Michael Pfleger says the days following his horrid comments at Barack Obama's church have been the "most painful" of his life. Good.
I don't know Pfleger and I know pretty much nothing about Catholicism, but how in the world can this guy not get into trouble by the clergy? Also, how can Trinity expect to keep its tax exempt status when they blatantly allow political sermons almost routinely?
It's hard to feel sorry for Pfleger; in fact I don't. How stupid must a person be to go to Trinity, the most controversial church in America currently, and say such things. Maybe he was caught up in the moment or maybe he was really speaking what he thinks to be true. Nevertheless he said it. He's stupid. And whatever backlash that comes from his comments, including anything directed at Sen. Obama, is probably fair game.
6.02.2008
Most Painful
Catholic League Hits Back at Obama
The Catholic League (a joke in its own right) hits back at Obama for having a twenty year relationship with Catholic minister Michael Pfleger
Catholic League President Bill Donohue:
“Senator Obama says he wants to bring people together. Then why does he choose as his clerical friends people like Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger?" Donohue also said. "They are two peas in a pod, both equally divisive, separated only by the color of their skin.”Let me just forget for a second that Bill Donohue and his organization is a joke. Once I get past that, what he says is very true. How possibly can Obama say he wants to unite people when he associates with such divisive people as Wright and now Pfleger? Like I said a few months ago. The last thing a black man with the name Barack Hussein Obama needed was a crazy preacher. Now add a crazy priest to it.
6.01.2008
Obama Finally Quits Trinity
Citing headaches membership to the church has caused, Obama finally severs ties to Trinity. This comes about 5 years too late in my book.
I will say one thing the Trinity Christian Church has done is it's gotten the GOP to quit calling him a Muslim. So I suppose since he's no longer a member of Trinity the right wing will go back to their Muslim meme.
5.30.2008
Inexcusable
There are some things that are just inexcusable. This is one of them.
I've been to Trinity. I never felt out of place or unwelcome. Didn't hear a controversial sermon and never heard a cuss word. But I have heard for at least five years now how crazy that church is; how crazy the preachers are and how crazy the congregation can get. Growing up pentecostal, I suppose Trinity was tame to me.
Sure John McCain has his preacher troubles with Hagee and Parsley. But McCain has denounced both endorsements and as far as I know doesn't attend either church. This is a serious problem for Obama. One that could have been avoided years ago. All the silly gaffes of McCain misspeaking is nothing compared to this.
In all honesty, I don't know how a church can continue having political sermons and also continue to keep its tax exempt status. Though Hagee and Parsley both preach politics weekly as well, Obama's church is under a much greater microscope at the moment.
There's just no excuse Barack Obama. None whatsoever.
5.20.2008
Just Giving It To Us Straight
We all know that John McCain is a serious straight talking maverick. And when he says something he means it, right? So when he says sooner or later we are going to have to deal with Hamas, the government of Palestine, in order to create peace in the region, what he's saying is that he means everything but TALKING with Hamas.
"Dealing with" must mean waging war because it's totally unpatriotic and appeasement that he would have meant TALKING with the Palestinian government. After all, had he meant TALKING he would have said it. It's a good thing McCain isn't suggesting appeasing terrorists.
Likewise, McCain's support of going to Syria, a country that has been known to harbor terrorists and supply the Iraqi insurgency-- or in other words a country responsible for killing Americans,-- and looking them straight in the eye and telling them to clean up their act, seems just as clearcut to me as well. When McCain says that it's right to go to Syria for the stare down, he obviously is saying that we should wage glorious war on them. I just wish other people would understand the vast differences between what Barack Obama is saying and what John McCain has been straight talking to us.
5.13.2008
Just Do It Already
Looking into the Democratic prism, I'm going to say something I've been arguing against for almost two years. In 2004 after Kerry lost I had a bunch of Republican friends ask me who I thought would run in '08. My first choice was Gore. My argument was that history was on his side. My second choice was a very popular newly elected US Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. A majority of my friends said it would not happen. He was too new and too unknown. Being that I'm from Illinois and being that I was at the time working for Obama, I was pretty firm in my thinking. Turns out my Gore hopes were ruined but I was right about Obama.
