By Tom Robotham

Cal Thomas has outdone himself. The syndicated columnist has always worn his so-called Christianity on his sleeve while repeatedly revealing his anti-Christian tendencies. But in a column published in the Oct. 14 edition of The Virginian-Pilot, he expressed a degree of hatred and hypocrisy that was surprising even for him.

His central argument was that President Obama didn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m not sure I disagree—although I’ve heard good arguments in defense of the Nobel Committee’s decision: that Obama has radically changed the tone of international discourse, for example, emphasizing peace as an essential goal.

But my gripe with Thomas is not his basic position on this issue. Nor is it with his belief that waging war and torturing suspected terrorists are the surest paths to peace. My gripe, as I said, is with his hypocrisy and his selective application of principles.

“The peace prize is flawed,” he wrote, “because the problem of war does not lie with those who would make peace, but with those who would make war.” By way of example, he mentions Osama Bin Laden as well as the leaders of Japan and Germany at the outset of World War II. Not surprisingly, he fails to also mention the Bush Administration, which waged war on Iraq without provocation, killing countless innocent civilians in the process.

But this double standard is a comparatively minor flaw in his argument. His more astonishing assertions have to do with his admiration of “muscular” role models who represent the very antithesis of Jesus.

In one amazing leap of illogic, he writes that the “Nobel Committee believes George W. Bush is evil” and “hates Israel…because its members, and like minded male wimps around the world, idolize Michael J. Fox instead of John Wayne and find their role models in the liberal ladies of The View, not in muscular characters like Jack Bauer on 24.” [Emphasis added.]

That’s right. Michael J. Fox. What a wimp! No real man would get Parkinson’s disease. Or if he did, he would keep his mouth shut and take it like a man, instead of whining about the need for stem-cell research.

The Jack Bauer reference is a bit subtler. If you’ve never seen the show 24, you might get the impression that he’s a latter-day John Wayne. But the fact is, Bauer routinely tortures suspects.

Having read a lot about torture as a tactic for getting information, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s wholly ineffective. John McCain, who knows a little something about the issue, agrees. But again, I’m not taking up that argument here. The point is that the practice of torture—not to mention war—is fundamentally at odds with the central message of Christianity. If Jesus hadn’t allegedly risen from his grave, he’d be spinning in it.

In spite of this, Thomas couldn’t resist ending his column with a quotation from the Book of James, implying that he is a true Christian, unlike wimps like Michael J. Fox.

“What causes fights and quarrels among you?” James wrote. “Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want….”

Reflecting on this, I can’t help wondering about the motives of a man who professes to worship Christ but instead worships “muscular” role models like John Wayne and Jack Bauer. Conflicting desires, indeed. His adoration of “muscular” men is especially interesting when you consider that Thomas is an outspoken homophobe.

The additional insult here is that The Virginian-Pilot continues to publish the rants of this hypocrite. Surely there are conservative columnists who offer more thoughtful reflections. But I don’t expect them to drop Thomas anytime soon. Years ago, they dumped Molly Ivins because she was too stridently anti-Bush. Apparently they don’t apply the same standard to right-wingers. They have no intention of doing so because all that matters to them these days is circulation. Thomas pleases a segment of the paper’s readership—the pathetically hypocritical men and women who go to church every Sunday and gather in Bible groups, all the while ignoring the children who have been maimed or killed in the name of “American interests.” Call those casualties “collateral damage” if you makes you feel better. If you do, just don’t call yourself a Christian.