Civil Forum

about this faith based forum because McCain got similar or more applause than Obama from McCain's base.

I agree Al, if Obama picks up a small percentage of these evangelical voters, it should shake up the McCain staff.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/17/12749/4053/233/569297

I think Obama won just by showing up last night.

I'm not confident abut the evangelical undecideds, however.  I doubt many of them are truly muling over a McCain vs Obama choice.  I suspect most of them are in the far right column and are still not convinced that McCain shares their "values."  With his "life begins at conception and ends when you're eligible for the draft" schtick last night, he may have convinced some off the fence.

But I don't think that matters.  I don't think Obama needs a whole passel of evangelicals to vote for him.  What he needs is for them to feel comfortable enough with him that they won't be motivated to work against him.  Bush won because he could summon an evangelical army.  I don't think, even after last night, McCain is going to be able to do the same against a nice, thoughtful Obama who speaks their language.  Those who decide to vote third party, or even to go with Obama, are just gravy.

I get so sick of the hand-wringing at Daily Kos. Daily Kos has gone off my bookmark list. The armchair generals are running the place. Our man, Obama, did well and, as aptly pointed out, by Al, a few more points from that sector is a gain. Obama, unlike Kerry or others in the Dem camp, can sit down with ease in a mega church and state his case and reveal himself in the process. It should be noted that polling says that Obama leads McCain by nine points among self-identified Christians. If he can snag some of the fundies, so much the better.

This may be one of Al's most insightful blog posts. A lot of us who believe passionately in the need for decisive change in the nation's leadership, driven by a historic mandate at the polls, have been frustrated by Obama's apparent unwillingness to raise the level of urgency in his framing of the stakes in this election, to match what we know to be the urgent need for a sea change in how our government is led. The one-word mantra of "change" isn't enough, in our view. We want Obama to explain how the way in which Republicans have governed has created the economic and security crises that America now faces. In this sense, voters do need to be reminded why Republicans, including McCain, would simply keep duplicating the results of eight years of Bush -- that having a reassuring, determined face in the White House isn't what change is. Yet all this implies a shift in the frame for popular comprehension of political alternatives. It also implies a shift out of the personality-based, personal-narrative drenched mode of political news coverage. It may well be that this election has to be won partly in the context of this old, dysfunctional mode of recent American politics, while giving birth to a new mode altogether. Obviously Hillary Clinton couldn't have done that; she was old-mode all the way. Obama is clearly capable of marking the way for this kind of transition in our politics, and thus may be the means by which the door is opened for actually changing the substance of what government does. In other words, despite the emotional need of many of us for disenthralling ourselves from the past eight years -- for having a bonfire of discredited policies -- it may be that winning this election on the margin, partly within the tactical context of how recent presidential contests have been conducted, is the best we're going to get. Let's hope that Al is right, as he sees these maneuvers and flanking moves by the Obama campaign as evidence of a grander though intricate strategy to do that.

was that it was billed as a conversation with Rick Warren.

Obama actually had a conversation with Rick Warren.  Obama listened to the questions and genuinely attempted to answer them in ways that were respectful to the question and questioner but made his own views clear.

McCain had a townhall meeting with the audience, using Warren's questions as launching points for his various stump-tested pat answers and hoary anecdotes.

I suspect that when Warren appears on Larry King this week, he will make the same observation.  For Warren specifically asked both candidates NOT to give him stump speeches.

I am a Christian and I live in TN. The fact that Obama showed up and had a discussion with one of the more famous leaders in the evangelical movement is a WIN.

Its not about trying to turn huge swaths of evangelicals over to Obama. What it did is push back against the "Obama is a Muslim" idea. What it did was give Obama the chance to peel off some of those voters.  I cannot believe how freaked out some on the left get about Obama trying to engage with these voters. Of course they gave McCain applause, and a lot of them will vote for him. But I love the fact that Obama isn't letting McCain rest easy with this part of his base. Not to mention the fact that this forum got McCain to go loudly on record on issues like abortion.

Wonderful insight, Al. I submitted it to digg, so everyone digg it:

http://digg.com/political_opinion/Civil_Forum_Obama_and_the_Evangelical_...

