Forty-five years ago . . . A beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

Always we may have diversity of intellectual comprehension and interpretation, even varying degrees of socialization, but lack of spiritual brotherhood is both inexcusable and reprehensible.

—The Urantia Book

H/T to Driftglass; see THIS.

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,
Homes again, homes again, dancing a jig;
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog;
Homes again, homes again, jiggety-jog;
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,
Homes again, homes again, market is done.

— Apologies to Mother Goose

In 2006,  John and Cindy sold their 2-acre estate in Phoenix, Arizona for a paltry $3.75 million. It was a hard sell.  The house had been one of Cindy Lou’s childhood homes, which the McCains inherited; it’s where those McCain family recipes were finely honed before they were copied by the Food Network.

“Almost every memory I have of childhood is in this house—very happy memories,” Cindy Loe McCain says. “I want my children to know this house and have these memories.”  Unfortunately for the children, that desire got pushed aside by. . . whatever. But not before Architectural Digest did a wonderful article on the property, which went off the rails by referencing one of the Senator’s rare mentions of his POW™ daze days:

Architectural Digest, July, 2005:

John McCain suffered more than five years of harsh imprisonment in North Vietnam. He was tortured, endlessly interrogated, bound hand and foot, and clapped into solitary confinement; he endured mental and physical punishment. At last, [um, four days after his capture] when it was discovered by his captors [ how does one do that pre-Google? ] that his father was an important officer in the U.S. Navy, he was given permission to leave; yet he refused to go while his fellow prisoners remained behind bars. Because of this stern refusal, his punishment became more severe. Yet the book’s theme is forgiveness and faith.

“Cindy has a picture fetish,” the senator says, gesturing to a bank of framed photographs— family pictures, photos of pets, of landscapes, [and— can you imagine?] of the senator himself on the day of his release from his Hanoi prison. [Wonder who took that?]

Asked whether he will run for president again, the senator chooses his words carefully. “If I talk seriously about it, my activities in the Senate will be viewed through the prism of presidential candidate rather than a senator who’s trying to do good work.”

While one may reasonably ask “What activities in the Senate??” Despite his reluctance to talk about his time as a POW™, the crusty Senator reluctantly volunteered this:

“My best friends are those I was in the Navy with and especially those I was in (expletive deleted) prison with,” the senator says. Describing one of them, he says, “He is one of those (expletive deleted) people for whom everything is either black or white. It’s wonderful to go through life like that. I wish I could.” Reminded of his independent and subtler views, he remarks, “That’s one of the reasons [my candidacy] is so attractive,” and with his signature deadpan, “and one of the reasons it’s so (expletive deleted) difficult.”

One of the Senator’s “independent and subtler views” is that his current “black or white” political opponent, Barack Obama, is “dangerously unprepared” to be president, having just a single unattractive home in of all places, Chicago. McCain subtly pointed out he has numerous homes, too many to even remember, which have prepared him to go to war in order to take care of the many millions of homes dotting the American landscape. McCain added, in his signature bedpan deadpan, “Besides, my (expletive deleted) opponent isn’t even rich.”

“I’m upset,” Kathleen Portalski says. “I’m angry. It makes me feel like a nonperson, kind of.”

Texas GOP Targets Obama’s Kenyan Half-Brother

Ready for some Republican values? The short bus Texas GOP is responsible for the latest demonstration of the ravages of Conservatism, a disease largely found in Republican Americans. The ad, narrated by what sounds like a Texas high school cheerleader, goes like this:

“Barack Obama has viscously attacked John McCain and his family fur [sic] being successful and living the American dream. . .”

Let’s see; “viscously” is more than hyperbole; it’s a complete distortion, supposedly justified because an Obama ad dared to criticize a POW— who is so wealthy and out of touch he has no idea how many homes he actually lives in. But McStoopid wasn’t “attacked” for “being successful and living the American dream,” he was exposed for conspicuous consumption and wretched excess; do Republicans even know there’s a difference?

Buffy continues:

“But ask yourself this: If Obama cares so much about yur [sic] family, why doesn’t he take care of his own family first?”

Hypocrisy has become corporeal with Republicans; it roils out of them like rancid grease oozes out of a rotting boar. The recent disclosures of “only child” Cindy McCain’s half-sisters, written out of the family will (that’s a Republican value— screw your own children) is a sorry insight into the machinations of wealth as a weapon; not wealth as compassionate caring.

