Saturday, October 23, 2004

Falwell's values shape candidate

An earlier post provided details and links about the Askew family's long relationship with Moral-Majority founder Jerry Falwell, who came to Austin last week to campaign for their son, Alan. His father is on the board of Falwell's Liberty University and his wife actually worked as Falwell's receptionist. Askew's opponent, Patrick Rose, is a middle-of-the-road Democrat. Here's another barely poetic offering in Mr. Askew's honor.


School days at Liberty U

When Alan Askew went to school he studied at the knee
Of Reverend Jerry Falwell at the U of Liberty.
While his wife screened calls from journalists
And brought the Rev his tea.

There they taught him values, like shame and bigotry
Sang odes to Phyllis Schlafly, Gary Bauer, and Alan Keyes
His thoughts, okay, a bit askew
But so-named, it must be.

Now Falwell wants the voters of District 45
To hand the reins of power to this scion of the right.
He must think they're crazy,
I hope that he's not right.

10-23 additional note: I have to apologize for an error -- a commenter pointed out that Askew's wife, not his mother was Falwell's secretary. I misread the Statesman clip to say it was his father's wife, and since the post was in jest I failed to adequately fact check. I regret the mistake, and have since edited the poem to account for it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

His WIFE was Falwell's receptionist, not his mother. Take it from those of us who suffered through the speech. And took notes.

Gritsforbreakfast said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Gritsforbreakfast said...

Sorry, my bad. I misread the clip and thought it was his father's wife. All in the family, though, huh?