It's like Democrats have some kind of Tourette's. Every time an opponent does well, we go into fits of Chicken Littlism. I genuinely wish that the MSM that we love to bash didn't also determine the responses we have to literally everything. While we pretend to confront the MSM with some backbone here on the web, in reality we live and die entirely on how they position things, like children with a domineering parent.

Yes, it sucks that the MSM does its bidding by default for whoever the Republican candidate is. But them's the facts. It ain't gonna change. The blogosphere - and the web generally - has been a great workaround for this. It's just unfortunate that within this new medium we still let the MSM manage the terms of the debate. We don't have to. That's why Al's blog is so great. His point of view is entirely his own and he doesn't require talking points from Chris Matthews or David Gergen or Wolf Blitzer or Pat Buchanan (just think about that list of names, btw. Those are the folks we cede control to in that approach. We should be embarrassed for doing so.).

My own takeaway from last night was that Obama did great. In the 50 state strategy, I always pause to consider how viewers in Kansas or South Dakota might be experiencing Obama's responses. For those who didn't watch, he really did come across as authentic and, importantly to the folks he was trying to reach by participating, Christian (aka not Muslim).

McCain treated the whole thing differently - and he had to. It was a greatest hits of his market-tested stump anecdotes, punctuated by a remarkable number of "my friends." The MSM eats this stuff up because they see politics completely cynically. Voters, hopefully not so much.

Indeed, Al, I mentioned this subject on the thread below.  Obama has moved his campaign to a stronger position.

If one-fourth of the audience will vote for Obama--instead of only one-fifth--then this was time well spent.

More, I am totally convinced that Obama is playing the campaign correctly.  Lauching assualts on McCrack will only play into the hands of the frightened and the ignorant.   That so many people don't see this--well, it indicates part of the reason why left-progressive politics has languished for so long in this nation.

McCrack's negativity plays into Obama's hands--and, essentially, Obama's campaign is based on the notion that the US public isn't simply brainwashed and incapable of seeing which is the wisest candidate with the best policies.  Yes, the population recieves corporate, rightwing propaganda 24/7--but we/they are not programmable machines--as a quarter of US evangelicas that are fairly progressive show us.

Lastly, I find it very hard to believe that McCrack wasn't pretty sure of the specific questions beforehand.  This was McCrack's opprotunity to appear sharp of mind--to folks that want to believe this they will get from this apperance what they want to see.

Reverend Warren I believe is sincere--but he also knows the political inclinations of the people that butter his bread, the majority of his flock.   Even if he sees Obama as a more healthy choice for our nation, I seriously doubt that he would pubically and vociferously announce support for Obama in this contest.

As usual, Al, you hit this one out of the park--and Obama didn't do too bad either.

Great post Al, I published a Diary to DKOS last night on the topic as to why I felt this was a "win" for Obama in the long run.  I'm sure the innoculated ones from this forum would enjoy it..

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/16/221435/135/431/569107

Another great one, Al. Thank you. Thanks to Christi for 'digg' at Dkos, and Jason for it here. I'm going to watch the video now.

Missed MTP, not at it's regular time in Western MA cuz of Olympics - what did you/Field Hands think of Kaine? Sorry to have missed Josh Green too. That Atlantic article is terrifying.

Bill, I think it's important that we continue to post on dailykos. That's where our people are, the ones who fundamentally agree with us. We may have to help them see that some of their tactics are counterproductive, but we're on the same team.

We cannot be effective as a party or as a movement if we fail to work together. That means engagment. If we hide in our own insular world, preaching to our own sub-choir, how is that any different from what some over there advocate when they criticize Obama for speaking to fundamentalists?

great post Al.

does anyone have any handle on polls etc. as to what percentage of pro-lifers are for capital punishment?

is John McCain Pro-capital punishment? Bush is.

this is the evil thing, my friends.

to make JSM III come off particularly well, I thought. Many of the questions asked were pitched directly into his wheelhouse, such as the one requesting an example in which the candidate defied his own party. It seemed little more than a blatant showcase for JSM III to burnish his "maverick" credentials to the folks out in TV land while tossing some red meat to the base (his aside about Ronald Reagan being "one of our greatest presidents, ever" is always a guaranteed crowd pleaser).

