Tag Archives: christianity

Did Media Negligently Create Koran Burning Controversy?

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

As the ninth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, and Americans fret about a Pastor they never heard of burning Korans to commemorate the event, people on both sides of the political aisle should be asking a serious question: did the media negligently create this controversy? After all, Terry Jones has a tiny, 50 member, non-denominational church in Gainesville, Florida. Should some unknown Pastor – with a following smaller than what’s normally in line at an In-n-Out restaurant drive-thru! – wanting to burn Korans generate such a media firestorm that an international incident and our national security are threatened? As Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel wrote Wednesday, if you knew the real attention-getting background of Jones, the answer would be a definitive “No”:   This is a guy who looks like Jed Clampett wearing a Hulk Hogan mustache, who uses words like “tragical,” who earlier this year launched a “No homo mayor” campaign against a candidate in Gainesville . Last year Jones sent the kids of the congregation off to school in “Islam is of the devil” T-shirts. Of course they got booted, which got Jones an enticing taste of media attention. With none of this getting Jones the attention he craved, he decided to put a truck in a field with a sign on it saying, “International Burn a Koran Day”: It was like the three strawberries coming into alignment on a million-dollar slot machine. The New York Times and The Associated Press whipped out their notepads. The networks and cable stations broke out the indignant anchors. Indeed they did as evidenced by NewsBusters reports here and here . And, as Thomas pointed out, Jones is just eating it up: This is someone who can barely scrape together enough people to carry a tune in church, and now he has the world breathlessly waiting for his next words. He is a regular Moses on the mountaintop, urging the spineless Christians to take a stand against the Muslim hordes. That all this might get some 20-year-old kid from Ohio blown away in Afghanistan isn’t about to stop Jones now. The good pastor has done found his version of 72 virgins and is living in paradise. Indeed. And who are really to blame? We created the Rev. Terry Jones from dust. And in two weeks, to dust he shall return. Then we’ll move on to the guys who plan to run over the Quran at their monster-truck pull. Whatever it takes to keep your attention. We could help head off such future nonsense if we folded up the circus tent and left Jones alone with his blowtorch and 30 followers. Maybe if Gen. Petraeus told the media that it isn’t Rev. Jones who is endangering troops. That it is our coverage of Rev. Jones. That without us, this book burning would be little more than a grainy video on YouTube . Exactly. America like any country has its share of crazy people with crazy ideas. If such folks were ignored rather than given such a huge platform to spread their word from, we would all be the better for it. Unfortunately, just as media were exactly what Jones needed, he fit their bill perfectly. For weeks now, the press as a result of America’s opposition to the Ground Zero mosque have been trying to convince the citizenry that we are an Islamophobic nation that hates Muslims. Despite the lack of any supporting evidence, this has been the media narrative for approaching a month. With this in mind, an attention-seeking, unknown Pastor advertising a Koran bonfire was exactly what the press needed to prove once and for all just how much antipathy there is for Muslims here. Sadly, they gave this guy his fifteen minutes of fame without any regard for the harm that could be done to Americans living abroad, in particular those fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. More hypocritically, so-called journalists are now blaming Jones for endangering the lives of others. Wouldn’t this not be the case if they ignored him? Isn’t it all the press attention he’s gotten that has actually caused this controversy? If media really are worried that his actions might result in an international incident, given how few people there are in his own area that care what he’s got to say, couldn’t they just similarly pay him no mind? Consider that Gainesville and surrounds has 258,000 residents. This means that two-hundredths of one percent of the population of this city are members of his church. Right now there are probably more media vans in Gainesville than people who care what this guy says. Can’t press members claiming they’re concerned with what his Koran burning will do just pack up those vans, go home, and do us all a favor? If nobody was there to cover the event Saturday, maybe Jones would change his mind and start thinking up his next attention-getting event. On the flipside, this controversy has done us all a favor in exposing the media’s hypocrisy concerning so-called “Islamophobia.” Consider that the press are largely in favor of the Ground Zero mosque despite being in the minority concerning this matter. They base their view on the Islamic center backers having the Constitutional right to build at that location regardless of how anyone feels about it. Yet, these same people are now in an uproar over Jones without a care for his Constitutional right to burn Korans. As such, the media have shown themselves far more concerned for the feelings and the rights of Muslims than Judeo-Christians, and far more worried about offending foreigners than the 67 percent of Americans who are opposed to the Ground Zero mosque. I guess we have Jones to thank for making this hypocrisy apparent to us. 

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Santorum’s Google Trouble a Warning to Conservatives in Internet Age

