Andrew Sullivan, who supports Barack Obama despite the latter’s Big Government views and the former’s alleged hatred of said, comes up with a defence of Obama’s recent resignation from his church, of which Obama has been a member for over two decades:
The glee with which some have pounced on Obama’s decision to quit TUCC strikes me as unbecoming to anyone who takes faith seriously.
Maybe the “glee” has to do with the way that the rather sanctimonious Mr Obama has, to coin a popular phrase, thrown his old church under a bus lest his membership of a church involving the likes of nutjob Jeremiah Wright damage his run at the White House. Naturally, Sullivan, whose defence of Obama gets daily more desperate, will not countenance the idea. Let’s just ask ourselves whether he would be so obliging about say, a Republican candidate that had been a member of a church taking a “Christianist” (ie, traditional Christian) view of things like gay marriage, for instance. Well, to quote the late Enoch Powell, to ask the question is to know the answer.
Some time ago a commenter on this site pointed out that Sullivan is no longer honest about his political views and motivations, not even with himself.
In case anyone asks, I support gay marriage. The state should be out of the business of regulating marriage between adults, period.
Sullivan has clearly lost the plot.
Take faith seriously?
Anyone who cans their religion to become more electable clearly doesn’t take either faith or the voters seriously. Moreover they are a cad of the first water.
What if the spin-doctors had told Obama that the public liked him but his missus wasn’t popular with the focus groups. Would he now be getting a divorce?
Obama sounds to me life very probably an atheist. His family were atheists, and when he speaks of faith, he mostly talks about it as something that people have and motivates them, not as something which actually reflects the truth of whether there’s a god.
He admits being an atheist early in life, and then after seeing the power of religious communities in getting things done, he decided to join the church. He does at this point say that he dedicated himself to God’s will, but it could be “God=universe” or something, or him going through the motions for show. The man knows he wouldn’t have gotten elected without being “one of them”. I very much doubt he really believes in Jesus and all that.
See his speach on the subject here:
http://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2006/12/what-is-barack-obamas-religion.html
And given that, I’m quite sure he doesn’t take “his” faith seriously. He knows it’s something many Americans have, and has to deal with it, and he knows he can use that in others to his advantage. And, that’s the only serious way any person should take faith.
Because otherwise we have to take seriously the faith of every wackjob. Including my faith in the underpants gnomes.
As for supporting gay marriage, it is all well and fine as long as all the State benefits of marriage are rooted out first. Once all the Statist elements are removed then I have no problem extending the institution. But, by and large, the effort behind extending the privelige has more to do with the perceived goody bag of benefits that go with it than it does about the desire to show the world your commitment to each other. Basically people should stand no differently before the State as a partner than as an individual. The State’s interest should run no further than having a default mechanism to divide joint property once a split occurs. Whatever benefits come from people cohabitating occurs naturally, without State interference. Some notion of fostering some great cohesion of culture and society by subsidizing it is yet another in the long list of fictions.
So after 20 years at Unholy Trinity Obama has been shocked to discover what this “church” is about and has left.
What is next “I am shocked to discover that the Woods Fund has been allied to Marxist groups and under the influence of Marxists in the organization itself since it was founded many decades ago – I had no idea of the nature of the Woods Fund when it brought me to Chicago from Harvard, and as I worked my way up to the controlling Board”.
Gib is correct, Senator Obama is a Libertation Theology man – to him “God” is just another name for “the people”.
toolkein is almost there.
But I think his cart and horse are the wrong way round. The main benefits of marriage are not things you can get from the state they are things the state can no longer do to you. Being married provides some protection against inheritance tax for example.
Would I like to see this extended to gay couples (well it has been) but I got no problem with that. I want the whole, utterly evil, viciousness of inheritance tax junked but until then anything that gets more people out of it’s clutches is a good thing.
That bus just got a lot bigger, didn’t it? More like a Greyhound fleet.
John McCain: I’m sold.
Jenn, too right. I have recently read Matt Welch’s book about McCain – which I strongly recommend – and it is quite scary in parts. This whole “national greatness” conservatism thing, which goes against the limited government ethos of McCain’s Arizona predecessor, Barry Goldwater, is a load of bunk. He flip-flops on issues like abortion, taxes, etc. I don’t trust the guy, for all his undoubted heroism in the past as an aviator.
