From today's Beacon opinion piece by former George W. Bush speech writer and now McCain cheerleader, Michael Gerson…..slobberingly entitled "Authentic John McCain".
"…. the Warren forum demonstrated how difficult it will be for Obama to appeal to religious and conservative voters as the campaign proceeds. His outreach to evangelical voters is obviously sincere, but he doesn't actually agree with them on much." Link
I thought about Obama appearing and taking questions from Rick Warren, mega-church pastor and Jesus salesman extraordinaire. Barack Obama was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. If he didn't, the worn-out-knees media would swear Obama IS Muslim. The wingnut, Michael Gerson, demonstrates in his piece today why Obama was damned if he did.
Democrats, and therefore the Democratic presidential candidate, are pro-choice. No surprise there. Democrats believe strongly that it is a woman's right, not a black robed man, not a white preacher, not a wingnut writer….to choose her own reproductive course. Puffed-up charlatans and feel-good psycho-Jesus-babble salesmen who continue today to strain at gnats in discussions of zygotes and fetuses while simultaneously swallowing camels of wars of choice, have absolutely no vantage point to speak from when it comes to morals or ethics.
Michael Gerson knows this fact…and so he goes all "common sense" on us….
"His (Obama's) whole manner smacks of chalkboards and campus ivy. Issues from stem cell research to the nature of evil are weighed, analyzed and explained instead of confronted."
You see, Obama wants to analyze and explain and weigh the facts about stuff first before making important decisions. Seems like the normal way to go about things in the 21st century…..but not to Gerson. Gerson likes confrontation. You know, common sense confrontation…..like, say, Iraq. Why analyze and weigh facts when common sense confrontation is all that's necessary?
Because Obama is intelligent enough to not be compromised or tricked by a psycho-babble religion salesman asking whether he believes in the existence of evil or not…..Michael Gerson translates all of that into the hillbilly assumption that Obama would be too busy analyzing, weighing and explaining facts to be able to "confront" such evil. Gerson, himself, has never been able to "confront" the evil of George W. Bush's administration. Gerson can't comprehend the evil under his own nose….but what he can do…is recognize authenticity when he sees or hears it…..
"Asked by Warren about his greatest moral failure, McCain's response — "the failure of my first marriage" — had an abrupt and disarming authenticity. The account of his hardest decision — refusing release from captivity ahead of others who had been imprisoned longer — remains shocking in its valor. And McCain's habit of understatement — he described the excruciating rope torture he experienced in Vietnam as "very uncomfortable" — makes his stories even more effective."
Gerson isn't impressed by intellect….he's impressed by phony biographies of self-adulation. "The failure of my first marriage", Gerson says, was authentic in a disarming and abrupt way. I didn't here McCain confess that that "failure" was because he started f*cking women he wasn't married to and acting like he wasn't married at all when he came home from Vietnam. That would have been some "disarming authenticity", huh?
"The failure of my first marriage"….is no suggestion that McCain failed. So even here, McCain can't be straightforward and honest. Yet, Gerson, in what he has to call his Knee Pad Delight, found that non-answer disarmingly authentic.
To Gerson, doing what a naval officer is supposed to do while being held captive….is "shocking in it's valor"……and who didn't shed a tear when Johnny Mac recited his "very uncomfortable", yet "effective" story of torture? Notice how McCain's hardest decision wasn't about sending hundreds of thousands of people to their death with his Iraq vote…..instead McCain's hardest decision just happened to be in harmony with his own Rove driven campaign talking point, which features the only endearing quality McCain has….he was a prisoner of war 40 years ago.
Michael Gerson, like many Republicans this year, are depressed about their chances in November's election. They should be. People like Gerson can try and try and try to spin gold from straw all they want…..but straw will be all they will get. Obama will not receive the votes from evangelical wingnuts. That's true. A Democrat will never get those votes. However, thinking Americans…..those who analyze and weigh the political facts on the…umm…chalkboard…..will be voting for the intelligent, thoughtful candidate…..not the say-anything-in-front-of-winguts with "disarming authenticity", candidate.
Vote for change…..real change….we've had enough common sense, bullsh*t, authenticity.
