Early this morning I received word on one of the listservs I'm on that Rick Warren bailed on his appearance on This Week:


George Stephanopoulos just announced that Rick Warren cancelled his appearance on the show moments before it was scheduled - his staff citing "exhaustion" as the cause.

And in fact the Saddleback pastor did pull a no-show here's the ABC transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Happy Easter and Happy Passover. For those of you tuning in this morning expecting to hear from Pastor Rick Warren, we were too, but the pastor's representatives canceled moments before the scheduled interview, saying that Mr. Warren is sick from exhaustion. We hope he recovers quickly and we're going to turn instead to the hostage standoff off the coast of Somalia.

Also confirming is The Hill, heh heh:

Warren dropped out of the show after comments came to light that seemed to contradict the megachurch pastor's stated neutrality on Proposition 8, the California measure that banned same-sex marriage.

Warren said he had never endorsed the proposition, which passed by a narrow margin in November, during an interview last week on CNN. But a video of Warren offering an endorsement later hit YouTube, embarrassing Warren and his allies.

If I were Warren I guess I'd be really exhausted from all the serial lying he engaged in on Larry King Live this past week. Perhaps his flack Jim Anderson, who sent me an email on Friday defending the Saddleback pastor, should have gone on the air to explain it all away...

Also: Talk To Action's Bruce Wilson shares his thoughts with "Nobody Likes a Liar: Rick Warren's John Hagee Moment ?"

Experience has taught Rick Warren that he can get away with holding up Hitler youth, to Warren's church members, as a model of dedication to a cause. But, Warren may just have gone too far, because nobody likes a liar. As Larry King declared, "No matter what you think of Rick Warren, he's an extraordinary guy." Warren is indeed extra-ordinary, because ordinary Christian sensibility-as defined by the Ten Commandments that have helped shape Judaism and it's daughter religions, Christianity and Judaism-would commonly hold that it's at the very least unseemly to lie. Rick Warren appears to be under the impression that it's possible in this day and age to be filmed espousing one position, then declare on national television, that he had never done anything of the sort. And, why might Rick Warren think so ? Well, John Hagee got away with as much - though Hagee was careful in his statements to avoid, in strict terms, technically lying. Activists such as Pam Spaulding are rightfully holding Rick Warren's big anti-gay ego to the fire for one of the few things that might just knock the mega-evangelist off his global perch.

...[I]t's not all that surprising that Rick Warren thought he could lie shamelessly on Larry King Live and get away with it, but if there's one value shared among Christian and non-Christian alike it's this: nobody likes a liar.