Wiley Drake

Over the last few days, former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention has declared both that the murder of Dr. George Tiller was an answer to prayer and that he was likewise praying for the death of President Obama.

Today, the Southern Baptist Convention, not surprisingly, distanced itself from Drake's rantings:

A Southern Baptist Convention spokesman said June 4 that a former official who is praying for the death of President Obama is out of the denomination's mainstream.

Roger "Sing" Oldham, vice president for convention relations with the SBC Executive Committee, said he believes most Southern Baptists are committed to praying for the well-being of the president as instructed in Scripture.

...

Oldham told Associated Baptist Press that Drake is not a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention and his comments do not reflect the actions, resolutions or positions of the denomination.

"I think it is a fair statement to say that the vast majority of Southern Baptists are committed to praying for the well-being of the president in accordance with the specific instruction given in 1 Timothy 2:1-3," Oldham said, quoting: "First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good, and it pleases God our Savior.'"

In semi-related news:

A black Southern Baptist pastor is asking his denomination to acknowledge the historic first of President Barack Obama's election, despite their policy differences.

The Rev. Dwight McKissic of Texas wants the resolution put to a vote at the annual Southern Baptist Convention. The meeting starts June 23 in Kentucky.

This is especially interesting considering that McKissic is himself a right-winger who, back in 2006, told the audience at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit that the Anti-Christ would be gay:

The civil rights movement, he said, was grounded in moral authority, truth and righteousness, the impetus to freedom, constitutional authority, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In contrast, he said, the gay rights movement was inspired “from the pit of hell itself,” and has a “satanic anointment.” The gay rights movement was birthed and inspired by the anti-Christ. He suggested that the anti-Christ is himself gay, citing a verse from the book of Daniel saying the anti-Christ will have no desire for a woman.

“I don’t think there is any issue more important than how we are going to define the family,” said McKissic. Television shows portraying homosexuality in a positive light have put us “on the road to Sodom and Gomorrah,” and “God’s got another match…He didn’t run out of matches.”

The other day I noted that Wiley Drake, Alan Keyes' vice-presidential running mate, had declared that George Tiller's murder had been the answer to his "imprecatory" prayers.

Now Drake has proclaimed that he is likewise issuing such prayers against President Obama in hopes that he also dies:

A former Southern Baptist Convention officer who on June 2 called the death of abortion provider George Tiller an answer to prayer said later in the day he is also praying "imprecatory prayer" against President Obama.

Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., and former running mate of American Independent Party presidential candidate Alan Keyes, said June 2 on Fox News Radio he didn't understand why people were upset with his comments quoted by Associated Baptist Press from a webcast of his daily radio talk show.

"Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don't like that, they need to talk to God," Drake told syndicated talk-show host Alan Colmes. "God said it, I didn't. I was just agreeing with God."

Asked if there are others for whom Drake is praying "imprecatory prayer," Drake hesitated before answering that there are several. "The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama," he said.

Later in the interview, Colmes returned to Drake's answer to make sure he heard him right.

"Are you praying for his death?" Colmes asked.

"Yes," Drake replied.

"So you're praying for the death of the president of the United States?"

"Yes."

Colmes asked Drake if he was concerned that by saying that he might be placed on a Secret Service or FBI watch list, and if he believed it appropriate to talk or pray that way.

"I think it's appropriate to pray the Word of God," Drake said. "I'm not saying anything. What I am doing is repeating what God is saying, and if that puts me on somebody's list, then I'll just have to be on their list."

"You would like for the president of the United States to die?" Colmes asked once more.

"If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that's correct."

Audio of the exchange is available from Fox News:

Wiley Drake, the one time second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and the man who last year served as Alan Keyes' running mate, weighs in on the murder of George Tiller, calling his assassination the answer to their imprecatory prayers:

While most pro-life leaders condemned the May 31 murder of a controversial abortion provider inside his Wichita, Kan., church, one former Southern Baptist Convention official called it an answer to prayer.

"I am glad George Tiller is dead," Wiley Drake, the SBC's former second vice president, said on his Crusade Radio program June 1.

...

Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., called Tiller "a brutal, murdering monster" and said he is "grateful to God" that the physician is no longer around.

"There may be a lot who would say, 'Oh that is mean. You shouldn't be that way,'" Drake said. "Well, no, it's an answer to prayer."

Drake said he prayed nearly 10 years for the salvation of Tiller, medical director of the Women's Health Care Services clinic and an outspoken advocate for abortion rights. About a year ago, Drake said, he switched to what he called "imprecatory prayer."

"I said to the Lord, 'Lord I pray back to you the Psalms, where it says that they are to become widowers and their children are to become orphans and so forth.' And we began calling for those imprecatory prayers, because he had obviously turned his back on God again and again and again," Drake said.

