A simple prayer opens McCain rally...

At an Iowa rally for John McCain, the Rev. Arnold Conrad spoke, apparently, for many McCain supporters when he offered this prayer, according to news accounts:

"There are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that [McCain's] opponent wins for a variety of reasons. And, Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens."

The McCain campaign distanced itself from the invocation, delivered before McCain appeared, apparently sticking to the new, toned-down rhetoric they've fitfully adopted since Friday, when McCain signaled a change in direction in the face of a series well-publicized events at McCain and Palin rallies where violently angry crowds yelled out racial epithets and calls for violence seemingly directed at McCain's rival, Barack Obama. At one event, McCain himself was actually booed by his own crowd when he tried to tell them that they didn't need to fear Obama, who McCain described as a "decent, family man," only to be drowned out by angry booing.

The Rev. Arnold's apparently unintentionally comic images -- and quite odd divergence from monotheistic thought -- apparently plays to many of those drawn to the McCain/Palin campaign rallies -- but it is likely to be troubling to many mainstream Christians -- even as it would seem to be particularly disturbing to those who don't share that faith. In my Sunday school, they kept insisting there was only one God. [Full disclosure: I only went to Sunday school for two weeks before insistently begging my mom to let me attend the adult services with her. Even at 7, I preferred the adult sermons about man's relationship with God and the ethical and moral responsibilities of Christians to the comic book retellings of colorful stories from the Old Testament that reminded me of nothing so much as the book of Greek and Roman mythology my grandmother had given me that Christmas.]


Even as McCain tries to tone down the extremes of his campaigns rhetoric, we can probably expect the exaggerations, distortions, and outright untruths widely reported by nonpartisan fact checking organizations like FactCheck.org to continue. (McCain's ads have quoted FactCheck.org as authoritative; unfortunately for the campaign, they misquoted and distorted FactCheck's statements so badly that the organization requested McCain stop misquoting them, calling the ads "less than truthful.") Both campaigns have been called to task for distortions, inaccuracies, and misstatements, but those perusing FactCheck's articles will quickly see from which campaign most of the worst comes.