The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> CONYERS' COALITION br> You can't blame Rep. John Conyers and the Democrats for not keeping up with Republican politics, but it appears they are more out of touch with reality than many people thought. /p>

On Tuesday Conyers and his staff are doing a favor for their friends at MoveOn.org by holding a hearing on "Net Neutrality," a catchy word for government regulation of the Internet. Along with ending the war in Iraq, it is one of the top political issues for MoveOn and its satellite organizations.

Also set to testify: an organization called the "Christian Coalition." But it isn't the Christian Coalition that most conservatives know from the 1980s or even the early 1990s. That organization is no more, and effectively died about a decade ago with the emergence of more prominent social conservative groups like Focus on the Family.

About 18 months ago, the national umbrella organization for what was the Christian Coalition accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from backers of MoveOn.org to serve as the "conservative voice" in their campaign for regulation of the Internet.

And as a result of that scandal, a number of state "Christian Coalition" groups quit the national organization, renaming themselves and serving autonomously.

"It was embarrassing that they sold themselves for 30 pieces of silver on an issue that free marketers were fighting against," says a former national board member of the Christian Coalition. "They aren't the group the Democrats and MoveOn make them out to be. They don't speak for Republicans or anyone else."

Sources at the RNC say that the national organization has not been active in this election cycle on any level, anywhere in the country.

So why have the group testify? According to a senior House Judiciary Committee staffer, an initial plan had a member of MoveOn or its more clean-cut doppelganger, Free Press, testifying, but the Christian Coalition was suggested by MoveOn as a more politically helpful move.

p> CATHOLIC BACKREACH

topics:
John McCain, Law, Iraq