Year: 2008
If Huckabee Loses New Hampshire, Is That God’s Will Too?
It was just a month or so ago that Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist preacher and Arkansas governor, claimed that the hidden hand of God was behind the surprising success of his candidacy:
“There’s only one explanation for it, and it’s not a human one. It’s the same power that helped the little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people. And that’s the only way our campaign could be doing what it’s doing.”
– Huckabee
MIKE HUCKABEE: There’s only one explanation for it, and it’s not a human one. It’s the same power that helped the little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people. And that’s the only way our campaign could be doing what it’s doing. I’m not being facetious, nor am I trying to be trite. There literally are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much. And it has. And it defies all explanation. It has confounded the pundits, and I’m enjoying every minute of their trying to figure it out. And until they look at it from an experience just beyond human they’ll never figure it out. And that’s probably just as well.
That’s honestly why it’s happening.
Of course, no pundit has ever been even slightly confused about the reason for Huckabee’s success. It is quite simple: Christianist voters rejected the other candidates one by one — Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Brownback and Thompson — because they found them all to be insufficiently doctrinaire about the rightwing’s bizarre hate-filled version of Christ’s teachings. Huckabee became their only choice by default.
But now Huckabee is trailing at a distant third in New Hampshire in a series of polls:
An American Research Group poll of 600 likely Republican voters, McCain is at 35 percent, Romney 27 percent, Mike Huckabee 12 percent, Rudy Giuliani 10 percent, Rep. Ron Paul 7 percent, Rep. Duncan Hunter 2 percent, Fred Thompson 2 percent, and Alan Keyes 1 percent.
A CNN /WMUR poll of … 341 likely Republican voters, McCain leads with 32 percent, followed by Romney, 26 percent; Huckabee, 14 percent; Giuliani, 11 percent; and Paul, 10 percent.
A McClatchy /MSNBC poll of 400 likely Republican voters, McCain is at 32 percent, followed by Romney, 24 percent; Huckabee, 12 percent; Giuliani, 9 percent; and Paul, 8 percent.
A Rasmussen automated poll of 1,240 … 1,102 likely Republican voters, McCain is at 32 percent, Romney, 30 percent; Huckabee, 11 percent; Paul, 11 percent; and Giuliani, 9 percent.
If Huckabee comes in third in New Hampshire tomorrow, it would be nice to think that a reporter would ask him to explain why it was God’s will for him to lose in the Granite State. Don’t hold your breath, of course.
Huckabee would do well to look at George Bush’s claim in 2005 that God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan:
Novak Says Obama Is ‘Clean’ Not a ‘Stereotype African-American’
Bob Novak, the Republican propagandist, exposed the latent, virulent racism that lies just below his party’s psyche over the weekend when he said this about Barack Obama:
Q: What is Obama’s potential Achilles heel?
NOVAK: I think the only potential Achilles heel is in a general election, if there is some racist prejudice. I’m not sure there is. He’s, as poor Joe Biden said, he’s clean. He isn’t a stereotype African-American. And I think he’s a very strong candidate.
Novak tried to lay blame on the use of “clean” on Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who used the same adjective to describe Obama last year. But Biden was roundly criticized and apologized for it in late January.
Only in the all-spin world of the GOP noise machine can you get away with excusing a racist comment by “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” quoting a racist remark by someone else, even though the quotee apologized for said remark.
No one has asked Novak to explain what he meant by a “stereotype African-American,” however. Presumably he’s referring to the other black presidential candidates who didn’t win a primary season vote: Frederick Douglass, Shirley Chisolm, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Alan Keyes.
Huckabee Calls for Soldiers in Christ’s Army to “Obey Orders”
They’ve got it bad for each other.
Mike Huckabee proved Sunday he is just a little too comfortable fighting for souls for Christ. He delivered the sermon at an evangelical church in New Hampshire, and his words should leave non-Christians and reasonable people of every faith troubled.
Huckabee has the glint in his eye of a man who sees things the rest of us don’t, like Satan and spirits and Holy Ghosts. And he trots out Chuck Norris, aka “Huckabee’s Oprah,” just in case you don’t believe him.