Given that he was up against such a pronounced "home field advantage," Obama came of surprisingly well. Although much of the audience response to his answers could best be described as "polite," there did appear to be a few instances in which his comments did resonate with the crowd (i.e. his comment about "walking humbly with God") I also think his relaxed sense of humor elicited more genuine laughter than did JSM III's canned one-liners. When he used the opportunity of the question about defining "rich" to poke gentle fun at Warren's phenomenal book sales, it may not have won him many votes but it did serve to further humanize him to the crowd and TV viewers.

In a way, I think one could legitimately argue that JSM III failed to achieve his most important objective yesterday. His real problem going into the forum was not the lack of evangelical votes, but the so-called "enthusiasm gap" between him and his Republican predecessor. I recall seeing Bush appear before similarly styled crowds where he was received with an almost messianic fervor. Rightly or wrongly, evangelicals perceived Bush as being one of their own whereas JSM III is still viewed as something of an outsider. The enthusiasm of the crowd at Saddleback never approached the level of intensity that Bush once routinely enjoyed. Granted, as Al noted above, they represent a "new breed" of evangelical. Nevertheless, this was supposed to be JSM III's big pitch to fire up the heretofore lukewarm evangelical base, and enlist them to take on the heavy lifting of registration and GOTV that was such a key component to the Bush victories of '00 and '04. I don't think he accomplished that.

As one trying my hardest to stay steady and focused on the big picture, I'm always heartened to read your thoughtful posts. I have tried not to doubt the Obama campaign since the fall of 2007 when they didn't blink or panic when Hillary's strength in the polls grew temporarily. They stayed on message, I eventually realized, because they'd thought it through and believed in voters. I have kept to this faith in the braintrust of the campaign ever since then.

The Forum would have been an even greater success if Obama had had the opportunity to go second, but there's no doubt he can learn a LOT from this experience. He's back to the head tilt, which drives me crazy and doesn't allow a viewer to see his eyes and the full sincerity and thoughtfulness of his face. I hope someone insists he stop this very distracting tendency.

As far as McCain, the senile old bastard has a few tricks up his sleeve and studying his Forum performance should yield a bonanza of pointers for the debate. You've got to know how to counter his McDumbing down of every issue into simplistic soundbites; you've got to counter the folksy way he jokes away questions he doesn't want to answer. You've got to sucker him into making knee-jerk, pithy answers and then immediately make him pay.

The bottom line is that Obama is running against McCain, the entire Republican attack machine, a good deal of the corporate power structure, and of course the MSM. Given that, he needs a VP who does more than do-no-harm, but someone who can aggressively push back and help frame McCain and the campaign narrative. 

Watched the event with two other volunteers and two paid staffers here in Florida.  Tendency is to bash McCain who, by most measures, did well, especially considering the expectation that he would bumble his way somehow and appear old, feeble, and faithless.

My take, generally, was that McCain sounded very bellicose.  He reinforced for me that his frame of reference in life is about conflict and conflict-resolution through warfare.   This is distinctly different from Obama's, but I certainly can see its appeal to a segment of society that tends to dichotomize the world into evil-doers  and the guys in the white hats that have to defeat them rather than (as Obama said "confront them").

Nonetheless, politically this was a good night for McCain who was sharp, succinct, got the good sound bites.   He made it possible for pundits to frame Obama's thoughtfulness as equivocating and uncertainty as compared to his own brevity as  comparable to the old Geo. Bush standby "You may not agree with me but you know where I stand."

All that said, what we often forget is that this contest hasn't really begun yet.  No one was to be really "won over" last night.  It was just neutralizing those voters or softening them up.   Maybe it just gets them willing to listen a little bit more, in the same way that Obama is a listener.  It's a positive move for that crowd to go from negative or disinterested to neutral and if Obama could do that even partially, then he has a "win" (if we have to have win/lose).

As Al reminded me the other day, perhaps some of those young evangelicals most inclined to hear Obama's message about good works will be able to convince their parents and grandparents to take a closer look at Obama, as has happened in the political sphere, and eventually turn a few votes.   Imagine if those young evangelicals went to their parents and made the case for Obama.  Before last night's event they might not have had a prayer (bad joke!).  Perhaps the forum and Obama's appearance and statements there may have made a few conversions more possible later on.

