“Like thieves who steal a car and cut it up in order to sell the parts, the radical right is now chopping up the sermons of Rev. Otis Moss III, incoming Senior Pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, and trying to peddle the parts to generate new controversy,” declared a column in the Washington Post on Monday.

The column’s author, Susan Thistlethwaite, is the President of Chicago Theological Seminary. “Right-wing pundits like Sean Hannity used those same spare parts this past weekend to attempt a further political spin,” she said, indicating a NewsMax article and a thread in the Hannity.com forums that posted links to YouTube clips of Moss’ sermons.

To be fair, even a friendly reading of the NewsMax article does invite some incredulity. But as Thistlethwaite spends 500 words defending Moss’ analogies to thugs, pimps, and Tupac, it seems the columnist-seminarian misses what all the fuss is about.

Just as the media was moving on from the Wright controversy, Moss made several in-sermon gaffes that stirred up another hornet’s nest. “We have listened and watched as the wonderful work of our church has been vilified this week,” said Moss. “I guess we know a little something about crucifixion. This is an attack on the legacy of the African-American church.”

In other sermons, Moss repeatedly returns to themes of racial competition, implying in a number of instances that whites intentionally suppress the black population by holding them to inferior schools, insufficient health service, and inadequate legal representation. In particular, critics of Moss accuse him of emphasizing “the skin issue” as a metaphor to spiritual dominance.

MSNBC’s Morning Joe also reported Rev. Moss’ comments as harmful to the Obama campaign. “He came out last night and defended the old pastor,” Joe said of Moss. “He compared what they did to the last pastor to a crucifixion, he basically said, it’s not us, it’s the white media who is attacking us.”

Posted in Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation | 5 Comments »

Former Georgia Republican Rep. Bob Barr launched a Libertarian Party presidential bid Monday, promising an alternative to the big government approaches of all three presidential candidates. While in Congress, Barr was a key leader in the impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton. Seeing that Republicans are no longer fiscal conservatives, Barr left the Republican Party two years ago.

Barr’s campaign platform includes themes that Republicans of old used to value. Barr believes that government spending at all levels is out of control.

Tens of billions of dollars in corporate welfare - essentially aid to dependent corporations - should be eliminated. Largesse for middle- and upper-income Americans, particularly so-called “entitlement” programs, must be cut. Billions in so-called defense spending, which protects America’s populous, prosperous allies rather than Americans, must be eliminated.

Barr would push to adopt a national sales tax, replacing the Internal Revenue Service and all federal income taxes, as well as payroll taxes. Barr would also push to repeal the 16th amendment, which authorizes Congress to levy an income tax in order to keep his fair tax proposal permanent.

Barr disagrees with government making surrogate decisions about the lives of citizens, seeking to restore our founding fathers’ belief in liberty and recognizing that responsible citizenship requires everyone to be held accountable for the good and bad decisions they make. Barr says, “the sustained government attack on the sanctity of the rights of the individual, including their right to be secure in their privacy and property, has created a moral and Constitutional crisis.”

On immigration, Barr wants to restrict access to public services for undocumented aliens because, to date, such access exists to the detriment of those who would enter the country to work productively and also increases the burden on taxpayers.

On national defense, Barr is tired of using the U.S. military as the world’s police force: “Our great military has been too willingly and quickly used for purposes other than national defense.” Barr wants to use our military when foreign aggressors attack, not simply for interventionist initiatives.

Although Barr may have entered the race too late, there are millions of Americans who might be willing to vote for Barr to protest government monopoly power and spending promoted by both Democrats and Republicans, as some have recently argued. Over the past decade, Barr reminds us, total government spending nationwide (state, local and federal) has increased from $2.9 trillion to $5.1 trillion in 2008.

For those looking for real change in Washington in 2008, Bob Barr may pose a challenge to both big government Republicans and even bigger government Democrats.

Posted in Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation | 12 Comments »

Robert Novak published a Washington Post column yesterday that has two of its main subjects – Mike Huckabee and Michael Farris – voicing strong objections.

