A Dangerous(ly Telling) Endorsement (with a special apearance by Pusbucket!) UPDATED

Believe it or not, neither of these men is the one specifically referred to as Pusbucket.

Say what you will about the fundamentalist "Christian" televangelists- no, seriously, go on, say whatever you want about them! Hypocritical, self-aggrandizing prostitutes? Damn skippy! Opportunistic, rapacious charlatans? Testify! Manipulative, power-hungry leather queens? Uhm...sure, why not. But while they are all of these things and more, one thing which they most assuredly aren't is stupid. Willfully, breathtakingly, transcendently ignorant to be sure, but not stupid. When not attempting to controvert established science, or attempting to establish bibliocentric public policy, or exhorting women to offer up their bodies as baby factories to produce "quiverfulls" of troops for the upcoming race religious war, they can be remarkably astute and savvy politicos, and the best evidence of this is found in their endorsements. When attention-addict Pat Robertson endorsed Rudolph Giulani's presidential bid last fall, many were surprised; after all, surely (then unknown) Mike Huckabee or the reliable embryophile Sam Brownback would have been more ideologically suitable than a part-time drag queen from Brooklyn who doesn't quite share Patty's monomaniacal obsession with gay people.

So wot's, uh, the deal? Well, if you actually believed for a second that Robertson was anything but a transparently opportunistic fraud who probably doesn't even believe half the shit he says, then the endorsement might have come as a surprise. But at the time (November 2007), the smart money was on Giuliani to have a lock on the nomination, no one had even heard of the provincial douchebag bigot from Arkansas, and the casket containing the moribund campaign of Casper the Warmongering Ghost was just about to be lowered into the ground, before the glowing green fluid started to take effect. When, like Robertson, you don't give a flying fuck about principles, as destructive, wrongheaded and perverse as they may be, and care only about the acquisition of power, you'll go with what looks like a sure bet. Strangely enough, even James "Focus on your own goddamn family" Dobson's recent endorsement of Huckabee falls into the same category. There's no way Dobson actually believes his man will actually get the nomination (though surely he exploits the hope of those sheep who do in order to keep the cash spigot flowing), but years of aggressively pumping, thrusting and ramming his theocratic agenda through the Republican party's pooper chute (sans lube) have surely taught him that the more delegates Huckabee has at the Republican National Convention, the more power and influence the radical religious right and its adherents will have over the platform (and by extension, the nominee), as if they actually didn't have enough.

So when a popular and influential dispensationalist televangelist with an Israel fetish anoints John McCain as The One Most Likely To Make His Apocalyptic Wet Dream Come True, it might be a good idea to fucking pay attention as to why. John Hagee is the pastor and founder of Cornerstone Church, a 19,000-strong congregation and thriving multimedia concern housed in a huge, state-of-the-art facility off Loop 1604 in San Antonio's affluent northwest corner. I've driven past it a number of times, and much as with the colossal and creepy "Big Butter Jesus" statue off I-75 between Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, it reminds me how much more fun it must be to create stuff like this than to feed the poor or some boring shit like that. While all of the major players in the televangelist game have the same set of core principles (unfettered free market capitalism, American imperialism, opposition to most forms of free expression and sexuality, and you'll notice that I didn't include the actual teachings of Jesus in this list), each of them also has their own unique schtick to set them apart. Hagee's métier within the market is in the field of "Premillennial Dispensationalist Christian Zionism with an Emphasis on Israel, Taken To Its Illogical Extreme". A quick primer on Hagee's heretical-by-any-standards theology:

Dispensate this! Hagee preaches a particularly virulent form of eschatology grounded in the doctrine of premillennial dispensationalism, which basically means that not only is the prophetic Book of Revelation to be taken literally as future history, but it should also be considered an instruction manual on how to conduct world affairs in order to facilitate the Second Coming of Jesus Christ! All current events are considered as prophecy fulfilled, regardless of how much a stretch of the imagination is needed to make the pieces fit. The formation of the State of Israel, the preemptive war in Iraq, hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia: all prophetic signs pointing to the world-ending showdown in which non-followers get their asses bruised after the faithful have been conveniently spirited away in the pretribulation Rapture of the Church, a doctrine no one seems to agree on but that makes for a great way to scare the ever-living fuck out of people, and isn't that all you really need to do in order to control them?

