The Book of Judas, as told by Karl Rove

As some of you may know, blogging doesn't pay the rent. Once in a while, I get recognized on the net and I get perks others don't. People have made special offers to help me identify any adware or viruses on my computer absolutely free or to play internet poker. One time I did get a chance to help out an actual Nigerian prince who had apparently been stranded in the United States. Still, I have to find other ways to pay for my DSL connection.

As some of you may also know, I occasionally help write things for non-top secret high level administration officials. A year ago, the vice president commisioned me to edit the Constitution down to a hundred words link . Just a few months ago, I got to write some jokes for the First Lady’s appearance at the White House Correspondent’s dinner. She was so grateful for my help that I got invited to a horse milking party in Crawford with Karl Rove, Jeff Gannon formerly of Talon News, and Ken Mehlman.

I didn’t actually wind up getting to milk any horses. Both Mr. Gannon and Mr. Rove were having such a good time, the rest of us decided not to interrupt them since both of them have had a difficult year and they genuinely seemed to be lost in the moment.
I did have the honor of watching Desperate Housewives with Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Cheney, who told me the idea for the show was lifted from her doctoral thesis.

My discretion paid off. Mr. Rove is one of those guys who notices everything. Did you know he even calls reporters to help them get their stories right? Once in a while, the reporters do stupid things like tell him top secret information about covert CIA agents and Mr. Rove always takes care to show them how not to violate some silly act from 1982. A few weeks after the party in Crawford, he called me with a project.

“Chancelucky, this is Karl Rove. We met at the horse milking party.”

“Karl, I wanted to apologize for not shaking hands with you afterwards. It wasn’t personal. I’m just a little squeamish.”

"No problem, not everyone likes to see me polish my push polling techniques up close.”

“Karl,I’d have to say the results have always spoken for themselves.”

“Let me get right to the point. I have a project for you.”

Suddenly, I had visions of being able to finally achieve some of my most ambitious dreams on the internet. I could, for instance, send hundreds of thousands of get well messages to that sick kid in West Virginia. I could pay for dozens of free three night stays in Las Vegas. If things really went well, I might even have the 800 dollars it took to buy that free Ipod.

“Im looking for someone to help me write a new gospel for the New Testament.”

My giddy fantasies quickly gave way to reality.

“Karl, I have to confess that I’ve only read the New Testament a couple times.”

“Don’t worry about it. That’s a couple times more than Rick Santorum’s read it by his own admission. The religious right happily still votes for him.”

“Okay, but why the New Testament?”

“It’s called firming up the base. Besides, the DaVinci Code was a big hit in the blue states. The party doesn’t want to be Left Behind even when it comes to apocryphal bestsellers.”

“Firming up the base?”

“Only 25% of the American people believe the President is being sincere about this Valerie Plame thing. A lot of those folk are evangelical Christian voters.”

“Can’t you just spread some absurdly false stories about Wilson being a liar and how you never knew her name? Those right wing bloggers believe anything as long as it’s in a set of talking points.”

“First of all, I don’t spread false stories. I imply them. Have you noticed that the White House itself doesn’t actually comment on any of this stuff?”

“I’ve noticed that they don’t even comment on you lately.”

“Well, as you know, the President has high standards for his staff. He even very courageously said the other day he’s fire anyone on his staff who commits a felony. That’s every bit as high a standard as they have for working at Walmart and it’s significantly higher than the one at Tyco or Enron.”

“Okay, but why a new gospel? What’s wrong with the four that have been used since Nicea?”

“As you know, fundamentalist Christian voters believe in the word of the Bible almost as much as they believe random slanderous rumors about Anne Richards, John Kerry, and John McCAin.”

“Okay.”

“Some of them appear to have a problem with Judas.”

“Judas Iscariot? Don’t most Christians have a problem with Judas?”

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“Didn’t Judas out Jesus of Nazareth to the Romans which led to his crucifixion, all for thirty pieces of silver?”

“But, does the Bible ever say that Judas actually said Jesus of Nazareth’s name or that Judas ever really knew that Jesus might be the Son of God. Jesus in some versions of the Bible refers to himself as the Son of Man. Besides, he wasn’t declared divine for some years after his death.”

“Well.”

“May I point out that there is no proof in any of the gospels that Judas knowingly broke any existing Roman laws.”

“So what’s to fix?”

“For whatever reason, people read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and they think that Judas betrayed Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth. Think about this. If there were no crucifixion, there couldn’t have been a resurrection. No resurrection, no Christianity. We should be thanking Judas not cursing him.”

“You have a point Karl. After all, it’s clear that Jesus wanted to be known as divine. He’d turned water into wine at a wedding. He’d chased the money changers out of the Temple, raised Lazarus from the dead at the vanity fair, gave a sermon on the mount, all very public acts. The Romans would have found Jesus anyway.”

“The Roman occupation of the Middle East was the catalyst for the spread of Christianity. Would we be talking about any of this if the Assyrians or Mongols had crucified Jesus?”

“What about this Nard business? Isn’t Judas the one who objects to Mary Magdalene pouring nard on Jesus?”

“That’s a fabrication spread by Mary Magdalene to discredit Judas. She did it to make Judas look bad. When Judas went to the Romans, he was trying to make it clear that God had nothing to do with the Nard cost overruns and Mary Magdalene was simply trying to make Judas look petty.”

“And the thirty peices of silver?”

“The left is always muddying the water with these conflict of interest smears. They totally ignore the fact that Judas was helping to make Jesus an incredibly significant martyr.”

“Why were the Romans in the Middle East btw?”

“WMD.”

“Excuse me?”

“They believed that Jesus’s followers had Weapons of Man’s Destruction.”

“Wasn’t it just a few prophecies and a couple parables?”

“Judas was the one who convinced the Romans that Jesus’s followers had WMD. He gets Jesus crucified. Christianity spreads.”

“I’m confused. What does the WMD thing have to do with any of this?”

“Does it matter? Nero blamed the Christians for Rome burning. It worked for him. WMD worked then, it works now. If you read Revelations, it’s clear that Christians were talking about acquiring WMD.....Look, do you want this job or not?”

“Well, I don’t know. Do you do Paypal?”

“Sure, but we like cash better. It’s easier to account for. Look at the provisional authority in Iraq.”

“If I have this straight, you want me to write a gospel where Judas didn’t betray Jesus?”

“No, no, Mark and Luke’s notes already made it clear that Judas betrayed Jesus. He turned them over after a subpoena from the independent grand inquisitor. You know that guy Dostoyevsky who used to be a partner in Karamazov and Karamazov.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to write a gospel that makes it clear that Judas betraying Jesus was actually a good thing. Got that. Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter get this stuff a whole lot faster than you do.”

“But no one except Time Magazine takes them seriously.”

“I can always call Rush, he’ll say anything.”

Anyway, that’s how I wound up writing the Gospel of Judas as told by Karl Rove. It’s actually easy to write this kind of thing if you think of it as just a way to avoid convictions. Besides, Karl wrote the book on this stuff already.

Other posts in the Karl Rove series

chancelucky