It a piece called "Why atheists can't be real Americans."
Farah begins by taking a step further than Pastor John Hagee (how on Earth can anyone take something a step further than a nut case like Hagee?) By the way, that's not my characterization. It's Joey's.
Take a look:
Pastor John Hagee, senior pastor of San Antonio’s Cornerstone Church, is making People for the America Way very angry with some comments about atheists.
Here’s what he said in a talk captured on YouTube by the group: “This nation was not built for atheists or by atheists. It was built by Christian people who believed in the Word of God. To the atheists watching this telecast, if our belief in God offends you, move. There are planes leaving every hour on the hour, going every place on planet earth. Get on one, we don’t want you and we won’t miss you, I promise you.”
That may sound harsh, coming from a Christian minister of a mega-church with 20,000 members.
But let me take what Hagee said a step further.
See?
And what's the extra step from the birther-king?
Atheists can’t be real Americans in the truest sense of the word – and People for the American Way should be renamed People for the un-American Way.
So from Hagee, we learn that atheists should leave Amurika and from Farah, that we're not "real Americans" anyway.
Huh. Upon what does Farah place this puffery?
America was founded on a creedal statement. It can be found in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;...
And so on.
Too bad The Declaration, amazing document that it is, is not the law of the land.
The Constitution is. And the Constitution has nothing to say about this being a "Christian Nation." In fact Article VI, has this in it:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. [emphasis added.]
And do I really need to quote the 1st Amendment at yinz?
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.
So who's being un-American?
The folks who believe that all citizens are equal citizens or the religious zealots who want everyone that disagrees with them to just leave?
Lordy, lordy Rick Santorum's got another column out today!
Another opportunity for him to spin and mangle the historical record. Another opportunity for me to fact-check.
Ain't life grand?
It's good to see that Lil Ricky is trying to do something constructive with his time. I wonder how he fared with his interest-only mortgage? A half-mil was due this past November.
Back to his column. The general point of the column is Senator Obama's so-called "Israel problem." As evidence he cuts and pastes quotes from the record. Let's go take a look. The vote:
In Pennsylvania, Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Obama by 10 points but won the Jewish vote by 24. It was as bad, if not worse, in other states with sizable Jewish populations. In November, polls indicate he will run 20 to 30 points behind the typical Democratic presidential candidate among Jewish voters.
He goes back to November (by my count more than 7 months ago) to bring up that last point. Perhaps he should have looked at some more recent data. Here's Gallup from April:
Barack Obama is faring better than might be expected among Jewish voters, beating John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily general-election matchups and trailing Hillary Clinton only slightly in Jewish Democrats' preferences for the Democratic nomination.
And:
In terms of the general election, Jewish voters nationwide are nearly as likely to say they would vote for Obama if he were the Democratic nominee running against the Republican McCain (61%), as to say they would vote for Clinton (66%).
And this is might be why Rick didn't want to reference this Gallup data:
Rather than declining between March and April, support for Obama versus McCain among Jewish voters has increased slightly, from a 23-point margin in favor of Obama (58% to 35%) to a 29-point margin (61% to 32%).
The results are similar for Clinton, who received 66% of the vote from Jewish Democrats in April, compared with 27% for McCain -- a 39-point lead. Clinton led McCain by 29 points in March, 61% to 32%.
Somehow I don't think that of the two of them Senator Obama should be as worried about the Jewish vote as Senator McCain.
Back to Rick:
In September, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution, by a vote of 76-22, that labeled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Obama didn't make the vote, but he trashed the resolution and used Clinton's support of it to drive a wedge between her and the antiwar crowd. At the same time, Obama famously announced that he would meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "without precondition" and declared that Iran was merely a "tiny threat."
This one will take a little work. Let's start at the end and move our way backward. Here's where the "tiny threat" line comes from: And a transcript of the "tiny threat" part:
Strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries. That's what Kennedy did with Khruschev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviets posed a serious threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union.
Please note the comparison. Iran is a tiny country compared to the former Soviet Union (true). It's military might is tiny in comparison to the former Soviet Union (also true). The Soviet Union was a serious threat to National Security (true, again) and so Iran doesn't pose as serious a threat the way the Soviets did (again and again true). And yet to Ricky, he spins it into saying that Senator Obama says that Iran is a "tiny threat."
Not true, Rick. Not even a good try.
I've written on the meeting without "without condition" stuff before (go look for it, it's not bad).
Now onto the first part of Lil Ricky's paragraph. Rick is using it, I suppose, to imply that Senator Obama doesn't think that the Revolutionary Guard should be designated as a terrorist organization.