Roe vs. Wade is not a ‘law’ it is a piece of judicial activism so egregious as to consitute a constiutional montrosity (lol puns) and a serious overeach of federal jurisdiction. Ron Paul has it right on this issue.
Interesting how you recognise that it is necessary to add in an obligatory disclaimer to avoid being labelled a homophobe/statist by hysterical liberal minded libertarians. Perhaps you now recognise how annoying a tactic this is.
Nick M,
Anyone who cans their religion to become more electable clearly doesn’t take either faith or the voters seriously.
I’m not terrifically well-acquainted with the doctrines of Obama’s former church, but generally speaking it isn’t canning one’s faith to leave a particular congregation. It doesn’t even imply leaving the particular denomination unless it is a very specialised one, and religious people are always falling out over points of doctrine and setting up new sects precisely because they regard faith very seriously.
But they are also wont to stick with an institution most of whose beliefs they disagree with, because they hold themselves to be essentially a believer in some way, or because it carries some connotation of social loyalty to do so. It doesn’t strike me that Obama is at all odd in this, even if I find the whole idea of religious faith weird and incomprehensible.
If you joined an institution in order to demonstrate a social loyalty, it might be particularly hard to know when to quit, because you look bad either way. That’s a problem politicians often run into in one way or another.
Where did that comment on Roe v. Wade come from? That’s about as off-topic as you could get.
Laird;
From Jenn’s link
SPARTANBURG, South Carolina (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain, looking to improve his standing with the party’s conservative voters, said the law that legalized abortion should be overturned.
“I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned,” the Arizona senator on Sunday told about 800 people in South Carolina, one of the early voting states.
guy,
…unless it is a very specialised one…
Would you not agree that Jeremiah Wright is very far from any definition of the Christian mainstream and therefore “specialized”.
Obama either joined that church for cynical reasons, left it for cynical reasons or is possibly just pretending to have left and still believes. Whatever, the man has no principles whatsoever.
They’re talking about giving him the football. I wouldn’t give him a light.
I think that the take that the average American voter has on this issue is quite simple, namely –
Obama needed to be associated with a church like TUCC to get ahead in Chicago politics, because churches that preach the sorts of messages that are preached at TUCC are a fixture of major urban areas in the US and their adherents are generally politically active and much-more-than-averagely-likely to vote.
It’s like running for county commissioner in Door County, Wisconsin – it would behoove you to join the Elks.
Now that he’s moved from Chicago politics to national politics, his association with TUCC is a liability, because the sorts of messages preached there do not resonate well with many voters nationwide. So he chose between his church and his aspirations to be President. He tried to explain it away – kind-of weakly – but when it wouldn’t die, he decided that a few black voters in urban areas would have to be traded for a lot more (female) voters elsewhere.
The reason this sits poorly with many voters is that many Americans are religious, and they see a man walking away from his church after 20 years as a man with fungible convictions. It’s the same thing that made many so uncomffortable with President Clinton – the feeling that he would say or do anything, compromise any principle – to get (re)elected.
llater,
llamas
I think that the take that the average American voter has on this issue is quite simple, namely –
Obama needed to be associated with a church like TUCC to get ahead in Chicago politics, because churches that preach the sorts of messages that are preached at TUCC are a fixture of major urban areas in the US and their adherents are generally politically active and much-more-than-averagely-likely to vote.
It’s like running for county commissioner in Door County, Wisconsin – it would behoove you to join the Elks.
Now that he’s moved from Chicago politics to national politics, his association with TUCC is a liability, because the sorts of messages preached there do not resonate well with many voters nationwide. So he chose between his church and his aspirations to be President. He tried to explain it away – kind-of weakly – but when it wouldn’t die, he decided that a few black voters in urban areas would have to be traded for a lot more (female) voters elsewhere.
The reason this sits poorly with many voters is that many Americans are religious, and they see a man walking away from his church after 20 years as a man with fungible convictions. It’s the same thing that made many so uncomffortable with President Clinton – the feeling that he would say or do anything, compromise any principle – to get (re)elected.
llater,
llamas
I agree. I would add that when the government does a thing, it must have a set of criteria as to when, where, and how it will do that thing. Therefore, I would argue that the government should stop performing marriages, and then forebare from regulating them.
That’s not what gay marriage advocates (like Sullivan) seek. They seek state sanctioned and recognized marriages. Nobody ever stopped them from having any private contract or ceremony. But they aren’t content. They want a state ceremony.