Since that time I've been arguing against a Hillary presidency as well. I figured that she would run and thought if she did it would be very hard to beat her. The Clinton's are very popular in the Democratic Party and in Middle America. Just take a look at Hillary's current bid and Bill's presidential approval numbers. You'd never know it by watching Fox News, but Bill and Hillary are liked by a majority of Americans. One thing, however, I have been against has been the so-called "Dream Ticket" of Hillary and Obama, or Obama and Hillary. It's more likely to be Obama/Hillary than anything else, but even in '04-'05 I thought the whole thing was a bad idea. Now I'm saying for the love of God, just ask her to take the VP slot and let's move on.
I know, I know. I can't believe I'm saying it either. All along I've figured it to be a bad idea. It would make the ticket too liberal looking. Not "southern" enough. Too non-white male. Yeah all the stereotypes flung throughout my head. But now, after seeing both candidates motivate a generation of Americans, an entire movement all its own, I can see how combining the two together could actually work. There's no guarantee that it will work. I just don't think Obama can take the chance of not having Hillary on the ticket. She will obviously work hard. Bill will obviously be out campaigning and just think of the money they could raise. On top of all that, though, it would be a classic Democratic move that would probably end in colossal failure. Leave it to the Dems to go out and put two Northern left of center candidates on the same ticket, neither of which is a white male, and ruin one of the best chances to retake the White House since 1932. So just do it already and let me sulk in my misery.
5.10.2008
A Republican's Socialism
I'm not sure how many times I've heard Republicans and neocons refer to Obama and Democrats as socialists this election cycle. It seems like daily. Here's more from Hanson's list on how to fix the Republican Party:
...Obama's alternatives to the above would be to turn toward more government, higher taxes, more bureacracies, more dependence of the individual upon the state, etc. And I can't believe the public wants a prescription that historically simply doesn't work.
[...]
Moving toward a lite version of the Obamian/European "bipartisan"and socialist view of government and calling it a new conservatism is a prescription for utter disaster.
Yes more government is something only belonging to Democrats. It was fine when George Bush increased the size of government and it was not a problem at all when Reagan raised taxes and it seems to have been no big deal when George Bush created the Department of Homeland Security making the individual more dependent upon the state, etc. And I can't believe the Republicans haven't caught on that no matter how many times they keep telling themselves that they are the party of small government and individual responsibility they haven't discovered they are historically simply anything but.
The last time the size of the federal government shrank it was under a Democratic president. The last time there was a tax rate that produced a surplus and allowed for unprecedented economic growth it was under a Democratic president. Suggesting that Obama wants to move towards a socialist view of government is being ignorant to the last 8 years of George Bush.
What's sad is that Hanson is supposed to be some sort of law professor at Tennessee if I'm not mistaken. And he's absolutely and intellectually wrong when conveniently leaving out Bush's socialist government and wrong to state that Obama wants to move toward socialism. If Republicans want to chide socialism, they needn't look very far to find it.
Voting twice for a president who has done nothing but increase the overall size of government and done nothing but make the individual more dependent upon the state is okay as long as the president is a Republican. But if not, then socialism again becomes a concern of the Republican Party.
5.08.2008
Following Up on the Drug Dealer Effect
Apparently, not that I listen to drug dealers, but apparently Rush Limbaugh couldn't get enough of himself yesterday when discussing his Operation Gay-os and its effect on the Indiana Democratic primary.
"The train would not have come off the tracks of the Obama campaign, were it not for Operation Chaos. The Jeremiah Wright stuff and all that, yes, that would have happened, but nothing could have done anything about it because Mrs. Clinton would have been effectively out of the race, not able to mount a campaign. So we'd be in a far different spot today than we were so the purpose of this is to keep this going -- exactly what's happened.”As I've mentioned a few times, there is no evidence-- none-- that suggests the drug dealer had any effect on the outcome whatsoever. That's not saying there isn't anecdotal evidence that wackos did take Limbaugh's oxy-contin induced advice and vote for Hillary because some surely did. Just not enough to prove any sort of tampering or "effect." Just like Bill O'Reilly, Limbaugh is irrelevant when it comes to political discourse. I understand why Obama wants to make it appear as if Hillary has now committed the ultimate Democratic sin by making peace with O'Reilly and Limbaugh, but aside from the spin Obama's wanting to give off, there's nothing in the exit poll data to suggest Limbaugh helped Hillary in Indiana.
