San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, quoted in today’s Chronicle:
“You know I do talk to God regularly. I get down on my knees and I pray and I pray — and then God comes to me and says, ‘Yes, Mister Willie?'”
I’m not religious, and therefore I can’t really call this “blasphemous”, but if I were a politician who (a) was widely regarded as extremely arrogant, and (b) derived a large part of my continuing support from African American churches and religious leaders, I think I might have caught myself before making this particular little joke…
Having had some religious indoctrination as a child, I can tell you this is several points more offensive to your average Christian than John Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus” comment from the 1960s. If this were just about anyplace but SF, the death threats would have commenced immediately…
Here, of course, it was the last paragraph of the second section of a running column. Which would probably be appropriate, if it weren’t such a fucking stupid thing to say given Willie’s position…
It never fails to amaze me how often Willie Brown, who basically defines the cliché of a crooked, corrupt machine politician, can show so little political savvy sometimes. He may not have to answer to God, but he could find himself answering to a great many pious little old church ladies (who used to be among his most enthusiastic supporters) soon…
Anyway, great weekend, crappy Monday, and I hope I’m not coming down with a little bug. No snow is expected tonight in SF proper, for those of you who are keeping score. But I did just have a self-inflicted power outage when I made the mistake of turning on the microwave and the space heater at the same time…