I agree that the state should be out of the business of regulating marriages. But if it were, there wouldn’t be any debate about gay marriages, and no need for stating you are for them, lest you be accused of being a bigot.
The two sentences in the quote above are incompatible.
Gabriel, I did not see it as “obligatory”. The point is that many people have argued that Sullivan changed his tack towards the Bush administration in 2003 in dramatic fashion – he was once an avid supporter of Bush, the Iraq war, etc – in large part because he feared Bush was going to outlaw gay marriage.
As a “liberal-minded libertarian” myself, I wanted to make it clear, however, that while I have doubts about the intellectual honesty of Sullivan, I do not argue with him about the right of any adult to form long-term, binding contractrual relations with another. This is a liberal blog in the old sense of the word; the presumption should rest, I think, with those who want to prevent such consensual relations.
Nick M, surely you are not alluding to the rumors of a certain tape of a certain Mrs Obama using a certain racial slur? Or are you just prescient, having not heard of the buzz?
Obama was not just some man in Chicago who wanted to get into politics – and so hung out with radicals.
Obama was brought to Chicago (from Harvard) by the Woods Fund (research into all the Marxist links that organization has – I have not used the word “Marxist” in relation to Senator Obama for fun).
He was a hired radical (who rose to be on the very board of the Woods Fund) – not someone pretending to be a radical for reasons of poltical advancement.
At joining Liberation Theology “Holy Trinity Church” was a logical step for him.
The media (and other) people who now say how attractive Senator Obama is, and what a good speaker he is and how intellgent he is, and how well educated he is (and so on and so on) are mostly the same sort of people who said simlar things about Comrade Bob back in 1980.
People forget that we were all told that his Marxism was not “serious” and that we should ignore his terrorist (sorry “national liberation”) links. And sure enough the country carried on in much the same way for a few years (if one choose to ignore the activities of the 5th Brigade – which started almost at once) – but over time the country fell apart.
As for Senator McCain:
He has never voted for a tax increase in all his time in the Senate (of all his anger at President Bush – which went back to smear tactics used against McCain in the 2000 campaign) – and now supports lower taxes on both individuals and companies and an optional flat rate income tax.
And whatever his enemies have said about John McCain no one has ever called a liar – what he proposes he will stick to.
On abortion McCain takes a different position from most people on this site, and if a women’s right to choose is what is most important to you then you should vote AGAINST John McCain.
But to say he has flip flopped is simply not true.
John McCain is a federalist – he believes abortion should be a State level matter. This does not go as far as many “pro life” people would like (and it goes a lot further than the “pro choice” people here would want), but it is his position.
The voting record on things like abortion and 2nd Amendment is plain. And better (from a conservative point of view) than most people in Washington (not that is difficult).
As for “National Greatness” – actually Barry Goldwater said much the same sort of thing (check the record).
And both men oppose Federal subsidies – again take a look at the record.
Not just on Pork but on big things like the 305 billion Dollar farm bill.
McCain is also in favour of deregulation (for example of health care) and entitlement program.
For people to have voted for a sell out big government person like George Bush and then say that John McCain is too moderate for them, makes no sense at all.
John McCain was NOT the best candidate running on the Republican side – but he is a lot better than Bush.
And (yes) if people do not support John McCain with all their might then the are going to get Marxist “President Obama”. Along with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
First order of business – shutting down all dissenting media (that minority that exists).
And they have the ways to achieve this task.
Obama was not just some man in Chicago who wanted to get into politics – and so hung out with radicals.
Obama was brought to Chicago (from Harvard) by the Woods Fund (research into all the Marxist links that organization has – I have not used the word “Marxist” in relation to Senator Obama for fun).
He was a hired radical (who rose to be on the very board of the Woods Fund) – not someone pretending to be a radical for reasons of poltical advancement.
At joining Liberation Theology “Holy Trinity Church” was a logical step for him.
The media (and other) people who now say how attractive Senator Obama is, and what a good speaker he is and how intellgent he is, and how well educated he is (and so on and so on) are mostly the same sort of people who said simlar things about Comrade Bob back in 1980.
People forget that we were all told that his Marxism was not “serious” and that we should ignore his terrorist (sorry “national liberation”) links. And sure enough the country carried on in much the same way for a few years (if one choose to ignore the activities of the 5th Brigade – which started almost at once) – but over time the country fell apart.
