Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. For Pat Robertson to endorse a transvestite who cohabited with a gay couple would not long ago have been unimaginable. But there have always been seismic shifts in the hated others; in the 1950s and 60s it was communists and African-Americans. By the 1970s and 80s it had become liberals, liberated women, homosexuals and those who have, perform or advocate abortion.

Now it is Muslims–ostensibly “Islamofascists”, but in practice all Muslims. Right wing Jews and Christians have joined forces to support the Israeli far right and an aggressive Middle East policy. One wonders what kind of backroom deal was cut between the candidate and the evangelical entrepreneur who heard the divine voice after repeatedly failing the bar examination and thereby earned such Godly favor as to be able to advise the Almighty on meteorology, as well as politicians on policy.

Most likely it involves judicial appointments, as just one more radical neocon justice would turn the STAR (Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts) Chamber into a solid, reliable 5 vote majority. Rudy surely wouldn’t mind selling out his erstwhile pro-choice and pro-gay rights friends for the support of Robertson’s legions, the red-state, redneck, red-ink voters who have become the party’s power base