Confusing news from the Jewish Forward: the National Association of Evangelicals is set to announce a new, more pro-Palestinian policy on Israel. Why? Because it wants to counter liberal churches that are putting economic pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestianians. Wait — that doesn’t make sense. And it gets trickier. How is the NAE signaling its new openness? By sending its president, our friend Ted Haggard, to Israel to meet with Sharon, whom he says was chosen by God, and pledge to support Israel “come hell or high water.”

But that’s not all. Ted also says he never said that. The problem, apparently, is that crazy, liberal, pro-Palestinian Israeli press.

Huh? Yeah, that’s what we said, too. But we suspect the problem lies not in the Forward‘s thorough reporting, but in the sneakiness of Ted Haggard. Ted first announced his mission to Israel in the now infamous memo in which he warned his congregation to not “act weird” when Tom Brokaw came to visit the church.

What’s “weird”? Normal worship. Keep it under your hat, Ted said, lest the American people get the wrong idea. That’s in keeping with a lecture Ted recently gave to his staff. There are things, he said, that “are too wonderful for us to know.” A euphemism, he suggested, for the secrets leaders must keep from those who could never hope to understand. Such as other NAE bigs, for instance, who, according to the Forward, are confused and outraged by Ted’s Israeli adventure. We sympathiz