AND AFTER SAYING SHE'D BE SHOT AT THE STATE LINE, HE PROBABLY WENT BACK TO WRITING A SERMON

Another True Patriot speaks:

An Arkansas Republican party official is using colorful language to warn Hillary Clinton about her future political prospects in her adopted home state.

Asked how Clinton would fare in Arkansas if she pursued the presidency in 2016, 2nd Congressional District chairman Johnny Rhoda told U.S. News, "She'd probably get shot at the state line."

When a reporter noted that Clinton undoubtedly enjoys a measurable amount of support in a state where her husband served as governor, Rhoda replied, "Nobody has any affection for her. The majority don't."

This charming fellow isn't just a local GOP chairman -- he's also the pastor and founder of the World and Faith Christian Church in (yes) Clinton, Arkansas. The church's website is here.



I'm not sure services still take place in the same building Ernest Dumas wrote about in this 2010 Arkansas Times story:

The church happens to be in Rhoda's home on a county road north of Clinton. Such were his business successes that the local bank foreclosed on his home/church because he had not made mortgage payments. The home/church was auctioned by the county clerk in July but Rhoda still holds services there. (He will also ordain you as a minister, for a small fee presumably, if you answer 25 questions about the Bible on his spiritual website.)

That offer doesn't appear on the site now, although Dumas tells us that Pastor Rhoda is quite a believer in cash-and-carry credentials:

What are the chances that a little town of 2,300 would produce two scholars with Ph.D.s from a university in the Islamic kingdom of the United Arab Emirates?

That's exactly what we learned last week. Clinton, county seat of Van Buren County, boasts two residents with Ph.D.s from Belford University: Dr. Johnny Rhoda, a financial planner, preacher and prominent Republican Party leader, and Dr. Maxwell Sniffingwell, a stud English bulldog who lives with a local veterinarian.

Dr. Rhoda's doctorate is in business administration; Dr. Sniffingwell's is in theriogenology, a big name for the study of animal reproduction. You see, Belford University confers hundreds of degrees every year, not on the basis of coursework but of life experiences. Max Sniffingwell maintains that he has sired far more than his share of little bulldogs....

Belford University's sole presence in the United States, as far as anyone knows, is a postoffice box in Humble, Texas. You apply for a degree on the Internet by clicking on a box that says "Order Now." You pay a fee, depending on the degree you want and whether you want to graduate with honors, which costs an extra $75. The diploma is mailed within a week from a place where it is legal, Abu Dhabi.

Belford U. got extra notoriety this week when Dr. Ben Mays, a Clinton veterinarian, posted his bulldog Maxwell Sniffingwell's 2009 Ph.D. from Belford U., which cost him $549. Max's owner, a member of the state Board of Education, is on a small crusade to stop people from duping clients by advertising phony academic achievements. Arkansas is one of the places where it is still legal to gull clients that way....

And the one non-canine gull-ee in Clinton, Arkansas, is the upstanding citizen who made that statement about Hillary (which, predictably, he now says was "taken way out of context").

(Belford University even sells medical degrees, by the way -- this 2009 ABC story talks about a New Jersey woman who got one for her "life experiences" for $1400.)

As for the threat, it's nothing new for the Clintons, who went through this twenty years ago:

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) set off a bipartisan tempest Tuesday by warning that President Clinton had "better watch out" for his safety if he travels to military bases in North Carolina....

In an interview published Tuesday morning in the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer, the 73-year-old conservative asserted that Clinton is extremely unpopular among armed forces personnel stationed at the six military bases in his home state.

"Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here," the newspaper quoted Helms as saying. "He'd better have a bodyguard."

Pastor Rhoda didn't really apologize today, and that's just like old times for the Clintons, too, because Jesse Helms wasn't particularly abashed back in '94:

After GOP leaders delicately distanced themselves from Helms' provocative remarks and Democrats loudly demanded an apology, the fiercely combative lawmaker, who is in line to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, conceded that his comments had been "a mistake."

But he stopped well short of a genuine apology. "Of course, I didn't expect to be taken literally," he said in a prepared statement.

Oh, I'm sure.