“Church Goers Like Torture More!”

“The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists.”

“Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful.”

That’s what the headlines blare, based on a recent survey conducted by the research arm of the prestigious Pew Charitable Trust.

To briskly summarize, frequent churchgoers and White evangelicals, followed fairly closely by White non-Hispanic Catholics approve of the use of torture more than do mainstream Protestants, those unaffiliated with any religion, and non-churchgoers.

If we stop right here and try to figure out why these results are as they are (setting aside for the moment Eastan McNeal’s recent excellent post about the survey’s methodology), the mind runs happily amok with what feels like obvious reasons. My friends and I came up with a few:

“Maybe the Bible-thumping “torture-lovers” see certainty and intolerance as two sides of the same coin. It’s easier to dehumanize people who exhibit the attributes that are the object of the intolerance.”

“God and Country are one in the same to religious fundamentalists, so ‘not country’ is heathen and the welfare of such people is not any concern.”

“If you’re a fundamentalist of any religion (or ism) there is pure unadulterated and unquestioned Truth. Once you’ve got that on your side you no longer need to question things as much.”

“Anything designated as evil does not need to be treated as a human.”

“The more conservative active church goers are more likely to have a good/evil, black/white, us/them, heaven/hell, saved/damned mindset. Compassion can then be eliminated towards those on the wrong side of the comparisons.”

But, I dared to look a little deeper at some other Pew survey work. It turns out that almost 50% of Americans believe that torture is acceptable “often” or “sometimes,” and that view has not changed significantly over the last couple of years. Republicans and Independents approve of torture more than do Democrats. Differences among men and women are small, as are differences regarding age and educational level. However a greater number of older people (33%) than younger people (23%) say torture should never be used. (Go seniors!)

But here is the bottom line. In the Pew survey, plenty of Democrats, mainstream Protestants, infrequent churchgoers, and religiously unaffiliated people DO believe torture is acceptable, and plenty of Evangelical Christians, non-Hispanic Catholics and frequent churchgoers are NOT in favor of torture. See the data for yourselves:

So, there is statistical significance and there is practical significance. In very practical terms, that means that if you meet up with an Evangelical Christian who attends church frequently or a Unitarian who attends services once a year, you might go with the probabilities and guess their view on torture correctly. And you will also be wrong often enough.

Your take?

I suspect there may be some pushing involved in that Pew poll, as there may be a coordinated push to break down the cohesiveness of what the democrat party believes is the foundation of the republican party, White evangelical Protestants.

Years ago I worked with Dr. Marvin Kottke, a research professor at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Kottke adopted a couple of booklets I had written on survey statistical sampling methods and analysis presentation for his classes. We all understood the importance of how you select who you survey and how you phrase and order the questions. From him we learned the importance of preventing your desire for a pre-conceived outcome from influencing any of the process going into the survey, collecting the sample and analyzing the results.

Kottke lobbied the Council of American Research Organizations (CASRO) to include “in the box” guidance for researchers. He believed that no study should be released without a boxed description explaining how the survey / poll was conducted. You have seen them. Xyz research interviewed nnn people between this date and that date and the margin of error is x percent with a confidence interval of y. More importantly, he argued, was to state WHO commissioned the study and WHY.

My booklets were written to accompany a computer program I had just released that allowed organizations to tabulate their own surveys. I feared that if people put garbage into my statistical analysis program that they would get garbage out or that they would misinterpret the raw data and present leading findings. If the user of my software was challenged on their methodology they could easily blame the new software so, to shield myself from that end, I offered a free education through these little books. What I did not realize or expect was that people were sometimes using my guides as instructions on how to pre and post doctor the polls to further their agenda.

I was attending a National Ski Areas Association conference in Nashville when I heard Dr. Kottke warn an audience: “Do not tell your researchers what you expect to find with the study you are hiring them to conduct.” No matter how honest we are we fear our desire to satisfy the client, and we don’t really have accurate formulas for calculating out of your quantitative results, our qualitative bias.

I am seeing more and more surveys released without the “box” of information telling me about the research methodology. A more troubling omission is the who and why. Who paid Pew to conduct a study on torture that included questions about religious faith? Why did the client do that? What were they expecting to find?

If the survey would have shown that black agnostic eggheads supported torture more, would the survey results have been released?

That, by the way, is a good question. Most surveys are buried because the results did not support the client’s desired narrative. If the survey showed that religious and non-religious people felt the same way then who gave the researchers the suggestion to break out whites from blacks? And if that did not create a measurable enough difference, why was the evangelical group broken out, from the religious breakout, and why was that the only group breakout published by CNN?

Without answers to the above questions, I doubt the sincerity of the poll, the pollsters, the media that would publish the selected results and, most certainly, the mysterious client who commissioned the poll.

By the way, the information that should have been in the box:

Data from a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 14-21, 2009, under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates, among 742 American adults. Other religious groups are not reported due to small sample sizes.

Question wording: Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?
Pew

Pew’s own analysis of this poll showed that of the 742 respondents 188 were republican. They state that a number that low dropped the margin of error to 8% from 4% for the total sample. Also, using Pew’s own data from other studies, the number of people in the U.S. claiming to be evangelical is 19%, including black evangelicals. So the sample in this poll should have included at most 140 evangelical respondents and the margin of error should be stated as a number greater than 8%. These are assumptions because some of these sub-numbers are not published. The charts released indicate they surveyed 174 WEPs

The press is being biased and misleading in their treatment of the study. The above link goes to US News with a headline: Most Evangelicals and Catholics Condone Torture in Some Instances, when the headline actually could have read: Americans Split on Torture. According to the raw numbers 49% of the TOTAL sample says that torture can often or sometimes be justified. 47% say that torture can rarely or never be justified.

What was the intended goal when these cross-tabs were created and released to the public? Was this pure research or do some of you Christians out there now feel less likely to publicly embrace your religion?

Despite his obviously close relationship with his wife, whispers have persisted since he played Peter Allen that Jackman himself might be gay. “I’d be happy to go and deny it, because I’m not,” he says. “But by denying it, I’m saying there is something shameful about it, and there isn’t anything shameful. The questions about sexuality I find more here in America than anywhere else, because it’s a big hang-up and defines what people think about themselves and others. It’s not a big issue in Australia.” (Emphasis mine.)

Yeah. No freakin’ kidding. Ahem. But then I continued to read the paper, and came across a piece about the Presbyterian Church (USA), Fidelity-Chastity Ordination Standard remains in place in PC(USA). That is to say, they won’t ordain gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people. That’s the bottom line. And I hope you catch WHY that is: Fidelity-Chastity Ordination Standard is the reason why. Because you know, we homosexual types can’t possibly be faithful in relationships, and generally speaking, we cannot get married in the United States (only a few states permit it). And then there’s that whole chastity thing if single, meaning, not legally married. So, just a bit of a burden on the entire GLBT community. Still, the article goes on to say the issue of ordination for GLBT people is not over, especially since the vote was closer than ever. But it is not to be yet.

That is the sad fact reinforced for Lisa Larges, a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary, who has been trying to get ordained for 23 years now. That is not a typo – twenty-three years. Just a month ago came the verdict detailed in this article, Synod court rescinds San Francisco Presbytery vote on open lesbian’s readiness for examination for ordination,Examination, not certification of readiness, is proper time for ‘scrupling’:

The Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Synod of the Pacific has rescinded a January 2008 decision by San Francisco Presbytery that long-time candidate and open lesbian Lisa Larges is “ready for examination [for ordination] with a departure.”

The court ruled on March 25 that the presbytery erred by prematurely considering Larges’ declaration of a “scruple” (conscientious objection) to G-6.0106b ― which requires of church officers “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”

“The examination for ordination is the proper time for (the) Presbytery to determine whether or not a candidate’s departure constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity,” the court said.