Cushioning the statement with lots of disclaimers, Novak said an anonymous, “experienced, credible activist in Christian politics” told him Huckabee “embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve. That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible’s prophecy.” The source also said homeschool activist Mike Farris privately embraces the same view.

Novak noted that both Huckabee and Farris denied the source’s claim, and they did so again after Novak published his column. Huckabee told ABC News the rumor was “total and absolute nonsense!” and the “unnamed source” was an “unbrained source.” On his Huckablog, he demanded, “Where do people dream up this stuff?” If Huckabee really is, as rumored, McCain’s top pick for vice president, the information is even less likely to be true, and there’s even more reason to loudly deny it.

Mike Farris told God-o-Meter, “I’m not supportive of the Obama presidency for any reason,” although he hasn’t endorsed McCain and told God-o-Meter he won’t mobilize evangelicals to campaign for him.

The column continues the discussion of where the evangelical vote will go this election. Farris’ position, says God-o-Meter, is an example of McCain’s main problem: Evangelicals may pull the lever for McCain but they won’t campaign for him. In the meantime, Democrats are intensifying their efforts to win religious-minded voters. The Plank’s Christopher Orr speculates that “a good many non-extreme Christians” will consider Obama as “clearly the more religious of the two candidates, a man who speaks, and has written, evocatively about the role of faith in his life.”

But will it work? Spiritual Politics’ Mark Silk points out that a Sunday Rasmussen poll found that evangelicals support McCain 69 percent to 28 percent — possible evidence that most evangelicals don’t share the view that the “plague” of an Obama presidency is just what America needs.

Posted in Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation | 6 Comments »

Trying to garner attention in an election dominated by Democratic shenanigans, Sen. John McCain spoke on judiciary policy Tuesday, calling it “one of the defining issues of this presidential election.” Yet, God-o-Meter says conservatives will be concerned by the themes that were noticeably absent in McCain’s address – Roe v. Wade, abortion, religious liberty, gay marriage – and will still worry about McCain’s seeming “lack of passion for hot button social issues.”

In the speech delivered at Wake Forest University, the presumptive Republican nominee sounded tones traditionally popular among conservatives, taking a hard-line Constitutionalist stance that criticized judicial activism and the unfair treatment of court nominees. McCain blamed the preemption of our checks-and-balances Federal system on the “common and systematic abuse of our federal courts by the people we entrust with judicial power.”

McCain used this theme to distance himself from Democratic candidates Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, assuring his audience that, “My two prospective opponents and I have very different ideas about the nature and proper exercise of judicial power. We would nominate judges of a different kind, a different caliber, a different understanding of judicial authority and its limits.”

Yet, exactly what the words “of a different caliber” mean to McCain remains vague. Some conservatives are eager to interpret his critique of judicial activism as an almost-definite promise to appoint pro-life nominees. Others note, however, that he has said no such thing.

McCain’s call for “strict constitutionality” in the courts may not be enough to ensure his judges will be pro-life, pro-marriage, or even pro-constitution. Daily Kos says McCain is equating judicial constitutionality with judicial cooperation with the Executive branch. In the American Spectator, Quin Hillyer complains that there was nothing in his recent speech “to evince an understanding that a good judge should be deferential not primarily to the elected branches, but to the Constitution.”

If this is the case, McCain’s position on hot button social issues is far from irrelevant to the type of judges he will nominate, and this statement is far more ominous: ”I have my own standards of judicial ability, experience, philosophy, and temperament.”

Posted in Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation | 4 Comments »

It’s a campaign in which pastors cause controversy and Democrats compete for religious votes. The latest exit polls from North Carolina and Indiana’s primaries yesterday show where religiously-minded voters cast their vote.

CATHOLICS: Obama made gains among Catholics, a group he’s struggled to win and heavily lost in past primaries. According to First Read, he went from losing 70-30% in Pennsylvania and 63%-36% in Ohio, to finally narrowing it to 59%-41% in Indiana. The campaign boasts, “Barack Obama is building one of the largest grassroots campaigns of people of faith in history.” Doug Kmiec, who stirred the Catholic community with his endorsement of Obama, reiterated and explained his support:

I believe that my faith calls upon me at this time to focus on new efforts and untried paths to reduce abortion practice in America. Senator Obama’s emphasis on personal responsibility, rather than legal bickering over potential Supreme Court nominations in my judgment, best moves this issue forward.

