Just when I thought that our distinguished representative from Georgia’s 10th district might be content to rest on his laurels, we are witness to another fireburst of his all-consuming ambition. Paul Broun had upped his name recognition big-time last fall by voicing his concerns that President-elect Barack Obama intended to establish some sort of Hitlerian-Stalinistic totalitarian socialist police state. Not satisfied with his already all-but uncontested designation as the biggest fool in the 111th Congress, Broun has now made a bold bid for recognition as the biggest fool ever to serve in any congress.
When sketchy first reports of Broun’s latest stunt alluded to smearing olive oil around in the United States Capitol, I thought that maybe ol’ Paul had decided to loosen things up a bit and invited his congressional colleagues to one of those sessions where everybody gets naked and greasy and proceeds to, shall we say, get a little better acquainted. I should have known better. Not only did nobody peel down to the buff, but Paul had two preachers with him, and instead of rubbing the oil on each other, they used it to “anoint and consecrate” the door through which President-elect Obama will pass on his way to get himself duly inaugurated. (Don't just take my word for it, mash here then scroll down to the video.)
Broun gave a little sermonette about how Oby needs to “heed God’s directives,” the real and rather pointed message apparently being, “B.O., good buddy, you better get off that Channel 666 and join me over here listenin’ directly to the Almighty on station WWJD!” At that point, Rev. Patrick Mahoney, who plans an anti-abortion demonstration during the inaugural parade, read from the sermon offered by Rev. Billy Graham at Richard Nixon’s inaug in 1968. (If you were around back then you probably recall how that message made a totally new man out of ol’ Tricky Dick.) Then we heard from Rev. Rob Schenck, also an anti-abortion activist and agitator who was reportedly once dragged off by the Secret Service for trying to get a bit too close (hopefully not in the biblical sense) to Bill Clinton. Rev. Schenck, who has already described Obama’s Christian faith as “woefully deficient,” offered his own little prayer that God would see to it that both the spiritually derelict Oby and his missus would “turn their hearts and minds completely to You.”
The clear hope in all their prayin’ and pontificatin’ and smearin’ all that oil on the literal gateway to the Obama presidency, was that as he passed through, Oby would get a sudden, massive, mind-cleansing jolt from Jehovah and scurry over to join them on God’s side on issues like abortion, gun control, prayer in schools, creationism and any other matters in which Satan’s meddlesome little hand might be working to undermine the Far-Right agenda. I got a feeling that if Oby didn’t get the message from on high, or it didn’t take, we’d all soon be dog paddlin’ in the lake of fire. The scariest part of the whole episode for me, however, came when Rev. Schenck turned to our own Standing-Tall Paul and said, “May the Lord multiply your kind.”
Actually, of the three, Broun’s sincerity seems the least suspect, perhaps because his account of having been led to the Lord by the dude in the wacky wig who used to wave a “John 3:16” sign at NFL games is clearly something no one would make up for political gain. I’m especially struck by the irony in Rev. Mahoney’s insistence that Obama’s stance on abortion puts him “on the wrong side of history.” Have these guys actually failed to notice how far out there they are in their position on the president- elect compared to the more-than-pleasantly-surprised majority of the political Right?
Actually the only other major flak Oby’s getting right now is coming from the opposite extreme of the spectrum, the lefty ideologues with hair ablaze who can’t abide the prospect of an anti-gay marriage minister, Rev. Rick Warren, praying over B.O. at the inaug. This crowd hollered that Warren’s presence was an “insult” to the other minister involved in the proceeding, civil rights icon Rev. Joseph Lowery, only to hear Lowery himself explain that contrary to presumption, “I've never said I support gay marriage. I support gay rights and I support civil unions. Like a whole lot of people, I have some difficulty with the term gay marriage. Because deep in my heart, deeply rooted in my heart and mind, marriage is associated with man and woman.”
Alas, the sense that Obama prefers a restrained 911-style commission approach to investigating allegations of “war crimes” by members of the Bush administration to full-blown “show trials” has also left hard-core lefties with their knickers in a knot. “How can I make them do more than they might otherwise want to do, “ MSNBC’s ultra-tiresome p.c. pixie, Rachel Maddow, wants to know. Great idea Rachel, a chance to make a spectacle of vain attempts to prove what for the most part can’t be proven and reignite partisan rancor in the bargain-- just what we need with the country on the brink of Great Depression II.
It’s all to Obama’s credit that he has managed thus far to marginalize the lunatics of left and right so effectively in a time of such crisis. If you don’t mind, Paul, I’ll just pray that he keeps listening to whomever or whatever told him how to do that.
