False witness

It’s not that I’m obsessed with Katherine Harris, it’s just that she’s such a perfect example of the New Republican; a mouth full of “Christian values,” face painted like a cheap whore and a moral certainty that God’s will justifies whatever immoral means are used to implement it.

Harris claims that God wants her to win and apparently he has authorized her to lie, cheat, steal, take illegal campaign contributions and undermine the foundations of representative government toward achieving that divine goal. During a recent appearance on Fox News Channel's seminar for scoundrels: Hannity and Colmes, Harris said she will not end her campaign and will instead spend "my legacy from my father" and "everything I have." I certainly hope that she does; at least to the extent that she spends the rest of her days on public assistance and eating cat food in a dilapidated mobile home in Ft Pierce. It’s God’s will.

The party doesn't worry about criminal behavior though. Ed Kennedy, Broward County's Republican state committeeman, said the party needs to quit worrying about political liabilities, like her role in the 2000 presidential recount.

''It's too late to have doubts. She's in,'' he said. "Republicans are going to rally around her because we want that Senate seat.'' Apparently greed and lust for power are holy motivations and of course doubt is sin.

Harris’s campaign staff however has largely abandoned her and few think she has a chance to become Florida’s second Republican Senator by beating incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson this November, but there is always an audience that doesn’t care about morality, doesn’t recognize reality and whose fanatical and irrational allegiance can always be bought with a little glossolalia and a few thumps on a Bible: the Christian Right. This weekend, Harris took the pulpit at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale as part of the Reclaiming America For Christ conference and received a standing ovation. According to the account in the Palm Beach Post, Harris said she "redirected my life to the Lord when I was only in the third grade" and was "blessed to be raised in a godly family." She claims to have studied under Frances Schaeffer, who in his book A Christian Manifesto, called for Christian activists to demand "biblical morality" in government affairs.

I have not read Schaeffer and cannot confirm that disenfranchising minority voters and interfering with the ballot count is included in his concept of biblical morality. She also draws inspiration from Bill Bright's book, The Joy of Supernatural Thinking — Believing in God for the Impossible. One can see why.

Further illuminating the depth of her intellect, she cited the movies (not the books) The Last of the Mohicans and The Lord of the Rings because according to her lights it was about people willing to die for something bigger than themselves. If she made any references to sending people to die for lies and for the aggrandizement of the man her misdeeds helped to install as President, it was not recorded. “Everything is possible with God” parroted the parrot faced Harris as though everything would be possible with sufficient biblical bloviation.

Katherine has of yet not volunteered to die for any reason great or small - more’s the pity - and chose instead to avoid reporters after the meeting and disappear into the crowd at the Palm Beach Seafood Festival, where the smell of fish no doubt made her trail harder to follow.