There's so much to love about "Justice Sunday," that it's hard to decide what to love best: the "high noon" ring of the title; the flier graphics showing a young, double-fisted believer slinging Bible n' gavel, ready to take on "'the filibuster against people of faith'"; the Unitarian Jihad-like creativity of the charge itself: "I hear you been filibusterin' people of faith."
But ultimately "Justice Sunday," a joint telecast bonanza organized by the Family Research Council and featuring Sen. Bill Frist, James Dobson, Chuck Colson and Al Mohler, which is expected to reach more than a million viewers through church screenings and Christian media outlets, isn't about appealling to misplaced nostalgia for the "Old West" and related John Wayne/Remember the Alamo motifs; it's about smearing Democrats as anti-religion again, this time for blocking President Bush's judicial nominees.
Oh, who are we kidding? Of course this is about evoking the Old West and its straight-shooting morality: a strategic change in rhetoric after describing the issue of changing Senate rules to override filibusters and allow for easier majority rule as the "nuclear option" has backfired, what with the metaphor's unfortunate baggage of vaporized innocents, radioactive fallout, and unintended effects that take decades to go away. A Hiroshima reference that would make all but the most hawkish squirm. How much better, then, to change the image to a God-fearing cowboy, shooting from the hip then tipping his hat to the ladies. Now that's poli-tainment. Or as Joan Didion might say: Cut. Print.
Bush & Bob Jones Public Defender Dude
But ultimately "Justice Sunday," a joint telecast bonanza organized by the Family Research Council and featuring Sen. Bill Frist, James Dobson, Chuck Colson and Al Mohler, which is expected to reach more than a million viewers through church screenings and Christian media outlets, isn't about appealling to misplaced nostalgia for the "Old West" and related John Wayne/Remember the Alamo motifs; it's about smearing Democrats as anti-religion again, this time for blocking President Bush's judicial nominees.
Oh, who are we kidding? Of course this is about evoking the Old West and its straight-shooting morality: a strategic change in rhetoric after describing the issue of changing Senate rules to override filibusters and allow for easier majority rule as the "nuclear option" has backfired, what with the metaphor's unfortunate baggage of vaporized innocents, radioactive fallout, and unintended effects that take decades to go away. A Hiroshima reference that would make all but the most hawkish squirm. How much better, then, to change the image to a God-fearing cowboy, shooting from the hip then tipping his hat to the ladies. Now that's poli-tainment. Or as Joan Didion might say: Cut. Print.