Posted on September 8, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Here’s a delightful little story from the Sept./Oct. issue of Mother Jones, the far-left political magazine. It’s called “Rick Santorum’s Anal Sex Problem,” and, with its helpful creative artwork, it’s not something you want to read over lunch. Thanks to the efforts of a vindictive liberal writer, anyone Googling conservative former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is fairly likely to get an unpleasant surprise. Among the top three results will probably be a nauseatingly offensive website based on making “Santorum” a “sexual neologism,” according to Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer. Back in 2003, Santorum expressed a traditional Catholic view on the issue of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Then talking in general about “orientations” always excluded from understandings of marriage, he included pedophilia and bestiality along with homosexuality. “The ensuing controversy,” wrote Mencimer, “prompted syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, who’s gay, to start a contest, soliciting reader suggestions for slang terms to “memorialize the scandal.” Having selected the nastiest entry, “Savage launched a website, and a meme was born.” Once launched, the smear site “eventually it eclipsed Santorum’s own campaign site in search results; some observers even suggested it may have contributed to Santorum’s crushing 18-point defeat in his 2006 campaign against Bob Casey,” Mencimer wrote. Whether that’s the case or not, the damaging site remains, and remains a problem for Santorum’s future political aspirations. The site “hasn’t been updated for years,” but it still comes up high in the Google results. It’s been linked to over 13,000 times “compared with only 5,000 for Santorum’s own, real site, America’s Foundation,” according to the article. Mencimer talked to Internet PR and search engine experts who called the site “devastating” and said Santorum should “consider buying paid search results for his name.’ The article claims that Santorum “would very much like to be president.” If so, Savage, not content to let his website do its passive work, threatens to “‘sic my flying monkeys on him’ – in other words, mobilize bloggers to start posting and linking to his site again.” Mencimer explained that “Savage has not forgiven Santorum for his seven-year-old comments: ‘Rick would have prevented me and my partner from being able to adopt my son,’ he points out.” And that would be a shame, not to raise a child in an environment where differing opinions are met with vitriolic and gross scatological personal attacks. Why, he might not grow up to be a tolerant liberal.

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CNN’s Chetry to Koran Burning Pastor: You’ll Have Blood on Your Hands

