This is the Presidential Campaign Thread.

Barack Obama Vs. John McCain.

Edited November 6, 200817 yr by Toups

Good point EK70

Now let's see what board mother has to say

Edited March 17, 200817 yr by DevotedToAMC

Also I was watching GMA this morning an apparently obama knew how controversial and fiery his preacher was and told him he couldn't speak at his rally when he announced his candidacy for the president of the united states. The republican have all the ammo they need to tear him apart now. Like I said before it really hard to believe that obama didn't know about those statements, its possible that he didn't know but still I don't know if I buy it. I think he does need to go a step further and tear up his membership with the church. Wrights statements about hillary, condemning america, and american's being responsible for 9/11 are ridiculous. I go to a black church and my pastor does talk about social issues, but never are they as extreme and ridiculous as pastor wrights comments. For those who believe this is an attack on black churches I don't believe that, Wrights comments are his own and don't represent the black churches.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaef...te_b_91774.html

Obama's Minister Committed "Treason" But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero

Frank Schaeffer

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.

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father's footsteps) rail against America's sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the "murder of the unborn," has become "Sodom" by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, "under the judgment of God." They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama's minister's shouted "controversial" comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

Dad and I were amongst the founders of the Religious right. In the 1970s and 1980s, while Dad and I crisscrossed America denouncing our nation's sins instead of getting in trouble we became darlings of the Republican Party. (This was while I was my father's sidekick before I dropped out of the evangelical movement altogether.) We were rewarded for our "stand" by people such as Congressman Jack Kemp, the Fords, Reagan and the Bush family. The top Republican leadership depended on preachers and agitators like us to energize their rank and file. No one called us un-American.

Consider a few passages from my father's immensely influential America-bashing book A Christian Manifesto. It sailed under the radar of the major media who, back when it was published in 1980, were not paying particular attention to best-selling religious books. Nevertheless it sold more than a million copies.

Here's Dad writing in his chapter on civil disobedience:

If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]... then at a certain point force is justifiable.

And this:

In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools... There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union....

Then this:

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate... A true Christian in Hitler's Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion... It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God's law it abrogates it's authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation...

Was any conservative political leader associated with Dad running for cover? Far from it. Dad was a frequent guest of the Kemps, had lunch with the Fords, stayed in the White House as their guest, he met with Reagan, helped Dr. C. Everett Koop become Surgeon General. (I went on the 700 Club several times to generate support for Koop).

Dad became a hero to the evangelical community and a leading political instigator. When Dad died in 1984 everyone from Reagan to Kemp to Billy Graham lamented his passing publicly as the loss of a great American. Not one Republican leader was ever asked to denounce my dad or distanced himself from Dad's statements.

Take Dad's words and put them in the mouth of Obama's preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words "godly" and "prophetic" and a "call to repentance."

We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did.

My dad's books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the "respectable" evangelical community and he's still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he'd take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad's Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler's Germany.

The hypocrisy of the right denouncing Obama, because of his minister's words, is staggering. They are the same people who argue for the right to "bear arms" as "insurance" to limit government power. They are the same people that (in the early 1980s roared and cheered when I called down damnation on America as "fallen away from God" at their national meetings where I was keynote speaker, including the annual meeting of the ultraconservative Southern Baptist convention, and the religious broadcasters that I addressed.

Today we have a marriage of convenience between the right wing fundamentalists who hate Obama, and the "progressive" Clintons who are playing the race card through their own smear machine. As Jane Smiley writes in the Huffington Post "[The Clinton's] are, indeed, now part of the 'vast right wing conspiracy.' (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/...-n_b_90628.html)

Both the far right Republicans and the stop-at-nothing Clintons are using the "scandal" of Obama's preacher to undermine the first black American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency. Funny thing is, the racist Clinton/Far Right smear machine proves that Obama's minister had a valid point. There is plenty to yell about these days.

I go to a black church and my pastor does talk about social issues, but never are they as extreme and ridiculous as pastor wrights comments. For those who believe this is an attack on black churches I don't believe that, Wrights comments are his own and don't represent the black churches.

