In his essay Cogs in the Machine Digby has published one of the best analyses of the relationship of Christian Right leaders such as Pat Robertson and James Dobson, the Republican elite, and rank and file Fundamentalists that I have ever read. A few years ago my own research on the leading Christian right personalities convinced me that none walked their talk, none were men of genuine belief. I’ve never encountered such amoral cynicism tarted up as virtue. But I didn’t put the case nearly so well.

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