A little while ago, I claimed to be a LIV (low information voter) because, although I have followed the campaign and familiarized myself with the positions of the candidates, I make no claims to policy expertise or strategic experience. If you will recall, I said I chose my candidate primarily on ethical grounds: how concerned is he about the wellbeing of the citizenry and how respectful is he of its agency? I elected to leave the details of policy and governing (his natural purview) to him.
Then I saw this today: Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin. It forced me to revise my previous self assesment and focus on a different, less talked about player in the political arena:
THE LOW INFORMATION CANDIDATE
Exhibit A:
Palin's ABC Interview: Stumped On Bush Doctrine, Seems To Contradict McCain On Pakistan (VIDEO)
Unlike many academics, I don't believe that intelligence is equivalent to having facts on the tip of your tongue. I believe that intelligence is manifest in what you do with the information you have. In any case, you have to have the information to begin with and I believe that only the irresponsible or the arrogant don't bother with that basic step. And I don't think it matters how clever a person thinks they are, or how smart other people believe them to be - irresponsible arrogance only spells disaster.
You spend enough time with high school students, zealous undergrads and overwrought grad students and your BeeEss detector gets very finely calibrated. I had to go into emergency shutdown because of a systems overload while watching the tortured non-responses Gov. Palin rained down on the mercifully understated Mr. Gibson during the interview. I stll see O.M.G. flashing when I close my eyes.
Huff Po has some other editorials on the incident:
Sarah Palin's Charlie Gibson ABC Interview: Video And Transcript
Sarah Palin, The Bush Doctrine, and Why It's Smart To Be Dumb
I also recommend Harry Frankfurter's "On Bullshit", a compact essay on the nature of BeeEss. Here's an excerpt:
"It is impossible for someone to lie unless her thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true, and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off [...] He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."
Cheers all -Adoyo
Good morning All,
I happened upon this clip of Arianna Huffington voicing key important ethical questions that point to why so many people have responded to the Obama campaign. Please share it with folks around you. I really believe these are teh questions people care about.
ARIANNA ON CINDY McCAIN'S RNC COMMENTS
PREMISE: Mrs. McCain said that [during natural disasters] we must take off our Republican hats and put on out American hats.
Key excerpts of Arianna's questions:
These are some of the questions Barack Obama has put before the nation for over a year and a half because they are among the most importat ones that need to be addressed. (**See excerpt of his 2004 DNC Keynote Address below)
A lot of people, especially politicians, like to pick and choose when to remember that we are all in this together. Usually it is when they have no choice because to do otherwise would incite public outrage, or, seeming to care gets them brownie points. The rest of the time they prefer to barricade themselves in rigidly alienating ideology, refusing to acknowledge that anyone who feels differently can have any relevance to their lives. And the overwhelming attitudes are indifference or anatgonism, which is perhaps why you see such poeple use demeaning or scorched earth tactics against their opponents.
What of Empathy?
If you go back all the way to the 2004 DNC Keynote Address, you will find Senator Obama answering all of Arianna's questions: we are all in this together all the time**. Even if you prefer to strip away all religious connotations, you will find the fundamental principles of ethics as spelled out by Aristotle (my other favorite Greek) even 2500 years ago at the core of Obama's campaign.
So I maintain that whether or not we agree on big and small issues, your well being is inextricably tied to my well being; it is always in my best interest to make those choices that benefit us both, or at the very least refrain from inflicting gratuitous injury upon you, rather than those choices that cause you harm while ostensibly benefitting me.
You and I could disagree, but it does me no good to treat you badly.
Sincerely, Adoyo
** EXCERPT from Barack Obama's DNC Keynote Address, 2004 (Paragraphs 12, 13)
It's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga.A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper - that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
It's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga.
A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper - that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.
Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
SOURCE: Barack Obama's DNC Keynote Address, 2004
... most people do not go out in search of facts or sound arguments. Rather, they let information find them.
