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According to his Townhall bio, “Douglas MacKinnon is former White House and Pentagon official who spent three years working in a Joint Command,” although he’s perhaps better known as Bob Dole’s former press secretary.

I’m kidding, nobody knows who the hell he is — except perhaps for certain fundamentalist Christians, who got their snakes in a twist over Doug’s 2008 novel, The Apocalypse Directive, about a U.S. President who believes Jesus is telling him to start Armageddon.

The story was loosely based on Christian Embassy, an evangelical group which confused the U.S. Armed Services with the Knights Templar and went about the corridors of the Pentagon trying to recruit their own khaki-clad, mayonnaise-flavored mujahideen. Spoiler Alert:  At the end of the book we learn that Jesus did tell the President to launch a nuclear first strike, but it was just a prank for what turned out to be a failed reality show pilot (the Lord figured He could defray the cost of the Second Coming by selling it as a series to TLC).

But as Jimmy Stewart said in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, false equivalencies are the only equivalencies worth fighting for, so this week Mr. MacKinnon is going to blaspheme the “bible for the left” (The New York Times) and its new Revelations section, which offers theater and restaurant reviews, and combined listings for Movies, TV, Trump-Sounding, and Seal-Breaking (This Friday, November 19, Beast of the Sea will be at the Jones Beach Theater, with Special Guests The Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato!  Doors open at 6.  Mouth of Hell opens at 8).

The New York Times, The Far-Left, and Their “Messiah” Obama

With the results of the mid-term election still fresh in our minds, the question needs to be asked again. That being, is Barack Obama the Messiah?

Well, if the Messiah has returned, that would make George W. Bush the Antichrist, wouldn’t it?  But since the he didn’t actually end the world, just wrapped it around a telephone pole, it would seem he screwed up the Apocalypse, too.

Or, more to the point, do a number of delusional liberals and far-left radicals still truly believe him to be a deity or their deity?

Since “a number” could mean “one,” I’m going to say yes.  I don’t personally know any people who consider Obama a god, but this is America — we’re always looking for a savior’s palm to grease, from Joseph Smith to L. Ron Hubbard to Sun Myung Moon — and if you can’t get at least one person to believe you’re a prophet, then you don’t deserve your megachurch, or cable network, or money-losing DC newspaper.

(Oh, and Rev. Moon?  If you ever get glum about the way people mock your godhead, try to remember that they were a lot more demonstrative about it in the 1st Century AD; besides, nowadays you have apostles like R. Emmett Tyrrell, who feast on the wisdom of your faith-based broadsheet every day, along with their morning roughage.)

Uber-liberal New York Times columnist Gail Collins just seemed to confirm that dangerous possibility.

I’m a little shaky on the whole liberal taxonomy, although I know it spans the gamut from Far Left Communist to Far Left Fascist, but are there any circumstances in which we can legitimately classify Gail Collins as a “uber-leftist” without the Oxford English Dictionary  just hauling off and punching us in the sack?  Or to put it another way, Doug just heaved a rock and broke the Overton Window, then stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered off, whistling; which to my mind illustrates the shocking way our culture has declined since the early 20th Century, because in a silent film the cops would have chased him all over town for that.

In her latest offering in the bible for the left entitled “Believing in Barack,” Ms. Collins seemed to be reciting her version of a prayer in support of her deific leader as she tried to excuse those horrible mid-term results. Said Ms. Collins, “I have faith in Barack Obama…even though he is testing us sorely…I believe the president will pick the right course…”

For some reason Doug doesn’t link to Ms. Collins’ piece, probably because he worked hard on those ellipses, and he doesn’t want us to ruin the effect by reading all the unnecessary words in between (it’s like getting close enough to Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte to see the dots. Respect the artist, people!).  Just for the record, here’s her opening paragraph:  ”I have faith in Barack Obama. Of course, I also have faith in the New York Mets.”

Interesting and telling choice of words.

Once you reassemble them in the right order.

As many liberals and atheists don’t go to church or religious service, they are going to have to take my word for it that when someone generally says they have “faith” in someone and that “He is testing us sorely,” that person is almost always referring to God.

Unless that person is a liberal or an atheist who doesn’t go to church, in which case he almost never is.