From the WaPo:
The Clinton campaign credited its narrow win to the organization of Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.) and the more than 100 campaign stops made by Clinton and her husband and daughter. Robby Mook, Clinton's Indiana director, said she did better than expected in Indianapolis and in northwestern Indiana, where Obama was expected to benefit from his exposure on Chicago television.
But he [Obama] fared better than the final polls predicted by cutting into Clinton's huge margin among several key groups in Ohio and Pennsylvania, such as white women and white voters without college degrees. He racked up big totals in college towns and with African American voters in Gary and Indianapolis, as expected. But he also won by 22 points in Hamilton County, an affluent Republican-leaning suburb north of Indianapolis; by 12 points in the county that includes Fort Wayne, after losing similar Rust Belt cities elsewhere; and lost by only four points in Evansville, on the southern border.
For every talking point that Limbaugh and his fellow chickenhawks can use to say they tilted the outcome, there's just as much to show that Operation Gay-os had no effect on very large sectors of Republican support. What's more amazing is that a conservative state such as Indiana can have over 1.6 million people show up to vote in a Democratic primary. Of course that story takes a backseat to right wing talking points that a drug dealer claims to tamper with election results.
Not to mention that Obama actually closed a very large gap in Indiana despite the few who did show up on behalf of Limbaugh. Obama was never going to win Indiana anyway. But dang near did.
5.07.2008
The Drug Dealer Effect
I know why Obama's camp is doing doing this, I'm just not sure I agree with it.
In an e-mail entitled “The Limbaugh Effect in Indiana = 7 percent,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton wrote: “According to the latest exit polling data, 17 percent of voters in the Indiana primary today said they would vote for John McCain in a Clinton/McCain match-up. Forty-one percent of that number is constituted by people who voted Clinton in the primary but also indicated they will vote for McCain in the general election. That comes out to just under 7 percent of the primary electorate the number that may be attributed to a Limbaugh Effect.”I think it gives way too much credit, if credit is even the right word, to the drug-addicted Rush Limbaugh. I see the Obama camp spin that they are wanting to show: that Hillary is so desperate to win the nomination that she would even make friends with the likes of Rush Limbaugh and use his hate speech tactics to garner primary victories. From a strategy perspective I see the point. From a Democratic perspective it's pointless and irresponsible. At least if you are going to relate Hillary to Limbaugh, which is entirely ethical to do, do it in a way as not to legitimize a convicted drug dealer, chickenhawk draft dodging, fat ass who has never done anything good for America.
Even the Fox News article I link to calls into question the validity of such an assertion that druggie had any effect on the race whatsoever.
The impact of “Operation Chaos” is difficult to measure. Indiana holds an open primary, and according to FOX News exit polls, 11 percent of voters in the Democratic contest were Republicans. Fifty-three percent of them said they chose Clinton, while 47 percent voted for Obama.The only accurate way to draw such a conclusion would be if the polling asked if the voter was persuaded by Rush Limbaugh's advice to vote for Hillary. Since such a question was not asked, there is no way of definitively stating that druggie had any effect at all. Like I said, I see what Obama's trying to do, I just don't think it's necessary.
5.01.2008
How Republicans Govern
McCain praised the woman’s treatment and later said some earmarks were clearly worthy. “It’s the process I object to,” McCain told reporters. “We need to start over from scratch.” […] “When you earmark in the middle of the night you have no budgetary constraints,” he said.
While the media is fascinated with Rev. Wright, and while the GOP is happily pursuing every avenue of keeping the media's attention on Wright and away from George Bush, Iraq and the last 8 years of utter incompetency, John McCain's inability to tell the same story twice has went relatively unnoticed.
Besides wanting to stay in Iraq forever, McCain has also made numerous remarks about how he would handle budgetary matters as president. As routine readers will note, I have no qualms about laughing at Republican talk of fiscal responsibility and small government. Their whole platform of small government and fiscal conservatism is but a joke because once they get in office they do the exact opposite of everything they proclaim to believe. Well here we have a perfect example of how John McCain falls perfectly inline with the Republican facade of conservatism.
