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Sunday, December 9. 2007
Oprah Versus Jesus
Friends, Americans, Countrymen … I give you … Oprah Winfrey.
There’s that famous story of President and Mrs. Kennedy going to Paris (back in the days when France was still an ally) and the president started his speech with, “I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.” 1961, I believe.
So, Senator Barack Obama has television mogul Oprah Winfrey out on the campaign trail with him, first in Iowa — the caucuses are just about a month away — and today in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Oprah speaks first and then the senator. Can you imagine following Oprah Winfrey? Obama has record crowds coming to hear … Oprah … and a few stick around to hear him.
That would be like the Forkestra having its first BIG tour and our opening band, big fans, are the Rolling Stones. We’d just hope enough people would stay in the stadium so the echo wouldn’t disrupt the sound mix.
Senator Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has … Bill, Chelsea and Dorothy Rodham, her mother. All fine individuals indeed, but … they just don’t add up to Oprah! Well, Bill does. He’s back out on the trail with his wife. Senator Clinton gets the same effect though, when Bill precedes her at the podium.
Hands down, Obama wins the P.R. battle. Question is, can he pull in the votes to win the Iowa Caucuses and the primaries of New Hampshire and South Carolina? As the primary season gets closer, the inevitability of the Hillary Clinton Campaign is beginning to weaken and the top tier candidates include former Senator John Edwards. My bet: John Edwards wins the Iowa Caucuses.
On the other side of the isle, Mitt Romney gave his long-anticipated “religion” speech, trying to echo John Kennedy 47 years ago. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is just floating there, the bass-playing elephant in the room, with his Christian minister credentials. It will be interesting to see who can out Jesus the other.
Romney is a Mormon, as we all know, and there are evangelicals who consider the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to be non-Christian, as they consider Roman Catholicism to be non-Christian. They are not voting for Romney. That would be the same as voting for Satan!
On “Good Morning America,” Diane Sawyer asked Richard Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, if he thought Mormons were Christians. His answer: “No, I do not.”
Not all Christians of course. Not even most Christians, just the virulent radicals of the type that control the Republican Party. Course, the Republican power brokers who view the Mormons as an heretical sect won’t come out and denounce Romney or his religion, he could be their nominee next August, but they wish Governor Huckabee was doing better. He’s got the Jesus credentials, far more authentically than President Bush, but he has little appeal outside the small corner of the Republican tent that feels the United States was created as a Christian theocracy.
Huckabee wants to be the only Republican in the field who is considered fanatical enough for the Republican base. Romney, despite his centrist past, wants to prove he’s just as fanatical as Huckabee and the Republican base. Hence, his “religion” speech on Thursday.
Some interesting ideas from the man who once considered safe, legal abortion to be a woman’s right: “God” should remain on our currency, in the Pledge of Allegiance, in the teaching of our history and that Christian symbols should be allowed to be displayed on publicly financed buildings and grounds.
Some people will say anything to get nominated.
Unlike John F. Kennedy in 1960, when he championed the separation of church and state, Romney wants to let the Republican base know he thinks religion is the foundation of government, Christian theocracy in particular. He said freedom requires religion just as religion needs freedom. Well, he’s beginning to talk nonsense real good. So … how does that work for the approximately nine million atheists in America? Are they not free? How about the millions more who believe in a Supreme Being but consider organized religion (in particular) to be the root of all evil? Guess they ain’t free either.
Or maybe what Romney is saying is those of us who do not believe as the Christian fanatics believe do not deserve the freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. And if you read the transcript of his religion speech that’s exactly what he was implying. Romney played into the phony cultural war started by the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh:
“MAN THE BATTLEMENTS! CHRISTIANITY IS UNDER ATTACK! THE MALLS ARE SAYING “HAPPY HOLIDAYS” INSTEAD OF “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” “
“Oh my god … Ruth, call Joshua! Little Davey and Sarah went to the mall! He’s got to stop them! They might come home … believing in evolution!”
So the question that appears to be at the forefront of the Republican primary season is: “Are Mormons Christian? Or, at the very least, Christian enough?” Romney is hoping he flip-flopped enough on the cultural issues to appease those Republican voters whose only goals are to overturn Roe v Wade and return Christianity to public schools in the form of school-led communal prayer.
They’ve gained some ground in some states by putting the Book of Genesis in the science classroom alongside … err … science, or at the very least, putting disclaimers in the science texts that evolution is “only a theory.”
Appealing to the masses generally ignorant about the difference between the colloquial meaning of the word “theory” and “scientific theory.”
Begging the question: If music theory is only a theory, does music truly exist? If I’m a Christian Fundamentalist, I gotta say no! Well, so much for my iPod. At least I can keep all the naked lady photos and videos on it! That isn’t theoretical! Sinful! But not theoretical!
Romney quoted John Adams real well, and misrepresented Abraham Lincoln, but failed to mention the words of Thomas Jefferson, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” — Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.
It will be an interesting primary season. One side wants to out celebrity one another and the other wants to see who is more Jesus-conscious. In the meantime, Bush’s war in Iraq rages on, middle Americans are losing their homes and falling into poverty in record numbers, the trade deficit is killing us, we are so in hock to China they can send us faulty and dangerous goods with impunity … Well, at least the Democrats are talking about the issues in the celebrity race. Wish they’d grow a backbone.