Of course not. There are quite a few outstanding black churches in Oakland where the churchgoers are down to Earth, upstanding, and very nice people. They also practice what they preach in regards to religion and are not acting like pseudo Christians the way the Christian Taliban or the Christian Right do.

After that speech, the silence from the Clinton campaign is deafining.

That speech was a crock. Obama did everything except grovel. He can talk about race until this time next year, but he still won't ask why he has to do more apologizing for a supporter's remarks than Clinton and McCain have for theirs put together. It's probably that "luck" in being born black.

And that is your opinion to feel it was a crock. I don't. I thought it was wonderful, which means.....

We will have to agree to disagree.

If he acted like you wanted him to.......he wouldn't have to worry about the nomination. Becuasehe wouldn't get it.

And that is your opinion to feel it was a crock. I don't. I thought it was wonderful, which means.....

We will have to agree to disagree.

If he acted like you wanted him to.......he wouldn't have to worry about the nomination. Becuasehe wouldn't get it.

Well, you just want to talk about what must be done to win - screw the integrity of the victory. I'd rather focus on the implications of Obama's words. This whole stunt was supposedly about addressing issues of race, but he wouldn't have done it if not for his pastor. For that reason, the speech was useless, because Jeremiah Wright isn't getting press for making racist statements. Obama said himself that he never heard the guy do such a thing. Connecting terrorist attacks we suffer to our foreign policies is neither inflammatory or unpatriotic. Saying that Hillary Clinton was never labeled with the n word is not problematic. Yet the media has focused on these ideas alone, and somehow they necessitate a reprimand of black churches, the civil rights generation, and anyone vocal about injustice. I don't need anybody drawing conclusions based on history to explain one man's comments. They wouldn't need to be said if they weren't applicable here and now.

Well, you just want to talk about what must be done to win - screw the integrity of the victory. I'd rather focus on the implications of Obama's words. This whole stunt was supposedly about addressing issues of race, but he wouldn't have done it if not for his pastor. For that reason, the speech was useless, because Jeremiah Wright isn't getting press for making racist statements. Obama said himself that he never heard the guy do such a thing. Connecting terrorist attacks we suffer to our foreign policies is neither inflammatory or unpatriotic. Saying that Hillary Clinton was never labeled with the n word is not problematic. Yet the media has focused on these ideas alone, and somehow they necessitate a reprimand of black churches, the civil rights generation, and anyone vocal about injustice. I don't need anybody drawing conclusions based on history to explain one man's comments. They wouldn't need to be said if they weren't applicable here and now.

I now see what the problem is.

You refuse to listen to anyone.

And what I don't need is you telling me in the nasty, arrogant tone that you use, that I don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

Roman, YOU said we'll have to agree to disagree. Live by your own philosophy. To "listen" is not to cave in. I explained why I thought you were wrong. FYI, I haven't even begun to get nasty and arrogant around here!

IMO, I think ya'll are arguing a moot point. I understand your point stenbeck and agree with you to a certain extent (as I do with Roman as well). Why is it that Obama is always having to come out and apologize for things his supporters say. Him "denouncing" them isn't enough, people want...no they DEMAND an apology....yet we can't get the same from McCain and/or the Clinton camp. It is a double standard but unfortunately, that's the way things are.

People are genuinely upset over the comments, and feel he should have said something. I loved his speech, I think it was a damn good one and made a lot of good points.

Do I have that right stenbeck? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

yet we can't get the same from McCain and/or the Clinton camp.

Hillary did apologize for Ferraro's remarks, as the Obama supporters demanded an apology or some course of action to be taken.

Of course you have the right to your point of view, Ryan. Why wouldn't you? I'm not in the business of denying that to anyone, and I certainly reject the notion that one must be forced to agree. My source of frustration is conclusions with no reasoning to back them up.

Obama made the rounds on cable news outlets to squash this "scandal" before today, and yet that wasn't enough. He apparently must get on his knees and submit to the "outrage" more than any other candidate.

Edited March 18, 200817 yr by stenbeck212

Well that was my first post in a couple of weeks. I cant see my screen, but I had to say it.

I was wondering where you were!!! How are you doing, my favorite doctor? Well Internet doctor, that is

Give little man a hug for me tonight