This is Part III. Read:

Part I, "Tempting Faith: Bush's 'Faith Based' Initiative a Scam"

and PART II, "Tempting Faith: Bush Betrays Christian Conservatives"

In Part III, Kuo reveals the Administration's disdain for and mockery of Bush's conservative Christian base.

...the book includes charges that high-ranking White House officials referred to prominent conservative Christian leaders as "nuts" behind their backs,

[...]

"National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy,'" Kuo wrote. He added that top political officials in White House aide Karl Rove's office referred to the leaders as "the nuts."

Read Also:

Part IV, "Tempting Faith: Bush Admin Admits Discriminating Against Non-Christians"

This is Part II. Read: Part I, "Tempting Faith: Bush's 'Faith Based' Initiative a Scam"

In Part II, Kuo reveals the knife that the administration brazenly inserted into the back of their alleged allies.

Olbermann: "Kuo cites one example after another of a White House that repeatedly uses Evangelical Christians for their votes while consistently giving them nothing in return."

Olbermann: So, how does the Bush White House keep the 'nuts' turning out at the polls? One way, regular conference calls with groups lead by Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Ted Haggard, and radio hosts like Michael Reagan. ... They did get some things from the Bush White House, like the National Day of Prayer. ... Or 'Little trinkets like cufflinks or pens or pads of paper were passed out like business cards. Christian leaders could give them to their congregations or donors or friends to show just how influential they were.'"

Olbermann: "When cufflinks were not enough, the White House played the Jesus card, reminding Christian leaders that 'He knew the president's faith' and begging for patience.

(More over the flip...)

Yet another ex-Bush White House official is coming clean on the flagrant dishonesty, shameless politicization, and arrogant self-absorption of the current administration.

This time it's David Kuo, the former number two person in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Kuo, a self-described conservative evangelical, offers the inside scoop on the administration's pursuit of Christian conservative votes even as they mocked them behind their backs.

The full story, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (Still unreleased, his book is currently the #13 Best Seller at Amazon), will be released on October 16. But MSNBC's Keith Olberman was able to obtain a copy early and shared some of it's insights on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on October 11th.

(More over the flip...)

[Alternate Title: Bush Weakness Empowers North Korea, Iran, and Russia to Action]

International leaders have begun to notice a widening crevice between the Bush Administration's persistent gunboat diplomacy and their realistic ability to follow through.

They see that President Bush has wedged the U.S. Military -- and thus U.S. national security -- between Iraq and a hard place.

As long as we're strapped to Iraq, they know that Bush's actions have impaled both the quality and quantity of America's diplomatic and military options.

And now they're taking advantage of that weakness.

Eliminating U.S. Options

When the Bush Administration first invaded Iraq, they believed the incursion would largely fit the template for which our current military was designed -- based on the belief that extended combat operations were an anachronism. More precisely they expected:

[[This is "Part II". Be sure to read "Part I" first and please consolidate any comments in Part I as well. Thanks.]]

We continue with Step 63...

Step 63) - 08/30/2003

North Korea announces that the Beijing talks convinced it of the need for nuclear weapons.

"North Korea angrily dismissed last week's six-nation talks in Beijing, saying it was now even more convinced of the need to strengthen its nuclear arsenal... The gathering was 'not only useless but harmful in every aspect,' a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said... 'We are now more convinced than before that we have no other alternatives but to continue strengthening our nuclear deterrence as a self-defensive measure to protect our sovereignty'... North Korea repeated during the talks its long-standing demand for a non-aggression pact with the United States, which it accuses of wanting to invade. It also demanded the normalization of diplomatic relations with Washington before it would abandon its nuclear ambitions."

Much more over the bump...

(Warning: This post is long. Damn long! That's because there are heaps of evidence that show Bush, not Clinton, is reponsible for the nuclear debacle we face today with North Korea. Pace yourself, but please be sure to take in every word. The truth is always worth it.)

