Adopt A Wingnut: Buy A Copy Of ‘Fox Nation vs. Reality’ For Your Favorite FoxPod

Hating BreitbartEarlier this week News Corpse reported that the desperate producers of the crocumentary “Hating Breitbart” had embarked on a program to convince their fans to buy multiple copies of the DVD and send them to liberal politicians, journalists, actors, etc. We regarded this idea as a hilarious and transparent ploy to salvage their failed film and we set about to mocking it. As I wrote last Tuesday…

“The producers must be stuck with a warehouse of these paperweights and believe that their fans are dumb enough to bail them out by buying more. […] Wouldn’t it just be easier to double the price and tell them the proceeds are going to Jesus?”

Well, I may have spoken too soon. After marathon conferences with our marketing executives and promotion consultants, we at News Corpse have determined that this sort of sales methodology has the potential to enhance the commercial prospects of our own already successful ebook “Fox Nation vs. Reality.” So today we are launching a version of the “Adopt A Wingnut” program that enables our enlightened audience to spread some of the truth and insight developed here to the community of deluded Fox Zombies who need it most. It’s a simple 3-step plan that everyone can join in on.

Step One

If you have not already purchased a copy of Fox Nation vs. Reality, do so immediately. It is an amusing and informative expose of the most brazenly dishonest efforts by Fox News to deceive their gullible fans.

Step Two

Buy another copy of Fox Nation vs. Reality for an unfortunate friend or family member whose thinking has been clouded by the disinformation served up by Fox News. You can also buy copies for politicians, journalists, actors, teachers, professional colleagues, climate science deniers, Tea Partiers, bible thumpers, you name it. Be creative. Amazon makes it easy for you to designate the purchase as a gift and send the gift notice to the recipient.

Step Three

Repeat Step Two as many times as necessary to complete your own list of needy neo-cons, theo-cons, and just plain cons (or until there is world peace and an end to hunger, whichever comes first).

Through this generous initiative we can have a real impact on the destructive propaganda that emanates from Fox News. The power of the human attributes of charity combined with effective social media can change the world and you can be a part of it. This is not some pipe dream cooked up by naive optimists. A check on Amazon today shows that Fox Nation vs. Reality is already ranking higher in sales than Breitbart’s autobiography, Righteous Indignation

  • Fox Nation vs. Reality: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,086
  • Righteous Indignation: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,624
  • (Note; these numbers seem to change by the minute, but these are the actual figures as of this writing. Also, while 28,086 seems like a high number, it is out of more than 1.3 million books. That puts it in the top three percentile.)

FNvR vs Breitbart

It is time to stand up and be counted. It is time to take positive steps toward a better world. It is time to lend a hand to the less fortunate. Just think about how badly these poor souls need the nourishment of honesty and truth. And try to imagine how much more compassionate and rational our world will be when we have eradicated the ignorance and hostility that is emblematic of the righteous-wing of the American political spectrum.

This is a moral crusade and it needs your participation to succeed. I know I can count on you. And as always, thanks for your dedication and benevolence. Your purchases will help News Corpse to continue to bring you the best in media analysis, conservative smackdowns, and political humor and art.

Pope Emeritus Benedict Joins Fox News: ‘Pope Culture’ To Debut In The Fall

For the first time in 600 years there is a living former Pope. However, Pope Emeritus Benedict does not plan to retire quietly to the Vatican’s back porch and tend to gardening and meditation. He has other plans and they are leaking out along with a wisp of white smoke from the chimney atop 1211 Avenue of the Americas.

Fox News insiders report that a deal has been reached to bring Benedict to the Fox News family with a new program to air on Sunday mornings. Tentatively titled “Pope Culture,” sources say that it will premiere this fall and is slated to be a forum for many of the values issues that dominate the dialogue in the media and at dinner tables across America.

Pope Culture

Discussions to draft the papal free agent began shortly after the selection of Pope Francis, Benedict’s successor. Those meetings were helped along by some influential Vatican insiders with media connections. Greg Burke, the current Senior Communications Adviser in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, was previously the Fox News correspondent covering the Vatican, a position he held for ten years. Burke, a member of the ultra-conservative Catholic prelate Opus Dei, left Fox in the summer of 2012 to head up the Vatican’s PR efforts to quell the uproar over a series of embarrassing scandals.

