Dobson changes his mind while Elizabeth Dole loses hers

From the “if you didn’t see this coming, you weren’t paying attention” department

After saying several months ago that he could never support John McCain for president, religious right grand pooh-bah James Dobson is now reconsidering:

Conservative Christian leader James Dobson has softened his stance against Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, saying he could reverse his position and endorse the Arizona senator despite serious misgivings.

“I never thought I would hear myself saying this,” Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. “… While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.”

The proper response to this is “Duh.” Come on, did anyone really believe that Dobson wasn’t going to reluctantly endorse McCain all along? The man may be a wingnut, but he’s not stupid. Withholding his endorsement was a calculated play for maximum leverage with McCain, who knows that he needs a motivated conservative base to have any chance of winning in November.

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I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I guarantee you that McCain has already cut a deal with Dobson and the other religious right leaders — you endorse me, even tepidly, and I’ll pick nominees for the Supreme Court from your short list. Dobson and his fellow authoritarians know that they are one vote away from controlling the high court on a range of hot-button issues; they aren’t going to sit out the fight and let Barack Obama into the White House and watch that opportunity fade.

When all else fails, ramp up the gay bashing

Radley Balko at the Reason magazine blog writes about Oklahoma County, Okla., Commissioner Brent Rinehart, who is facing a difficult re-election campaign because he’s due to face felony campaign finance charges in a trial expected to start just before the election.

Undaunted, the intrepid Rinehart has sent out a comic book to voters blaming all his problems on those evil homo-sekshuls. He gets bonus points for spelling pedophile two different ways on consecutive pages of the comic book, both of them incorrect. You can read the entire comic book here. Brent, Jack Chick called; he wants his schtick back.

There are no words for this

There’s irony, there’s hypocrisy, and then there’s just plain old-fashioned “you’ve got to be kidding me” stupidity. Last week Elizabeth Dole submitted an amendment to rename a bill that provides funds for AIDS prevention and research after — wait for it — Jesse Helms. The mind boggles, doesn’t it? Joe.My.God. has the sane response:

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1987 described AIDS prevention literature as “so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up.”

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1988 vigorously opposed the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, saying, “There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.”

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1995 said (in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act) that the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.”

Bob Dole’s Viagra is obviously working because Elizabeth is clearly screw-y.

The Saudi king plays songs of oppression

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia again this week called for cooperation among the world’s three Abrahamic religions. Speaking to an interfaith conference in Spain, the Saudi leader urged Christians, Muslims and Jews to work together and find common ground. This might be comforting except that it was this same man who just a few months ago made a similar call for the major religions to join forces against nonbelievers while calling for laws that forbid the “defamation” — i.e. criticism — of anyone’s religious views:

“If God wills it, we will then meet with our brothers from other religions, including those of the Torah and the Gospel to come up with ways to safeguard humanity,” he added. The king, who is the guardian of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, said the major faiths shared a desire to combat “the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world.” …

According to the official Saudi Press Agency King Abdullah said “I have noticed that the family system has weakened and that atheism has increased. That is an unacceptable behavior to all religions, to the Koran, the Torah and the Bible. We ask God to save humanity. There is a lack of ethics, loyalty and sincerity for our religions and humanity.”

OK, let’s be blunt here: I’m just not inclined to accept lectures about ethics from a brutal dictator whose regime beheads people for being of the wrong religion, puts gay people to death and has roving gangs (they call them police) whose job is to beat women who leave the house unattended by a male relative. You’re gonna lecture me on ethics, you fascist cretin? I don’t think so.