I agree with what you stated about Obama just showing up at this forum was a win. What I took away from this was that McCain had to make the case for the base that should have been in the bag to begin with.  I am guessing that is why McCain used red meat stump speech rhetoric during the forum. He needs his base to even have a chance.

Obama may have accomplished more because some Independent voters are not going to be comfortable with what Sidney McCain said last night to the right wing fundie base.

as plagiarism from Alexander Solzhenitsyn

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/17/122230/161/239/569299

amk

Sure, Warren's congregation may be a little more hard-core, but even in these congregations there are people who privately are more moderate than people think. Not to mention the kids who are raised in that milieu who are beginning to think for themselves. If Moderate Christians feel Obama is a kindred spirit, they may be more inclined to tune out the religously based smears and also feel comfortable in voting for Obama.That is to say, not just fundies tuned in last night. There were Catholics, Conservative Jews, Black Baptists,  and so much more. These people may not necessarily agree with Warren's theology or politics, but they do want to know, and like to know, that a potential President is comfortable with religion. They want to know that he relies on a value system greater than simple self-interests, that he feels humble in the presence of a higher power.

People tend to forget that's Obama's big challenge. Obama is a different kind of person to be running for President, so he needs to raise the comfort and familiarity level for voters.

About the money: people tend to forget that many churches don't have that kind of reserve funds for a production like this. Also, I suspect that the cost keeps things civil-away from hecklers and other timewasters. If you've paid $500 to attend, you aren't going to disrupt the event with irrelevant foolishness.

gives both candidates an A- in his overall report cards.

http://thepage.time.com/2008/08/16/obama-mccain-both-ace-saddleback/

I will agree that Obama needs give sharper and more sound bite friendly answers in the upcoming one on one debates, but I don't think his performance in this Saturday night evangelical forum that ran against the Olympics will hurt him at all.  

He accomplished what he set out to do with the evangelicals, who were the only ones paying attention.  And he avoided any "bad news" stories spreading from the event into the mainstream media.  Just look at how far down Halperin has already moved the story on thepage.

So I say....NEXT!  Shouldn't that VP news be breaking any minute now? ;-)

I find the front page stories to be typically balanced and informative. Its some of the user generated diaries that are full of the armchairmen, and its easy to avoid those most of the time by title and/or author. (Anything that starts out as "Obama HAS to" is usually one to avoid).

I still read those diaries, because I am a glutton for punishment, I guess.

Man, is that true that Solzhenitsyn wrote such a story???

I don't want to automatically assume the worst of McCain, but it is interestingly similar.

At any rate, it isn't provable one way or the other, though if it was a Democrat telling this story, you know that the Republicans would be questioning this.

@ Roy Martin

Your comments about maintaining a presence at Daily Kos are well taken. However, they are not the ones who need to hear my voice particularly. The chicken littles and armchair generals will continue to use that forum as the therapy for their particular angst of the day.

If I have any message worth hearing, it is to my circle of friends, family, associates. Daily Kos and a number of other sites have become an ideologically inbred effete groups who like having conversations with themselves and love to attack anyone who challenges the purity of their thought. I come to this site because it helps with perspective, and is a welcome antidote to the yammering of much of the blogosphere, which has become nearly as predictable and unimaginative as the corporate media.

A little off-topic, but it's important to the election:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-lauria/did-mccain-help-bait-russ_b_119...

This article does a great job summarizing the Russian/Georgian conflict and McCain's and the US's ties to Georgia and the now rampant talk of the new Russian Enemy (just look at the new cover of The Economist - they seem absolutely thrilled to have ole Red back).

The Right is going to push hard on this new "threat" and the media is going to pick right up on it, because what's more compelling than a return of the Red Scare! I've been spending a lot of my time giving people an alternate perspective to the conflict because it's desparately needed right now.

Just by showing up and speaking to McCain's base, Obama won. I can't think of a better way to undermine McCain's fear mongering about Obama than for him to sit down with those most easily frightened and show them that he's human (and not the least bit scary).

