Conservatives attended the “2012 Faith & Freedom Conference and Strategy Briefing” this weekend, which is put on by Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition. The FFC describes itself as a “grassroots” organization dedicated to:

“Educating, equipping and mobilizing people of faith and like-minded individuals to be effective citizens.”

They also claim one of their “principals” is to:

“Help the poor, the needy, and those who have been left behind”.

(That is, when they’re not calling them lazy, non-tax paying parasites, and blaming them for every ill in society.)

Of course, the real objective of the FFC is to promote Ralph Reed, and return the lustre to his tarnished “player” status in politics. The FFC “News” page  is almost Gingrichesque in its All-Reed-All-the-Time headlines.

But back to the conference -

The “2012 Faith & Freedom Conference” is a who’s who of political hacks, 2012 contenders, the pseudo-religious, and GOP has-beens. A small sample of invited guests and speakers include:

Mitt Romney, Default GOP Candidate - Evangelicals need someone there to feel superior to other than you and me.

Newt Gingrich -

The political equivalent of a crippled animal that no one can bring himself to put down, who said of President Obama:

“…defeating him is a national, patriotic duty.”

Newt you’ll recall is a member of that “patriotic” group of  conservatives who plotted to sabotage the country in January of 2009.

Grover Norquist -  An annoying little dog that conservatives can’t shake loose from their pant legs, who described his  warped view of bi-partisanship to the FFC crowd this way:

“When somebody tells you in Washington, D.C., ‘What about the good old days of bipartisan compromise?’ What that person has told you is how very old they are, because they remember when everything was bipartisan because the liberal Republicans and the liberal Democrats would get together and fight the conservative Republicans and the conservative Democrats. And everything was bipartisan because the parties didn’t mean anything.”

Huh?

Marco Rubio - The GOP Golden Boy who gained his status by virtue of being one of the party’s token Hispanics, and who described Democrats this way in his speech:

“They literally pit Americans against each other by design, for purposes of winning an election, and that’s never who we’ve been. And that is never who we’ve aspired to be and that is not who we should become.”

In clinical psychology, this is referred to as “projection“:

“…a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people.”

As you’ve noticed, the majority of Republicans suffer from this malady.

But the star attraction was surely Glenn Beck - teary-eyed and spewing the typical pseudo-Christian warning that if we don’t do this or that, god’s going to bail on the country, etc. etc. Then he veered off into a typical “where the hell did that come from” moment, when he vowed

“to single-handedly orchestrate his own “day the music died” by stamping out the diverse singing circle from “Glee.”

WTF? According to Right Wing Watch, Beck also:

declared repeatedly that “I have seen the finger of God” and assured the audience that miracles are coming … “

Now I wasn’t there, but I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t the miracle finger God was giving Mr. Beck.

I’ve highlighted only a few of the invited guests and speakers; some of the others attending who somehow warranted billing include:

• James O’Keefe – the GOP’s favorite punk/faux journalist
• Jonah Goldberg – Bogus Pulitzer nominee
• Jim Garlow – Gingrich’s Gay-bashing pal
• Tony Perkins – White Supremacist loving, Gay-basher

Yup, just one big, happy, dysfunctional family.

So what did they talk about in their breakout sessions?

• “Mama Grizzlies” (yawn)
• “Building Bridges” to the African-American and Hispanic communities. (Finally getting around to that after being a party for what… more than 150 years?)
• “Fighting Obama’s [non-existent] War on Religion”
• “Defeating Terrorism and Jihad” of course
• “Fighting Obama’s [non-existent] Assault on Israel”
• This one’s pretty funny: “How to Register and Turn Out The White, Male Vote”
• “Winning the Media War” (These folks just crack me up! Maybe they could start with oh, I don’t know… honest reporting?)

The link to a full list of sessions can be found here.

Mitt Romney didn’t actually attend, which avoided all of that whispering behind his back. He spoke to them via satellite from his touring bus (which by the way he doesn’t actually travel on, he flies from place to place and meets up with the bus, so he can try and look like an average Joe without having to lower himself to be one).

Anyway… the default candidate hit all of the required talking points for the holier-than-thou crowd; according to CNN:

“In his prepared remarks, the presumptive Republican nominee detailed what he said are the anchors of American public life: family, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence.”

“There’s no question that economic freedom has been attacked by this administration in many ways,” Romney continued, citing the national debt, health-care reform, tax policy, and the size of government.”

Blah, blah, blah; nothing new or remotely credible there. Romney was also sort-of-endorsed again by Rick Santorum; you know, the guy pseudo-Christians said they wanted but didn’t really want. WCVB Boston reported:

Former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum gave a signal to social conservatives on Saturday: Mitt Romney’s “message is sound. It’s solid. He hit the points.”

At least Mitt’s filling someone in on his “points”.

Noticeably absent from the published “faith” conference invites: any mainstream religious leaders- the kind who actually embody the spirit of Christianity.

There were also no breakout sessions listed that addressed the mundane little things like poverty, unemployment, people losing their homes, or crushing student debt.

No, this was just another vehicle for political and religious extremists; a gathering for the “special” people to pat each other on the back and reaffirm their delusions of superiority… oh, and to get Ralph Reed some publicity of course. Sorry you missed it aren’t you? Anyway-

You should always depart any reported idiocy smiling,  so I give you some Right Wing Watch via Facebook:

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