“When we become believers, it’s as if we have signed up to be part of God’s Army, to be soldiers for Christ,” Huckabee told the enthusiastic audience…
“When you give yourself to Christ, some relationships have to go,” he said. “It’s no longer your life; you’ve signed it over.”
Likening service to God to service in the military, Huckabee said “there is suffering in the conditioning for battle” and “you obey the orders.”
Mother Mary. Do we really want a president who believes he signed his life over to Christ? Or anyone else, for that matter? I mean at least Bush makes it clear by both word and deed that he doesn’t actually believe all that God and heaven and hell stuff.
But Huckabee does. He has the glint in his eye of a man who sees things the rest of us don’t, like Satan and spirits and Holy Ghosts. And he trots out the born-again Chuck Norris, aka “Huckabee’s Oprah,” just in case you don’t believe him.
…a church official invited members to attend an event a mile away, where Huckabee held a rally with actor Chuck Norris and where free clam chowder was served.
Faithful (not in the Huckabee sense) Pensito Review readers will recall that some have questioned Huckabee’s replacement of his wife with Chuck Norris at high-profile events, leading at least one commentor (O.K., me) to wonder if Chuck Norris is Huckabee’s wife. His behavior in New Hampshire would suggest it’s possible.
In his campaign stops in New Hampshire, Huckabee has generally focused on appealing to nonreligious voters, playing the bass guitar and emphasizing his support of small government, local control of schools and gun rights — popular causes among Granite State Republicans. Norris, who has endorsed him, has been at his side at nearly every event.
Interesting.
Romney Takes Mormon-Dominated Wyoming
Congratulations to Mitt Romney on his astonishing and unforeseen victory in Wyoming, where one in seven residents is Mormon. Whoda thunk it?
Of course, Wyoming pundits attribute Mitt’s success to other factors.
Romney visited Wyoming in August and November and three of his five sons campaigned in the state.
“Number one, he campaigned here,” delegate Leigh Vosler of Cheyenne said of Romney. “I think that helped while some other candidates ignored us. But also he’s the right person for the job.”
For his trouble, Romney picked up eight delegates to the Republican convention. Fred Thompson earned two and Duncan Hunter one. One final delegate is still up for grabs as Wyoming caucus-goers sort out their allegiances.
Swiftboating Obama’s Religion: He Is Not a Muslim
Barack Obama Did Not Attend a Wahabi Madrassa When He Was a Boy
Over the past year or so of the presidential campaign, the forces of darkness and ignorance have been laying the groundwork for Swiftboating Barack Obama should he become the Democratic nominee. You can hear it on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” when Republican callers make much of Obama’s middle name, “Hussein,” and make the false assertion that he is a Muslim. (The normally Spock-like hosts used to correct these false statements but I’ve noticed that lately they no longer bother.)
A friend in North Carolina forwarded an email this morning that is making the rounds in which Obama’s religion gets the Swiftboat treatment. I was aware of rumors that Obama had attended a Islamic religious “madrassa” school when he was a boy but I hadn’t looked into the story myself, so I did some research. The results are below in a point by point look at the assertions in the email. The text of the email is highlighted with a gray background and is presented unabridged and unedited:
If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts … this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States…better heed this and pray about it and share it.
THIS DEFINITELY WARRANTS LOOKING INTO. THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED, “ONE NATION UNDER GOD”. ALMIGHTY GOD, NOT THE GOD OF THE KORAN.
Wrong, Swiftboaters. The United States wasn’t founded as “one nation under God.” That’s a line from the Pledge of Allegiance, which was written for the Sept. 1892 issue of “Youth’s Companion” magazine by Francis Bellamy, a Christian socialist author and Baptist minister.
“Allah” is the Arabic word for “God” or “Jehovah.” The fact that their God is the God of Abraham is as fundamental to Muslims as it is to Christians. And whether Christians like it or not, they don’t get to decide who God is.
We checked this out on “snopes.com “. It is factual. Check for yourself.
This is too funny. The link given in the email goes to the homepage of Snopes.com, a reputable site that debunks what it calls “urban myths.” In fact, if you search for Barack Obama on Snopes.com, the first link in the results goes to a page that debunks this very email.
Who is Barack Obama?
Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu , Hawaii , Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel , Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita , Kansas.
