Remember the scene in Spiderman 3 when Eddie Brock (played by Topher Grace) goes to church and prays that God will kill Peter Parker? That probably got a laugh out of most viewers because, well, how over-the-top preposterous is it to pray to God to kill someone you don’t like? Jesus us a god of love, isn’t He? But hey, it’s Hollywood, it’s a superhero action flick, and villains in these films have to be, you know, a little over-the-top, right?

Still, if that whole scene set your plausibility alarms to ringing, you might want to brace yourself for this one.

Think Progress makes a great catch on C-SPAN this morning: Someone calls in while Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) is answering the lines, practically in tears because Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) missed this morning’s procedural vote on health care. He was apparently concerned that — after following Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) instructions to pray that someone couldn’t make a manager’s amendment vote Sunday night — his prayers for Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) to die struck the wrong senator. “Our small tea bag group here in Waycross, we got our vigil together and took Dr. Coburn’s instructions and prayed real hard that Sen. Byrd would either die or couldn’t show up at the vote the other night,” the caller said.

Let’s review. A teabagger, following the lead of his duly elected Congressfolk, gets together with his fellow Christians and prays that God will kill a political opponent.

WWJW? Sen. Byrd, that’s who.

There’s so much wrong here it’s hard to know where to start. But suffice it to say that these mouth-breathers worship one more hateful god. Further, this god is apparently a bad shot – if you’re aiming for Byrd and only manage to wing Inhofe, well, omnipotence is right out the window, huh?

Maybe in the next Spidey sequel they can cast Sen. Coburn and his drooling band of lobotomized Christian teabaggers as the villains. But while we’re waiting on the fantasy to arrive at a theater near us, isn’t it nice to know that these people are free to roam the streets in reality?

UPDATE: TPM wonders if the caller was a prankster. Could be, could be. Hard to say for sure, but it’s certainly plausible. It’s just a shame that we live in an age where we have things like “citizens” carrying assault rifles to political rallies to consider – makes it hard to sort reality from fantasy.

Image Credits: Panchosoft.com and Raymond Pronk