5-16-07, 10:32 am

The news that Rev. Jerry Falwell died yesterday at the age of 73 will doubtless be followed by any number of encomiums to this television evangelist who founded an organization he called the 'Moral Majority,' and who mounted a largely successful public relations campaign to make ultra-right politics synonymous with his brand of Christian faith.

If the recent eulogies of former President Gerald R. Ford are any indication, we're likely to hear and read about Falwell's life in starkly revisionist terms. When Ford's act of pardoning Richard Nixon shortly after the former Michigan congressman took his seat in the Oval Office can be praised as 'healing,' although that action was viewed with widespread outrage at the time and was one of the factors causing Ford's defeat in the 1976 election, we need to start mourning truth as also being buried along with the deceased.

So, let's start to objectively assess Rev. Falwell's legacy on the US political scene. And lest the accusation be made that 'one shouldn't speak ill of the dead,' let's be up front about the imperative to speak the truth.

There can be no question that Rev. Falwell leaves a towering legacy in the history of the emergence of the ultra-right. It can be argued whether he was a pastor first and an ultra-right political figure second, or vice versa. That question is for biographers, and one that is irrelevant to his legacy.

It would not be too far fetched to suggest that Rev. Jerry Falwell and the movement he sought to build was largely responsible for rescuing the Republican Party from permanent marginalization, if not outright oblivion. The GOP would be correct to thank and honor Falwell; the rest of us....well...not so much.

The GOP had been decimated by the resounding defeat of Arizona's Barry ('In your heart you know he's right -- far right') Goldwater at the hands of President Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 elections. The GOP rebounded in 1968 when Nixon defeated Senator Hubert Humphrey, but the Democratic Party was badly split at the time and many people regarded Humphrey's nomination with less excitement than one could muster for a trip to the dentist. Senator Robert F. Kennedy's campaign was surging at the time of his assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and the Democratic convention became best known for the violence visited upon anti-war demonstrators at the hands (and batons) of the Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago Police Department.

By 1974, however, the GOP found itself again on the ropes and in danger of being counted out as a result of the Watergate affair and the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew (for reasons unrelated to Watergate) and President Richard Nixon.

It was Rev. Jerry Falwell, the pastor and television evangelist, who worked hard for a marriage between the ultra-right segments of the GOP and Falwell's brand of evangelical Christianity; one that would blur the distinctions between ideology and theology and, in the finest traditions of 'Christian marriage' make two into one.

The issue of abortion was the wedding band that cemented this bond. What is beyond doubt is that the issue gained traction in many segments of the population, and that many evangelicals began to shift their focus from the heavens to the the halls of power in Washington, DC and state legislatures.

We can debate whether Rev. Falwell actually believed that overturning the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade would bring an end to abortion in the United States. My own view is that this was never truly believed by Falwell or by the GOP operatives at his same level. There has always been abortion, and in the pre-Roe v. Wade days wealthy families with a daughter who found herself pregnant when she (or they) didn't wish her to be simply sent her out of the country. By contrast, poor and working class women with unwanted pregnancies found themselves at the mercy of the so-called 'back alley' abortionist and often were seriously harmed, or killed, after visiting such practitioners.

The manipulation of the question of a woman's right to choose and Roe v. Wade were cynically manipulated in a manner without parallel -- until the Bush administration used the tragedy of 9/11 to suggest that Saddam Hussein was somehow connected and had weapons of mass destruction.

We probably won't hear this in any eulogies for Falwell. We probably won't hear that he formed the Moral Majority with Howard Phillips, Ed McAteer and Paul Weyrich -- three well-known ultra-right political operatives. We probably won't hear about the controversy Falwell unleashed when he took over the scandal-plagued PTL ministries from Rev. Jim Bakker.

So, let's start to sum up Falwell's legacy.

*Falwell's efforts to unite evangelical faith with ultra-right politics saw their apex with the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. More recently, however, the war in Iraq and increasing problems domestically have seen fissures appear among people of good will and faith who are actively challenging ultra-right assumptions that were often made without regard to the social aspects of the Gospels.

*Falwell used the 'bully pulpit,' and often made statements that he had to retract -- or for which he was sued. The concept that one had 'God on their side' is not without power in terms of being used to justify methods and means.

*The Regan era is a part of Falwell's legacy.

*The political approach and tactics of the late Lee Atwater and his protegee, Karl Rove, are part of Falwell's legacy.

*The anti-immigrant movement and its accompanying vile brew of racism and bigotry are part of Falwell's legacy.

*The ill-considered intervention by now former Florida Governor Jeb Bush into the sad and tragic circumstances surrounding a comatose Terri Schiavo are part of Falwell's legacy.

*The invasion of Iraq is part of Falwell's legacy.

*The drastic cuts in social welfare and employment programs during Republican administrations are part of Falwell's legacy.

*The scarcity of affordable housing choice in the United States are part of Falwell's legacy.

*The blatant disregard of the protections afforded us by the Constitution are part of Falwell's legacy. President Bush, like Rev. Falwell, often invokes the name of God to justify his policies.

There may be readers who believe I am being less than fair in listing all these things as part of Falwell's legacy. And they would be correct to say that I haven't listed everything. But it comes down to this:

In a Christian marriage ceremony, the bride and groom pledge to take each other for better or for worse. Falwell entered into a union with the ultra-right and had a role in bringing it to prominence and power. And in so doing, if he was going to take credit for GOP successes -- which he did -- he must also take his share of the blame for their crimes, blunders, missteps, malfeasance, lies, and defeats -- including the mid-term elections.

Rev. Falwell would have claimed that God is the ultimate judge. Perhaps. But here on earth, the verdict will be left to history and it is people who make history. And it is to history that the Rev. Falwell now belongs.

-Lawrence Albright is a contributing writer on politics and culture for Political Affairs.