I find your faith in Obama disturbing…

Now, through recorded history, various Pharaohs, Emperors, Kings, dictators, and garden variety thugs have declared themselves God or a God. To my knowledge, President Obama has not granted himself this mother of all affirmative actions.

“Oops — I wish I’d hadn’t gotten halfway through this column before I realized my premise was bullshit.  I could have written a snappy thing on political correctness instead, or maybe just done recipes this week.  Oh well, I can crap out another 300 words of this standing on my head.”

Unfortunately, his followers have assigned him that title on their own. Not good.

Ellipses don’t lie.

Belief in God — much like the belief in the “brilliance” of Mr. Obama — requires no proof. None.

And since you declare later in the column that by any rational standard, Obama isn’t brilliant — in fact, he’s kind of a dunce — then, uh…Hm.  I guess Richard Dawkins thanks you for the unsolicited testimonial to atheism.

Those who believe in God will tell you it’s an act of faith. While they believe — and I agree — that they can logically explain the existence of God, they also feel it’s a waste of time to argue with the liberal and closed minds of atheists and “scientists” with an agenda.

Or a “degree.”

Yikes.

This is just my personal prejudice, but I don’t think an eminence grise should say “Yikes” (although if he’s spent three years in a Joint Command, he should be allowed to say “Whoa”).

On and on it goes. First we had the unhinged Louis Farrakhan say that when Obama was talking, “…the Messiah is absolutely speaking,” to now Gail Collins at least figuratively getting down on one knee to genuflect before the presence of Mr. Obama and reaffirm her faith in his power and glory.

Or, more specifically, the Virgin Gail reaffirmed her faith that Obama will give due consideration to the tax and entitlement policy recommendations by the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform,” which was the original title of the novel, but the American publisher thought it was too provocative, and might needlessly antagonize the Legion of Decency.

29 Responses to “My Dog Tells Me You’re Crazy”

Hey, how can a bald guy be an eminence grise? Unless he tints his dome with “Heather Mist” shoe dye, at least? Joint Command Bob’s not even trying.

And since when is Louis Farrakhan a liberal? That’s not just breaking the Overton window, it’s transmogrifying it into a wormhole. Whoa, indeed.

“I have faith in Barack Obama. Of course, I also have faith in the New York Mets.”

She’s a better man than I.

“I have faith in Barack Obama…even though he is testing us sorely…I believe the president will pick the right course…”

So even out of context, the fact that a woman trusts the duly elected leader, chosen by more than half of the people (closer to six in ten), despite the fact that he’s disappointed her, and suddenly she has a messianic complex about the guy?

Has this asshole ever rooted for ANY sports team?

Or even just had a child? He’s never said to anyone “I believe in you” or “I have faith in you”?

What a douchebagnozzlefaceasshole!!!!!

That should be Joint Command Doug, shouldn’t it? Criminentlies.

I wish I had something more clever to say, but that man’s column is stunningly stupid, and made me resentful of the human race.

And by “stunningly”, I mean that I literally felt like I’d been tasered. The stupid is stronger than Titanium in this one.

What about all of those people who used to say that Bush was chosen by god to lead the free world during our battle with the darkness? I’m genuinely interested to know what those people think now.
I mean, if he was really chosen by god, you would expect that he would have done something great or even something fairly good. That he would have scored a decisive victory. But instead, his two wars just kind of fizzled and the economy collapsed and he just moved back to Texas and doesn’t even pretend to be a cowboy anymore.
So do the people who thought he was chosen by god now think that they made a mistake or that god made a mistake or god made the right choice but W messed it up (in which case maybe god did make a mistake in choosing him) or did god chose the correct guy but didn’t really have big plans for how to use him – like you use your top draft pick on a great quarterback but then you just run the ball evey play.
I would like to know.

I mean, if he was really chosen by god, you would expect that he would have done something great or even something fairly good.

I’ll go you one better, Shaun.

If God was that interested in America’s well-being, wouldn’t he have chosen Obama, too?

Interestingly, the only people using the word “messiah” to describe Obama are invariably using the word as a pejorative.

We zink zis means zomezing.

Nom de Plume writes: I wish I had something more clever to say, but that man’s column is stunningly stupid, and made me resentful of the human race.

One might say that your faith in the essential goodness of humanity is being sorely tested.