Double your covenants, double your fun: "Fuck it, I'm even going to completely discard one of the central tenets of mainline Christian theology to show what a chubby I have for the Jews!" (Christian Zionism, widely considered heretical and inconsistent regardless of what one thinks of the Christian doctrine of salvation and redemption, in a nutshell)


Israelapalooza, baby!! I don't mean in the "the people of Israel occupy a significant place in world history, and we should support the efforts of all the people in that troubled region to live together in peace" sense, more like "We must inorexably and fatally tie in our foreign policy to Israel's, our support for them must be unconditional and absolute, anyone who suggests otherwise is not only anti-American but an agent of Satan." Indeed, chubby's chubby for Israel has manifest itself in the creation of the influential policy group Christians United for Israel, because I guess even AIPAC wasn't aggressive enough...

And finally, putting it all together for the cum shot, or explosive climax, as it were: as a good, Christian, terminally pro-Israel, dispensationalist nation in the End Times, we need to follow through on the sentiment behind Casper's glib use of a Beach Boys song to express his political will and bomb Iran. NOW!! You know, before a Democratic administration more inclined to pursue diplomacy takes away our chance...

So despite the misgivings (to put it politely) that the rest of the Christian Taliban crowd has about Casper, Hagee's support is unreserved. He knows what he wants and Casper is the man to give it to him, and all of us as well. However, the endorsement didn't go quite as swimmingly well as the parties involved had hoped, and indeed it served as yet another example of the sectarian rivalry that still exists on the right, when even their shared love of preemptive war isn't enough to hold the wingnuts together. One with whom the endorsement did not go down well is Pusbucket Bill Donohue, president, mouthpiece and only known member of the so-called Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and a man so pathologically obnoxious that he makes TCWSNBN seem like Miss Manners by comparison. The Catholic League seems to exist for no purpose other than to get Donohue's fat face on television so that he can rant and issue threats against those behind any perceived media, pop cultural or political slight against Catholics in general or Jesus in particular. Here's what Catholic Pusbucket had to say about Evangelical Pusbucket:

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."

(No comment *whistles innocently*)

Delicious. All of the parties involved are so vile and contemptible that the only side to take is that which involves watching them cannibalize each other. But Casper knows that in order for him to prevail at the ballot box Diebold Accuclaw, he's going to have to maneuver his tongue very carefully among the anuses of all those on the right whose support he's going to need. So with the fresh taste of apocalyptic ass in his mouth, it was time to start making nice with those who aren't Hagee fans:

Well I think it's important to note that pastor John Hagee who has supported and endorsed my candidacy supports what I stand for and believe in. When he endorses me, it does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for and believes. And I am very proud of the Pastor John Hagee's spiritual leadership to thousands of people and I am proud of his commitment to the independence and the freedom of the state of Israel. That does not mean that I support or endorse or agree with some of the things that Pastor John Hagee might have said or positions that he may have taken on other issues. I don't have to agree with everyone who endorses my candidacy. They are supporting my candidacy. I am not endorsing some of their positions.

And in case that didn't take, once more, with feeling:

Yesterday, Pastor John Hagee endorsed my candidacy for president in San Antonio, Texas. However, in no way did I intend for his endorsement to suggest that I in turn agree with all of Pastor Hagee's views, which I obviously do not. I am hopeful that Catholics, Protestants and all people of faith who share my vision for the future of America will respond to our message of defending innocent life, traditional marriage, and compassion for the most vulnerable in our society.

Now, about that "I'd rather have McCain than Obama cos I don't trust him" bullshit again...

UPDATE: 3/2/2008

Here is the text of a letter I may or may not get around to sending to CNN, depending on whether or not I think it might actually make a difference. Maybe it will, and maybe Milo Ventimiglia will suddenly appear naked and ready on my doorstep too...

Dear Feckless Tools at CNN:

While I would like to be able to appreciate your halfhearted attempt to create the illusion of treating all the candidates equally by taking a short break from your breathless reporting on "Obama's controversial (if wholly unsolicited) endorsement by Farrakhan" in order to make mention of McCain's refusal to disown the Hagee endorsement, ultimately I really can't. John Hagee is a dangerous, delusional, manipulative heretic who seeks to influence American foreign policy in order to literally bring about the end of the fucking world, and not only do you not make any mention of this whatsoever in your puff piece, you actually dismiss the outrage over this endorsement by ascribing it solely to Hagee's past statements about "Catholics, women, and gays"?!?

This is why you suck.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen Who's Amazed That Right-Wingers Continue To Call You Liberal