Obama GOP brain transplant complete?
It’s a quite a stretch of road to cover, from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the Rev. Rick Warren. I thinks it’s safe to say that soon-to-be-president Barack Obama has sure come a long way.
The president-elect, who has made sure that he and his staff make every attempt to erase his connection to Rev. Wright from public memory, recently taped Rev. Warren to deliver the invocation at his Jan 20 inauguration.
Let’s see, Obama’s former religious mentor has a history of civil rights activism, is openly critical of U.S. imperial ambitions and speaks on behalf of minorities, immigrants, the poor and the working class. Obama’s new favorite is an evangelical popular with the flat-earth crowd who wants to criminalize a woman’s right to abortion and sees gay marriage as akin to child abuse and incest. Interesting choice of association.
Democracy Now has a nifty interview with Max Blumenthal on the real Rick Warrens. Meanwhile, I think Bill Moyers had the best interview and profile piece on Jeremiah Wright during the whole Republican-inspired anti-Wright hate fest that scared the now president-elect into the arms of the right wing.
Religious affairs are somewhat of a perverse curiosity at this blog. The official editorial policy here is that a religious invocation of any kind at a government event is in defiance of the separation of church and state. Churchspeak is best left in the church where the rest of us don’t have to be harassed by it. Still, it would be interesting to be able to somehow peer into that alternate universe where Obama still had his spine and it was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright giving the inaugural invocation. At the very least, it might have been something inspirational instead of another blatant attempt to “reach out” to the Palin crowd.
This plus the staff appointments thus far leads one to consider if the Republicans didn’t find a way to win another election after all. But just when did the brain swap take place?
If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people.