If only the Presbyterian Church was as faithful to Ms. Larges as she has been to them. Can you imagine trying for so long for something you felt called to do by a higher power, something for which you were qualified in every way, except one – who you loved? Oh, and despite your qualifications, you are denied the opportunity to serve because of whom you love by an institution that is built on the very foundation of love, at least according to its founder. Wow. (There is more to the article above. Just click on the link if you want to read it.)

But you know, at least I haven’t heard of any Presbyterian ministers being brought to trial for being ordained and homosexual at the same time like the Methodists have. Coincidentally (yeah, right), the two who have been were both women. Oh, don’t think this was back in the dark ages or anything. Heck no, it was in 2004. And it wasn’t in some rural backwater somewhere. It was in Philadelphia, the city of Fraternal Love (that is the more accurate translation) How ironic is THAT? Anyway, the Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud was defrocked for being in a monogamous lesbian relationship. Her congregation did not want this, I might add, and still employs her as a lay person.

And let’s not forget the Lutherans. They want to defrock the Rev. Bradley Schmeling, a man they knew was gay because he has now found a life partner. The assumption being that he is having sex while still single (that whole pesky marriage thing again, you know). That’s right. He has been brought up on charges because he found someone with whom to share his life:

The Rev. Bradley Schmeling was chosen in 2000 to lead St. John’s, though some worried his sexuality could threaten its standing with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. But last year, the 350-member congregation threw a party for him and his partner, when Schmeling announced he had found a lifelong companion.

Bishop Ronald Warren of the ELCA’s Southeastern Synod, however, asked the 44-year-old pastor to resign. When Schmeling refused, Warren started disciplinary proceedings against him for violating church rules barring sex outside of marriage.

Holy Smokes.

I could go on, but you get the point. Hugh Jackman was putting it mildly when he said we have a “hang up” about homosexuality in this country, and our churches are right in the midst of it all. Not just the right-wing, evangelical, fundamentalist churches either, but mainstream denominations.

While I appreciate the optimism of some in PC(USA), I wish I could share it, but I can’t. When you have two major states passing anti-gay measures (Prop 8 in CA, an act strongly supported by Obama’s choice to lead his Faith Tour, Doug Kmiec, and Amendment 2 in Florida), and a President who campaigns with Donnie “Jesus Cured Me Of My Homosexuality” McClurkin; who counts as one of his closest friends and confidantes a man who is not just homophobic, but ACTIVELY anti-gay in the person of IL State Senator, James Meeks; and who chooses – HAND PICKS – a man who is actively anti-gay to chair the Democratic National Committee, Tim Kaine, I just cannot muster the same level of hope for change in these mainstream denominations. Heck, I don’t have a lot of hope for our entire nation, not just for the churches (or synagogues, or mosques, etc.). Not in this time, and not with this president. I would love to be proven wrong, though, but I gotta say, I’m not holding my breath.

But first, just in case it’s been too long, here’s a reminder about Barack’s good friend and strong political ally, Rev. James Meeks, both a powerful Chicago pastor and a state senator, who can win elections solely through his church’s 22,000 members voting for him. Larry Johnson exposed who Meeks really is in April 2008’s “What Would Tip O’Neill Do About Barack’s Pastors? [Updated]“, an excellent expose of the ministers with whom Obama has surrounded himself.

But Meeks is special. He has been Obama’s friend, ally, and spiritual adviser for years now. Here’s a little reminder of who he is:

You can read more in SusanUnPC’s late April 2008 story, “Father Pfleger & Rev. James Meeks: Who They Really Are” and at least a dozen more NoQuarter articles exposing James Meeks. Not for the faint of heart, these two men, in their language or theology, as SusanUnPC demonstrates in her fine post.

Oh, and The Rev. Meeks is also connected with The Rev. James Dobson – yes, THAT James Dobson, from “Focus on the Family.” They are working together to abolish the separation of church and state. But don’t take my word for it. Check out this little blurb about James Meeks from the Southern Poverty Law Center highlights:

The Rev. James Meeks is a key member of Chicago’s “Gatekeepers” network, an interracial group of evangelical ministers who strive to erase the division between church and state. A stalwart anti-gay activist, Meeks has used his House of Hope mega-church to launch petition drives for the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a major state-level “family values” pressure group that lauded him last year for leading African Americans in “clearly understanding the threat of gay marriage.”

With over 22,000 members, Meeks’ congregation was large enough to buoy his successful 2002 campaign for state senator. Last year, he ran for governor as a virtual single-issue candidate, drawing national support from Christian fundamentalists by boldly vowing to fight marriage equality at every turn. Meeks eventually dropped out of the race.

Meeks and the IFI are partnered with Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund, major anti-gay organizations of the Christian Right. They also are tightly allied with Americans for Truth, an Illinois group that said in a press release last year that “fighting AIDS without talking against homosexuality is like fighting lung cancer without talking against smoking.”

Wow, right? Yeah. Funny, I sure don’t recall ANYONE in the MSM highlighting THIS little tidbit, or the connection between James Meeks and James Dobson. Such stellar journalism we have had the past 18 months. Hahahaha!

Anywho – it would seem that Meeks’ influence on Obama is coming out as this US News article, Crafting Policy Agenda, Obama Team Brings in Faith Groups, The president-elect and his staff have held about 15 meetings so far with religious groups would indicate:

In the eight weeks since Barack Obama was elected president, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism Director David Saperstein or members of his Washington, D.C.-based staff have attended roughly a dozen meetings with Obama’s transition team, on topics ranging from domestic poverty and the plight of White House faith-based initiatives to foreign policy challenges like bringing peace to the Middle East.

“This is the most extensive outreach and listening tour that I’ve ever seen a new administration take, and that is certainly true of their outreach to the faith community,” says Saperstein, who has worked with presidential transition teams going back to Jimmy Carter’s. “It’s quite remarkable.”

The effort is noteworthy not only for the number of Obama transition team meetings with religious groups—about 15 so far—but also because top Obama policy aides have joined the powwows. Melody Barnes, who will be director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and Heather Higginbottom, who will be the council’s deputy director, have participated in some of the meetings.

“There is the feeling that these are not perfunctory meetings but serious meetings with people in policymaking roles who know the process well,” says James Winkler, general secretary of the public policy arm of the United Methodist Church, who says that he or his staff have attended nearly a dozen meetings with the Obama transition team so far. “This is not something meant to bring in the faith community to keep them happy but to solicit our views and ideas.”

I don’t know about you, but it makes me wonder why religious groups opinions are being sought in policy-making. Even Bush, whom I think most people would expect to operate this way did not, at least not on every issue:

Winkler said that during George W. Bush’s tenure, “we were never contacted by the administration” after an initial meeting with the White House Office of Public Liaison, which traditionally handles outreach to religious groups and other constituencies. Though Bush is a Methodist, a group of Methodist bishops was unsuccessful in repeated attempts to meet with the president in the run-up to the Iraq war, which the United Methodist Church opposed.

Yeah, so not as much of a surprise since they didn’t agree with his position.

But I wonder if the following IS a surprise to Obama’s followers (again, not to those of us who have been paying attention):

Heading up religious outreach for Obama’s transition team is Joshua DuBois, a Pentecostal and onetime associate pastor who directed religious outreach for the Obama campaign. Mark Linton, the Obama campaign’s Catholic outreach director, is leading the effort to design an Obama administration version of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and Mara Vanderslice, an evangelical Democratic operative who has helped spearhead the party’s post-2004 religious outreach offensive, is now Obama’s outreach liaison to religious communities.