Burke was instrumental in introducing Benedict to Fox CEO Roger Ailes who was immediately intrigued by the prospect of signing a popular figure in the world of religion with international name recognition. Ailes was said to be looking for a new hot property to bolster a stale line-up that was recently roiled by controversy and incompetence. This year he had to jettison or bench familiar Fox faces like Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, and Dick Morris, due to their humiliating failures as commentators and analysts. Since God has anointed Benedict as infallible, Ailes can relax and won’t have to worry about the sort of mistakes that caused his network to suffer historic declines in ratings and credibility.

Sources inside Fox, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the matter, said that contract negotiations included some unique concessions. The show would not be modeled after the other Sunday news programs that feature sometimes raucous debates. Benedict insisted that his program be a more deliberative hour interspersed with inspirational segments and profiles of charitable organizations and volunteer opportunities. The theme of promoting “service” was said to have been brought up repeatedly by Benedict’s representatives. They briefly encountered some resistance at Fox by hardliners who regard such talk as coddling freeloaders who refuse to accept personal responsibility. In the end, Benedict prevailed by agreeing that the type of service that he advocated was of the private variety and not that provided by bloated government agencies. That was enough to win over the Fox holdouts.

Benedict further requested and received assurances that he would have editorial control and would not be subject to either fairness or balance with regard to his topics or guests, a demand Ailes had no problem with since he never took that seriously anyway. There is also a provision for Fox to build a TV studio at Benedict’s residence which, sources say, will be accomplished on the cheap by repossessing the one they built for Sarah Palin at her home in Wasilla, Alaska. As of this writing there is no confirmation of rumors regarding the brown M&Ms.

When Benedict arrives at Fox in the fall he will be joining a roster already heavily weighted with Roman-Catholics, including: Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer, Brian Kilmeade, Andrew Napolitano, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Kucinich, and the in-house priest, Father Jonathan Morris. Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Fox News parent News Corp was himself inducted into the “Knights of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great” by Pope John Paul II.

Pray for Fox NewsSo Benedict ought to feel right at home in the midst of a College of (Media) Cardinals. His prior experience as spokesman for a vast assembly of true believers is the ideal preparation for a career as a Fox minister. Fox viewers exhibit a fierce loyalty that is consistent with the behavior of religious devotees and cults. They voluntarily separate themselves from the heresy of other news sources that might infect their pious souls. They make a point of disassociating with apostates and blasphemers who might divert them from the true path. Cult leaders demand strict obedience, and that is precisely what Fox News gets from their disciples. They even have an adjunct site, Fox Nation [see Fox Nation vs. Reality], that implores its adherents to “Join Us” with the promise that they will never be alone – a promise that is familiar to churchgoers.

Fox Nation - Join

The pairing of Fox and Benedict appears to be almost preordained. They have striking similarities in their principles and agendas. And at the root of their shared mission is the fact that they are both trying to sell stories on faith to ill-informed people who are motivated by fear. This relationship has the potential to be beneficial for everyone involved and is being greeted with unanimous approval from the Fox hierarchy. Oh Happy Day.

Let’s Get Ready To CRUMBLE: Glenn Beck Ducks WWE Challenge

Glenn Beck and professional wrestling. Who could have imagined a collision between these two disparate media phenomenons?

After all, one of them is perhaps the most notorious entertainment spectacle of the last fifty years and involves a highly choreographed production of television broadcasts that purport to be genuine, but are in fact as phony as Bigfoot’s Snake Oil Elixir. Nevertheless, it hooked a surprisingly large audience of gullible viewers starved for over-the-top melodrama and sweaty, wild-eyed brawls.

And the other one is professional wrestling.

Indeed, Glenn Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue and Holy Huckster Sideshow seems like the perfect match up with pro wrestling. They are both so divinely cartoonish and dripping with cheap theatrics that it’s a wonder someone hadn’t thought of it sooner. But Sadly, it’s not to be.

Glenn Beck Wimped Out

After the WWE debuted a couple of characters modeled after Tea Party wackos, Beck bounded into the proverbial ring to slam the sham Teabaggers and the horse they rode in on. That horse, by the way, was the property of two-time Teapublican senate loser, and WWE’s owner, Linda McMahon. Clearly this is not an organization run by Obama functionaries or progressive rabble.

Dimwitted wrestler Jack Swagger and his hillbilly manager Zeb Colter were a pretty accurate representation of the rednecks who mindlessly spew patriotic jargon and blame all their failures on minorities. But Beck wasn’t having it. He declared that he was sick and tired of being miscast and wasn’t about to allow these twits to besmirch the image of his precious Tea Party. With classic WWE bravado Beck taunted his nemeses saying…

“I can take it from a lot of people. I really can. I can’t take it from the stupid wrestling people.”