Why would a wealthy father not share his munnies with his own child? Why would Cindy (and John) McCain not “take care of [her] own family first?” Let the record show that Portalski is a Democrat.

The McCain campaign and Cindy McCain have been asked to comment or respond. Neither responded.

• • •

• • •

This is loading a lot better, but if it loads slowly you may have to back-ball to keep it from re-caching. This is MoveOn’s motivational video de jure, and worth watching. Listen carefully. Act accordingly.

I was at the gym yesterday when I saw the live broadcast of John McSame’s press conference, during which he made his risible pronouncement that:

[I]n the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.

In my subsequent blog, I missed this angle mentioned by Greg Sargent over at TPM (so many hard bodies to ogle, so little time):

At a press conference just now, John McCain redoubled his efforts to thrust himself into a leadership role on the Russia-Georgia crisis front, announcing that two top campaign surrogates, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, are going on a visit to Georgia.

Hunter at Daily Kos picks up the ball and runs with it:

So if merely giving a speech in Germany is “presumptuous”, how freakin’ “presumptuous” is it for a candidate to send their own diplomatic team into a foreign conflict? Isn’t that, you know, a job for the President, not a candidate?

Why no outrage on this? I think it’s safe to say that if another candidate did this, conservatives would burst into flames from fury, and the talking heads would be beside themselves talking about how unprecedented it was for a candidate to inject themselves into an international crisis — politics should stop at the water’s edge, and all that. Instead, McCain is using a shooting war to buff his credentials? Seriously? And nobody in Washington sees a problem with that?

Indeed. Why is our corporatist media, who were all over Barack Obama for daring to even look presidential during his recent trip abroad, not covering this angle?

Perhaps because it would expose a fundamental flaw in their narrative of St. John, that lobbyist slaying maverick, and the role that lobbyists and registered foreign agents like Randy Scheunemann are playing in his campaign for the White House. On Tuesday, WAPO noted that:

Sen. John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Repubican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

Randi Rhodes reports that he has received an additional $600,,000 more. Recall that Scheunemann was the President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and a board member of Project for the New American Century (PNAC), responsible for pushing the country into the ruinous ruinous Iraq war and occupation.

McSame’s media enabled hypocrisy is bad enough, but more important is how such relationships work out in the real world. Case in point: emptywheel over at Firedoglake wonders whether Georgia’s aggression in South Ossetia was arranged beforehand between the White House and the McCain Campaign, using Karl Rove as the go-between. Rove was in Yalta at a conference attended by Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili a few days after Secretary of State Condolezza Rice’s [Georgia] visit:

I mean, given that Rove was talking about the upcoming election as Saakashvili was walking in the room, it sure does make you wonder whether Rove said anything to Saakashvili about how a firmer hand in South Ossetia might help Georgia ensure its strong relationship with the US going forward…

I’ll say this: the Administration is even more desperate to push back against claims that they encouraged Georgia’s initial crackdown than you’d think they would be (compare, for example, their response to claims we gave Israel the go-ahead to invade Lebanon in 2006 or bomb Syria in 2007, and their response to claims that we encouraged Maliki to crack down on Basra). There’s something going on–and given Karl Rove’s presence close to the scene of the crime, I’ve got my suspicions.

“Scene of the crime” has an additional meaning— Rove was on the lam at the time, ducking a Congressional subpoena. But I digress. Hunter gets the last word:

Honestly. Take all the worst things about the Bush administration, double them, then add Joe Lieberman. A McCain administration would be the presidential equivalent of a slasher flick.

Latest Development in the McSame, Obama, Hilton Smackdown

In keeping with his campaign’s desperate attempt to ‘undefine’ him as “McSame” and to recapture his sullied maverick brand of old, John McCain went on the attack again yesterday, this time at the South Dakota Sturgis biker rally (where he babbled incoherently and tried to enter his plastic-fantastic wife into the annual Ms. Buffalo Chip bikini-banana-bimbo contest).

McSame mocked Obama by pointing out a simple fact already embraced by the very Administration from which he is trying to disengage: proper tire pressure has a significant impact on gas mileage. So much so that it mandated all cars built after 2007 contain a tire pressure monitoring gauge. Per Time Magazine:

The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

McSame’s ‘Mock Obama’ strategy came in for a little pushback from Obama himself who replied:

“So now the Republicans are going around — this is the kind of thing they do. I don’t understand it! They’re going around, they’re sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea as if this is ‘Barack Obama’s energy plan.’

