Faith-chaste(ned) candidates

Each major candidate for president has a faith-based problem.

Barack Obama is struggling with the fallout of extraorbital, mean-spirited rantings (captured on video, no less, and released by to-be-identified political operatives) of his long-time pastor.

John McCain, who proved his valor at the hands of brutal captors, currently looks silly (to the reality-based community, at least) groveling at the feet of the likes of John ("my fairy tale can beat up your fairy tale") Hagee, Rod ("my fairy tale should nuke your fairy tale") Parsley and the unwitting reprobates of the Council for National Policy ("fairy tales rule -- literally, if we get to call the shots").

Hillary Clinton appears to be severely entangled with the Fellowship, a relationship she and the Fellowship prefer not to illuminate (and not only because the Fellowship claims, for tax purposes, that the boarding house it runs for elected officials in D.C. is a church).

Among the also-rans, Mike Huckabee was a Southern Baptist preacher (imagine the jaw-droppers to have been mined from decades of transcripts from his pulpit?) and Mitt Romney -- well, have you ever researched precisely that which one must believe (or at least claim to believe) in order to be a Mormon?

I am not prepared to derive final conclusions from these circumstances, but I am confident that the majority of Americans that reports to pollsters that it wouldn't consider voting for a non-religious candidate has not considered the issue with requisite care.

Starting with a contentious religious issue was not my plan. A huge local clustermuck (Where's Kevin McClatchy or Tom Murphy when you need 'em?) would have been better point of departure for Infinonymous, the independent venture. But Mayor Ravenstahl apparently is taking the weekend off.