McCain on Faith

    I think these are the sorts of verbal contortions one gets into when religious folk want "religious candidates," but don't help sort out what that might mean and what the implications might be.  I can think of at least one Christian president who has been an unmitigated disaster.

Comments

[Philip Koplin]

I always wonder on which Christian principles the male-only, propertied, slaveholding elite founded the nation.

[DB]

And that too gets an "Amen."

[DB]

I guess this sort of fits in this Mc Cain category of "thought" !??

Rebel Nuns Evicted From Polish Convent
By MARCIN ZOLTOWSKI (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
October 10, 2007 1:57 PM EDT
KAZIMIERZ DOLNY, Poland - Police evicted 65 rebellious ex-nuns Wednesday from a convent they illegally occupied for two years after defying a Vatican order to replace their mother superior, a charismatic leader who had religious visions.

The defeated nuns walked out in their black habits - some carrying guitars, drums and tambourines - after a locksmith opened the gate to the walled compound and police in riot gear rushed in and arrested the mother superior. A former Franciscan friar who had locked himself away with the nuns also was taken into custody.

Several nuns, many of whom appeared to be in their 20s, screamed at police, calling them "servants of Satan," as they were escorted out and into waiting buses.

The women took over the convent in Kazmierz Dolny in eastern Poland in rebellion against a Vatican order in 2005 to replace Jadwiga Ligocka as mother superior.

"They were disobedient," said Mieczyslaw Puzewicz, a spokesman for the Lublin diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican formally expelled the women from their Sisters of Bethany order last year, but has revealed almost nothing about the dispute.

About 150 police in riot gear went into the compound to find the ex-nuns defiantly singing religious songs and playing instruments, Puzewicz said.

Lublin Archbishop Jozef Zycinski called the police operation a last resort meant to help the ex-nuns.

"Today's police intervention was a sort of act of desperate aid for people who for the past two years have lived in very unusual conditions, in a closed environment, in seclusion, in uncertainty, where various forms of thought take shape," the PAP news agency quoted Zycinski as saying.

[Roy]

Would that one disaster of a "Christian" President be Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton?

[zero]

alright, kate, david, jerry. here i am per david's request. mr chuch is going to have to rescue us soon with new threads.

[Kate]

I'm going to disagree on the Shuster thing. I agree with David on the slams the Clintons have taken and continue to take from the media. This time I think it's a case of a word evolving into mupltiple meanings over the years. From the Urban Dictionary:

2.(the verb) to pimp is to advertise (generally, in an enthusiastic sense) or to call attention in order to bring acclaim to something; to promote.

I wouldn't have used those words but I was really surprised that Chelsea was calling the superdelegates. I'm not really happy with the idea of the superdelegates anyway but this year they have the opportunity to move the nomination away from the popular vote and I don't like that.

But back to Shuster...My feelings are colored by the fact that he's one of the few reporters on television that pushes back on Republican talking points. He doesn't allow people to frame the issue. I'm hoping he'll be back soon.

[zero]

why are you surprised that chelsea was calling superdelegates, kate? isn't that a behind the scenes, nonpublic activity that all candidates engage in? if huckabee can have chuck norris endowsing him why can't chelsea campaign for her mother? (i'm not for hillary, by the way, i just think this isn't an issue).

speaking of superdelegates, did you guys read the news that that vile slug senator from connecticut got stripped of his superdelegate status after endorsing mccain for president? now, if mccain is the rep candidate and he picked this guy for his running mate, will that make him the only person ever to be the vp candidate for both parties? lieberman! what a guy.

[Kate]

I don't have a problem with her campaigning, she can call the ladies of the View all she wants. But courting the superdelegates is kind of like Miss Arkansas sending gifts to the pageant judges. I'm basically annoyed about the superdees. Why are there so many of them?

[zero]

ah, your point is better understood now, kate.

i would wonder how many of the other candidates have a family member, close colleague lobbies the superdelegates. and if they are doing it too, they should be "outed" and be told to knock it off too.

as for superdelegates, i didn't know these existed until i read that lieberman was stripped of his superdelegate. i wonder why there are any at all much less why so many.

[DB]

I agree this is one step MORE removed from popular vote from what the majority of Americans desire. More power in the hands of a few who are now the center of attention for vote and possible political power grab for their political futures.
Todays NYT says:
"There are 796 of them, and if neither Mr. Obama nor Mrs. Clinton emerges from the primary season with the 2,025 delegates necessary to secure the nomination, they will in essence serve as tiebreakers. That is a result both sides see as increasingly likely.
Known as superdelegates because they are free to cast their votes at the convention as they see fit, they are the object of an intensifying and potentially high-stakes charm offensive by the candidates and their supporters."

[zero]

i just read an article about superdelegates.
like the electoral college, many of them are
not going to vote as the popular vote dictates. that has people up in arms, as they should be. we don't need anymore of the few electing someone over the wishes of the many. it seems to me that superdelegates are all senators and congressmen. now that's a bunch who are going to listen to the will of the people (not)!

