Hooray for Morals!

Great story out of Iowa. So, who gave the Republicans control of the moral high ground? What with Rush, O'Reilly, Gingrich, Bennett, Swaggart, Bakker...the list just keeps on going...

[Yesterday] "Bush introduced Mike and Sharla Hintz, a couple from Clive, whom he said benefited from his tax plan. Last year, because of the enhanced the child tax credit, they received an extra $1,600 in their tax refund, Bush said. With other tax cuts in the bill, they saved $2,800 on their income taxes. Mike Hintz, a First Assembly of God youth pastor, said the tax cuts also gave him additional money to use for health care. He said he supports Bush's values. "The American people are starting to see what kind of leader President Bush is. People know where he stands," he said.
[and Today] "A Des Moines youth pastor is charged with the sexual exploitation of a child. KCCI learned that the married father of four recently turned himself in to Johnston police. Rev. Mike Hintz was fired from the First Assembly of God Church, located at 2725 Merle Hay Road, on Oct. 30. Hintz was the youth pastor there for three years. Police said he started an affair with a 17-year-old in the church youth group this spring.

What a difference a day makes!

My favorite Senator, Russ Feingold on Condoleeza Rice: " I admire Dr. Rice's obvious intellectual gifts and her communication skills, and I congratulate her. But I am deeply troubled by the signal that this nomination appears to send -- a signal suggesting that the modest moderating influence of the State Department over the last four years will disappear, and that the next four years will be guided even more closely by the voices that shouted loudest in the first term, and that led our country into seriously flawed foreign policies. Our country cannot afford to continue down the foreign policy path that was forged during the first term of the Bush Administration." [Feingold]
With Powell leaving, any moderating influence is gone.