"Do You Believe In Evolution, Sir?"

MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews yesterday spent five minutes basically asking Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) "Do you believe in evolution?" and he kept dodging the question and bringing up other random stuff.

I think what Matthews is uncovering here is an age-old fact: the Republican agenda on all the significant issues -- economics, foreign policy, and civil liberties -- are extremely unpopular. Thus they have to continue to fight on social issues, trying to mobilize their largest voting bloc -- Christian evangelicals -- because they can't compete on anything serious. And saying something like "Of course I believe in evolution, it's pretty much a scientific fact. I at least will admit that with the science we have now, it's the best possible explanation." Instead, he starts bringing things up like their opposition to embryonic stem cell research and their attacks on our anti-global warming measures Obama is organizing.

Chris hits it right on the head when he says, "I think you believe in evolution but you're afraid to say so because of your conservative constituency." Indeed.