[DB]

Why do I have this feeling, assumption, nagging 7 year+ awareness of darkness that Cheney/Bush era has to do with death, death and more death... and monies and popularity with death dark cold folk in America and the world...? Could W's State Department regime be making a Pentegon department statement before going out of office? I wonder if W and cohorts take satisfaction in folk like me and others here getting a 7+ year rant going again and again like they might think it'll cause death by anxiety to their vocal critics. I am not for the death penalty in any situation but to lift up death as jusitice coming from this W bunch of criminals is one more obscene American event:
from UP. WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is planning to charge six detainees at Guantanamo Bay for the Sept. 11 terror attacks on America and seek the death penalty.

[zero]

why now is what i wonder about that charge. why now? no matter what they do or how they spin the last seven plus years they won't ever be able to alter the fact that they are miserable failures, full of hubris and destruction. they care not what they have done.

[DB]

Because Cheney/W are about death. This is their statement for their swan song no doubt the timing. A gift to their supporters??? It is like the murdering cycle of choice they desire. They gave America the hanging of Saddam-- in the face of 3000 dead at Bin Laden's hands -- while Bin Laden is where? And how many poor and not of "their" class status are maimed and dead... Afghans, Iraqis and Americans plus others. What is pathetic is that America will do nothing about it.

[zero]

what can america do about it, really?

[jerry]

Hey all - just got back from a few days at Lake Tahoe :-)

Kate - I share your concern regarding the pandering to the super delegates. In the past, they haven't played much of a role as we typically have a clear candidate by super tues. The cycle is very, very different and the supers will indeed have a huge voice. Haven't heard yet who Edwards is endorsing, but I suspect...

I find it ironic that Hillary is on the "change" bandwagon, yet she is totally riding of not only the "glory" of Bill's regime, but also on his/their "friends". She clearly has the "establishment" behind her and it will take a loud voice by the people to put real change in.

[DB]

Here is another person agreeing with my claim that Bush and the war trials are W's business showing his criminal hand in military/world laws doing things the Bush way. And too we know that whatever is left over -- damage collateral -- for the next President whose job is enormous quagmire of untangelment so to speak... 4 years worth and then if that is a mess the Republicans say "Ah!" look at the lousy job s(he) did.
Today's NYT
Trial’s Focus to Suit Bush
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The cases of those accused with roles in 9/11 represent a major part of President Bush’s “unfinished business.”

[Kate]

Here's a nice even-handed article about the evolution of the word "pimp". Bottom line, be careful when attempting to speak like the hip kids.

http://www.slate.com/id/2184211/

[DB]

Did y'all read today's NYT article on the French 1st Lady:
MUSE, REIMAGINED “Come, let me sing into your ear,” Carla Bruni purrs.
?

[zero]

oh, david. that's quite an addition to the discussion.

we learn more and more about the criminally willful behavior of the bushies (note, tony snow spoke somewhere in the last few days and said 80% of the bush advisors were against the surge in iraq.

sooooooo WHY HASN'T THIS CRIMINAL AND HIS COHORT CHENEY BEEN IMPEACHED?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!

[jerry]

Go Obama!

[DB]

AMERICAns go forward with unprecedented illegal Gitmo death trials in the face of a WORLD which has for MANY outlawed death penalties and with home soil invasive spying retroactive protection legislation votes to give AMERICAn politicians spyware unlimited and Cheney/W enjoy extraordinary privilaged criminal status: America is the source, the fountainhead, the manufactering of and propagation and PIMPING of unadulterated obscenity.

Well... the French 1st Lady's leather boot ad took my breath away and further curiosity was stopped by my computer's "parental controls" but know even that () makes for better/healthier mindfodder than what America's WhiteHouse and Congress "put out".

Yeah, Jerry. Obama!

Gosh, W says current images of "nooses" are not cool! And he should know since the last white on black racial act of lynching like murder was in his state with a truck pulling a roped body during I believe (?) W's governorship of a state still trying to justify state murder punishment. With his entry into Iraq and Afghanistan costing hundreds of thousands lives and Blackwater mentality etc how can anyone not think hypocracy.

[zero]

today i was reading a book review about a biography of a frenchman who served in napoleon's cabinet. a quote in the review stopped me in my reading "tracks"!

here's the quote:

'paul schroeder, historian on napoleon, "all efforts to find some point in napoleon's career at which he turned wrong or went too far is misguided. his whole character and career were fundamentally wrong; he always went too far".'

quick, boys and girls! name the current "leader" of america who matches this description and cheney doesn't count!!!

[jerry]

good evening. I just sent mr chuch an email with our greetings, requesting some new threads, a "hello" and an update from the prof-turned-non-profit-coo.

So did any of you watch the Clemens circus this morning? Pretty amazing that even when questioning baseball players, was still partisan-politics-as-usual! I personally found Clemens to be smug, angry and unconvincing. And what's up with the, "my wife took HGH, but not me!" He has dug a hole much deeper than Barry Bonds ever will!

[Kate]

Jerry, Thanks for contacting Chuck. I missed all the baseball hoopla. I wonder how much the hormones and steroids contribute to the sheer obnoxiousness of some of these guys.