"Why should I care about North Korea?"

 -- President George W. Bush

Blame Clinton?

Yeah right!

Clearly, the Bush Administration is, by far, the causal factor in Kim Jong Il's entry into Earth's 'Nukular' Club. They can blame Clinton all they want. At least he did something about this rising calamity. In 1994, the Clinton Administration reached an agreement with the DPRK that successfully froze North Korea's nuclear production for the next eight years.

Bush, on the other hand has offered NOTHING except provocation and motivation for the DPRK to invest in nuclear weapons. Although many factors led to this devastating milestone, the buck unambiguously stops with the Bush administration.

To begin, after Secretary of State Colin Powell said the administration will "pick up where President Clinton left off," Bush took less than 24 hours to declare that the Bush Administration negotiations will take a different tone.

Enter the Axis of Evil!  -- a clever 'new direction' to effective diplomacy, no doubt.

That moniker has served as a powerful icon for the times -- but not quite the way Bush and Co. had planned. Instead, it has come to represent this administration's bold contempt for meaningful diplomacy and staunch dedication to asserting military force in a world that can narry afford the elevated state of militaristic provocation.

Remember the last time North Korea was dominating the headlines?

It was December of 2005. The DPRK was decrying as a 'Declarations of war' the latest comments of the US ambassador to South Korea, labeling him the 'worst ambassador in history'.

Not surprisingly, that wasn't the first time Pyongyang had accused the US of implicit declarations of war. But to understand the motivation for such extreme actions, the full saga must unfold before us.

Enter Kim Jong Il and George W. Bush... diplomacy departs... chaos ensues.

"...The danger of war is snowballing, owing to the extreme US moves to isolate and stifle the [North Korean Government], and threats of pre-emptive strikes"

So where do we stand right now and how did we come to this unfortunate place in history?

...by a wide Margin!

I kid you not. Today boasted the data release of 'Non-farm Payrolls' and the unemployment rate -- two of the most intensely watched measures of U.S. economic health.

This month showed that 51,000 jobs were created in the month of September -- about 80,000 FEWER than the market expected. However, August's job creation numbers were revised upwards by about 60,000 jobs. So the 2-month total came out slightly weaker than expected.

As expected, the Dollar dropped on that negative economic information -- but wait!

Along comes the 600 pound gorilla -- or maybe I should say the 810,000 pound gorilla.

That's right. Something called a 'Benchmark revision' to prior job creations were upped by an astronomical 810,000 jobs.

In all my years in the business, I've never heard of such an enormous revision -- almost clownish:O

Now comes the strange part...

What to do with Bob Woodward?

That must be the question running through the minds of administration members as they recall their well-documented praise of Woodward not so long ago. As NBC Nightly News reported, It's "a delicate balance for a White House that trumpeted the accuracy of Woodward's reporting, notably his 2004 bestseller, 'Plan of Attack.'

But, 'accuracy' apparently exists only when the text is fawning.

Bob Woodward's latest, "State of Denial" -- the 'not-so-fawning' installment to Woodward's 'Bush at War' series -- continues to shake the foundation at 1600 PA Ave. This time around, however, White House aides are seeking to undercut the book's central claims. Of course this episode will necessarily take... uhhhh... modified tactical maneuvering. The Bush Administration's usual bout of character assassination and messenger annihilation will not work. They've simply invested themselves too deeply in Woodward's character and integrity.

Years ago, the media eagerly played out the White House talking-point drama of Bush's 'gut-wrenching' decision-making process regarding Stem-Cell research. They had no qualms about portraying the doltish oaf-in-office as a deep-thinking, tortured soul.

But when his obviously vigorous analysis concluded, there were no surprises. Bush unapologetically set forth a vast swath of disingenuous, misleading assertions designed to impale any hopes of meaningful action.