Mindlessly hitting back at McCain's mindless ads would just play into Rick Nelson's hands. As the old saw goes, you can't fight fire with fire. Far better to fight fire with water.

Bill -- since becomming a Fieldhand, I've begun changing hearts and minds over at dailykos. People have actually, in the middle of a discussion, said "you're right" or words to that effect. That had NEVER happened to me before. Here are a couple of recent examples:

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2008/8/17/12749/4053/18#c18

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2008/8/16/82443/4919/2#c2

And then there are those who are not won over (yet):

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2008/8/16/35844/7560/58#c58

Here's a link showing the above-the-fold photo displayed on the front page of the Sunday LA Times.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-saddleback17-2008aug17,0,1227797.story

Could McCain possibly look any goofier? He projects more as a Bob Barker, aging game show host type than as a sober candidate for U.S. president. He's even doing the little finger-point move that Isaac the Bartender used to rock during the opening credits of The Love Boat.

I appreciate the levelness that you find here, it's very calming. I also understand the chicken-littleism that we find on Kos and other sites because we are all deeply scared about a McCain presidency.  Maybe we can have a little compassion for one another. Sites like this one do a lot to assuage those fears.

Re: Pastor Warren

He seemed sincere about wanting a civil and sincere discourse. However, he allowed McCain to spew talking points and warned Obama against using his "stump speech." Maybe he did Obama a favor because the conversational exchange reveals so much more about a person.

But who knows about Rev Warren's agenda? Could be, like the MSM, he didn't challenge McCain out of deference to his reputation as a "straight talker."

I did email the pastor (info@saddleback.net) about my discomfort with how the  conversation about faith turned into a forum for McCain talking points.  It might be good to respectfully let him know how some of us perceived the candidates performance and his handling of them.

...it's as if some people don't know or can't even conceive of any other kind of presidential campaign than the ugly contests that produced Bush-Clinton-Bush)

This election is a profound test for the electorate. We finally have a candidate who trusts us enough to put the issues before us, rather than brand-D vs. brand-R personality types, someone who is willing to talk about governance, not just politics.

It is unfortunate that this effort is constantly drowned out and dragged down by our woefully cynical and self-loathing media. I am hopeful, however, that Americans facing a presidential election do prefer to be treated like adults making an important decision for the good of their country, instead of as self-satisfied consumers subject to the kind of manipulation that exploits demographic habits.

The first thing that Obama found was evil in a lot of places including "the streets of America" and then he wasnt too clear on what to do with it.

The first thing McCain addressed was the resounding defeat of evil and then al qaeda, al quaeda, al qaeda and nothing else.

The meme:  "Obama finds evil in the streets of America, McCain finds evil in the Middle East and Al Qaeda"

I've been reading the comments at DKos on this, and someone added this article by John McCain in 2008 that has him referencing Solzhenitsyn's writing The Gulag Archipelago.  So either McCain or his ghost writer Salter did read this:

http://www.nysun.com/opinion/solzhenitsyn-at-work/83117/

That said, there's no way to prove that the same experience didn't also happen to McCain, I guess.

KD

As others have said better, I am cynical of both McCains faith as any more than a political tool, and of Warren's as any more than the theme of his commercial enterprise.

I have no way to prove either other than to look and balance both against my lifelong learning and experience. I would like to think better of McCain but he is already been caught in too many biographical lies to buy any more.  And as to Warren it's the inverse.  Any "man of God" raking in millions in His name needs to prove his intentions.  The history of his type is too full of grifters and charlatans.

"That said, there's no way to prove that the same experience didn't also happen to McCain, I guess."

Well, one thing to look for is if and how often this story has been told by McCain before. With imagery that powerful, I doubt he just now would have spoke about it for the first time, unless of course it was made up.

Great article! Obama did a wonderful job in presenting who he really is in this unusual forum that was custom-made for McCain to receive thunderous in-house applause (and probably the questions/Obama's answers ahead of time).  He held his own and his respectful, humble, and thoughtful approach gently contradicted many of the ridiculous lies McCain's people have perpetrated about his tax plans, religion, and character (arrogant presumptuous celebrity, empty suit, terrorist) much better than the Stop the Smears website ever could for the public.  He wasn't afraid to have views that differed from the audience and he actually received more spontaneous applause than I would have expected, given they absolutely were the GOP base. 

