from Tales from the Trail:
Palin’s choice of words raises new questions
It didn't take long for Sarah Palin to go from an uncompromising response to critics of her campaign rhetoric to new questions about her choice of words.
Not the gun-toting choice of words that had already landed the former Alaska governor in hot water with political opponents who tried to blame her rhetoric for last weekend's melee in Tucson, where a gunman tried to assassinate congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords while killing six and wounding 13 others.
This time the questions surround two words that are charged with meaning: blood libel.
"...especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible," she says of her critics in a message posted on her Facebook page.
The term "blood libel" has an ugly origin. It dates back to the Middle Ages and refers to the false accusation that Jews kidnapped Christian children, killed them and used their blood in religious rituals. Through the centuries, the accusations have been used as an excuse for the persecution and murder of Jews.
Worse still for Palin is the fact that the gravely wounded Giffords is Jewish.
The Washington Post and other outlets quickly picked up on the term's appearance in Palin's message.
from Tales from the Trail:
Sarah Palin, the Bard of Wasilla
Washington's Emma Ashburn had some thoughts today on Sarah Palin's latest literary stylings:
Sarah Palin: former Alaska governor, ex-vice presidential candidate, bard.
The media-savvy Republican introduced a new term over the weekend, using the word "refudiate" on her Twitter feed at SarahPalinUSA when she opined on plans to build a mosque at the site of the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan. Later, she suggested she wasn't doing anything William Shakespeare hadn't done.
Her first tweet on Sunday read:
* Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate
She changed it within hours to:
* Peaceful New Yorkers, please refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real
It shows why it took “gun-slingging” mama-grizzly long to finish college. Just slow is realizing when you’re making a fool of yourselves. But wait a minute, “people like us”…”the real americans”….They do understand this new bard in the western hemisphire. They wouldn’t pay so much money for dinner if she were that baaaaad!..or would they? yah! they would, some level of interlectual consciousness.
Huckabee wins round one in 2012 Republican race
Former Arkanas Governor and Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee has won the first informal round in what will no doubt be a long race to head the party’s White House ticket in 2012.
The affable Baptist preacher, who won the hearts and minds of conservative evangelicals during his failed 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, topped other possible Republican presidential contenders in a straw poll at a summit of Christian conservative voters in Washington.
Out of a field of nine, Huckabee garnered the most votes or 28.5 percent. Delegates to the convention were asked: “Thinking ahead to the 2012 presidential election and assuming the nomination of Barack Obama as Democtats’ choice for president, who would you vote for as the Republicans nominee for president?”
Surprisingly, former Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who lit up the party’s conservative Christian base last year, came in fourth with 12 percent. Her relatively poor performance could have been linked to her failure to attend the summit — Huckabee delivered a rousing speech on Friday.
Huckabee’s arch rival in the 2008 race, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, was the runner-up with 12.4 percent. He also gave a well-received speech that stuck mostly to economic and foreign policy themes.
Like any straw poll, this one counts for nothing. But it does give an idea of what this key Republican base is looking for as the party tries to chart a path back to power in Congress and the White House.
Huckabee is a creationist. A vote for him is a vote against science.
from Tales from the Trail:
What does Palin no show at “Values Voter” summit say about her 2012 intentions?
Why is former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin passing on the summit of self-styled conservative Christian "Values Voters" this weekend?
It's a question worth asking because the annual meeting of "Religious Right" activists has become a "must attend" on the political calendar of any Republican who is serious about running for the party's presidential nomination in the next election cycle.
Former governors Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney -- frequently mentioned as 2012 heavyweight Republican contenders -- will be there. So will Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who many pundits see as another possible candidate for a White House run in 2012.
But the moose-hunting hockey mom who makes liberals see red remains the favorite with this crowd. A recent Bliss Institute and Public Religion Research survey found she was ranked highest among conservative leaders by conservative Christian activists with 86 percent viewing her in a favorable light.
Does her no-show suggest something about her political intentions or lack of them for 2012?
