Hanna Rosin’s New Yorker piece on Patrick Henry College, which “trains young Christians to be politicians,” is a piece of cultural anthropology — a look at the rituals and mating habits of a group of people whom the author and her (mostly liberal) readers will probably never be able to identify with. That said, it’s first-rate stuff — and largely free of condescension. And we weren’t kidding about the mating habits angle. Consider:
When Ross was sixteen, she wrote in her journal, “I don’t want to spend my life having crushes on different guys.” She pledged to “love Christ with my whole heart and not fall in love with a guy for five years,” a period that she chose after hearing a lecture that compared committing to Christ to sticking to a long-term business plan. Du Me’s courtship proposal [to Ross] came exactly five days before her pledge expired.
Another great detail: Junior Ben Adams “sent out a nine-page email to the entire student body before the spring formal reminding the girls to dress modestly. ‘Lust is sin,’ it said. ‘It is sin for you to tempt us. It is … unloving. Unsisterly. Un-Christlike.'” (We’re guessing the email didn’t earn Ben too many friends, even at pious Patrick Henry.) Most of the kids who go to PHC are home-schooled evangelicals, and now they’re transitioning to mainstream life, thanks to the political landscape: “In conservative circles … home-schoolers are considered something of an elite, rough around the edges but pure — in their focus, capacity for work, and ideological clarity — a view that helps explain why the Republican establishment has placed its support behind Patrick Henry, and why so many conservative politicians are hiring its graduates.” The class of 2004 had sixty-one graduates; two now work in the White House, six for conservative Congressmen, eight in federal agencies, and two for the F.B.I. Another graduate worked in Iraq for the Coalition Political Authority, and another helps Sen. Rick Santorum and his wife home-school their kids.
Continuing our Christian conservative theme, Matthew Continetti’s Weekly Standard cover story takes on Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, present-day political consultant, and, possibly, future lieutenant governor of Georgia. The last might not happen, however, thanks in part to Reed’s connection to uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under investigation for a host of alleged transgressions. For one, Abramoff and his partner, public affairs specialist Michael Scanlon, “convinced six Indian tribes [who were operating casinos] to pay up to $82 million over three years in exchange for … well, actually, no one exactly is sure what Abramoff and Scanlon did for all that money,” as Continetti puts it. “Which is a problem.” And not just for them:
From 1999 until 2002, organizations affiliated with Scanlon and Abramoff paid Reed’s company, Century Strategies, at least $4.2 million for “grass-roots” support — working the phones, compiling voter lists, writing ad copy, and so forth. Reed, who once said that gambling was a “cancer” on the body politic, who told National Journal in 2004 that he has been “opposed to gambling throughout my entire career,” used the money to shut down casinos that threatened the business of the casinos paying Abramoff.
Continetti concludes his piece with a quote from Reed’s 1994 book, Politically Incorrect. In it, Reed writes that his “experience in Washington was disillusioning. The lofty ideals that I brought to the nation’s capital were shaken by the reality of life in Congress, where votes were sold to the highest bidder and politicians shook down special interests for campaign contributions in what journalist Brooks Jackson has called ‘honest graft.’ I saw powerful people up close, became acquainted with their foibles, and witnessed the seamy underside of politics. I learned quickly that the pursuit of power is an empty and unsatisfying exercise without a moral compass to guide one’s journey.”
Wonders Continetti: “Has Washington changed since then? Or has Ralph Reed?”
Finally, we turn to Newsweek, which examines Jonathan Klein’s CNN. “Seven months into his tenure, Klein is making revolutionary changes at the cable network — scrapping signature broadcasts like ‘Crossfire’ and ‘Inside Politics,’ shaking up his morning-show ensemble and his prime-time producing staff, and creating a new international news show at noon,” writes Jonathan Darman. “These are only the first steps in a broad overhaul plan aimed at getting the pioneering and once-dominant cable news network out of a seemingly perennial second-place finish, far behind Fox News. His unorthodox, even heretical game plan: serious news that doesn’t put viewers to sleep.”
The problem? Nancy Grace, the seeming antithesis of what Klein says he wants on the network. Grace has gotten good ratings on CNN’s Headline News, and Darman argues that while Klein’s “vision may win over media critics who’ve grown weary of the food-fight culture of cable news … Grace’s style is what moves the numbers.” He also says “some at the network wonder if he isn’t secretly happy to have her on the air. With Grace safely tucked away at Headline News, they reason, Klein can preach his message of highbrow journalism even as the network continues to rake in tabloid gold.”
Perhaps. We think Klein’s strategy is simply to preach one thing and do another — as evidenced by CNN’s all-day orgy of Jennifer Willbanks coverage not so long ago, and the Natalee Holloway coverage that has dominated the network of late. But don’t listen to us — we’ll leave the last word to a veteran CNN producer who spoke anonymously.
“The old CNN is Judy Woodruff,” he told Newsweek. “The new CNN is Nancy Grace.”
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.