Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Mixing politics and religion has almost always meant trouble. It ultimately failed for the Rev. Jerry Falwell not because of his vision, which meshed well with the Reagan era, but because of his prickly and combative manner, a manner all too well suited for television, which with that stern basso profundo led to the understandable notion that anything that came out of his mouth was -- to use that awful double entendre -- judgmental, when on the basis of so much he said in recent years he seldom showed good judgment. His chief difference with, say, Billy Graham was a political forthrightness, and a freedom from sucking up, but that hardly made him more palatable. He'll always be remembered for that journey down the waterslide -- and that points to another failure: he took over the PTL Club in an epic power struggle after Jim Bakker's moral turpitude, and pointed fingers and bellowed and allowed it to slide into bankruptcy. Today despite the rehabitation of its buildings its once headquarters is a veritable ghost town, its water park long demolished. That the evangelical movement of the eighties is a shambles now is because in many ways it was a ghost town too.

Now news hacks, try to hold your glee!

P. S. at 5:25 p. m. The Corner hasn't said anything, and the reaction of con-SER-va-tives has been somewhat muted.

P. P. S. on 5/16 at 9:30 a.m.: NRO did run a few squibs before my P. S., so I was wrong; I still submit, however, the reaction of many con-SER-va-tives was (understandably) muted.