And when it is delivered by established news sources, then the receiver's threshhold of skepticism is considerably lower than it might otherwise be.
Since whatever is sensationtional is what gets talked about, the "Celebrity" narrative that the McCain campaign has been developing - insistently and consistently - is what is going to reach people. Never mind that the "substabtive" policy related portions of these ads are entirely false. The things we hear shape our opinions and inform our choices. Someone tuning into the campaign season now is going to see and hear this story told everywhere not just by McCain, but by the news outlets who talk about it, and it is going to affect the way they think about their choice at the ballot.
In these past 18 months we have seen how easily misinformed people can become: a message that starts out simple and clear one day - that then has to make its way through an savage obstacle course of noisey gaffes/scandals/distractions and patent lies - ends up mangled and distorted, mishapen and full of static, so much so that what the receiver hears has not the remotest resemblance to what the initial messenger said.
The McCain campaign obviously knows this, and they are exploiting it for all its worth. They have now managed to get the antichrist meme into Time magazine. So what started out months ago as an outlandishly fringe fear mongering fantasy that made its way through individual email boxes has now made its way into an established news medium where it will automatically enjoy some measure of credibility for many readers.
The irony here is that McCain's campaign get to saddle Obama with their own characteristics: they portray him as frightening and devoid of empathy and substance by running a frightening campaign devoid of substance and empathy.
You gotta love the love Le Figaro is showering on Senator Obama. [I apologize in advance for posting untranslated texts - I'm a bit squeezed for time. Just know it's all good.]
C'est en terrain conquis que Barack Obama poursuit jeudi son périple. Car à quatre mois de la présidentielle américaine, l'Europe a déjà voté Obama. Avec un enthousiasme inversement proportionnel à l'antipathie que George W. Bush inspire au Vieux Continent. Quitte à ce que cet emballement ne finisse par se retourner contre le candidat démocrate comme ce fut le cas pour John Kerry en 2004. Conscient du risque, Obama évitera les bains de foule et se limitera à des rencontres avec les dirigeants des pays visités.
Cette tournée européenne commence à Berlin. Obama s'est entretenu avec la chancelière Angela Merkel et prononcera en fin d'après-midi, devant la «Colonne de la Victoire», un discours public qui a déjà soulevé une vague de nostalgie chez ceux tentés de voir en Obama un nouvel avatar de John Kennedy. Demain, il fera une brève escale à Paris et rencontrera Nicolas Sarkozy avant de s'envoler pour Londres.
Dans chacune de ces capitales, les opinions publiques l'ont plébiscité. Selon un sondage de l'institut américain Pew Research Center publié le 16 juillet, 84 % de Français, 82 % d'Allemands, 74 % de Britanniques et 72 % d'Espagnols font confiance au sénateur de l'Illinois. Son rival John McCain ne recueille que 33 % d'opinions favorables en France et en Allemagne, 44 % en Grande-Bretagne, 19 % en Espagne.
Une vague d'«obamania» qui pourrait se mesurer à l'aune des innombrables comités de soutien apparus sur le Web, aux tee-shirts à l'effigie d'Obama qui ont envahi les rues de Berlin ou à une couverture médiatique qui lui ont permis d'éclipser sans peine son adversaire républicain. Au point, remarque Charlotte Lepri, chercheur à l'Institut des relations internationales et stratégiques (Iris), que «lo rsque McCain est venu à Paris (à la mi-mars), un grand quotidien national français a fait sa couverture sur Obama» .
Pourquoi un tel engouement ? L'impopularité de l'Administration Bush est devenue telle, répond Justin Vaïsse, chercheur à la Brookings Institution, «qu'un démocrate générique aurait été de toute façon le favori des Européens ». Mais Obama n'est évidemment pas n'importe quel démocrate. Dès novembre 2002, il exprimait sa différence en s'opposant résolument à la guerre en Irak. Sa jeunesse, son charisme, son atypie, ses idées progressistes sur les questions de société ont séduit les Européens qui le perçoivent comme l'exacte antithèse de Bush et le vrai candidat du changement. Bref, explique Barthélémy Courmont, spécialiste des États-Unis à l'Iris, «il incarne ce fameux rêve américain auquel les Européens ont encore envie de croire».
