Dear Kossack,

I have these thoughts for you after reading some comments here regarding the answers given by McCain and Obama on "faith and politics", "evil" and "life (at conception)" at the Faith Forum.

It is not a semantic sleight of hand to consider a person’s faith when voting. The state cannot establish a religion NOR prohibit the free practice thereof. There is nothing in any of our national writings that declares that a candidates religious beliefs are not fair game. I happen to think that as long as a candidate believes in a Higher Power then that is good enough. But can’t you see why to some people it is not that easy or simple? That they want someone who reflects their values?

To say that "faith" is irrelevant is completely untrue, especially for many spiritual people who are also democrats.

I consider myself somewhat of a conservative democrat. Someone who is against abortion and believe that marriage is something sacred between a man and a women. However, I also believe that fighting against poverty is a purpose given to us by Jesus Christ himself, and those that ignore it, I believe should be ashamed of calling themselves Christians. This is how I perceive the religious right. I do not agree with what they say and I am willing to call them out for heresy and idol worship. I believe in the the separation of church and state - and those that inject political and partisan views into sermons and to their congregation are doing God a disservice.

I couldn't help coming away from the Faith Forum with the same feeling with which I came away from several of the debates with Senator Clinton. Barack should have done better. It's not that I think he did poorly, and it's not that I think his answers were not better than McCain's. It's that I think he missed an opportunity to make some inroads. In particular, there are certain questions, which I consider softballs, that I think should have been handled better. These are the type of questions that allow a candidate to philosophize and explicate, like the question regarding when human rights are bestowed. In the debates with Senator Clinton there were similar questions that I thought could have been handled far better. I was left thinking how does Barack prepare for his appearances.

Richard Nixon claimed to have a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam.  Of course, once he was elected, his secret plan was to escalate the war.  Senator McCain has taken a page from Nixon's playbook.  Last Saturday, he hinted at a secret plan to capture Osama Bin Laden.

This won't be a long analytical diary, just another heads-up, and yet another diary to discuss Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil/Faith Forum this past Saturday.

H/T to DU'er ThomWV for listening to C-Span this morning and reminding me what I had forgotten.

Transcripts Page for the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency.  Transcripts are in .doc and .txt format (very poorly done I might add).

Below the jump is the pertinent part the occurs in Document/Text Part 5 - Page 4:

During the nauseating Faith Forum with Rick Warren, there was one question that
triggered completely different answers by both candidates.  The content and style
of each revealing some troublesome tendencies by Barack Obama.

From my reading, Warren has contradicted himself and exposed himself as a liar.

Put simply: I don't see how Warren thought McCain was at the church when he made his claims about this "cone of silence" on TV during the forum... when he now also explicitly says he gave Obama a preview question before the event that he couldn't give McCain because he wasn't there yet.

Warren slipped up in my opinion, and has made a huge mistake. If this is the contradiction I think it is, it means he lied (not was confused, but knowingly lied) on TV during the event by saying McCain was in this now mythic "cone of silence"... and he did so in order to protect the sham integrity of his forum for a Republican who he knew may have cheated. And of course he lied on CNN just now as well, a clip and transcript of which are found below.

Someone has some splanin' to do. There may be an explanation, but my bet is it's not a particularly good one, and not one that we should necessarily take very seriously at this point if all we have to go on afterwards is his word of honor. We should also add that if it was a purpose driven lie in order to help McCain in any way, I've heard that has tax implications for his so-called church, (ie his political action committee).

On Friday night Moyers and scholar/former army colonel Andrew Bacevich, discussed what has gone wrong with American government and policy over the last several decades.

"The Congress, especially with regard to matters related to national security policy, has thrust power and authority to the executive branch. We have created an imperial presidency. The Congress no longer is able to articulate a vision of what is the common good. The Congress exists primarily to ensure the reelection of members of Congress... As the Congress has moved to the margins, as the President has moved to the center of our politics, the presidency itself has come to be less effective...
Because of this preoccupation, this fascination with the presidency, the President has become what we have instead of genuine politics, instead of genuine democracy... We look to the next President to fix things and, of course, that lifts all responsibility from me to fix things. So one of the real problems with the imperial presidency is that it has hollowed out our politics and, in many respects, has made our democracy a false one. We’re going through the motions of a democratic political system, but the fabric of democracy really has worn very thin."

