In all sincerity, I really want to know what someone has to do in American politics to become a pariah. What does it take before a political figure is so disgraced, he or she is no longer welcome in polite society?
By any reasonable standard, Jerry Falwell should have been spurned by the mainstream years ago. Virtually every line of decency that America values has been crossed, repeatedly, by Falwell.
And yet, there he was yesterday, on CNN’s Crossfire — not as a guest representing the loony fringe, but as a host. This is what the “liberal” media has come to. A disgraced and despicable televangelist is invited by the premier cable news network to co-host its daily debate show. Atrios asked yesterday how low we can go. The answer, I’m afraid, is not much lower than this.
Is CNN’s institutional memory that bad? Has the network already forgotten Falwell’s loathsome history?
* Just 48 hours after the attacks of 9/11, while most of us were putting aside our differences and rescue crews were still searching for survivors, Falwell lashed out at Americans — whom he held responsible for the acts of terrorism.
* Falwell has been busted for illegally funneling money from a tax-exempt ministry to a political action committee to benefit Republican candidates.
* At a Southern Baptist Convention gathering several years ago, Falwell said, “I do not believe that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.”
* Falwell’s anti-gay hatred knows no bounds. At one point, Falwell called the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches “brute beasts” and “a vile and Satanic system” that will “one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven.”
* Falwell’s anti-Clinton hatred knows no bounds. The man used his “Old Time Gospel Hour” to hawk a scurrilous video called “The Clinton Chronicles” that made a number of ridiculous charges against Clinton — among them that he is a drug addict and that he arranged the murders of political enemies in Arkansas. Despite claims he had no ties to the project, evidence surfaced that Falwell helped bankroll the venture with $200,000 paid to a group called Citizens for Honest Government (CHG). CHG’s Pat Matrisciana later admitted that Falwell and he staged an infomercial interview promoting the video in which a silhouetted reporter said his life was in danger for investigating Clinton. (Matrisciana himself posed as the reporter.) “That was Jerry’s idea to do that,” Matrisciana recalled. “He thought that would be dramatic.”
* Falwell became an international laughing stock in 1999 by using one of his publications to issue a “parents alert” warning that Tinky Winky, a character on the popular PBS children’s show “Teletubbies,” might be gay and part of the “homosexual agenda.”
And when CNN needs a co-host for a popular political program, they turn to this clown. There’s no excuse; CNN should be ashamed.
For what’s it’s worth, Falwell may have ruined his chances of coming back. During the program, James Carville question Falwell’s assertion that the war in Iraq was going well. Falwell responded:
“I think it is going well. You know, CNN does not always get it right, but [the war] goes pretty well if you watch it on Fox.”
What a classy guy. Invited to co-host a program on CNN, Falwell decided to get in a quick plug for the right-wing news network he prefers.
Given the fact that the network invited a crazed TV preacher to co-host the program, I’d say CNN had it coming.