You can almost imagine him center-ring, yelling that into a microphone hanging from the ceiling. This is the Beck who has called himself a rodeo clown and just last month said that he considers what he does to be “like circus performer art.” Having thrown down the gauntlet, the ball was now in the court of the wrestling duo. So Swagger and Colter struck back inviting Beck to appear on their show and defend the honor (such as it is) of “We the Teaple.” In a video challenge they said…

“You know, Glenn, many of your followers are WWE fans and they understand the difference between reality and entertainment. Are you so out of touch with your own audience, Glenn, or are you just a ‘stupid’ political commentator.”

They were obviously giving Beck’s fans more credit than they deserved with regard to their alleged understanding of reality. But they were also giving Beck a sterling opportunity to address the millions of WWE viewers (10 times more than any audience Beck ever had), and explain why Swagger’s character offended him. But rather than meet his opponents in the ring, Beck pulled the covers up over his head and tweeted that he is “currently booked doing anything else.”

It’s inevitable that big-mouths like Beck reveal themselves to be cowards. But this exceeds all boundaries of wimposity. Beck is trembling before fictional foes. It would be one thing if Beck was afraid to debate Rachel Maddow or Bill Maher, experienced communicators who have obvious intelligence and wit. But to shrink from facing off with a fake adversary on a scripted television farce demonstrates just how paper thin Beck’s veneer of bombast really is.

So F**cking What? Obama’s Clandestine Conspiracy To Go Golfing

With everything going on in the world today, much of the right-wing media has decided to make a federal case of President Obama playing golf with Tiger Woods and not permitting the media to tag along.

Fox News

How dare the White House shut the media out of Obama’s private time with a golf pro. What are they plotting? Is Woods giving the President advice on how to nail porn stars? Is Obama recruiting Woods to run the FEMA golf courses where wealthy conservatives will be incarcerated?

So F**king What?

Fox News White House correspondent Ed Henry bitterly complained that “There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency.” Henry’s devotion to hard-nosed journalism is admirable. He’s just the sort of uncompromising reporter who will expose the next Kardashian scandal.

And while we’re on that subject, Henry’s Fox News colleague, Charles Krauthammer, doesn’t concur with Henry’s assessment of the important principle here. When Krauthammer was asked about this breaking news he said “If the guy wants to play golf, the guy deserves a couple of days off. He wants privacy? Big deal… This is the biggest non-story the media have created since the Kardashian weddings.” The only thing Krauthammer missed was that the media responsible for creating this non-story was the one that pays his salary.

Fox News Accidentally Posts – Then Deletes – Lesbian Wedding Photo

The traditionalists at Fox News, who still think that women should be subservient to the men in their lives, have been publishing a series of articles by contra-feminist Suzanne Venker (niece of Phyllis Schlafly). Her basic premise is that modern women are worse off because of feminists butting in and fighting for trivialities like voting and equal pay and freedom from discrimination and violence. Venker blames feminists for what she believes is the inability of today’s women to land a husband (which is, of course, their sole reason for living).

From the start the articles were ripped apart by saner voices who respect the right of women to fully realize their potential in an equal society. But in the latest chapter, Fox News accompanied the article with a photograph meant to illustrate the joys of traditional marriage. The only problem is that the photo selected by Fox was one of two women celebrating their marriage – that’s right – to each other.

Fox News Lesbians

After a flurry of well-deserved mockery in the press and social media, Fox has now removed the photo of the joyful lesbian couple. Apparently the sight of wedded bliss between members of the same sex was too much for their sheltered audience. However, their choice for a replacement photo is just as worthy of mockery. Instead of a picture portraying the happiness of a loving embrace, they now have a generic symbol of neutered clip art figures safely not touching each other. That is surely an improvement to convey the article’s message of happiness through inequality.

Could Stephen Colbert Join Al Franken To Form A Senate Comic Caucus?

Stephen Colbert - Al FrankenPublic Policy Polling has just released a new survey of South Carolina residents on who they would prefer as the replacement for Sen. Jim DeMint, who is leaving the senate to head the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Among those included in the speculation are long-time state pols like former governor Mark Sanford, his ex-wife Jenny Sanford, congressmen Tim Scott, Joe Wilson, and Trey Gowdy, and GOP official Henry McMaster. All of these folks would be conventional picks for Governor Nikki Haley, whose responsibility it is to appoint DeMint’s successor.

