REAL ART ROGUES GALLERY OF THE RIGHT WING
James Dobson, The religious right's new kingmaker

From Slate courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe:

He's already leveraging his new power. When a thank-you call came from the White House, Dobson issued the staffer a blunt warning that Bush "needs to be more aggressive" about pressing the religious right's pro-life, anti-gay rights agenda, or it would "pay a price in four years." And when the pro-choice Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter made conciliatory noises about appointing moderates to the Supreme Court, Dobson launched a fevered campaign to prevent him from assuming the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which until then he had been expected to inherit. Dobson is now a Republican kingmaker.

Surprisingly, though, this isn't a role he's traditionally sought or relished. An absolutist disgusted by the compromises of politics, he sneers at those who place "self-preservation and power ahead of moral principle." He has always kept his distance from Washington. Unlike Reed, a canny strategist above all, Dobson has talked about bringing down the GOP if it fails him. Yet as the gay-marriage movement surged this year, Dobson's moral outrage over the direction of American culture went supernova, asserting in his recent book Marriage Under Fire that Western civilization hangs in the balance. But now Dobson faces a difficult trial. He must decide which he hates more, Washington politics or cultural apocalypse.

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When I first heard a few years back that Dobson had entered the political realm, I had an Obi-Wan Kenobi kind of reaction: "That's a name I haven't heard in a great long while," I thought. I remembered him from my youthful days as a Southern Baptist. Not personally, mind you, but from his teaching materials and videos aimed at fundamentalist teenagers. Dobson is dangerous, not only because he isn't a glory seeker like Falwell or Robertson, but also because he's pretty smart, and is capable of assembling arguments that, on their face, look pretty good. To make matters worse, he's soft spoken which makes him all the more appealing.

If you want to arm yourself against his feel-good rhetoric, check out his site. Dobson essentially tells millions of conservative Americans how to think; it's not a bad idea to have some insight into that.

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