People who already supported McCain (like the media) loved his "performance," because they love his simplistic cliché'-driven stump speeches and the 40 year old POW "stories" (Solzhenitsyn?) he uses to get out of answering questions.  However, I suspect many people at home who really listened to him weren't happy, because they finally found out that the so-called "maverick" is not the moderate Republican they could live with.  He showed he is a right-wing, war-obsessed, anti-reproductive rights conservative, like Bush.  I suspect the Obama campaign consented to do this forum partly because they knew it would finally expose the extent of McCain's anti-choice views to the nation.  Some right-wingers complained they wanted McCain to sound more religious, so he may not have even pleased some in his own base.

Following up on a comment I made the other day, I wrote my first diary on Daily Kos, suggesting how we might take back the New York Times Bestseller List.  Please recommend it! Thanks.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/17/163833/866

KD

As referenced by several commenters above, there is a question of plagiarism in McCain's account, first published in 1999, and Solzenitsen's account first published in the West in 1973.

I think the similarities raise what the lawyers would call a "rebuttable presumption" that the story is plagiarised, i.e., we'll take it as plagiarised unless rebutted by evidence.

The principal piece of evidence I'm aware of is that following the partition into North and South Viet Nam there was a great transmigration wherein the Christians (in reality Catholics) relocated South while others went North.

So my question becomes "How likely is it, really, that any NVA soldiers were Christians, yet alone the one who just happened to be guarding a future American presidential candidate."

But I can believe six impossible things before breakfast any day.

This guy will do and say ANYTHING to get elected.  On the question of which justices he would not have nominated, he predictably said the four more liberal justices citing the ever popular "activist judges" charge - pure pandering.  So anyway, I went back and checked on the nomination votes, and sure enough, McCain voted "yea" for all four.  Now, I'm sure he would repeat the standard line about how the president deserves deference on their justice nominations.  But, if he honestly believes a judge is "legislating from the bench", I would think there would be no better reason to vote no.  And the excuse that they didn't show their "activist" tendencies until getting to The Supreme Court won't cut it.  That might work for one justice, but not for four individuals.  I wish someone in the MSM would point this out!  As usual, I won't hold my breath.

We make a mistake to define evangelicals as only white and republican. This speaks to our need to divide people into simple categories. Black churches can often theologically be defined as evangelical, and many are pro-life... but they do not tend to be republican and do not tend to be socially/politically conservative... to assume that white republicans are all there is to "evangelicals" is a faulty assumption. Evangelicals of color are the most able to recognize that political decisions and policy encompass many more issues than simply abortion and gay marriage. Yesterday's forum exposed Obama to white evangelicals in a way he had not been previously. Rick Warren carries weight in that community, and put to rest concerns about Obama being Muslim... but more importantly, the insanity of Obama as the anti-Christ; at the same time, they may have been more convinced regarding McCain's faith credentials. However, to say that this group is the sum and total of evangelicals is incorrect. There are a huge number of black christians, who would theologically define themselves as evangelical, and who have supported Obama since the primary.

I'm glad you brought this up because I was thinking about that as well. There are many African-American evangelicals, and also a number of Latino evangelicals and others who are not white. Obama's best bet to get more than a quarter of evangelicals is to build a coalition of young evangelicals and evangelicals of color. With this, he actually only needs to peel off a relatively small number of white evangelicals over 30 and in my opinion he is going about this in exactly the right way. He does not pander or pretend that he does not hold liberal views on issues like abortion or gay rights. Instead, he calls for a broader understanding of "values" issues to include poverty and the environment, among other things and for peope of good will who agree on these issues to work together.

I was astonished to hear McCain say that the nation's greatest moral failure has been a tendency to not devote itself to causes "greater than ourselves."  Huh?

I hope the Dems hammer him with this absurd and insulting statement from now until November.

His whole greasy schtick last night appeared designed to suggest that only by falling in line with his insane notions on the global stage will we, the American public, be able to somehow prove our worth and moral fiber. It's war-way or the highway, I guess.