As for Senator McCain:
He has never voted for a tax increase in all his time in the Senate (of all his anger at President Bush – which went back to smear tactics used against McCain in the 2000 campaign) – and now supports lower taxes on both individuals and companies and an optional flat rate income tax.
And whatever his enemies have said about John McCain no one has ever called a liar – what he proposes he will stick to.
On abortion McCain takes a different position from most people on this site, and if a women’s right to choose is what is most important to you then you should vote AGAINST John McCain.
But to say he has flip flopped is simply not true.
John McCain is a federalist – he believes abortion should be a State level matter. This does not go as far as many “pro life” people would like (and it goes a lot further than the “pro choice” people here would want), but it is his position.
The voting record on things like abortion and 2nd Amendment is plain. And better (from a conservative point of view) than most people in Washington (not that is difficult).
As for “National Greatness” – actually Barry Goldwater said much the same sort of thing (check the record).
And both men oppose Federal subsidies – again take a look at the record.
Not just on Pork but on big things like the 305 billion Dollar farm bill.
McCain is also in favour of deregulation (for example of health care) and entitlement program.
For people to have voted for a sell out big government person like George Bush and then say that John McCain is too moderate for them, makes no sense at all.
John McCain was NOT the best candidate running on the Republican side – but he is a lot better than Bush.
And (yes) if people do not support John McCain with all their might then the are going to get Marxist “President Obama”. Along with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
First order of business – shutting down all dissenting media (that minority that exists).
And they have the ways to achieve this task.
In case anyone says “what means – what about the 1st Amendment”.
The “fairness doctrine” will elmininate dissenting talk radio people, and it will go further than that.
Just the threat of such agencies as the F.C.C. and the I.R.S. (so what if you have paid all your taxes – the I.R.S. can still destroy with an audit to destroy financial confidence in you) will make Rupert M. (of News International) cave in.
And that means the castration of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post (a large part of the nonleft in the U.S. media).
And there are plans to deal with other people in various ways.
I have been saying for years the left have been planning this – and I have been called “paranoid” (and worse things), but now even mainstreamers are starting to see what is being planned (it is so blatent in the conversations of the left – they do not even really try and hide it).
For example, Dick Morris says he has a chapter on the plans in his new book.
I do not care if Dick Morris makes money by “uncovering” the blatently obvious (something that I, and others, have been pointing out for years) as long as people get to know whilst there is still time.
It is too late once the left control both the Congress and the office of President.
And before someone says “we do not need print and broadcast dissent – we have the internet”
The internet is NOT enough – and the left can limit dissent on the internet anyway.
Google (and their other friends) have already experimented with this.
For example, by delisting sites that attack United Nations corruption.
“But we can still find dissent, no matter what the left do”.
No doubt – but 51% of voters will not find it (and that is what matters).
Lose in November and the West (not just the United States) is in real trouble.
That is why it is so important to beat the left – because once THIS SORT OF LEFT is in power in the United States it will be almost impossible to get them out (as they will control the media, and their control over education will be even stronger than it is now).
And the United States is not some small country – if it falls so does the West.
This is why I am entitled to write about these matters.
If the United States is destroyed there is no “Plan B” for the West.
In case anyone says “what means – what about the 1st Amendment”.
The “fairness doctrine” will elmininate dissenting talk radio people, and it will go further than that.
Just the threat of such agencies as the F.C.C. and the I.R.S. (so what if you have paid all your taxes – the I.R.S. can still destroy with an audit to destroy financial confidence in you) will make Rupert M. (of News International) cave in.
And that means the castration of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post (a large part of the nonleft in the U.S. media).
And there are plans to deal with other people in various ways.
I have been saying for years the left have been planning this – and I have been called “paranoid” (and worse things), but now even mainstreamers are starting to see what is being planned (it is so blatent in the conversations of the left – they do not even really try and hide it).
For example, Dick Morris says he has a chapter on the plans in his new book.
I do not care if Dick Morris makes money by “uncovering” the blatently obvious (something that I, and others, have been pointing out for years) as long as people get to know whilst there is still time.
It is too late once the left control both the Congress and the office of President.
And before someone says “we do not need print and broadcast dissent – we have the internet”
The internet is NOT enough – and the left can limit dissent on the internet anyway.
Google (and their other friends) have already experimented with this.
For example, by delisting sites that attack United Nations corruption.
“But we can still find dissent, no matter what the left do”.
No doubt – but 51% of voters will not find it (and that is what matters).
Lose in November and the West (not just the United States) is in real trouble.