Drake called Tiller "a reprobate" and a "brutal, arrogant murderer" who "bragged on his own website how many babies he had killed."

"Would you have rejoiced when Adolf Hitler died during the war?" Drake asked. "Or would you have said, 'Oh that is terrible for him to be killed'? No, I would have said, 'Amen, praise the Lord, hallelujah, I'm glad he's dead.'"

"This man, George Tiller, was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler," Drake said. "So I am happy. I am glad that he is dead. Now I am sad that he went to hell, because he had a choice just like everybody else did. He could have chosen Jesus Christ and when he died went to heaven. But he chose the devil. He chose to neglect, he chose to reject Jesus Christ. And therefore on Sunday morning when he breathed his last breath there in the Lutheran church, he breathed his last breath, and he slipped into the presence of the devil. And I have a strange hunch and a strange feeling that there is a special, superheated, super-hot place in hell for people like George Tiller."

The article notes that this is not the first time Drake has called for imprecatory prayer against his enemies - he also issued a similar call in 2007 against Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

I honestly don't even know how to go about describing Janet Porter's latest column in which she exposes the current economic recovery efforts as part of a Communist conspiracy to take over the United States ... a conspiracy that has apparently been in the works for nearly twenty years and directly involves Barack Obama.

You see, Sam Webb, chairman of the Communist Party USA is apparently pleased with President Obama's handling of the economic crisis and, Porter reports, he might not be the only Communist rejoicing.  Because, as it turns out, a few months ago Porter received an email from her friend, Wiley Drake (you know, the guy who ran as Alan Keyes' vice president and once called for imprecatory prayers against Americans United) but she didn't write about it at the time because "it just seemed too extreme." But now, in light of recent developments, it seems downright prophetic.

As it turns out, the email from Drake was actually written by a guy named Tom Fife who claims to have regularly traveled to Russia in the early 1990's, where he reportedly met a woman who was active in the Communist movement ... and it was from her that he first heard the name "Barack."

As Porter admits, she "can't prove whether it's true or not, but in light of all that is happening, it just doesn't seem that far-fetched anymore" and then proceeds to re-print Fife's email in which he describes how he came to be informed by this unnamed Russian woman that America "will have a black president very soon and he will be a Communist."

We'll let Fife take it from here:

"Yes, it is true. This is not some idle talk. He is already born, and he is educated and being groomed to be president right now. You will be impressed to know that he has gone to the best schools of presidents. He is what you call 'Ivy League.' You don't believe me, but he is real and I even know his name. His name is Barack. His mother is white and American and his father is black from Africa. That's right, a chocolate baby! And he's going to be your president."

She became more and more smug as she presented her stream of detailed knowledge and predictions so matter-of-factly – as though all were foregone conclusions. "It's all been thought out. His father is not an American black, so he won't have that social slave stigma. He is intelligent and he is half white and has been raised from the cradle to be an atheist and a Communist. He's gone to the finest schools. He is being guided every step of the way and he will be irresistible to America."

...

She was full of little details about him that she was eager to relate. I thought that maybe she was trying to show off that this truly was a real person and not just hot air.

She rattled off a complete litany. He was from Hawaii. He went to school in California. He lived in Chicago. He was soon to be elected to the Legislature. "Have no doubt: he is one of us, a Soviet."

...

She continued with something to the effect that America was at the same time the great hope and the great obstacle for Communism. America would have to be converted to Communism, and Barack was going to pave the way.

So there you go, all the way back in 1992 some unnamed woman in Moscow knew all about Barack Obama and the intricate Communist plot to take over America ... and all it took was fifteen years and a group of borderline lunatics like Folger, Drake, and Fife to unravel it in the pages of WorldNetDaily.

I know that I should probably just start ignoring Porter, as I do all the other insanity that appears on WND, but I can't because I am still terrified by the fact that this woman was a close adviser to Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign and Huckabee himself praises her in his book, citing her as among the "new wave of leaders" who will remake the Republican Party.

One of the things that Republican politicians start complaining about during election cycles is "lawsuit abuse," the idea that trial lawyers are clogging the judicial system with pointless lawsuits in order to extort money from corporations and other public entities. 

But for some reason, they never seem to complain about groups like Judicial Watch which, asPolitico notes, for many years existed almost solely for the purpose of harassing the Clinton administration, along with the Clintons themselves, and is dusting off its briefs now that Hillary Clinton is poised to become Secretary of State and preparing to get back to its incessant lawsuit-filing roots:

[Last week, Judicial Watch President Tom] Fitton announced his group was considering filing suit to prevent Hillary Clinton’s Foggy Bottom appointment, based on the Ineligibility Clause of the Constitution ... this latest saber-rattling over the secretary of state appointment calls to mind the habits of the [Larry] Klayman era. Thus, the Clinton world collectively took a heavy sigh last week as some Clintonites wondered aloud whether Hillary Clinton’s nomination and the cast of former Bill Clinton staffers in Obama’s White House could breathe new life into Judicial Watch.

