Senator Kerry went to church yesterday.Specifically, he went to a Baptist church in Missouri. And if there was any adult in that church in possession of full mental faculties who didn't think the Senator was there to give a campaign speech, then perhaps we should revisit the concept of universal suffrage.
So John Kerry made a campaign speech in a church. He wasn't the first candidate in America to do so, and he won't be the last. But strangely, President Bush called this act "inappropriate."
It's strange because we're talking about George W. Bush. We're talking about a man who claims to have deep religious convictions, and to let those religious convictions determine his stands on political issues. We're talking about a man who wants to strip away the separation of church and state. We're talking about a man who speaks openly of "faith-based initiatives", whatever they are, and prayer in schools. In short, we're talking about a man who clearly believes that politics does indeed belong in church, and church belongs in politics.
Except, of course, when the other guy is stealing his thunder.
President Bush has a serious problem with religion this election cycle. The problem is that his opponent may be more religious than he is. So rather than saying "I'm standing by my convictions, and that's right," he says, "My opponent is standing by my convictions, and that's wrong."
Hypocrisy is evil, Mr. President.
If you truly believe that mixing religion and politics is perfectly fine, then you must allow your opponents to do the same. Any other stand is nothing but hypocrisy.
And it's not like Senator Kerry is actually mixing the two, except to define his own religious convictions. Truthfully, we can't be quite sure what the President's religious convictions are, except that he claims to have them.
He claims to believe in a dogma that says "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Yet he lied about Saddam Hussein in order to get us into a war. He lied about the former Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in order to remove him from power. He lied about the activities of President Musharraf of Pakistan in order to secure some semblance of help in his aborted attempt to stop Al-Qaeda. He seems to make a general practice of bearing false witness.
He claims to believe in a dogma that says "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods." But he is willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of American lives to get hold of Iraq's oil fields.
He claims to believe in a dogma that says "Thou shalt not kill." But as Governor of Texas he killed more inmates than any other governor in history. And as President, he has killed more innocent Iraqi civilians in one year than Saddam Hussein, that "evil man", killed in the last ten.
So President Bush can throw all the tantrums he wants about Senator Kerry's choice of venue. But he should remember that when you point the finger of blame, three fingers are pointing right back at you.
Amen.
Copyright 2004, Dan Jacoby
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