Where there's a Will, there's a way

The fact that Fox State Television is shameless propaganda is old news but they have a video on their website where Father Michael Pfleger suggests Fox would have acted as the pharisees by constantly replaying quotes from Jesus out of context to make him seem crazy and hateful. The video is the sort of thing that most people will see as a powerful blow against Fox's spin but Fox viewers will probably come away thinking Father Pfleger is insane. I guess O'Reilly has been playing parts of the video out of context on his show.

After one of the interviewer's many "but, but, but" objections Pfleger points out that Rev. Wright's statement about the chickens coming home to roost on 9/11 is an old idea said by many others including Martin Luther King. I haven't heard that part of Wright's sermon but I do recognize the sentiment. I think its pretty obvious that when a nation spends decades supporting violence, propping up brutal dictators and economically exploiting poor countries around the world that sooner or later somebody is going to strike back. Duh.

Pfleger saying that's an old argument reminded me that its at least 150 years old. In Lincoln's second inaugural address he quotes the same Biblical passage that Pfleger referred to in the video.

The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

That's the eloquent way of saying that during the Civil War the chickens came home to roost. I suppose if Fox News had been around then they would have played part of this speech out of context 20 times a day and accused Lincoln of hating America because he thought we deserved all the death and suffering of the war. Enter the spin zone.

Fox viewers might also want to reflect on the fact that Lincoln thought it foolish to presume that God is on our side in any war. The Republican Party of today is a far cry from its roots.