In the Old Testament, when Abraham was already a hundred years old and his wife Sarah was also way past her childbearing years, God granted them their most fervent wish, a son who would be a comfort to them in their old age.  They named him Isaac, the same Isaac whom God would later command Abraham to sacrifice on an altar as proof of his faith.  When Abraham obediently raised his knife to slaughter the helpless child, God needed no further proof of Abraham’s faith, and the boy was spared.  The Bible tells us Isaac himself lived to the ripe old age of 180, making him the oldest patriarch in the Old Testament.

And now, more than two thousand years later, Isaac lives on in other ways.  Today, the good news from meteorologists is that HURRICANE ISAAC will spare Tampa, Florida, thus saving the Republican Convention. All the festivities being planned this week by the Grand Old Party for its millionaires and billionaires will proceed smoothly, without any further threat of hell or high water. Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Oak Ridge Boys can serenade all the elephantine high-rollers as scheduled, with impunity.

So, how did all this come about?  This time around, what sort of sacrifice did the God of the Evangelical Right demand from faithful devotees like Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Paul Ryan?  What were these God-fearing Republicans willing to sacrifice to get their political pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?  Assuming, of course, that the Republican rainbow has nothing to do with people of color or, worse, those abominable homosexuals who want to marry each other in the name of love.

As for anyone living these days to the ripe old age of 180, you might as well forget it, not without Medicare and Medicaid, not if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan get their way.