Last year, Glenn Beck was the main attraction at the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute’s annual fundraising banquet. This year, the guest of honor will be former President George W. Bush. That shows you about where President Bush stands on the speechmaking circuit.

When asked how the MJBI managed to secure Bush to keynote its fundraiser, [Alisa] Stephenson [MJBI director of events and partner relations] cited its track record of drawing influential speakers, pointing to the appearance by Beck.

At last year’s event, members of the MJBI’s board of directors explained the organization’s mission of converting Jews to an audience of hundreds who were seated on a professional football field, wearing formal clothes, and eating pork barbecue. Rabbi Jonathan Bernis, a leading Messianic Jew and televangelist who chairs MJBI’s board of directors, maintained that “our numbers are growing and growing,” because “the Bible predicted that the day would come when the blindness would come off the eyes of the people it all began with.” He was referring to Jews. The Bible, Bernis continued, “tells us that the day will come when all of Israel will be saved.” The MJBI, Bernis said, “is one of the ministries that God has raised up to bring that to pass.” Other featured speakers last year included David Barton, the religious right’s discredited “historian,” who this week used Beck’s radio show to announce that he won’t challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in next year’s Republican Senate primary.

There is something so right with the optics of this tiny group of nuts sitting around in Jerry Jones’ gargantuan Cowboy cathedral, talking about converting Jews to Christianity while eating pork barbecue and waiting for Glenn Beck to speak.

It’s something only Hunter S. Thompson could hope to adequately explain. Who but a person with a headful of amyl nitrite could possibly put into words the tentacled depth of deranged wrong-headed bug-nuttery involved in that scene?

It’s right where Dubya belongs.

With his base.

The 27%.