“Now two points, one, they know they’re lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they’re making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.”

According to at least one source, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates the savings at 12 cents per gallon– immediately.( See also here.)

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that drivers can improve gas mileage by as much as 3.3 percent by keeping car tires property inflated. The agency also says the impact would be immediate, resulting in savings of as much as 12 cents per gallon.

It remains to be seen whether the GOP– the Grand OIL Party which recently banked another $3 miilion from Big Oil– follows through on its threat to hand out tire pressure gauges at it’s nominating convention, a replay of its 2004 convention gimmick where it handed out purple heart bandages to mock presidential candidate John Kerry’s Vietnam medals.

Another proposal by Obama that would have an immediate effect on the price of gasoline is the selling of 10% of the national oil reserves on the open market. That would send speculators scurrying, driving oil prices down to $80 barrel, if not by half.

All of which suggests an emerging theme for the 2008 election. Call it “The American People Versus Big Oil“, with the Democratic Party as advocates of the former and the Rethuglican Party advocates for the latter.

Let the games begin!

UPDATE: Barack hits back..

Photo of McSame’s Botched Nip/Tuck & Hormone Treatment Said to Resemble Trash Media’s Bat Boy

ABOARD THE DOUBLE TALK EXPRESS  (C.U. News) — In an effort to close the perceived and actual age gap between himself and his much younger rival for the presidency, presumptive Republican candidate John McSame has apparently taken the advice of his surgically and chemically-enhanced wife to do some enhancement of his own appearance.

But in this photo, allegedly leaked by a horrified member of McCain’s inner circle and sold at a handsome profit to Weakly Whurled NEWS, the operation and hormone treatments have gone terribly wrong. Luckily for his campaign, a full head and face mold was taken before the alterations, and a latex mask fabricated that preserved his prior appearance.

“It’s a temporary fix,” explained a campaign aide, who insisted on anonymity. “We’re worried that as the heat of summer increases, the mask will start to sag and deteriorate. We’re also worried about how it will hold up indoors under the klieg lights during the debates.”

McSame, who’s on record saying that he’s a twentieth century kind of guy, is wrestling with whether to ascribe his 64+ changes in position to shameless pandering, poor flip flopping impulse control, the after effects of five years of torture as a POW in Vietnam— anything but symptoms of advancing senility.

“If we can just push John Sidney over the finish line in November, we’ll be in the clear. After that, we’ll have all the power of the White House at our disposal. Look how well Reagan’s people disguised his Alzheimer’s during his second term,” said the aide hopefully.

Asked whether voters deserved to know the truth about McSame’s current condition, he replied:

“Look, the American people have experienced enough traumas during eight years of the Dick-Bush Administration. Iraq, Afghanistan, 9/11, the tanking economy, the extreme weather effects of global warming— they can only take so much.

“There’s just some change not worth believing in.”

“A Head of Our Times” —Terry Kruger

Yesterday, Barack Obama appeared with Indiana Senator (and veep prospect) Birch Bayh at a forum at Purdue University where he continued to articulate his national security vision. As The Indiana Star reported it:

… Obama argued that the Bush administration has not stayed “one step ahead of the threats of the 21st century.”

Naturally, this line caught my attention as it reflects the second line in my “About” Bio here at US:

“My first editorial column (mid ’70s) was called ‘Staying One Step Ahead of the Future,’ a mantram which I try to follow to this day.”

I’m by no means a big Bible reader, but I was probably influenced by the line in Proverbs 29:18 (perhaps Barack was too):

Where there is no vision, the people perish. . .

Not that vision, or at least the claim to one, is always a good thing. As Bob Woodward writes in “Bush at War”:

[T]he president was casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of God’s master plan.

This is the same Bush who told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that God had told him to strike down Saddam. And we all know how that turned out. So in discussing vision in a political context it is imperative to distinguish between process and content, between means and ends. George Bush Senior admitted he wasn’t particularly good at “the vision thing,” but at least he had enough foresight not to invade Iraq when he had the opportunity.

As for oedipally challenged Junior, he too was likely influenced by the Proverb, but decided that the phrase immediately following “the people perish— ” “but he that keepeth the law, happy is he” wasn’t to his liking.

Launching a preventive war, which the Nuremberg Tribunal designated as the supreme war crime, violated the very international laws that the US did so much to champion in the ruinous wake of World War II.

As for a ‘vision’ of what awaits George and his cohorts after they leave office, I refer the reader to former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s new book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.” And this quote from H.G. Wells:

A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be. . . surer of the noose than a private homicide.

