I know that for some people it is literally impossible to get over their core belief: presidenting while Black is a mortal sin. But I have to admit that I haven’t lost all of my capacity to feel shock, outrage, loathing, whenever I hear something like this:
“In his role as President, I think we should pray for Barack Obama. But I think we need to be very specific about how we pray,” Perdue told the audience at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, D.C. “We should pray like Psalm 109:8 says, that says, ‘let his days be few.’”
8: May his days be few;
may another take his office.
9: May his children be fatherless,
his wife, a widow.
10: May his children wander and beg,
driven from their hovels.
11: May the usurer snare all he owns,
strangers plunder all he earns.
12: May no one treat him with mercy
or pity his fatherless children.
13: May his posterity be destroyed,
their name rooted out in the next generation.
What kind of person wishes on President Barack Obama death and the utter destruction of his family?
Senator Perdue, that’s who.
It’s not just him, of course. Perdue didn’t come up with this “joke” on his own. Via Wikipedia:
In 2009, the media has reported more widely on its usage in reference to President Barack Obama,[3] by those such as Pastor Wiley Drake.[4]
In January 2010, a Florida Sheriff’s officer was suspended from his force for circling the passage in a bible and scrawling “The Obama Prayer” beside it.[5]
In January 2012, Kansas Speaker of the House Michael O’Neal sent an email quoting Verse 8 to his Republican colleagues that stated:[6]
At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!
Assholes. Vicious weasels. The kind of people who claim the mantle of religion, and yet, as Charles Pierce says of Ralph Reed, are all “future timeshare owner[s] in Hell.”
Senator Perdue does get a gold star, though: he’s the most senior Republican elected official to offer up this knee-slapper. Remember him every time anyone tries to tell you that Trump is an aberration; that the Party of Lincoln™ would never truly condone his viciousness and vulgarity.
Trump’s only real diversion from GOP orthodoxy lies in his ill-mannered refusal to use the proper codes when spewing bile.
To echo Deuteronomy. I do not wish their deaths — not Perdue’s, not the rest of the GOP thugocracy who just can’t seem to get past their fear of this president.
No. This is what I want:
I want them to suffer through Barack Hussein Obama’s brilliant post-presidency — and the reality of his successor’s ability to govern, despite her obvious chromosomal deficiencies.
IOW: May they experience nether probing by oxidized agricultural implements. (Which I believe is the central message aimed at falsely religious poseurs in Psalm 151.) In aeternum.
Image: Hieronymous Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights — Hell (inner right wing), between 1480 and 1505.
redshirt
Did he “raise eyebrows” among the audience, or after, when the media got hold of it?
schrodinger's cat
Hell is not a place you end up when you are dead, but hell (or heaven) is the life you make for yourself here and now. So by that definition, Ralph Reed and the like are already in hell. Also, a cow does not die because of a crow’s curse (a Marathi proverb). So the rantings of the tiny minds won’t affect this President.
HinTN
In aeternum, oh yes
ETA comma
Omnes Omnibus
Counsel for weasels on line 4. Something about defamation….
Luthe
I am all for Perdue losing his job, being screwed out his money by the banksters, and winding up as a Wal-Mart greeter. While having to watch Hillary kick ass and take names all the livelong day.
252man
The quote from Ghandi truly applies to these people:
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
redshirt
@Luthe: Agreed, but I suspect this will increase his popularity among his voters.
If only we could return to 1865 and do Reconstruction correctly. The entire world would be a far better place today for it.
Felonius Monk
I must admit that I have never heard “Fuck ’em with a rusty pitchfork” stated so eloquently. Kudos, Mr. Levenson.
stinger
This, and then to suffer through Hillary’s successor — a black woman… Hispanic surnamed… lesbian… Democrat. And our country prospers as never before. They’ll be bleeding through their ears.
Matt McIrvin
This nasty little “prayer” has been going around for a while; it’s sort of a running joke in right-wing Christian circles.
Baud
Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?–Matthew 9:4
TaMara (HFG)
At what point does this crossover into treason? May he live a long life, as impoverished as his soul and rot in a hell of his own making.
redshirt
@stinger: Your mind to Gaia’s. 16 more years of Democratic Presidents will do wonders for minimizing the Republican virus.
Uncle Cosmo
Marlowe–Christopher, not Philip:
And Milton (Paradise Lost, Book 1):
smith
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the need for Republicans and the Village to treat Trump as if he were an aberration. The Rs are obviously embarrassed that he won’t keep the racism properly toned down, and the Village is marvelling that someone with absolutely no understanding of government, or anything really, except some well-learned cons, could have walked off with the nomination of an ostensibly respectable party. The ostensibly respectable party.
