by David Safier
A War of Christians on the screening panel for the Redistricting Commission? Give. Me. A. Break.
Craig McDermott has done the best reporting and analysis of the Redistricting Commission nomination process I've seen. Of course, he's taken unfair advantage of some mainstream journalists. He's attended the meetings and taken a peek behind the curtain to see what's really going on.
Basically, Pearce and Adams screwed up and didn't create a situation where they could load the commission with people who would create ridiculously Republican-friendly redistricting, so they're trying to figure out how to game the system.
The latest game: say the people in charge of the nomination process hate Christians and took one guy out of contention because of his religious beliefs. That's the plan. Bully members of the screening panel into redoing what they've done by getting the news media on board and riling up the base about the anti-Christian bias of the panel so they'll barrage these folks with phone calls and emails.
Howard Fischer, who usually does some peeking behind the curtains himself, dropped the ball in his coverage in today's Star. He played the innocent, reporting what Adams said without discussing the political back story. He quoted two people on the screening panel denying any anti-Christian bias — denials always look weak — and left the rest of the field to the Republican screamers. He didn't get a Democrat like Chad Campbell to comment that this is all a stunt.
Will the news media bite on this and give it lots of coverage, as if the War on Christianity in the redistricting process is real, or will they expose this ploy for what it is? Or, better yet, ignore this tempest in a teapot?
If the media is going to continue to play this story, I have something to add to the controversy. One of the people objecting to this "blatant anti-Christian bias" is Cathi Herrod, who is president of the Center for Arizona Policy. Herrod? Her name is Herrod? When did her family change its name from Herod to cover up its lineage from the King Herod of the Bible who tried to kill Jesus?
Herrod, if that's really the spelling of her name, needs to prove she's not getting involved in this fight as a clever ruse to camoflage her true intentions — finishing off King Herod's work and killing Christianity entirely. (I wonder if I can get Bill O'Reilly to devote one of his programs to this burning controversy.)
SARCASM ALERT: The last two paragraphs are meant to take this ridiculous story to the next stage: hyper-ridiculousness. "Irreverence in the pursuit of sarcasm and mockery is no vice." (Didn't Dick Nixon say something like that?)