Blatantly and purposefully misleading. In the United States, “black Muslim” generally refers to the socially conservative but politically radical sect led by Louis Farrakahn. Obama Sr. was African and he was raised Muslim, but he was not a follower of Farrakahn or his ilk, by any means.
In fact, Barack Obama Sr. was not a Muslim. He was an atheist, who had foregone his religion before Barack Jr. was born.
But Obama’s father’s religion is irrelevant, as you will see. Read on…
Swiftboating Obama: He Is a Member of the Church of Christ, Not a Muslim
Over the past year or so of the presidential campaign, the forces of darkness and ignorance — in other words, the Republicans — have been laying the groundwork for Swiftboating Barack Obama should he become the Democratic nominee. You can hear it on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” when Republican callers make much of Obama’s middle name, “Hussein,” and make the false assertion that he is a Muslim. (The normally Spock-like hosts used to correct these false statements but I’ve noticed that lately they no longer bother.)
My friend Garland, who still lives in and amongst ’em in the suburban South, forwarded an email that is making the rounds in which Obama’s religion gets the Swiftboat treatment. I’ve fisked it below. (Note that original text of the email has a gray background.)
If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts … this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States…better heed this and pray about it and share it.
THIS DEFINITELY WARRANTS LOOKING INTO. THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED, “ONE NATION UNDER GOD”. ALMIGHTY GOD, NOT THE GOD OF THE KORAN.
Wrong, Swiftboaters. “Allah” is Arabic word for “God” or “Jehovah.” It is as fundamental to Islam that theirs is the God of Abraham as it is to Christians. And believe it or not, Christians don’t get to decide who God is.
We checked this out on “snopes.com “. It is factual. Check for yourself.
This is too funny. The link given in the email goes to the homepage of Snopes.com, a reputable site that debunks what it calls “urban myths.” In fact, if you search for Barack Obama on Snopes.com, the first link in the results goes to a page debunking this very email.
Who is Barack Obama?
Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu , Hawaii , Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel , Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita , Kansas.
Blatantly racist and misleading.
The population of Kenya, which was a British colony, is as proportionally black as Iowa is white. Since Obama Sr. was born and raised in Kenya, there’s a 99 percent chance he would be black.
In the United States, “black Muslim” generally refers to the socially conservative but politically radical sect led by Louis Farrakahn. Obama Sr. was black and he was raised Muslim, but he was not a follower of Farrakahn or his ilk by any means.
In fact, Barack Obama Sr. was not a Muslim. He was an atheist, who had lapsed from Islam before Barack Jr. was born.
But Obama’s father’s religion is irrelevant, as you will see. Read on…
Obama’s parents met at the University of Hawaii . When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya . His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia . When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia . Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta . He also spent two years in a Catholic school.
Notice how quickly the narrative hurries past Obama’s parents’ divorce. Quick readers might miss the significance of this: Obama’s birth father’s religion is irrelevant, as noted, because he was a non-entity in Barack’s childhood:
Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya.
Barack Jr. did not see his father until he was 16 years old.
Barack’s Indonesian stepfather, like his mother, was irreligious, not a practicing Muslim or practicing anything. (Why would a strict Muslim man marry a woman who is avowedly irreligious?)
From ages six to 10, while he lived in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, Barack attended two schools, apparently going to first and second grade in a Muslim school and third and fourth grade in a Catholic school.
He described his early education in his book, “The Audacity of Hope” (p.274):
Without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks.
And in “Dreams of My Father” (p. 142):
In Indonesia, I’d spent 2 years at a Muslim school, 2 years at a Catholic school. In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Koranic studies. In the Catholic school, when it came time to pray, I’d pretend to close my eyes, then peek around the room. Nothing happened. No angels descended.
Now smear writer gets sloppy:
Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, “He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school.”
Unless Obama has an unusual habit of referring to himself in the second person, if the quote were real, he would have said, “I was once a Muslim, but … I also attended Catholic school.”
Sheesh.
Barack Obama is not now, nor has he ever been, a Muslim. He cannot conceal was does not exist.
But you have to wonder what credibility rightwingers would give the lies if they knew their source was rumored to be the Hillary Clinton campaign:
Obama’s political handlers are attempting to make it appear that Obama’s introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son’s education.
