As we've been documenting, conservatives are engaged in a full-fledged freak-out over the Army's decision to rescind anti-Muslim preacher Franklin Graham's invitation to speak at a Pentagon National Day of Prayer event.

Here's Peter Johnson Jr. raging about how we have become “America-lite now” and that “we are embarrassed by our sons.”

In a classic moment of cognitive dissonance, Johnson Jr. said:

No one is out to make any excuses for the statements that Franklin Graham made. And they were made nine years ago, in the wake of 9/11. In the wake of 3,000 deaths. He doesn't need excuses, he's made his viewpoint clear as an evangelical minister and as someone who wants to proselytize the world in the word of Jesus Christ.

Of course, in stressing that Graham's comments were “made nine years ago, in the wake of 9/11,” Johnson Jr. is attempting to excuse Graham's comments a few seconds after claiming that “no one” is “out to make any excuses.” As my colleague Simon Maloy pointed out, yesterday Johnson Jr. also spent several minutes offering excuses for Graham's anti-Muslim rhetoric, including invoking 9-11. And he's not the only one.

Graham himself has defended his rhetoric about Islam as recently as this past December on CNN, telling Campbell Brown that “True Islam cannot be practiced in this country. You can't beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they've committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries.”

Last night, Sean Hannity repeatedly excused Graham's comments, specifying that they were aimed at “radical Islam.” But the outrage over Graham's comments is that he has taken the actions of fringe lunatics and applied them to an entire faith, which he has classified as a “very evil and wicked religion.”

Defense of Graham hasn't been limited to Fox News, as CNN's Erick Erickson wrote that: “The Council on Islamic-American Relations and other Islamic groups got upset with Franklin Graham pointing out the truth.”

It's also worth noting that Johnson's claim that Graham's offensive comments were made nine years ago ignores the fact that while Graham was on Fox & Friends yesterday, he again referred to Islam as “evil” and told Muslims that they “don't have to die in a car bomb.”

No one is out to make any excuses for Graham's latest comments, but they were made more than twenty four hours ago, so keep that in mind.