Obama’s Problem with the Bible

Barack Obama has recently come under criticism from evangelical Christian personality James Dobson for comments he made back in 2006 while addressing a liberal Christian group.”Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount…So before we get carried away, let’s read our Bible now…Folks haven’t been reading their Bible.” -Barack Obama

Dobson has accused Obama of distorting the Bible, but that’s an oversimplification of Obama’s mistake. What Obama has really done is put his ignorance of Christianity on public display.

Let me break it down for you in very simple terms: The Holy Bible includes many different types of literature; civil laws, religious laws, poetry, histories, narratives, prophecies, and many other subgroupings. What Obama is citing in Leviticus and Deuteronomy are the civil code and religious laws of the ancient Hebrews. These are a part of the Christian canon by virtue of their presence in the Jewish scriptures, but they don’t govern the Christian faith in any way. For Christians, the Old Testament (or Old Covenant, to be more precise) was superseded by the New Testament (or New Covenant) nearly 2000 years ago.

What Obama did, essentially, was to borrow a common anti-Christianity red herring argument and use it to pander to a liberal Christian group.

Conservative Christians have been rumored to be flirting with the Obama campaign, but this instance ought to serve as a warning. This man claims to be a Christian but doesn’t know the scriptures or understand the distinction between different types of religious texts.

Starry-Eyed Optimist or Cynical Political Hack?

Barack Obama and his handlers have cultivated an image of Obama as a Starry-Eyed Optimist (SEO) and an agent of positive change in Washington DC.  But today you’re going to read and learn on the Righty Loosey blog that Obama’s really a Cynical Political Hack (CPH).

From Reuters:

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said on Friday he expects Republicans to highlight the fact that he is black as part of an effort to make voters afraid of him.

“It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy,” Obama told a fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida. “We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid.

“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”

Essentially, Senator Obama is setting the stage for a nasty, divisive campaign, and SEOs don’t do that.  He’s too smart not to have thought this through before saying it; he’s making a negative attack on himself in order to blame it on someone else.  And that makes Obama a CPH.

Think about this: John McCain is a principled and decent man.  That, along with his military service (including the five and a half years he spent as a POW), is his claim to fame.  In the past McCain has been the victim of the same kind of dishonest and contemptible whispering campaign that Obama is now trying to pin on him – before it happens.  Last summer, before the first primary votes were cast and when his campaign was broke and foundering, elements of McCain’s team wanted him to go negative and he wouldn’t do it.  As a result some of his campaign staff jumped ship and joined the Mitt Romney campaign, where they ran negative (and dishonest) negative ads against fellow Republicans McCain and Mike Huckabee.

So does it ring truthful that McCain would authorize his campaign to run the kind of campaign Obama is predicting?  Or does it seem more likely that Obama is going the CPH route and attempting to demonize his opponent?

That’s a rhetorical question – I know you know the answer.

McCain Needs Huckabee for Vice President

As the Democrats bite, scratch, and kick down the homestretch and it appears more and more likely that Barack Obama is going to be their nominee, it’s also becoming ever more obvious that John McCain needs Mike Huckabee to be his running mate.

Obama is a gifted campaigner and the Democrats are enthusiastic about their chances for the presidency this election cycle.  That enthusiasm has been translating into fundraising dollars at an impressive rate ever since campaigning began back in the spring of 2007.

Much has been made of the fact that while Obama and Clintn have been emptying their bank accounts to fund their primary campaigns, John McCain has been attending to behind-the-scenes business, raising funds for his general election campaign, and vetting possible VP candidates.  He’s been spending very little money since his rivals all petered out earlier this spring, but fundraising hasn’t exactly been gangbusters, either.

Whether it’s a result of ineptitude or a general lack of interest in the subject, McCain has never been an effective fundraiser.  In an election year when much of the electorate is going to embrace Obama’s issues, McCain will find that money is an even more important consideration in this election than most.  So how do the Republicans compensate for the old soldier’s fiscal deficiency?

The suggestion from Righty Loosey is to bring Mike Huckabee fully into the fold.  Huckabee brings with him a ready-made and highly committed grassroots movement (“Huck’s Army”) which already has experience with fundraising, volunteer telemarketing, and get-out-the-vote campaigns.  The infrastructure is already there and the experience is there.  The results are plain to see – just see how Huckabee overachieved at the polls during the primary campaign.  His financial resources were modest, but Huckabee was able to motivate his followers to make committed and effective efforts to boost the campaign – and it worked!  Huckabee won nine states outright and would have received an enormous boost by winning South Carolina as well, had Fred Thompson not been doing McCain’s dirty work by stealing votes from Huckabee in that state.

By linking himself to Huckabee, McCain can sign on thousands of committed and effective volunteers, a resource he’ll be glad to have once general campaigning begins in earnest in July.  It’s the smart move, and no less so for being such an obvious one.

Pick Mike Huckabee, Senator McCain.