Why such a big Pastor Problem?

To the critics who say that Obama did nothing but dither around, I have several questions that they conveniently forget to ask. In all honesty, I believe that it is a positive characteristic that Obama is not willing to just throw someone into the road and run them over for public approval.

And secondly, why should one fault Obama through guilt by association? I know people who have racist parents and are most definitely not racist themselves--they simply don't agree with what their parents think.

So why would it be any different with a spiritual "Father"?

And let's not get started with McCain, who has been associated with Pastors who believe that "Gays should burn" and that "9-11 was a result of Americans harboring gays"(Jerry Falwell), and that "they are worse than terrorists"...

Makes alot of sense, don't it?

I didn't think so...

Obama's Race Speech Echoes Kennedy's 1960 Address on Religion

Wed Mar 19, 12:22 AM ET

March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama tried to do for race what John F. Kennedy did for religion.

The Democratic presidential hopeful yesterday attempted in Philadelphia to quell a firestorm set off by incendiary sermons made in past years by his former pastor and adviser, and to challenge Americans to transcend racial prejudices.

While the speech Obama delivered is unlikely to win over those who oppose his candidacy because of his race, it may serve a similar purpose as Kennedy's address to Protestant ministers in Houston in 1960 -- dispelling concerns among some voters about his core beliefs, analysts and historians said.

Obama's speech ``made clear that his own views differed'' from those expressed by his longtime pastor, just as Kennedy made clear that a Catholic president would not answer to the Vatican, said Ted Sorensen, 79, an Obama supporter who helped Kennedy write the Houston speech that was a turning point in his race for the White House.

``The parallels with Kennedy instantly came to mind,'' said political scientist Stephen Hess of the Washington-based Brookings Institution who was a speechwriter for President Dwight Eisenhower.

In excerpts of past sermons, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, 66, for two decades Obama's pastor at Trinity United Church in Chicago, suggested that an oppressive U.S. foreign policy had incited the Sept. 11 attacks and that the government had a role in spreading the AIDS virus in the black community.

Wrong, Divisive

Obama, 46, who said he never heard such words from Wright, said in his speech delivered two blocks from the Liberty Bell, ``Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity.''

He added, however: ``I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me'' and who also had made racist remarks that made him cringe.

Obama said his own mixed heritage has taught him that ``we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together -- unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes.''

In his 1960 speech, Kennedy voiced similar hopes, saying he believed in ``an America where religious intolerance will someday end, where all men and all churches are treated as equals'' and where ``there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind.''

Big Differences

There are differences between then and now.

In 1960, Catholics comprised almost a quarter of the American electorate, and most experts believe that Kennedy gained as much with Catholic voters as he may have lost with some Protestants. Today, blacks comprise about 10 percent of U.S. voters and have overwhelmingly voted for Obama, while he has struggled in many states to carry white male voters.

And the assault on Obama, for his connection to Wright, from some Republicans and Democrats isn't likely to cease.

Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, said Obama -- by trying to justify Wright's comments as a legacy of bitterness among blacks who grew up in the era of segregation -- didn't go far enough to condemn the pastor's words.

It was ``an enormous missed opportunity to really assert as a very articulate and capable African-American leader how damaging Wright's expressions of hatred and animosity are to the African-American community itself,'' Reed said.

White Grievances

For Obama, confronting racism and discrimination is perhaps a harder-to-overcome task than Kennedy faced.

In his speech, Obama said whites, like blacks, have their grievances.

``Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race,'' because ``they've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.''

``When they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed,'' he said, ``resentment builds.''

Harris Wofford, 81, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania who advised Kennedy on civil rights, said the barriers Obama has to overcome are higher and the message he was trying to convey more complicated than was Kennedy's.

`Old Fears'

Obama's speech ``was aimed at white people who are having a hard time in our economy and may be distracted by the old fears related to race,'' Wofford, who introduced Obama at the National Constitution Center, said in an interview.

It was also directed at black people who are ``seeing everybody telling them that these white workers are voting against a black man because he's black.''

Race is ``in some ways a far more significant issue than Catholicism was for JFK,'' agreed Hess. ``We fought a Civil War over this one. This was a much more complicated message.''

