THEY JUST MAKE UP RULES ON THE SPOT

I keep thinking about an AP story that ran a few days ago. It was about a Nikki Haley attack on President Biden. I'm pleased to say that Haley didn't get most of the media to take this phony attack seriously, but she did get some response from mainstream journalists:

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley took aim Monday night at the Democrat she’d like to face in the November election, calling it “offensive” that President Joe Biden gave “a political speech” at the South Carolina church where nine Black parishioners were slain in a 2015 racist attack.

“For Biden to show up there and give a political speech, it’s offensive in itself,” the former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor said during a town hall on Fox News in Des Moines, Iowa.

I agree that if we took separation of chuch and state as seriously as we should, this wouldn't happen. In reality, we tolerate political speeches in churches as long as the preacher or the church doesn't overtly endorse the candidate. Democrats make speeches at (mostly Black) churches. Republicans make speeches at (mostly white evangelical) churches. Haley knows this. She knows that this is a long-standing tradition in America, for better or worse. But on Monday she hoped her audience didn't.

That's a typical Republican trick: make up a rule and then accuse Democrats of violating it. Mitch McConnell did that in 2016 when he said Supreme Court nominees aren't supposed to get hearings or a vote in the final year of a president's term. Politically engaged Americans knew he was just making this up. But the rest of the country didn't, and he got away with it.

One A-list mainstream journalist rose to the bait:

This is not the purpose of the church.

This is not what a sanctuary is "set apart" for.

This is wrong—no matter the tradition, no matter the denomination, no matter the partisan flavor.

My standard will remain the same: Stop using the bride of Christ as a political prop. https://t.co/vvNSKWCobP

— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) January 8, 2024

Yes, Tim, you're right -- but do you complain this way every time a politician makes a campaign speech in a church?

We know Haley doesn't. Here's an October 2023 speech that didn't inspire outrage on her part:

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in a Monday speech from Chicago warned that the radical left is spreading a “sinister” agenda meant to deny the progress the nation has made in addressing racism.

Scott, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination and is the only Black GOP senator, spoke from New Beginnings Church on the South Side of Chicago. In a lengthy address that touched on unemployment and crime, Scott blamed a progressive movement for exploiting race and class as a way to benefit their leaders.

Here's another one, from earlier in the year, that didn't upset Haley:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his first trip to South Carolina in the Upstate, a conservative, evangelical proving ground....

Appearing at the First North Baptist Church on Apr. 19, DeSantis spoke little of religion as he focused on his “Florida Blueprint” and largely rallied the crowd around hot-button social issues.

DeSantis ... was introduced by the church’s senior pastor Mike Hamlet, who led the congregation in a prayer before DeSantis took the dais and focused on what he touted as his success governing Florida.

DeSantis spent the last ten minutes of his 30-minute speech railing against the woke “mind virus,” diversity, education and inclusion programs in universities, critical race theory and gender education in public schools.

And here's another from October:

In a speech that could have passed for a sermon on unity, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie addressed Sunday worshipers at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Beaufort [South Carolina].

“If you’re looking for the perfect candidate, stop looking,” the Republican presidential candidate said from the front of the historic church, established in 1867. “If you are looking for the perfect person to be your president, you can move on from me.”

But does Haley herself mix politics and religion? Maybe not in church, but yes, she does. Remember this?

A rally kicking off former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential campaign opened Wednesday with an invocation from a Christian pastor – a practice not unusual for a GOP political event.

What was notable, however, was Haley’s choice of pastor: John Hagee, a high-profile televangelist and founder of a Christian Zionist group, and a political activist who has made headlines for a number of controversial remarks, including those considered anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic....

Hagee’s appearance at the rally is the latest in a long history of political involvement, stretching back to his endorsement of segregationist George Wallace in 1968.

Hagee endorsed Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, but McCain publicly renounced the endorsement after a previous sermon of Hagee’s came to light in which Hagee appeared to assert that Adolf Hitler was half-Jewish and was sent by God to drive Jews to Israel. Hagee suggested that it was Jews’ “disobedience” of God that “gave rise” to their persecution.

Hagee has also suggested that Hilter’s Catholic background contributed to his anti-Seminitism and appeared to refer to the Roman Catholic Church as the "apostate church" and the "great whore,” among other anti-Catholic remarks....

He has also been criticized for anti-Islam remarks.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, ... Hagee sparked controversy again by asserting that the storm was “the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans” for its sins, including a gay pride parade planned for the time the storm hit....

Hagee has also suggested that the antichrist will be gay and created the “blood moon prophecy” suggesting that a series of lunar events beginning in 2014 were the start of the end times as described in the Bible.

Haley is apparently fine with all this.

In 2018, when Haley was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Haley spoke to Hagee’s group, Christians United for Israel, at its annual summit, and Hagee presented her with an award. In 2021, they visited Israel in the same group.

In that Fox News town hall, Haley -- who recently refused to say that the cause of the Civil War was slavery, until she was forced to acknowledge this fact under public pressure -- also attacked President Biden from the left on race:

“I don’t need someone who palled around with segregationists in the ‘70s and has said racist comments all the way through his career lecturing me or anyone in South Carolina about what it means to have racism, slavery, or anything related to the Civil War.”

Biden has openly acknowledged that in his early days in the Senate he befriended a number of segregationists; he's also said that he believes these men softened their views over time. One of those segregationists Biden cites is Strom Thurmond, who, like Haley, once served as governor of South Carolina. Haley is Clemson University's best-known living alum -- so why has she never criticized her alma mater for being the site of the Strom Thurmond Institute, where one of the segregationist senators she finds so distasteful left his papers? Why did she tease a presidential run in a 2022 appearance at a Turning Point USA forum held in the Strom Thurmond Institute's auditorium?

Haley isn't a monster like Donald Trump, so she's widely regarded as a good person. She isn't a good person. She's just another Republican attack dog and hypocrite.