Mike Huckabee has been flamed from all sides for his overt and explicit use of religion to get votes. Now Barack Obama is doing the same by putting out the following brochure in South Carolina:
Many have went on defense declaring this okay because Obama is not a raving lunatic like Huckabee. I’m calling bullshit. The fact of the matter is that Obama has been the victim of a religious smear campaign that became public about a year ago this month.
As of now, there’s an anonymous email circulating about his alleged connection to not just Islam, but extremist Muslim factions. Several of Clinton’s employees forwarded this email and in mid-December former Senator Bob Kerrey, who works for Clinton, made it a point to point out Obama’s middle name (Hussein) and that he has relatives who are Muslims.
In fact, not so long a go I read a remark by (IIRC) a Clinton staffer how Obama Mania was so strong that they couldn’t bring up certain pertenient things about Senator Obama. Those thing’s were his middle name and where he attended school as a young child (a madrasah). In other words, they couldn’t publicly use fear and/or hatred of the Muslims to get people to reflexively vote for Clinton.
And this is how Obama responds to it? A brochure that is little more “See, I’m not a Muslim. I’m a Christian. See me at the pulpit? See Me praying (to Jesus mind you)?”
This is despicable. In fact, I’ll go one step further and say this is worse than Huckabee. It’s one thing to be a bigot and act like a bigot. It’s another to not be a bigot and pander to bigots. Obama is doing the latter and it is wrong.
It doesn’t matter that he’s not a conservative Christian who thinks he has a right to pass laws based on his religious beliefs. It does, however, matter that he’s pandering to those who are.
{ 4 comments }
Agreed. Good post.
I’m also disturbed by the degree to which Obama is willing to use his religion to gain votes. I recognize the putrid reality that, in today’s political climate, presidential candidates have to either declare outright that they are nonbelievers (I don’t believe any current candidates have had the courage to do this – wouldn’t it be a breath of fresh air if one did?) or play games about whether they are the sort of believers one can trust to run our country. I think Obama has gone beyond the requisite lip service and ventured closer to, if not entered into, Huckabee territory. I’m not sure who speaks in more churches, Huck or Obama. The flyer you posted is disgusting – very professional, but still disgusting.
I like Obama but I don’t really trust him either in this sense here. So I guess I’d go for Hillary … Or Bloomberg if he was in the race!
I liked Obama starting with his speech at the convention, but since then he’s let me down. His votes and general attitude are one of appeasement, and to me he really seems to lack a backbone. Personally, I think that he will compromise his professed principles just to get something – anything – passed. How is that different than what our spineless democrats in Congress are doing now? His blatant and overblown religiousity is also rather disgusting (even though this is a disturbing commentary on todays voters who expect such garbage), and simply put I do not trust him to honor his comments to respect Church-State separation (since he has made comments both ways – on his need for more religion in politics while respecting Church-State separation – wtf?).
Add in his shameless political votes on Iran and other issues (I may be wrong on Iran, but I remember him voting on at least one bill only after it was clear it wouldn’t pass, just as Hillary did), and he is not giving me a warm and fuzzy. Going from one pseudo-theocrat from the right to one from the left (or even Chamberlin-Center) doesn’t give me much hope for this country.
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