Sorensen said while Kennedy's address was critical in allaying the suspicions of many Protestants, there were some ``anti-Catholic bigots'' who were unconvinced. Today, he said, those who oppose Obama for his race ``are probably going to continue in their bigoted attitudes.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in Washington at ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net ; Heidi Przybyla in Philadelphia at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net

Rescue of Bear Stearns--Bush's Failure

To quote talk show radio host Mike Malloy, the big companies such as Bear Stearns, Enron, JP Morgan, are all "predatory bastards". They don't care what happens to you. Honestly, people. What they care about, like any other huge corporation, is their profit. And the Bush Crime Family wants to help them continue to make that cheap buck off of you--even when they've proven to be an extremely corrupt corporation.

Does no one else see the problem with this?

Think of it this way--the companies think of you as "collateral damage", to once again quote Malloy. They don't care if they end up shitting on you, your children, and your grandchildren, as long as they pull in money.

So why don't we, the American people, stop sitting on our God damn asses, and do something about it? Unless Obama or Hilary are hiding something for if/when they are elected President, which I highly doubt they do, then it's up to the people.

It is these exact same companies that bitch and moan about no Big Government getting involved, but, funnily enough, they are the first ones to go to Big Daddy with their hats in their hands, begging to be bailed out.

And, wouldn't this $30 million dollars that the Bush administration did not hesitate to lend out been much better placed immediately in the hands of Katrina victims when that little catastrophe occurred?

Oops. Guess it just proves how much the government cares about it's people...

Incompetent Reporters of Yahoo! News

It's a sad day when the average joe must be able to realize how idiotic some of these statistics are, especially when they are mis-labeled by the press. 

The main article in question is about STDs, claiming that one in every 4 teen girls has an STD. It is written by Lindsey Tanner, who is in fact an AP medical writer. 

"At least one in 4 teenage girls has an sexually transmitted disease, suggests a first-of it's kind federal study that startled some adolescent health experts"

Interestingly  enough, the article does not cover the fact that it is much less than one would initially think: it is not 1 in 4 of all teen girls, just those that are sexually active, and only amongst the ones they covered in their survey. 

It's the same thing that happened with the now-debunked statistics on rape that 1 in 6 women are victims of sexual assault, when in fact, they are not. 

The Nonsensical, Conservative Talk Against Obama

        Well, this is my first post for this blog, and thought I'd go into some things in the political world to start things off. It's rather interesting that conservatives have been trying to smear Senator Barack Obama's  presidential campaign through the use of his middle name. You'd think they could find a better way to bring down a candidate...or not. Starting with conservative pundit's Bill Cunningham's references to Barack "Hussein" Obama, many conservatives seem to think that using that name will bring about the anti-Muslim sentiment to the election. Hopefully not, though many Americans are not bright enough to know half the truth about Obama. To make my case in point, scores of writers on the Barack Obama Facebook support group (and one of them, Neha N., being a blogger for the Clinton campaign).  There have been countless people to whom I say, Obama isn't Muslim--he attends the United Church of Christ, and many people seemed to fall for the heavily taken-out-of context videos that FOX aired to try and smear Obama, which CNN at least rectified later. At the very least, the pathetic attempts to smear Obama are amusing to watch, though I worry about the gullibility of the American population. In all honesty, some Americans are incredibly stupid--though I certainly believe in their right to vote, they push the borders of belief. However, one thing that caught my attention was an article which superbly compared Obama to the idol of the conservative movement, Ronald Reagan. And for all the conservative talk of how "great" a president Reagan was, the backlash to Obama is surprising; after all, Reagan was merely an actor who was all talk during his campaign.

     For all of Clinton's talk of experience, and, supposedly, her ability to keep your children safe, she truly hasn't done much--without Bill as her husband, she would have fallen flat on her face already. What people see in Obama is a successful Junior Senator who has the ability to unite the country, instead of the divisive, power-mongering politics common for a long time. It is why a majority of college students vote for Obama--because they too, are sick and tired of seeing such politics ever since they have been old enough to understand how the political system operates. If you want to call it a cult, then label the Reaganites as a cult as well, for the basic principles are the same;Reagan also advocated change quite a bit during his campaigns. 

     Hopefully one is educated enough to see through the lies and distortions that others try to create about Obama. It simply smacks of racism and ignorance, and does nothing to benefit the upcoming election.