Scholar's column sparks media frenzy

In what he calls a news-media "post office" game -- where one
whispers to the next, embellishing the original comment until it is
unrecognizable -- World magazine editor Marvin Olasky
inadvertently set off a chain reaction of religious condemnation
throughout much of the establishment press.

"I'm a very occasional, very informal advisor to George W. Bush,"
Olasky said in a letter he composed and sent to a number of colleagues
around the country. "Bush was under attack because of his visit to Bob
Jones University. McCain supporters were looking for an opportunity to
drape one more albatross carcass around him. I chose the wrong time to
write a column with a fanciful lead."

Olasky is a scholar and author of more than a dozen books, including
the widely-respected, "The Tragedy of American Compassion."

In his Statesman column, Olasky made a brief reference to a popular
1998 novel by author Tom Wolfe, "A Man in Full," whose main character
"realizes the meaninglessness of prosperity without purpose and then
converts, not to Christianity, but to faith in Zeus."

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Olasky suggested that Wolfe had decided to have his main character
convert to a belief in a Greek god rather than the Christian God because
the book would not have done as well if its main character had converted
to Christianity.

Expanding on that theme, Olasky then "noted that a lot of journalists
were sick of Bill Clinton, said they wanted cultural renewal and so were
friendly to Bush, at first. But they -- particularly some who 'grew up
in nominally Christian homes but never heard the gospel' -- couldn't
take it when he started publicly talking about Christ. There had to be a
better way."

That "better way," Olasky suggested, was McCain, who could provide
"good things" like "honor, duty, other classical virtues" with "no need
to consider Christ."

Olasky wrote, "Bush (was stressing) Judeo-Christian virtues. McCain
stressed Greco-Roman virtues. The (Feb. 16) column went on that way,
contrasting the biblical and classical appeals of the candidates."

Then, said Olasky, he "blundered twice."

Once, he said, by inadvertently leaving the impression that Americans
who "preferred classical virtues" were automatically "believers in the
religion of Zeus." Then, "although I had specifically noted the appeal
of McCain to nominal Christians, in the second half of the article I
noted examples of pro-McCain statements from three journalists. All
three, although I didn't know it at the time, turned out to be Jewish."

Olasky said over the next several days, as word about his column
spread, he was "slammed in the Washington Post, the New York Post, and
the Jerusalem Post ... not to mention the New York Times, Newsweek, NPR,
Forward, and even Fox News. Some insinuated anti-Semitism. Only an
article in the online magazine Salon explained my use of the Zeus
reference. Suddenly, after writing 13 scholarly and analytical books, I
was the farce that launched 1,000 quips."

Saying he doubted whether most who criticized him even read his
original column, Olasky provided some examples of the media coverage he
received:

• "New York Post columnist Deborah Orin on Feb. 25: "George W.
  Bush has a new religious flap on his hands -- his adviser Marvin Olasky
  has claimed three reporters, all Jews, who have criticized Bush, follow
  the 'religion of Zeus.' No context."

• On Feb. 26, "New York Times columnist Frank Rich said, 'Olasky
  has spun this theory at a moment when Pat Robertson is targeting Mr.
  Rudman, the most visible Jew in the McCain campaign. Mr. Olasky still
  hasn't told me whether the religion of Zeus goes in for Bar Mitzvahs.'"

• "The following day, the Jerusalem Post wrote, 'A Jewish-born
  evangelical Christian who advises Texas Governor George W. Bush came
  under fire at week's end by one of the three Jewish writers he had
  attacked for following 'the religion of Zeus.'"

• "The day after that," Olasky said, "David Brooks in Newsweek:
  Olasky 'accused me of worshipping Zeus,' and it was time to hit the gym
  'to get some Olympian pecs.' Not bad."

In the venue of talk radio, he said, the "talkers were advanced
Post Office players. Tom Edsall of the Washington Post, speaking on
National Public Radio, cited Deborah Orin's column and said, 'There's a
Bush supporter named Marvin Olasky who wrote a whole essay for The
Austin Statesman, whatever the paper is, and he described the press [as]
believers in the religion of Zeus, I think he said, or something like
that. And really what he was referring to were three Jewish conservative
reporters.'"

Fox News talk host Alan Colmes followed other media accounts with
"the full Monty," said Olasky: "'You have this guy, his name is Marvin
Olasky, who coined the phrase 'compassionate conservatism,' another Bush
adviser. Put up on the screen what he said about three Jewish
journalists ... the religion of Zeus? George W. Bush should disavow that
comment, shouldn't he? We're talking about candidates who are in bed
with people who make bigoted comments.'"

In his column, Olasky noted, "George W. Bush's initial encounters
with East Coast journalists last year went well."

"Many of them," he said, "told that I like the governor, came by my
office to chat during their visits to Austin. Those with children
especially grasped the need for a re-moralized America, and the
relevance of compassionate conservatism to that need."

However, as Olasky wrote in his column, late last year "as Governor
Bush began speaking more publicly of his Christian faith, the mood among
some of these reporters turned. Cultural renewal didn't seem worthwhile
if it came with such baggage."

Enter Sen. McCain, he said.

"Already personally popular among journalists," Olasky wrote, "he
displayed a message with Bush's upside, but without the Christian
albatross. Instead of talking about faith-based charities, McCain
emphasized patriotism. Instead of stressing the biblical virtues of
faith, hope and charity, McCain spoke of honor, duty and other classical
virtues -- good things all, but not a substitute for the Bible. McCain,
no threat to journalists' personal peace and affluence, gained the
covers of newsmagazines and garnered votes. It would be pushing it too
far to talk of the religion of Zeus trumping the religion of Christ:
McCain's no polytheist."

"The stakes in this election are high, and it's sad that leading
journalists are acting as proselytes in the religion of Zeus rather than
tough reporters," Olasky wrote in his Feb. 16 column. "The question now
is whether the American public has become so unmoored from biblical
understanding that, by Jove, it will believe in Zeus McCain."