Caller asks GOP senator if he prayed hard enough for other senators to die

By Raw Story
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 -- 8:59 am
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byrd Caller asks GOP senator if he prayed hard enough for other senators to dieUPDATE

The caller who asked GOP Sen. John Barrasso on CSPAN Tuesday if Republicans' prayers for Sen. Robert Byrd to die may have misfired and hit Sen. Jim Inhofe instead may have been a prankster.

Eric Kleefeld at TalkingPointsMemo reports that "back in April, a man with a very similar voice, and also from Georgia, called in and asked David Brooks if he, as a sophisticated New Yorker, would help to bring down the black man in the White House."

Kleefeld reports:

Both calls had a certain prankish, over-the-top quality to them. The caller to Brooks said he was at the Jekyll Island Club -- a very high-class location in Georgia -- but sounded more like a caricature of an unsophisticated, racist Southerner. The caller to Barrasso referred to his fellow conservative activists as a "tea bag group," a term that many genuine Tea Partiers regard as an offensive epithet. Both callers got worked up emotionally -- energy and ambition in the Brooks caller's case, and urgency and panic from the Barrasso caller.

Story continues below...

Kleefeld admits the evidence that this was a prank is circumstantial at best. "Are they the same man? Were they serious calls or pranks -- and with the current state of right-wing activism, how can you tell the difference?"

Listen to the audio clips of the two call-ins here.

ORIGINAL STORY FOLLOWS BELOW

A caller who reached CSPAN asked a Republican senator if he'd prayed hard enough for GOP Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) to die on Tuesday.

"We got our vigil together and took Sen. Coburn's instructions and prayed real hard that Sen. Byrd would either die or couldn't show up at the vote the other night," the called, dubbed "Abraham" from Georgia remarked. "How hard did you pray, because I see one of our members is missing this morning. Did it backfire on us? Did one of our members die?"

"How hard did you pray?" he adds. "Did you pray hard enough?" He appears to break into tears at the end.

The caller appeared to be referring to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who missed one of the Senate's healthcare votes.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) announced Sunday he was hoping -- even praying -- that one of his Democratic colleagues somehow could not manage to cast a vote on health care in the wee hours of Monday morning. Liberal critics saw the remarks as a thinly veiled aside against 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who had to be wheeled in in a wheelchair to vote. (He did.)

As the chamber neared the first of several procedural ballots to end debate on the bill ahead of final passage, Coburn said, "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight. That's what they ought to pray."

His suggestion struck a raw nerve with Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). "I don't think it's appropriate to be invoking prayer to wish misfortune on a colleague and I want him to clarify that," he said. "I've invited him, I wanted to reach out to him. He is my friend and I've worked with him, but, uh, this statement goes too far."

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Story comments are below...

  • MNUSA
    Coburn and his ilk are crazies. They may think they're sane, but they're not. Perhaps they should spend more time studying their Bibles. They'd find out that God could care less about our government. It's how we live our lives He cares about. There's also specific references to those who beat their chests and pray in the marketplace for show. No sane person, Christian or other, would ask people to pray so the Repubs get their way. "Whatsoever you do to the least of these, so you also do to me," Jesus. It's my opinion that this statement includes health care for working people who can't afford it.
  • Mikethedog
    Halarious! I don't care if it was a hoax I've seen the Tea Baggers rallies on the TV and I completely beleive that they were praying hard for someone to die. The look on Barrasso's face was nothing short of "Doh"!
  • Marxy McLiberalson
    Even these religious radical, fanatical....eeeeeevan-gelical (thats my jesse jackson impression) whackos know better than to think if you pray really really really hard but have a whizbang out of its thingamabob the whole prayer could have a catastrophic failure and explode all over some unsuspecting victim? .....don't they?
  • Marxy McLiberalson
    I thought that the first time I read the story, I immediately thought he was doing a Stephen Colbert thing where he points out the rights absurdity by taking it to its logical conclusion.
  • coop
    These do not seem like pranks. The phone calls appear to be another stunt in this ongoing campaign to polarize the people in this liberal vs. conservative game being played out in the media. It seems that more and more people are being used, or employed to incite hatred among the American people in an attempt to keep us divided and distract us from the real problem we face. Namely, our out-of-control government, banking system and essentially, corporate fascism.