But leading the pack is Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, a South Carolina native and former candidate for President of the United States of South Carolina. According to PPP…

“Colbert tops the wish list of who South Carolina voters would like to see join that body at 20%, followed by Tim Scott at 15%, Trey Gowdy at 14%, Jenny Sanford at 11%, Henry McMaster and Mark Sanford at 8%, Jeff Duncan and Joe Wilson at 5%, and Mick Mulvaney at 4%.”

This could send shock waves through the political world. Colbert has a hefty campaign war chest via his Super PAC that has nearly a million dollars left over from the presidential campaign. He has a devoted following that is nationwide in scope, and a platform for expressing his views on his television show, which gets a bigger audience than Fox News. He has testified before congress on labor issues. He delivered an epic speech before the White House Correspondents He has won two Peabody Awards. However, he also has powerful enemies. Nancy Pelosi launched the Stop Colbert campaign earlier this year:

Yet to be heard from is Minnesota senator Al Franken. The two have a common background and could form a coalition in the senate to advance legislation favorable to political satirists. A “Comic Caucus” in Washington could be a significant counterweight to the other congregation of politi-clowns, the Tea Party.

Neither Colbert nor Gov. Haley have given any indication of their intentions. For Colbert the decision has to include consideration of the fact that a seat in the senate would be a demotion for him. He has far more influence where he is now, although he could earn more money taking kickbacks from lobbyists who would eventually provide him with a multimillion dollar job when he tires of the senate, just as Sen. DeMint has done.

Fake Study Gets It Right: Says Fox News Viewers Have A Lower IQ Than Average Americans

A press release was published this morning on Yahoo! News with a provocative headline declaring that an “Intelligence Institute Study shows Fox News viewers have an IQ that is 20 points lower than the U.S. National average.” The article went on to assert that “Americans who watch Fox News have an average IQ of 80.”

Idiot Fox NewsThe underlying conclusions of this “study” are affirmed by research conducted by a number of reputable organizations including the University of Maryland, NBC/Wall Street Journal, and the Sunlight Foundation. Unfortunately, this study, and the “Intelligence Institute,” appear to be figments of some prankster’s imagination. There is no evidence that the institute exists and the sole source for the Yahoo! item is a press release that contains no verifiable identifying data.

Nevertheless, the perpetrator of this hoax seems to have a solid grasp on the cognitive capacity of Fox News viewers even if no study was conducted to document it. As noted above, plenty of other real studies arrived at the same conclusions. Here are some key “findings” by the imaginary Intelligence Institute:

The results of a 4 year study show that Americans who obtain their news from Fox News channel have an average IQ of 80, which represents a 20 point deficit when compared to the U.S. national average of 100.

One test involved showing subjects a series of images and measuring their vitals, namely pulse rate and blood pressure. The self-identified conservatives’ vitals increased over 35% when shown complex or shocking images. The image that caused the most stress was a poorly edited picture of President Obama standing next to a “ghostly” image of a child holding a tarantula.

Lead researcher, P. Nichols, explains, “Less intelligent animals rely on instinct when confronted by something which they do not understand. This is an ancient survival reaction all animals, including humans, exhibit. It’s a very simple phenomenon, really; think about a dog being afraid of a vacuum cleaner. He doesn’t know what a vacuum is or if it may harm him, so he becomes agitated and barks at it. Less intelligent humans do the same thing. Concepts that are too complex for them to understand, may frighten or anger them.” He continues, “Fox News’ content is presented at an elementary school level and plays directly into the fears of the less educated and less intelligent.”

The allegation that Fox News exploits their audience’s tendency to voraciously consume absurdly spun tales driven by fear has been documented by researchers at the University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (and yes, that’s real). Conservatives regularly demonstrate their proclivity for barking at the outrageous falsehoods proffered by Fox and other conservative fabulists. Among the university’s findings were that the brains of conservatives are more likely to have an enlarged amygdala which is associated with greater inflexibility, emotion, and fear response. This could account for conservatives having a greater susceptibility to conspiracy models of thinking as evidenced by this collection of right-wing crackpottery.

The editors at Yahoo! may have been fooled by this phony press release, but the bigger fools are those who watch and believe the certifiable nonsense that is broadcast every day on Fox News. It is difficult to ascertain whether watching Fox News actually makes the viewer stupid, or if stupid people are attracted to Fox News in the first place. Either way, neither Fox nor their audience should be taken as seriously as Yahoo! took this press release.