Don’t let this description of DuBois fool you. He, like Favreau, is young – in his mid-20’s. And while he may have been an associate pastor at his small Cambridge, MA evangelical/pentecostal church (gasp! Had he been anyone else – like a female VP candidate, this might have gotten some scrutiny.), he was not seminary trained. You can read more about him, if you wish, HERE. It is just amazing to me that he is the one heading up Obama’s religious outreach team. Out of all of the people available in this country to Obama for positions like this, he picks this young guy who has no real-world work experience (he went from college to a master’s program to a part-time law school program, according to the article). It is a bit mind boggling, actually.

But I digress. Back to the religious influence on policy:

Representatives from a handful of outside religious groups meeting with the Obama transition team expect these aides to stay on in the new administration.

The Obama transition team would not comment about its meetings with religious groups apart from issuing a brief statement from DuBois, the religious outreach director. “The Obama-Biden transition team is working with a range of religious and secular community groups to solicit their views on the transition process and our agenda going forward,” the statement read in part.

Interviews with 10 participants in the Obama transition team’s faith-based meetings paint a portrait of Obama aides recording priorities and concerns of representatives from religious denominations and advocacy groups, mostly of the left-leaning variety. Their policy priorities include economic relief for the poor, new protections for organized labor, a stepped-up campaign to combat global warming, improved access to healthcare, and guarantees that the United States will forgo torture in its war on terror.

Well, yeah, those sound like some pretty good issues – I think most of us would be fine with this list. But you know it doesn’t stop with helping the poor:

Some of the faith-based groups have also pressured the transition team to make a serious attempt to reduce demand for abortion by improving sex education and expanding government services for pregnant women.

There ya go. But wait – there’s even more:

Spokespeople for the social conservative advocacy group Family Research Council and for the Southern Baptist Convention—a huge, mostly conservative evangelical denomination—meanwhile, said that their organizations have not received invitations to meet with Obama’s transition team. Southern Baptist Convention public policy chief Richard Land says that DuBois called him to report that Obama had personally read a letter from Land urging the president-elect to push legislation aimed at reducing the demand for abortion. “Mr. DuBois told me that he wanted to keep the bridges of communication open and that the door was always open for us to voice concerns,” Land says. “I congratulated him on having picked Rick Warren to do the invocation at the inauguration.”

Of course he did. And there was much rejoicing throughout the land that Obama picked Rick Warren to participate in his “historic” inauguration. What? That wasn’t rejoicing? Whatever – it was Obama’s choice, ergo, it must be sanctified, according to the Obama faithful. Ahem.

And now, we get to Obama’s take on Bush’s Faith-based Initiatives, a program previously abhorred by liberals, but now that Obama is pushing it, it is a fabulous use of your tax-paying dollars:

Transition team meetings with faith groups focused on planning for a Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Obama’s version of the faith-based initiatives office that President Bush launched during his first term. The meetings have included advocates of strict church-state separation, who have traditionally criticized such programs.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Americans United for Separation of Church and State Executive Director Barry W. Lynn says of the Obama policy of having aides sit down frequently with religious groups. “It would only bother me if [Obama] starts implementing the policies of religious groups that are inconsistent with guarantees of the Constitution, and I haven’t seen that yet.”

Still, creating consensus around the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is emerging as an early challenge in Obama’s efforts to satisfy both secular liberal and religious groups. For instance, proponents of church-state separation want Obama to peel back Bush-era exemptions on employment nondiscrimination laws for religious organizations receiving federal funds—allowing Christian groups to hire only Christians—while some religious groups say they need such hiring discretion to maintain the religious component of their programs.

For now, though, those groups are happy just to have the incoming administration’s ear. “We’re glad to have a good seat at the table and that [the Obama transition team] is listening to all sides,” says Tanya Clay House, director of public policy for People for the American Way, which has expressed concerns about the propriety of federal faith-based initiatives. “The old administration listened to just one side of the argument.”

Wow – I guess Rev. Lynn forgets that his organization, Americans United, spear-headed major opposition to Bush’s faith-based initiative in a major position paper. Want to guess who signed on to that opposition? That’s right – People for the American Way (PFAW). I guess now that it is OBAMA who wants to do it, no, EXPAND the Initiatives, it is magically and miraculously a great plan – because they have “good seats at the table,” see.

And it looks like the two Jameses might just get their way with this whole abolishing of that pesky Church and State thing when this is what the opposition looks like. Nice job at “gate-keeping” there, AU and PFAW – way to stick to the courage of your convictions! And way to protect the Constitution. I mean, hey – why bother with that pesky little document as long as Obama lets you have a good seat at the table? You’re in the “In” crowd now, and that is all that apparently counts anymore to these groups.

The hypocrisy knows no bounds. It simply knows no bounds.

“Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state in the area that is now Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.”

Israel is right to attack Hamas in Gaza. The Palestinians are wrong to have elected Hamas as their leaders. Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, Gaza is being lead by an illegitimate terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel. This “government,” put in place by Palestinians, has repeatedly attacked Israel with hundreds of rockets, suicide bombers, and decades of unthinkable bloodshed and fear.

Israel is not trying to win a popularity contest on the world stage, and nightly news showing civilian causalities is heartbreaking and does nothing to endear the world to the Jewish state. But Israel is following the American model of toppling the Taliban: if you support and harbor terrorists, you are a terrorist. Hamas is aware of anti-Israel sentiment and they have a history of fabricating “atrocities” to inflame the world against Israel.

The American Left distrusts power, the military, and the use of force. As the bumper sticker says, they’re “already against the next war.” But I’ve noticed another disturbing trend: left wing anti-Semitism.

Before I point this out I want to make two points. First, I am not Jewish; my ancestry is English and Christian. Secondly, I understand that most people who oppose Israel’s current actions are not anti-Semitic.

However, there is a virulent strain of antisemitism on the American Left. I believe that the moral equivalence argument and analogy between the State of Israel and the Nazi regime is anti-Semitic. The atrocities committed by the Nazi clique, mass murder on an industrial scale (some camps murdering 20,000 souls per day), was an evil so grotesque and nearly beyond comprehension that special care must be taken when speaking about an event which cost so many innocents their lives.

Israel is a secular, multi-ethnic democracy who is defending herself against a terrorist organization. Hamas like Al-Qaeda, is an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. “Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, and the United States, and is banned in Jordan, Australia, and the United Kingdom.”

The allegedly intelligent blogger, Joseph Cannon, has posted an image based on Nazi propaganda. The soldier’s Swastika has been replaced with a Star of David. As if this wasn’t bad enough, Cannon then uses select quotes from the Bible’s books Deuteronomy and Joshua to attack the secular Jewish State. This selective quoting of religious texts to attack a people is a familiar form of religious bigotry perpetrated on Muslims and Christians today and, historically, on Jews, as if Jews today have to answer for every word of a 5,000 year old religion. Cannon is engaged in Jew-baiting, and it’s despicable.

Additionally, Cannon uses the canard that Israel possess “stolen” land. He writes: “keep in mind that this story is about land theft, pure and simple. The Lord is here the ultimate fall guy, the original Nuremburg excuse: ‘Hey, we didn’t want to commit genocide; we were only following orders.’”

It’s unfortunate that Cannon uses the Nazi tribunals and religious text as a comparison to a secular democracy defending itself from terrorists’ attacks.

Cannon’s writing then veers close to Der Stürmer, the anti-Semitic rag of Nazism:

Too many Jews learned the wrong lesson from World War II. The victims of persecution came to equate strength with a willingness to persecute others. Like many other peoples in many other times and places, a large number of Jews were seduced into the false belief that the hardest heart beats longest.

But history teaches a very different lesson. Hitler’s Germany did not last. The Third Reich was destroyed for its evil. Germany was divided like an earthworm. Yet it recovered. Who can deny that — in the long run — the best thing ever to happen to Germany was the eradication of its government and its (temporary) loss of national sovereignty at the end of World War II?

