Yes, Mike Huckabee has won the support of Tim LaHaye, the Religious-Right propagandist, and he spoke in LaHaye’s church Sunday. And yes, he already had the endorsement of Wiley Drake, the California Baptist pastor who publicly prays for the death of those who disagree with him. But not all the religious undesirables are backing Huckabee. Give him that.
Right-wing preachers don’t come bigger and meaner than Pat Robertson — not since Jerry Falwell died anyway — and Robertson endorsed the cross-dressing and adulterous Rudy Giuliani over Huckabee. Robertson’s been pretty quiet since his endorsement proved no help.
John Hagee endorsed John McCain last week. Hagee is a Texas televangelist who preaches that God sends hurricanes to cities that tolerate homosexuals, that all Muslims are programmed to kill, and that the U.S. must wage war on Iran, among other unconventional notions. (While channel-surfing, we’d glimpsed an angry fat man preaching this sort of thing, but we hadn’t known his name until the media coverage of the McCain endorsement.)
We’ve not heard from the Baptist mega-church in Northwest Arkansas that supported Bush in 2004 and whose minister openly mocked war hero John Kerry for his patriotism. Fellow Arkansan and fellow non-veteran Huckabee would seem a natural choice, but the church is now generally recognized as an arm of the Republican Party, so it may be waiting until the Republican nominee is officially chosen before issuing an endorsement. That it didn’t rush to Huckabee’s side immediately is a star in Huckabee’s crown. He needs more.
Commissions on roll
We can go a long time without praising a commission, but two have distinguished themselves lately. The brave work done by the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission in denying permission for an inflammatory anti-abortion monument inside the Capitol has already been noted. And now the equally brave Athletic Commission has chosen to obey the law rather than Sen. Gene Jeffress. That sounds like an easy choice, but it’s not. State senators can be vengeful, and agencies that disobey them can suffer. Nonetheless, the commission divided a $100,000 appropriation among all 33 Girls and Boys Clubs in the state. Jeffress, who’d sponsored the appropriation bill, said he’d intended that the money go only to the two clubs in his South Arkansas district, notwithstanding that the Arkansas Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional such use of state funds for legislators’ private projects. The Athletic Commission plays by the rules; Senator Jeffress tries not to. We can’t say that cheaters never win — not after what happened in the 2000 presidential election — but in this case they didn’t.