If Bush truly believed in his self-proclaimed set of 'principles' and possessed even a wisp of courage, he would have come forth and simply proposed outlawing in vitro fertilization, the source of doomed embryos that he claims need saving. Clearly that was not an option, since political suicide was unacceptable.

Instead, Bush and his followers opted to attack something that had NOTHING to do with the ultimate fate of the embryos at issue. En route, they sentanced millions of people to their ultimate death and millions more to a life of suffering.

Only 54 days till the midterm elections and the Republicans are in deep doo-doo! What could possibly give them a lift? Seems the tired meme that they're somehow 'stronger in the war on terror' is wearing thin on a growingly skeptical populace. Iraq is an ongoing catastrophe. And Republicans across the nation are strapped with scandal.

With all this, we would like to believe that the sorrowful and clearly unnecessary loss of life in Iraq serves as the leading causal factor to the Bush Co. downfall. But we're probably wrong.

Find out why... take the jump!

On Friday, Clammyc offered us a smorgasbord of clammy goodness with his excellent diary, "This country has become an effing disgrace". In response, I attempted to bake up an addendum to his message "Don't Blame America: This country has NOT become an effing disgrace". My Diary essentially argued that the dismay associated with the US in recent years -- the hatred, the scorn, the frustration -- is more appropriately directed toward the scoundrels who have dismissed all that upon which this country was founded -- those who have pissed on the Constitution, f****d the founders, and sh*t on the people.

In essence, the hatred and disgust should be targeted squarely toward the neocon Bush Cabal, not the United States of America as it is meant to exist.

As support I went straight to the founding fathers, asserting that the neocon's agenda is so grossly anti-American, that they are left only with the option to destroy the principles upon which our country was founded in order to concoct a perceived sense of validity for their effed-up agenda:

More accurately, the powers that be have effing disgraced this country.

I totally agree with the message of this post over at DailyKos -- "This country has become an effing disgrace", but there is one thing that I'd like to make a tad more clear -- that this country Rocks!!!!

That's right! America ROCKS!!!

And the disgrace through wich we and the rest of the world are currently suffering are largely the result of a relatively miniscule power-band of effed-up neoconservatives who have wound their way to influence and power through decades of focused climbing -- politics, journalism, think tanks. The evidence is clear.

"The president is not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something living and making it dead for the purposes of scientific research," explained White House spokesman Tony Snow.

Sadly, Bush is more concerned about "something" living instead of someone.

-- Sploid

Apparently 'murder' isn't a sufficiently toxic frame for Bush's stem-cell propaganda. Now the president is Luntzing toward Hell with a whole new, but equally reprehensible, frame -- 'BODY PARTS'!

Hiding in the deep recesses of the White House, the cowardly Bush extracted his head from Cheney's ass just long enough to veto the stem-cell research bill, a move that desperately panders to social fundamentalists while potentially co-opting the lives and health of millions of real people. You know, the ones that are actually alive -- known and ignored by 'social conservatives' as the 'post-born'.

The Congress, both houses, have failed the veterans used in hazardous substance  experiments from WW2 thru the end of human experimentation in 1975, when after public outcry and congressional investigations, by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and then the Church Commission, exposed the depth of violations by the CIA and DOD of the Nuremeberg Codes of 1947 on American military personnel.

Senator Jay Rockefeller conducted the Rockefeller Commission of 1994 that delved into all of the programs, nuclear, radiation, chemical and biological. It is now 2006 and the federal government refuses to find these veterans who were harmed in these experiments  why? Why hasn't our Congress, our elected officials ever forced them to deal with a six decades long problem?

The U.S. Supreme Court has just overturned a ruling for President Bush that upheld Guantanamo Military Tribunals.

The Court said that the procedures adopted to try Guantanamo prisoner Hamdan violated the Geneva Conventions.

Once Again, the Bush Administration has overstepped its legal authority:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President George W. Bush overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed tribunals were illegal under U.S. law and the Geneva Convention.