~snip~

Israel must be destroyed, just as Hitler’s Germany was destroyed. All Jews throughout the world must forevermore rid themselves of the lunatic, racist dream of “Jewish state.” Jews living in Israel will either agree to live in a single multi-ethnic democracy in which everyone ruled (directly or indirectly) by the government has an equal vote — or they will die in their madness.

The madness of Cannon’s thesis is his shameful omission of Hamas’ terrorism, the numerous murders, suicide bombers, rockets launched at innocent Israeli citizens, and kidnapping of IDF soldiers. He deplores the establishment of a Jewish state, but ignores the goal of Hamas to establish an Islamic state. Nor does he mention that Israel does have non-Jewish citizens, including Muslims, Druze, and Christians. His rage is directed at the idea that a people can establish a homeland, but clearly he is uneducated at the plight of Jews in pre-World War Two Europe. He claims that “too many Jews learned the wrong lesson in World War Two,” but he fails to note that the assimilated Jews of Europe were nearly all murdered exactly because they had no where to turn when anti-Semitism reared its ugly head.

Cannon then goes on to say that the “Old Testament,” is evil:

In my explorations, I have never found any other “sacred” text dripping with the inexcusable bloodlust and hate one can find in the Old Testament. My sympathies now lie with the Gnostics, who considered much of that book evil

Cannon is referring to the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. His ignorance is profound. The Jewish Torah (as it’s called in Judaism) and the Old Testament are not identical. This shows his utter ignorance and bigotry. But of course Cannon is not alone.

In a similar vein, a commentator named Alibe on American Girl in Italy’s recent post writes:

The current war between Hamas and Israel is not war. This is the equivalent of The Germans clearing out the Warsaw Ghetto. Gaza has been a ghetto. Israel has treated the people of gaza as less than human. They have tried to control every aspect of life in Gaza. Just as the Nazis tried to control the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, the Israelis have morphed into the Nazis and now use the same thinking the Nazis did.

Besides the author’s ahistorical understanding of the Holocaust, the analogy also falls apart when you point out that the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were not launching rockets at the civilian population of Poland nor did they have it as their charter to destroy the nation of Germany — although Germany’s anti-Semitic propaganda claimed they did.

As I wrote on the same post:

Land was not “taken away” from Palestinians. Jewish holocaust survivors [and others] fought the British who controlled a colony the British called Palestine, which was never a Palestinian state. In fact, there has never been a country called Palestine. There’s a democracy in that region, called Israel, which continues to be attacked by a terrorist government, called Hamas. Israel is now dismantling this terrorist organization, an organization — by the way — whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel and who has killed thousands of Israelis.

Israel is open to criticism. And friends of Israel, like Larry Johnson, have been critical of this military action against Hamas in Gaza.

Liberal antisemitism is hateful and ubiquitous. A Daily Kos diarist, Susan Jumper, wrote that she’d like to “gas” the Jewish Sen. Joseph Lieberman, and others on her post compared Sen. Lieberman to a dog that should be killed.

Similarly, during an anti-Israel demonstration in Florida, protesters shouted:

“Did Israel take notes during the Holocaust? Happy Hanukkah.”

And:

To the dozen or so supporters of Israel gathered across the street, one demonstrator shouted: “Murderers! Go back to the ovens! You need a big oven.”

While it’s inflammatory to call someone a Nazi, I believe it’s anti-Semitic to call Israelis Nazis. Just as it’s correctly verboten for whites to use the N-word, it’s equally offensive to engage in this not so subtle form of Jew-baiting. Barely disguised anti-Semitism (or the outright murderous fantasies of Daily Kos’ Susan Jumper, Joseph Cannon, and the protesters in Florida) have become très chic in Europe and the United States. We can argue over matters of policy, but false comparisons, attacks based on religious texts, and code words have no place in our discourse. It’s important to point out that words have implications, and it’s clear that anti-Semitism is being implied.

As Israelis say about the Holocaust, Never Again. Never again.

There are reasons the LGBT community supported Clinton over Obama: Obama refused to be photographed with Gavin Newsom in 2004, when the San Francisco Mayor was the center of a national uproar for his support of gay marriage; Obama participated in a gay bashing “Gospel Tour” in South Carolina with Donnie McClurkin, an African-American minister who views homosexuality as a disease Jesus Christ can cure; Obama cites his Christianity when he mentions his opposition to gay marriage in his text entitled The Audacity of Hope; Obama stigmatizes and minoritizes gay marriage when he refers to it as such in his political speeches and texts; Obama admits to seeking spiritual counsel from a certain Rev. James T. Meeks, a homophobic minister in inner city Chicago who was named by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the “10 leading black religious voices in the anti-gay movement;” Obama refuses to march in gay pride parades; and Obama will not allow himself to be interviewed by the LGBT press. Because Obama has a record of homophobic speech, actions and affiliations, the LGBT community rallied behind Hillary Clinton. And they may rally behind McCain-Palin, for Obama’s continued disrespect for this constituency will compel many LGBT voters to reconsider their support for the homophobic Democrat.

Obama, according to The Advocate, will launch a gay bashing “Faith, Values and Family” tour with homophobic Catholic legal scholar Douglas Kmiec. I quote with added emphasis:

The Christian Broadcasting Network is reporting that the Obama campaign next week will kick off “Barack Obama: Faith, Family, and Values Tour,” designed to woo the votes of left-leaning Catholics, progressive Evangelicals, and some conservative mainline Protestants. If LGBT people find the tour eerily reminiscent of the South Carolina gospel tour the campaign arranged last year with antigay “ex-gay” gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, their instincts may not be far off.

CBN names Catholic legal scholar Douglas Kmiec as one of the religious surrogates who will hit the road stumping for Obama. Kmiec wrote a June 13 op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle supporting California’s Proposition 8, the ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage, titled “On Same-Sex Marriage: Should California Amend Its Constitution? Say ‘No’ to the Brave New World.” Kmiec’s first two sentences in the piece read, “The California ballot initiative intended to set aside the state supreme court’s judicial invention of same-sex marriage deserves public support. Maybe it is enough to say, as many do in conversation, that it merely re-secures a millennia of tradition and common sense.”

Obama, in other words, will campaign with a legal scholar who believes “a millennia” of “tradition,” “common sense” and homophobia should be preserved. Kmiec, by the way, is the former constitutional legal counsel to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Republican jurisprudence is the change in which the LGBT community can believe, I guess.

But it gets worse, for Kmiec writes the following in his 13 JUN op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle. I quote with emphasis added again:

Separating marriage from procreation may also have other remote, but frightening, ill consequences. Society should be skeptical of wider use of asexual procreation. An earlier dark moment in U.S. history employed eugenics to forcibly sterilize the mentally disabled. The push for artificial wombs and the genetic manipulation of intelligence already peppers scientific literature – a push that would no doubt grow, accommodating even the minimal same-sex desire for simulating natural child birth – claimed to be of interest for 20-30 percent of same-sex couples. When carefully assessed, the acquisition of unnatural reproductive means often advances the interests of the very affluent through a libertarian exercise that would threaten all hope of democratic equality.

According to Kmiec, gay marriage is a harbinger for a social eugenics that manipulates the human genome in the name of maintaining social hierarchies. A threat to democracy, the LGBT community in Kmiec’s warped mind is attempting to eliminate the heterosexual population. Raising specters gleaned from science fiction novels, Kmiec stokes the fires of a fear of a queer planet.

For some reason Barack Obama finds this entirely acceptable. Indeed, Barack Obama desires to use the campaign funds he has collected from Democrats and from members of the LGBT community to give this Catholic legal scholar of the lunatic, Republican fringe a platform in Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, New Mexico, Virginia and Wisconsin. If we witness a spike in hate crimes against the LGBT community in any of these states before votes are cast in November, we will only have Barack Obama and Douglas Kmiec to blame.