Count me out on that score.  With all due respect, my friends, I'm not looking to elect the country's most insistent and tedious former POW.  The guy is utterly craven.

Yeah, Karen. Congratulations on your first DKos diary. Don't know if you're a Field Hand, but I put up your DKos link on the Field Hand website with a request to rec it.

There were some great comments in response to your Diary - esp. this one from someone who got the following from the Obama Campaign! They are REALLY on top of this - and organized for action.

Thanks again for taking this initiative.

It allows you to write to editors in your area - darn! can't get this to post here as a link.  Will go to Obama page & get direct www.

Thanks to a comment from Karen Desmond's first diary at DKos

http://my.barackobama.com/page/speakout/unfit

on DKos. Yikes!!!!! Too many folks used to sitting on recliners over there. As James Brown sang, they need to *get up offa your seat and dance. Get with it!*

I am glad that folks here are dealing with facts. Yes, evangelicals come in many different packages and Black evangelicals are strong Democrat voters while white evangelicals have given their votes to Republicans. Pew did a study of this a couple years ago. Big gulf between the two and they are all evangelicals. So, folks have to understand the nuances and contradictions of our voters in the good ole USA.

The little Clark Cult that has sprung up at DailyKos has become completely insufferable. Any VP talk, and they sweep in like a little hit squad to insist that "only the General can save us."

Does anyone outside DKos seriously consider Clark a possibility? I understand why the hit put out on him in June was lame, but the fact of the matter is that he got schooled by Bob f'n Schieffer. The guy is brilliant, sure, but he is not a politician.

I emailed Andrew today about this story, along with the links to the Dkos diary, and the NY Sun article by John Sidney McCain III.

He blogs it this evening:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/mccains-cro...

KD

Reported on CNN Rick Sanchez was interviewing Warren and asked  him about cone of silence....Warren admitted McBush wasn't even in the church until a half hour before....couldn't answer why he said they flipped a coin, how could they if McCain wasn't there....Warren admitted he was in Cindy's limo...(probably watching Obama's answers on TV)...what a crock, ANOTHER Evangelical LYING and deceiving the public and McCain another republican cheater...gee who wudda thunk!

JewsOnFirst.org did a follow-up on this with an email to people like me who keep an eye on this:

Small Christian right conference call follows Saddleback Church event. Christian right leaders who had worried that Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren would pull punches in questioning presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, scheduled a news conference following the event. As it turned out, the leaders were pleasantly surprised with Warren's performance -- but probably less pleasantly surprised that fewer than 30 people, none of them mainstream reporters were on the call. We have posted a recording of the call as well as news clips here

And whether or not people would believe it or not. I say, this lie is a far more fundamental lie than they realize. Lying about being truly born again is considered a sin, especially for profit such as winning an election. I brought up the obvious questions: who was that guy, and has McCain ever done anything to save or help him? McCain went back to Vietnam when they re-established relations, did he look that guard up and even thank him? It is impossible to believe that McCain could ever forget who that guy was-he saw him for months everyday.

He knows that the GOP and surrogates like grifter Warren would cheat any way they could.  He wanted to get his message to some element of the audience.  I absolutely believe Obama's team is smarter and tactically better than McKanes nest of lobbyist and hitmen. While I may end up with ulcers, I work my shifts for Obama and await the outcome.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/17/warren-mccain-did-not-vi...

Okay so, first of all, we are just supposed to ignore the fact that this Warren guy lied about the fact that "We flipped a coin, and we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence.” Pretty difficult to do if both people aren't even there. If you really were planning to flip a coin then both participants would have made sure they were there before the thing started, right? Did McCain just figure, well if I am late I will get to go second? What about the fact that he mentioned the Surpreme Court question before it was asked?? Not to mention the fact that he seemed unusually prepared. Are we supposed to believe that he suddenly had a complete personality transplant?

This thing stinks. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised or even really care. For some reason it just really pisses me off.

One can only hope that this plus the cross in the dirt thing will end up backfiring. So what initially seemed like a good night for McCain will actually just leave him with egg on his face. (Bosnia, anyone?)