Like so many others who are brainwashed into believing that every politician can be stuffed into the left-right-centrist meme of MSM convenience—no need to think, just do what you’re told and say he’s a “progressive leftist!”— it’s no surprise such reasoning reveals a steady diet of MSM garbage in-garbage out. But it also reveals that its victims haven’t grokked that Obama’s commitment to highest values is truth-driven— not ideologically-driven— and that makes it ostensibly impossible to ever pigeon-hole him into some obtusely-defined ray of the spectrum of MSM political shorthand.

Those who are only interested in nurturing their comfy little ideological clusterphuque of values are also the ones crying the loudest now, some even abandoning a candidate in whom they haven’t invested enough thought to realize that true national unity— remember that?— demands he appeal to all Americans, not just some amorphous democratic base;  and that Obama’s pursuit of highest truth drives his decision-making— not some “brand” of narrow ideology defined by the meme of the old politics.

The real problem stems from the fact that secularists of whatever political sub-group have no personal religious insight to identify the genuineness of Obama’s insight into issues derived from his own personal religious values, and must therefore put their brains to work to discover the real moral value of his decisions. And we all know that’s asking too much a lot of an uneducated electorate that cares more about entertainment tonight than the destiny of America.

He may as well be a brother from another planet:
“Greetings; Take me as I am— not as you think I should be.”

The “new politics” of Barack Obama are leaving many Americans lost in his dust. Traditionally they may have been categorized— and understood themselves to be— “liberals,” “conservatives,” “progressives,” “Republicans,” “Democrats,” and “Independents.” Not so surprisingly, a sizable majority of MSM pundits also have no idea what Obama means by a “new politics.”

But it is proving altogether unsettling for these various sub-groups of the electorate, having been so thoroughly and completely indoctrinated in the “Left-Right-Centrist” Meme of politics as usual that they can’t see themselves defined any other way, to suddenly find Barack Obama is not following their calcified notions of what they think he should be, and how he should behave. A few weeks ago Karl Rove was all by his lonesome calling Obama “arrogant” and “elitist” (read: “uppity”); now the fickle mouth breathers of teh illiterate electorate are having to change their intellectual underwear almost every week, and they don’t like it one bit.

Yo Yo: What ever your old political notion was of Barack Obama, he is not definable that way, anymore.

It has nothing to do with the dissection of political decision making by attributing it to left, right, or center, and it never did. These crude demarcations of political ideology never really yielded a true picture of the real values that form the basis of the decisions of a Barack Obama, or any other politician. Obama’s recent decisions have the various segments of his supporters, and his opponents, attempting to hammer them into the increasingly meaningless meme of the old politics, by whining “He’s tacking teh the center,” “He’s betraying the left,” “He can’t be trusted,”  “He won’t go to Bagdad,” He’s just another liar,” “He’s a fundamentalist Christian!” blah, blah, blah— Because the MSM, and even some of the progressive blogosphere, still insist on seeing the political world through the grossly cynical but fading paradigm of the old politics. Thank you, Dick Bush; your legacy is upon us.

It is inevitable that a presidential candidate who actually has a living relationship with Christ will eventually make his way to the White House. The tacit and superficial toleration of the inconsequential religious lives of recent presidential candidates and presidents (save perhaps Jimmy Carter) is symptomatic of an even bigger problem, and it has left the electorate unprepared — even the secular and religiously educated intelligentsia— for what they might expect from an Obama presidency.

Many who were initially inspired by Obama’s leadership abilities and personal charisma haven’t really grokked what he’s been saying about his religious convictions, in his books or in his speeches. Those who have been paying attention, if they are agnostic secularists or even religious secularists, are flabbergasted and confused by his commitment to following the truth— as he sees it, not them or more specifically, their political creed— wherever it may take him. Why is anyone shocked they barely hesitate to turn and rend him, his pearls be damned.

There are numerous comments at places like Alternet and HufPo where one can read the whining superficial loyalty to Obama, now that he’s beginning to “refine” his opinions in ways that don’t nuzzle up to the secular left’s butt cheeks. A couple examples.

Liz Sidoti:

Obama also may be undercutting his claim to be a straight-shooting, new-politics candidate as he repeatedly breaks with his liberal base on various issues to aggressively move to appeal to the center of the electorate.

Liz can’t help but fall into the “center of the electorate” pit; it’s just too easy to assume Obama’s principles are as jello-like as any other politician’s; he can’t really believe his own decisions are based on real principles, can he??

