US Representative and Senate candidate Katherine Harris is under fire again, this time for her baldly stated views on politics and faith, which she shared with Witness, a Florida Baptist publication. The transcript of the interview is an excellent resource on the cumulative effect of a Christian-right aproach to american politics, evidence of how in moving from one hot-button issue to another– gay marriage, Terri Schiavo, stem cell research– the long-term implications for governance become ratcheted up, how advocating for a US theocracy has become a normalized part of the political debate.

Harris after all is a sitting member of Congress, a woman who has served in government for many years, who attended Harvard and who was speaking for the record. Yet the interview reads like a madras manifesto, where secular is equated with evil, where only the faithful are qualified to serve the public, where individual citizens would submit to a moral and religious code outlined and enforced by the government– because “nonChristian citizens don’t know any better”– and where lawmakers who don’t support such views are “legislating sin” and so must be replaced.

There is plenty of conviction on display, and plenty of confusion, too. God chooses our leaders, she says, yet she’s also encouraging the faithful to get them out of office. There is also an endtimes-style preoccupation with “taking the country back,” as if Gore and then Kerry and all the defeated Congressional Democrats of the past six or more years have been running the country, going to war, appointing Supreme Court justices.

A bonus of the transcript is Harris’s sidelong, hesitant, semiconscious admission of her role in the “stolen” presidential election of 2000. Witness asks her “Why should Florida Baptists care about this primary election?” To which she says:

“… Florida is the forerunner state. What happens in Florida sets the trend for what happens nationally. And with this election, if Bill Nelson wins, it’s going to be a very frightening proposition in 2008, in the presidential elections, because whoever wins Florida will win the presidency. And [Bill Nelson] will be in a position to largely influence…”

Ha! She should know!

The truth is the Emmy’s are boring. So it makes sense that the hottest news coming out of last night’s show is Conan O’Brian’s opening segment in which the presenter is shown flying aboard a plane that starts to violently shake and then crash. (Watch it here.) This sketch might have been funny if a real plane hadn’t crashed and killed 49 people in Kentucky the same morning.

LA Weekly blogger Nikki Finke wrote:

“The very idea that tonight’s Emmy showcast on NBC was so scripted-in-stone that neither the network nor host Conan O’Brien could change a word of the broadcast opener, or decide not to show it altogether and substitute another skit crafted at the last minute, is absurd. After all, isn’t that the reason Hollywood pays writers for these awards shows? C’mon, couldn’t one executive or producer, much less Conan or the television academy that puts on the Emmys, pipe up and say, “Uh, maybe starting with a plane crash comedy skit on the same day there was an actual plane crash might be in poor taste? Let’s rewrite.” But, noooooooooo.”

NBC affiliate general manager at the Lexington, Kentucky, says he was “stunned” by the skit. “We wish somebody had thought this through. It’s somewhere between ignorance and incompetence.”

Ain’t that the problem with giant corporations (like NBC, which is owned by General Electric)? They just so often leave you wondering WHO’S IN CHARGE?

Other commentators thought it distastful that Conan introduced Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert by saying that “these two presenters have done for fake news what the Fox News Channel has done for fake news.” In a post titled, “Conan Slams Fox News at the Emmys,” Greg Tinti writes: “I usually wouldn’t make a big deal out of something like this, but today’s just the wrong day for the gratuitous slam of Fox News as ‘fake news.’ You know, because two of its journalists were just freed from the very real experience of being kidnapped while on the job and then held hostage for 13 days.”

If you find these stories banal, and if you don’t mind your news completely made up, here’s what I think is the best coverage of the Conan controversy.

You know the song: that repetitive, annoying, senseless (”got my Vans on but they look like sneakers” — Vans are sneakers, fool!), and catchy ass hell song “Vans” by teenage Bay Area rap group the Pack has been banned by MTV. Despite its popularity, MTV refuses to play the video because they consider the video to be a four-minute ad for Vans.

Because Nelly’s “Air Force Ones” wasn’t promoting Nikes? Because Chingy’s “Holiday Inn” wasn’t free promotion for the hotel company? Because Busta Rhymes’ “Pass the Courvousier” wasn’t promoting liquor? Because Run DMC’s “My Adidas” isn’t a classic hip hop record? Or is it because MTV doesn’t want to give free promotion if they’re not getting any ad dollars in return? I’ve never seen a Vans commercial on TV, let alone on MTV.

Not that the video is anything special, just a bunch of getting hyphy and skateing with a cameo by Too $hort (though hip hop’s co-opting of skate culture is interesting), but here’s the video…