((PHOTO: Sarah Palin delivers her final address as Alaska governor in Fairbanks, Alaska, July 26, 2009. REUTERS/Nathaniel Wilder))
A list of Top 10 lists – “it was the election, stupid”
“Top 10 Stories” lists are a perennial feature, especially in the United States (which explains a lot of the picks below). Now that they’re all out there, I took a quick look at the “Top 10 Religion Stories 2008″ lists to see if any pattern emerged. Of course one did: “It was the election, stupid.” Even a website dedicated to pagan news found a “pagans and politics” angle to top its list.
The Religion Newswriters Association, which polls member religion reporters, has been drawing up such lists for about 30 years. Election-related stories swept the top three slots last year. They did the same in 2004 as well, but the election shared the top spot back then with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ movie. The election-dominated lists show some divergences, but the most interesting compilations were the more specialised ones down in the second list below.
Here’s a quick list of the Top 10 lists, first those dominated by the U.S. election and then others I actually found more interesting:
TOP 10 from CANADA’a INTERFAITH NEWS SERVICE & TV PROGRAM
1. Christian Persecution: India, Pakistan,
2. The Vatican & Dialogue
3. Burma’s Disaster, Buddhist Monks Respond
4. Religious Accommodation: Making room for other faiths
5. Humans Rights Challenges
6. Anglican Troubles
7. US Election & Religion: Obama’s Religion, Mitt’s Religion, Palin’s Religion, Huckabee’s religion
8. China, Olympics, Faith
9. Polygamous Sects
10. Islam Under Scrutiny: Aqsa Parvez, Somalia, fringe Imams
Others, Noteworthy
1. Religion’s absence from the Canadian federal election
2. UN Finally Stumbles into Interfaith Dialogue
3. The Return of the Taliban
Pew report looks at media coverage of faith in U.S. election
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and its sister organization The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life have just released a study on the media coverage of religion in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. A summary of the findings with links to the whole report can be found here.
“Religion played a much more significant role in the media coverage of President-elect Barack Obama than it did in the press treatment of Republican nominee John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign, but much of the coverage related to false yet persistent rumors that Obama is a Muslim,” Pew said.
It added that there was scant scrutiny of the role of personal faith in the shaping of the candidates’ political values with the exception of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The moose-hunting Alaska governor ignited the Republican Party’s conservative Christian base with her evangelical faith and her strong commitment to what many in the party see as “family issues” such as unwavering opposition to abortion rights.
Among its other key findings:
- Press narratives devoted to issues of faith accounted for four percent of the coverage of the general election campaign — less than the economic crisis at nine percent but equal to that devoted to race.
Of course there was not enough scrutiny and the reporting was far off-balanced. Both when Obama ran against Hillary and when he ran against McCain. The only thing I can compare it to is when OJ was cleared of the Murder charge, but still found responsible for their deaths in a Civil court.
The media and Obama told America what was important to them and rather than think for themselves, the majority of Americans voted for the least experienced, most rhetorical “Politician” of modern times. Who clearly knew more about the political views of his Mentor for 20 years than he was willing to admit to… making Obama a LIAR with Little or no Conscious.
Where was the media’s focus on what it required to be schooled in Indonesia when Obama was a student? – Absent because the requirement was you had to be Muslim to attend school during the period he was enrolled.
People, including myself were tired of Bush and wanted change, but I did not sacrifice my principles to vote for an out-and-out LIAR, which was Obama’s response to every CRISIS that fell upon him during his candidacy – and America may likely have to pay for turning their eyes, but so far he seems to be surrounding himself with a Cabinet that just may save us yet.
Quite the “Typical” POLITICIAN playing to the SOLD-OUT MEDIA Audience…
WashPost column: “Armband religion killing Republican Party”
Has religion turned into a vote loser in U.S. elections? In covering the U.S. presidential campaign, most analysts took religion as an important vote-getting factor and asked which candidate was appealing most to which religious group. Much was made about how the Democrats were more comfortable with “Godtalk” on the trail.
Now Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker has asked whether religion has turned into a serious vote loser for the more faith-friendly party, the Republicans:
“The evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh. Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party … the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.”