In July of 2007 candidate McCain said he would change how the government deals with spending budgets:...if elected President I'm going to change the way we deal with spending in Washington. The presidency has many powers. One of the most useful is the veto pen. ...Give me the pen, and I'll veto every single pork barrel bill Congress sends me, and if they keep sending them to me, I'll use the bully pulpit to make the people who are wasting your money famous.
He's going to veto every single pork barrel bill Congress sends him. We all know that can't possibly be true. The Straight Talking Express is blowing smoke, but the so-called conservatives eat it up. As the old saying goes, one person's trash is another person's treasure, the same proves true for pork spending. What one person or Fantasy World Republican might call pork another reality based person calls an earmark. For instance, after Think Progress along with many very attentive bloggers pointed out that military aid to Israel is a line-item earmark (aka pork) McCain backtracked and said he would not veto aid to Israel.
Then on April 24 of this year McCain again Straight Talked himself in circles and said that he would determine spending cuts on a needs basis.I can assure them that the earmarks that they have received, which have been few and far between because they are not represented by powerful lobbyists and special interests in Washington, that we will judge any expenditure of the American people’s tax dollars on the basis of need.
That's a far cry from vetoing every earmarked bill congress sends him. Nevertheless, circle jerk Republicans and so-called conservatives eat it up.
And yesterday the Maverick tells the American people that it's not necessarily pork earmarks that he opposes, it's the process.
All within a years time McCain has went from pledging to veto any bill containing earmarks to only vetoing bills that don't have aid to Israel, to judging earmarks on a needs basis, to not being opposed to pork at all just the process. It would not have taken nearly a year for McCain to finally come around to telling us how he would really govern if the media establishment had done it's job. Barack Obama is held to words he never said, words other people spout but John McCain isn't once held to his own.
This is how Republicans govern. Time and time again I write about it. There are no bigger recipients of welfare than members of congress. And no congress did more to expand that welfare than the Republican-controlled congress of 1995-2007. Not one time did President Bush, the epitome of modern conservatism, ever veto a single bill while the Republicans were in control. Instead Bush increased the size and scope of the federal government more so than any president since 1932. Not even as much of a whimper from the GOP during this time. Never, not in one single instance, did Bush call for a restraint on spending. In fact, he turned the largest surplus in history into the largest deficit in history. Here, again, we have another Republican sweet talking conservative principles of fiscal responsibility and small government ideas on a campaign trail. And this time we have that Republican candidate openly admitting that his pledge to veto every single earmark isn't even close to being true. The attention, luckily for the GOP, by the MSM is instead focused on words another candidate never said. Latest polls show us that the American people are more concerned about McCain's ties to Bush than Obama's ties to a crazy preacher. None of that gets through to the MSM and the GOP is hoping, praying that no one catches on.
h/t Think Progress
*Update:
New CNN poll has Bush as the most unpopular president in modern American history. Fantasy World Republicans will say this only proves that Bush is a true leader because he doesn't listen to what the polls say. But not listening to what polls say has nothing to do with leading. Not to mention I would be interested in hearing one, just one, successful policy objective in Bush's two terms. Any takers?
4.30.2008
More On the Obama Woes
I think any Obama supporter would be less than honest if they didn't agree that the Wright controversy(ies) were a sharp dagger into the main artery to what has been one of the most remarkable social movements since the 1960s. When I say social movement I don't mean one of people flocking to charismatic leaders, I mean a social movement where people realize they have a little bit of power and can change things.
The best modern example of a social movement based on People Power is the Civil Rights movement. Many immediately assume the liberal hippie movement of the 60s to be a social movement but I've always considered that to be more of a swing away from power than an actual movement to retake power. No doubt hippies were wanting to change things but not in a sense to change the power structure but rather than to do away with power all together.
