Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Well, I waited and I waited but I didn't see any mention in the TV coverage of the recent death of the Rev. Billy Graham about his nasty streak of anti-Semitism. Print media, yes, but not on TV. In his life, Graham talked a good game about support for Israel just as many in the far right do, but that was just his contrived public persona. His real feelings came out in the Nixon tapes. I even thought (tongue in cheek) that maybe some of the more notorious rightwing media might have pointed to Graham's anti-Semitsm as a positive or endearing aspect of who the man was. Anyway, put in this context, it didn't surprise me at all that when I turned on my TV Wednesday morning, there was our neo-Nazi president extolling the "virtues" of the great charlatan on way too many channels. Man, they sure do have some sort of mutual admiration club for these assclowns, don't they?

I do give Graham some credit. Unlike his idiot son, Franklin, he built himself out of nothing. He was a throwback, 19th century patent medicine salesman who started in the streets. He worked his con in the 20th century and made it into the 21st. He built a business based on thin air and got so much respect that he could worm his way into the oval offices of several presidents. His patent medicine was the elixir of eternal life delivered in the usual wrappings of "If you let us screw you in this life, you'll be rewarded in the next with an all expenses paid stay in God's own glorious pearly-gated community." It's been done before and it will, for sure, be done again. Graham was a P.T. Barnum of Jesus and he mastered the nexus of money, power, and a misplaced need to believe in something. Graham was so successful and popular with the American public that politicians of all stripes wanted to suck up to him for some of his vote magic. It's all pretty perverse if you think about it.

It seems that only President Truman, naturally, was inclined to look at Billy Graham and call BS when, in 1950, Graham held a prayer meeting on the White House lawn that Truman saw as nothing more than a publicity stunt to promote Bill Graham, not Christianity. Truman's word for Graham was "counterfeit." More tellingly about Graham's character, he spoke at the inauguration of Richard Nixon, saying:

We recognize, O Lord, that in thy sovereignty thou has permitted Richard Nixon to lead us at this momentous moment of our history.

Yeah. Right. God chose Tricky Dick Nixon to be our leader. He even urged Nixon to pursue a strategy of bombing dykes in Vietnam, a strategy that would have drowned and starved up to 1,000,000 Vietnamese. Swell guy. I suppose Graham's god loves genocide.

To Graham and his followers, of course, God chose a virulent anti-Semite and racist crazy man to lead us. This is not unlike the same crap his son and others say about the current goon in the oval office. Burn In Hell, Bill Graham. There'll be no R.I.P. coming form me, but at least I can thank you, Billy, for dying on my birthday. That was an extra special present. B.I.H.