Candidate McBush and His Creepy Clerics: Worse Than Wright?

Senator John McBush (R-Arizona) has accumulated a couple of creepy Christer clerics who make Rev. Wright look like Gandhi. I speak of John Hagee and Rod Parsley, a couple of cracker evangelicals who follow in the footsteps of Pat Robberson and Jerry Falwell and spew the same hateful venom from their snake oil seller's forked tongues. And although McBush claims he doesn't subscribe to everything these two fundamentalist rubes sermonize on, he's given no specifics, so that, for all we know, he disagrees with their claim that there is "a living God." It is time the media forced McBush to reveal his true beliefs about the inane, unconstitutional, and un-American positions taken by this dynamic duo of theocrypto-fascists.

An AP article in today's paper brings news that Hagee ("Catholicism = Whore of Babylon") has apologized the U.S. Catholics and that this is fine with McBush: "[McBush] has said he does not agree with some of Hagee's past comments, but did not reject his support." OK, John, WHICH past comments? You're beginning to sound guilty of the same transgression you blamed on Obama: pretending to have been unawares. Of course, hypocrisy is the lubricant of political intercourse. As for Hagee, may I echo the Consul in Lowry's Under the Volcano, who observed: "There are some things you can't apologize for." Hagee was quoted as saying that the Catholic Church is the Great Whore of the Book of Revelations; that the Church urges "a Godless theology of hate that no one dared stop for a thousand years...."; and that Hitler worked together with the Roman Church to "shape the policy of the Third Reich." Apparently, the Catholic Church isn't buying the apology. But Hagee's own theology of hate seems boundless. An AP story on the McBush-Hagee Connection accurately summed it up when it said Hagee has made "controversial" comments about "Islam, homosexuality, women, blacks, and hurricane Katrina."

Hagee's eagerness to judge the behavior of others amazes when you consider the following highlights of the man's own sordid career:

• Resignation under duress from his San Antonio-based Trinity Church in 1975, explaining years of moral impropriety by stating, "My marriage had collapsed and I became immoral in my personal conduct." (Remember Jimmy Swaggart?)
• Divorce from his wife of 15 years, the mother of his two children.
• Re-marriage to a congregation member 12 years his junior (his paramour, perhaps?).
• Violation of the Assemblies of God by-laws, resulting in his excommunication; to put it country simple: defrocked.
• Politically, supports a joint U.S.-Israeli preemptive military strike on Iran. (McBush must be salivating like Pavlov's dog.)
• A "hellfire and brimstone" preacher, he has been known to liken J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter to "contemporary witchcraft."
• Has referred to the Koran as "a mandate to kill Christians and Jews," and likened Arabic peoples and other followers of Islam to Nazis when he said, "[They have] far more than Hitler and Japan and Italy and all of the axis powers in World War II had under arms." (Like me, you may be thinking this dangerous lunatic is a dominionist. They're the most dangerous lunatics around.)
  
• Having heard about N'awlins' notorious Southern Decadence gay parade (more outre' than anything at Mardi Gras!), he used his hot line to ascertain that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment on the Delta for "a level of sin that is offensive to God." The "homosexual parade" was given as one of the indicia of the offensiveness level.

Although the so-called Christ was known to have said that a rich man will no sooner enter the kingdom than a camel shall pass through the eye of a needle, Rev. Hag draws an annual salary of over ONE MILLION a year, the combined pay from donor-supported ministries including his church and TV ministries. (Like most of those being investigated by the Senate, he probably hides at least the same amount using a twin set of books.)

JOHN McBUSH! I call on you to denounce Rev. Hagee and his rantings as those of a Dangerous Lunatic!

Obama had his cross to bear (you should pardon the expression): Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But Wright wasn't completely WRONG. Hag is. Worse, it isn't enough for McBush to have one "spiritual advisor" (read: pander to evangelicals, including dominionists, who all have bumper stickers reading, "In Case of Rapture, This Car Will Be Empty"), he has to be one up on Barack: he has TWO.

The other one is Rod Parsley, and folks, he's just as much a piece of work as The Hag. A Pentecostal, he claims presidency of the Center for Moral Clarity. I'm not kidding you. That is the name of it. He has just as many subsidiaries and fingers in the evangelical pie as The Hag, and his pedigree includes a degree from Falwell University. His cable ministry is as big as Tammy Faye before the Fall. Here are a few of his biographical attainments:

• He had his conversion/revelation/epiphany when he witnessed the signing of the Partial Birth Abortion ban.
• He is opposed to the concept of separation of church and state and claims it cannot be found in the Constitution. (Shhhhhh!, don't wake up Thomas Jefferson!)
  