That is why it is so important to beat the left – because once THIS SORT OF LEFT is in power in the United States it will be almost impossible to get them out (as they will control the media, and their control over education will be even stronger than it is now).
And the United States is not some small country – if it falls so does the West.
This is why I am entitled to write about these matters.
If the United States is destroyed there is no “Plan B” for the West.
To give just one example – there is already pressure to attack anyone who owns both a television station and a newspaper (I wonder who that might be aimed at).
But it is much more than that.
Remember a President appoints judges.
A President Obama would appoint judges like the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California.
Or like the State level judges in California who tried to ban home schooling.
With these sort of judges in control you can forget about the 1st Amendment – and about the 2nd Amendment.
I do not care if I am called paranoid – I am simply repeating what the left themselves have said.
I pray to God that people will listen whilst there is still time.
Obama’s approach to religion reminds me of the way Slick Willie used to be photographed going to church of a Sunday with a huge Bible under his arm, when he would be going back to the White House to get a blow job from Monica.
If he’s been going to this church for twenty years and only now realises that his pastor was a hate-filled racist jerk then he’s not perceptive enough to be President. If that’s really how he thinks he’ll be amazed when someone tells him bears shit in the woods. But in reality he’s just an extreme left wing politician who has to do the religion thing to get elected. Of course the media would never think to criticize him for this, however much they sneer at George W Bush for his sincerely held religious beliefs.
JP, I understood your task perfectly well and I remember perfectly when Sully’s regular column in the Times almost got renamed “101 reasons why Bush and Blair kick ass”.
My point was simply that you recognised that by making the argument against Sullivan you knew that probably someone would deliberately misunderstand you and attack you as a homophobe/statist, hence your need for the disclaimer.
*Times on Sunday Review section.
Obama has gotten where he is by being what he is, a fast talking street hustler who will say ANYTHING to ANYONE to get what he wants.
There is no loyalty, consistency or anything that we nomally use to determine a persons character.
His whole approach is to keep his mouth moving, doesn’t matter what he says, just keep talking and that resonant baritone with clear enunciation will carry the day.
Why not ? It always has.
Listen to him somtimes, he says NOTHING –
talks a lot but says NOTHING.
‘we are the change we have been waiting for’
What the hell does THAT mean.
Without a CAREFULLY prepared speech or at least a teleprompter, he is TOTALLY LOST.
This is when things like ‘having visited 57 states’ comes out of his mouth while his handlers try to shut him up ( momentarily ).
All mouth and an empty suit is being kind.
You know what’s very relevant to this conversation?
John McCain went on Ellen Degeneres’s talk show recently (for those who don’t know, ‘Ellen’ is a popular American comedian/actress who currently hosts a day time talk show, oh- and she’s gonna marry one of the hottest women in the world soon Portia De Rossi), and defended his views on gay marriage in an extremely anti-big government way that gave this voter a lot less reservations than I have since Fred dropped out.
Watch it here.(Link)
Gabriel, fair enough. I have often in the past had to spell out certain things on the blog as some commentators automatically assume one holds certain opinions. It may be irritating to do this but it does at least pre-emptively shoot down potential nutters.
Yes, it is easy to forget just how gung-ho Sullivan used to be for the war and George Bush. He has now become a sanctimonious character; a regular ploy is to accuse other writers of supporting something he does not like just because they have not written about a subject, such as torture. He is far too quick to assume that lack of coverage of X implies support for X. He has more or less defamed Glen Reynolds, for example.
People might wonder why I bother to write about this man; unfortunately, he carries a lot of influence so it is occasionally necessary to have a go.
“All mouth and an empty suit is being kind”.
Since most voters only learn about candidates at rallies and through rehearsed debates, I think that all candidates could be described as such then. However, I have listed and read carefully to the assertion that Obama is all talk and no substance. After reading the second book by Obama, I am inclined to disagree with this claim as it seems to be a hasty generalization. Let’s just state that the intense campaigns will merely expose those who will disagree with either candidate regardless of what they say for both have questionable ties with certain religious leaders and have uttered silly statements.
Yes Senater Obama talks in vague generalities – “hope”, “change”, “yes we can”, “now is our time” – lines that are chanted by halls full of glassy eyed supporters (much like the worst types of religious cult). But this does not mean he has no substance – no beliefs.
It is just that he can not talk about his basic beliefs in clear terms – as most voters in the United States are not Marxists.