With yesterday’s big January 6th hearing collapsing over the last 12 hours, including its “emergency” witness being caught in multiple falsehoods, I suppose Rep. Adam Kinzinger needed something else to focus on. In all his substantial wisdom, he chose Rep. Lauren Boebert, fresh off her big primary win on Tuesday night, to take a shot at.

Passing out hot takes like Oprah gives away gift bags, Kinzinger took to social media to claim that there is no difference between Boebert and the Taliban. Here are his words and the commentary from Boebert, as quoted by The Hill, that set him off. Let’s just say that I’ve got thoughts on both.

There is no difference between this and the Taliban. We must opposed the Christian Taliban. I say this as a Christian

https://t.co/zt8mFKc3Jt

— Adam Kinzinger🇺🇦🇺🇸✌️ (@AdamKinzinger) June 29, 2022

“I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk — that’s not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter and it means nothing like they say it does,” Boebert said, earning a round of applause from the audience.

…“The reason we had so many overreaching regulations is because the church complied,” she said. “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.”

Let’s take this bite by bite, starting with what Boebert actually said. As is true in most cases, context is everything. The Colorado congresswoman was speaking in a church. Her comments have to be taken with that front of mind. When she said the church should dictate to the government, what she obviously meant is that Christians are not supposed to disengage and allow themselves to be walked over. They are voters, after all, and they also remain a majority of the nation.

As to the actual idea of “separation of church and state,” Boebert is right that it isn’t in the Constitution. Rather, the Bill of Rights stipulates that the government can’t make any law establishing a religion. That was clearly meant to protect religious people from the state discriminating against them. That’s why it’s in the Bill of Rights, which stipulates protection of the individual from government power.

Yes, the Founders wanted the government to operate separately from any religious institution, but the idea that a Christian worldview would be completely divorced from its machinations would have been laughably foreign to them. The citation of God by government officials has been a mainstay in the United States for centuries. That is not out of bounds regarding policy assuming no one’s constitutional rights are violated given that everyone derives their beliefs on what is right and wrong from somewhere.

Regardless, I think all of that is giving Kinzinger’s insane accusation too much credit. Even if Boebert were actually calling for a literal theocracy, that would not make her the same as the Taliban, and there is no such thing as a “Christian Taliban.” Islamism is uniquely violent and repressive, as evidenced by what has occurred in Afghanistan since the US withdrawal. To compare the typical views of an American Christian to the Taliban is disgusting and incredibly dishonest. Kinzinger knows that, but he’s gunning for an MSNBC. There’s nothing he won’t say or do to get it.