Oh shit a giant eagle has eaten one of the WTC towers...
In yet another example of why it's always a good idea to carefully consider the logical implications of your metaphors, fundagelical loonytunes Gary Bauer -- the onetime head of the Family Research Council and failed 2000 presidential candidate who now leads something called "American Values" -- closed his speech to the Values Voters Summit Friday with a clumsy attempt to connect this fall's presidential election with the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It ended up not making a hell of a lot of sense, of course:
Based on a deeply deranged essay -- or at least its first paragraph -- published at the Claremont Institute, Bauer's speech was meant to be a stirring call to remember the heroism of the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93, and to bring that courage to the act of casting a vote:
This country is the equivalent of that hijacked plane right now. We're headin' to a disaster unless we can get control of the cockpit again and then maybe, just maybe, we'll have a chance. [...]There was a guy on the plane named Todd Beamer, a Christian guy, a graduate of Wheaton University [sic]. He supposedly yelled "Let's roll!" And they ran down the aisle into the teeth of men armed with box cutters. Can you imagine? They overwhelmed those men, but they still weren't able to land the plane. But they took the only shot they had!
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a Flight 93 election. This may be our last shot. It's time to roll. It's time to run down the aisle and save Western civilization!
So as far as we can tell, Barack Obama has hijacked America with two box cutters, by being elected President in free and fair elections (or so he'd have us believe), and now his fellow terrorist Hillary Clinton is bent on crashing the entire nation into its own Capitol building. In order to keep that from happening, it's the duty of all good Christians to seize control of the nation back, using whatever improvised weapons they can find -- like voting for some crazy person who isn't really much of a presidential candidate. This might allow the Christians to guide the plane in for a safe landing in Jesusmerica. But if electing Donald Trump ends up cratering America upside down at terminal velocity into a field in Pennsylvania, that's still a better outcome than letting Hillary Clinton become president, which would also kill America dead.
Hmmm. OK, actually, that sums up Republicans' electoral strategy this year pretty well after all. As you were, Mr. Bauer.
