Cheney Speaks, Jesus Pukes:
Now, the Rude Pundit ain't no Jesus worshipper unless it's a little Lord on a small cross dangling between the tits of a sneering lassie pumping the casks behind the bar at the Dice in Dublin. Then, oh, praise his name, how the Rude Pundit wanted to kiss Christ's feet and offer thanks be to God for his offerings. But even the Rude Pundit knows when the rank hypocrisy of those who would name themselves "Christian" is so overt that not only does Jesus weep, he vomits copious, hummus-filled puke onto those who would invoke his name for such purposes. And then he shits on their heads because, well, even up on a cross, nails in his flesh, a man's still gotta take a dump.

So it was at a Stockton, California fundraiser for odious corporate teat-sucker Rep. Richard Pombo's re-election bid, attended by the slithering visage of the globule of evil that forms itself into a vaguely human form every now and again that is Dick Cheney, that Jesus released his guts and bowels. For not only was it an event for the chairman of the House Resources Committee, who has sought to open up national parks and coastal areas for a right-proper reaming by mining and oil interests, as well as gutting the Endangered Species Act, not to mention his various and sundry ethical lapses (or, in the real world, possible "crimes"); not only did Dick Cheney appear, which is reason enough for the earth to rumble open to drag back to its center one of its own. No, no, that wasn't enough.

Instead, there's this: at the event, a $500 a head gathering ($2100 for a picture with Cheney, although most people who got the photos wondered why only Cheney's bodiless suit stood next to them), Pastor Brent Randall Regnart, the children's pastor, no less, for the Christian Life Center of Stockton, in his invocation for the event, said, "Lord, tonight's all about raising money." Around the Bob Hope Theatre, the onlookers wondered what that retching sound was, and, truly, it was Jesus. Regnart then asked Jesus to bless Bush, Cheney, and Pombo, as well as everyone who could afford to be present for the event. It was followed by the sound of screaming dry heaves and someone in Aramaic asking for toilet paper. The voice was, of course, ignored.

The Christian Life Center's mission appears to be making the flock as bugfuck paranoid as possible. "We are living in unprecedented times, when the powers of darkness have converged upon the church to choke the very life out of God’s people," says the Pastor's Page (the real pastor, not the kiddie pastor). "In ancient times, the gates of the city were where the elders went to do business. Jesus explicitly stated that hell's business would not succeed against this great blood-bought church." But using Jesus to encourage rich people to give money for more rich people to wreck the earth? Hey, why not. And, of course, such fearmongering among the faithful is right in line with Cheney's purpose on earth.

Cheney told the crowd to be very afraid of Democrats, for those who want "a sudden withdrawal from Iraq are counseling the very kind of retreat that Osama bin Laden has been predicting and counting on." However, the audience was not buying it. And here's the grace note in this whole night of depraved backslapping and holy political fundraising. Despite the shouts of approval for the "upbeat" economic news Cheney ticked off, the Los Angeles Times says that Cheney's "lengthy defense of the war in Iraq, his insistence that 'we are on the offensive' and 'have a clear plan for victory,' was met with nearly complete silence." Which, if you think about it, at a fundraiser, is pretty damned extraordinary.

And, just for a moment, Jesus was able to catch his breath, his stomach churning slightly less, girding for the next wave of nausea.