De même, son pragmatisme en matière de politique étrangère devrait combler les attentes des capitales européennes. Privilégiant comme ces dernières le soft power et une approche moins manichéenne des crises internationales, le jeune sénateur de l'Illinois préconise un désengagement des forces américaines en Irak et l'instauration d'un dialogue avec les «États voyous», l'Iran au premier chef. «Il s'est dit par exemple favorable à une conférence régionale impliquant Damas, Téhéran et Bagdad, rappelle Charlotte Lepri. Il s'est aussi déclaré ouvert à des discussions avec la Corée du Nord ou Cuba sans précondition.»
Avec McCain, il partage l'ambition de restaurer l'image de l'Amérique dans le monde et prône un multilatéralisme de nature à rassurer l'Europe «même, remarque Justin Vaïsse, s'il donne à ce terme un contenu qui n'est pas forcément celui que les Européens souhaiteraient », car son objectif, poursuit Barthélémy Courmont, reste de «renforcer l'influence américaine dans le monde». Mais alors que McCain doute de la gravité du changement climatique, Obama rejoint les Européens sur des dossiers tels que le réchauffement de la planète ou la politique énergétique.
Concrètement, l'Europe attend d'Obama qu'il ratifie un certain nombre de traités internationaux en suspens tels que le protocole de Kyoto, le traité sur les mines antipersonnel ou celui sur l'interdiction complète des essais nucléaires (CTBC). En échange, Obama compte sur les Européens pour s'impliquer davantage en Afghanistan, sa priorité. Reste à savoir si, sur tous ces dossiers, les promesses du candidat résisteraient à l'épreuve du pouvoir et aux pressions des lobbys qu'il dérange.
Obama a tout pour plaire, sauf que l'obamania qui a saisi le Vieux Continent occulte un pesant silence de l'intéressé sur… l'Europe. «Contrairement à McCain qui, lors de sa tournée européenne, a largement développé le thème d'un pacte global entre l'UE et les États-Unis, Obama n'a pratiquement rien dit jusqu'ici sur la construction européenne et les relations transatlantiques, souligne Charlotte Lepri. Mais il est vrai que cette question indiffère les Américains.»
L'Europe aime Obama, mais Obama aime-t-il l'Europe ? C'est un peu la question posée en juin par Der Spiegel dans un article intitulé «Le problème européen d'Obama». Le magazine allemand y rappelait notamment que le sénateur Obama avait fait preuve d'une regrettable incurie lorsqu'il présidait, l'an dernier, un sous-comité du sénat chargé des affaires européennes…
Mid-East tour slide show.
Anticipation, Griping Increases Before Obama Speech in Berlin
The "Obama show," as one newspaper calls it, is set to take Berlin by storm on Thursday, July 24. But a small minority is questioning whether the Democratic candidate can live up to the hype -- or justify the costs.
In the build-up to what is probably the most anticipated American campaign speech ever held on foreign soil, one of Berlin's main city magazines offered its readership cut-out American flags to wave at Barack Obama's planned address...[check it out on Dwelle.de]
...
Also check out the photo gallery in Der Spiegel:
Preparations involve finding ways to show one's support. There are 13,000 Americans living in the city who might be fighting Germans and others for space to hear the candidate speak.
Fans have begun handing out cards advertising the speach. No tickets are required, but you'll save yourself a lot of headaches if you don't brings any banners, bags or placards. They're banned!
After much wrangling between federal and city officials, the Obama camp chose to deliver the speech at the Siegessäule, or Victory Column, which sits on a traffic circle in the middle of the Tiergarten, the city's central park.
