Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

One of the first questions many psychiatrists ask patients is, "Do you hear voices?"  

Also they often inquire if they believe God is telling them what to do.

On the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on September 6 is a story bearing this revealing headline:

ZAMORA: "I KILL FOR GOD"

The story is datelined from Mount Vernon, Washington, written by Moises Mendoza and Vanessa No:

"Issac Zamora, accused in the deaths of six people says he kills for God.

"'I Kill for God.  I listen to God,' Zamora said Friday, his first public words after being arrested in the killings of a deputy, two neighbors, two construction workers, and a motorist."

Later in the article Zamora's background was revealed:

"A 28-year-old housepainter, with mental health problems, Zamora is accused of committing the deadly spree in the small community of Alger, Washington."

On September 8 on MSNBC's  Keith Olbermann Show, Sarah Palin was shown in film taken when she spoke in her Wasilla, Alaska church.

Sarah thinks it is God's will to put a pipeline across Alaska.  People in the congregation were exhorted to pray for this pipeline placement.

Also, at this same congregation a project has been undertaken to eliminate gay traits by "praying them away."  

This is a congregation whose worshipers also speak in tongues.

Sarah also believes that God is behind the U.S. role in Iraq.

This represents three people who think they have a link to God, as revealed in the press or on TV, George Bush, Issac Zamora and Sarah Palin.

Kathy Robertson of Middlesex, New Jersey had the following appear on September 5 in the Letters to Editors at the New York Times:

"One thing President Bush has done well has been to get so many people, often at an unconscious level, feeling that smart or education or intellectual equals liberal equals un-American.

"The result has been that the less educated you sound, the more of a patriotic American you are perceived to be.

"In this way, Mr. Bush and other wealthy elites have been able to install policies that hurt poor, working and middle-class Americans, while casting as snobbish elites those who think in nuanced ways about how to solve the real problems of ordinary Americans.

"We live in a world of staggering complexity.  As the last eight years have shown, we ignore that at our own peril."

David Rawson of New York City, in his September 5 Letter to the Editors at the Times, said the following:

"The Republicans are blowing the usual smoke to get working class people to vote against their economic interest.

"Can you imagine Americans voting for John McCain to strike a blow against the wine-drinking, brie-eating coastal elites and denying themselves a decent health care system a better economy and competent leadership?  Believe it, it could happen."

Joel Peskoff from Baldwin, New York stated in a letter that same day to the Times:

"Unfortunately, Mr. McCain's soap is the same soap the Republican old guard has sold for decades -- tax cuts for the wealthy, reduced government regulation and drilling out of an energy crisis.  He'd have us forget that we used this G.O.P. soap for eight years and it doesn't clean.

"Gov. Sarah Palin may be a new package for the Republican brand, but the McCain-Palin ticket is the same old product in a new wrapper."

That summarizes the Republican strategy.