An Ungodly Intrusion

Earlier this week, Fix Noise (among others) made a big deal out of the fact that President-Elect Barack Obama apparently hasn’t attended church services in the last few weeks (as if that’s any of my business one way or the other – the obligatory takedown from Media Matters is here; President Brainless has been praised as a person of faith for years by minions such as Michael Gerson, even though Dubya continues to condone torture, turn basically a blind eye to the catastrophic refugee crisis he created by virtue of his war of choice in Iraq, and wage war on both the environment and this country’s neediest citizens, who grow in rank by the hour due to his lazy, incompetent “stewardship”).

And to illustrate to me what continues to be the rank hypocrisy of news organizations commenting on matters of spirituality, we have Cal Thomas (of all people) here at the Washington Post (registration required) telling us that…

Presidents who desire a “normal” worship experience (if anything a president does can be said to be normal) can find a way to have one if they wish. The standard for modern presidents is Jimmy Carter. I was fortunate to attend First Baptist Church in Washington when Carter was president. His regular attendance when he was in town established a type of normalcy that removed what might have been a disruptive experience had he only been an occasional visitor. While a pool of reporters always attended with him (and having reporters in church is a good thing!), they were respectful and did not intrude on the Carters’ worship experience.

Well, call me just a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger, but I don’t know how Thomas could pretend to have a “worship experience” with a man about whom he also said the following (here)…

Jimmy Carter thinks he is doing God’s will by “loving” his enemies. The expectation behind that biblical instruction is that such an act will soften the heart of the enemy. But evil does not respond this way. What evil does is to take these acts (evil people know the commands, too, because they have studied us more than we have studied them) and use such notions to achieve their objectives. They will tell us whatever we want to hear in order to get their way. They believe the Koran allows them to lie to “infidels.”

Why won’t we understand this? Converts from Islam regularly warn us. Why do we persist in believing their lies when the only thing they have been consistent at is lying? If Carter trusts Hamas, whom else would he trust?

Nothing stinks as badly as a perishable item that has passed its “sell-by” date. That describes Jimmy Carter. His foreign policy was a failure when he was president, most notably his approach to Iran, which toppled that regime and gave us what we face now. Now, as ex-president, he continues to cause damage and undermine his country’s foreign policy.

Yes, Carter was wrong not to somehow surmise the danger in Iran at the time of the crisis, but such hostage-taking was and remains an act without precedent in its brutality by an alleged nation-state (if the phrase “no one could have foreseen this” applied anywhere, it could have applied to this). And yes, Carter screwed up the rescue attempt, but he poured everything he had into obtaining the release of the 52 Americans held in Tehran (and that doesn’t even take into account this act which is tantamount to treason by The Sainted Ronnie R IMHO).

But what about the Camp David Accords and the Panama Canal Treaty? How about showing the same “respect” to Carter’s legacy as you do to his “worship experience” by simply telling the truth?

Give me a fracking break, people (and in other news of the Almighty, U.S. House Dem Tom Riner of Kentucky is trying to invoke Him in that state’s mission statement for its Department of Homeland Security here…with people like this professing to speak on behalf of my beliefs, sometimes I wonder if there’s merit in becoming a Druid).