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Oh, boy - an "insider" speaks! As is usual with writings of this sort, any factual scoops are mixed in with promotion of the author's friends and allies and denigation of his rivals. Consequently, this excerpt is of little value except for those who want to see what a Washington insider normally keeps to him- or herself. As canny cops know, one of the neater ways to get a confession out of a perp is to butter him up and let him run his mouth.

"Counselor, the defendant not only confessed his crime - he bragged about it."

For someone who claims to be averse to demagogy, this fellow's pretty quick with the cheap political rhetoric. His claim that the Religious Right is taking America back to the seventeenth century should merely be met in kind. Which group of people are taking America back to seventeeth-century mercantilsm (French style)? Which claque of folks are the true heirs of Jean de Colbert? Qui ont les Intendants?

As for his point about "cheap salvation," it shows that he's a hierarch. Lofgrean's citation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, despite Rev. Bonhoffer's Lutheranism, is reminiscent of the Catholic Church's opposition to sola scriptura. The way he uses it reveals his inner belief that the people, on their own, just can't be trusted. They need a hierarchy to, uh, "steer" them in the right direction.

Obviously, Lofgreen considers himself to be part of an elite. What's interesting about his attitude is that there seems to be only two common bonds in this elite: landing the big government job and cultivating a suspicion of the people - specifically, the people who don't conform to D.C.'s aceptable range of orthodoxies. That's all it takes, it seems. Needless to say, he is no man of the people.

His paragraph on Ayn Rand is puerile. It's the same old stereotypes thrown together with new words. Rand's position regarding religion is what she called "intransigent atheism." In Rand-speak, this means defensive atheism: at most, passive-aggressive atheism. No Dawkins has ever come from the Randian world. Moreover, she specifically criticized Christianity only once, in her Playboy interview, which is not considered part of the core canon. That was the only time. She was so far from a Social Darwinist, she one wrote "I am not a student of the theory of evolution, so I am neither its supporter nor its opponent."

That paragraph about Ayn Rand says a lot about Lofgreen's mental processes. He's fond of generalizing from single datums, often the sign of a person who uses stereotypes. Naturally, he pulls out the old trope about Religious Right "hypocrisy." Note that, in the case of Herman Cain, he treats rumour as fact. That says a lot about how he and his ilk "think:" it's very revealing, and not about the Religious Right. As for the allegation from Joe Walsh's ex-wife, why hasn't she sued? If her allegations were fact, why hasn't she collected the money?Again, he treats claims as if they were proven facts.

Needless to say, his sterotype about "plutocrats" says more about his thinly-disguised Washington-insider venality than the character of someone who became rich in the free market. Perhaps, he rates a bye on this one because he's a mere bureaucrat generalizing from his own experience.

As I indicated before, his writings are more revealing of the D.C. mindset than any truth about the Religious Right - except for the fact that the Religious Right made his job harder. That's really all you need to know about his bias.