• He criticized Sweden for imprisonment of a Pentecostal preacher, Ake Green, when the latter sermonized snarkily on homosexuality, which Green likened to "an abnormal, horrible cancerous tumor in the body of society," and called homosexuals "perverts, whose sexual drive the Devil used as his strongest weapon against God," finally concluding that "a person cannot be a Christian and a homosexual at the same time." (Don't tell Troy Perry and his Metropolitan Community Church congregations!) Oh, the Parsley-Green animus is exacerbated by the fact that, in Green's words, "homosexuality is chosen, not inborn," in spite of scientific evidence showing exactly the opposite.
• He used his pulpit to help Ohioans pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and woman, and likened same-sex educational materials to racism. (Huh? That one escapes even me.)
• He believes that Planned Parenthood commits genocide against African-Americans because it helps them arrange abortions.
• He supported John Roberts for the Supreme Court.
• He's said that Islam is a "false religion" and that "America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing [it] destroyed." (Gee, Rod, I hope you don't tell all those Arab-speaking monarchies we've armed to the hilt!)
• He's a card carrying member of the dominionists, who are as dangerous as jihadists in their misguided belief in a Neo-Calvinist eschatology: the Final Battle will end Planet Earth as we know it; after all, the Bubble tells us it will happen in the Holy Land and Russia will be a major player. (This perhaps explains the dominionists' slow reluctance to admit there's anything such as global warming; since everything is written and the elect have nothing to worry about, do nothing to turn the tide. This is the same dangerous propaganda Tim LeHaye and Cronies have been peddling as science fiction for Christers. One wee problem: when you treat things as foregone conclusions, you can justify anything to bring them about, including suicide bombings abroad and attacks on democratic ideals at home. It turns one fallacy these morons are famous for -- post hoc, ergo propter hoc -- on its head, inviting an effect to produce its cause.)
  

Parsley's tax-exempt status has been called into question, in part for crossing the line between religion and politics, which is a Constitutional concept Rev. Parsley would not understand.

Sen. Grassley, DO YOUR DUTY!)

JOHN McBUSH! I call on you to denounce Rev. Parsley and his rantings as those of a Dangerous Lunatic!

CALLING ON ALL MEDIA: DEMAND THAT JOHN McBUSH DENOUNCE HAGEE AND PARSLEY!!!

Crooks, Liars, and Why the Dems May be in Trouble

Crooks and Liars (url: crooksandliars.com) is a favorite blogging/comment site. Its liberal-leftist orientation provides me a perfect home for my thoughts. The items posted daily (and replaced by breaking eventualities) cover politics in a way Joseph Pulitzer never fantasized about. Right now, they appear to be partial to Obama. A listing in their Sunday Talking Heads schedule: "NBC’s 'Meet the Press' - Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; McAuliffe," seemed to me a bit partisan until I realized John Amato and crew had identified the chairman of the Clinton campaign in an earlier listing. I realized: these guys are on top of their game.

Ruster asked McAuliffe why Hillary was running such a negative campaign, shocking party bigwigs and GOPS alike. Why, for example, one should not conclude Hillary has lost her marbles: caught on a reporter's mic and groggy from stumping, she pronounced what the statistics and exit poll interviews were showing (and, duh!) what everyone already knew: that African-Americans are going for Obama; working class whites, for Clinton.

So why is everybody so shocked -- I say, SHOCKED! -- that Hillary was telling the truth? Some of her supporters -- I, myself, included -- think she has gone to unfortunate extremes to win and that by now she should have seen the handwriting on the wall. But I'll tell you one thing, that woman is one hell of a presidential candidate! I am as proud of her run as I am weary of her sometimes unsavory tactics. Barack isn't going to ask her to join his ticket -- he'd do well to pick a running mate from the ethnic and economic class forming Hillary's base: white, low-middle class, working men. They didn't much appreciate Obama's "bitter" remarks; they didn't like his bowling game; they don't drink Starbucks lattes, and they don't drive Volvos.

One is left with a gnawing fear one had at the beginning of the debates: do the GOPS want an African-American or a woman opposing their candidate of choice? Let me illustrate an element of the equation, first pointing out that I, the Great Jimminy, told anyone reading my Crooks and Liars comments, at least since last fall, that the GOP wants Obama on the ticket. That impression only strengthened my convictions as the Hillary-Barack slugfest really got going.

My reasoning was simple: The GOPS think that an African-American cannot be elected President. Let me offer at least anecdotal evidence as to why this is so. Remember, first, that Karl Rove is working for McBush, as an advisor. That guy might be a scum sucking pig, but he's a master player in the Machiavellian sense. He's also about as legitimate as a sociopathic lunatic bastard turning up at Mother's Day. These sleazoids will play every race card that comes their way; if it's too off the wall for the candidate, Rove McBush will see to it that it's sponsored by a rogue surrogate group over which they have no control. It's Patriotic Christians of America (PCA) vs. "the guy who listens to Rev. Wright."

My friend Rebecca is a 70-something liberal. She is a Hillary supporter. I asked her why she didn't support Obama and she used the usual anti-Barack talking points (lack of experience and lacking in substance are a couple) in taking the position that the Dems have but one candidate and she doesn't hail from Chicago. Now that the primary campaign is beginning to look like a slight Obama victory -- far short of a mandate -- I wanted to know if Becky had changed her position. That is, will she at least support Obama or would she vote for McSame?

"I'll stay home," she said.