Posted on September 7, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On Tuesday’s American Morning, CNN’s Kiran Chetry used General David Petraeus’s denunciation of a planned Koran burning by a church to blast the church’s pastor for any subsequent deaths of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan: ” Are you willing to have the blood of soldiers on your hands by this demonstration? ” Chetry also lectured Pastor Terry Jones over his apparent lack of “refined” Christianity. Chetry interviewed Pastor Jones 41 minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour. After asking him why he and his church were planning to burn Korans, the anchor launched into her critique of the minister: “I wanted to let you say your piece, because when I first read this story, I thought there’s no way that this could be as bad as it sounds. It appears that it is . You’re saying that you’re going to burn the holy book of another religion to send a message to the radical elements of that religion, with no thought to the fact that you’d obviously be highly offending everyone in that religion. How do you justify that?” Later in the segment, Chetry turned theologian and quoted Scripture to Pastor Jones as she continued to question his planned action: ” What about turn thy cheek? I mean, this is- you know, Christianity at its most- you know, refined. It’s that you just don’t act out in violence. You don’t act out in any manner of hate, that you turn thy cheek, that you don’t rise to the nastiness or the level of payback that your perceived enemies do. I mean, isn’t this the exact opposite of what Christ taught all of us to be and to do? ” The CNN anchor’s “blood on your hands” remark came moments later: CHETRY: I just want to ask you this: does it bother you that the military and the military leaders believe that by doing this, you are very likely putting the risk- the lives of U.S. soldiers at risk in Muslim countries? David Petraeus, the general- this is what he said: ‘Their actions will in fact jeopardize the safety of young men and women who are serving in uniform over here, and also undermine the very mission that they’re trying to accomplish.’ Are you willing to have the blood of soldiers on your hands by this demonstration? As she wrapped up the interview, Chetry again questioned Pastor Jones’s Christianity. After the minister emphasized that Islamists “must be shown a certain amount of force, a certain amount of determination,” the anchor replied, ” That doesn’t sound like the Christianity most of us were taught .” Earlier in the segment, Chetry stated how “freedom of religion is…one aspect of what makes our country so great and different from many countries around the world,” in the context of Muslims’ right to worship and build mosques, such as the Ground Zero mosque, but didn’t once raise how Pastor Jones and his church have the First Amendment right to burn Korans. This isn’t surprising, given how CNN has been using their coverage to press how “Islamophobia” is apparently sweeping the nation. The full transcript of Kiran Chetry’s interview of Pastor Terry Jones on Tuesday’s American Morning: CHETRY: This morning, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan says that a Florida church’s plan to burn the Koran on 9/11 could put the U.S. mission there and our troops at risk. Hundreds of Muslims in Afghanistan are protesting the decision, chanting, ‘Long Live Islam;’ ‘Death to America,’ we saw. That’s the latest video of the Kabul protests. There’s been others in Indonesia, as well as other places. Joining us now from the Dove Outreach World Center in Gainesville, Florida, is Terry Jones, a reverend of the church, senior pastor and the man behind the event. Thanks for joining us this morning to talk more about this, Terry. One of the things I’m wondering is- PASTOR TERRY JONES: Thank you. CHETRY: This rally is set to take place Saturday- of course, that’s September 11th. It’s also the last day of the Ramadan fast, the holiest day known as Eid in the Muslim religion. Why are you going to burn Korans? JONES: Yeah, we first declared September 11th, ‘International Burn a Koran Day’- actually, for two reasons. Number one, we wanted to remember those who were brutally murdered on September 11th. And actually, we wanted to send a very clear message to the radical element of Islam. We wanted to send a very clear message to them that we are not interested in their Sharia law. We do not tolerate their threats, their fear, their radicalness. We live in the United States of America. We want to send a clear message to the peaceful Muslims. We have freedom of speech. We have freedom of religion. They are more than welcome to be here- more than welcome to worship- more than welcome to build mosques. But our 9/11 demonstration- our 9/11 protest is to send a clear message to the radical element of Islam that we will not tolerate that in America. CHETRY: Well, I wanted to let you say your piece, because when I first read this story, I thought there’s no way that this could be as bad as it sounds. It appears that it is. You’re saying that you’re going to burn the holy book of another religion to send a message to the radical elements of that religion, with no thought to the fact that you’d obviously be highly offending everyone in that religion. How do you justify that? JONES: Well, we realized that this action would indeed offend people- offend the Muslims. I am offended when they burn the flag. I am offended when they burn the Bible. But we feel that the message that we are trying to send is much more important than people being offended. We believe that we cannot back off of the truth of the dangers of Islam- of the dangers of radical Islam just because people are going to be offended. Overseas, we see they have no problem burning our flag. They have no problem calling for the death of America- the death of our president- CHETRY: Right, but this isn’t overseas, this is America. I mean, part of- JONES: So we feel it’s time to stand up. CHETRY: But this isn’t overseas, I mean, this is America, and you just said that you welcome peaceful Muslims and you welcome people who build Korans [sic]. I mean- you know, freedom of religion is what- is one aspect of what makes our country so great and different from many countries around the world. So why would you want to play into that? JONES: We’re not playing into it at all. I just made a very clear statement. Muslims are welcome here. They are welcome to worship, as long as they submit to- obey the Constitution of the United States- do not, sooner or later, try to institute Sharia law in America. Our message is very clear- it is not to the moderate Muslim. Our message is not a message of hate. Our message is a message of warning to the radical element of Islam, and I think what we see right now, around the globe, proves exactly what we’re talking about. CHETRY: What about turn thy cheek? I mean, this is- you know, Christianity at its most- you know, refined. It’s that you just don’t act out in violence. You don’t act out in any manner of hate, that you turn thy cheek, that you don’t rise to the nastiness or the level of payback that your perceived enemies do. I mean, isn’t this the exact opposite of what Christ taught all of us to be and to do? JONES: I agree with you exactly. I think, most of the time, we as Christians are indeed called to turn the other cheek. I believe that, most of the time, talk and diplomacy is the correct way. But I also think that once in a while- I think you see that in the Bible- there are incidents where enough is enough and you stand up. Jesus went into the temple and he threw all of the money-changers out. He did not ask them to leave. He was not peaceful. He was at that time very, very upset. Even when this very close friend and disciple, Peter- even when he tried to stop Jesus from fulfilling his will- from fulfilling the father’s will, Jesus called him the devil. Jesus called the religious leaders of that time serpents and snakes. So I agree that, most of the time, diplomacy and turning the other cheek is the proper way, but sometimes not. CHETRY: Are you- you don’t care- I mean, yes or no- you don’t really care if you’re offending Muslims by burning the Koran, right? That doesn’t bother you if they’re offended? JONES: We realize that we are definitely offending them, yes. CHETRY: Okay. So I want to ask you this: does it bother you though- JONES: But we actually think that Muslims should- CHETRY: I just want to ask you this: does it bother you that the military and the military leaders believe that by doing this, you are very likely putting the risk- the lives of U.S. soldiers at risk in Muslim countries? David Petraeus, the general- this is what he said: ‘Their actions will in fact jeopardize the safety of young men and women who are serving in uniform over here, and also undermine the very mission that they’re trying to accomplish.’ Are you willing to have the blood of soldiers on your hands by this demonstration? JONES: Yeah, we are actually very, very concerned, of course, and we are taking the general’s words very serious. We are continuing to pray about the action on September 11th. We are indeed very concerned about it. It’s just that we don’t know- I mean, how long do we back down? When do we stop backing down? CHETRY: So you’re saying that you very might- you’re saying that you might well go through with this? You’re saying that you’re praying about it, you may not burn the Koran on September 11th? JONES: I’m saying that we are definitely praying about it. We have firmly made up our mind, but at the same time, we are definitely praying about it. But like I said, I mean, how long- I mean, when does America stand for truth? I mean, instead of us being blamed for what other people will do or might do, why don’t we send a warning to them? Why don’t we send a warning to radical Islam and say- look, don’t do it. CHETRY: Well, I’m not questioning- JONES: If you attack us- if you attack us, we will attack you. CHETRY: I am not questioning your intelligence, but I am wondering if you thought through the consequences of doing this, of what may happen, and whether or not you’ll end up doing far more harm than good? JONES: We are definitely doing that. We are definitely weighing the situation. We are weighing the thing that we’re about to do, what it possibly could cause, what is our actual message, what are we trying to get across, how important is that to us right now- that is very, very important that America wakes up. It’s very important that our president wakes up. It’s very important that we see the real danger of radical Islam. That’s what we’re talking about. Actually, everyone should be in agreement with us. CHETRY: All right. We have to go. JONES: There should be no disagreement there. We are not against Muslims. We’re not against the mosque. We’re against the radical element of Islam. Even moderate Muslims should be on our side. CHETRY: No moderate Muslim is going to be on your side when you’re burning their holy book. I mean, that just sounds silly. JONES: Of course, it’s not silly. You can separate yourself from that- CHETRY: You’re burning their holy book. They’re supposed to be on their side. I don’t get that part. Listen- JONES: You can say- we are not for the burning of the book, but we are for what this man is saying. What he is doing, we’re not for that. We don’t believe in burning our holy book, we don’t believe in burning the Koran- CHETRY: Just reasoning this through, don’t you think you could possibly reach out to more people by not burning the Koran on September 11th? JONES: But what he is saying- we are actually for that. We are against radical Islam. Excuse me? CHETRY: I said, don’t you think you could possibly do more good about bringing attention to your concerns about radical Islam by not burning the Koran on September 11th, by saying, you know what? We’re going to take the higher road here- we’re not going to do this? JONES: At this time, no. CHETRY: All right. JONES: I believe that we are dealing with an element that you cannot talk to. We are dealing with an element- they must be shown a certain amount of force, a certain amount of determination, and putting a stop to it. CHETRY: That doesn’t sound like the Christianity most of us were taught, but, you know what? I thank you for your time and your perspective this morning. Dr. Terry Jones, thanks for being with us. JONES: Thank you.

