Sunday Stuff

It’s happening again, people.

You know, when our corporate media decides to portray a Republican presidential candidate as someone whose faith supposedly dictates his decision making and/or his approach to governance.

The New York Times devoted entirely too many column inches today on how Willard Mitt Romney practices his Mormonism on the campaign trail, how he supposedly did the same when running Bain Capital, how he supposed did the same when he was governor of Massachusetts, etc (sorry, no linkee).

And for a reminder as to why this is dangerous, I give you the following from here…

During those private interviews, (former French President) Jacque Chirac had purportedly confessed to the journalist some personal remarks regarding the faith of George W. Bush that seemed quite daunting. He told the journalist that the latter called him twice beseeching him basically, in the name of their common “spiritual faith”, i.e., “Christianity”, to join the collective effort of the coalition being formed to wage a preemptive war against Iraq. In his first telephonic call he reportedly said to Jacque Chirac: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East” and then added that “the biblical prophecies are being fulfilled”. Bewildered, Jacque Chirac did not react immediately. He knew that Bush was somehow religious but could never have thought that the president of the world only superpower was as mysteriously warmhearted to the complex intricacies of the Scriptures as he seemed to be. When a day later George W. Bush pronounced the mysterious words in a conference about the “axis of evil” (the word “evil” was inserted by the evangelical speechwriter Michael Gerson, the original term coined by another staff writer, the Canadian Jew David Frum, was “axis of hatred”), the Elysée decided secretly to consult an expert or biblical scholar about the issue.


In order to avoid any possible leak in France, they decided to outsource or solicit the service of a discreet and prominent outsider instead of a local expert more prone to indiscretion. It was Thomas Römer, professor of Theology at the University of Lausanne, who was called upon to clarify, for the occasion, the biblical mystery at stake. His report was chilling: Gog, prince of Magog, is merely the Apocalypse.

Oh, but Dubya was a cowboy, wasn’t he? But Romney’s a pragmatist who could never engage in such theatrics.

Yeah, right.

And this makes me recall the following recent observations by Bill Maher about Romney and religion (bad word at the end)…

…and I had this tune in mind also today upon reading this story (before Kenny Rogers was “The Gambler” – should hear this tune a lot more on the oldies station).