Is it time for the Republicans to rethink what Parker calls their “preaching to the choir?” Is there a lesson for the Democrats here?
OK People,
Not one person ever became president that G-d did not appoint himself.
Exactly who was elected has been appointed, and who is elected now, was supposed to be elected. G-D don’t loose elections LOL. Obama wiil be good for the economy, but he will make a great mistake, and this mistake will bring a wrath on America, like we have never seen. Obama, will not back Israel, and we WILL see the effect of that DECISION come to pass. Just like when we ( the US ) put pressure on Israel to divide their land for Palestinian peace. That was biblical, do not divide his (G-d’s) land and his people. We are already seeing, what those decisions have brought upon us as a Nation…
Ask me where I got this Information. I’ll be glad to show ya.
“Religulous” — a film call to atheist arms
Comedian and talk-show host Bill Maher has issued the latest “call to atheist arms” in his recently released documentary “Religulous.”
He wants his fellow non-believers and doubters to “come out of the closet” to counter what he views as religion’s dangerous influence on the world. To do so, he preaches to the converted in “Religulous”, a scathing documentary that skewers Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
The film is part of the “neo-atheist” backlash to the rising influence of religion in public life, following a path recently blazed by a trio of best-selling books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Dawkins, a renowned Oxford biologist, has also presented a documentary critical of religion called “Root of all Evil?” on British television.
The Maher film obviously aims to entertain — the audience at the viewing I attended in a suburb north of Dallas laughed almost non-stop through the whole show and a colleague of mine in Arizona reported the same at one he attended. You can see our report here.
But Maher clearly has a political purpose in mind just weeks ahead of the Nov. 4 presidential election between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. The latter picked conservative Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin , a staunch conservative Christian, as his running mate to energize an evangelical base which Maher regards as scary.
Maher notes that America’s religiously unaffiliated population is 16 percent, a number drawn from Pew surveys. He pointedly says this is a larger percentage of the population than several other influential lobby groups such as the National Rifle Association. Hence his call for doubters to “come out of the closet” — a call that other atheist groups and bloggers have been making in recent months.
For an example of this, see The Out Campaign.
I am a complete atheist and agnostic intellectual person but I have to react against this fake documentary that is Religulous. It is a pity that with such an interesting subject, Bill Maher is only talking about himself. I never watched such an arrogant and egocentric interviewer. Never listening to the interviewed, making fun of weak, and accusing Muslim people of being all terrorists. This man is dangerous and has to be destroyed. People of earth, let’s unite against ignorance and let’s forbid this movie. It is not a matter of freedom of expression because it is only a call for hate.
Has the faith factor fizzled in the U.S. campaign?
After the 2004 election, the buzz was that religion was a key factor in U.S. election campaigns. It’s come up this year with Barack Obama’s “pastor problem,” speculation about Sarah Palin’s Pentecostal church and several other points. So I thought it was worth getting up in the middle of the night (cable TV had it from 3 a.m. here in Paris) to see what if any role religion played in her debate with Joe Biden.
From that narrow point of view, I could have stayed in bed.
The only interesting point on any of the usually divisive “culture war” issues was the way Palin agreed with Biden that gay and lesbian couples should not be denied legal benefits granted to married heterosexual couples. “No one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties,” she said. Neither supported gay marriage, but that was their stated position already.
With the financial crisis dominating the news these days, there was little chance that these issues would take up much time in the debate. But the fact that Palin didn’t use the wedge issue when it arose was interesting. According to a new study by Beliefnet “moral issues are dramatically less important this year than in previous years – even among the most religiously observant voters.”
So has the faith factor fizzled out in this campaign? Can I get a full night’s sleep when Obama and McCain debate?
Please tell John Becker, who was bitten by Barney Bush, that when reaching out to any dog, large or small, it is wise to crouch lower, and make sure your hand is UNDER the level of the dog’s head. A hand coming down from above is seen as a threat. That could be why Barney bit! Hope the wound heals
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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There is no justification for the comments by sarah palin, re: “blood libel”, in light of the tragedy facing this country. How in the name of God and Peace can anyone suport this lady for president is very troubling. A divided nation can not stand.