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WaPo’s Eugene Robinson Dismisses MLK Niece Alveda King as ‘Figurehead or Puppet’ of Glenn Beck

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Appearing as a guest on Friday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, during a discussion of conservative talker Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson dismissed Dr. Alveda King – niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and former Georgia state representative – as a “figurehead or puppet” of Beck because of her scheduled participation in the rally. And, even though she and her father took part in the Civil Rights Movement and even endured having her home bombed in the 1960s, Robinson went on to suggest that she really is not one of the “keepers of [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s] legacy” because she is supposedly “estranged from the rest of the King family.” Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, August 27, Countdown show on MSNBC: KEITH OLBERMANN: Lastly, Alveda King’s appearance there, Dr. King’s niece and her appearance tomorrow. Is there anything to say about that? EUGENE ROBINSON, WASHINGTON POST: Just that she becomes a very convenient figurehead or puppet or whatever you want to call her for Beck’s view. She’s a fundamentalist, very conservative Christian. That’s how she would describe herself. She’s estranged from the rest of the King family, and from the keepers of his legacy. She has her own, they believe that gay marriage is genocide, and that’s who she is. And so she’ll be there. And they’ll make a whole lot of the fact that an actual relative of Dr. King is there at the march speaking.

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Time’s Klein: Beck a ‘Telecharlatan’ Who Will Have Hard Time Entering ‘Kingdom of Heaven’

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Secular leftists in the media don’t often have use for religion, particularly Christianity, except, it seems, when biblical passages can be isolated out of context to bash religious conservatives over the head as wicked for opposing big government or for standing up for traditional moral values. Enter Joe Klein, Christian theologian extraordinaire, who suggested in Time.com Swampland blog post yesterday that Jesus would make Fox News host Glenn Beck sweat it out a bit at the pearly gates: If Jesus were around today, he might say that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a telecharlatan to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In a follow-up blog post from today , Klein thanked a commenter for passing along a passage from the gospel according to St. Matthew wherein Jesus taught that “when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.” “The noisy proclamation of religiosity is usually a sign of the exact opposite,” Klein preached regarding the August 28 Beck rally. Of course, the teaching Klein cited does not forbid any and all public prayer, it just points out that praying for show as a demonstration of one’s self-righteousness carries no reward with God. Either Klein doesn’t understand that principle or he does and is arguing that the Beck rally was simply a cynical, hypocritical self-righteous display. I think in context, Klein would hold to the latter. Yet in concluding his blog post, Klein seemed to attack Beck and his rally attendees for not being public enough about their religious devotion. The Time writer cited Christ’s  parable of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46) wherein Jesus pronounced blessing on those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the imprisoned because “when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.”  “It is amazing how infrequently this sentiment is honored by the noisy righteous,” scolded Klein, citing absolutely no evidence for his assertion that the thousands in attendance at the Beck rally are not involved in their quiet lives back home in acts of charity and mercy. Perhaps Klein is alluding to the philosophical opposition Beck and other conservative have to heavy government involvement in social welfare, but if that’s the case Klein would arguably be misappropriating Jesus’s call for personal acts of charity and mercy into a call for government action towards those ends, the opposition against could be castigated as sinful and un-Christlike. At any rate, if Klein wants to play this game, doesn’t he seem a bit judgmental for a guy throwing around Jesus’s words to condemn his neighbor?

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Matthews, Fineman and Robinson: Obama Wouldn’t Have Muslim Image Problem If He Had Joined A Church