    For example, on any given day, take a look at the front page of a place like Huffington Post. 90% of it reads like a cheap tabloid with sensationalistic headlines and stories featuring the ridiculous antics of Sarah Palin and the like. Read the comments and you'll see how this only fuels hatred among readers. This hatred ends up being largely focused on conservative Americans in general. There's a war going on against the people of this country, just in case some of you still haven't noticed. And one of the main weapons being used in full force is the good old-fashioned 'divide and conquer'.
  • harrysmith
    gee you think raw story , get of this i love democrat crap or you wont succeed to many website out there that are nothing but democrat love postings
  • Lyman
    Where do these Republicans come up with such weird names?
    Senator Bare Asso! Senator John Boner ! and there is even one senaturd from Idaho
    named "Crappo". He's from a little town up in northern Idaho named "Athol" (pronounced:
    ath-hole). I kid you not.
  • margaretpoa
    Duh.
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  • Guest
    Maybe it was JC Webster the Third.He was a guy that called Coast to Coast AM to call down the wrath of God on media people for polluting the country. He was hilarious. I couldn't tell if he was serious. Its on YouTube of course.
  • FT
    The fact that he said teabag should of gave it away. Lame
  • CanadianVisitor
    This whole thing is offensive in claiming that someone wished for Bryd to die. Is that what you democrats are down to next - just making stuff up now?
  • Simon
    This was some kind of political or just humorous prank.

    Duh.

    Probably a ditto-head...

    Drive time zoo AM think they're a funny working man's crowd, that thinks bass fishing should be an Olympic sport.

    Couldn't find Iraq on a globe, yet still thinks it was worth it, without knowing many facts.

    Ahh the mouth breathers....
  • bordway
    Gee Abraham, I dunno...do ya think hoping for the death of anyone through prayer is a Christian value? You poor, poor man.
  • Well, don't forget St. Paul called for something along those lines for a man guilty of incest:

    I Corinthians 5:1-5 —
    [1] It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
    [2] And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
    [3] For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
    [4] In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    [5] To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

    Paul, of course, missed God three times in the Book of Acts, defying the commandment of the Holy Ghost not to go to Jerusalem, to leave the Jews' salvation in God's hands (if you take the text at face value). But Paul, the unregenerate Pharisee, disregarded the commandment and went, and was arrested. He later wrote to the Roman church:
    Romans 9:1-5 —
    [1] I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
    [2] That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
    [3] For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
    [4] Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
    [5] Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.


    Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

    Whether Jesus, as presented in the Gospels, would go there, I can't find example offhand.
  • frostedreef
    This can be a hoax call from the left. Listen how the caller refers to himself as part of a "tea bag" NOT tea party group.
  • icenine
    Maybe that redneck Inhofe was still trying to get back to DC from that joke of a press conference he was laughed out of in Denmark- the one where no reporters came. If a redneck Senator holds a press conference and no one hears him, does he make a sound?
  • LOL
  • wiseturtle
    Teabaggers.... love nuts in the mouth, don't they? Or are they just nuts with mouths?
  • maxpower
    I've been praying everyday for almost 9 years that Dick Cheney would die..........what are we getting at?
  • SouthernYankee
    Max, don't say that because we become no better than they are. We are allot better than that. I pray to god that on judgement day Bush and Cheney will get what they deserve from god. After all they went to war with a country that didn't attack us and they killed allot of innocent civilians and many of our soldiers died for OIL.
  • If only . . . <sigh!>
  • gagonmyteabag
    That was a great call, i love Abraham, obviously a crank call, because the teabag gaggers never refer to themselves as teabaggers, they think it's derrogatory they only refer to themselves as tea partiers. Great stuff Abraham.
  • SouthernYankee
    That's ok because I love calling them teabaggers because they hate being called that.
  • louie
    Wow this all getting too wierd.
  • tednarcotic
    If it wasn't for this nasty call for action by the right wing we would never have been privy to Gods Holy answer to the question of support for this health bill. It truly is "His Healthcare Bill" from Heaven and the Democrats.Indeed He does work in mysterious ways
  • CHANNELLING JIM MORRISON
    YOU CAN NOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER !
    JIM MORRISON
  • Apparently not
  • SouthernYankee
    Am sure god wouldn't answer that kind of a prayer anyway. I always find it funny when sports teams pray to god to win the big game. What side does god chose? As if god has the time to really thing who is going to win the game. I always have a good laugh at that. I am sure god has the time for that.
  • That reminds me of Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural:
    Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