WRIGHT: Rev. Jeremiah Wright had a mixed effect. Nearly half the voters in both primaries said the issue was important to their vote. In Indiana, 71% of the voters who said the issue was important went for Clinton, and 67% of the voters who said it wasn’t important went for Obama. In North Carolina, however, Obama won more votes from people who said the issue wasn’t important (72%) than Clinton did among those who considered it important (57%), the Associated Press reports. There was some speculation that Obama’s renunciation of Wright would dent his monolithic support from black voters, but 9 in 10 black voters cast their vote for him.

RELIGIOUS VOTERS: When it came to the religious vote, Obama branched out a bit from his secular base. Among religious voters in Indiana, Obama won both the voters who attend church more than weekly (55-45%) and the voters who never attend church (52-48%), while Clinton won overall occasional attenders (54%-46%) and Protestant voters. In North Carolina, Obama won both weekly attenders (55-43%) and occasional attenders (59-39%), along with his usual secular voters.

Posted in Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation | 5 Comments »

According to a recent LA Times article, former Prime Minister Tony Blair attended Mass secretly for a decade, but avoided discussing faith during his tenure in politics because Europeans tend to view religious people as “nutters.” Admission of faith in Europe, Blair said, leads to a whole series of suppositions that are not helpful to the practicing politician.

Not so in the United States where suppositions about religious folk are so helpful that candidates intentionally parade their religious credentials throughout the election process. During this most recent campaign, the Democratic candidates in particular have stepped up their religious rhetoric.

The Democratic move religionward came after “white evangelicals” helped Bush win the White House in 2004. Candidates began hiring faith-based advisors to broaden their appeal with religious voters—a move that seemed to pay off in the 2006 Congressional races.

The 2006 success is owed in part to Common Good Strategies, a faith-based consulting firm that devised a number of effective vote-baiting tactics for Democratic candidates. These include having candidates speak openly about their personal faiths, buying commercials on Christian television and radio, organizing private meetings with conservative clergy, using “recognizably biblical language, creating a new way of talking about contentious issues to neutralize divisive debates, enlisting pastors to write op-ed pieces, and buying mailing lists of religiously inclined voters. The group even helped candidates induce nuns to phonebank pro-life constituents for Democratic candidates, and it recently arranged a church visit for Chelsea Clinton. (The Clinton Campaign has an independent faith-based counselor on board as well).

Although there are doubtless good reasons for Christians to vote for a given candidate, when professionals are intentionally spinning politician’s identities to garner votes, the onus is on Christians to be savvy enough to look beyond what seems to be a marketing strategy.

Whereas a profession of faith might have stymied Blair’s arguably brilliant career in Europe, professions of faith might launch what could prove to be a deplorable career for a politician in America. If, as one commentator observed, affirmations of religious faith from presidents for the last half-century have borne “little resemblance to their behavior in office,” voters can’t necessarily count on campaign rhetoric no matter how nicely it’s packaged.

Posted in Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation | 9 Comments »

Since endorsing John McCain in February, Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee has been backpedaling out of decades’ worth of anti-Catholic statements. From labeling Hurricane Katrina the “judgment of God against the city of New Orleans”—dished out because of the city’s homosexual subculture—to penning a book that explains how “the Roman Church shaped the policy of the Third Reich,” Hagee had the marks of McCain’s own Jeremiah Wright. (The McCain camp even pulled an Obama when the senator explained his relationship with the pastor: “He says that he has never been anti-Catholic, but I repudiate the words that create that impression.”)

An uproar came from Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who linked to a YouTube clip of Hagee where, equipped with an ominous pointer, he calls the Catholic Church the “Whore of Babylon.” The biggest stir, though, has come from guys like New York Times columnist Frank Rich. Running with Hagee’s pro-Israel stance, Rich scoffed that his “rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.”