[Update:} The Huffington Post contacted the “PR guru” who is responsible for the phony press release. He admits that much of what is in the release is false, but maintains that a study of some sort was actually conducted. I doubt it. The misstatements to which he admits pretty much kill his credibility, and his alternate explanations are no more believable than his original BS. It is nonetheless, pretty funny. And none of the dubious claims from this huckster diminish the bona fide studies cited above.

FoxBlocked: What Becomes Of The Fox News Rejects?

Yesterday the news broke that Karl Rove and Dick Morris were being designated pundit-non-grata, at least temporarily, by Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Apparently even a rabidly biased cable network known as the PR division of the GOP can tire of analysts who rarely get anything right.

Fox Blocked: Rove and Morris

I feel for the poor Fox viewers who are now going to miss out on the monumentally idiotic assessments and predictions by this pair of hacks. With important policy debates on the “fiscal cliff,” new cabinet appointments, immigration, Syria, etc., on the agenda, Fox viewers will be deprived of the insights that have made them so stupefyingly ignorant so long.

But I also wonder what will become of Rove and Morris. Their colleague, Rick Santorum, has already been reduced to joining WorldNetDaily, (aka Birther Central) as a columnist. Neither Rove nor Morris has commented publicly on the curb-stomping they just suffered. But I can’t help but feel that the worst part of this humiliation is that while Ailes dismissed them, he kept Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. How do they console themselves knowing that their commentaries were deemed unsuitable going forward, but Palin’s word salad jumbles, and Trump’s ego-soaked dementia, will continue to get broadcast? OUCH!

No doubt Rove will find a way to self-finance his media presence with funds misappropriated from his Super PAC. And Morris is still posting his vodcasts on his own web site for the willfully dumb and the aficionados of toe-sucking. But somehow, it just won’t be the same without their access to the vast audience of glassy-eyed Fox disciples (which is actually only about 1% of the population). At least we’ll still have Palin and Trump, and Limbaugh and Nugent and Hannity and, maybe, if we’re really, really good, Fox will hire Allen West and give us all something to brighten our holiday.

Glenn Beck Dunks American Flag (And Obama) In “Urine”

This may be one of the most asinine stunts Glenn Beck has ever engaged in. Apparently he was mocking an art exhibit that featured a painting of President Obama with his arms outstretched and a wearing a crown of thorns. That’s not a particularly original concept as I did a similar work years ago featuring Beck:

Glenn Beck Messiah

When I did my artwork portraying Beck as a Messianic figure it was in response to Beck’s own behavior and his wailing about being the subject of attacks. He wept and hollered and whined that he was being persecuted. Obama has never done any of those things.

Beck’s lame attempt at satirizing Serrano’s “Piss Christ” was really just a big waste of time – which makes it no different than anything else Beck does. On this occasion he dropped a toy Obama doll into what he said was a jar of his own urine. Beck asserted that he was only defending the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of expression, but there was really nothing of substance that he had to say about either the artwork or the Constitution. He just seemed to be getting an excessive amount of personal pleasure from his childish prank that was really nothing more than a desperate attempt to get publicity.

Glenn Beck Urine

The pretend artwork that Beck introduced in his pretend French accent was placed up for auction on eBay and generated bids in excess of $11,000 before eBay removed it. That says something about what his followers find valuable. What he seemed to have missed entirely, however, was that he was also submerging an American flag in the jar of pee. How patriotic of him.

And there was more craziness emanating from Beck yesterday. He delivered a sermon about his search for a plan to save the world. It was a disturbing display of a psychosis that should be troubling to anyone concerned about his mental health. In the course of the sermon he lamented that God was trying to tell him what he should do, but there was just so much that he was overwhelmed.

How can one guy with a video blog reform politics, culture, the economy, education, family, media, and the faith of a nation? Beck looked into the camera and lamented that he had no idea of how to do all of this – yet. But he was getting close to figuring it out. And he had diagrammed his draft of the solution on a giant chalkboard. But it looked like the scribblings of someone in the midst of a schizophrenic seizure, or peaking on LSD, or both.

Glenn Beck Chalk Wall

Seriously, this dude needs help. It’s really too bad that the people in his life are too dependent on his cash generation to intervene and get him into therapy. When he goes off it is going to be messy.