...

As the group ponders its latest legal action, it still awaits a pending FEC complaint it filed back in April against the junior New York senator over a fundraising event where Elton John performed. The complaint alleged that John wasn’t permitted to help Clinton raise money because he is not a citizen of the United States. (Fitton notes that his organization had also filed a similar suit against John McCain, after he hosted a fundraising event in London. That case was dismissed.)

Also, last week a Judicial Watch investigator went down to Bill Clinton’s Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., to comb through papers that had been released on account of a Freedom of Information suit. The group expects more papers to be released in the future.

Fitton defends his group against charges that its litigation is excessive and political.

“We don’t file our lawsuits unless we think we’re going to win them and we’re pleased by the attention brought to our lawsuits,” Fitton says.

Jake Siewert, who served as Bill Clinton’s White House press secretary, tells Politico that they "initially underestimated the amount of damage that [Judicial Watch] could do through the press and nuisance lawsuits," which is a lesson I hope that he has imparted to the incoming White House staff, who'll not only have to deal with these Judicial Watch's lawsuits, but seemingly an avalanche of lawsuits from the conspiracy theorists who still refuse to accept that Barack Obama is qualified to become the next president.

As Alan Keyes' running mate, Wiley Drake, tells the OC Weekly, that they intend to make this issue dog the Obama administration "much like the Monica Lewinsky controversy dogged the rest of Bill Clinton’s presidency":

[I think] it will be even more so than the Lewinsky thing. I think it will dog him because one of our attorneys, Gary Kreep [of the United Justice Foundation] said we will do everything we can to fight this battle. If we win this case, we will keep him out of the White House. If we lose, Gary and his committee of lawyers, and many of us are supportive of this, if Mr. Obama is indeed inaugurated, we will file a lawsuit against the inauguration for being illegal and against the chief justice of the Supreme Court for swearing in a usurper. And then, typically on the first day of office, the president signs a bunch of bills. Every bill or document he signs, we will file a separate lawsuit. For every decision he makes, it’s gonna to be tied up in court.

Yesterday we mentioned the gaggle of fringe figures who are currently pushing the “Barack Obama is not a citizen” conspiracy, but forgot to include Alan Keyes and his running mate Wiley Drake who are being represented by the United States Justice Foundation in their own lawsuit.  Unlike the other kooks, the USJF is claiming that Keyes and Drake actually have standing to bring a lawsuit because they were on the ballot in California and have therefore been personally harmed by the fact that a man ineligible to hold the presidency has been elected to serve in that office.  

But the USJF is not merely concerned about remedying the wrongs that have befallen its clients, it is dedicated to preventing the “irreparable harm” that will befall the nation is Obama is allowed to take office, as it explains in its own convoluted way:

To explain the implications of not resolving the eligibility question before Inauguration Day, USJF gives several possible examples: "If President Obama issues an executive order to rescind the Mexico City Policy and allows the tax dollars of Americans to fund organizations that promote abortions overseas, the door to question the legitimacy of that executive order remains open."

"If President Obama signs a treaty with an unfriendly power or the United Nations, the door to question the legitimacy of that treaty remains open.

"If President Obama signs a bill granting amnesty to illegal aliens, the door to question the legitimacy of that law remains open.

"If President Obama appoints new commissioners to the FCC who bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine, the door to question those appointments and the legitimacy of the actions taken by his appointees remains open."

Thus, contends USJF in its lawsuit: "Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the office of president of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that an usurper will be sitting as the president of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal."

"In other words, as long as this case is in the courts, a cloud hangs over Sen. Obama's head. For the sake of our Constitution and our Republic, the issue MUST be resolved!" the legal group said.

So a group of right-wing loons are convinced that there is a conspiracy to cover up the fact that the next president is really a foreigner who is prohibited from holding the office and that it must be exposed and rectified to their satisfaction immediately, or else there will be a “cloud” hanging over Obama’s entire presidency that will ultimately imperil the well-being of the entire nation.  

And they wonder why nobody takes them seriously.

Just last week I was noting on Janet Porter had squandered whatever tiny shred remained of her credibility when she joined the crackpot right-wing conspiracy theory that Barack Obama (if that is his real name) was not a natural born citizen of the United States and was therefore ineligible to be President.

