NWAT editor makes his ignorance known to the world

[Betsy]

There are about seven things deeply wrong with Greg Harton's editorial in the Sunday Northwest Arkansas Times today, and I'm embarrassed for him. Especially for his last statement -- doesn't he realize that George W. Bush got "advice from a higher father" to go kill tens of thousands of people in Iraq? Geez, what severe blinders this guy has on. I would like to point out to him that:

1) having beliefs and opinions is NOT the same thing as having a "religion";
2) all one has to do is read Lucas Roebuck's columns in his own paper to see how short sided and hateful so-called "Christians" can be, not to mention other examples, such as Ann Coulter, Bill O'Really!, Rush Limbaugh, etc.
3) Rosie O'Donnell said "radical" Christianity, not regular everyday Christianity. Apparently Harton doesn't realize there are "radical" Muslims, and the majority of Muslims are good peace-loving people (he's bought into the Republican mantra that all Muslims are like the radical ones)
4) The Fundamentalist Christian Party has taken over our current administration and is destroying our country;

etc. etc. etc. ARGHHGH. Someone needs to write a letter to the editor and straighten this guy out, and I don't think it should be me. I'm too disgusted. This may be the dumbest editorial I've ever read in my life.

Here it is:

NWAT OP/ED column by Greg Harton, Sunday Sept. 24, 2006:

I never thought Rosie O’Donnell would be the one to make me question
whether the United States can win the war on terror, or whatever one wants to call our efforts to protect ourselves from folks whose glory rests on how many of us they can take out when they commit suicide.

Our nation has reached a pretty sad point in its existence when O’Donnell feels justified in making a statement likening fundamentalist Christians in our country to international terrorists, and then she doesn’t receive across-the-board criticism for it.

“ Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have a separation of church and state, ” O’Donnell belted out on a recent episode of “ The View, ” which she joined recently as a potential ratings booster.

Now, I’m always a little skeptical of folks who drag out the church-state reference as though it means Christians should just go into the corner and say their little prayers while everyone else governs. People who offer up that complaint really mean they’d be able to tolerate Christians a lot more if they would just keep their salvation message to themselves, leave the rest of us alone and don’t expect to be permitted to let their faith influence local, national or international politics.

Anyone who has experienced faith, a spiritual relationship with a creator, knows it’s impossible for one to separate that experience from every aspect of life. How insignificant would a person’s faith be if it didn’t function as a thread of influence in work, family, relationships and, yes, politics ?

To ask an individual to leave his faith in the church pew or the synagogue or the mosque is like asking Rosie O’Donnell to forget she’s a lesbian.

And folks who don’t advance a faith in their lives mistakenly believe they are devoid of a religion. O’Donnell has a religion that touches every aspect of who she is, what she advocates and how she votes. It informs her every word and every action. It ain’t about God, but yeah, O’Donnell has a religion, and she works hard to advocate for her set of beliefs.

I’m more comfortable with a faith in a man from 2, 000 years ago whose message still rocks the world today, and not with bombs or airplanes.

For O’Donnell, Christianity really is just as unfathomable as so-called religious zealots who are eager to kill hundreds and thousands in acts of ill-conceived martyrdom. But that says more about O’Donnell than it does about Christian disciples. Christianity is radical to her, and it was radical in those days that Jesus Christ walked this Earth. It’s radical today in its mercy, love and justice.

But it wasn’t radical in the sense that it advocated the destruction of life to achieve its ends, and that’s where O’Donnell’s misguided lashing out on devout Christians lacked reasoning.

Perhaps some will argue that O’Donnell was simply referring to those self-professed Christians who 15 or 20 years ago engaged in killings at abortion clinics, but she wasn’t. That’s old news and no Christian could actually advocate that kind of activity. No, she’s talking about the George Bush kind of Christianity, one in which people actually rely on their relationship with God to inform their daily decisions.

Those who scream separation of church and state most vocally would love nothing less than to eradicate anyone in public policy positions who embraces their faith and counts on God to guide them through the good and the bad, the tough and the easy decisions. It especially frightens people whose lives would undergo serious change if they put their faith in the Christian Savior.

Of course, lest anyone feel particularly smug as they cast a stone, how many of those so offended by O’Donnell’s statement might have applauded someone else saying these words: “ Radical homosexuals are just as threatening to our way of life as the terrorists who hate what Americans stand for. ”

Yeah, put those stones back down.

It’s ridiculous for Christian organizations to call on ABC to reprimand O’Donnell and demand an apology from her. Does anyone believe she would mean it ? So what good would it do ?

The Christian American Family Association concluded that, because the network had not disciplined O’Donnell, the “ message from ABC is that bashing Christians is acceptable, even comparing them with murderers who kill in the name of Allah. ”

Now who’s being overly dramatic and broad ? Saying ABC condones the statement is like suggesting this newspaper condones every notion advanced by each columnist or in every letter to the editor simply because we publish it.

It’s a TALK show, folks. Should anyone want to watch or take part in a talk show for which the talkers have been told certain ideas or subjects are off limits ?

But, yes, I’m still concerned about that war on terror.

When Americans like O’Donnell (and she has her followers ) don’t get the fundamental (smirk ) difference between conservative Christians in the United States and terrorists elsewhere who are ready to kill because their view of the world hasn’t become universally embraced, I’m not sure this nation can actually muster the strategy or political will to defeat terrorism.

[Greg Harton is executive editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times. His column appears on Sundays. ]

[Savonarola]

You know, I've tried time and time again to come up with elegantly simple ways to expose the sickening hypocrisy of this entire situation, and I always have trouble. Here's my latest attempt, in the form of a fabricated quote followed by a question:


"They pose a threat to our way of life. We are obligated to use force in order to prevent them from continuing the imposition of their diabolical and heretical ways on the world."

To which side should this quote be attributed?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Unfortunately, that quote could be attributed to the fanatics on all sides. As Betsy said, the really bad, sad, maddening thing about Harton and people like him is the filter that hears only what it's programmed to hear. But then, the current political situation has radicals/fanatics calling themselves "conservatives" while they work to destroy everything a conservative tries to conserve. To follow that group means brainwashing to believe that radical = conservative, so a comment aimed at radical/zealots will raise the fear and anger of theatened sheep - and threatened sheep are dangerous.

[Betsy]

I called and cancelled my subscription to the NWAT Times today. Just as I was about to get over the fact that the EDITOR of the paper would write something that any closed-minded inexperienced high-school student could write, the paper comes this morning and there's a staff editorial calling Chavez a "village idiot" for being so stupid as to call GWB a "devil".

Hmmm... maybe a closed-minded inexperienced (oh, I forgot "fundamentalist") high-school student has kidnapped the editor and is writing all his op/ed pieces. That would explain this.

[Dardedar]

The papers are filled with ignorance and stupidity. I tried to torture myself for a while by reading it, and now only pick something up once in a while if I have a minute in a restaurant, and then only skimming something that might be intelligent or teach me something. That means never wading into some some heavily spun crap by Gitz or Greenburg etc. Better off without it and what a waste of paper!

[Doug]

...there's a staff editorial calling Chavez a "village idiot" for being so stupid as to call GWB a "devil".

DOUG
So are they going to call Jerry Falwell a village idiot for being so stupid as to compare Hillary Clinton with Lucifer?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

It's getting close to election time. They have to prove to their masters they're loyal, so they can periodically get a bone or two.