We also know who to blame if Barack Obama loses the general election. For the LGBT community does not take too kindly to gay bashing in the name of garnering votes from Evangelicals and other conservative Christians. Barack Obama never had our votes, and he certainly will not gain them if he continues to terrorize devout Christians with the specter of a queer planet.

Obama, by the way, refuses to attend LGBT Democratic events: Michelle Obama was the one who addressed the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council of the Democratic National Committee in New York City in June, and she was the one who headlined the lunch for LGBT delegates in Denver during the August convention. Barack Obama was nowhere to be found. But then again, the man who has received spiritual guidance from homophobic ministers probably fears that the audience would try to genetically clone him into a gay man.

How odd it is that the Democratic Presidential candidate is a gay basher and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate is a woman who vetoed anti-gay legislation. While Obama is routinely criticized in the LGBT press for his homophobia, Sarah Palin receives accolades from Gay.com for joining the cause of the ACLU and nine homosexual couples employed by the state of Alaska and by the city of Anchorage. Perhaps the LGBT community is one of those constituencies Barack Obama and Donna Brazile believe they can shed as so much toxic waste from the Democratic Party’s past. If this is the case, then I guess the LGBT community should consider supporting the McCain-Palin ticket. After all, Palin supported the community while Obama was bashing it with Donnie McClurkin and Reverend James T. Meeks.

And now Obama will bash the community with the former legal counsel to the Bush and Reagan administrations in 12 states. While this may yield one or two Evangelical votes for Barack Obama, Obama’s continued and unrestrained gay bashing will also result in tens if not hundreds of thousands of LGBT votes for John McCain and Sarah Palin. For similar to the Evangelicals and conservative Christians Obama and Kmiec will court, the LGBT community votes “ALL our values.”

Also see Reverend Amy’s essay on Barack Obama’s second gay bashing tour.

So as I listened to Michelle Obama introduce her husband at the DNC, I wondered why she didn’t include his educational achievements. Since the multi-racial Obama poses as an African American (although he is not descended from slaves and his family never suffered under Jim Crow), and uses the “self-made man” mythology to sell himself–raised by a single mother, fed on food stamps, etc–you would think that graduating from Columbia and going to Harvard Law would be hawked in detail. We have heard that he was the first African American to become president of the Harvard Law Review, only to learn it was a political move by Harvard during a time of racial tensions on campus.

Moreover, Obama appears to have never actually written anything. That’s sort of like becoming the head chef of a fancy restaurant but never cooking.

In fact, Obama’s educational history has been intentionally omitted throughout his political primetime. When asked about his undergraduate training at Columbia University, The New Times states that Obama “declined repeated requests to talk about his New York years, release his Columbia transcript or identify even a single fellow student, co-worker, roommate or friend from those years.” Why would that be?

What we know is that Obama graduated from a Hawaiian prep school with a B- GPA. He then went to Occidental College, about which we know little to nothing, and then to Columbia University. According to conservative journalist, Jack Cashill:

We know enough about Obama’s Columbia grades to know how far they fall below the Harvard norm, likely even below the affirmative action-adjusted black norm at Harvard.

So how did Obama get into Harvard Law School five years after graduating from Columbia? if his LSAT scores had been something to brag about, you know he would be bragging.

Connections are everything, as the saying goes, and that is nowhere more true than in academia. During his time at Columbia, Obama made two very important connections: Bill Ayers and Edward Said. Cashill reports:

There are any number of possible reasons for Obama’s reticence about Columbia: his grades, the courses he took, his writing samples and, of course, his associations.

At that time, for instance, both Bill Ayers and Obama fell within the orbit of left-wing Columbia superstar Edward Said. Just recently out of hiding, Ayers was attending the Bank Street College of Education, which adjoins the Columbia campus.

Edward Said (pronounced Sayeed)

Edward Said became famous for his critique of American attitudes toward eastern cultures, particularly Islamist Arabs. His scholarship contributed to the concept of “the other,” a useful way of understanding prejudices and biases The idea that some people discriminate against others whose beliefs, skin color, sexual orientation, gender, etc, differs from their own is helpful in understanding and correcting discrimination and in teaching our children to be open minded.

However, this theory is now put into service by the so-called “progressives,” who use it to ridicule people who differ from them: Clinton Democrats, Republicans and certain strata of Americans. Rooted in anthropology and literary theory’s appropriation of Marxism, the postcolonial theory of Said et al is at the root of Obama’s distain for the “bitter” working class Americans who cling to their guns and their religions.

It is of course ironic that the educated latte drinking members of the so-called “Whole Foods Nation” find “others” inferior to themselves. As anthropologist Clifford Geertz writes:

What [educated people] worry about is provincialism — the danger that our perceptions will be dulled, our intellects constricted, and our sympathies narrowed by…acceptance of our own society.

Provincialism is not a compliment. It means unsophisticated and “country”–as in country-and-western, backward, rural, redneck, hick, shitkicker and so on. Said taught that Americans were biased against Arabs, but the American students who studied with him use this theory as justification to be biased against America.

Obama studied with Said at Columbia. Said was a Palestinian by birth and a pro-Palestinian activist in life. He said that he was a “Christian wrapped in a Muslim culture.” Said’s essay, Between Worlds, reveals an even greater connection between student, Obama, and professor, Said:

With an unexceptionally Arab family name like Said connected to an improbably British first name (my mother much admired the Prince of Wales in 1935, the year of my birth), I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport and no certain identity at all.

Barack Obama breaking bread with Edward Said

No Quarter has many excellent posts on radical Bill Ayers and his long relationship with Barack Obama. And to complete this three-way embrace, Edward Said wrote a back-cover endorsement on Bill Ayers’ 2001 Fugitive Days. Said reveals how close they are, at least ideologically, when he wrote:

“For anyone who cares about the sorry mess we are in, this book is essential, indeed necessary reading.”

Khalid al-Mansour

Donald Warden (aka Khalid Al Monsour), founded the Berkeley based African-American Association (AAA) and became the mentor of Huey Newton, one of the founders of the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers are said have broken from Warden’s AAA group due to disagreements about economics. According the UC Berkeley’s chronology of the Black Panthers:

(1961) Huey Newton, a black militant activist student, meets Bobby Seale while attending Merritt College (Oakland, California). Both join the Afro-American Association, a black cultural organization led by Donald Warden.”

(1965) Huey Newton’s mentor, Donald Warden, creates Economic Night in a storefront located next door to the future Black Panther Party office on Grove Street, Oakland.

Larry wrote this piece on Khalid al-Mansour, the person who helped Obama get into Harvard. Al-Mansour is a Texas-born African American whose birth name was Donald Warden. Among other things, he is known by some for his rabid anti-Semitism (see this video). And Cashill adds this:

As far back as 1988, however, Obama had serious pull. He would need it. As previously reported, Khalid al-Mansour, principle adviser to Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, lobbied friends like Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton to intervene at Harvard on Obama’s behalf.

An orthodox Muslim, al-Mansour has not met the crackpot anti-Semitic theory he could not embrace. As for bin Talal, in October 2001, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sent his $10 million relief check back un-cashed after the Saudi billionaire blamed 9/11 on America.

Percy Sutton, a Manhattan Borough president for 12 years was among the most powerful black politicians in New York. In the YouTube below (previously posted by Larry, but please watch it again), Sutton describes how al-Mansour introduced him to Barack Obama, asking him to help get Obama into Harvard.

Cashill writes:

“I was introduced to [Obama] by a friend,” Sutton told the interviewer. Sutton named the friend as “Dr. Khalid al-Mansour.” Sutton described al-Mansour as “the principal adviser to one of the world’s richest men.” The billionaire in question is Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.

