by Billy Hallowell
The Blaze:
By taking hard-hitting issues and addressing them through a comedic lens, Starnes, who works as a commentator and journalist for FOX News, entertains while educating readers. In an exclusive interview with The Blaze, he discussed “Dispatches” and his take on a variety of contemporary issues.
“I’m originally from the South and I grew up with that Southern sensibility … living in New York for the last seven years I’ve come [to understand] how liberals think,” Starnes explained when asked about his motivation for writing the book. “Most liberals think there’s nothing between here and San Francisco except this vast wasteland.”
Throughout “Dispatches,” Starnes provides a look into the liberal mindset, while also delivering the perspective of “regular folks who have deep concerns about the direction we are going as a nation.” It is this common nature that he says drives people’s interest in politicians like Sarah Palin.
“The reason why people like Sarah Palin are so popular is because they are regular folks,” Starnes explained.
Coincidentally, Palin is a major fan of “Dispatches.” She wrote a review and endorsed the book on her Facebook page last month:
Todd Starnes boldly wrote “Dispatches From Bitter America: A Gun Toting, Chicken Eating, Son of a Baptist’s Culture War Stories,” and it couldn’t be more timely. It’s especially relevant because Todd lays out in detail the Obama Administration’s war on religious liberty. In addition to covering the state of the union in general, Todd writes about how the government is turning traditional holidays into politically correct secular celebrations – complete with renaming the White House’s traditional Easter egg hunt to a “Spring Egg” hunt instead.
Assessing Obama
When it comes to assessing the Obama administration, the author was open and honest about the way people view the nation’s direction.
“People are just terrified about what this administration has done to the country,” he said. “A lot of it has to do with the spiritual matters and faith — and the American values that people hold dear.”
The title of the book, which includes the word “bitter,” is clearly a play on President Barack Obama’s past controversial comments about a select subset of voters. Before winning the 2008 election, then-candidate Obama said that working-class voters who were impacted by job losses and the economy “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
In our interview, Starnes railed against the “idea that the president of the U.S. believes that, because we believe in God and the values that make this country great, we’re somehow bitter.” When asked to describe what he believes is the driving force behind Obama’s purported misunderstanding of Americans as bitter gun and religion clingers, Starnes said, “I wish I could answer that question.”
“I was literally on the jet traveling with [Obama] … during the last leg of the [2008] campaign,” he said. “One of the common complaints I heard was the fact that he seemed so detached. He did not come to the back of the airplane and hang out with all of the journalists — we never got a chance to see him let down his guard and be one of the guys.”
Starnes called this lack of relation to the media “troubling.”
“These schools are turning into indoctrination centers.”
Commenting on one of the themes mentioned in his book — indoctrination in public schools — he described what he believes to be one of the most important election position in America: The local school board.
“These schools are turning into indoctrination centers. It’s not so much about reading, writing and arithmetic anymore,” Starnes said. “The kids weren’t confused about whether they were boys or girls until the school started teaching them.”
A war on Christianity?
Considering all of the faith issues that have been occurring in America, it’s no surprise that Starnes took the war on Christianity on in detail in the book. When asked to comment about the state of faith in America, he was candid.
“I believe that Christianity is the glue that holds it all together. Without Divine Providence, we’re nothing,” he explained. “And I suspect if you look at what the [Obama] administration is doing, they want to turn us into one of these godless, European, secular states…how can you do that if you have a country that is so in tune with understanding that God is the foundation for this country?”
Starnes went on to say that he takes the president at his word when it comes to his Christian faith. But he does have some questions surrounding how the Obama administration has handled faith issues.
“I do have the right to ask this question: Mr. President: Why are you attacking your own faith? It doesn’t make any sense,” Starnes said.
Starnes addresses these issues, among others, in ”Dispatches From Bitter America.” You can pick up a copy here.
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