Update: Cliff has an Obama scoop at the Silo — jh

Rod Parsley is one of the biggest hucksters on the fundamentalist fringe, widely credited with swinging Ohio for Bush in 2004 — so it’s no surprise John McCain is hugging him so furiously. What is surprising is that given our elite media’s newfound fascination with the spiritual advisers of Presidential candidates, nobody is looking into what a complete wack Parsley is.

Watch John McCain suck up to him in the above YouTube:

I’m very honored today to have one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide — pastor Ralph Parsley.

His name is Rod, but whatever…

I want to say thank you for being here, I want to thank you Ralph for your kind introduction…for your leadership and your guidance, I’m very grateful you’re here sir.

Rod. Rod.…Mr. Out O’Touch.

Parsley’s rhetoric is not only eliminationist, it positively eroticises violence:

We were built for the battle…we were created for the conflict…we get off on warfare….

Sarah Posner’s new book, "God’s Profits," offers some amazing insights into Parsley and the whole "Word of Faith" movement, which sees proof of God in prosperity. She recounts Parsley’s claim that he cured a baby born without a brain (he offers brain scans to prove it) and other moments of supreme nutjobbery, but this was my favorite moment in the book:

I am crammed to the point of immobility in an upper-balcony pew of the four-thousand seat sanctuary. The praise and worship bands are louder than I’ve ever experienced at any World of Faith service, hyping the crowd into a frenzy and making it impossible to talk to anyone around me. People are dancing and singing, reaching their arms out toward the stage and holding their palms cupped upwards, all set to receive the anointing. My ears are ringing as more people try to squeeze into the pew; no one objects except an elderly woman sitting next to me, who is angry about how loud it is. "Do they think God is deaf?"

We’ll skip over this probable image of me in my senior years and mention that I’m going to lead a panel discussion of Sarah’s book (which covers Hagee, Parsley and other "Word of Faith" extremists) at PFAW on Monday, May 19 from 1-2:30 PM in Washington DC. If you’re interested in attending, you can get more info here.