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

A truly astonishing thing happened on MSNBC Monday: three devout, liberal Obama supporters said the President is responsible for people thinking he’s a Muslim. During the opening segment of “Hardball,” in a discussion about Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally and how the host and attendees view Obama’s faith, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman said, “Barack Obama probably should have joined a church here…some things in politics you have to do at least for the symbolism.” A bit later, the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson concurred: “Howard Fineman was in the earlier segment, but I tend to agree with him. I think — I expected that when President Obama came to town, he and the family, as he said, would look around, find a church to go to and join a church and go there regularly.” Minutes later, Matthews also agreed saying, “You`re responsible for your reputation” (videos follow with transcripts and commentary): HOWARD FINEMAN, “NEWSWEEK,” MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, I think all of the people who respect Obama, the president, are relieved that Glenn Beck is just saying that he`s — that Obama is godless and not that he`s a racist. I mean, if you listen to what he was saying there, that`s what — that`s what he was saying on Fox. And what Glenn Beck was doing was letting the rally happen, and then amending his words afterwards. CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Yes. FINEMAN: I mean, if I can use an old-fashioned analogy Richard probably is not familiar wit, in old professional wrestling, you used to have the guy who played dirty who had a razor in his trunks, and when the ref came around, he put them back in. I mean… MATTHEWS: Foreign object. FINEMAN: Yes, foreign object. And Beck was playing very rough before this peaceful rally that Richard covered. MATTHEWS: Right. FINEMAN: And that`s — that`s the game that`s being played now. And as you said in your intro, Barack Obama and his people in the White House seem to me to be curiously passive about it. They`re letting other people handle it. It`s as though the president either doesn`t believe there`s anything he can do about it or that it`s not his role to speak up for himself or to do things or say things that would disprove what they`re talking about. MATTHEWS: Well, to use a Spanish (INAUDIBLE) Richard, the old Pennsylvania expression for dirty politics was spend the first half of the campaign kicking him in the cojones, and the second half, while they`re holding their cojones in pain, talk about the future of Pennsylvania. WOLFFE: Right. MATTHEWS: That`s the oldest trick in the political book. I think he`s following it. He brings these people in with rage and hatred for Obama. Then he gives them a nice Christian, if you will, message, sort of a benediction, if you will, to send them on their way to battle against Obama. RICHARD WOLFFE: Look, it was an impressive turnout. And his comments at the rally — there was nothing wrong with them at all. It was a weird mixture, a kind of rambling thing, but… MATTHEWS: Well, what do you make of the — let`s go to the religious side of this. What — what brand of religion was it? What was it — was it revivalism? WOLFFE: Clearly, it was evangelical. MATTHEWS: Was it “Marjoe”? What was it? WOLFFE: Ironically — ironically — just to relate it to Jeremiah Wright, by the way — Jeremiah Wright is a — is a black — runs a black church within a white denomination. It is a mixture of precisely the kinds of self… MATTHEWS: Yes. WOLFFE: … lifting yourself up and coming together which, actually, this guy was talking about. FINEMAN: Can I say something here that`ll probably get me in trouble? But I`m going to say it anyway. Barack Obama probably should have joined a church here, OK? Now, I`m not excusing any of the hatred or nasty language or any of the dirty strategy that we`re talking about. But some things in politics you have to do at least for the symbolism. MATTHEWS: Yes. FINEMAN: Now, he quit the Jeremiah Wright church, OK? But he hasn`t joined any other. MATTHEWS: Yes. FINEMAN: And had he done so and if he`d done so, but especially if he`d done so… MATTHEWS: Yes. FINEMAN: … after he came to town, a lot of this stuff would never have arisen, in my view. MATTHEWS: Yes. FINEMAN: Now, I`m not taking a Pollyanna… MATTHEWS: I agree (INAUDIBLE) FINEMAN: I`m not taking a Pollyannaish… MATTHEWS: OK. FINEMAN: … -view about these people. But why not? MATTHEWS: OK… FINEMAN: I don`t get it! MATTHEWS: … the subtext… FINEMAN: I don`t get it.  At the beginning of a later segment, Matthews played a clip of Obama telling NBC’s Brian Williams on Sunday what he thinks about all the people in the country that believe he’s a Muslim. After the clip, Matthews turned to his guests:  MATTHEWS: Gene, it astounds me. It grows and grows and grows. Every time we poll, more people believe he`s a Muslim, fewer people think he`s a Christian, more people believe he was born in some other country, like Kenya. It just keeps growing. Can he knock it down with this kind of disdainful comment, just knock it by saying these people are crazy, basically? EUGENE ROBINSON, “WASHINGTON POST,” MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, it hasn`t worked so far. He gets criticized during the campaign for going to a specific Christian church, and now, all of a sudden, people are saying that he`s a Muslim. And this number continues to be high and arguably grows. I mean, Howard Fineman was in the earlier segment, but I tend to agree with him. I think — I expected that when President Obama came to town, he and the family, as he said, would look around, find a church to go to and join a church and go there regularly. MATTHEWS: Don`t they do that? I guess not. ROBINSON: No, they have… MATTHEWS: Not that there… (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: There`s a performance aspect to American religious life, let`s face it. ROBINSON: Well, there is, and… (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: … social event. ROBINSON: And that`s what I expected them to do. And I think had they done that, this issue wouldn`t be… MATTHEWS: Gene, Gene, Gene… (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: Before we leave you, I — do we — so we`re not getting the usual Monday morning picture of the president coming out of a church, usually a Protestant church, with a Bible in his hand or a missal or something in his hand, not…  Matthews then played a clip of Beck on “Fox News Sunday” telling Chris Wallace the problems he has with the President’s faith. At its conclusion, Matthews turned to his guests:  MATTHEWS: Wow. It really is getting personal. We`re getting a religious test thrown at — we`re not supposed to have religious tests. There`s Beck applying one.   ROBINSON: Yes. First of all, we would flunk Glenn Beck on his theology exam, number one. He`s not much of a theologian. Second, what is ironic about this whole nonissue is that at least in my experience, to the extent that I know the president, he seems to be a man of great faith, of real and genuine faith. He talks about his faith and the faith of his family and how it sustains him and how it sustains him in difficult moments.   (CROSSTALK)    ROBINSON: And so yet that doesn`t come across…    (CROSSTALK)    MATTHEWS: It doesn`t come across.    (CROSSTALK)    MATTHEWS: By the way, the role of a politician is to lead.    DAVID CORN: It`s not the president`s job.    (CROSSTALK)    MATTHEWS: No, it is the president`s job.    (CROSSTALK)    CORN: Not to talk about salvation.    (CROSSTALK)    CORN: It`s not his job to talk about salvation. And you know what? Today, I got a couple press releases from fundamentalist Christian groups on the right attacking because they believe Mormons are not true Christians. So, once we get into this game, no one — no one should cast ones.    (CROSSTALK)    MATTHEWS: OK. Let me reeducate you, as if you guys need it, or anybody watching doesn`t know this rule. You`re responsible for your reputation. And if people are painting a picture, whether it`s swift-boating or whatever nonsense they`re putting out about you, Michael Dukakis taught us this back, what, 20, 30 years ago. They can say all these terrible things about you. If you let them stick, that`s your problem. It may not be morally your problem, but it`s politically your problem. We`re not saying the president should be talking about his religion publicly to anybody. We`re saying it`s hurting him.  As hard as it is for me to admit it, these three liberals were all right for a change. The President of the United States has a more powerful bully pulpit to speak from than anyone on the planet. By not joining a new church when he moved to our nation’s capital, he foolishly left himself open for religious questioning. That he and his administration have sat back for approaching two years and allowed the narrative to be led by others shows a tremendous lack of leadership skills on their part. Much more surprising is that liberals like Matthews, Fineman, and Robinson would admit it with cameras rolling. I guess this is an indication of just how poorly Obama is doing as President when some of his biggest supporters in the media are starting to publicly voice their displeasure with him.

