WaPo runs a regular feature entitled “On Faith”, short opinion pieces in the intersection of religion and the public square. Jacques Berlinerblau writes McCain: Secular Messiah? ostensibly based on the humourous McCain ad, “The One”. I was interested in reading a piece that didn’t come from the angle of trying to tease out racist code words in an ad that clearly made fun of Obama’s style (please, Charleton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea? What is not fun about that?). However, Berlinerblau comes up with an angle so twisted that pretzel makers must look on in awe and wonder.
Senator Barack Obama, as some of you may have noticed, absolutely owns the religious card. He effortlessly delivers soaring monologues filled with scriptural allusions. Rendered in churchly cadences, his rhetoric mongers hope and electoral good will far and wide.
The McCain people, I surmise, would like to put a stop to that. With this commercial they try to condition voters (and the media?) to roll their eyes every time Obama “goes there.” Thanks to “The One” an image of a goofy Obama/Charlton/Moses casting a spell over the sea and swarms of liberal dupes will pop into the heads of Obama’s auditors when his rhetoric gets too highfalutin.
The next time he enthuses about faith on the campaign trail, he will be looking out of the corner of his eye.
What religious card is Berlinerblau talking about? Certainly, O! has mixed some actual personal faith bits in his speeches, but the McCain ad mocks the Cult of Personality that the O! camp has cultivated and encouraged. Not one of the clips of O!’s own words have anything to do with his personal Christian faith.
The Victims: Going where the Clinton people never dared or imagined to tread, Team McCain has made Obama’s faith-based politicking itself an issue. [...]
…his ad is nothing less than an attempt to nuke Obama’s religious appeal and credibility into oblivion.
There were other casualties–and don’t call them “collateral damage” or “road kill” because they were deliberately victimized. The first are the Obama faithful who are made to appear as if they just sleeve-dried the Kool-Aid off their lips. [...]
The second was the press. In a quick cut a fawning reporter asks Obama if he ever has any doubts. To which he responds–with that Old Devil Moon smile– “never.” Any other questions, journalists of America?
Notice how Berlinerblau plays a clever shell game with the term “faith-based”. The majority of people hearing or using that term think “church/religion based”; i.e. we think of Catholic Charities as a “faith-based” organization. However, Berlinerblau is attempting to include O!’s rhetorical style and allusions to his own divineness under the definition of “faith-based”, even if what O! is saying has no connection to any religion or religious beliefs.
But whatever one may think of McCain’s own maladroit religious pandering, this was the send-up of faith-based politicking that America desperately needed.
There you have Berlinerblau’s core message. It’s not O!’s Cult of Personality he feels needs to be addressed or defended, but that it is somehow one with any mention of faith in a political campaign. So now when McCain or anyone mocks O!’s empty rhetoric, McCain is really attacking “faith-based politicking”. As it should be, according to Berlinerblau. Religious people should just shut-up in public.
How … inclusive
Comment by Dan Collins on 8/6 @ 8:11 am #
Where were you and what were you doing when you first received Barry-O! into your heart?
Comment by JD on 8/6 @ 8:15 am #
Berlinblowhard apparently thinks that faith is acceptable when Baracky owns it, but beyond the pale when a Republican speaks of same. Those double standards just never get old, do they?
Comment by BJTexs on 8/6 @ 8:16 am #
Well, Dan, thank you for asking! I was inflating my tires and had just installed latex balloons in all of my cow’s asses when, suddenly …
LIGHT!!
I fell down.
Comment by Sdferr on 8/6 @ 8:17 am #
Berlinerblau in conversation with Sally Quinn on Barack “I’m not here from central casting†Obama’s Philadelphia speech ostensibly themed on “racism”, actually waffling on Rev. Dr. Wright and throwing granny under the typical white person bus. Stoogery, in other words.
Comment by SarahW on 8/6 @ 8:18 am #
Somehow I don’t doubt a charge of racism naturally follows rolling eyes at preacher-cadence.