Knowing that Sutton had friends at Harvard, al-Mansour asked Sutton to “please write a letter in support of [Obama] … a young man that has applied to Harvard.”

So who is this Dr. Khalid al-Mansour? A quick Google search finds this biography from African Venture Partners:

Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tario Al-Mansour is an internationally acknowledged advisor to Heads of State and business leaders in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America. He has been actively involved in structuring investments and joint ventures worldwide for over 35 years. Dr. Al-Mansour was also responsible for the Africa investment activities of Kingdom Holdings, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal’s investment company. During his distinguished career, Dr. Al-Mansour has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University, Bombay University, Columbia University, UCLA, University of Kenya, London School of Economics and the University of Ghana.
In addition to Africa Venture Partners, Dr. Al-Mansour sits on the Boards of: Saudi African Bank; Kingdom Holdings, Africa; Multimedia Super Corridor (Malaysia); Space Tech Inc.; AmNet Corp. International; New Avenues Fund Ltd; United Bank for Africa; United Networks; and Landmark Entertainment.

Dr. Al-Mansour has authored 24 books and is listed in Who’s Who in the World; International Who’s Who in the Arab World; Two Thousand Men of Achievement; Royal Blue Book of London; World’s Who’s Who of Intellectuals and American Hall of Fame.

Dr. Khalid Al-Mansour has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University (Phi Beta Kappa) and Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of California at Berkeley.

In a fascinating academic article entitled The US Organization, Black Power Vanguard Politics, and the United Front Ideal: Los Angeles and Beyond, Scot Brown discusses the history of various Black nationalists groups. He states this pertinent information about Donald Warden/Khalid al-Mansour:

IN 1963, KARENGA met with Donald Warden, a bay area nationalist who headed the Afro-American Association. Bay Area activists Ernie Allen, Jr. (Ernie Mkalimoto), Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and Ken Freeman were also members of this group. Karenga accepted Warden’s invitation to head the Los Angeles chapter of the group. Ayuko Babu, Tut Hayes, Akida Kimani, and Lloyd Hawkins figured prominently in the association’s Los Angeles chapter. The association functioned primarily as a study group and lecture forum — members frequently spoke outdoors to black community audiences (sometimes called “street speaking”).

DONALD WARDEN RECORDED his association’s street-speaking style in an album called Burn Baby, Burn, released in the aftermath of the Watts explosion. An instrumental track and chorus-like affirming voices that call and respond to his assertions, accentuate this recording’s non-stop nationalist proselytizing.

For those of us who remember the Watts riots of 1965, the phrase “Burn Baby, Burn” has very specific associations of molotov cocktails, bloody street fights, “race” riots and death.

What does it take to get into Harvard Law School?

Khalid al-Mansour (aka Donald Warden) asked his friend, Percy Sutton, to help Obama get into Harvard. With friends like al-Mansour, who needs good grades, high scores or affirmative action?

The relationship between Obama and al-Mansour deserves further research.

We have written in detail about the Obamas’ associations with other Black nationalists, and this information about Khalid al-Mansour adds yet another layer to the story.

Check out other related No Quarter reports:

Black Liberation Theology

Obama the Stealth Socialist

What Lies Beneath Barack Obama

Wheel…of…Theology

The Washington Post isn’t the only daily D.C. newspaper to rave about Sandra Bernhard’s anti-Palin ranting. Wednesday’s Washington Examiner joined in, with the headline “Comedienne delivers enraged optimism.” Barbara Mackay claimed “in the end, oddly and subtly, Bernhard’s message is positive.”

That’s not the impression you’d get from the blog of Theater J, where Bernhard is appearing. It has video of Bernhard calling Palin “Uncle Women,” a “turncoat b—h” and a “whore.” One complaint on the blog that Bernhard crosses a line of political incorrectness draws a defense from Ari Roth of Theater J that really drops the curtain on how coarse this show is:

“In fact, the play wears its politically VERY correct heart on its sleeve with its indictment of America as “A Man’s World, It’s a White Man’s World, It’s a F–ked Up White Man’s Racist World” and can only be suggested to be racist in its content if one is hell-bent on protecting White Folk for Sandra’s blistering indictment.When Sandra warns Sarah Palin not to come into Manhattan lest she get gang-raped by some of Sandra’s big black brothers, she’s being provocative, combative, humorous, and yes, let’s allow, disgusting.

The fact that the show has a few riffs like this does not — to my mind — make it a “disgusting show.” there’s too much beauty, variety, vitality, and intelligence to label the entire show as “disgusting.” I’ll agree with you that we produced this show because we did find it to be edgy — because we wanted to give right wing conservative Jews a good run for their money by being on the receiving end of some blistering indictments from Sandra. Does it go over the edge sometimes? On the gang-rape joke, yes. Sure. Not much else. It goes over the edge and then comes right back to the cutting edge.” [Profanity editing is Graham's.]

Forgive me if gang-rape jokes don’t greet my ears as oddly and subtly positive, as the Examiner suggests, and forgive me if gang-rape jokes aren’t “a rotating sprinkler that a spectator washes in most happily,” like the Washington Post insists.

(If you feel compelled to see the video of Bernhard, you can go to the blog link above and it is in there. Have at it.)

I gotta agree with Tim here. As a lifelong feminist, I don’t see one damn thing funny about suggesting ANY woman be gang raped. Nothing. Not anywhere close to funny. And when it comes from a WOMAN about another woman, well, that just screams internalized misogyny to me. Oh – and I don’t see how that can end up being “positive” at all.

Add on top of that the RACISM of this statement (no matter what Roth says – that is racist), and it just boggles the mind that THIS is the kind of person with whom anyone would want to associate their cause, or campaign, or beliefs. But that’s just me.

And there’s still more from Roth of the Theater J:

Roth insisted to the complainer that the D.C. Jewish Community Center is loving their Bernhard show, and partied with Bernhard on opening night. They’re in tune with her right-bashing rage:

“We’re proud of our producing — proud of Sandra’s sense of timing — taking the fight out to the house and to the street beyond, channeling so much of our rage and frustration at the bizarre recent twists of fortune since Karl Rove trotted out Sarah Palin for John McCain to briefly meet and then get in bed with. Sandra’s face is hanging 10 feet tall in a banner over the DCJCC steps and we’re proud that she’s a new emblem and ambassador for our theater and our center. She’s not the only one who represents us. But her large heart, her generous talent, and her big mouth are all a big part of who we are.”

“Who we are” at this theater clearly isn’t someone who’s interest(ed) in presenting anything other than rage. The video itself, presented like a commercial for the show, explains who the show is intended to please. The average person probably wouldn’t find it the least bit funny. But if you really, really hate Sarah Palin or Christian conservatives, this show is for you. Here’s some of what she says in the promo:

“Now you got Uncle Women, like Sarah Palin, who jumps on the s–t and points her fingers at other women. Turncoat b—h! Don’t you f–kin’ reference Old Testament, bitch! You stay with your new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls–t! Don’t you touch my Old Testament, you b—h! Because we have left it open for interpre-ta-tion! It is no longer taken literally! You whore in your f–kin’ cheap New Vision cheap-ass plastic glasses and your [sneering voice] hair up. A Tina Fey-Megan Mullally brokedown bulls–t moment.”

Is it too broad an interpretation to suggest that when Bernhard attacks Palin’s “new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls–t,” she means the New Testament? It sounds like she’s telling the Christian(s) to stay away from “her” Old Testament, as if Christians don’t have an Old Testament in their Bible. It’s quite clear that the D.C. Jewish Community Center is not attempting an interfaith dialogue with this rantfest.

