Go See A Good Movie Instead

The following is a paragraph by paragraph analysis of the following CNN article, which I have reproduced in it's entirety. The article is in italics, while my response is in normal font.

The political spotlight will shine on Sens. John McCain and Barack
Obama on Saturday night when the two candidates are expected to face
tough questions on personal values, presidential leadership and
international affairs.

Questions aren't tough when you petty much know what to expect and have time to prepare for them.

The Rev. Rick Warren, author of the best-seller "The Purpose-Driven
Life," will spend an hour interviewing each candidate at his
20,000-member Saddleback mega-church in Southern California.

An hour? How tough can it be? All McCain needs to do is put on a fresh pair of Depnz and he's good to go. Obama can take up half that time with a few well-placed "uhhh's" and "ahhh's".

On CNN's "The Situation Room" earlier this week, Warren said he won't
play the role of a political pundit or ask "gotcha" questions, but
rather tackle four areas of interest: the role of the presidency in
government, leadership, the candidates' worldviews and America's role
internationally.

Is he kidding? Expecting a straight answer about anything out of these two is a "got'cha" question.

The Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency will be carried on CNN TV and CNN.com/Live.
It will be the last time the two candidates share the same stage before
their parties' conventions. Three debates between the two are scheduled
after the conventions.

And I bet'cha a dollar to a doughnut all three of them will be just like this one-a gag fest, in two different ways. It will be unique though to see something that is a sickening laugh-riot.

Warren said he's focused on asking both presumptive nominees questions that "don't have a lot wiggle room."

The lack of wiggle room will be mainly from the amount of time these two spend hugging and kissing each other during their "debate". This will look more like an old married couple engaging in a little spat over a few things, and then giving each other hurt looks before they reassure each other of the unequivocal respect each has for the other.

"But I do want to know how they handle a crisis, because a lot of the
things in the presidency often deal with things you don't know are
going to happen, that we don't know will happen in the next four years.
... There are a lot of different things you can deal with in the life
of a leader that will tell us more about the candidate than some of the
typical questions," he said

Handle a crisis? Oh, the problem isn't going to be how they handle a crisis. The question will be how will all the rest of us handle the crisis of either one of these two in charge of the country.

Warren said he won't endorse either candidate and will let his followers make up their minds.

Wow. How nice of him to "let" his followers do that.

The stakes will be especially high for McCain, who has made a strong
appeal this year to social conservatives and evangelical Christians.

A long time ago, there used to be a daytime serial called "Dark Shadows", which at one time featured a room that led to a parallel universe where all the characters led entirely different lives. Who knew such a room as that actually existed at CNN headquarters?

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, taken July 27-29, showed that
among white, born-again or evangelical voters, 67 percent are for
McCain, with 24 percent for Obama.

Although it's a strong
showing for McCain, he's lagging 11 percentage points behind President
Bush in the 2004 election. Exit polls show that Bush beat Sen. John
Kerry 78 percent to 21 percent among these voters.

McCain is not going to make up that entire seven percent, though he might make up most of it. Still, if he can't make up the difference with independents and Hillary Democrats, he is toast.

Asked whether McCain has an advantage with evangelicals, Warren said
he's not going to predict how the influential religious group will vote.

Okay, then, I will. He will not pull nowhere near the percentage George W. Bush did in 2004. If he is lucky-I mean, really, really, lucky-he might pull what Bush pulled in 2000, but I seriously doubt it. He will probably get close to that though. The remainder will either stay home of vote a third party ticket, either Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin.

He added, "I can tell you this: They're not a monolithic bloc, as the
press frequently tries to make them out to be. I think that for many
evangelicals, they're not convinced that either of these men is an
evangelical. They may be believers in Christ, they may be Christian,
but they want to know, for instance, their worldview. And they want to
hear it out."

I would imagine that most of them have already made up their mind, and their not likely to hear anything from either of these two that will change it.

But even as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
-- who was thought to have locked up the evangelical vote given his
background as a Baptist minister -- made a strong showing in the GOP
primaries this year, McCain was pulling in a substantial number of
evangelical votes.

Of course the real story is that Huckabbee continued to pull a significant number of evangelical votes after he dropped out of the race and McCain was the presumptive nominee.

McCain, who was raised an Episcopalian and now identifies himself as Baptist, rarely discusses his faith.

No wonder. He "converted" to the Baptist faith right at the beginning of Republican primary season after he met with Jerry Falwell. I would rarely discuss it myself if I were him.

"I'm unashamed and unembarrassed about my deep faith in God. But I do
not obviously try to impose my views on others," McCain said in April.

So, what is he saying? Since he does not "obviously try to impose" his views, does that mean he tries to do it subtly? What a dipshit.

Since then, the senator from Arizona has met with many of the
evangelical leaders who did not support his candidacy during the
primary season. At a private meeting this summer, dozens of the
movement's most prominent figures voted to support his campaign.

Of course that don't mean the rank and file church members will vote for him, any more than labor bosses support for Carter and then Mondale kept the rank-and-file labor members from voting for Reagan.

While the two candidates are taking questions from Warren, a daylong
assembly of evangelicals will be wrapping up at the other end of the
country.

Huckabee and the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins are among
speakers and musical acts appearing before what the
cross-denominational group TheCall describes as a day of fasting and
prayer on the National Mall in Washington.

While organizers said the rally isn't a political event, it will address values issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

Huckabee is probably after the VP nod, but while he brings in the social conservatives, he damages McCain's support with the economic conservatives. On the other hand, hell, McCain is damaged goods with that group as well.

By some accounts, both campaigns' grass-roots efforts to rally the conservative Christian base have lagged recently.

That tells you a lot.They probably lag behind with the Skinheads and Trotskyists as well.

Meanwhile, Obama's positions in favor of abortion rights and same-sex
civil unions also have created tension among evangelical voters
otherwise drawn to his candidacy.

Oh come on. He's a Democrat. Of course he's going to support those things. If that is the only reason for the "tension" they haven't been paying that much attention over the last three decades. What are they going to tense up over next, his refusal to support school prayer? Duh-

But the Democrat, who is Christian, has made it a point to discuss his religion
on the trail this year and launched an ambitious outreach effort
targeting these voters, including private summits with pastors and a
major campaign aimed at young evangelicals.

He's playing for economic concerns and angst over the war, and a few other things like energy, Global Warming, and health care issues. Bush and the Republcians have screwed things up enough he can peel off some voters by appealing to these concerns. That's all he cares about, inducing just enough bleeding on the Republican side to make a difference. He is not about to adopt the Republican Party platform on social issues.

And Obama's
evangelical supporters, including members of the new Matthew 25 Network
political action committee, rallied around the Democrat in June when
Christian conservative James Dobson accused him of "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible."

I don't like Dobson, I think he's an egotistical pompous ass, but facts are facts. You can interpret something the way it is written, or you can interpret it to say whatever you want it to say. Kind of like the constitution. People insinuating themselves into positions of influence can go on to "interpret" something to mean what they want it to mean, but others will interpet it for what it plainly says. Seems pretty obvious to me.

False rumors that Obama is a Muslim threaten to undermine support from key voting blocs such as evangelicals and Catholics.

Wrong. The people that believe those rumors would not vote for Obama if they had never heard them uttered. However, what might kill him is a very credible rumor pertaining to his support for a Marxist cousin in Kenya who has campaigned in part on applying Sharia Law. I don't know how much of this is true or false, but in any case it could be what sinks him, in part, if he does lose in November.