I’m praying they restock the Kool-Aid
by Johnny Boulevard
Rick Warren is delivering the invocation at Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration. I’m not kidding. Seriously. What the fuck Mr. President-Elect? Now I’ve apparently been main-lining the Obama Kool-Aid for a great long while, but it would appear that the ObaMART is all out of the prepared stuff, so we’ll see what I can whip together on the fly here but I’m not optimistic.
So I understand what Obama is trying to do here. There’s a two separate things he’s hoping to accomplish with this. First, he’s trying to spark a debate that should serve as a catharsis to unite the nation, his “disagree without being disagreeable” platform. Second, he’s trying to court the evangelicals for the 2012 election (which I guess you could classify as the unity platform again).
So while Obama is doing things that I understand and can somewhat agree with, the means he’s using are unjustifiable. He could simply interact with Rick Warren during his presidency and achieve roughly the same results without angering his base so much and legitimizing the viewpoints of this divisionary figure.
Having Rick Warren deliver the invocation at one of the biggest events in our country gives him a platform that, regardless of fact, will imply that you agree with him. This is a tremendously poor choice on behalf of the President-Elect, and while I’m all for healthy discourse this is just beyond the pale. Granted, Rick Warren has been actually “good” about our need to help fight HIV/AIDS in Africa, and it’s with that common ground that Obama is defending this pick, but there are some serious other shortcomings with Rick Warren.
That being said let’s all look at this rationally. While this is a BAD idea of Obama’s, it’s only about a 4 or a 5 on a BAD scale of 10. Obama has a decent aim with this selection, but he’s really screwed the pooch on this one, and he could have achieved practically the exact same results with a significantly less controversial religious figurehead.
One caveat: if this all turns out to be a huge political “gotcha!” then Barack Obama is an absolute genius. If on January 19 he reveals that Rick Warren isn’t actually giving the speech and it’s… I don’t know, someone else… then I will have to hail him as a genius. This way he will have created this HUGE national debate and not pissed off the people Rick Warren has led the charge against.
photo credit http://flickr.com/photos/andycornejo/
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:30 am
Obama picked the ghey-est speaker he could find. Loot at rick warren’s shrit.. look at his facial hair. This man is a walking closet case. Holy hannah montanna look at the way he’s touching that podium! Everything about him is ‘douche-tard’
Epic Fail!
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December 23rd, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Perhaps they’ll have enough kool-aid for the entire City?
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December 27th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
What I like about this pick is it shows just how liberal and revolutionary Barack Obama isn’t. Part of Obama’s change mantle is reaching across the isle to unite conservatives and liberals. I know another senator famous for reaching across the isle, John McCain, and his base hated him for it. Sure they closed the vitriol sluice gates after he was nominated for the red ticket but the vitriol was once more in full unregulated flow as soon as the election was lost.
Reaching across the isle and appealing to the opposing party pisses people off, it always has had. This choice isn’t a big shocker. Obama doesn’t even support gay marriage, presumably yet another concession to the conservative right. Also, this Warren guy is well respected by conservatives and earned a spotlight for his role in presidential politics when he personally organized the presidential debate at Saddleback, so Obama earns big points with conservatives and moderates with a move like this (presumably).
If prop8 in the blue state of Cali is any indication of National sentiment then this country is not a liberal majority and Obama needs those conservative moderates. So what if this guy publically condemns homosexuality, his entire religion does! Giving this guy the podium at the invocation is really not much different than any other time a Christian Conservative gives a speech on behalf of politics, it happens all the time.
For whatever it’s worth, it kind of makes me nauseous that this guy is Obama’s choice for the invocation. Pass the kool-aid.
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December 30th, 2008 at 7:16 am
What is this kool-aid you people keep talking about?
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Johnny Boulevard Reply:
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:20 am
@Glynnis Kirchmeier,
The Jonestown mass suicide, they poisoned Kool-Aid with cyanide and some thousand people willingly drank it. Nowadays ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’ means following something blindly, and ‘don’t drink the Kool-Aid’ means… well, don’t follow it blindly.
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January 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 am
You honestly believe that picking warren to lead a prayer for an inaugration ceremony is a greater lapse of judgement than some of his cabinet picks?
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