Oh, boy. I have to admit – I just do not see how anyone justifies that type of ranting against anyone anyway. But I guess I do not understand the need to vilify anything and everything even remotely connected to Sarah Palin. As I said above, until May 31st, I was a diehard, yellow-dog Democrat, but I cannot see why there is such a high level of animosity directed toward Palin, ESPECIALLY by women! What the hell with that already? Is it that these women resent SO much how Palin, a conservative Republican, seems to have done EVERYTHING feminists claimed we wanted for ourselves, including labeling herself a feminist?? Are they resentful? Envious? Angry that she has done it her way? Are they that intimidated by her that they feel compelled to diminish her in any way they can, including calling for her to be “gang raped by black-brothers in Manhattan”? I’m sorry – there is just no excuse for that. It is not positive, it is misogynistic as all get out, and it undermines the speaker, not the subject. It is offensive, and it is shameful. Women do not need to jump on this bandwagon – as this campaign season has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, there are plenty of men willing to do it for us. If you are interested, there is a site dedicated to documenting the sexist attacks on Palin, including the implication above that Palin had not been properly vetted first – she had (H/T to Medusa for this link).

And I have a dream, too. I dream that one day, and oh, how I wish I would see this in my lifetime, that women will stand with women, without undercutting them, maligning them, attacking them, demeaning them, diminishing their accomplishments, and spreading hate about them. I have a dream that one day, one day, and oh, please let it happen in my lifetime, women will celebrate and affirm one another, no matter their religious affiliation, or political party, or class, or color, or orientation, but will celebrate them for who they are, for succeeding against a stacked deck, for standing strong when the winds are gusting against them, for being themselves, fully, and completely, for loving who they are and what they bring to the world. One day, oh one day…

His muslim faith? So far he has refused to acknowledge that he was raised as a muslim while a child in Indonesia. His mom was agnostic/atheist. She did not take him to church. We do not know whether his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was a devout muslim. Barack did learn the call to prayer in grade school but there is no evidence he maintained any allegiance or commitment to Islam when he returned to Hawaii as an eleven year old boy. Furthermore, he appears not to have had any particular religious faith until deciding to become a congregant of Jeremiah Wright.

So, why does he refer to his muslim faith and why does Stephanopolus have to remind him, “you mean your Christian faith.” The rightwing is going to have a field day with this. I think he was stressed and his mind wandered. He is not a muslim by virtue of confession or practice, but the matter sure seems to weigh on him. What do you think?

Obama did it again, he blew another debate. Now, this should have been a simple debate, the question, in my opinion were pretty straightforward and didn’t deal with difficult subjects like the economy or taxes. And most of all, he was debating John McCain, the guy that every Democrat said would never be able to stand up to the oh-so intelligent Barack Obama.

For those who cannot see or hear the video, let me give you a few of the questions and answers from the candidates. The first one I will show is Obama’s answer to the following question:

Q. WHO ARE THE THREE WISEST PEOPLE THAT YOU KNOW THAT YOU WOULD RELY ON HEAVILY IN YOUR ADMINISTRATION?

A. YOU MENTION ONE PERSON THAT I WOULD BE LISTENING TO IS MICHELLE, WHO IS NOT ONLY WISE, BUT SHE’S HONEST. ANOTHER PERSON WOULD BE MY GRANDMOTHER.

Wait…Michelle and his grandmother are going to be in his administration? WTF??? Are you kidding me? I have to wonder if this guy has ADD because obviously he didn’t understand the question… either that or we are going to have an awful lot of nepotism going on in the White House. I wonder if he plans on asking his young daughters for advice, too? That had to be the dumbest answer that Obama has ever given in a debate, and he’s had plenty of dumb answers to choose from. This was the perfect opportunity for him to show that he will have an administration that would compliment his weaknesses, but he blew it.

On the other hand, McCain didn’t hesitate (not one uh), he gave the names, General David Petraeus and Meg Whitman who is the CEO of E-Bay. McCain pointed to people who would help him with foreign policy and military issues, and the economy. Meg Whitman who is an American economic success story AND a woman will certainly help him with his weakness in economics and with the woman vote. In fact, I’ve seen the rumor floated around that she may be his V.P. pick…certainly a wise decision, IMO.

Q. WHAT WOULD BE, LOOKING OVER YOUR LIFE (EVERYBODY’S GOT WEAKNESSES, NO BODY’S PERFECT) WOULD BE THE GREATEST MORAL FAILURE IN YOUR LIFE–WHAT WOULD BE THE GREATEST MORAL FAILURE OF AMERICA?

The answers to this question are pretty long, so I’ll just leave some of it, you can listen to the video to get the rest. Obama jumped right in and started talking about how his dad left him at an early age. Yeah..we’ve heard t hat story a million times, poor Obama raised by a single mother. You never hear him mention on the campaign trail that it wasn’t long before she married a wealthy oil executive and he didn’t exactly go without the necessities. Here’s the Wikipedia quote:

After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro’s home country of Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979

Yeah…tough life he had there! If anyone would take the time to check, Punahou School is a very exclusive, well-to-do school. Not exactly what you would think of when you hear “I was raised by a single mom”, is it? But that’s what he’s counting on, voter naiveté.

He then goes on to give the impression that because of his difficult upbringing, he turned to drugs and drinking while he tried to “find himself”. I could tell you of a lot of kids who were raised by single moms who had it a lot tougher than Obama, some who didn’t go to the best schools, have nice clothes to wear, and didn’t have a decent place to live, and yet they didn’t turn to drugs or alcohol. Obama’s whining goes to show you that he cannot take responsibil ity for his own behavior.

OBAMA: I WAS SO OBSESSED WITH ME AND YOU KNOW, THE REASON I MIGHT BE DISSATISFIED THAT I…UH UH…COULDN’T FOCUS ON OTHER PEOPLE.

Guess what? Obama is STILL obsessed with himself and will never focus on other people. He certainly hasn’t proved that yet. Everything that he has done in his career has been for himself. And don’t let that phony “community service” bullshit make you think he was doing it for others. If he gave a rats ass about anyone but himself, he wouldn’t have let those in his district– black community, live in housing without heat for six months while the slumlord who ran the buildings was giving him large contributions for his campaign and holding fund raisers for him.

Q. WHAT’S THE MOST SIGNIFICANT — LET ME ASK IT THIS WAY: WHAT’S THE MOST GUT WRENCHING DECISION YOU’VE EVER HAD TO MAKE AND HOW DID YOU PROCESS THAT, COME TO THAT DECISION?

A. WELL, YOU KNOW, I THINK THE OPPOSITION TO THE WAR IN IRAQ WAS AS TOUGH A DECISION THAT I’VE HAD TO MAKE NOT ONLY BECAUSE THERE WERE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES BUT ALSO BECAUSE SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS A BAD PERSON AND THERE WAS NO DOUBT THAT HE MET AMERICA ILL.

BUT I WAS FIRMLY CONVINCED AT THE TIME THAT WE DID NOT HAVE STRONG EVIDENCE OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AND THERE WERE A LOT OF QUESTIONS THAT AS I SPOKE TO EXPERTS KEPT ON COMING UP, DO WE KNOW HOW THE SHIITES AND THE SUNNIS AND THE KURDS ARE GOING TO GET ALONG IN A POST SADDAM SITUATION, WHAT’S OUR ASSESSMENT AS TO HOW THIS WILL AFFECT THE BATTLE AGAINST TERRORIST LIKE AL-QAEDA, HAVE WE FINISHED THE JOB IN AFGHANISTAN?

Wait….his most gut wrenching decision was his opposition to the war? The guy gives one speech in the 13th District in Chicago, the stomping grounds of Louis Farrakhan, and THAT was his most gut wrenching decision? Are you kidding me?