It's only fitting, then, that in the 21st century a new leader who happens to be black would bring together not just people of his own ethnicity but people of all types. Instead of a focus on bringing power or recognition to a certain subset of people, Obama has focused mainly on returning power to the voters of this country. This new social movement has been seen throughout this primary season with the record breaking turnouts in every state. People are ready for change and ready for a new way. Reverend Wright and additionally Obama's relationship with him, are anything but the same old sad way of politics as usual. It's not enough that Obama distance himself from Wright and condemn his words for it will take much more than that to explain away the last two decades of a casually warm friendship between the two.
The last thing a black man with the name Barack Hussein Obama needed was to have a family pastor who at times appears to read Conspiracy Theorist more than he does the Bible. If Obama's new People Power social movement is to continue it cannot proceed to alienate those who firmly believe these last 8 years have been badly mismanaged yet still have enough sense to realize that America, with all thy faults, is still the greatest gift of democracy the world has ever known. Not liking George Bush doesn't always equate to votes and does more to alienate those starving for change than anything else.
4.29.2008
More Obama Trouble
As I've said time and time again, Barack's biggest problem will not be issues it will be his church and his middle name. It's proving truer by the day. I'm not sure exactly what Rev. Wright said this time since I was out of the country, but apparently it was enough to make Obama do his strongest denouncement yet.
I've met Rev. Wright. I was only around him for a very short period of time. He gave a little sermon at a church about 40 miles from my house. He didn't say anything offensive or alarming that time, but he continues to make himself and Barack Obama look foolish at best and crazy at worst. Wright's comments, whatever they may be, are certainly political fuel for any Republican or GOP supporter. I think Obama would agree with such a comment by me as well. This is the race Obama wanted to avoid, the very politics he wants to change. But it's very hard to change discourse when you live in a glass house.
4.19.2008
Talk About Cheap Shots
McCain letter relates Obama to Hamas.
It's a good thing McCain is such a straight talking maverick or he just might have run the first real negative ad of the general election.
4.17.2008
What's Important to Republicans (Update)
This one is just too easy to pass up.
I'm not sure why but I don't watch debates. I really haven't watched one since 2000. It's probably a combination of already knowing who I'm going to vote for and not having the attention span to watch. I'm terrible at TV and movies. I'm just now getting back into movie watching mode. I went years without going to the movies.
Anyway, David Brooks writes last night after watching the Hillary/Obama debate about what is really important.
We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis. It’s legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues.Yes, after five years in Iraq with no end in sight; the person responsible for 9/11 still running free; the largest deficit in our nation's history; the weakest dollar in our nation's history; $4 gasoline; a president with the lowest approval ratings in three generations; a housing crisis about to explode and an economic recession, it's questions about flag lapels and preachers that are important. In the Republican Fantasy World these are the important issues. Whatever it is the GOP can use to distract people away from the issues really affecting our country is their modus operandi. There's no need to talk about all of Bush's and the Republican's failures, let's talk about who are true patriots and who's not. Let's talk about who has the craziest preacher, unless Mitt Romney is the VP then church membership once again becomes a personal issue respected by the separation of church and state. Anything that may bring up the fact that Bush has a 28% approval rating and that 81% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track is a diversion from the important questions of Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and Tuzla airport.
Even though Brooks says it's a "journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities," he means of course in the realm of who wears a pin on their jacket and not who has the answers to the mess the GOP has put us in. To do that would be un-patriotic. Remember, what's important for Republicans is that we forget the last 8 years.
*Update:
Senator Obama's response to what many perceived to be one of the worst "debates" of the season is below. The reaction from Republican circles is that the debate was "excellent." Mainly because there where very little questions about actual policy substance and mostly questions asking the candidates to refute right wing talking points. Those supporting Obama don't flock to him because of what the right wing says about him, they flock to him in numbers not seen since Kennedy because of his ability to want to take our national political discussion away from talking points and into substance. Obama believes that people are hungry for change and not that people are inherently stupid and unable to make decisions for themselves like the right wing insists. If anything this clip shows that Obama is not an old geezer singing hymns about bombing Iran like his competition is. He's actually got a little coolness about him.
4.14.2008
McCain Huddles The Masses
“Americans are hurting today,” McCain said at an Associated Press forum in Washington, D.C. “They’re hurting in the towns and cities across America. They’re sitting around the kitchen table, saying, ‘Are we going to be able to make our home loan mortgage payments? Are we going to be able to -- do I have to try to get a second job? Can I keep my job? Why was I laid off?’”McCain went on to add that he thinks the U.S. is in a recession and that President Bush and some very greedy people on Wall St. are to blame. How proletariat of him.
