The Quick and the Dead and McCain

[Joanne98]

Drink a health to the wonders of the Western world, the pirates, preachers, poteen-makers. . . .
- John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World

John McCain has two advantages over Barrack Obama. Whereas Barrack has only one spiritual advisor, John has three, two of whom say nuttier things than Jeremiah Wright, Barrack Obama’s pastor ever thought of and one of whom is dead. The three of them are, however, supporting a Republican and thus, based on the silence from the right, one can only conclude their comments need no explanation. That may be because their sort of nuttiness is indigenous to a party whose biggest present to the United States in the 21st Century is George W. Bush.

John Hagee is the most prominent supporter and where the Lord has led him was explored in last week’s column and needs but brief rehearsing in this. Among other things, Mr. Hagee has described the Roman Catholic Church as the Great Whore. For a fund raiser his 16,000 member Cornerstone Church sponsored a slave sale that urged people to “come and go home with a slave,” a come-on that says more about the man than an 800 word column can hope to. John McCain’s statement that he was “very proud to have pastor Hagee’s support” tells you more about John McCain than an 800-word column can. So does McCain’s acceptance of Rod Parsley as his religious advisor.

Rod is a bible-college drop out who began preaching to small crowds some 20 years ago. Today he is the chief pastor of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, an organization that has 12,000 members.

One week before the Ohio primary, Senator McCain appeared with Rod Parsley at a campaign rally in Cincinnati in which Rod described McCain as a “strong, true, consistent conservative.” Accepting the description and with Rod standing next to him the senator described Rod as a “spiritual guide.” That occupation does not, however, enable Rod to live up to his full potential. Rod would make an excellent Secretary of State since he knows a fair amount about foreign policy as his writings show. David Corn, writing for Mother Jones, describes some of the things Rod has written that lend weight to my suggestion.

In his book 2005 Silent No More Rod describes the fact that there is a war between “Islam and Christian civilization.” As quoted by Mr. Corn, Rod writes: “The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/05/8102/