Welcome To The Fold, Senator McCain

by Michael Gregory Steele and Herman B. Hayes

You know, I’ve noticed a real change in the senator from Arizona, John McCain lately. I have to say it’s a change I find refreshing from the man who once said this about evangelical leaders during his 2000 run for president:

They've led our party in the wrong direction.… The message of intolerance and exclusion rather than inclusion is directly in contradiction to the message that I've been trying to send around America... They will desert, I hope, the intolerant and wrong-headedness of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

I wonder, Senator McCain, how did your strategy of asserting that the Religious Right is some sort of tumor on the Republican Party work out for you? Oh, you didn’t even make it out of the primary, did you? Well even a weak-kneed moderate like yourself is smart enough to now realize that we can be just as exclusionary and intolerant to Republicans who don’t share our views as we can be to homosexuals who try to corrupt our children.

Now, as campaigns for the 2008 presidential elections begin to heat up it seems that the McCain has changed his tune to something more pleasing to my Christian ears:

By accepting the invitation [to speak at Falwell’s evangelical Christian college] and showing newfound respect for Falwell, political analysts say, McCain is courting religious right voters with the goal of accomplishing in 2008 what he couldn't in 2000: win the Republican nomination for president.

What do you think, dear readers, has McCain finally accepted Jesus as his personal savior? Has he at last recognized the cracks in the foundation of the moral edifice in this country? You might think so, but let me explain to you how you’re once again wrong.

First, I should acknowledge the fact that John McCain is a hero. He has truly seen the horrors of war as a POW in Vietnam and for that I respect him. I, as a conservative, have nothing but good things to say about any man who has served his country in the military, be he Republican or even moderate Republican.

Given his experience with war, I think it's safe to say that McCain fears no man. Unfortunately this fearlessness also extends to God. He simply does not have a healthy fear of God to help inform his politics. McCain is a man without any sense of morality, and quite frankly is a man with no soul. But this empty vessel of a man can still prove quite useful to me and the rest of the social conservative movement.

You see, we’re all well aware of the fact that McCain does not share our values but we also know that he wants very badly to be president. To even stand a chance of making it this time, he’ll have to get the Jesus-friendly seal of approval. In order to get this, he’ll have to promise and deliver anything we ask him for.

We may even draft the executive order calling for the designation of homosexuals as enemy combatants in the war on Terror so that he can sign it immediately should he make it to the oval office. I have to admit though, that there is nothing greater then watching a former foe crawling on his belly pleading for my help. There is simply nothing sweeter than this.

So you may have been wondering what that absolutely fabulous scent Senator McCain has been wearing lately is called. It’s called political desperation. I personally think it suits him quite well, and I know the rest of the Religious Right movement find it absolutely intoxicating.