Godless Lobbyist Debriefing

Lori Lipman Brown

Well, Brown made a fine, entirely respectable showing against blowhard demagogue Bill O'Reilly last night on Fox. I feel that I was represented, and represented well, to that segment of the American public that chooses to get its news and commentary from the "Factor". Ahem. Here is the transcript of the broadcast.

I liked Brown's overall style--relaxed, non-aggressive, "soft and fuzzy," yes, but firm on principle. She came across as innocent of the fact that O'Reilly was playing "gotcha" at a couple of points and trying to bait her. I don't know if this reflected lack of experience or conscious strategy, but it worked well.

A good example was O'Reilly's question and Brown's response about whether the Coalition will be lobbying against the Christmas holiday. This is a standard O'Reilly tactic--put the guest on the spot about something unexpected that forces her to either cast herself as an "extremist" by admission, or cast her fellow travellers as "extremists" by distancing herself from them. Brown passed the test easily by simply giving an honest and principled answer. (That approach does sometimes work, even for a lobbyist.) The message she very smoothly got across was: well yes, the holiday is actually a violation of the First Amendment, but no, we're not going to be concerning ourselves with that for now. (Aside: As long as we're on the subject, my own view is that Christmas is already, de facto, a secular holiday. We should all simply start spelling it Krismis to make that point clear and not worry about it much beyond that.)

Another good thing that Brown did was come out strong right away against the Head Start bill. O'Reilly had no good response other than one of his standard tricks for turning off debate: basically, "I don't believe you. We'll have to look it up later." And I also liked how she slipped in a personal note when talking about FEMA reimbursements for churches: "I know when I volunteer at my church..., we donate food. I mean that's part of our church giving." That was really good--deflecting O'Reilly's questioning, stinging back gently against those on the faith-based dole, and presenting a positive image of atheists within a traditional setting, all at the same time.

There was one thing I caught that seemed a bit rough. That was right at the beginning when O'Reilly got Brown to seemingly acknowledge that "secular" really means "atheist." Right-wing talking point alert! His question technically had to do with the name of the Coalition, and of course Brown answered truthfully. But I think there was a propaganda motive behind asking it that she might have responded to. Brown's specific constituency is the godless Secular Coalition, but the broader (lowercase) secular community includes lots of believers too. Theoretically, it should include everyone who supports the Constitution because "secular" refers to the civil sphere as distinct from the church, right? There must be a clear and concise way to get this point across when it comes up in the future. It seems an important one.

I also have the transcript of Brown on John Gibson's show Big Story, also on Fox. I've never seen that show, but David Asman, who conducted the interview, must be a pushover compared to O'Reilly. Brown seems to have had total command of that exchange.

Michael Gaynor

Update (9/30/2005): Wingnut secularphobe Michael Gaynor (introduced here) frets that O'Reilly got stomped by the godless lobbyist. In a long, agitated screed that quotes paragraph after paragraph after paragraph of the Secular Coalition's web site--the depravity is I guess so obvious that little additional commentary is needed--he hurls absurd and obscene charges like the unhinged paranoiac that he is:

Brown also enthusiastically lobbied for the infiltration of religious organizations that would be stopped by a bill that just passed the House of Representatives, while misrepresenting the bill as pro-religious discrimination rather than protective of the free exercise of religious rights.

Mostly he takes O'Reilly severely to task for underestimating Brown's capacity for pure evil.

Bill erroneously stated that "under God" had historically been part of "The Pledge." His ignorance of the history of “The Pledge” played into Brown's skillful and manipulative hands.... He essentially welcomed the Coalition to the public arena instead of pegging it as pernicious.... They are out for publicity and money to promote their atheist agenda to the fullest extent that seems politically possible, and Bill O'Reilly helped them with publicity last night.

Yadda yadda yadda.