William Hughes

“Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.” - George Carlin

He was just in time for April Fools’ Day, 2009! His name is Peter T. King and he’s

a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Long Island, NY. And, for the last eight years, he was one of the prime enablers of the worst excesses of the Bush-Cheney Gang in the Congress. Now, with the financial meltdown ongoing, Rep. King has jumped onto the national stage to add unintended comic relief for the millions in shock over their fast-vanishing 401(k)s. He solemnly pronounced that the idea of Notre Dame U. granting President Barack Obama an honorary degree was a “tacit acceptance of the president’s abortion views.” Then, Rep. King, a la Thomas Aquinas, added that it would also be “antithetical to ‘Catholic moral teaching’ on the sanctity and value of human life.” (1) Thank you “Father,” I mean, Rep. King.

A writer of the wildest fiction couldn’t make this crap up. Rep. King’s politics have been to the right of Genghis Khan. He was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the immoral war in Iraq! He was also a gofer for the whacky Dubya on just about every U.S. Constitution-shredding measure the then-President dreamt up, including the torturing of detainees, NSA’s surveillance of citizens, and the enactments of the USA Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. Isn’t torture a sin, according to Holy Catholic doctrine? It appears, too, that the notion of jailing, forever, a so-called “enemy combatant” didn’t offend Rep. King’s “Catholic” sensitivities. (2) Don’t forget, also, that his No. 1 hero, Dubya, ran up $10.3 trillion in debt before he left the oval office and was given a ceremonial “boot” by the outraged citizenry. (3)

So now, we have this self-appointed, pseudo-teacher of Catholic “morals,” and unrepentant War Hawk, Rep. King, instructing an institution of Higher Learning, Notre Dame U., that it shouldn’t give an honorary degree to President Barack Obama. I say: Isn’t this the height of hypocrisy? Rep. King also implies that since he attended Notre Dame, that gives him a license to pop off on this issue. Well, the popular talk show host Regis Philbin is a graduate of Notre Dame, too. You don’t see him acting like he’s a dogma-spewing, pompous prelate of the RC Church. The former Cardinal of Boston, the flawed Bernard F. Law, now in forced exile at the Vatican, comes to my mind in that category. (7)

Back to the windbag Rep. King. He once bragged: “I thank God every night that George Bush is our president.” (2) I wonder what the Congressman’s blue collar constituents think of him now that Dubya’s reign of ineptness has many of them out on the street looking for a job? (4) Another one of Rep. King’s heroes is the late President Ronald Reagan, who gave America the disease of “Reaganism.” His dreadful economic ideology is mostly responsible for setting the current financial meltdown in motion. It embraced “deregulation” of the Market as gospel. He set loose the Vulture Banksters on the people. I’m convinced that Reagan was a pious faker and that he was never a true friend of the working man and women. His role in unjustly firing the 11,000 striking PATCO workers, in 1981, proved that to me. (5) As for Rep. King, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!

Rep. King’s big mouth has also gotten him into trouble on other matters. He once said: “There are too many mosques in this country.” (2) He also stated on another occasion: “85 percent of the mosques in this country have extremist leadership.” (2) Now, can you image how Rep. King’s Irish immigrant grandparents would have felt, after they had landed in NYC fleeing the “Great Famine” in Ireland, (1845-50), if a member of U.S. Congress would have roared: “There are too many Catholic Churches in this country. And, the majority of the Catholic Churches are breeding grounds for terrorism!” Rep. King has chosen to forget his own history!

