In yesterday’s Super Tuesday slapdown, John McCain appears to have bailed out in his Republican quest with a majority of the party’s caucus-oid delegates. But not without friendly, which is actually unfriendly, fire from his right. At the last minute the conservative evangelical bornagainagogue James Dobson delivered his protestant version of papal bull: “I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are … I cannot, and will not, vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.” It is though Dobson in his daily bible reading, found a new translation of Matthew 16:15: “And I tell you, John McCain, on this rock I will not tell my church to vote and the gates of hell will prevail is he is elected.” Or to tell the Gospel truth, Mr. Dobson cannot see the mote in his candidate’s eye for the large walk-the-plank in his own.

Adding to the smoking cigar of Rush puffed endlessly in Big Mac’ weathered face, Super Tuesday turned into the GOP version of American Gladiators. Move over, Chuck and Arnie, here comes Hulk Hogan onstage to officiate, only without the scantily clad and pumped-up Amazon models. Here is last night’s apocalypse now. The great Latter Day Conservative from Utahssachusetts lies bloodied and hanging on to the Washington-is-broken ropes, waiting for a Good Samaritan to come along and say Mormonism is not a cult. Meanwhile, down in the holler hides the Huckabilly, who is able to have his Southern cruisin’ grits and eat them too; but likely this will be his Last Supper of the primaries and not for want of Ron Paul’s fundraising ability. On the other side, Hillary and Obama both took the Jesus-like approach of saying you should love your enemy. This time around, in not-so-swift Kerry-like fashion, the Republicans seem hellbent on electoral suicide that will holocaust the party a victory in November. Think of it this way, which pile of shit would you rather avoid: that of a donkey or an elephant?

Politics astride, you would have to be severely politically anemic not to see the irony of the moral majoritarian Dobson damning Big Mac to an undisclosed level of hell and at the same time playing up the spectre of Radical Islam’s Threat to the Western World. Here was Dobson’s podcasting into the virtual sea of family valuers yesterday:

Many claim that Islam is a “religion of peace,” but radical adherents of the faith have killed countless innocent people. How do we make sense of the confusion surrounding one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing religions? On today’s broadcast, Patrick Sookhdeo, a renowned authority on the Muslim faith, sheds light on radical Islam’s war against the West – both in biblical and historical terms. He also discusses the plight of Christians who live in predominantly Islamic lands. Sookhdeo offers hope that the Christian church can yet prevail against the dark forces of this world.
“How do we compute, not just the hundreds, not thousands, but the tens of thousands who are dying within a religion that claims to be unified and claims to be a religion of peace?” – Patrick Sookhdeo

In holier-than-thou truth all the Republican candidates with the libertarian exception of Ron Paul (not to be confused with the Saint) have signed on to the let’s-nuke-the-jihadists bandwagon, expecially John McCain, who roars that he is ready to go to the gates of hell to find Osama, as I noted in my last unconvention post. One would think such a warrior against such an evil unbelieving enemy would be forgiven by Mr. Dobson for not being one thousand percent conservative, but instead the likely Republican nominee has his nominem dropped from the daily prayers of Dobson.

The problem is that McCain probably means it when he talks about storming the gates of hell (whether in Pakistan or Iran these days), but Dobson puts him in such a hell of a position, that he will have to unlock the gate from the inside. But Dobson sees a more immediate threat, at least today, than the next president. In Part Two of the Radical Islam crusade, the preacher puts his rhetoric to the floor. Forget about the primaries, America can only be saved from a mass invasion of Turbantrooper Jihadists by repenting of their sins (like thinking about voting for someone who may be soft on gay marriage). The only reason there has not been another 9/11, suggests Dobson’s guest, is to give people more time to believe in Jesus. Homeland security might as well be of the devil (as many of us would agree), because only the dangling of an eternal security blanket will get prayer back in the schools and evolution out.

There is an added bit of irony for me, as I listened just an hour or so ago to a colleague lecture on Martin Luther. Like Dobson, Luther was obsessed with sin. Not just the egregious sins numbered in the 10 Commandments but all the minor self-serving thoughts that a just God would have to send you to hell for. Like Dobson, Luther despised the Catholic Pope, equating him with the antichrist. Like Dobson, Luther held equal disdain for the Turks, the radical Islamists of his 16th century day. For Luther and Dobson, the Radical Muslims pose a serious threat, having invaded Christian Europe and by extension America with virtual impunity. Luther thought the Pope worse than the Turks but Dobson has taken heat from his right (to the extent he has a right) for being soft on Catholics. So just as Dobson will have nothing to do with McCain, there are some bornagainers who will have nothing to do with him.

It seems that hell is a lot closer to our present reality than most people realize.

Luke R. E. Publican