The American Spectator's David Bass weighs in on the Barack Obama schmooze campaign aimed at America's evangelicals, It's what I'm nominating as the must-read of the day....Granted, Obama's attempted coup of the evangelical right is hardly a universal success. He continues to tick off conservative mainstays like James Dobson, who can see past the senator's rock star persona and occasional biblical references to his liberal core. But others are not so wise.
Rick Warren, for example.
The purpose-driven pastor is hosting a two-hour forum August 16 for both Obama and McCain. According to a Saddleback Church press release, topics of the day will include "poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate and human rights."
What a lineup. Obama will have yet another opportunity to espouse his Marxism-couched-in-religion talking points, and Warren a chance to solidify his role as the "new evangelical," concerned more with global warming than abortion (it's only the slaughter of 47 million cellular globs, after all).
Warren says he's organizing the event to bring light instead of heat to the political process, but what's the real message the world-famous pastor is sending to evangelicals, many of whom respect him as a legitimate, Bible-believing minister of the gospel? It's that Obama may be liberal on abortion and marriage redefinition, but he's still a great guy. Maybe you should even vote for him.
The rub is that some evangelicals will buy the line, and Obama is a master at delivering it...
The facts, however, are oh-so-clear about Obama's extremism on abortion, homosexual marriage, experimentation which destroys human life, and many other crucial moral issues. Where then do guys like Warren find the gall to soft-pedal them...or ignore them altogether? Bass continues --
So, what would "common ground" on abortion look like in Obama's administration? He answered that question later in the speech. "The first thing I'd do as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act," he said, referring to legislation that would wipe out all state and federal abortion restrictions, even the partial-birth abortion ban supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Way to reach out, Barack.
Later, he showed again his magnanimous olive branch to conservatives by pledging to gut federal abstinence education programs and indicating that sex education for kindergarteners "is the right thing to do." After a pause, he qualified the statement with the terms "age-appropriate" and "science-based" (I wonder if Obama thinks those terms apply to Planned Parenthood's explicit website for teens, crammed with how to's on an assortment of sex acts?).
Such examples show Obama's duplicity. He tries to snooker evangelicals into believing he's a different kind of candidate, but when it comes to actual policy, he's just as liberal as the next guy. Even more so.
To some evangelicals, though, it won't matter. He talks a good talk, and that's enough for them. Warren, for one, is doing his part to give Obama a platform. It's part of a strategy that might work, given the current state of Christianity in America. Obama might be the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever nominated, but that's all right because he's a smooth talker...
Here's the whole article.