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Matthews, Fineman and Robinson: Obama Wouldn’t Have Muslim Image Problem If He Had Joined A Church

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Awesome! Green Cars You will Love to Own!

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Who wouldn't love to have a car that runs on electricity and renewable fuels rather than petrol? There have been increasing number of green cars … http://bit.ly/9KFjVm added by: itgrunts

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Glenn Beck Condemns Obama’s Christianity, Calls for "Religious Revival"

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, conservative talk show host Glenn Beck led what turned out to be a largely religious rally, calling on the assembled crowds to bring America back to God. The event took place on the forty-seventh anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legendary “I Have A Dream” speech, leading to sharp criticisms of Beck for dishonoring Dr. King's memory, and the memory of that day. And indeed, as many have already pointed out, the racial dynamics of Beck's mostly-white rally and the much smaller but heavily African-American protest rally, led by Al Sharpton, seemed to provide a potent illustration of how far the country has yet to come. Religion has slipped its way into recent media discourses, mostly because of the Park51 Center controversy and the revelation that disturbing number of Americans believe Barack Obama to be a Muslim. But many of these discourses have centered on the othering of American Muslims, which is why I was surprised to see a new twist in Beck's discussion of Obama's religion. Beck's new line is that while Obama may not be a Muslim, he is certainly a bad Christian. Specifically, Beck charged that Obama adhered to “liberation theology,” a Catholic movement aligned with Marxism that originated in Latin America in the 1950's and '60s. This morning, debriefing the rally on Fox News, Beck half-heartedly retracted an accusation of racism hurled at Obama last summer, saying that he had a “big fat mouth sometimes” (he may tie Dr. Laura for best non-apology of the year), but added that he made the comment because he “didn't understand Obama's theology.” Obama, Beck said, subscribed to liberation theology, which he described as centered on “oppressor and victim.” This is not, Beck claimed, a theology which many Christians follow, because it is, in his words, the “direct opposite of what the gospel is talking about. It's Marxism disguised as religion.” Beck took this complex theological discussion a little further, saying that while Obama believed that “your salvation is directly tied to collective salvation,” while Beck (and all good Christians) believed that “Jesus came for personal salvation.” Beck said “people aren't recognizing [Obama's] version of Christianity.” Liberation theology is not a new subject for Beck, who devoted an entire episode last July to attacking the idea that Jesus was a victim. “Social justice,” Beck said, “isn't in the Bible…Jesus was a conqueror. Jesus conquered death.” Beck's deep misunderstanding of both liberation theology and much of Christianity itself are obvious in these remarks, and illustrate the extent to which Beck is willing to harness religious rhetoric for political aims. I don't know whether Obama subscribes to liberation theology, but if he does, it's in theory rather than in practice, because the movement itself has very little political influence today. His beliefs correspond to a basic tenet of Christianity: the obligation of the Christian to care for others. This is repeated throughout the New Testament, from Matthew 25:40 (“Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me [Christ]”) to Paul's epistle to the Romans, where he writes, “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” This doesn't seem to jive with Beck's assertion that because Christians believe that they are saved through God's grace, this translates into an exclusively personal vision of salvation. In an interview on Religious Dispatches, Union Theological Seminary president Serene Jones addressed Glenn Beck's bizarre formation of grace, saying, “Just as grace reminds us as individuals that there is nothing we can do to earn the love of God—that it is simply poured out upon us—so too it reminds us that at a political level, the minute we start constructing political structures that we think are unambiguously right, we are making our own politics into God. Nobody does that more than Glenn Beck.” Obama's interpretation of Christianity is not radical – and it is in fact Glenn Beck who is deeply out of sync with fundamental Christian ideals. When asked, on Fox News, how he would respond to critics of his wealth, Beck responded “the money doesn't matter.” It's hard to believe that Beck hasn't read the gospel of Matthew, where Christ says to a young man, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor” (Matt. 19:21), but from his comments, it seems that he's never bothered to read or wrestle with the scriptures that he seems so eager for Americans to embrace. Perhaps it would be best for Beck simply to listen to Martin Luther King, Jr., who wrote, “Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.” Is Beck's God the one that we want America to turn toward? And is Beck's Christianity one that Christ would recognize? added by: pinkpanther

