SBC's Richard Land to help present anti-health reform petitions [with addendum]

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Conventions' Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has announced plans to meet with other Salem Radio Network hosts tomorrow to deliver anti-health reform petitions to Congress on behalf of the National Center for Policy Analysis and SRN.

The National Center for Policy Analysis is a conservative think tank which is financed in part by the insurance industry and which had such close ties to the Bush administration that it fired staff member Bruce Bartlett upon publication of his book Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Regan Legacy.

Similarly conservative and sometimes controversial, SRN, syndicates Janet Parshall, Land and Hugh Hewitt, among others, and is owned by Salem Corporation.

Land said:

This petition is indicative of a spontaneous grass roots eruption of protest against a government takeover of the American health care system. Anyone who doubts the strength and vitality of this movement needs only have attended one of the thousands of town hall meetings to know that this is real.

Characterizing professionally-promoted petitions which are "signed" online by clicking an eagle icon and filling out an online form as "a spontaneous grass roots eruption of protest" should strain even Land's credulity.

Similarly spontaneous, delivery of the dubious petitions to Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) is take place a few hours before President Obama’s health care address to a joint session of Congress.

Addendum:

Dan Gilgoff writing for USNews somehow finds in this stunt with delivery via gurneys and ambulances what he calls "a clear indication that the sore feelings between the GOP and its Christian Right base that were in evidence in the run-up to and aftermath of the 2008 presidential election are fading." Because Republican Senate heavyweights who were just involved in the desperate, failed attack on Obama's school speech have involved themselves.

In August, 2008, Gilgoff applauded Richard Land's anointment of Sarah Palin as the Christian Right's and allegedly the Southern Baptist Convention's Republican vice presidential selection. Also a stunt, which may not have turned out so well for John McCain.