Media Matters has a report on the many lies told by Jerry Falwell in his appearance last weekend on Meet the Press. It’s just baffling to me that he continues to lie about his incredible statement on the 700 Club after 9/11, where he said, “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen’.” On Meet the Press he claimed that he had also pointed the finger at the “sleeping church”. But there is a transcript of the entire interview available online, Jerry, and it shows that you said no such thing. And even if you had, it would only mean that you blame the church for not stopping all those bad people, which would be the same idiotic argument.

It is always astonishing to see someone make a claim that they know is false and that they know can easily be proven false, and Falwell is the master of it. See my earlier post on his outright lie on national television that his ministry had never lost its tax exempt status, a claim proven wrong by a publicly released letter written and signed by Falwell himself. It takes an extraordinary hubris to attempt this sort of thing, a hubris that can only be brought on by the secure knowledge, in Falwell’s case, that his followers are so sufficently stupid or deluded that it just doesn’t matter how many times he is caught in lies. And you know what? He’s right. And that’s the punchline to this sad joke.