Reuters has published some great photos from the Mid-East tour. Here are a couple I rather like:
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (R) meets with Israeli President Simon Peres in Jerusalem, July 23, 2008.
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama rekindles the eternal flame, commemorating the six million Jews killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust, during his visit to the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem July 23, 2008.
See more and read article here: Obama assures Israel he's a friend
[From Le Monde]
Lors d'une conférence donnée à Sciences Po Paris, Dave Senay, le CEO [chef exécutif] de la compagnie de communication institutionnelle Fleishman Hillard est revenu sur les innovations de la campagne de Barack Obama en matière de communication politique.
Selon Dave Senay, l'apparition de la publicité politique à la télévision avait instauré une distance entre le public et la campagne : les équipes se concentraient sur une petite élite capable de financer les spots télévisés qui atteindraient ensuite l'ensemble de la population, plutôt que sur un échange personnel avec les électeurs potentiels. Mais "les nouvelles avancées technologiques ont permis aux campagnes de repasser dans un face-à-face avec les électeurs, même s'il a lieu dans un monde virtuel".
Le premier candidat à avoir utilisé les ressources d'Internet aux Etats-Unis est Howard Dean, en 2004, en créant meetup.com pour permettre à ses supporters online de se rencontrer. Barack Obama a réussi là où Howard Dean a échoué, en transformant l'enthousiasme du monde virtuel en action dans le monde réel.
Dave Senay estime qu'Howard Dean n'avait pas les outils dont dispose M. Obama mais qu'il a tiré le maximum de ceux dont il disposait à l'époque. "Barack Obama permet aux électeurs de faire partie à part entière de l'équipe de campagne, ce qui était inimaginable pour l'époque d'Howard Dean, or cette évolution a été rendue possible par l'explosion des réseaux sociaux : en 2004, Facebook n'était qu'un jeu pour quelques étudiants d'Harvard, Myspace venait à peine d'être lancé et Youtube n'existait pas encore."
Pour M. Senay, le succès de la communication politique de Barack Obama se résume en trois avantages : d'abord, tout comme Ronald Reagan était le candidat de la télévision, Barack Obama est parfaitement adapté au média Internet : "Il est jeune, débrouillard, charismatique, beau, bon communicant, bref c'est un bon produit."
Ensuite, sa campagne dispose d'une réelle expertise des réseaux sociaux, en ayant notamment engagé Chris Hughes, l'un des fondateurs de Facebook. En plus de gérer avec beaucoup d'attention le compte Facebook et le compte Myspace du sénateur, son équipe a créé son propre réseau social, mybarackobama.com, où sont inscrits plus d'un million de participants.
Enfin, la communication de Barack Obama donne à l'électeur l'impression qu'il est un responsable à part entière de la campagne du candidat. Et Dave Senay de citer en exemple un de ses amis qui, la semaine précédente, a croisé une dame à Washington DC brandissant une pancarte sur laquelle on pouvait lire "Vente de gâteaux pour Obama". La politique redevient personnelle, l'équipe de campagne guidant et donnant les outils aux supporters pour qu'ils s'investissent dans la direction souhaitée.
Ce système s'est avéré plus que profitable pour les primaires : "Les caucus ont montré l'efficacité de la campagne basée sur les réseaux sociaux en ligne. Il y fallait plus de supporters à un moment critique où un plus petit nombre de gens pouvait influencer un résultat très important."
Le secret du succès de Barack Obama réside aussi dans le fait que son message, résumé dans le seul mot "Change" (changement), est très attractif. D'après un sondage réalisé par MSNBC et le Wall Street Journal le 11 juin, 54 % des Américains estiment que les Etats-Unis "sont à un moment où il est important de chercher une personne qui apportera de gros changements aux politiques actuelles, même si cette personne a moins d'expérience". De plus, 42 % pensent qu'il vaut mieux une personne "plus expérimentée, même si cette personne apporte moins de changements aux politiques actuelles".