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NYT’s Kate Zernike Does It Again, Suggests Tea Party Opposition to Minimum Wage Racially Suspect

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

New York Times reporter Kate Zernike, whose book on the Tea Party movement,”Boiling Mad,” is due out next month, led off Saturday’s National section by suggesting racism on the part of Fox News host Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial later that day. Beck has outraged the left with the timing of the rally, the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington and the “I Have a Dream” speech. Although Zernike and others in the media use “Tea Party faithful” as shorthand to mark the rally, the actual gathering on Saturday turned out to be far more religious than political, with Zernike herself likening it to a “large church picnic” in her Sunday coverage. But Zernike led her Saturday preview of the rally, ” Where Dr. King Once Stood, Tea Party Claims His Mantle ,” with accusations of racism: It seems the ultimate thumb in the eye: that Glenn Beck would summon the Tea Party faithful to a rally on the anniversary of the March on Washington, and address them from the very place where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a dream” speech 47 years ago. After all, the Tea Party and its critics have been facing off for months over accusations of racism. But many of the busloads of Tea Party activists expected in Washington this weekend do not see any irony or offense. In fact, they have come to see the Tea Party as the aggrieved — its loosely affiliated members unfairly characterized, even persecuted, as extremists. Those same “accusations of racism” foisted on the Tea Party movement by hostile reporters like Zernike. (The rally itself turned out to be a largely apolitical celebration of patriotism and religion.) Zernike has a very sensitive ear for linking conservatism and racism, notoriously finding racial undertones where they don’t exist, as when she accused conservative speaker Jason Mattera of using a “Chris Rock voice” in a February 18 post for the Times’ political blog, ” CPAC Speaker Bashes Obama, in Racial Tones .” Mattera was in fact speaking in his usual thick Brooklynese. Zernike has long employed unsubstantiated racial accusations to boost her hostile coverage of the movement. On Saturday she made some stunning guilt-by-association leaps, one being that opposition to the minimum wage makes you racially suspect. In the Tea Party’s talk of states’ rights, critics say they hear an echo of slavery, Jim Crow and George Wallace. Tea Party activists call that ridiculous: they do not want to take the country back to the discrimination of the past, they say, they just want the states to be able to block the federal mandate on health insurance. Still, the government programs that many Tea Party supporters call unconstitutional are the ones that have helped many black people emerge from poverty and discrimination. It is not just that Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for Senate in Kentucky, said that he disagreed on principle with the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that required business owners to serve blacks. It is that many Tea Party activists believe that laws establishing a minimum wage or the federal safety net are an improper expansion of federal power. Critics rightly note that Dr. King spoke over and over of the need for this country to acknowledge its “debt to the poor,” calling for an “economic bill of rights” that would “guarantee a job to all people who want to work and are able to work.” In Mr. Beck’s taxonomy, this would make him a Marxist. Even if Tea Party members are right that any racist signs are those of mischief-makers, even if Glenn Beck had chosen any other Saturday to hold his rally, it would be hard to quiet the argument about the Tea Party and race. Leaving aside the questionable assumption that minimum wage laws actually benefit blacks, the idea of King as a leftist or Marxist is hardly a new or controversial idea. King was an admirer of Marx, as reported on page 537 of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David Garrow, ” Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference .” Garrow encapsulated King’s discussions during a retreat with his SCLC staff: “Actually, he went on, there was much to admire about Karl Marx, who had ‘a great passion for social justice” but had fallen afoul of the theoretical errors of materialism.” Note that Zernike concluded that the “argument about the Tea Party and race” wasn’t going away, which is certainly true if reporters like Zernike fan the flames. In addition, liberal columnists Charles Blow and Bob Herbert both went after Beck on Saturday. Blow’s ” Glenn Beck’s Nightmare ” was more in sorrow: “Beck wants to swaddle his movement in the cloth of the civil rights movement, a cloth soaked in the blood and tears of the innocent and oppressed, a cloth his divisiveness and self-aggrandizing threatens to defile.” On the same page, Herbert’s criticism came more in anger : “Beck is a provocateur who likes to play with matches in the tinderbox of racial and ethnic confrontation. He seems oblivious to the real danger of his execrable behavior.”

