Today's required reading

Man, Gail Collins has been killing it lately. My new favorite columnist has a scathing Op-Ed today, mocking Mr. Morality Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, an act in which the good Reverend has revealed himself as little more than a whacko political hack. Here are a few choice cuts.

Back in mid-2001, when Mayor Rudy Giuliani was busy committing adultery, lurching into his divorce and third marriage and rooming with a gay couple he promised to marry as soon as the law allowed, who among us would have imagined that one day he would be endorsed for president by Pat Robertson?

Truly, Sept. 11 changed everything.

[Snip]

Robertson’s backing will surely give Giuliani a leg up among voters who believe that God sends natural disasters to punish Americans whose school board members believe in the theory of evolution, or who have the bad luck to live near an inclusive amusement park. (He warned Orlando that when Disney World welcomed gay patrons it was letting them in for terrorist attacks, “earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.”)

Yesterday, Robertson said that America’s Mayor had won him over because “to me, the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the bloodlust of Islamic terrorists.” (So much for judicial activism.) “Our second goal should be the control of massive government waste and crushing federal deficits.”

Now this is the part that I have never been able to get. When did government spending become part of the divine agenda? Is there something in the Bible about smiting down federal bureaucrats?

Oh, snap! I think maybe the spirit of dearly departed Molly Ivins has possessed Collins’ pen.