One of the writing sites I go to (zoetrope.com) has private offices for members. One of these is a place to discuss politics. Someone posted this yesterday:

"Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, California, has been asking his followers to pray for Barack Obama’s death and was given the chance to discuss this with Alan Colmes:

Colmes: …you then said, I asked for whom else are you praying in that fashion and you said President Obama. Are you praying for his death?

Drake: Yes.

Colmes: So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?

Drake: Yes. Are you concerned that by saying that you might find yourself on some secret service call or FBI most wanted list. Do you think it’s appropriate to say something like that or even pray for something like that?

Drake: I think it’s appropriate to pray for the will of God. I’m not saying anything, what I’m doing is repeating what God is saying, if that puts me on somebodies list then I’ll just have to be on their list.

Colmes: You would like for the president of the United States to die?

Drake: If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around I am asking God to enforce in imprecatory prayers throughout the scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct."

My first reaction: this must be from The Onion. No, it appears that this is legit, with an actual pastor. (Fox News, incidentally, does not appear to have reported this.)

I probably loath Bush and Cheney as much as some people loathe Obama. I never considered praying for his death. Aside from the fact I am skeptical about the efficacy of prayer, it seems inappropriate. (A terribly middle-class, rather pretentious word but neither I nor Colmes thought of a better one. Weird? Presumptuous? Daft?) If I did believe in the efficacy of prayer, I might pray that Bush and Cheney go to jail for assorted malfeasances but not death.

A fairly small number of Americans seem to find Obama's presidency inherently illegitimate. They seem to think that an African-American liberal Democrat has no right to occupy the White House.

Is it simply racism? There are white supremacists around. There are also litmus test voters: no matter what other positions  candidates take, if they don't damn homosexuality and support banning abortions, they won't vote for them. I don't think Bush Jr. is a racist and I don't think McCain or Cheney are fundamentalist Christians that see homosexuality or abortion as evil. I do think their political campaigns relied on appeals to nationalism and fundamentalist Christianity. A dangerous kind of campaign: Sinclair Lewis said, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."

During the election campaigning, Obama criticized national and international policies of the Bush Government. This is what candidates do when trying to replace one political party and one set of policies with another. But Obama (and his wife) were not simply told they were wrong - they were criticized as "unpatriotic."

Apparently, either you support Imperial America, militarily the most powerful country in the world, imposing its agenda on the rest of the world or you are unpatriotic. Torture, bombing civilians, suspending civil rights in the U.S. itself, are acceptable if you are acting in what you identify as the interests of the United States. Any opposition to these policies is "unpatriotic".

The race card wasn't played, but 'culture' was used as a substitute. Obama was portrayed as an elitist, probably a Muslim, UnAmerican. The implications of the campaign were not simply that Obama would be a bad president but that he had no right to be president at all.

That kind of rhetoric leaves a residue: a pastor praying for the death of the president of his country is part of it.