Right-Wing Blames God For Romney Loss And America’s Descent Into Socialism

The Republican Party has been suffering debilitating and very public seizures produced by the results of the election a couple of weeks ago. They are desperately attempting to find explanations for how they could have lost on such a grand scale an election they presumed was in the bag. After spending unprecedented amounts of money, Republicans still had to wake up Wednesday morning with Obama returning to the White House for another four years, two more Democrats in the senate, and nine more in the House. Even with the propaganda power of Fox News, the top rated cable news network, and its frothing companion web site Fox Nation, conservative fanatics were unable deceive enough citizens to vote against their own best interests.

At first the excuses focused on typically lame dodges involving the weaknesses of their candidates. Then they shifted to assertions that it was a failure from not being sufficiently conservative. Eventually they trotted out accusations directed at the allegedly negative, Chicago-style campaigning of the Democrats. And sprinkled in amidst all of this were hysterical wails of imaginary corruption and voter fraud.

Now that some time has passed, the forlorn right-wingers have been able to reflect on these events and discovered the true source of their despair: GOD!

That’s right. The Heavenly Father on whom they had entrusted so much of their hopes had betrayed them. It has become impossible to ignore that God clearly preferred Obama and other Democrats to the roster of GOP loonies that pretended to speak in His name.

Prior to the election, folks like Pat Robertson had confidently declared that God had personally assured them of a Republican victory. Now Robertson has had to backtrack saying that “I thought I heard from God, I thought I had heard clearly from God, what happened?” What happened was that you were unable to distinguish the voice of God from the hallucinatory voices rattling around in your senile head.

And speaking of hallucinatory, Glenn Beck had his own divine prophesies mangled when he spoke of an inner certainty that the Lord was preparing the path for righteous Republicans to prevail:

“I am to the point to where I think that God is trying to make this so clear to us that if it happens, it’s his finger. Because, boy, nothing looks good. And yet, everybody I know who I consider a spiritual giant feels good.”

Glenn Beck Messiah

The day after the election Beck was singing a different hymn when he said “Man, sometimes God really sucks.” But what else can he say when the day before he declared “If [voters are] so dead inside that they can no longer see the difference between good and evil, we have to be destroyed.”

That’s typical of the sanctimonious zealots who believe that they are the only ones with a direct line to God. They exalt themselves and their imagined favor with a deity that their principles mock. They blithely ignore biblical instructions to “judge not, lest ye be judged,” and openly denigrate the faith of others – particularly President Obama, who is wrongly believed to be a Muslim by about one-third of Republicans.

Right-wingers on the Fox News community web site Fox Nation even go so far as to explicitly state that Obama is “God-Less.” This article linked to the execrable conspiracy obsessed Breitbart News.

Fox Nation

The spiritual consternation of the right is thoroughly understandable. They had just run a campaign that fervently tried to paint Democrats as socialists bent on imposing a secular, atheist dictatorship on America. They condemned their policies as big-government takeovers that would throw freedom-loving patriots into bondage. They cast Democrats as leaning far too extremely to the left to be acceptable to voters. Yet people voted for them anyway. That could be interpreted in some circles as a mandate for the sort of socialism that the GOP was running against.

What the right missed was that all of the left-leaning agenda of the Democratic Party had far more in common with God’s agenda than the rank selfishness and greed of the GOP. Democrats advocated for health care (healing the sick), immigration (brotherhood), financial assistance (caring for the least among us), income equality and separation of church and state (giving Caesar his due), and deescalation of hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan (blessed be the peacemakers). What’s surprising is that Republicans could oppose all of these things and still think they were doing God’s work.

The funny thing is that they had plenty of signs. The religious right is fond of ascribing meaning to significant events such as natural disasters. Many of them told their disciples that Katrina was God’s wrath on the sinfulness of New Orleans. Why, then, did they not see that God was sending them a warning when Hurricane Isaac slammed down on Tampa, scuttling day one of the GOP convention? Why didn’t they hear God’s message when Sandy battered the New England states just days before the election, giving Obama an opportunity to look presidential?

Now that we know whose side God was really on, Republicans are expressing their bitterness and disappointment with the Lord. That doesn’t seem like a particularly good way to get back in His good graces. But then the GOP was never very good at humility or admitting their mistakes. So what we see now is an escalation of apocalyptic doomsday scenarios that thrust the weak-minded into fearful panics. Leading the way is Fox News who broadcast this cheerful special on Thanksgiving Eve: “Countdown to Doomsday.”

Fox News Doomsday

They might make out better if they take some time to study the teachings of their Savior and seek to integrate them into their political philosophy. But then that would just make them liberals, wouldn’t it?