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NYT’s Kate Zernike Does It Again, Suggests Tea Party Opposition to Minimum Wage Racially Suspect

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Joe Scarborough and Grover Norquist Discuss Ground Zero….and 1650s New Amsterdam?

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On Monday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough returned to attacking the “anti-Muslim bigotry” inspiring protests against a Ground Zero mosque, asking Grover Norquist to denounce religious bigotry. Norquist obliged in a major way, comparing today’s Ground Zero activists to Calvinist leader Peter Stuyvesant trying to forbid synagogues in the New Amsterdam colony in the 1650s. Norquist explicitly suggested a Mormon like Beck should realize that he’s only been pushing the bigotry that was used against his own religious brethren. Scarborough also bizarrely found scandal in Beck questioning Obama’s Christianity, insisting “I don’t really know what his version of Christianity is. But I don’t think it’s any of our business to judge other people’s religious faith. What? But Joe Scarborough definitely questioned the Christianity of ObamaCare opponents on July 21, 2009 as he pressed conservative Sens. Tom Coburn and John Barrasso: SCARBOROUGH: In the ‘90s, everybody was wearing these “What Would Jesus Do” wrist bands. I wonder, what would Jesus think about walking in to any emergency room in any urban center at 11:00 or 12:00 at night and seeing all of these moms bringing their children from poor families who don’t have health care having to use emergency rooms as their primary care. Is that a moral system? Is there a better way to do it? How do we do it? We can’t just say no, can we? On Monday morning, Scarborough begged Norquist to dispose of the notion that Beck was holding a religious rally:   SCARBOROUGH: I think those people were there more out of fear, fear of where Washington’s heading than the people that were up on the stage. But Glenn Beck has said this was a religious rally. It wasn’t a political rally. That’s not really true, is it? NORQUIST:  I tend to think most of the people were coming there because they were speaking to the concern and fear that people have about all the massive spending and debt that’s been coming down the pike. And he was making religious comments. I guess it’s helpful after the Romney campaign where there was so much anti-Mormon bigotry sort of under the surface that Beck, who’s a Mormon, could comfortably participate in a movement like that and perhaps we’re beginning to put anti-Mormon bigotry behind us. SCARBOROUGH: But, but now we have anti-Muslim bigotry and you actually — NORQUIST: They are sticking with the M’s. SCARBOROUGH: You actually have Glenn Beck questioning Barack Obama’s version of Christianity. Now I really don’t know what his version of Christianity is. But I don’t think it is any of our business  to judge other people’s religious faith. I said it last week about Muslims and the week before about Muslims. I say it now about Glenn Beck, the day after this rally, questioning somebody’s version of Christianity. Isn’t there something a bit ominous about that and sort of throwing the Muslim shadow on Barack Obama? Because he thinks — I don’t think — he thinks that’s a bad thing. NORQUIST: it’s an interesting question, because when the mosque in New York came up, the Forward newspaper, the Jewish newspaper in New York pointed out that in history, in Manhattan under the Dutch and the British, synagogues were illegal. So the sort of — People have been through this. When the anti-Mormon feeling was very strong in the United States, when UItah wanted to send a senator, a Mormon leader senator to congress — to the Senate, it took four years of hearings before he was seated. And in New York, Mormon missionaries were banned by the mayor. So when people look at modern political uses of religious bigotry, we’ve been there before with the Mormons. We’ve been there before with the Jews. And you sort of hope that people whose own religious heritages have been hit by that would recognize what is happening and speak out, as many are doing. The article Norquist seems to be citing, by Brandeis professor Jonathan Sarna, isn’t quite as black and white as Norquist suggested. Stuyvesant, Sarna wrote, wanted Jews barred from the colony, but “Stuyvesant’s superiors in Holland overruled him, citing economic and political considerations.” In any case, comparing peaceful Jewish immigrants in the 1650s to Ground Zero after 3,000 Americans died is a flawed analogy. From there, Mika Brzezinski pressed Norquist to declare that something more “substantive and productive” than anti-socialist fears was driving this protest: MIKA BRZEZINSKI: But real quickly, what is the next step? Are you with a president who feels this is perhaps someone, a couple of people capitalizing on fears during tough economic times where there are many fears? Was it being driven by that, or something more substantive and productive? Was there a second sentence or — SCARBOROUGH: What is the follow-up? Yeah. NORQUIST: The follow-up, this is one of many rallies. I’m not a fan of national rallies. I would rather have had 300,000 people in 300 congressional districts with thousand-person rallies because that’s how you changes things and make real progress. About ten minutes into the 6 A.M, Brzezinski noted that according to Gallup, Obama’s highest approval rating is among Muslims (78 percent, compared to 60 percent of Jews, 50 percent of Catholics, 43 percent among Protestants, and just 24 percent among Mormons). She insisted she liked Obama talking about his faith to defend himself and accused conservatives of “promulgating evil” by suggesting Obama’s a Muslim:  I would say some even want it to be worse. It’s wrong, and incorrect and basically promulgating, I think, evil when you’re lying that way about someone’s heritage and then leaving — and about their faith and leaving kind of a dark nasty cloud over it and that is exactly what is happening. It is nothing less. And it should be condemned.   

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Joe Scarborough and Grover Norquist Discuss Ground Zero….and 1650s New Amsterdam?

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