He didn’t make it there during the presidential campaign, so Barack Obama stopped off to pay his respects to the aged evangelist on his circuitous way to deliver a eulogy for those 29 dead coal miners in Beckley, West Virginia. The question is whether the president was ambushed by Billy’s son Franklin, who turned up for the tête-à-tête.
Last week, the Army dumped Graham junior from its National Day of Prayer service at the Pentagon next Thursday after a protest by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. The NDP was established by Congress after Graham senior called for one in an address on the Capitol steps in 1952. You think the NDP contretemps came up at the Obama-Graham summit? You think the president would have preferred not to have Franklin on hand? I say yes, and yes.
Update: Yep:
Franklin Graham said he and Obama spoke briefly about the Pentagon
spat, with the younger Graham saying that activists with an agenda were
trying to pull all religion out of the military.
“I wanted to make him aware of that,” Franklin Graham said. “He said
he would look into it.”
Franklin Graham also said he thanked the president for his decision
to have the government appeal a federal judge’s ruling that the National
Day of Prayer was unconstitutional. Obama has said he plans to issue a
proclamation again this year.