Today, she takes to the pages of WorldNetDaily, the home of insane right-wing ravings, to explain as cleary as she can that the very existence of the nation is at stake if Obama is not stopped and that "the gallows for our freedoms are already being built": 

The good news is the real election hasn't taken place yet. The Electoral College doesn't meet until Dec. 15. That gives us less than a month to find the answers to the looming questions regarding whether Barack Obama meets the constitutional requirements for the office of president ... If you believe in life, liberty and the family, you already are a target. The henchmen are selected; the gallows for our freedoms are already being built. And the only candidate in history to never move an inch to the center during the campaign has no intentions of changing his agenda of outlawing our viewpoint with the "unfairness doctrine," "thought crimes," "The Employment Non Discrimination Act" the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and all the rest. As I wrote about in my book, "The Criminalization of Christianity" (which will surely come true if we don't act now), "Never fail to do the right thing for fear that the opposition will attack you in response. The other side can and will attack you anyway, at a time of their own choosing rather than yours, regardless of whether you act" ... In four years, we won't be able to recognize what's left of our country. And if you think taking on this issue right now is hard, try doing it when our radio airwaves are shut down and our freedoms are stripped from us, as he has promised to do. And with Obama's promise to pass the so-called Freedom of Choice Act as "the first thing" he does, you can say goodbye to the notion of protecting unborn children again – and goodbye to every law in all 50 states that notifies parents, keeps our tax dollars from footing the abortion bill and prevents even a single partial-birth abortion ... With God, all things are possible. Eight years ago the election was called for Al Gore, and he never took office. If God is the same today as He was yesterday, He can still split the sea, raise the dead, stop the sun and reverse the results of the popular vote if the basic requirements of the Constitution are not met in the candidate.

Also pushing the case that Obama is ineligible for the office is Alan Keyes and his running mate Wiley Drake, who are claiming that they are really doing Obama a favor by trying to eliminate any "doubt as to the legitimacy of his tenure": 

In response to questions about why the suit was being filed, Ambassador Alan Keyes commented, “I and others are concerned that this issue be properly investigated and decided before Senator Obama takes office. Otherwise there will be a serious doubt as to the legitimacy of his tenure. This doubt would also affect the respect people have for the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. I hope the issue can be quickly clarified so that the new President can take office under no shadow of doubt. This will be good for him and for the nation.”

The scary thing is that these people and their views are not only not shunned by the Republican Party and its right-wing base, but are actually embraced - after all, Porter was co-chair of Mike Huckabee's Faith and Family Values Coalition during his presidential campaign and Keyes was once the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois.

Last week we wrote a few posts about the Alliance Defense Fund's "Pulpit Initiative," which took place over the weekend, and Pastor Wiley Drake's planned participation in the effort that so that he could endorse his own campaign. 

The event unfolded as planned and Drake was featured prominently in the press coverage but we've noticed something odd: the ADF has issued a press release trumpeting their efforts and accompanied it with a list of the 31 pastors [PDF] who took part and you'll notice that Drake's name is nowhere to be found.

Was Drake an official participant in the ADF's scheme or was he just using it as an opportunity to get some press coverage for himself? 

It doesn't really matter either way, because he and several of the other pastors who participated got what they wanted, now that Americans United has complaints filed against them.

Josh wrote about the Alliance Defense Fund’s upcoming “Pulpit Initiative” yesterday and highlighted a quote from Pastor Wiley Drake saying that “nobody who follows the Bible can vote for [Obama].” 

Given that, coupled with his past support of Mike Huckabee, I figured that he was going to be endorsing John McCain and didn’t really put two-and-two together until I saw this:

"The Bible warns pastors not be lukewarm, or you're like a dog that doesn't know how to bark," Drake said.

Drake said this Sunday will be like any other: he will read from the bible, preach a sermon and then endorse Alan Keyes for president.

That makes perfect sense when you realize that Keyes’ running mate is, after all, Wiley Drake:

He also plans to announce whom he might vote for as vice president.

"My second choice is me, Wiley Drake. I'm on the ballot, so I plan to endorse myself," Drake said.

You may remember Wiley Drake as the pastor who issued a press release endorsing Mike Huckabee on church letterhead last year and then responded by calling for “imprecatory prayer” against Americans United when they reported him to the IRS.

Drake is now reportedly serving as Alan Keyes’ running mate in the gadfly’s long-shot presidential bid, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time to rally his supporters to ask God do some of his dirty work.

And since Focus on the Family is ashamed of their infamous “Pray for Rain” video and doing everything they can to erase all trace of it from the web, Drake, who has no shame, has decided to take up the call:

I was sadden when Focus pulled the 'Rain' Video and I am asking "The Telephonic Prayer Meeting" to daily pray, at 6:00 am Denver time to ask God to bring on the rain.

I too am still against killing babies and allowing sodomites to marry. Anyone wishing to join those of us who believe in Imprecatory prayer are invited to join "The Telephonic Prayer Meeting" daily 5:00 am to 7:00 am, call 1-712-432-1690 put in access code 399430.

We keep the prayer conference call line open every day for at least 2 hours, 5:00 to 7:00 am PT

Stuart Shepard is invited to lead us in this prayer for rain any day. Other prayer warriors are welcome not only to pray for rain but repentance in America as well.