But Hagee’s interview last week with Deal Hudson, director of InsideCatholic.com, may help explain for Rich and others why McCain-Hagee is not really analogous to Obama-Wright (besides the fact that the mostly areligious John “Agents of Intolerance” McCain didn’t sit in Hagee’s Cornerstone Church for 20 years listening to his sermons). Hagee categorically denied that his “Whore of Babylon” bit refers to the Catholic Church, saying in his eschatology it instead pertains to the post-Rapture Church, but he also told a personal story that Hudson said shows “another side of the man who has now become a symbol of anti-Catholicism.”

In the 1990s, Hagee bought a Catholic girls’ school—San Antonio’s first, founded in 1851—run by Ursuline sisters, who had to sell the property because they’d become too old and too few to maintain it. The sisters couldn’t reach a deal with the archdiocese, so they offered it to Hagee. Hudson says:

Hagee was then told that the delay in selling the property had meant the sisters had to draw on their retirement accounts to live. Hagee then said, “I want to buy this school by the close of business tomorrow.”

Hagee, the sisters, and their attorneys met the next morning. The Ursulines’ attorney said, “Shall we tell Reverend Hagee the real problem?” . . . The attorney for the sisters explained that the archdiocese had expected them to move out of the convent immediately after it was sold and asked what Hagee wanted the sisters to do.

“My plan would be to give them a five year lease to the convent, and I will charge them ten dollars a year. We will pay all utilities and up-keep.” Hagee then took a 50-dollar bill from his pocket and paid the lease himself. One sister looked at the attorney and said, “Let’s get this thing done.”

The following Sunday, Hagee sent his church bus to the Ursuline convent, picked up the sisters, brought them to his church, and seated them in the front row for both services (5,000 attend each service). “I thanked them publicly for their lives of sacrifice and devotion to Jesus Christ. The congregation gave them standing ovations because the campus we bought was the fruit of their labor, a testimonial of their commitment to Christ.”

Hagee let the Ursuline sisters stay in the convent for twelve years, free of any cost. “Our children hugged them,” he said. “They would reach out and grab them by the hands. They were very precious to us for what they had done with their whole lives which had been invested in building this wonderful school. We were glad to honor them as long as they walked on this earth.”

Posted in Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation | 33 Comments »

Another reminder that this is the year of the YouTube campaign: In an interview with Bill O’Reilly, Clinton allegedly made the remark, “Rich people — God bless us.” Her spokesperson said hearers misunderstood — she said “Rich people — God blessed us” — but Daily Kos calls it a lie.

Another video – this one of a Clinton friend using a racial slur to describe Indiana voters – started circulating, too. This one, though, seems to be doctored.

Clinton schmoozed with female voters during an intimate chat with a momlogic.com audience. She discussed dealing with Chelsea’s short skirt, watching Donna Reed and Snow White, and struggling to open a coconut.

Obama, McCain and Clinton are debating the gas tax. Clinton and McCain have plans to suspend the gas tax during the summer, but Obama calls it an expensive “political stunt.” Obama hit Hillary with this ad, and Clinton responded with this one. Clinton wants to know if members of Congress are “with us or against us” on the tax. Nancy Pelosi is against it.

Obama is attempting to combat the view that he’s an “elitist pointy-headed intellectual” by emphasizing his difficult beginnings. He addressed the objection that he doesn’t wear a flag pin.

A new poll finds that Bush might be a bigger liability than Wright or Bill Clinton. Some 43 percent of registered voters said they were concerned about McCain’s ties with Bush. Bush’s approval ratings have fallen to 34%.

Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, came out of hiding to dig Obama’s grave this week. Obama finally expressed outrage at Wright’s words, but a Rasmussen poll reveals that 58% of voters thought Obama denounced Wright for political convenience, not out of outrage. Judge for yourself here.

In the flap over Jeremiah Wright, bloggers are dredging up Top 10 Outrageous Quotes from McCain’s Spiritual Advisors (including sexist jokes) and videos of John Hagee calling America a pagan nation. They note the similarities of “God damn America” and “America has become a pagan society.” They’re starting to learn, though, that in some circles, views like this are as mainstream as Wright’s are in other circles.

After Obama’s trying week, the Root publishes an open letter to Michelle Obama: “Can Barack please have a cigarette? … Cigarettes got him this far. … can he please just have one?”

