Left Behind

I whole heartedly admit to being a fan of the "Left Behind" series of books. For those of you familiar with them I will share a personal aside. I was in a book store in the airport looking for something to read when one of the Left Behind books caught my eye. It happened to be like the third or fourth book in the series and the bookstore employee noticing me checking out the book inquired as to whether or not I had read the previous books. When I said no, the employee directed me toward the first book and give them all a ringing endorsement. So I bought that first book then set off to wait for my plane. For those who have read that first book and who realize what happens within the first few chapters I am sure you see the irony of me reading the book on an airplane. Yet and still I was hooked and eventually I ended up being one of the tens of millions of people who bought the books and read every single one in the series.

Now during the Presiential campaign I kept hearing about this fringe element of the country who felt that then Senator Obama was the anti-christ. I kind of laughed it off until I heard that some of these people were basing that assumption on the Left Behind books. Now at that time and up until now I never realized that one of the co authors of the books, Jerry Jenkins, helped found the religious right and is a long time conservative activist. I kinda figured that as religious folks that both authors might be Republicans but again I didn't think it that big of a deal. Well as it turns out that while not endorsing President Obama as the anti-christ Mr Jenkins does his fair share of fear mongering about him by tossing the socialism cannard out with alarming frequency. I am terribly dissappointed to see him engaging in this kind of hyperbole but this is yet another reason why I appreciate Rachel Maddow's show. In all of this time she is the first person that I know of who has even broached the subject with these two authors and she did a great job of engaging in a tough interview without offending the interviewees.

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