Comment by SarahW on 8/6 @ 8:20 am #
Can’t read your link, Sdferr. What did you take away from the article?
Comment by SarahW on 8/6 @ 8:27 am #
Berlinerblau: Obama/Charlton/Moses casting a spell over the sea and swarms of liberal dupes will pop into the heads of Obama’s auditors when his rhetoric gets too highfalutin.
Oh, he went for the “highfalutin” card.
Comment by Rick Ballard on 8/6 @ 8:45 am #
Darleen,
Here is The One Himself describing his “”deep”" faith, developed at his Marxist spritual home, ‘Hate Whitey United’, where all are free to damn America under the benevolent gaze of the race baiting pastorate which has learned the deep value of having a pol on the hustle sitting amongst the chickens to be plucked.
I would note his attendance “nearly every week” in conjunction whith his later disavowal concerning Wright not being someone he had ever “known”. I would submit that his actions (as opposed to the wholly meaningless drivel issuing from his mouth) strongly suggest a much deeper affinity with Antonio Gramsci and Saul Alinsky than with even is true spiritual font – Das Kapital.
Should others disagree, I would hope that they would proffer some objective analysis of Obama’s bloviating showing adherence to a recognizable credal statement. You know – something in his statements which acknowledge the divinity of Christ.
Comment by Semanticleo on 8/6 @ 8:46 am #
There is some news from Anaheim, California (The faith-based epicenter of all things Christ-like) that SWAT teams have converged on the hideout of a Christian biker gang. They apparently got into a tussle with Hell’s Angels in Newport Beach and stabbed a few of the hapless brethren of Sonny Barger.
Ya think any of ‘em were in Sturgis with John McCain?
“Religious people should just shut-up in public.”
As we wish they all would stay out of the news, at least in this capacity.
Comment by Sdferr on 8/6 @ 8:49 am #
In brief Sarah, Berlinerblau is an Obama apologist of the highest order. By his lights Barack “I’m not here from central casting†Obama gave a momentous, landmark, fascinating, wonderful, resplendent, complex, nuanced speech which unfortunately would likely not help poor Barack “I’m not here from central casting†Obama in the political campaign precisely because the speech was meant for more intellectual Americans (like himself, who can grasp said complexity and nuance). So sad, the intellectual failings of those lumpen proletarians. They go on further to attempt to place Wright in the mainstream of African-American churches and apologize for him in that (oh so nuanced) context.
Comment by Rick Ballard on 8/6 @ 8:53 am #
eaten link for #8 An interview on Red Obama’s faithless journet.
Comment by TheGeezer on 8/6 @ 9:28 am #
Woof.
What, is this the fourth thread on the effects of the McCain send-up of Obama’s Berlin Großartige Sprache? Just how wounding was that ad if the liberal commentariat hasn’t allowed it to drop out of the news cycle yet? A religion columnist has to have a say – for heaven’s sake – just so he can puff up his previously-ignored self at an in-beltway cocktail party and brag about how he defended the Obamessiah from McCain’s onslaughts?
The ad was good, but didn’t think it was that good, but it must be very good. How dare Jacques call it maladroit, when Jacques himself is giving the ad extended life for free! Ah, the outrage!
Next, I’ll bet the back-patting klatches at the WaPo will engage the sportswriters, who will somehow transform the McCain send-up into hilarious baseball/football/hockey stories.
Comment by Obstreperous Infidel on 8/6 @ 9:30 am #
““Religious people should just shut-up in public.—
Well, at least in regards to religion and how it pertains to politics. At least, I’d appreciate it, but wouldn’t want it mandated due to that whole 1st amendment thingamajinger.
Pingback by WebElf Report News Blog-O-Rama « The WebElf Report on 8/10 @ 5:17 pm #
[...] SNARKING– “WaPo runs a regular feature entitled “On Faithâ€Â, short opinion pieces in the [...]