Sen. John McCain said in an interview published Saturday that he would prefer a Christian president over someone of a different faith, calling it "an important part of our qualifications to lead."
No, that is precisely wrong. Your religion does not make you any more or less qualified to run the country. They teach you stuff like this in junior high school.
In an interview with Beliefnet, a multi-denominational Web site that covers religion and spirituality, the Republican presidential hopeful was asked if a Muslim candidate could be a good president.
"I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles ... personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith," McCain said. "But that doesn't mean that I'm sure that someone who is Muslim would not make a good president."
Later, McCain said, "I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values."
Even worse than his ignorance is his pandering. After making a bold and, quite frankly, disgusting statement about his desire for a Christian president, he hems and haws and backtracks in an attempt to keep people like me from pointing out his bullshit. It didn't work. Now he's both full of shit and afraid to stand up for what he really believes.Asked about Republican rivals Mitt Romney's Mormon faith, McCain said, "I think that Governor Romney's religion should not, absolutely not, be a disqualifying factor when people consider his candidacy for president of the United States."
Oh, how gracious of you, John. Of course, he's still got the whole belief in Christ thing. That's really the deciding factor, as far as John's concerned. Clearly, with his support for Premier Bush's War of Terror, he's not worried about the whole pledging to uphold the Constitution thing the President's supposed to say. Why not just replace it with a reverend asking our future Commander in Chief if he/she accepts Jesus Christ as his/her personal savior? Or, better yet, get an old priest to simply lay his hands on the incoming President and shout a few rounds of "The Power of Christ Compels You!"
The Arizona senator was also asked about the confusion over which Christian denomination he belongs to. "I was raised Episcopalian, I have attended the North Phoenix Baptist Church for many years and I am a Christian," McCain said. He added that he has considered being baptized in the Baptist church, but he does not want to do it during the presidential race because "it might appear as if I was doing something that I otherwise wouldn't do."
So, he has attended the Baptist Church for many years, but didn't ever get baptized during all of that time because he thought he might one day run for President and, in that case, wouldn't want people to think he was getting a phony photo-op baptismal, so instead he ignored the most direct, basic commandments of his seriously-held religious faith. Nice. That's almost as good as Rudy Giuliani's "I had to answer my cell phone because of 9/11" line.
It's kinda fun watching candidates shoot themselves in the foot, eh? :)
ReplyDeleteI feel like you can't even really tell what his honest opinion is based on any of these comments. If you're a conservative, it's simply a given that you're going to pander somewhat to Christian believers. B/c from a completely pragmatic, political point of view, you're going to consolidate far more votes by saying this than you're going to lose. The vast majority of people who are going to find this offensive or distasteful wouldn't even think of voting for McCain, or any other conservative, regardless.
ReplyDeleteThink about the fact that at the present time it would be unthinkable for any Democratic candidate to be openly atheist, probably even a non-practicing agnostic. I find this equally distasteful, but sadly it's just the political reality. Two party democracies suck in a lot of ways, and this is just another one of them.