What Elite Media Think of Evangelicals?
First, via Newbusters: Chuck Todd -- who generally strikes me as pretty fair -- actually opined as follows before the Saddleback Forum on Saturday night:
So it's a huge opportunity for Obama tonight to at least not be hated by the evange-, look, these folks are not going to ever support him. . . But they're not going to, if they don't have a personal hatred of him, then that's a good thing for Obama.
If Todd really believes that evangelical Christians routinely -- or even frequently -- hate the candidates who disagree with them (or whom they don't support), he needs to meet a few more evangelicals. Judging from those I know, they weren't going to hate Obama, whether or not he participated in the Forum.
Then, there's Margaret Carlson's most recent column, where she manages to damn many evangelicals with her faint praise of Rick Warren:
Unlike the first generation of evangelicals to move into the town square, Rick Warren, the church's pastor, isn't devoted to demonizing gays, women who work, men who don't, and environmentalists. He's more interested in helping the poor than getting tax breaks for the rich. He's an includer, not an excluder.
If Ms. Carlson truly believes that many -- or most -- evangelicals who (like their secular brethren) claim the civic right to participate in politics are simply "devoted" to demonizing gays, working women and environmentalists, she, too, needs to meet more members of the "religious right." Talk about "demonizing" . . .
It's amazing how quickly some in the media elites are willing to impute hatred to conservative people of faith -- just because those people might not agree with the policies or behavior that lefties approve. Both statements reflect a profound lack of insight about or experience with conservative Christians -- and those who want to cover them fairly should, perhaps, be a bit more skeptical about the hostile stereotypes of religious conservatives that exist in academia and other areas where liberal elites congregate.