Fred has some thoughts on the endorsement of Mike Huckabee by Tim LaHaye, author of the “Left Behind” books. I’ll just sit here holding my breath, waiting for a reporter to ask these questions:
LaHaye and his books are ridiculous, but they are not inconsequential. Huckabee’s enthusiastic acceptance of LaHaye’s endorsement requires several follow-up questions that Chafets doesn’t ask. Here are just a few of those:
1. Does Huckabee believe that the Rapture and the End of the World are likely to occur in his lifetime? If so, how does that affect his views on foreign or fiscal or environmental policy?
2. Does he share LaHaye’s belief in the coming of The Antichrist? How would he respond to LaHaye’s readers who would view his support for NAFTA as a step toward One World Government? How would he respond to those who would view his proposed universal 23-percent sales tax as a precursor to the Mark of the Beast?
3. Does he share LaHaye’s belief that the United Nations is a tool of Satan? Does he have a better grasp of the U.N.’s actual role and function than LaHaye does?
4. Does Huckabee believe that Israel’s role in “Bible prophecy” should shape American policy toward Israel and the Middle East? If so, how?
5. If the world is destined to, very soon, descend into chaos and Armageddon, then is any kind of cultural/political/economic progress possible or meaningful?
6. Is the End of the World something he’s eagerly looking forward to?
The Antichrist has already come - I’m not sure which televangelist he is, though. After all, isn’t the goal of the Antichrist to bring Christianity into disrepute? We’ve got “Christians” defending the morality of waterboarding, after all.
Oh, nobody’s going to say anything about it, unless they get desperate. Americans have a long and proud history of believing batshit insane things, and to bring them up is considered impolite.
James Watt (remember him? Secretary of the Interior under Reagan) said once that it didn’t matter if we deforested America, since the rapture was coming soon anyway. He didn’t get fired for it, or even questioned.
No, the fundie foxes are in the country-club henhouse now, and the party’s going to have a real, live, nationally-televised debate on the finer points of evangelical Christianism. It’s going to be interesting to see how willing the money republicans will be to have creationism taught in their kids’ schools, have no contraception for their daughters, and see their industries go down the toilet because of these new republican ideas (20% sales tax on new purchases? The auto manufacturers will love that).
*uckabee is nuttier than a 300-pound squirrel, so I wouldn’t be
surprised if he believes in every last bit of this toxic nonsense.