GEORGIE ANNE GEYER Christian themes underlie convention

WASHINGTON -- Everyone knows this administration is enormously influenced by evangelical Christian themes -- some appropriate to foreign policy issues, some totally inappropriate. President Bush has said repeatedly that his is an historical crusade in the Middle East and that he sees himself as God's tool. And evangelicals see Israel as the promised land where the last great religious war will take place.
Even so, it was surprising to see so many obvious comparisons to that way of thinking in the first few days of the Republican convention.
Suddenly, the Republican moderates were resurrected. One could be forgiven for thinking they had been sealed in a cave in the hills around Jerusalem during these last four years, great boulders balanced against their escape, while the party's ultra-rightists and neocons consumed headlines in their modern Rome with their imperial quests.
But some giant or creature deviously empowered must have rolled away the stones; for there they all were in the first speeches of the New York convention: John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger ("married to a Kennedy," they kept repeating, as many of them spoke under a huge sign, "People of Compassion").
One could almost sense the moderate-to-liberal spirit of Nelson Rockefeller, defeated in the 1964 campaign that began turning the party from the moderate Eastern Establishment of George H.W. Bush to the ultra-right conservative hothouse of George W. Bush.
'Compassionate conservatism'
Resurrected, too, was that "compassionate conservatism" that seemed to impassion "W" four years ago. (I spoke for five hours alone with him that summer, and that was all he talked about, deigning to give any thought to intervention in the world.) On what foreign altar had it been languishing and waiting these four long, war-dominated years?
Surely it had not been held in the hearts of Tom DeLay (often referred to as "The Hammer"), Richard Perle (cited this week as one of the miscreants, a "faithless fiduciary," in the report on the hundreds of millions stolen by Hollinger corporation officials), or Douglas Feith (his office is under FBI investigation this week for passing American intelligence secrets to Israel).
No, these men -- the real officials of this administration who had the power and arrogance to lead us surreptitiously into war -- can hardly be compared to monks or nuns during the Dark Ages, husbanding "compassionate conservatism" in their monasteries and nunneries until the era of peace and joy would again come.
To the contrary, the convention has been so carefully orchestrated -- rather like the Passion Play at Oberammergau, where you know what will happen to Jesus at the end -- that none of these men was seen anywhere near the podium at Madison Square Garden.
The writers of that new bible for the Republican faithful, the Republican Platform, wrote in all the traditional far-right maxims. But they did not get the headlines. The "new moderation" was being pushed elsewhere by the president in his supposed "new agenda" for the next four years: back four years to tort reform, medical liability reform, repeal of the estate tax, reform of Social Security, and the promotion of health savings and retirement savings accounts (handmaidens on the crucifix-laden path to the "ownership society").
Remember the war
And, oh yes, almost forgot -- the war in Iraq is "becoming an example of reform to the region."
All of this was deliberately meant to give the country the idea that moderate Republicanism lives and has miraculously reawakened to walk among us once again -- and there is good reason for this.
A recent Pew Research Center study found that 83 percent of conservative Republicans nationwide were satisfied by their options for president. But moderate and liberal Republicans were down from 70 percent in 2000 to 57 percent. Polls show that Arnold Schwarzenegger and the relatively moderate Laura Bush are more popular with voters than is the president, and in the 17 swing states that will decide the Nov. 2 election, the president's future hangs in the balance.
Is any of this new moderation in George W.'s Republican Party, so unlike his father's old party, real? There's the stinger. Unlike that trial in historical Israel 2004 years ago, this is indeed a show.
Universal Press Syndicate