D'après Dave Senay, si le changement gagne contre l'expérience "c'est parce que Barack Obama et sa campagne incarnent son message", les nouvelles technologies permettant aux gens de changer la dynamique de la campagne en y participant. M. Obama lui-même ne s'attendait pas à cette interaction, comme il l'expliquait début juin : "Je n'anticipais pas à quel point nous pourrions utiliser Internet pour capter notre base 'grassroots' sur les plans financier et organisationnel. Je pense que ça a été l'une des plus grandes surprises de la campagne, à quel point notre message a fusionné avec le 'réseautage' social et le pouvoir d'Internet."
Si l'équipe de campagne du sénateur parvient à étendre cette fusion, "à inclure les 18 millions de supporters d'Hillary Clinton dans le message", alors "sa présence en ligne représentera un outil très puissant pour les élections générales également".
Ce nouveau modèle de communication implique d'abandonner une certaine dose de contrôle puisque la campagne est menée par de nombreux intervenants qui ne sont pas sous les ordres directs de stratèges. Face à l'opportunité d'atteindre un public sans le filtre des médias traditionnels, demeure le risque de voir le système se retourner contre Barack Obama.
Lundi 30 juin, le New York Times a relayé les plaintes de blogueurs anti-Obama qui se pensent censurés par Google. Ces blogueurs hébergés par Google ont reçu un e-mail la semaine précédente, expliquant que leurs sites avaient été identifiés comme des spams potentiels. D'après les blogueurs, Google a été victime des activistes pro-Obama, qui se sont servis d'une faille du système Google pour qualifier les blogs de spams. Jusqu'à maintenant, la campagne Obama a réussi à se positionner comme non responsable des actions de ses supporters, mais le camp républicain pourrait chercher à tirer profit du manque de contrôle de l'équipe démocrate sur ses électeurs.
D'autre part, même si la campagne du candidat est très innovatrice, "elle est toujours menée du haut vers le bas. Barack Obama met tous ses supporters dans le même train que lui, mais ceux assis au fond du train n'ont toujours rien à dire sur la manière dont le véhicule avance. Ils pourraient en vouloir à Obama, avoir l'impression que la campagne n'en veut qu'à leur vote et pas à leurs idées", estime Dave Senay.
Si le sénateur est élu et qu'il ne fait pas ce que les gens attendent de lui, le mécanisme qui l'a porté au sommet pourrait bien le descendre. Barack Obama a déjà pu s'en rendre compte quand des internautes énervés ont créé un groupe au sein même de mybarackobama.com pour lui demander de tenir sa parole, et de voter contre une loi accordant l'immunité aux compagnie de télécommunication ayant collaboré à des écoutes ordonnées par le gouvernement Bush.
Cécile Dehesdin
Recount II: Return to the Swampby The Editors (TNR)[also worth reading: Marty Peretz and TNR readers' comments about HRC's dogwhistle tactics]
It is usually a mistake to read too deeply into the character of a presidential candidate on the basis of some tactical maneuver or grubby compromise. Anybody who was a saint wouldn't be in the position of running for the White House. And yet, Hillary Clinton's speech last week in Florida was so audacious, so divorced from reality, that it begs characterological questions.
Hello Everyone,
I have read several comments on the 'net affirming that Senator Clinton's campaign and particularly her tactics over the past few months have contributed to undermining a lot of the progress society as a whole (not just the female half) has made toward a gender-equitable future. Some people cite the mismanagement of her campaign, some her sensationally mercurial behavior, and still others speculate about her relationships with key male figures in her life.
Whatever you may wish to think of her, we can all recognize that this campaign season - for all that is at stake this year and because of all the dramatic turns - has been nerve-wracking for all. So we can only just begin to imagine how taxing it has been and continues to be on the principals.
I am personally truly proud of the way Senator Obama has acquitted himself through it all. He stands as an example and an inspiration to all of us in his grace, intelligence, good humor and generosity of spirit.
