Vastleft of CorrenteWire has a cutting rundown of Barack Obama’s Democratic flagellation earlier this week. I hadn’t had a chance to read up on it during my travels and this post is just about all you need to know (though Pachacutec and Stoller have some gems too).
How dare you suggest that your religiosity gives you special standing on matters of values? Your smug sanctimoniousness shows that you are ill-qualified to lecture me or anybody else about such things.
But what I am suggesting is this — secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square…. To say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Here you’re fluffing that Republican straw man bigtime. Can you name one leading Democrat who has ever said that believers have to back away from their faith? And why do you keep conflating “personal morality” with religion? It is religion, with its robotically repeated dogma, that devalues the importance of “personal morality.”
Pastors like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS…
While other, more enormously influential religious figures seek to ban the use of condoms, the most effective preventer of AIDS.
The post is categorized under “Dem on Dem violence,” which is probably one of the most important categories I’ve seen on any blog. This post, unfortunately provides a post mortem for what is surely one of the most disgraceful instances of fratricide I have seen in these sad political times.
Obama has shown himself to be a self-hating Dem who is so insecure in his political standing that his only recourse for (apparently) protecting himself is to attack those who put him in office.
If Obama wants to talk about moral values and standing up for the underlying principles of America’s democracy, I’d like to know why he has not spoken out to bring an end to the war in Iraq. Why has he not placed his body and his career between George W. Bush and the Constitution at which the president charges with guns blazing? Why has Obama not stepped forward and become the leader in the Democratic movement to end the US government’s use of torture and extraordinary rendition as standardized tools in our arsenal for allegedly defending ourselves?
No, the failure to represent the values that Americans hold dear, be they based in faith or in a rational look at the world, rests not on Democrats who wish to preserve a government free from the dangerous influence of religion, but on politicians like Obama who wrap themselves in religious values found in text while never once stepping forward to live those values when they are needed in the political realm.
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, triangulation, Corrente Wire
June 30th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
Having now listened to Obama’s speech twice, I really think he’s been unfairly attacked. I was impressed by his call to respect religious views at the same level to which the respect secular ones. His was a call for a middle ground. His words felt authentic, even if he is pursuing an often suggested political strategy of reaching out to the “moral values” crowd. Aside from a few specific lines that sound much worse out of context, I didn’t think he was perpetrating Dem on Dem violence. I’d encourage everyone to listen to the speech before accepting the loud critiques he is receiving. I think you’ll find that your faith in Obama is strengthened, not weakened.
June 30th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
One caveat, and it’s a big one, is that Obama doesn’t do much condemning of the far right. He does make explicit jabs at Dobson, Keyes, and Fallwell, but doesn’t really go after any of their specific anti-American (as in small “d” democracy) statements.
June 30th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
I’d like Obama to provide me with one Democratic politician who doesn’t “acknowledge the poewr of faith in people’s lives.” Tell me one. We have to hear about every time a presidential candidate goes to church. We have to know if their doctrinal religious beliefs are of a set that conflicts with the laws of the United States of America. Enough. Obama is arguing a Republican straw man and giving it full weight and credence of by originating the attack from within the Democratic Party.
Obama might have some genuine concerns about how Democrats relate to people of faith, but the answer isn’t betraying those Democrats who believe the government and our political representatives should continue to stand by the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Religiosity has nothing to do with law and it’s a sham to suggest that Democrats are somehow at fault for failing to win over religious conservatives.
Some people look at the human condition and feel the need to console themselves with a religious narrative. Fine. But it shouldn’t be the governing narrative of America’s political discourse, simply for the fact that our Founders had the sense to create a separation between the church and state. I’m not religious and I’ve gone through various levels of what I would consider faith, but I would never, ever demand that my lack of religiosity become the metric that all believers be subjected to by politicians.
I say again Senator Obama, where are your religious values in the face of unjust war without end? Where is your respect for the rights of the individual when stared down by a monarchical president? Yes, I wholeheartedly agree religious discourse should be about lived ethics and not opinionated values. But this distinction that you “optimistically” reach for is nowhere to be seem in your speech, other than as an attack on Democrats who have the audacity to not feel the need to appease those Americans who dont’ think a woman has the right to determine how she lives her life or a homosexual has the right to love their partner in the same way as someone born straight.
The hate surrounding religious/non-religious political speech dwells almost entirely on the Right. Attacking his Democratic
peerscohorts rings false when you actually look at how religious values are exploited by Republican partisans and haphazardly stumbled around by Democrats like Obama.Yes, the criticisms levied against Obama by bloggers do not look at the whole of the speech. But that doesn’t negate the damage his attacks on Democrats cause and I find that damage inexcusably short-sighted.
June 30th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Given the fact that most church-goers voted Republican and the political strength of the religious right, how might Demcrats go about reminding people of the fact that they are not-anti religion without talking about it?
I see your point about Obama using language that implies that his party “ignores” or “shy away from” religion and faith. He is responding, obviously, to the baseless attacks of the right which thereby reinforces those attacks. Point taken. However, I don’t think he is wrong to try to “reconcile faith… with democracy” by discussing a manner in which compromise between people of all faiths and those without faith is possible.
I believe he is being attacked for talking about talking about faith, not for using faith-based language in his own life a politician. By doing so it can be argued that he is playing into the religious right’s image of the Democrats. It is a fine distinction, though, to attack him on since it is easily taken as an attack on his own faith and his respect for faith.
As for naming a Democrat who doesn’t acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of Americans, of course there are none. But Obama is correct in pointing to the inauthentic manner in which many politicians–of both parties, but certainly Democrats–approach religion’s role in politics. Obama came off as authentic in his speech and I think politicians of both parties should take note of how he managed to sound respectful of religion and the Constitution at the same time.
July 1st, 2006 at 1:55 pm
Obama is not responding to baseless attacks, he is giving them credence and agreeing with Republican lies about the Democratic Party.
I couldn’t disagree with you more.