It was a joke

It’s weird to find myself agreeing with right-wingers, but this:

“I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate,” [Jerry] Falwell said, according to the recording. “She has $300 million so far. But I hope she’s the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton.”

Cheers and laughter filled the room as Falwell continued: “If Lucifer ran, he wouldn’t.”

It’s a joke. I’ve made pretty much the same joke myself, frankly – and it’s more a slam on Falwell’s followers than on Hillary.

Oh, and as for Chavez – look, he clearly didn’t mean to say that Bush is literally the immortal avatar of evil, a fallen angel, etc. That would be insane. He just meant that he thinks Bush is incredibly evil. This is hardly an uncommon or shocking opinion nowadays.

I was going to close with a snarky comment about it making more sense to hate Chavez for his antisemitism, but then I ran across this blog, claiming that Chavez’s famous antisemitic statement was actually a case of malicious mistranslation. Any Spanish-reading readers who can clear up this question in comments, please do.