Also, who were these so-called “experts” he talked to? This guy’s story builds and builds the more he talks. I would really love to know what intelligence he had at the time he made that little vanity speech of his. Was every Senator in every State privy to such intelligence?

On the other hand, McCain’s answered that his most gut wrenching decision was to stay in the prison camp in Viet Nam after he was told he could leave early. His depiction of what he was facing with that decision was heart breaking. For those who think that this won’t hit home to every military family, you’re sadly mistaken.

As usual, the Obama campaign is trying to make excuses for Obama’s bad performance at this20debate, just as they made excuses for his horrible showing in previous debates with Hillary. Andrea Mitchell, carrying the water for Obama, said this:

“The Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because what they are putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well-prepared.” (NBC’s “Meet The Press,” 8/17/08

Yeah…McCain “cheated”…..

McCain’s campaign had an answer to this ridiculous charge.

We are extremely disappointed to see that the level of objectivity at NBC News has fallen so low that reporters are now giving voice to unsubstantiated, partisan claims in order to undercut John McCain.
Make no mistake: This is a serious charge. Andrea Mitchell is repeating, uncritically, a completely unsubstantiated Obama campaign claim that John McCain somehow cheated in last night’s forum at Saddleback Church.
Indeed, instead of taking a critical journalistic approach to this spin, Andrea Mitchell did what has become a pattern for her of simply repeating Obama campaign talking points.

Oh, and for those who think that I’m using my “bias” to state that Obama screwed up big time, Daily Kos has the same opinion and Taylor Marsh was just beside herself with worry over what is going to happen to poor Obama if he doesn’t start preparing for these debates. Gee…do you mean she actually expects Obama to do the hard work for him? Isn’t that the job of Howard Dean, Donna Brazille, and Nancy Pelosi? As far as McCain is concerned, he had a great debate and was well prepared (no, he didn’t cheat and if anyone can prove that, be my guest). I can say this, however, at this point in time, with the economy in the dumpster and having the last eight years watching our country go to pot because of a Republican president,at this stage of the game this should be a cake walk for Obama, and yet he is dead even with McCain in the polls. So, what do you do when you can’t climb above 50% in the polls? Go on vacation to Hawaii, of course!

Being crowned king isn’t as easy as it looks, I guess.

Divine Democrat can be found at her usual digs, Bad Habit.

…about faith. McCain goes to the Vietnamese torture. A guy came in at one point, a guard came in, then motioned him to stay quiet, then loosened the ropes tying him. He came back later to tighten them. One day outside that same guard came next to McCain and drew a cross in the ground, then quickly rubbed it out. At that one moment, there were just two Christians. This is exactly what I thought McCain would do on faith. He did not talk about Jesus. He went to an anecdote, which talked about faith and torture, what Christians do in deeds.

Anglachel had this to say about Marsh’s seemingly unbiased work.

This observation actually holds true for the contrast McCain is going to draw through the entire campaign, a message he has been honing since at least May. It is of a piece with the article today in the New York Times about Democratic leaders wanting The Precious to put some real substance behind the hopey-changey message. It resonates perfectly with the Republican assault on affirmative action.

I honestly don’t think that I can sum up a comparison between McCain and Obama any better than Anglachel. So I am sharing her very concise and to the point contrast between the two candidates.

Experience vs. narcissism. Doing the right thing vs. indulging your self. Hard knocks vs. celebrity. Living by the rules vs. preferential treatment. Embodied faith vs. religion as a convenient tool.

Anglachel notes in her piece that “I don’t think McCain actually lives up to any of the claims he makes for himself, but that is not the political point”. I have to disagree with her on this point as I believe McCain does live up to many of his “claims”, the biggest one being he is a “maverick”, often coloring out of the lines, particularly when he takes positions that are clearly anti-Republican. A case in point is the McCain-Feingold Act passed into law in 2002.

Taylor was quite critical of Obama, reminding us of his disastrous performance in the ABC sponsored debate. (Anglachel calls it grousing.) Watch Obama’s disastrous performance for yourself!

Marsh said this:

Obama could have had policy answers ready to help push forward why Democratic policies are grounded in humanity and morality, which proves why he’d be a much better president. Instead he offered his standard word fogs without any goal whatsoever, much like he did in the primaries where Clinton regularly cleaned his clock.

Obama has never had answers. He can’t discuss one single policy issue without a prepared speech by (someone else) and his “sidekicks”, The Trusty Teleprompters. It is much too late to ask Obama why he can’t give us good introspective issue-based answers. Obama isn’t ready to answer that 3 am call.

He simply lacks the wisdom and experience to run a “corner newspaper stand”, let alone our country. He truly puts his self-interests before others, if he didn’t he wouldn’t be running for president with just three years completed in the U.S. Senate.

McCain’s answers were interspersed with “his” policy points, clear and precise, from the gut. McCain comforts me because he does know his policy issues and can speak on them with confidence. While I disagree with McCain on some issues, I know he will put our “country first”.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntCL6Z4h_a4&feature=user[/youtube]

We don’t need a president who requires constant adulation and tutelage……..
We need some one who can keep our country in my mind first, someone who will put our national security first….not his own interests!

Let’s roll those clips!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M-kD0QdRJk[/youtube]

Obama courts Middle America in attempt to counter ‘antiChrist’ image

If Obama thinks he has problems with us Just Say No Deal Pumas, he’s got much bigger problems with the very same Americans that he put down during the primaries, you know, those bitter, gun toting, bible clinging folks:

The Obama team’s strategy of picking up conservative, evangelical Christian voters has run into unexpectedly strong headwinds. This is especially true among the poor, white and working-class voters of Scots-Irish descent who live in the Appalachian mountain region that stretches across parts of seven states.

Barack Obama may wonder why many people aren’t falling in line behind him, but the truth is, he faces major public relation problems. Many people just don’t trust him to tell the truth about himself. Obama remains a mystery to millions of ordinary Americans. Who is he? What does he believe in? Is he a Christian? And if so, after 20 years in the church run by Jeremiah Wright, what kind of Christian is he? Doyle writes:

Along with Internet claims that he is a Muslim, some evangelical Christians have put it about that Obama may be the Antichrist. Glenda Kinzer, 41, from rural Ohio, believes the end of the world is about to occur. “A lot of people are talking about how Obama fits the description” of the Antichrist. “I always thought he will be from the Middle East.”

Obama is now advertising his Christianity by pushing Bush’s faith-based initiatives. Not long ago, liberal Democrats worried about Bush using religion, and now, Obama, the shape-shifter extraordinaire is hawking the same old wares (this is a new kind of politician?). Not only are these programs designed to replace social programs (and social programs have long been the mission of the Democratic party), even more troubling is that Obama’s plan “blurs the nation’s constitutional separation of church and state”:

Earlier in the week, he unexpectedly took a page from George W. Bush’s political playbook by embracing his controversial “faith-based initiatives.” He told voters in the evangelical heartland of Ohio that as president he would fund religious groups dealing with America’s social problems provided they did not discriminate in who they offer help.

He praises Ronald Reagan and copies George Bush. Yet Obama remains an unknown. Many of us will never vote for him because he is inexperienced, unproven and displays poor judgement. And Obama’s talking points consist of whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear. What are Obama’s positions? As they say about the weather, wait five minutes and they’ll change. Just last week Obama appeared to throw MoveOn under the bus. MoveOn is one of his major contributors, but for the sake of appearances, they went quietly under the bus. Obama’s followers embrace his political position of never allowing values to come in the way of winning:

In the run-up to the July 4th national holiday, Obama has been on a “values” tour of middle America as he seeks to counter Republican attempts to label him as too liberal.

That’s the thing: Obama will say and do anything for the sake of appearances. And the good folks of Middle America are wise to question who he is and to wonder about his motives.