But really, Trump does not differ in kind or in volume or in intensity from the greater mass of Tea Party politicians that now drive the House and many state governments, as well as many lower level governmental bodies. How many times over the past 8 years has some official with an R after his name been caught sending racist emails or making racist jokes? How many times and in how many ways have R politicians betrayed their utter ignorance of government, or history, or current events? Up to and including R Senators? The fact is, the dog whistles were abandoned years ago. The pretense of seriousness was abandoned years ago.
The Tea Party affirmative action program has just now bubbled up to the top, as anyone could have predicted it would. The pretense of shock and horror, when Trump’s predecessors have been lighting the way unimpeded for years, is laughable.
Omnes Omnibus
@TaMara (HFG):
Source.
redshirt
@smith: This is my silver lining for the Trump phenomena. That for many people, many of them in the media, the scales are ripped from their eyes and they finally realize how terrible the Republican Party actually is.
SiubhanDuinne
1. Yea verily I say unto Senator Perdue:
2. “I’ve never wished a man dead,
3. but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”
All: The word of Twain.*
*(I know, I know. It’s misquoted in the first place, and wrongly attributed to Mark Twain in the second. Indulge me.)
JPL
For those who say he was talking about the election, remember this was at an evangelical conference. They know the psalm.
If I thought it would help, I’d write to Mitch and ask him to censor Perdue.
Joe Falco
I wish I could be surprised at this but then again I was a usual visitor to the church Rep. Jody Hice pastored before he traded in his church for a shot at Congress. A vile bunch of theocrats they are.
AxelFoley
Well, let’s pray this redneck cracker’s days are few. Let something happen to this President and I promise you they will be.
Mike in NC
The wingnuts have been pulling variations of this silly ugly shit for the past 7-1/2 years. Who’s surprised at this point?
Kenneth Kohl
jumping jesus christ. Sherman’s March was far too brief and not nearly as all encompassing as it should have been.
pseudonymous in nc
@JPL:
Every racist chain-email-forwarding uncle knows the psalm. It’s the one bible reference they seem to, um, nail.
eclare
@Mike in NC: No one here is, but other people are, until I point it out to them. Wish shit like this got more press beyond what was then Stewart/Colbert.
raven
His predecessor
Saxby Chambliss’ (draft dodger) ad about Max Cleland (triple amputee )
tsquared2001
@redshirt: There should have been a short drop with a sudden stop for every Secesh with colonel rank or above.
You know, I don’t WANT to fight another Civil War but fuck if I ain’t ready to.
JPL
I didn’t watch the local news, but all the major channels have the Perdue story on their website. It won’t matter though.
redshirt
@tsquared2001: We’ve been fighting Civil War 2 for at least 40 years now, whether anyone recognizes it or not.
eclare
@raven: Lived in ATL when the results came in. Not only Cleland, a lot of Democrats lost. Very depressing day.
raven
@eclare: Yup, and Barnes was the key.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385
The Lodger
I’ve got two quotes for Senator Purdue:
Matthew 27:5 Judas… went away and hanged himself.
Luke 10:37 Go and do likewise.
burnspbesq
In fairness to the voters of Georgia, Jonny Iasskson occasionall makes sens–and that’s the highest praise I can conjure up for a Southern Republican Senator.
Hillary Rettig
@TaMara (HFG): my thoughts exactly. but this crew are really cowardly and not likely to take an actual risk for their beliefs, so they probably know the speech is protected
my wish is that one day “authoritarian personality disorder” is a recognized thing
Wapiti
@pseudonymous in nc: And yet, these “Christians” would insist that Islam is a religion of hate.
Emma
@SiubhanDuinne: I was taught to speak only good of the dead. He’s dead. Good.
tsquared2001
@redshirt: No lie. Aside from the Civil War, the GOP has been re-litigating the entire 20th century. Like the Terminator, they will NEVER stop.
Or to go old school, the GOP would be the motherfuckers who are afraid of the shadows projected by the fire behind them in Plato’s cave.
BC in Illinois
@redshirt: From CNN:
To be more explicit, , he said: “Let his days be few.” And they laughed. He finished the sentence and they laughed. Then he waved it off with, “But seriously, folks . . .”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q317_pPhVPw
Here is the Senator’s official explanation: “He in no way wishes harm to our president and everyone in the room understood that,” So the defense is that Senator Perdue was not offering a prayer, he was offering a joke, among friends who would all understand the joke. He talks about prayer and then offers a “scriptural” curse. That’s the joke. He speaks a curse on President Obama–“Let his days be few”–and everybody laughs.
The joke is that he can at the same time say a curse, while presenting himself as a faithful reader of Scripture, calling on fellow believers to pray.
