Worshipping a Mighty God

We hear today that Obama has decided that his church of 20 years, Trinity United Church of Christ, is no longer capable of bearing the scrutiny visited upon it as the church of a Presidential candidate.

The problem with his statement is this: if he disagrees so regularly with the statements of preachers there, be they regular clergy or guests, why has he been a member for 20 years?

Was there some unfortunate political Tourette's Syndrome which has lately infected the clergy, along with the congregation, which has always been shown to be cheering and otherwise vocally supporting the incendiary sermons which Obama then has to disown?

Since the meteoric rise in Obama's political fortunes began with his "Audacity of Hope" keynote address redolent with claims to respect for Christian sensibilities, buttressed by borrowing the title of Rev. Wright's sermons for the speech and his subsequent book, one is entitled to ask: In just what way was the message of Trinity different from the message of the hundreds, if not thousands of other Christian churches in Chicago, if not in precisely the corrosive and inflammatory rhetoric which Obama now finds he must disavow?

Bringing People Together to Dump on W

The latest missive from the Obama camp:

"You vs. George W. Bush‏
From: Barack Obama (info@barackobama.com)
Sent: Thu 5/29/08 10:05 AM
Reply-to: info@barackobama.com
To: philo-juniua

Right now you have a unique opportunity to go head-to-head with George W. Bush.

This week, John McCain and George Bush gathered behind closed doors, away from the cameras, to raise money for McCain's campaign.

McCain used Bush to raise a reported $3.5 million from a group of about 500 Republican contributors.

That's a lot of money that will undoubtedly be used to attack us and make the case to continue George Bush's failed policies.

But I have an idea about how we can match it. And we don't need George Bush."

Imagine if he were indeed to run as a partisan...

The Lure of Easy Money...

Former George W. Bush adminstration nonentity Scott McClellan has cashed out with a hatchet job memoir published by big-money Democratic contributor Frank Pearl's Perseus Press implying that the Bush administration's communications strategy in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq was dishonest. It is not clear why such a paragon of virtue as McClellan would have associated himself with such a shabby communications strategy--serving as press secretary himself from 2003-2006--unless, of course, it was develop a resume of sufficient length to win the book contract.

So, finally, we are forced to conclude that McClellan was either an amoral mercenary then, or an amoral mercenary now.

Well, Scotty, which is it?

A Little Remedial Geography

It has been documented that one unfortunate consequence of Obama's multicultural, free-to-be-you-and-me childhood in Djakarta and on the mean streets of Honolulu is a general haziness with the pesky trivia of U.S. civics and geography, such as whether the U.S. has 48 or 58 continguous states,



whether Sioux Falls or Sioux City is the largest city in South Dakota,

or whether Martin Luther King marched from Selma to Montgomery before his parents met in 1959, or, as history records, in 1965.














Now unfortunately, and no doubt more damaging in the eyes of the international community, Obama has decided to embroider on a family legend with similar indifference to the pesky facts.

A putative uncle of Obama's (presumably actually his great uncle Charles Payne) is alleged by Obama to have participated in the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in 1945. The problem with this account is, of course, that Auschwitz lies in Poland, and was liberated in January 1945, before the first American troops had crossed the Rhein into western Germany. Presumably, there will be some backing and filling as the Obama campaign acquires service records to show that Payne was at some point near to at least one of the western concentration camps liberated by the Americans later in 1945--possibly Dachau or Buchenwald--but we'll just have to wait and see whether or not Obama's mouth has once again written a check his campaign can't cover.

UPDATE: Auschwitz, Buchenwald; what's the difference?
Turns out Obama is also hazy on World War II crimes against humanity, even the ones his typical white relatives helped stop.

Well, then, by all means carry on. After all, if you've seen one death camp, you've seen them all, right?

Where Am I, Again?

That wacky Obama:



Keeping the student body in stitches with his clever allusions to linkages between the founders of Methodism and the Duke of Wellington--yeah, that's the ticket!

I wonder if he'll follow up with some clever riffs on Marlboro cigarettes and Winston Churchill?

Seriously, if this guy's last name was Quayle, we'd laugh about running him for Senate.