Joe Lieberman Defends Hagee. What a Shocker.

Joe Lieberman, talking about pastor John Hagee who, as the Fox News anchor cited from a DNC release "compare[s] women to dogs, hold[s] racially insensitive fundraisers, and call[s] one of the worst natural disasters in our country's history God's punishment":

"He represents a lot of people in this country, particularly Christians who care about the state of Israel."

That he does, Joe, that he does.

Hagee can say the only difference between a woman and a doberman is lipstick. He can assert the Catholic Church, Muslims, Russia, China, Iran and the ACLU are all agents of the Antichrist. He can call America cursed by God -- Wright can't, but Hagee can, because Hagee is... well, what? A Republican? White as the inside of a dinner roll? Too inextricably tied to the GOP power structure to remove? He can write a book with assertions that Jesus wasn't really the Messiah after all, which is a hell of an odd thing for a Christian preacher to start muttering. He can blame the destruction of New Orleans on the nasty gays, even though God apparently has crappy celestial aim, considering that he smited the holy hell out of a bunch of poor black people but left the part of New Orleans planning a Gay Pride parade relatively unscathed in comparison.

But hey, he apologized to fellow professional media outrage source/sink Bill Donohue for people being upset over his whole Catholics-secretly-love-Hitler schtick. What the hell more do you people want?

You know, I don't think any of us want McCain to renounce Hagee. Hagee's just one preacher out of many in the far-right cable TV Republican God machine, a bunch of supposed preachers and prophets who see visions of a 900 foot tall Jesus whose sole message to the world is to hold fundraisers, who time and time again make prophecies that prove to be roundly false, who spend far more time telling people who to hate than who to love and who pull in ungodly (cough) amounts of personal wealth for their trouble. They seek violent military confrontation with Islam and Iran and anything and everything else non-Christian or not sufficiently their brand of Christian, and preach that the Jews must be returned to Israel so that they can unlock the Jesus Stargate, at which point they will all be either converted or slaughtered.

Why would any Republican want to renounce any of that? After more than ample evidence of their own behavior when given actual power, cultist End Times preachers like Hagee are the only avenue the Republicans have left for claiming they are the party of God.

But Hagee certainly represents a lot of people in this country, I'll grant him that. And he represents the modern Republican notion of "Christ" to a T. What Joe Lieberman sees in him, I have no idea.