Category: John McCain

Is your middle name “Hussein” too?

June 29, 2008
Barack ObamaDemocratic NewsElectionsJohn McCainWhite House
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Some Barack Obama supporters are informally adopting the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate’s middle name as their own.  According to the New York Times:

Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.

“Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads.

With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name.

Very cool.  Reminds me of the end of Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, where children declare one at a time, “I am Malcolm X!”

Barack Obama is an intriguing personality.  By all rights, he has the absolute worst name for politics in the United States.  But here we stand, in classic Americana, embracing the other.

I’ll change my Facebook profile also, proudly adopting the Senator from Illinois’ middle name as my own.

You should consider doing the same.

Dr. James Dobson cries out from the gutter

June 25, 2008
Barack ObamaEvangelicalsGLBTGlobal WarmingIraqJohn McCainReligion
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Dr. James Dobson
Dr. James Dobson decided to climb out of the depths and take a shot at Barack Obama this week.

We last took note of Dr. J in November, 2006, when he refused to serve on the panel of Christian experts who were working to restore disgraced preacher Ted Haggard.

Now Dobson is an expert again, and he had to reach all the way back to 2006 to fabricate something nasty about Barack Obama.  Why go back to 2006?  Was he on a “Haggard Hiatus”?  Just now opening his email?

From the Chicago Tribune:

The conservative Christian group provided The Associated Press with an advance copy of the pre-taped radio segment, which runs 18 minutes and highlights excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal. Obama mentions Dobson in the speech.

“Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?” Obama said. “Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?” referring to the civil rights leader.

Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application.”

Dobson did not react well to Obama’s speech:

Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.

“… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

Dr. J must feel aweful lonely these days.  No doubt he hardly recognizes the Christian right these days.  They’re not obsessed with abortion and homosexuality any more.  They’re concerned about global warming.  They’re concerned about global poverty, health care, and AIDS.  They don’t like the war in Iraq.

Many of them may just vote for Barack Obama.

It’s worth it to read the full text of Obama’s ‘Call to Renewal’ Keynote Address.  The senator reflects on a bizarre statement from his 2004 carpetbagging opponent for the U.S. Senate, Alan Keyes:

I want to give you an example that I think illustrates this fact. As some of you know, during the 2004 U.S. Senate General Election I ran against a gentleman named Alan Keyes. Mr. Keyes is well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and godless.

Indeed, Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, “Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.”

Obama used the occasion to share his own path to church:

It wasn’t until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma.

I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me. They saw that I knew their Book and that I shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst.

And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well — that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.

He stressed the importance of participating in a faith community:

Faith doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubts.

You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey.

How will Dobson argue now that Obama is a Muslim?

It’s a long road to walk alone.  Dobson doesn’t care for John McCain, but he hates Obama more.

I’ll pray for Dr. J, and campaign for Barack Obama.

Lieberman Must Go!

June 25, 2008
CongressDemocratic NewsElectionsIraqJohn McCainRepublicans
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This just in today from Brave New Films:

Joe Lieberman is a war hawk, plain and simple. He staunchly supports George Bush’s War in Iraq and John McCain’s plan to stay in Iraq for 100 years. But Lieberman’s new alliance with the Republican Party runs even deeper. He has endorsed and stumped for McCain, wants to be the star of the Republican National Convention, and has even served on a 527 group that smeared Barack Obama with a nasty attack ad.

And yet Lieberman still holds a top rank within the Senate Democratic Caucus as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The Senate Democratic Steering Committee needs to know just how much of a conflict of interest this is. That’s why we created Lieberman Must Go.

Watch the video: http://bravenewfilms.org/watch/19924842/43061?utm_source=rgemail

Here’s what you can do: Sign our petition today and tell the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to strip Lieberman of his leadership role in Congress. Then, e-mail this video to everyone you know and spread it on sites like Digg and elsewhere.

Recently in Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall suggested that the best way to limit Lieberman is by encouraging the Steering Committee to render him powerless in 2009. Lieberman must go, and you can make that happen by donating to Brave New Films today.

Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Team

I’m happy to give them a spot on Turning Left.  I agree…

Joe Lieberman Must Go!

A terror attack would be great for John McCain

June 23, 2008
ElectionsJohn McCainRepublicansStrange
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A “senior adviser” to John McCain told Fortune Magazine that a terror attack would be “a big advantage” for John McCain.  Charles R. Black, Jr. was forced to “recant” his opinion:

First, McCain said the substance of Black’s comments were untrue.

“I’ve worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another attack on the United States of America,” McCain told reporters today. “If he said that, and I do not know the context, I strenuously disagree.”

Then, outside a fundraiser in Fresno, Black read a statement aloud to reporters from handwritten notes:

“I deeply regret the comments – they were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration.”

We’re all waiting for the infamous “October surprise.”  Terror attack or no, however, we all know that McCain and his ilk are hoping for a bomb to go off.  That would be so sweet for John.

Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) put it best:

“For the McCain campaign to say it would benefit politically from another September 11 attack is disgraceful. That Mr. Black would even think in those terms, let alone express the thought publicly, is very sad. John McCain was right to disavow his remarks. The politics of fear have no place in our national life.”

But McCain’s camp is thinking in those terms.  And, I would argue, deep down inside, so is John McCain.  These remarks don’t just slip out.  Somewhere along the line, the “insiders” were joking around, maybe tipping back a few, and in grand “group-think” mentality, convinced themselves that John McCain would, in fact, benefit from a terror attack.

Problem is, after the buzz wears off, you’re not supposed to say those things in public.

Unless, somewhere deep inside, you really mean it.

Obama campaign raises $21.9 million in May

June 20, 2008
Barack ObamaElectionsHillary ClintonJohn McCainWhite House
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The NYTimes shares the good news:

Barack Obama raised $21.9 million in May, his campaign reported on Friday, a day after the Democratic candidate said he would reject public financing for his presidential bid.

The Illinois senator’s campaign said it had $43.1 million in the bank at the end of the month, with debts of about $304,000.

Astounding.  All of this is money freely given to the campaign by real Americans.  Ninety percent of his donors have given $100 or less.  The numbers are staggering.

But we’ve won nothing yet.  McCain could still win.

“The fierce urgency of now” dictates that we take nothing for granted.  This is the time to work.

Only hard work between now and November will result in victory.