To be clear, and to put it softly, I have no love for Rep. Lauren Boebert. She's an irredeemable harpy who coarsens American politics with her every breath; she's a petty, vile politician who caters to her constituents' basest instincts.
Yet this sort of clickbaiting headline — "Lauren Boebert Tells Church To Pray For Biden's Death" — cheapens the opposition's polemics, which also coarsens American politics as it caters to readers' basest instincts.
The headline-hosting site provided this brief video:
A church congregation cheered as Lauren Boebert said she prays for Joe Biden's demise: "May his days be few and another take his office.”
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) February 6, 2023
Boebert then called Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s “great insurance policy.” pic.twitter.com/KzqT2RFdYb
Did she? Did she pray for Joe Biden's death? As the story's headline announced? Not quite.
After quoting Psalm 109:8 — "Let his days be few, and let another take his office" — Boebert adds, "That's why I filed articles of impeachment for Joe Biden." Hers was a modification of the Biblical injunction.
This is not to say a deadly implication was absent. Nor is it to say the congregants were any less bloodthirsty, good vileness-loving Christians that they are. Still, Boebert's instant addendum negated a Psalm-like call for the president's death.
That Ms. Boebert has no credible place in the United States Congress is overshadowed only by her unsuitability for ecclesiastical preaching. That much is also clear. But must the opposition cater to the base as Ms. Boebert does? Is her actual, daily despicability not enough?
The headlining site does attach this bit of truth: "Conservative churches have become a hotbed of illegal political activity. Churches enjoy tax-exempt status on the condition that they stay out of partisan political activity. It doesn’t get any more partisan than a Republican member of the House addressing a congregation and telling them to pray for the demise of the President Of The United States."
The passage's final wording is, as they say, a far cry from the story's literal headline. The latter? Such is the stuff that reeks from pages of Breitbart.com, or the sick ravings of a Mark Levin or Steve Bannon.
Credibility is essential in politics — as well as political journalism. And clickbaiting is not the way to build it.
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(Sorry for the weird spacing. Something went haywire in the formatting and I hadn't time to fix it.)