Lolo Soetoro, the 2od [sic] husband of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta .
The assertion that Obama attended a Wahabi school is a lie. Here’s CNN’s report on its investigation into the false story one year ago:
CNN debunks false report about Obama (Jan. 23, 2007):
Indonesia (CNN) — Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a “madrassa” are not accurate, according to CNN reporting.Insight Magazine, which is owned by the same company as The Washington Times [and both are owned by the Moonies’ cult leader, Sun Myung Moon. – Ed], reported on its Web site last week that associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, had unearthed information the Illinois Democrat and likely presidential candidate attended a Muslim religious school known for teaching the most fundamentalist form of Islam.
Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, from 1967 to 1971, with his mother and stepfather and has acknowledged attending a Muslim school, but an aide said it was not a madrassa.
Insight attributed the information in its article to an unnamed source, who said it was discovered by “researchers connected to Senator Clinton.” A spokesman for Clinton, who is also weighing a White House bid, denied that the campaign was the source of the Obama claim.
He called the story “an obvious right-wing hit job.”
Insight stood by its story in a response posted on its Web site Monday afternoon.
The Insight article was cited several times Friday on Fox News and was also referenced by the New York Post, The Glenn Beck program on CNN Headline News and a number of political blogs.
School not a madrassa
But reporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.
He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.
“This is a public school. We don’t focus on religion,” Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. “In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don’t give preferential treatment.”
Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.
“I came here to Barack Obama’s elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa … like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Vause said on the “Situation Room” Monday. “I’ve been to those madrassas in Pakistan … this school is nothing like that.”
Vause also interviewed one of Obama’s Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto, who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama’s political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, “and are seeking to prove it.”
“It’s not (an) Islamic school. It’s general,” Winadijanto said. “There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. … So that’s a mixed school.”
The Obama aide described Fox News’ broadcasting of the Insight story “appallingly irresponsible.”
Fox News executive Bill Shine told CNN “Reliable Sources” anchor Howard Kurtz that some of the network’s hosts were simply expressing their opinions and repeatedly cited Insight as the source of the allegations.
So that’s the reality, here’s more of the rightwing spin:
Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world.
That may be true but it is irrelevant since Obama did not attend a Wahabi school.
Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran (Their equivalency to our Bible, but very different beliefs)
First, Obama has been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years. But among today’s CHRISTIANS, he’s not CHRISTIAN enough.
Funny thing — in the mainline Protestant churches of my youth, when you accepted Jesus, you became a Christian. Period. Whatever you were before is over.
By the standard of modern Christians, Jesus’ disciples, including the men who would become St. Peter and St. Paul, wouldn’t have been CHRISTIAN enough because they were raised Jewish.
Second, the writers have deliberately confused Sen. Barack Obama with Rep. Keith Ellison, who is a practicing Muslim and was sworn in on a Koran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
(Ironically, Obama and Ellison share the same birthday, Aug. 4, although Obama is two years older.)
What is insidious here is the fact that both Obama and Ellison are African-Americans. The smear writers appear to believe their readers couldn’t tell the difference between the two men because, from their point of view, “black people all look alike.”
Let us all remain alert concerning Obama’s expected presidential candidacy.
The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level – through the President of the United States one of their own!!!!
Would you want this man leading our country?…… NOT ME!!!
This is ironic coming from the same crowd that believes Jesus guides the presidency of George W. Bush, a man who has done quite an efficacious job of destroying the United States, both domestically and in our overseas relations.
But what makes this garbage really bad is the fact it is mild compared with what rightwing racist Republicans will come up with if Obama wins the Democratic nomination.
No Bradley Effect: White Iowa Voters Did Not Lie to Pollsters about Voting for Obama
Barack Obama’s historic win in Iowa last night was a major step forward in American politics not just because it was the first time a black presidential candidate has won a state contest but also because, for once, white voters who told pollsters they intended to vote for Obama actually voted for him on caucus night.
It is way too soon to write the epitaph for the Bradley Effect — in part because Iowa, with its 1 percent African-American population, is hardly a bellwether for American race relations.
The final polls before the caucuses consistently showed Obama surging. For example, the Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby daily tracking poll from yesterday showed Obama with 31 percent, Edwards with 27 percent and Clinton with 24 percent. The final tally was Obama 38 percent, Edwards 30 percent and Clinton 29 percent.
