President Obama, remarking at a recent prayer breakfast that Western Civilization, and Christianity in particular, has had some flaws, has once more unleashed the floodgates of right-wing outrage upon himself. Among the most ardent defenders of most things Christian is Jonah Goldberg, who explains, and explains away, “the Inquisition” by noting that an inquisition is really just an investigation, that’s all:
[I]t needs to be clarified that there was no single “Inquisition,” but many. And most were not particularly nefarious. For centuries, whenever the Catholic Church launched an inquiry or investigation, it mounted an “inquisition,” which means pretty much the same thing.
Right. They were just inquiring, that’s all, inquiring and interrogating, sometimes in an enhanced manner. Which just shows how much they cared about the truth! Though even Jonah admits that some inquisitions were not so good, like the Spanish one, but, well, c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?
Unfortunately for Jonah, simply embracing the Inquisition (or, rather, the “investigations”) and the Crusades, which were totally like self-defense, still isn’t good enough for some people. As the New York Times reports, there was another speaker at that self-same prayer breakfast where Obama uttered his blasphemies, NASCAR driver Darrell Waltrip,who remarked on the fate of those who fail to embrace Jesus Christ as their savior: “If you’ve never gotten on your knees and asked Him to forgive you of your sins, you’re just a pretty good guy or a pretty good gal? You’re going to go to Hell.” Sorry, Jonah! Buh-bye!
Afterwords
Hat tip to Bill Saletan at Slate for pulling most of this right-wing nonsense together in one place, where its hypocrisy can be savored in full.
