Crossing Them Up

     In most eras, women’s choice of accessories and jewelry hasn’t been considered a political topic. Well, these aren’t most eras, are they? Still, when this rolled around:

     … it struck me as on the silly side. What, political appointees aren’t allowed to wear religious icons? Why not? Don’t they have the same First Amendment rights as anyone else? Are the leftists in the media making noise about this for lack of anything else to hector the Administration about?

     It does have a hint of the flavor of a thrust against Christianity and its symbols. But the attention on these two women has made me think it might be a more focused attack than the usual broadsides against the Christian faith. Karoline Leavitt and Pam Bondi have been important agents for the Administration’s initiatives, and therefore important targets for the Left. Being women, they’re presumedly more vulnerable than men would be. Bringing them down would hurt the Trump Administration. Attacking their religious jewelry is just the latest stroke.

     The Left and its boughten allies have been hostile to Christianity for some time. They persistently strive to accuse professed Christians of hypocrisy. The arguments hardly matter. Some of them have been so absurd as to be impossible to parody. Yet they persist, perhaps out of desperation.

     Remember John Ashcroft? Hell, remember George W. Bush! It wasn’t that long ago. They were openly Christian; never mind what you thought of their performance in office. It displeased the Left no end. Even leaving the Left’s hostility toward an alternative source of moral guidance aside, they could not bear to have respected men in high office share a belief system popular with the majority of Americans. It was a political asset the Left, whose distaste for Christianity had become open, could not overcome.

     Bondi and Leavitt look more vulnerable than Bush and Ashcroft; therefore, they’re drawing fire. It has nothing to do with a religious bias within the Administration, nor with the many underhanded accusations of “hypocrisy,” nor with the notion that Administration appointees being openly Christian somehow disenfranchises part of the American populace.

     The presence of Valerie Jarrett in Barack Obama’s inner circle made a lot of conservatives uneasy, as did Obama’s own Islamic background. But no one suggested that Jarrett was unfit to be an Administration advisor on the grounds of her faith.

     The tempest may be loud, but the import is small and easily confined to its teapot. Who was it who said when you get to some city or other, “there’s no there there” -- ? This is much the same sort of fracas.