The Reverend Ted Haggard

... But I Didn't Inhale


Remember Bill Clinton's "confession" about smoking pot, Bush? "I tried marijuana," he allowed. "But I didn't inhale." He was roundly mocked for his half-way admission, and not only by your Republicans. Laughed, as they say, out of court.

Now comes your friendly evangelical pastor, the Rev. Ted Haggard of the New Life Church, with the reluctant--and belated--confession that, yes, he did buy methamphetamine from a gay "escort" but "never used it. I was tempted, but never used it." Oh? And, yes, he now remembers that he did in fact receive a massage from this man he insisted only hours before he had never met. Of course. Where else would a man go to get a good massage if not a male prostitute? The next thing we'll hear, he paid for a blow job, but didn't come. Or didn't... well, let's not touch that one, eh?

You know, Bush, I personally have no problem with same sex sex. If a guy wants a blow job--or whatever--from another guy, who am I to come between them? Perish the thought. I also have no problem with same sex marriage. I acknowledge that you have moral qualms on the subject... or that it's convenient for you to say that you do, loudly and often, in order to appeal to that voter "base" that everyone keeps talking about. But the issue does seem--forgive the expression--to be blowing up in your face right at the moment. First your congressman Foley comes out of the closet, with some very nasty stuff about those underage pages; and now your Haggard, leading gay sex basher and vocal gay marriage opponent... and the recently retired head of the National Association of Evangelicals.

I do have a problem with those who preach one thing and practice another. My judgment: they're dishonest, they're hypocritical, they're out of integity with themselves and with others. But it's one thing do be dishonest and hypocritical and out of integrity in private. It's quite another when you indulge in political hay-making with your dishonesty, your hypocrisy, and your lack of integrity. Because then it affects me. It affects us all. It makes a mockery our democracy and our character as a nation. If people like this are advising the President and helping to shape and drive the national agenda, what does it say about us?

So what are you going to say about this, Bush? Surely you have to say something. The pastor was apparently a frequent advisor, a man who--as they say--had the President's ear. Hmmmm. I understand that it might be embarrassing for you to speak on such matters, so shortly before the election. You have terrorists on your mind. But your silence, I think, might be taken by some voters as cowardly in this circumstance. I'm interested to know what you'll do.