Posted in Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation | 7 Comments »

In his now infamous remarks at the National Press Club, Rev. Jeremiah Wright said to applause from black leaders, “This most recent attack on the black church is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright; it is an attack on the black church.”

He went on to say, “It is our hope that this just might mean that the reality of the African-American church will no longer be invisible. …. Maybe that religious tradition will be understood, celebrated, and even embraced by a nation that seems not to have noticed why 11 o’clock on Sunday morning has been called the most segregated hour in America.”

He was right about a few things: American churches are still segregated and until now, many white Christians were ignorant of black liberation theology. But just how mainstream are Wright’s views?

In the Globe and Mail, Michael Valpy says Americans are finally realizing the scope of black liberation theology, calling Wright “not a radical kook but a mainstream voice” and adding, “There are a lot of Jeremiah Wrights across their land.”

Other accounts paint a more complicated picture. God-o-Meter and The New Republic note that Wright’s church is more liberal and socially progressive than many black churches. NPR quotes another Church of Christ pastor in agreement with Wright: “”It is an attack on the black church — to muzzle us to silence the preaching and the power of that form of teaching and preaching and action in the world.”

But a Pentecostal pastor disagrees: “Jeremiah Wright is not mainstream. … He doesn’t represent the majority. … My guess is maybe 25 percent of black pastors may hold that view.” Another pastor told Bloomberg.com that Wright’s comments “were just totally ridiculous and do not reflect mainstream thought in the African-American community.” A Chicago pastor said Wright has done good in the Chicago community, but he’s a “very militant minister” who “took advantage of the big stage.”

The Associated Press finds pastors divided between their admiration of Obama and Wright and their disapproval of the way they handled the disagreement. The New York Times says parishioners are less likely to defend Wright than their pastors. Bloomberg.com quotes one of Wright’s ex-parishioners saying he partly agrees with Wright, but that Wright doesn’t represent the black church: “I feel like he’s trying to be a spokesperson for the black Christians, but we don’t want different races to look at us through Jeremiah Wright.”

Posted in Campaign 2008, Editor's Choice, Front Page, The Nation | 28 Comments »

If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination, Americans will have two presidential candidates who are open to school choice measures.

Barack Obama went on Fox News Sunday this week and said, “We should be experimenting with charter schools” and “different ways of compensating teachers” — beliefs he’s long held but not always trumpeted, The New Republic’s Josh Patashnik says. Obama advocated charter schools and performance-pay for teachers in Illinois, and has even hinted that he wouldn’t rule out the idea of school vouchers.

John McCain visited New Orleans Thursday on his “It’s Time for Action” tour, stopping in cities the campaign said the federal government has forgotten, but where local solutions are working.

New Orleans has become a proving ground for charter schools in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. According to the campaign, it has the highest percentage of students in charter schools among U.S. Cities. Most of the city’s students now attend charter schools. Last year, students in New Orleans charter schools out-scored their peers in traditional public schools on a standardized test.

A president friendly to charter schools could spur the already-growing charter school movement. The number of charter schools nationwide grew by 11 percent in 2006, serving a student body that is on average 53 percent minority and 54 percent low-income, according a survey from the Center for Education Reform.

In Grand Rapids, Mich., J.C. Huizenga, the founder of National Heritage Academies, a national chain of 55 K-8 charter schools located in six states, recently announced plans to started a college prep high school to go head-to head with a new public college prep school.

Chicago school teacher Will Okun recently described his frustrations with traditional city schools in an blog post entitled “The Mire.” The Chicago Public Schools have 27 charter schools on 48 campuses. Hundreds are on the waiting lists, and the city plans for more by 2010.

Okun, while cautioning parents and policy-makers to remember the students left behind in the public schools, describes parents desperate to pull their children from traditional schools:

Charter-school parents speak of higher graduation rates, better facilities, more extracurricular opportunities, caring teachers, and stricter discipline. Most importantly, these parents speak of charter schools with a sense of hope and purpose that no longer exists in most public high schools on the West Side. … I do not blame parents for wanting to surround their children with other children and parents who give education top priority.”

Posted in Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation | 11 Comments »