This is the same flaky Congressman who once suggested: Tim Russert should be “shot,” for having ex-Ambassador Joe Wilson on his program. Rep. King also supports the Death Penalty and making it harder for state prisoners to appeal their death sentences, on Constitutional grounds, in federal courts. (2)

Recently, Rep. King, who performed as Dubya’s pit bull on many situations, appeared on an MSNBC program, hosted by Nora O’Donnell. She challenged him about his position on the Nortre Dame/Obama controversy. Rep. King got a little tongue tied when she pointed out to the blow hard that his crony, Rudy Giuliani, who is pro-choice on abortion, also got an honorary degree from a Catholic college. Rep. King replied that Rudy’s take on abortion was “more nuanced” than President Obama. Yea, sure it is! (6)

Let’s pick through Rep. King’s thought process on this brouhaha. He is saying that he’s a Roman Catholic, who adheres to a strict religious belief that upholds first and always the “sanctity and value of human life.” That’s the core of this alleged “pro-life” politico. But, that principle seems to be limited to his pro-fetus position. Period! It doesn’t go any further. Like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Rep. King has had trouble seeing and condemning the endemic evils of grinding poverty, hunger and malnutrition; and Bush-Cheney’s “War without End.” (7)

Bottom line: For many of the RC Bishops, and for Rep. King, too, it’s all about that so-called “intrinsic evil” of abortion! How myopic of them! Today, our planet looks like this: "Three billion of the world's people (one-half) live in 'poverty' (living on less than $2 per day). 1.3 billion people live in 'absolute' or 'extreme poverty' (living on less than $1 per day). 800 million people lack access to basic healthcare. 17 million people, including 11 million children, die every year from easily preventable diseases and malnutrition. 800 million people are hungry or malnourished. Nearly 160 million children are malnourished worldwide. 11 million people die every year from hunger and malnutrition...” One must ask: How will stopping abortion help cure any of these horrific ills? Currently, one in ten Americans are on food stamps. (7)

Queries for Rep. King to consider, via a vis his putative “pro-life” persona: What about the 4,263 brave American troops who have died in Iraq for lies? What about the lives of those 1.3 million Iraqis who have been killed in this totally unnecessary and unjustified, preemptive war, which was launched by the Bush-Cheney Gang on March 20, 2003? What, too, about the 4.7 million Iraqi refugees who were created as result of the Iraq conflict. As for the cost, try $3.5 trillion to U.S. taxpayers and rising. (8) Isn’t what happened to the sovereign nation of Iraq because of the Bush-Cheney Gang’s lust for war a damnable sin, Rep. King?

The fact is that Rep. King voted for the war, and for the “Surge,” and for the occupation of Iraq. It has been established that leading up to the Iraq conflict that the War Hawks, in and outside the Bush-Cheney Gang, engaged in “935” lies and/or deceptions. (9) Why didn’t any of the above violate Rep. King’s “Catholic values” and his supposed zealous regard for the “sanctity and value of human life?”

Finally, H.G. Wells said: “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” Notre Dame U. is right to give President Obama, who voted against the war in Iraq, an honorary degree. He makes a much better choice than Rep. King, who I suspect is a little green with envy about the selection. And, it is long past the time for reactionary Roman Catholic politicos, like the ultra-hawkish, pro-fetus, pro-Death Penalty Rep. King, to stop acting (and preaching) like they live in the Middle Ages. Our Republic can’t afford it.

Notes:

1. http://thehill.com/in-the-know/notre-dame-republicans-criticize-school-for-obama-invite-2009-03-25.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_T._Kink
   http://kingwatch.blogspot.com/2005/07/king-and-karl-loving-traitor.html
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoDpfsQJ-N8
   http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-usking0817,0,6911475,print.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
   http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/19/king-mosques/
   http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/us/politics/15assess.html?hp&ex=1158292800&en=b7b152ecf30880fa&ei=5094&partner=homepage
   http://www.ontheissues.org/NY/Peter_King_Crime.htm
3. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/39151
4. http://www.economyincrisis.org/
5. http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2009/02/386859.shtml
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcBaIsJQvdQ
7. http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/83880
   http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/16166/index.php
   http://world.mediamonitors.net/Headlines/My-Letter-to-William-Cardinal-Keeler
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6211250.stm
   http://www.worldrevolution.org/
   http://www.religiousconsultation.org/News_Tracker/Romes_new_cardinal_sin.htm
   http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/
   http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_3_27/ai_111012281/
8. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/
9. http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.aspx?src=project_home&context=overview&id=945

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Published, April 6, 2009, at the American Chronicle, at: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/97385 ©2009, William Hughes, All Rights Reserved.