"What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight. That's what they ought to pray."
-Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), offering up what was widely interpreted as a plea to the Almighty that He prevent ailing nonagenarian Robert Byrd (D-WV) from being the 60th Senator to vote 'aye' for health care reform early this morning. It's funny; the decade began with Trent Lott (R-MS) hoping that lightning would strike Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to keep her from taking her seat in the Senate. It's nice to see that these guys still believe in the power of prayer, in spite of everything.
Monday, December 21, 2009
24
Yes, apparently he is.As are you? "Actually, the line was crossed long ago, during the summer of death panels and socialists."
I have given up on that one. History will vindicate me.
Why did that Politico piece serve up multiple link-ads for "killer white teeth"? Is Sanford particularly smiley?
I got ads for portion control Coke and one of Ford's hybrid cars. I like the ghost in this machine!
I got Am Ex and abstract Bordeaux ... but my suggested Amazon PayPhrase is "Rachel's Demeaning Lecture," so I don't know what the hell I should think about my web lifestyle, and the ads I attract.
@garge: My suggested Amazon PayPhrase was "Up yours whitey". I accepted the suggestion.
He's just sore because he couldn't push through the amendment banning Burn Units in Hell.
If you assassinate or disable a Democratic Senator today, can you use "Doing the Lord's Work" as a defense?
Ah, the "Gillooly defense."
Only if you're carrying a copy of 'Catcher in the Rye.'
You had to remind us about the existence of Trent Lott?
I quite liked Sen. Byrd's little fist-pump after he said "Aye!" But he still has to make it to at least Wednesday afternoon, I guess, for final cloture vote. So take good care, Sen. Byrd.
I came to say this, exactly. Aye--
This is all too reminiscent of Pat Robertson's prayer campaign back in late-'04 to plea that the almighty bring about the untimely death of a liberal justice so Bush could get to doing God's work: "Would you join with me and many others in crying out to our Lord to change the Court? One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer, and another has a heart condition."
also, quite reminiscent of bob dylan's 1963 prayer campaign for an entirely different reason:
"...
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'."
I've prayed to God to kill people I didn't like many times, and He never came through. This is why I'm now an atheist.
I know I always end my prayers with "prove it." Maybe you just needed to work on your delivery?
Why don't these people just move to Heaven and leave us the hell alone?
Maybe we could market an Autorapture kit?
What I am actually going to pray for is the following: every single Republican Senator and Representative votes against this bill. Then, when it becomes as iconic and permanent as Social Security and Medicare, the Republican Party can be hounded into obscurity and irrelevance as the party that tried to kill it. Please, Lord? Please?
This guy effectively put out a hit on a nonagenarian three days before the birth of his Saviour? Not very Christian, I'm thinking.
Hey, that's Doctor Coburn to you.
Obviously God only listens to the prayers of those who erect gaudy strip-malls of worship in his name and collect hundreds of thousands of dollars from the less fortunate to deposit in an offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands in His name.
The repeated pleas like this one, and the mantra to love the sinner, but hate the sin: these are little reminders of the violence that moves, a lethal undercurrent, in the minds of so many ordinary, good religious folk.