As an atheist, this happens to be my faith, and goddamighty, is it ever being tested lately, up one side of the side and down the other.

Still, it’s mine and I LIKE IT VERY MUCH!

I’m genuinely interested to know what those people think now.

A bucket of warm spit would be the closest approximation of what those people “think”.

“Those people” apparently believe it’s not “lying” when they do it. This idiot Doug – who apparently spent at least 3 years Commanding his Joint – is yet another prototypical wingnut who believes that making shit up and passing it off as fact is his God-given right.

Incidentally, just happened to be watching “First Man Into Space” (1958), a space-race driven exploitation flick (astronaut turns into bloodthirsty monster on re-entry, woo-hoo), and was reminded in the commentary track that Gordon Cooper, as the last of the original Mercury Seven to make the trip into space, had to do his own navigating and piloting on re-entry due to the malfunction of the remote control systems that had been used up to that point. Frosty-in-the-clutch Gordo actually came in at the correct re-entry angle and point.

The craft, you may recall, was “Faith 7″, and Cooper wasn’t much in the religion department (unless being a Mason counts).

The craft, you may recall, was “Faith 7″

What a weird name, given the names of the other six craft…

Hey, I can do the ellipsis thing, too:

“Douglas MacKinnon is [a] White…official who spent three years in…[the] Joint.”

Fixed.

“if he was really chosen by god, you would expect that he would have done something great or even something fairly good.” Not true — maybe God and Allah were choosing up sides and the last guys available were Bush and the underpants bomber !

Which one did Allah choose?

Listen, I was clearly on the record, at the time, as somewhere between chagrined and horrified by the whole droning, Yes We Can, Peter, Paul, and Mary Go To Nuremberg schtick, and by the bloodless Democratic centrism (see Davids Axelrod and Plouffe) behind the promises of Change. Had I had some actual liberal alternative with one chance in Hopping Hell, I’d latched onto the “Messiah” trope myself for all the Swooners and Mooners and Netrooters anyone with any sense could’a told you would not bother showing up for the midterms two years later, when their man would really need them.

Having said that, y’know, it was a fucking metaphor, and now it’s a fucking dead metaphor, and if you can’t show some semblance of literacy in your own language you should concentrate on that, and leave “Über” th’ fuck alone.

What a weird name, given the names of the other six craft…

The other five, you mean: Freedom 7, Liberty Bell 7, Friendship 7, Aurora 7, and Sigma 7.

Each astronaut named his own craft, the “7″ added by mutual agreement to sort of include the remainder of the team. So, you see, “Faith” was Gordon Cooper’s choice, not NASA’s.

No one talks about the seventh craft, named “Chesterfield 7″ by Deke Slayton in a shameless sellout to a corporate sponsor.

Deke’s flight was cancelled and his flight status revoked for ten years in a hastily contrived effort to conceal the scandal and punish Slayton. Of course, NASA’s official story was that Deke had a heart murmur, a clumsy tale made all the more unlikely by the fact that they returned him to full flight status in ’72.

I’m bullshitting of course– or am I? Who you gonna believe?

What a weird name, given the names of the other six craft…

For some reason, “Hope” and “Charity” were considered inappropriate names for space capsules.

For some reason, “Hope” and “Charity” were considered inappropriate names for space capsules.

I was kinda hoping for Crash 7 and Burn 7.

I think the ‘Black Power 7′ has a great ring to it.

As a kid growing up, I was enthralled with the space program. I wanted to see ‘Magnificent 7′, but, sadly, no…

Of course, Lucky 7 would have been better.

Now, through recorded history, various Pharaohs, Emperors, Kings, dictators, and garden variety thugs have declared themselves God or a God. To my knowledge, President Obama has not granted himself this mother of all affirmative actions.

“Did you know Obama is BLACK?”

Last add the Mercury Seven:

Thing I always liked was the way the names of the crafts got less Jingoistic as the program wore on. Check ‘em out (see the list above): From the in your face, fucking Russki commies! of “Freedom” and “Liberty Bell” through the detente of “Friendship”– that’s John Glenn, by the way– to the almost embarrassingly beatnikish “Aurora” and “Sigma” (anybody smell marijuana smoke?). And then “Faith,” for God’s sake. What was Gordo’s deal, huh?