There’s that famous story of President and Mrs. Kennedy going to Paris (back in the days when France was still an ally) and the president started his speech with, “I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.” 1961, I believe.So, Senator Barack Obama has television mogul Oprah Winfrey out on the campaign trail with him, first in Iowa — the caucuses are just about a month away — and today in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Oprah speaks first and then the senator. Can you imagine following Oprah Winfrey? Obama has record crowds coming to hear … Oprah … and a few stick around to hear him.
That would be like the Forkestra having its first BIG tour and our opening band, big fans, are the Rolling Stones. We’d just hope enough people would stay in the stadium so the echo wouldn’t disrupt the sound mix.
Senator Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has … Bill, Chelsea and Dorothy Rodham, her mother. All fine individuals indeed, but … they just don’t add up to Oprah! Well, Bill does. He’s back out on the trail with his wife. Senator Clinton gets the same effect though, when Bill precedes her at the podium.Hands down, Obama wins the P.R. battle. Question is, can he pull in the votes to win the Iowa Caucuses and the primaries of New Hampshire and South Carolina? As the primary season gets closer, the inevitability of the Hillary Clinton Campaign is beginning to weaken and the top tier candidates include former Senator John Edwards. My bet: John Edwards wins the Iowa Caucuses.
On the other side of the isle, Mitt Romney gave his long-anticipated “religion” speech, trying to echo John Kennedy 47 years ago. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is just floating there, the bass-playing elephant in the room, with his Christian minister credentials. It will be interesting to see who can out Jesus the other.
Romney is a Mormon, as we all know, and there are evangelicals who consider the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to be non-Christian, as they consider Roman Catholicism to be non-Christian. They are not voting for Romney. That would be the same as voting for Satan!
On “Good Morning America,” Diane Sawyer asked Richard Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, if he thought Mormons were Christians. His answer: “No, I do not.”
Not all Christians of course. Not even most Christians, just the virulent radicals of the type that control the Republican Party. Course, the Republican power brokers who view the Mormons as an heretical sect won’t come out and denounce Romney or his religion, he could be their nominee next August, but they wish Governor Huckabee was doing better. He’s got the Jesus credentials, far more authentically than President Bush, but he has little appeal outside the small corner of the Republican tent that feels the United States was created as a Christian theocracy.
Huckabee wants to be the only Republican in the field who is considered fanatical enough for the Republican base. Romney, despite his centrist past, wants to prove he’s just as fanatical as Huckabee and the Republican base. Hence, his “religion” speech on Thursday. Some interesting ideas from the man who once considered safe, legal abortion to be a woman’s right: “God” should remain on our currency, in the Pledge of Allegiance, in the teaching of our history and that Christian symbols should be allowed to be displayed on publicly financed buildings and grounds.
Some people will say anything to get nominated.
Unlike John F. Kennedy in 1960, when he championed the separation of church and state, Romney wants to let the Republican base know he thinks religion is the foundation of government, Christian theocracy in particular. He said freedom requires religion just as religion needs freedom. Well, he’s beginning to talk nonsense real good. So … how does that work for the approximately nine million atheists in America? Are they not free? How about the millions more who believe in a Supreme Being but consider organized religion (in particular) to be the root of all evil? Guess they ain’t free either.
Or maybe what Romney is saying is those of us who do not believe as the Christian fanatics believe do not deserve the freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. And if you read the transcript of his religion speech that’s exactly what he was implying. Romney played into the phony cultural war started by the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh:
“MAN THE BATTLEMENTS! CHRISTIANITY IS UNDER ATTACK! THE MALLS ARE SAYING “HAPPY HOLIDAYS” INSTEAD OF “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” “
“Oh my god … Ruth, call Joshua! Little Davey and Sarah went to the mall! He’s got to stop them! They might come home … believing in evolution!”
So the question that appears to be at the forefront of the Republican primary season is: “Are Mormons Christian? Or, at the very least, Christian enough?” Romney is hoping he flip-flopped enough on the cultural issues to appease those Republican voters whose only goals are to overturn Roe v Wade and return Christianity to public schools in the form of school-led communal prayer.
They’ve gained some ground in some states by putting the Book of Genesis in the science classroom alongside … err … science, or at the very least, putting disclaimers in the science texts that evolution is “only a theory.”
Appealing to the masses generally ignorant about the difference between the colloquial meaning of the word “theory” and “scientific theory.”
Begging the question: If music theory is only a theory, does music truly exist? If I’m a Christian Fundamentalist, I gotta say no! Well, so much for my iPod. At least I can keep all the naked lady photos and videos on it! That isn’t theoretical! Sinful! But not theoretical!
Romney quoted John Adams real well, and misrepresented Abraham Lincoln, but failed to mention the words of Thomas Jefferson, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” — Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.It will be an interesting primary season. One side wants to out celebrity one another and the other wants to see who is more Jesus-conscious. In the meantime, Bush’s war in Iraq rages on, middle Americans are losing their homes and falling into poverty in record numbers, the trade deficit is killing us, we are so in hock to China they can send us faulty and dangerous goods with impunity … Well, at least the Democrats are talking about the issues in the celebrity race. Wish they’d grow a backbone.
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