Imagine if you will, if the communist loving, terrorist sympathizing, elitist Barack Obama had said something like this. Well, then, The Economist might have printed an editorial denouncing Obama as a feel good populist or something.
4.09.2008
Who The Opposition Is
I'm not quite sure what to make of this and had I not seen Lisa's post about Democrats supposedly pulling cheap shots by calling McCain a warmonger, which Obama issued a statement denouncing Shultz-- although I do agree with Shultz-- I probably would have left it alone. Here we have David Bellavia who is a GOP congressional candidate from New York, introducing John McCain by saying you can have your Tiger Woods, we've got John McCain.
What does that even mean? At face value it appears he is referring to Obama's ethnic diversity by referencing the most famous athlete in the world who is also from a very ethnically diverse background. What else could he be talking about? I'm not sure it's a racist statement but it surely is a cheap shot. Then we have McCain embracing him with a hug.
There is no doubt John McCain wants to continue the war in Iraq forever. He's stated numerous times he sees nothing wrong with staying for hundreds of years or thousands of years. That sounds like a warmonger to me. But is there any defense of mentioning Tiger Woods in a context that is confusingly disingenuous at best and racist at worst.
No, cheap shots aren't just something the Dems are practicing.
4.08.2008
Simple Math
Charlie Cook is always three steps ahead of the media:
The media make it sound as if this is the first time a nomination process has ever went past March. Accordingly, the GOP is trying to hide the fact that its soon to be nominee tried to switch parties twice in the last 7 years and did not win the conservative vote in one single contested primary. Add the mix together and we get a hyperbole fascination of a nomination process that is anything but losable to Barack Obama.The hand-wringing today is over a nomination process that some say has gone on too long, but just four years ago, it was over a process that seemed to begin and end in Iowa. Once Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., pulled off his upset win in Iowa, with his neighboring state of New Hampshire next on the calendar, the Democratic nomination process was effectively over. One state voted; the nomination was basically settled.
In 2000, the process went on for all of two states. Once Vice President Al Gore beat former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., in New Hampshire (Bradley had not seriously contested the Iowa caucus), the nomination fight was over. Two states voted; the nomination was settled.
Someone recently gave Clinton a 12-percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination.
My guess is that her odds are less than half of that; it would take three or four consecutive weeks of problems the magnitude of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright hitting Obama, plus Clinton getting every other break in the world. And she would still need to win the remaining contests by 60 percent or more to close the gap sufficiently so that the remaining uncommitted superdelegates might break a tie (defined as an Obama margin of, say, 60 delegates or less) in her favor.
[...]Hillary would need to win every primary or caucus left by very wide margins to come close to snatching the nomination from Obama. But do we hear that in the media? No. We hear that Hillary is still in the fight and the Democrats are imploding all over themselves. Hillary's comeback would be equal to Mike Huckabee, who has won more contests than Hillary, wrestling the nomination away from McCain. The only way Huck could do that is by winning every primary left by very wide margins and then go to the convention and strong-arm it from the Party. The scenario isn't that much different from what Hillary would have to do yet the media makes it sound very differently.
Unless Clinton wins Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina and a few other places by landslide margins, which is very unlikely, her donors will stop giving and her campaign will grind to a halt.
I suppose Hillary can stay in as long as she wants; if I were her I would too. It's the media's responsibility to accurately report her odds of winning and her real standing at capturing the nomination. Once the media did that Hillary's donors would back out quicker than George Bush heading to Crawford for vacation effectively ending this charade.
4.04.2008
The Jaz Standard Applied
"Something as transcendent as someone’s spiritual guidance and philosophy cannot simply be compartmentalized and then dismissed.” Or so said Jaz but has later somewhat recanted, nonetheless creating the Jaz Standard.
It being dismissive to attempt to distance issues and the philosophy that shapes issues, Mitt Romney
should have a hard time explaining why federal agents have locked down a 1,900 acre Texas polygamist LDS compound housing followers of convicted felon Warren Jeffs and how that differs between him and Obama's relationship to his church.