    Now after posting this, as I re-read it, I am astounded how fitly it summarizes the wars we are now in: the oppression of this world by the US and its "allies", particularly the oil- and other resource-rich lands, the sweat shops making Nike shoes and paying Tiger Woods hundreds of millions, and so on and on, until these drops of blood are recompensed, our troubles will not end.

    Malarial swamps, like the so-called "terrorism", are not healed with bullets, but with shovels and hoes.
  • SouthernYankee
    Thank you for your wise comments. Very profound am sure. To bad the citizen of our country don't take the time to really read Lincoln. I learned from my mother who was from Italy what war was about. She said if america could really experience war like allot of europeans maybe we wouldn't jump so fast to war. Every nite they took turns when planes came over head to bomb the city. She had a handicapped brother so when they could hear the planes they were able to run for cover having to carrying him. She said the day they hung Mussolini her and her father stood on the terrance and toast his death with a glass of wine.
  • That's like the Russians, who used to say, "we're better off than you, because we all know the news is lies."

    Like Sibel Edmonds says, in Turkey, everybody knows that the Public State are figureheads, the Deep State rules. But here, there is a Deep State too, but the people are not aware of it. The figureheads come and go, but the Deep State players hold power for life, like Kissinger, Scowcroft, Baker, Poppy Bush — they are central to every administration, as if even that was necessary to them to achieve their masters' ends.
  • SouthernYankee
    Yep, these same people aren't bothered by Jeb Bush saying before he left FL that we should have a shaddow government. I wouldn't be surprirsed if they do have one. I bet Poppy Bush knows allot about doing something like that.
  • tednarcotic
    We might have if it was possible for such a thing to work. Imagine the plausible deniability. God ate my homework! Or, "I didn't know the god was loaded."
  • markusgarvey
    "teabag group" !?!....ewwww...
  • oktoss
    Tom Coburn is such a holy man. I wonder if he prayed before he performed abortions? It seems to me that when he gave abortions to underage girls because in is opinion it was "medically necessary" a prayer might have been in order. Nevertheless, Coburn is the face of today's Christian in the U.S.A. So is Inhofe. Perhaps I should take Coburn's example and pray for the death of ALL neocons.
  • SouthernYankee
    I am sure Coburn didn't give abortions. He could send his patient to another doctor if he wanted to.
  • SouthernYankee
    Wow, I didn't know that. There is another republican speaking out of both sides of his mouth. I find it odd that when a republican liar can say god has forgiven me and all the christians give him a pass. I wonder to myself how does he know god has forgiven him. I doubt it. Because if god gives him a leadership position in the community and the community elects him to higher office then he should be a great example for everyone. Yet they keep electing these creeps over and over. If it is a democratic they can't seem to forgive him. What hypocrisy.
  • oktoss
    I live in Oklahoma. I know what I'm saying, it was in print and on all the local broadcast media. When he ran for Senate the first time he was questioned about giving abortions, especially on underage girls. He then admitted he'd done at least one on an underage girl without parent's approval. It was a good idea since a copy of his medical career was made public. But such is the overall mentality in this state that he got elected anyway. I guess praying and asking God if it's permissible to perform an adoption is OK with OK Republicans.
  • This is a very important subject — what exactly counts as holy with these people, and how (I mean, what are the mental capillaries that it filters through.)

    It's more a litmus test about who will spout and support the party line, rather than behave in a certain way. It seems more like cheering for a certain ball team than for a certain way of life.

    "You can act that way if you want to, just don't every speak against the doctrine."

    Akin to the Karl Rovian doctrine of "you're never wrong till you admit being wrong", don't you think? A monstrosity based on what we used to call "name it and claim it" Christianity, developed out of scriptures like
    If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. [Matt. 17:20]
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