Fmr. GOP Strategist Kevin Phillips: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, ...

As we continue to mark the start of the fourth year of the war in Iraq, we turn now to Kevin Phillips, the former top Republican strategist.

A generation ago Phillips wrote "The Emerging Republican Majority" which Newsweek described as the "political bible of the Nixon administration." Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Phillips was viewed as one of the GOP's top theoreticians and electoral analysts.

But no more.

Phillips is now warning that the party - and the country as a whole - is headed for potential disaster. Phillips sums up his concerns in the title of his new book: "American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century."

A review in Sunday's New York Times said the book may be "the most alarming analysis of where we are and where we may be going to have appeared in many years."

The book examines issues ranging from peak oil to the rapture to the future of the American empire. In a minute we will be joined by Kevin Phillips here in our Firehouse Studio but first I want to turn to President Bush. On Monday he spoke about the war in Iraq Renaissance Cleveland Hotel in Ohio. After his address he took questions from the crowd. The first question addressed Phillips" book American Theocracy:

Cleveland, Ohio - March 20, 2006:
Q: Thank you for coming to Cleveland, Mr. President, and to the City Club. My question is that author and former Nixon administration official Kevin Phillips, in his latest book, American Theocracy, discusses what has been called radical Christianity and its growing involvement into government and politics. He makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?

THE PRESIDENT: The answer is -- I haven't really thought of it that way. (Laughter.) Here's how I think of it. The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow. I vowed after September the 11th, that I would do everything I could to protect the American people. And my attitude, of course, was affected by the attacks. I knew we were at war. I knew that the enemy, obviously, had to be sophisticated and lethal to fly hijacked airplanes into facilities that would be killing thousands of people, innocent people, doing nothing, just sitting there going to work.

We are joined now by Kevin Phillips, longtime Republican strategist and author of several books. His newest work, "American Theocracy," comes out today.

* Kevin Phillips, author, "American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century

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