I sincerely wish Senator Clinton could have allowed herself to be as inspired by him as so many around the country and around the world have been. I imagine (perhaps mistakenly) that had she let herself recognize Senator Obama's strength as a human being and allowed herself to follow his lead by responding to the strain of the campaign with grace, intelligence and an even temper, many - women and men, young and old alike - would happily have accorded her the respect she has earned in her capacity as a tireless public servant.
I understand that her repeated failure to rise to the occasion is what leads so many to take the liberty of speaking so poorly of her. Nonetheless, I think, I hope we can recognize and accept that even when someone betrays our hopes, we still treat them well. Even if you may think that she does not deserve such consideration, surely we need not abandon our own aspirations to be our better selves for the low and fleeting satisfaction of mocking a fellow human being - a fellow woman - especially in what appears to be the twighlight of her struggle? For if she has indeed set society back in its quest for gender equality, we all have our work cut out for us in repairing the damage and continuing to rise - as individuals and as communities.
Adoyo
I am listening to John Edward's speech at his endorsement of Barack Obama for President i Grand Rapids, MI, and I am more impressed that I can say.
See the whole endorsement on MSNBC (20 mins)
What I like best about this announcement is the way he structured his speech:
- First he praises Hillary generously, highlighting the best things about her reasons for running. Oddly, he manages to make a better case for her than she has been able to do to date. I believe what he says about her caring about the issues that affect ordinary people. Yet for some reason, even though I wanted to hear Hillary communicate this message, I never actually heard her do so. So much of her attention has been focused on crippling Obama that in the end, I could not see that she stood for anythind besides kneecaping her opponents.
- Second, while he recalls the main themes of his own campaign - particularly about battlig economic injustice - and does it with a passion that equals that we have seen before, somehow it feels less desperate, less inaccessibly angry, than it did when he gave his victory speech in Iowa back in January.
- Third, he winds up with a moving and compelling endorsement of Barack Obama for President, impressively melding the narrative of his campaign with the narrative of Barack Obama. He moves from his criticism of Two Americas to an aspiration for One America - Barack Obama's foundational basis.
- Finally he calls for reconciliation and a healing of deep divisions in a way that echos Barack Obama's own message clearly.
Thank you Senator Edwards, and congratulations Senator Obama!
Notes up for responses to this NYT OP-ED piece.
The main problem with Edward N. Luttwak's opinion piece President Apostate is that it takes a completely ahistorical view of the Obama family history and ignores the facts of the Senator's own life.
Obama (père and fils) should be identified first and foremost by ethnicity, in this case Luo - a point Luttwak completely misses. Islam, for its part, is a religion and not an ethnicity; it is neither genetic nor physiological. It was introduced to the Luo from without, just as the Anglican Church was introduced by the English. If Obama Sr. - who repudiated HIS father's religion which was not a historically integral part of the Luo identity - was not a muslim, how can anyone insist that his son is muslim by virtue of patrimony?
Luttwak also makes the mistake of ignoring one of the central principles of Christian conversion: in becoming a Christian, a person becomes just that, a Christian - not a former or half ro previous something else. Among the most important things a Christian can do is DECLARE his or her own FAITH. Any Christian will tell you that is is by Faith one becomes a Christian. And one of the ways a Christian helps spread the the Good News is by honoring the fraternity of mankind through good works. Senator Obama describes his own moment of conversion in Dreams of my Father:
And he has continually honored the fraternity of humanity by embracing public service as a vocation. It is singularly irresponsible of Luttwick to ignore the history and the story of the man in favor of doctrinal esoterica in his arbitrary redefinition of a man whose every word and action speak for themselves.
So I made a simple 60 second video that responds to the recent rain of brouhaha that has been coming down on our heads.
All I hope (Obama in 60 Seconds)
The purpose of the video is to focus on what is best about Barack Obama's campaign: the joy of possibility, the power of optimism and the excitement of hope. I hope you enjoy it. And please share it with your friends.
