunks the myth that Bush is some "different kind of Republican." He is just the same old kind of Republican wrapped in a shiny new package. His record in Texas is anything but compassionate. His appointment as Texas? health commissioner has demonstrated a backwards attitude towards blacks, Hispanics and women and many of his other appointees are just as bad. He has avoided any kind of accommodation of Texas?s gay community and he was the only one out of all fifty governors to ignore a plea to help African children with AIDS. He has executed hundreds of people, some of whom never had a chance in the Texas legal system and some of whom were almost certainly innocent - he even took pleasure in mocking the last moments of one of the two women he has executed. He fought tooth and nail to keep 200,000 poor children from getting health insurance apparently for no better reason that to help his own political cause. He has embraced Pat Buchanan (who has praised Adolf Hitler), Pat Robertson (who once warned the city of Orlando that they faced having a meteor strike their city as punishment for hosting a gay pride event) and Bob Jones (who thinks the Pope is the antichrist). Heck, Bush has even embraced two men who have directly linked his father to Lucifer! He has run like hell from any position that might have alienated his base of bigots and racists in the South Carolina and other states. He has even addressed a group that represents all of the GOP?s most militant and extremist factions rolled into one (and he has done his damned to make sure no one ever knows what he said). Bush is not a different kind of Republican. As Faye Anderson understood, he fits nicely in the party of Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott.