This needs to be read and spread

[fpb]

God knows I am no fan of Christopher Hitchens' utterances on Christianity and Christians. But what he says here - http://www.slate.com/id/2207554/ - is simply just and commonsensical. To have Rick Warren attend the swearing-in of the new President, only two years after he all but prostituted himself to one of the worst tyrants in the world (who is also one of America's worst enemies), is to reward immorality and hucksterism of an almost caricatural extreme.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I think it is. However, to judge by the reactions, I do not think the invitation was as shrewd a move as you see it. The interesting thing about the comments to Hitchens' piece is that they all totally neglected what Hitchens had to say and raged about Warren's view of gay marriage. The political gay movement (which is not at all the same thing as the totality of homosexuals) is already embittered at their recent defeat in California, and I think that Obama risks losing much of his left-wing bedrock without getting much by way of compensation. Contrary to left-wing belief, Evangelicals are not sheep who follow wherever their pastors lead them; to the contrary, it is the public that selects the pastor according to thair appreciation of his message. If Warren goes too far in bowing before Obama, he may well find that Obama is the only parishioner he's got left.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Good point. There is also the issue that, even such as he is, Warren may not be willing to compromise as much as Obama hopes.

Shrewd may have been the wrong word; I think the invitation was certainly very deliberate and carefully calculated, but that does not mean Obama's basic assumptions are correct, both with respect to the amount of political capital he actually has to spend, and with respect to Evangelical pliancy.