Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Cone of Silence
Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life" hosted a forum for John McCain and Barack Obama at Saddleback. Most of the audience was Evangelicals and the good folk of the so called "Bible Belt"... the type of folk who more than likely, will not vote for Barack Obama anyway.
I'll give Barack Obama some points for just showing up, just like I gave John McCain points for going to the NAACP convention earlier this year. There, McCain was faced with a group of people who more than likely, will not vote for him either but, unlike George W. Bush four years ago, he was not arrogant about it.
As moderator, Rick Warren asked the two candidates a number of questions dealing with how they felt about moral and spiritual issues... such as "When do you believe conception begins?" Are you people serious? Have any of you taken a look at this country? Are you still debating issues from three presidential elections? Get over it already, it's the law... a woman can have an abortion, okay...? Is this all you folks can talk about? Still? Then, they were asked if there was EVIL in the world? Yes, it is... look no further than the present vice-president... an evil man if ever there was one. Personally, he scares the "cowboy crap" out of me.
Mr. Obama went on first and I have to say that I was a little disappointed. He never answered any of those questions directly. He went into long, rambling, scholarly dissertations without ever directly giving a yea or a neigh. In his defense, this is because these are spiritual and moral questions that can't be answered like that... these are issues that each human being has to wrestle with and it is between the person and God and their interpretation of what God wants of them. There are no easy answers and really there are no wrong or right answers to these questions.
Mr. McCain was supposed to be in a room dubbed the "Cone of Silence"... a soundproof room (I guess) in which he couldn't hear the questions. The problem is... he wasn't there. He was in his car where it is alleged he could have heard the questions. He and his people say that this isn't true and nobody but them really knows so, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
At any rate, John McCain answered the questions decisively and without hesitation. I feel as though he got the better of Barack Obama in this forum. John McCain was in familiar territory, he was amongst his people. The Republican faithful and more importantly, he was preaching to his choir. Would his answers have been any different had he of been in the Cone of Silence? I can only speculate at this point.
My real question here is... were the questions asked that important in the first place? Whether a candidate is pro-life or pro-choice, how a candidate feels about confronting evil in the world (not to mention in the White House) means nothing to the worker who doesn't have health care... the man or woman who has just been laid off and is now wondering how they can afford that mortgage and that predatory loan they took out... the farmer, whose crops have been devalued... the worker who's job has been outsourced and sent to another country... and those brave and wonderful soldiers still in Iraq and Afghanistan, still wondering when they can come home.
These are the issues that concern a lot of people and unfortunately, they were locked in the Cone of Silence instead of John McCain!
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KEEPING THE FAITH: RANDOM PRAYERS "ON THE DOWNLOAD"
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5 comments:
Let me first say that I'm a Christian and Rick Warren gets much love for Purpose Driven Life, but Rick was pandering to McCain, he just wanted to look like he was giving Barack a fair shake.
In my opinion, too many Christians aren't informed. They are too quick to rely on their spritual leaders when it comes to politics. George W. pulled that faith monkey out of the bag for his second term and those jokers fell for it. My only question is, how did that work out for them the first time.
Some people can be such gluttons for punishment.
Oh, adding you to the philly list, throw me on your blogroll as well.
I sure will Rich...Thanks for stopping by.
This is so true Keith....The so called evangelicals are stuck on
one or two issues while there are so many other issues looming that need to be dealt with. Great post.
Man, you ain't never lied. Life is not black or white and that is something we all must realize. Chritians should look at how even God himself moved his stance from one of black and white law, Mosaic to that of Jesus, who humanized the daily toll of living a good Christian life.
Oh ya , Chaney scares me too, he looks like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
-OG
I didn't see the entire thing. I would like to see both candidates address issues and tell us how will accomplish lowering these high gas prices and stopping a lot of jobs from being outsourced to other countries. Most things are made EVERYWHERE else but here.
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