It seems we’ve finally come full circle. The pro-choice, gay-rights-backing ‘hero’ of 9/11 (Rudy) endorsed by the TV preacher (Robertson) who said 9/11 was God’s punishment for America’s culture of sin.
TPM Reader BF …
I watched a 50’s movie yesterday entitled The Circle of Deception. It was about the British sending a soldier to German-occupied France duirng WWII with the intention that he be captured, tortured and broken to give the Germans misleading information.
What torture did those hideous Nazis use? First beating with a cord, then electric shock and finally waterboarding. So shameful that we now find ourselves in this position! Unbelievable.
A number of readers have told us that for the last week or so they haven’t been able to view our daily TPMtv episodes. Not the youtube clips we run of events through the day but the daily episodes. If you’ve had the same problem, can you drop us a line?
As we’ll be discussing more through the day, the Robertson endorsement Rudy Giuliani bagged today is perhaps the ultimate fusion of right-wing religious extremism and war on terror mania.
Giuliani’s claim to the presidency is based on his service as mayor during and immediately after 9/11. What stops him from being a shoo-in for the nomination is his track record supporting abortion rights and gay rights. But, Robertson is on record saying that 9/11 was America’s punishment for its sinful gay-loving, abortion permitting culture. As Robertson says on his website, the attacks happened because God withdrew his protection from America. He agreed with the late Jerry Falwell that America “deserved” 9/11.
Things looking up for Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R)? The chief witness in the federal investigation of Gibbons is called a “pathological liar” by his own ex-lawyer.
Giuliani-backer Pat Robertson agreeing with Jerry Falwell that America “deserved” 9/11 for embracing secularism, gay rights and sundry other evils …
As I noted earlier, Robertson’s reasoning is that God has withdrawn his protection from us because of America’s collective embrace of a godless, secular, gay-loving culture. When you put that together with his claim today that Rudy, a paragon of the secular culture, is the one to protect us from the terrorist hordes, the upshot seems to be that Robertson has more confidence in Rudy’s leadership and national security skills than he does in God’s. And that’s one hell of an endorsement.
Like Pat Robertson, Ron Paul has blamed America for 9/11 (for decidedly different reasons, I hasten to add), and Rudy blasted him for it a GOP debate. Take a look.
Not long ago we told you about the IPOA, the lobbying organization and trade group for military contractors in Washington, D.C. A week ago Monday IPOA (aka the International Peace Operations Association) had their annual summit in Washington. Blackwater, which recently terminated its membership in the outfit in the face of an IPOA ethics investigation (one of the first, apparently), wasn’t there. But pretty much everyone else from the private military contractor world was, and TPM’s Spencer Ackerman was there to ask them a few questions and see what was up …
(My favorite moment comes in Spencer’s interview with IPOA President Doug Brooks, when Brooks notes that IPOA can only do so much on the enforcement front since they “can’t throw someone in a dungeon or something like that.” Interesting choice of examples.)
This article at CQpolitics notes the possibility of a Dem-filibuster of Mukasey’s nomination. And a few random unnamed birds chirping up on Capitol Hill suggest that more pressure might prevent Mukasey’s nomination from getting over the 60 vote hurdle.