Congratulations
by digby
.... to Chuck Todd for his new post as Chief White House correspondent at NBC. This is is addition to his job as political director at NBC, so I'm relieved that we won't be denied more expert analysis like this:When Liberals Attack: Axelrod and Gibbs have to be smiling this morning with the news that gay-rights groups are angry that Obama has announced that conservative evangelical Rick Warren will give the invocation at Obama's inauguration. Why are they smiling? Because it never hurts -- at least when it comes to governing or running for re-election -- when you sometimes disappoint/anger your party's interest groups (in this case, People for the American Way and the Human Rights Campaign).
Just asking, but is anyone but People for the American Way and the Human Rights Campaign surprised that Rick Warren is going to give a prayer at the inauguration? Where was this outrage when Obama appeared at Warren's Saddleback forum back in August? The difference may be that the forum came before Proposition 8 passed in California. As for the pure politics of this, when you look at the exit polls and see the large numbers of white evangelicals in swing states like North Carolina, Florida and Missouri, as well as emerging battlegrounds like Georgia and Texas, you'll understand what Obama's up to.
Yep. But I must have missed all the times when Todd applauded Bush for reaching out to liberals and annoying his most ardent supporters. Oh that's right, that's because Bush never did it. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was given plaudits by the political establishment for years for his strong convictions and principled loyalty to his supporters --- those very same white evangelicals. Everyone knows they are the only slice of the American electorate worth having.
Update: Someone asked me who made the invocation at Bush's inauguration. It was supposed to be Billy Graham, but he was sick so his son Franklin stood in. And it was controversial, because the invocation had always been ecumenical before but Graham made it explicitly Christian for the first time.
Franklin Graham's a wonderful fellow:
- I believe that God created one man and one woman. He gave sex to us, God did, and sex is to be enjoyed and is to be used within the bounds that God created.... In sexual behavior outside the parameters that God created, we're at high risk, and we're seeing the evidence of this with HIV/AIDS. We're outside of these parameters, and we have a huge global problem now."[5]
- "And I think we're going to have to use every -- and I hate to say it, hellish weapon in our inventory, if need be, to defeat these [terrorists]. But let's use the weapons we have, the weapons of mass destruction if need be and destroy the enemy."(CNN, September 14, 2001)
That's not much different from Warren, who believes in assassinating foreign leaders and compares gay relationships to pedophilia. But it's hard to find a Christian minister who some people believe is responsible for genocide like Franklin Graham. That's why Warren is a middle of the road right wing pastor: he didn't commit genocide. It's an unusual standard but when it comes to the religious right, it's probably pretty fair.
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