The Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly, who has a brilliant talent for creating elaborate images in a very few words, has a song called "Be Careful What You Pray For" that includes the lines:
Be careful what you pray for
You just might get it
That particular one is not exactly an original sentiment. It's just that when the thought comes into my head it's set to the tune of Kelly's song.
I thought of that today when that bold Maverick McCain started to take a tiny bit of the heat he deserves for embracing the support of radical cleric John Hagee, who Sarah Posner ably profiled in Pastor Strangelove The American Prospect 05/21/06.
The Republicans have worked hard since Nixon's Southern Strategy to appeal to white Christian fundamentalists, no small portion of whom were and are Southern segregationists. They succeeded. Now, white fundis are the hardcore base of their Party. The Maverick can't afford to tick them off in a general election. And John Hagee, despite being one of the nastiest bigots and snarling warmongers among Christianist leaders in the US, is too big of a star among the Party faithful for the Maverick to easily denounce him.
If the fundis didn't want the ugliest aspects of their theology - the anti-Semitism, the warmongering, the bloody-minded exclusivity, the anti-science fanaticism - to be held up to public scrutiny and debate in a political context, well, they should have been more careful what they prayed for. Mixing Church and State - or Church and Party, which to the authoritarian Republican Party is largely the same thing - is an involvement that goes both ways.
Tags: christian dominionism, christian fundamentalism, christian right, christianism, john hagee, mccain, sarah posner, republican party
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