This was no mistake. It was an old joke among friends. They couldn’t imagine that anybody would object when people [speaking as friends among themselves] put a wash of “religion” over the desire that someone’s days come soon to an end. This verse has been around on bumperstickers since the President took office. That’s where the Senator got it. It’s called, in some places, “The Obama Prayer.” Senator Perdue didn’t pull it out of the Bible—by inspiration or by accident. He pulled it out of the sewer of his own email messages.
They are who we thought they were. .
JanieM
@stinger:
You forgot atheist. :-)
raven
@BC in Illinois: And before everyone goes apeshit crazy on Georgia, the remarks were made in DC.
dww44
I worked very hard for David Perdue’s Democratic opponent in the 2014 campaign.. Michelle Nunn was a good candidate and a far better, more appealing, and certainly more humane one. I will always remember the canvassing I and a fellow volunteer were doing on the Sunday afternoon ahead of the Tuesday November election. The neighborhood was one of modest brick ranches, once a working class neighborhood with mostly white homeowners. 30 years later, the neighborhood was probably 85% African American with a few original white homeowners.
As we were knocking on doors, a car drove up and an older lady, white, and with a lovely head of silver hair, got out to go into her home. After telling her we were Nunn volunteers, one of us politely asked her if she was going to vote on Tuesday. She turned to face us and in an angry voice said that she’d never vote for Nunn, who was not qualified and was riding on her father’s name. That she and her fellow Republicans were on a mission to get every single Democrat out of elective office, right up to and including President Obama. This was 2014, mind you. The anger and spite that spewed from her very pores remain a vivid memory. We were so gobsmacked by the sheer animosity she exhibited that we didn’t have the foresight to note that if Michelle Nunn was trading on her father’s name, then by golly, so was David Perdue. (he’s a cousin to the former governor, Sonny Perdue).
The truth is that David Perdue is not very astute and would not, honestly, have realized the obvious construction that others would place on his choice of Bible verses. He most likely thought he was being cute. It will be interesting to see if he offers the President or the country an apology. If so, it will probably be that his words were misconstrued.
Lurking Canadian
There is a precedent for US Senators being beaten nearly to death on the floor of the Chamber.
I’m not suggesting somebody ought to do that to this guy, though. That would be wrong.
Hugely
this is old testament shit right? If the bible is the word of god, these people invoking these words are traitors and evil. Makes me very sad – IANAC but I would never use these words towards GWB or any other shithead Gooper, even Sen Perdue. Its not funny as a joke, man there is something really fucked up about this – sorry
BC in Illinois
@raven: A good point. The attendees were at a national conference. The point is *not* that “those people down south are all messed up.” The point is that there are whole auditoriums full of people whose hatred of Barack Obama is so deep, that they would use what, in other places, they would consider sacred writings, for their own vicious purposes.
I will give them another quote from their Sacred Scriptures. “The Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who takes his name in vain. [Other translations: “misuse his name”] Exodus 20:7.
amygdala
@252man: The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.
–GK Chesterton
If Perdue gets shamed into apologizing, I’d predict it would be in the I’m-sorry-if-you nonapology apology construction.
redshirt
@amygdala: I love that phrasing: “I’m sorry-if-you”
Perfectly captures the spirit of the words.
SiubhanDuinne
@Emma:
I must remember that!
stinger
@efgoldman: No, but keeping an eye out!
stinger
@JanieM: By the FSM, so I did! (It did seem like something was missing.)
redshirt
@amygdala: Their very existence screams hypocrisy: Christian Conservatives. Who are neither Christian nor Conservative.
BC in Illinois
@amygdala: This is what passes for an apology:
Well, actually there is not even an “I’m-sorry-if-you” non-apology in those words.
I’m not sure if, when she says they should “add the media to their prayer list,” whether that also would be a prayer that their days be short and their families scattered.
redshirt
@BC in Illinois: Lol. That’s how I take it. Kill ’em all! For Jesus.
Gelfling545
I’m sure Jesus would have been impressed with passive-aggressive prayer.
raven
@efgoldman:What’s the fucking difference? If this Trump shit has taught anything (if you didn’t already know it) is that the COUNTRY is like this.
amygdala
@BC in Illinois: Good grief. When all else fails, lower the standards even further. Yeesh.
mellowjohn
“Fuck all you racist Republican assholes.” –Mellowjohn 1:1
lollipopguild
Isaiah 51 verses 7-8. Hear me you who know judgement, my people, you in whose heart is my law: do not fear the reproach of men, and do not be dismayed by their contempt. For just as a garment it will be devoured by time, and like wool it will be devoured by a moth; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation for generations of generations.
tybee
@raven:
amen.