Given the "revelations" about the sham that was the Faith Forum... I've got one thing to say:

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!!!!

Bring your kids. Bring your old lady... it's the rematch of the century!

It's Faith Forum II, The Street Match!

The action will be dirty.

The questions will be clean.

The candidates will be present.

And the Cone of Silence... it's going to be TRANSPARENT!!!

So let's hear it for PastorDan and/or StreetProphets.

I wanna see them put their Faith where the Right's mouth is.

Yesterday I watched Pastor Rick Warren’s Faith Forum on TV. I thought it was a good event to watch and I thought I would give my review of it by going through Obama’s answers as well as what Pastor Warren had to say. I know that there is some controversy over whether McCain was in a cone of silence or did he hear the debate. While it could be possible that McCain lied and was listening in to the questions I do believe that Pastor Warren believed that McCain was being honest with him and did not hear the answers. I do not think the two of them were playing a con to "get" Obama by letting McCain cheat. Even if McCain knew the answers in advanced so what? Obama did well and probably helped himself with the evangelical community; now on to the issues.

Last night I made a valiant effort to watch the forum when John McCain was on the stage, I was doing well until he mentioned going to visit churches after Hurricane Katrina. That specific bit of pandering was particularly offensive to me because I had just done a diary on McCain's Katrina record, and it's not good.

My mother's house cleared out just in time to watch the faith forum today and I was so glad. You see, I have a religious fanatic in my family. There is almost always a feud when I discuss anything about life with my religious Bush loving brother. But, my mom is independent, loving and sincere. Her mother was atheist and mom's brother is of a different religion. Mom is more tolerant and open. My mom also likes Barack and is very concerned about the economy. She especially liked things Barack had to say in a 2006 speech about the role of religion in politics. So, I watched the forum with her and got a lot of interesting feed back.

For those of us who had a cow while watching the Faith Forum, I think we all need to calm down.  There's one thing that everyone for SURE will be talking about tomorrow: Michael Phelps and his historic Olympic wins!

This is what I learned from tonight's Faith Forum.

I think it's pretty simple but extremely telling... and it should be repeated by the talking heads for weeks to come because it's news and it poses serious problems for McCain with both the Evangelical community and American women.

Barack Obama and John McCain are scheduled to make a quasi-joint appearance tomorrow evening at Pastor Rick Warren's Faith Forum.  The event is scheduled for 8 p.m. eastern time and will be televised live on CNN and MSNBC.

I hope Obama takes this opportunity to ask McCain the perfect zinger, in exactly the right forum and context.  If you agree that this is a good tactic for Obama, join me in emailing his campaign and urging him to ask McCain the question I've drafted -- below the fold.

Yesterday, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton participated in a Faith Forum in Grantham, Pennsylvania. (John McCain declined an invitation.) They answered questions about abortion, human rights, and global warming. But the most important issue concerning faith and politics never came up, so I'll phase it here:

Many people believe that an individual's faith or lack thereof is a personal matter, something private that should be kept out of the public sphere. They believe that one can easily infer candidate's values from the positions they take, and that public professions of religious belief amount to pandering. Furthermore, they look at the historical impact of religious fundamentalism -- be it Christian, Islam, or anything else -- on public policy and find it largely negative. My questions: What distinctions do you draw between personal values and religion? Are they one and the same, or is religion one of many possible influences on personal values? At what point does religious faith become an inappropriate influence on public policy? Has this ever happened with Christianity in the United States? Has it happened recently? Please cite examples...

I was so disappointed last night when both Hillary and Barack participated in what was called a "faith forum" on CNN and both declared that they, as president, would do the "will of god". The mess that religion makes in governments is so clear world wide that it scares me to see it becoming the basis for this campaign.

The AP story on the Sunday evening Faith Forum begins with the declaration of Senator Clinton that potential for life begins at conception. Is this new ground? Obama's response, essentially he had not come to any firm conclusion on when life begins, was also discussed in the article. It seems to me this must be examined.