It's all over. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson just announced that the culture wars are lost. "We are awash in evil," he told supporters. As a man who's worked tirelessly to spread hatred and intolerance across the land, Dobson knows whereof he speaks. He's heading for a well-earned retirement of drawing pentagrams and sacrificing goats, but he leaves the rightist evangelical movement in the lurch. At this crucial juncture, with the good fight seemingly lost, who is to assume the mantle of rectitude and carry on the struggle?
Four states have legalized gay marriage and even Rick Warren says it's no big deal. Abortion will never be outlawed under the current administration. Evolution holds sway over Adam and Eve, at least in most of our schools. The new leader of the free world listens to advisors other than Jesus. The DOJ no longer recruits exclusively from Regents University Law. Harry Potter remains unbanned, women are more disinclined than ever to submit graciously to the servant leadership of their men, and the nation's fastest growing denomination is atheism. On this Easter Sunday of 2009, where is the champion ready to take up the gauntlet and save the world from everybody not like himself? (For obvious reasons it can't be herself.)
There's Glenn Beck, a hysterical voice of the right wing fringe. Effective in his way, he is hampered in his quest to be our savior by chronic hemorrhoids. Some also object to his hermaphroditism. Rush Limbaugh is an obvious candidate, with his impressive corpulence and rumbling baritone. Yet he too has his tragic flaws, chief among them being a brain irreparably addled by Viagra and Oxycontin abuse. William Bennett, who wrote the book on virtue, rivals Limbaugh in corpulence but has a nasty gambling addiction. Bill O'Reilly has a loofah problem, Anne Coulter is a transvestite, and Karl Rove can't get out of the closet.
There's only one possible champion who can step into Dobson's shoes and well-beyond. He's a strong man of unwavering devotion and frequently self-declared righteousness. He's not doing much of anything right now and he's got a great track record: In his last position of power, between rains of fire in the two wars he started and the collapse of the world financial system he engineered, he very nearly ushered in the apocalypse. That, as we all know, is the necessary precondition for the second coming. George Bush deserves another chance to conclude the good work he so nearly finished as president. He's standing by now, waiting for the call. If he doesn't pick up, just try his local golf course.