Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (262382)	8/21/2008 10:14:20 AM
From: gamesmistress	Respond to of 793917

Saddleback: The Inner Game of Politics Daniel Henningero Wall Street Journal August 21, 2008; Page A11 First question from Pastor Rick Warren to Barack Obama and John McCain: "Who are the three wisest people you know in your life?" Come again? Can I get back to you on that? No you can't, not if you plan to run for the presidency of the United States. In 21st century America, a candidate better be ready to output an opinion about everything. Everything. What would be the greatest moral failure in your life? What does it mean to you to trust in Christ? What's the toughest decision you ever had to make? At what point does a baby get human rights? Does evil exist? What about stem cells? Define marriage. This was just the tip of a submerged iceberg. At one point in the Saddleback Presidential Forum, Rick Warren said he had "about 200,000 questions." How has it come to pass that presidential candidates must talk about such things? Can one imagine Dwight Eisenhower, FDR or JFK being asked to define marriage? Abe Lincoln or George Washington could have handled Jesus, but stem cells? Would we have had better presidents back then if we made them talk about their greatest moral failure? Maybe not. One guesses Jimmy Carter would have aced the Saddleback quiz. Harry Truman probably would have said it's none of your ---- business. The questions at Saddleback reflect the modern pull of the interior life. Barnes & Noble fills whole walls with guide books to solving the riddles of the Fantastic Self. No such industry would exist to help people figure out "Who am I?" and "What should I do?" if the world wasn't filled with so much moral confusion. This, I think, is what Rick Warren meant when he said, "Everybody's got a world view, a Buddhist, a Baptist, a secularist, an atheist, everybody's got a world view." There was a time before the multitude of world views fell from the sky -- let's say every presidential election from 1789 to 1964 -- when one could assume that all the candidates shared a basic set of moral precepts, now called "values." They were Judeo-Christian precepts. Old Testament-New Testament. It was pretty simple. Some past presidents may have been closet agnostics, but when they were growing up, someone "wise" told them what the common rules were. Most people in public life felt no need to challenge this world view. That's gone. How we got where we are today was Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision wherein the nation's highest Court decided when a fetus became "viable," along the way discussing "mediate animation" and "ensoulment." In any event, it became the law. How we got here as well was because science discovered it could manipulate embryonic stem cells. How we got here was through a politics able to place on California's November ballot a Proposition H, which would amend the state's constitution to define as valid only a marriage between a man and a woman. These, with much else, are contested matters now. Absent the settled mores that held sway in 1916 when Woodrow Wilson defeated Charles Evans Hughes, you get Rick Warren trying to open up the inner candidate. One has to ask if evil exists because even that is up for grabs. If as at Saddleback the contest is the inner game of politics, one would bet that the young guy would take down the old guy. By consensus, John McCain won. What happened? Barack Obama clearly has spent more time than is healthy around places like the law schools of Harvard and Chicago, where one learns that a short answer cannot exist. At Annapolis, John McCain's school, one learns the answer is often "Yes, sir" or No, sir." Were Sen. Obama's struggles to pull straight answers from his interior sincere? Who knows? Most modern, self-directed pols -- Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich -- would have gone deep inside, too. John McCain benefited because by generation and background, taking his private thoughts public wouldn't be his first option. He answered Rick Warren's questions, but by habit redirected them to the realm of public policy. On evil: "Defeat it." On what defines marriage: "I'm a federalist. I believe the states should make those decisions." On a fetus's human rights: "At the moment of conception." Too bad if you don't like those answers. This is what we get in a morally contested world.It becomes necessary to ask presidential candidates everything because we don't know who they are and we can't trust them. For better or worse, what the candidate thinks about taxes or Iraq isn't enough. What, Senator, is your worst failing? At Saddleback Barack Obama learned this: If you want to be president in the U.S., nothing on God's green earth is ever above your pay grade.

To: LindyBill who wrote (262382)	8/21/2008 2:47:02 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793917

This is looking more and more like a ticking time bomb. His denial of it and his calling those who exposed him "liars" is a classic coverup that has exploded. I haven't been attending to every detail of this case - the exact bills, etc. I just am getting a sense of the situation that says: originally Obama got confused over the bill, and became convinced it was a 'thin end of the wedge' pro-life effort, and so voted against it. Once he did that, he's kind of stuck and has to make up a different story. The notable thing about the case is that here is an example of where Barry didn't just follow the liberal herd. Other liberals for it.