09/09/2004: "Gore to 50 million evangelicals: drop dead"

Al Gore, the man who would have been president, is off his meds again. This time, he's disparaging the faith of some 50 million Americans in the guise of attacking George Bush:

Former Vice President Al Gore has compared President Bush's Christian faith with fundamentalist Islam, saying it emphasizes "vengeance" and "brimstone."

In an interview with the New Yorker, Gore, who says he's a Southern Baptist, expressed disdain for Bush's public declaration of his faith.

"It's a particular kind of religiosity," he told the magazine. "It's the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world: Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim. They all have certain features in common.

"In a world of disconcerting change, when large and complex forces threaten familiar and comfortable guideposts, the natural impulse is to grab hold of the tree trunk that seems to have the deepest roots and hold on for dear life and never question the possibility that it's not going to be the source of your salvation. And the deepest roots are in philosophical and religious traditions that go way back. You don't hear very much from them about the Sermon on the Mount, you don't hear very much about the teachings of Jesus on giving to the poor, or the beatitudes. It's the vengeance, the brimstone."

What twaddle. For Gore, the word "fundamentalist" has no real meaning�it's simply a club with which to beat on people whose views he doesn't like. Bush is no fundamentalist, he's just a garden-variety evangelical, and there's a big difference between them that Gore evidently knows nothing about. And because he knows nothing about them, he thinks that a substantial portion of the American populace is in thrall to a Christian version of Wahhabism.

Speaking of vengeance and brimstone...