Lets review similarities between the two situations.
Both Romney and Jeffs are members of the Mormon Church. Both are prophets of the Melchizedek Priesthood. Both are products of polygamy; Romney as much as Jeffs in every regard. The former Republican presidential candidate and current VP hopeful's "great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12."
Furthermore:
"Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.
[...]
"the law of polygamy -Smith's revelation that God authorized polygamy -remains in Article 132 of the church's Doctrine and Covenants. In addition, Mormon widowers who remarry today believe they will live in eternity with their multiple wives."Being priests and prophets in the Mormon Church, both Romney and Jeffs are bound by Mormon Doctrine which is the philosophy that shapes issues, remember. That Doctrine includes Article 132 mentioned above which Jeffs has been practicing and which Romney has sworn a covenant to. Obama being a member of a church whose pastor said America should be damned for its racist past in accordance to the Jaz Doctrine cannot be separated from his pastor's remarks for it is the philosophy that shapes Obama's issues. How true, then, this should be for Romney and his relationship to the exact same philosophy as Warren Jeffs.
Why isn't Fox News and Rush Limbaugh giving this equal treatment?
3.26.2008
Obama Releases Tax Info
Since Hillary really stands no chance at winning the nomination I don't care if she releases her tax documents or not. She says she will three days before the the Pennsylvania primary, but if she doesn't it's not that big of a deal. However, since Obama released his, the GOP nominee should also do the same.
As far as the Hillary matter is concerned, I don't see any way she can win the nomination. Unless she stays in the race all the way until the convention and then at the convention forces a riot and strong arms the Party into granting her the nomination, I don't see how it can be done. She can't catch Obama with delegates no matter what. The only way she'll be the nominee is by some sort of coup. I'm not trying to make her sound like an extremist I'm just saying it will take extreme measures for her to be the nominee. I think in the end she'll bow out without exerting to extremity.
3.20.2008
The Fold
For those following mine and Jaz's discussion on Obama and Rev. Wright, and the scrutiny on all sides, we still are replying back and forth on Lisa's site. Jaz has also posted some sort of 'tell all' on his site about why Obama really attended Wright's church. I've read it a few times and still don't know what the "real reason" is. Anyway, I'm just trying to keep people in the flow of information.
I haven't said much on PN about the right wing hysteria over Obama's connection to Wright and his subsequent speech mainly because I don't really care. I see very little difference between what John Hagee and Rod Parsley have said and Rev. Wright. If Wright is a racist America hating pig, then so is someone who says America deserved Hurricane Katrina and that America provoked 9/11 or that America was created in large part to destroy Islam. Republicans really have no room to talk about crazy preachers. The one difference, though, is when a crazy Republican supporting preacher says something inflammatory they're considered patriotic while a Democratic supporting preacher is called racist and anti-American.
I also don't-- maybe ever-- link to Huffington Post. But I came across a post that sums up the double standard between right wing preachers and left wing preachers. Frank Schaeffer, whose father was a leading right wing/conservative/Republican leader, writes:When Senator Obama's preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.
It's true. There's no bigger patriot in America than a right wing preacher who uses his pulpit to call America out for its evilness. Even the ones who say America has been damned by God for our sins, like Hagee does, is paraded around by the right wing. But those who say God should damn America for our racist past, largely a conservative sin, is as un-American as one can get.
There's nothing more patriotic than a white male preacher telling us all that God is going to kill us for not supporting Republican platforms (abortion, gay rights, invading countries at will, etc.) except for maybe a chickenhawk white male that tells us how George Bush's war in Iraq was the right thing to do and that everything has been a huge success (nee pretty much the entire 25% of Americans who still support Bush). Both are treated by our media establishment and our political establishment as heroes of the American cause. But dare say God should damn us for excluding-- in best cases exclusion meant disenfranchising and not killing-- blacks and other minorities and we have a right wing high speed come apart. To sin is to commit Democratic platform issues, to live as a God-fearing American patriot is to walk a conservative line led by the most patriotic of right wing white male preachers. Is this really an argument the right wants to bet their third term on?
