I Am Holier Than Thou! (Said One Republican to the Other)

Looks like those holier than thou Republican presidential candidates can’t keep their holy feet out of their holy mouths. Let’s see what this inauspicious crowd has been up to lately:

Three of the 10 Republican candidates have publicly proclaimed that they don’t believe in evolution. Of course, one of these three “wise men,” Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas has since dropped out of the race. Good riddance. The other two bozos, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, are still slogging it out. I wonder if they "believe" in other science like nuclear technology?

Then there is Mitt the Mormon. The Mittster seems to be trying to paint himself as the “moral” candidate. He has changed his position on gay marriage and he has indicated that he loves reading the Gideon bible. Confusing, isn’t it? What about the book of Mormon? Oh, no, we can’t have the mindless Christians out there finding out that Jesus visited the US can we? “The values of my faith are much like, or are identical to, the values of other faiths that have a Judeo-Christian philosophical background,” he said at a campaign event in New Hampshire. Well, I kind of agree with him there, I s'pose, because there is a lot of craziness in all of these faiths.

Then we have John McCain’s Mom trashing the Mormons - - although, somewhat to his credit, McCain quickly said that the “views of my mother are not necessarily mine.” Which leaves the question, just what does McCain think about Mormonism? I can guess, because he has stated on the record that the president should be a Christian because the nation was founded on Christian principles. And I can guess, too, that like most Christians he wouldn't categorize Mormons as Christians.

But let’s face it, Mormonism is about as whack-a-doo as you can get (this side of Scientology). OK, I think that most religions are nutso, but at least they are sufficiently ancient that tradition and culture play a big role in their on-going proliferation. To be a Mormon you’d have to be pretty much out to lunch. Mormonism teaches that an American named Joseph Smith was a prophet who received visions from God about how to restore the true and original Christian church. This happened in the 1800s. He supposedly found gold plates that outlined the story, but he wouldn’t let anyone see them. He dictated the book of Mormon by putting the gold plates into a hat and reading them with a magic stone. No, I am not making this shit up. There were around 1.7 million Mormons in 1960. Today there are 13 million. Damn, people are gullible. Enough about Mormon (but if you want to read more about it I heartily recommend Jon Krakauer’s excellent book Under The Banner of Heaven).

Rudy Giuliani is probably the least religious of the motley Republican crew. But he recently received the endorsement of Pat Robertson. And he got this endorsement despite his positions supporting abortion rights and gay rights. Seems the Republicans are desperate for a candidate they think stands at least a fighting chance against Hillary Clinton. But Giuliani is still a scary bastard - mostly by whom he chooses to associate with. Example? New York Rep. Pete King, a Giuliani adviser, proclaimed that there are "too many mosques in this country." So I guess it is cool for a Christian religious fanatic to bash a muslim religious fanatic?

The bottom line though is that none of these fuckers are as scary as George W. Bush, who thinks he talks to god. So even if one of the Democrats does not win (I so hope they do!) the country should be better off in late January 2009.