The phenomenon of white voters lying to pollsters about their intent to vote for black candidates has been so commonplace that it has a name: “Bradley effect,” named for the late Tom Bradley, an African American who served five four-year terms as mayor of Los Angeles.
In 1982, Bradley ran for governor of California against a human cipher named George Deukmajian. Polls consistently showed the popular mayor of the state’s largest city with a comfortable lead over the Republican, but on election day, Deukmajian won handily. This phenomenon has been reproduced in elections in New York City and Illinois as well as North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee.
Obama has been quite aware of the Bradley effect from the start, of course:
When Obama, in effect, launched his presidential bid in Manchester, N.H., last December, he made a point of playing down the potential hazards of being a black (or mixed race) candidate in a country where four out of five voters are white.
Reflecting on the 2006 Senate election in Tennessee, Obama said, “I don’t think Harold Ford lost because of his race.”
Ford, an African-American, was the Democrat defeated by Republican Bob Corker.
“I thought that the Harold Ford election showed enormous progress. Something that hasn’t been noted is the fact that Harold Ford did better among white voters than the polls would have indicated,” Obama said.
When black candidates Doug Wilder and Tom Bradley ran for governor of Virginia in 1989 and California in 1982, respectively, polls predicted that each would get a higher share of white voters than they in fact won on Election Day.
It is way too soon to write the epitaph for the Bradley Effect — in part because Iowa, with its 1 percent African-American population, is hardly a bellwether for American race relations. Still, Obama’s success in Iowa is both a personal triumph for the senator as well as a much needed success for the American political system.
I Wish We Didn’t Care About Iowa
I wish nobody cared about Iowa. Not literally, of course — I’m sure it’s a wonderful state with lots of corn and hearty, pious white folks who will soon be fabulously rich off ethanol. And it’s not because my guy came in second or because I fail to see the significance of 71 percent of 220,000 participants not choosing Hillary Clinton. I get it.
I wish nobody cared about Iowa because in the endless obsession over who was going to win in this bizarre and byzantine caucus ritual, the Current Occupant has been given a free pass.
We are so over Bush that we are happy to ignore his last year in office. This is dangerous.
I sat through an entire episode of This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday and the sole topic was the upcoming Iowa caucuses. The only reference to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was in asking the pundits what they thought of the candidates’ responses to the news. And there was no mention at all of Bush’s pocket veto of a bill that would give pay raises and better medical care to veterans.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department announced it’s beginning a criminal investigation of the torture tapes destroyed by the CIA. The Current Occupant says he welcomes the investigation because it means from now on, he can tell reporters he can’t comment on the matter because there’s an investigation under way. O.K., he didn’t say that last part but we know that’s what he meant. And all the other news is bad — unemployment and debt delinquency and gas prices are up, housing sales and the stock market are down. Recession looms.
U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) is calling for the impeachment of Dick Cheney when the House reconvenes Jan. 15. I predict very little will come of this action because the New Hampshire primary is Jan. 8 and South Carolina is Jan. 26. I doubt Wexler can outshout the media as they chatter on endlessly about the meaning of each primary and its significance for the next.
And besides that, Britney might be having a new meltdown or Lindsay might quaff some more champagne, and we all know those events take every bit of video and ink that can be thrown at them.
My personal theory is we are so over Bush that we are happy to ignore his last year in office. This is dangerous. If we allow him to leave on his own terms, like a CEO forced to resign after a spectacular failure but with golden parachute intact, we are only asking for trouble from his replacement. If Bush’s actions are allowed to stand, what’s the next president going to do? After all, precedent will be on his or her side.
If you haven’t signed Wexler’s petition yet, please do so. If you can spare a few minutes for stuff besides zoo tiger attacks and mud-slinging by the two most religious candidates running for president, please do so. And if you can think of a way to get Bush out of office now, please let me know.
Video: Huckabee Campaign Even Screws Up Iowa Victory Speech
How do you screw up a campaign victory speech? It is a Politics 101 fundamental rule that during the post-results speech the candidate must be surrounded on the stage by his family — particularly if the candidate is a Republican “family values” type, and especially if the candidate is the winner.
