jerry falwell checks out far too late

Jerry Falwell has died. It's a not very charitable thing to say, but it's too bad that hadn't happened about 50 years earlier. Falwell has been a corrosive force in American politics, founding the so-called Moral Majority and lending a veneer of Christian respectability to racism. Falwell lead the charge to politicize American churches, to the ultimate detriment to both churches and the American political system -- and possibly even to the Republican Party in the long run. The John McCain of 2000 was right that Falwell was an "agent of intolerance." His subsequent decision to speak at Falwell's poorly-named Liberty University speaks to McCain's descent into brown-nosing.

In recent years, perhaps Falwell's most outrageous statement was in the aftermath of 9/11, when he said that a country that tolerates pagans gays and lesbians and the ACLU essentially had it coming.

If I believed in hell, I'd hope Falwell rots there.