Obama Cosponsored The Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, Which Would Designate The Iranian Revolutionary Guard As A Terrorist Organ, Prohibit Trade With Iran, Freeze Iranian Officials' Assets, Help Combat Terrorist Financing.
And about that resolution vote. Rick seems to be making hay about the fact that Senator Obama missed the vote. Actually there were TWO Senators who missed that vote. Obama was one.
Rick ties up the column with your standard guilt-by-association argument. He goes after Obama for his connections to Jeremiah Wright (already denounced by Obama) on account of Wright's associations. Staggering. Take a look:
Then there's the company Obama keeps. The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.'s anti-American sound bites are tame in comparison to his anti-Zionist diatribes. Everyone knows Wright honored the anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan with an award. Less known is that the bulletin of Obama's former church once featured an open letter from Palestinian Ali Baghdadi. "I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the white supremacists of South Africa," he wrote. "Both worked on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs."
Rick doesn't say what, if anything, Obama had to do with any of that. Or what he could do about it - other than leaving the church. Hey, he has!
Hey, speaking of associations, did you know that Rick Santorum is scheduled to speak at Reverend Hagee's Christians United for Israel summit this July?
Lil Ricky will be speaking TWICE on Monday, July 21. The topic of discussion is "Radical Islam: In Their Own Words" and I hope Rick does a better job quoting there than he does here.
Rick's associated with the same Reverend Hagee who famously said the Catholic Church was the "whore of Babylon" (and backpedalled just as famously when it wasn't politically expedient), he's also said that the Anti-Christ is "partially Jewish, as was Adolph Hitler."
Oh, Hagee also said the Anti-Christ is gay. That must explain Rick's "man on dog" comment.
Or maybe it doesn't. Who knows when dealing with Lil Ricky Santorum?
The pope welcomed Mr. Bush — who had his first meeting with Benedict at the Vatican in June 2007 — and the first lady, Laura Bush, near St. John’s Tower in the Vatican Gardens.
“Your eminence, you’re looking good," Mr. Bush said, the A.P. reported.
Bush must've been channeling his inner Freddie Prinze (and not the one who married Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
BTW, if you get the reference you're old. Old. Like. Me.
Back to Bush. I wonder if they discussed how one of Bush's more fervent supporters used to refer to the Catholic Church as the "Whore of Babylon."
Wait wait, I know what you're gonna say. Isn't Hagee a Senator McCain story?
Yes, he was. But according to Scott McClellan, he was a big bush booster as well. According to the American Prospect:
When preparing to run for president, then-Texas Governor George W. Bush knew that the San Antonio televangelist had a large television audience, which Bush family evangelical adviser Doug Wead estimated at seven million strong. Wead had ghostwritten Hagee's 1997 conspiracy-theory book, Day of Deception, which claims to take "a probing look inside the United States government and expose blatant acts of deception designed to destroy democracy in America." Those "acts of deception," according to the book, were carried out by the Antichrist in his effort to install a "one-world order." Evidence of the one-world order, according to Hagee, includes "the Eastern Establishment," the United Nations, the National Education Association (NEA), the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Illuminati, the imaginary, shadowy group of international financiers that has long been fodder for conspiracy theorists. Hagee didn't mention that many Illuminati theorists believe in a connection between the Illuminati and the Yale secret society Skull and Bones, to which both Bushes belong. Nor did Hagee, who bills himself as a friend of the Jews, note that Illuminati conspiracies have often included anti-Semitic narratives about Jewish bankers.
In his 1988 campaign biography of Bush Sr., Wead sought to dispel conspiracies that the Bush family was behind the supposed one-world order. But as a ghostwriter, Wead blamed his old boss for trying to bring about what Hagee believes is a satanic, demonic "new world order." Just one year after penning Hagee's conspiracy-laden screed, Wead was pushing Governor Bush and Karl Rove to arrange meetings between the governor and the pastor, and the governor enlisted Hagee to recruit other pastors to sign on to the Bush campaign effort.
And after the "election" of 2000, Hagee had some special relationship with dubya and co. This is a partial transcript of McClellan's recent interview with Terry Gross at NPR:
GROSS: My guest is Scott McClellan. He was the White House press secretary from July '03 to May of '06. And his new memoir about those years is called "What Happened."
I've got a John Hagee question for you. You devote some of your memoir "What Happened" to social conservatives and their influence on policy in the Bush administration. And I know when John Hagee, who's been so much in the news lately, ever since his endorsement of McCain, which that's a bond that's been broken.