That said, it’s important to remember that the astronauts couldn’t give a fuck about a ginned-up race with the evil soviet empire space program; they just wanted to go up, dammit, and probably to a man cheered when Yuri Gagarin went up. I remain convinced that JFKennedy had the fire in the belly about space travel per se, not “beating the soviets”, but skillfully parleyed the country’s paranoia about this into funding for the program. Be nice if he could have kept the launch site out of the ridiculously inappropriate Florida, but hey, you takes the dollars, you pays the favors.

And finally, in 1963, I put my second grade teacher in stitches by referring, in a “write something about current news” assignment, to Gordo’s craft as “Fate 7″, and no [laughing], I’m not joking.

Lastest ever add:

Beg, borrow, buy or steal Robert Stone’s 1990 documentary “The Satellite Sky” for the troo fax about the dawn of the space age. Poignant, ironic– oh the hell with it, here’s what a reviewer at IMDB said:

This might be the greatest film I have ever seen. Certainly the best documentary ever. The film feels as if David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick and Homer Simpson got together to explain the The Cold War and The Space Race and ended up creating a picture of the futility of existence. Truly Amazing.

Hey, lookidat: released on DVD– here‘s a site for the film.

Or you’re welcome to borrow the VHS copy I made off-air when PBS ran it in 1990 as an episode of “The American Experience”.

Okay, one lastest totally last add, and then I’ll shut up, but I gotta say it.

I actually won a bar bet that the first astronaut was a female, because before Neil Armstrong, before John Glenn, before Alan Shepherd, even before Yuri Gagarin, there was Laika. Poor Laika.

Laika was an unsuspecting husky/terrier mix recruited from the streets of Moscow into the soviet space program in 1957, and shot into orbit on November 3 of that year. Re-entry was, shall we say, not part of the program. She was monitored throughout her flight to determine the hazards that this sort of flight might pose to humans and performed her duties admirably to the end, as a good dog would.

Her death is recorded with a raised glass by me each 3rd November, and I invite you to do the same.

And now I’ll shut up.

And an easy one: married men rejoice to hear that thinking about God when they’re bonking a stranger means that they are faithful.

Until I read the article I did not realize that god is a socialist. He hates rich people passing through the eye of the needle. He would rather people die than receive assistance of any type from tax dollars; after all, when in the U.S. do onto the republicans since they have chosen to openly admit that they are sinners with no intention of changing. According to their thinking their god will see that they only did what was necessary to thrive. They republicans will be forgiven, because they are smart enough to explain that they meant well. Selfishness and merciless behavior are by-products of growing up in the South. There is a saying in the South; “If you see the fish symbol, put your hand over your wallet, and do not sign a thing. Greed is thought of a the by-product of ambition, just as cheating is the by-product of competition.

OK, I admit praying to President Obama in the hope that he’d quit trying to satisfy the neo-fascist agenda of his enemies, but you can see how that has worked out. No more praying, because it makes one seem the fool, due to unrealistic dreams for America. Imagine, when young I thought America was built on the struggle for liberty and the rule of law to keep things in balance. I was naive’ to have not realized that the marriage between government and business was perfection of an ideal.

Can’t get past that phrase “mother of all affirmative actions.” In republican-speak, “affirmative action” is code for any program that has any chance, however remote, of putting less qualified members of minorities ahead of more qualified WASPs in job or student placements. (By contrast, programs that use tax money to make unqualified WASPSs succeed in business where they would otherwise fail miserably are called “free markets.”)

So is this guy hinting that Obama is an unqualified minority in his job? Or that God is a white dude? Or both?

MacKinnon is right [hold the rotten tomatoes a moment, please] that Gail Collins was using the terms “believe” and “testing faith” because of their religious connotations. However she did so metaphorically, not because she thinks Obama is God. Any more than Franz Kafka really believed that some guy in his neighborhood turned into a cockroach. This dork has such a “tin ear” he can’t tell the fucking difference.

And please let’s not forget what Dubya himself said about the importance of belief: “I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe – I believe what I believe is right.”

Or more to the point, what redneck comic Ron White said when asked what he believed: “I believe I’ll have a Scotch.”

And then “Faith,” for God’s sake. What was Gordo’s deal, huh?

Knowing him, it was probably the name of a waitress he was seeing on the side…

Something to say?