Carl W
Check out http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/10/3787080/senator-bad-bible-theology/ (debbie posted this link upstairs). They quote somebody excusing him with “He didn’t quote the whole thing”. Let me paraphrase that excuse:
ETA: And, of course, he was saying “I hope you die” as a light-hearted joke, so there’s no reason at all for anybody to be offended.
maya
@raven: Was just down to the VA MedCenter in SF for my 5th colonoscopy – eyes wide open – and in the shuttle bus going down lots of chatter about Trump’s walls and hatred of Hillary. I was blessed with a roomy at the Hoptel who wore a large monk style crucifix around his neck, spewing the same stuff, except he didn’t like Trump and don’t even get him started on gay marriage.
I did learn one interesting bit of trivia from this devout Catholic/ NRA/ never married vet . Seems there is a “gun saint” A fellow by the name of Gabriel Possenti.
Miss Bianca
@redshirt: you know, it’s times like this that I think Sherman didn’t do quite ENOUGH damage down South…
ETA: I remember a friend of mine telling me he wanted to make a T-shirt that was just Sherman’s face with the words “No More Mr Nice Guy” on it. It shocked me then. ,
Mothra
I sent Senator Perdue an email and asked that he grow up.
I was amazed at how childish the Republicans were in 08. I never thought that they could keep it up for this long.
Mothra
@Miss Bianca:
Being from Tennessee, I get tired of that joke.
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: I don’t wish any more violence on anyone. I just wish we were able to excise the spirit of slaveholding from the South after their defeat. But we did not, and that slaveholding bias has poisoned everything since. And continues to do so. See: Southern Senator praying for the death of the President.
Miss Bianca
@Mothra: What joke?
Mothra
@Miss Bianca:
Sherman – not enough damage
JustRuss
@BC in Illinois:
Indeed. What’s this country coming to when a sitting US Senator can’t make a little joke about the President’s hopefully-pending death?
Adam L Silverman
@maya: No he’s not. He is, officially according to the Catholic Church, the patron saint of children, students, those studying for the priesthood, and the Abruzzi region of which he is a native.
An American gun enthusiast, based on an erroneously sourced biography that claims that Possenti saved his village with his excellent marksmanship by driving a way a band of 20 marauders, has formed a Gabriel Possenti Society and anointed him the patron saint of hand gunners. The author of this biography
And its the only biography of Possenti to even mention this incident. Finally, Possenti was dying of tuberculosis at the time of the incident that the embellishing biographer dates the incident (that didn’t really happen). So it is highly unlikely he was wandering around his village with a rifle on patrol for marauding invaders.
randy khan
It’s a stupid joke, even as that sort of joke goes, hugely disrespectful and morally hateful (even if it’s not really treasonous), but it’s also really stupid since it’s not like another Democrat wouldn’t take his place if he were to die.
maya
@Adam L Silverman: No argument from me. I already looked that one up myself.. My point was that this kind of misrepresentation actually works with super-Xtian, conservative. gun-loving, Republican, vets. Did I leave out Fox -news aficionado? This guy was very insistent that I discover his truth for myself. Not a mean man but comfortably imprisoned in his belief system. And, there are a lot of them.. .
low-tech cyclist
Y’know, I don’t wish ill on Sen. Perdue and his like. I don’t desire rusty farm implements to be stuffed up his nether regions.
I just wish he and his ilk would STFU, slink off in embarrassment, resign from their roles in public life, and never darken our discourse again.
henqiguai
@randy khan(#76):
But the replacement wouldn’t be a black Democrat.
Revrick
There’s another level of nastiness buried in Perdue’s “prayer,” and this is contained in the second half of the verse: “May another take his office.” This part is cited by the apostle Peter in Acts 1:20 as one of the reasons the early community needed to replace Judas Iscariot in the circle of the twelve. It led to the election of Matthias, a more fitting person than Judas, the betrayer of Christ!
Not only is Perdue offering a sick prayer of imprecation that the President die, but he’s also suggesting that the President is a traitor!
The irony is that both Judaism and Christianity have rejected such prayers, going so far as even calling them impermissible, because they amount to curses. In fact, strictly speaking, if you saw a bunch of fire trucks speeding down your street, you shouldn’t pray, “I hope it’s not my house,” because that would be wishing harm on another.
Marion in Savannah
Uncloaking from my lurker status to, on behalf of the entire state of Georgia, apologize for this moran. (Love the site…)
SteveO
As you sow, so shall you reap. Galatians 6:7
Blueskies
@Carl W: Close, but you missed an important bit. It’s not just “I hope you die.” What the turdburger from GA was saying was “I hope you die soon.” And given their goals, a even more accurate would be “I hope you die soon, while still in office.”