Mr. McCLELLAN: Yes.
GROSS: When he had his first summit for the Christian Zionist group that he founded, Christians United for Israel, President Bush sent a recorded greeting to Hagee and to the conference. Did Hagee have much sway within the Bush administration?
Mr. McCLELLAN: Well, he was one of a number of evangelical pastors, social conservative ones that were certainly part of our outreach at the White House. We had a person and a public liaison that was specifically tasked with reaching out to social conservative leaders. And so those leaders, yes, had a heavy influence on some of the White House policies. And I think that was one of the things that also hurt the president was that, at times it looked like his emphasis was on some of these issues that were important to social conservatives, like Terry Schiavo, like the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and stem cell research. I think a lot of people were wondering, `Why are you spending so much time focusing on these issues when, you know, there are issues on energy and health care and the economy that need to be addressed?'
GROSS: So Pastor Hagee was influential within the Bush administration?
Mr. McCLELLAN: I'd say he was one of a number that certainly had some influence and was able to quickly get someone on the phone at the White House. So yes.
And Doug Wead? He recently recommended that McCain pick Joe Lieberman for VP. Joe Lieberman.
Three reasons he gives:
First, the appointment would hasten the Jewish switch to the Republican Party. It is no secret that there is growing nervousness over Barack Obama within the Jewish community. The Lieberman appointment would add to their comfort level with John McCain.
Second, the appointment would clearly separate him from the sinking ship of George W. Bush. After all, Joe Lieberman was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000.
Third, the media would be absolutely floored. They would see that this election would guarantee history in the making. A Black, a Jew, and possibly a woman could be president or vice president.
Wead is one of those guys who call it the "Democrat Party" by the way.
From the Huffington Post. This is Senator Barack Obama's complete statement:
The pastor of my church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently preached his last sermon and is in the process of retiring, has touched off a firestorm over the last few days. He's drawn attention as the result of some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.
Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.
Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church. Let me therefore provide some context.
As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago. He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It's a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.
Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.
Let me repeat what I've said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.
With Rev. Wright's retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good. And while Rev. Wright's statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States.
Perhaps now Senator Clinton will "vehemently condemn" the statements of Geraldine Ferraro.
Perhaps now Senator McCain will "vehemently condemn" the statements of John Hagee or Rod Parsley.
Barack Obama got seriously tripped up for apparently not sufficiently denouncing an 'endorsement' he didn't solicit from someone he has no connection with. John McCain solicited the endorsement of a complete nut who's got this long history of slurs against the Catholic Church and a lot else. McCain's sticking with Hagee and he's getting a complete pass.
Josh Marshall pointed to the second example on the clip (it's about 2:25 in):
US policy explicitly supports a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine. Hagee says that because is supporting that policy God is going to punish America by sending Muslim terrorists to America create a bloodbath in our streets.
Then there's the whole "Katrina is punishment for New Orleans' sin" thing.
Hagee: All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God. And they are, uh, were recipients of the judgement of God for that. The newspapers carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the, uh, Katrina came. And the, uh, promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride, uh, parades. I believe that the judgement of God is a very real thing. And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was in fact the judgement of God against the City of New Orleans.
Host Terry Gross: You think that the whole city was punished because of things like the forthcoming gay pride parade?
Hagee: This is true. All of the city was punished because of the sin that happened there in that city.
Luckily we know where Senator John McCain was when God was punishing New Orleans for its sins:
Sen. John McCain called a press conference today where McCain accepted the endorsement of a virulent anti-Catholic preacher from Texas.
Over at Salon.com, we learn that commited rationalist and all around even tempered guy Bill Donahue of the Catholic League is non-to-pleased:
According to Donohue, Hagee has "made a lot of money off bashing the Catholic Church and blames Catholics for the Holocaust." What does it say about McCain that he would embrace such a figure? "This doesn't speak well for him. He's tolerating an endorsement by an inveterate bigot, and it's been brought to his attention."
“There are plenty of staunch evangelical leaders who are pro-Israel, but are not anti-Catholic. John Hagee is not one of them. Indeed, for the past few decades, he has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’ To hear the bigot in his own words, click here. Note: he isn’t talking about the Buddhists.
That link to the youtube clip? Here it is: Glenn Grenwald makes a good point:
It's difficult to recall a more transparent media double standard than their intense, melodramatic amplification this week of the Obama/Farrakhan matter (even though those two have no connection whatsoever), contrasted with their virtual silence about McCain's affirmative, repeated embrace of a true extremist like John Hagee.
He was having cake with his new BFF, Dubya.