I selected this comment from Susan of Texas at HufPo because she riffs on a “true believers” stereotype and father substitution, while throwing in a little personal peccadillo she harbors on authoritarianism:

He says everthing [sic] that is right, but what he actually does conforms with his authoritarian leanings. He is extremely competitive and ambitious; he wouldn’t be the nominee if he weren’t. He gew [sic] up without a father and substitutes his “heavenly father” to make up for the loss; he is a true believer. And we all know how dangerous they are.

Setting aside for the moment the lack of personal religious experience at the heart of so many of Obama’s critics both inside the democratic party and out, let’s focus on her notion that Obama says everything that’s “right, but. . .” Ask yourself why he says everything that’s right, if he really means none of it? The deeply ingrained cynicism of such a view is of course, lamentable, but ultimately it’s the insinuation that Obama is a shallow, lying deceiver just like Bush, Cheney, or Rove, that he has no real values at all, that smells up the place. Such a lack of discernment results from a completely debilitated ability to trust, and is the ultimate cost of cynicism.

“And we all know how dangerous they are.” Let the term “True believers” be defined here as anyone on the planet with a genuine spiritual awareness through their own personal religious experience. To every appearance, Obama is such a person. But “dangerous”? True believers in Jesus actually believe “Love your enemies” is a superior philosophy to “kill your enemies.” Hence, Obama’s commitment to withdraw from Iraq, and not launch American wars of choice.
And his recent decisions, which have caused a chorus of caterwauling among some of his supporters, probably the same ones who recoiled at the spiritual fervor Obama engendered in many of his other early supporters, are all positions that place the highest values of a truth-driven political prodigy right out there for all to marvel at, or complain about. Discuss.

“He g[r]ew up without a father and substitutes his “heavenly father” to make up for the loss; he is a true believer“

Non-religious minds can plop out such a thoughtless notion because it seems so logical. But anyone who truly knows God as a Father does so, not to fill the physical void of an absent or inadequate earthly father, but because they have already learned the value of such a divine Father through their experiences with an earthly father figure. Every child is wholly dependent on his parents and the home life for all his early concepts of everything intellectual, social, moral, and even spiritual; all that he can first know of either human or divine relationships comes from the family. Obama’s book, Dreams From My Father, makes it reasonably clear that most of that guidance came from a loving Grandfather, Grandmother, Father, however briefly, Step-father, and Mother all of whom, to my mind, must have done a superb job, based on what little we can observe of Obama’s spiritual relationship with God as a Father.

America’s political ship has steamed out of the sheltered bays of established old-politics tradition, and has begun its perilous cruise upon the high seas of evolutionary destiny. The only real question is, does America want Obama— a genuine religionist— the “real deal” at the helm, or McCain— a genuine fraud. As never before in our history, the soul of America had better carefully scrutinize the charts of our highest shared values, and therein find the trust the new captain will need from us if he is to steer us true.

Unity— Not Uniformity!!

Now the McCain campaign is accusing the entire nation’s Democratic and independent opposition of coordinating to “attack” McCain.

McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers sent us this:

If you didn’t think there was a coordinated attack on John McCain’s credentials before, it’s clear now that there is. Barack Obama’s supporters are telling the McCain campaign to “get bent” about attacks on his credentials? Seriously? It’s absurd. If Barack Obama can’t control everyone of his millions of rabid supporters, how can he be trusted to run the entire country?

Of course there’s zero evidence that there’s ever been any coordination among Democrats, (Ba-Da-Bing!) Not that it matters: The McCain campaign is desperately pointing to anything it can— this absurd allegation included— to drive the message that Obama and all his millions of supporters are making fun of McCain, and in the process, making him cry.

Barack Obama’s recent efforts to reach out to the Evangelicals and Catholics in the name of spiritual and political unity, have taken some leaders by surprise. Daniel Burke for Religion News Service writes:

It’s a move that’s caught some conservative evangelicals off guard. They say they are surprised and dismayed to see a liberal-minded politician attempting to conscript their troops. At the same time, they say that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has done little to court their affections.

“Affections”? No. Obama isn’t courting their affections, but their trust; their trust in spiritual unity, not theological or doctrinal uniformity. “Dismayed”? Doubtful; as they should all appreciate a fellow Christian who is actually attempting to treat them— and all men— as spiritual and social brothers.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it before,” said evangelical author Stephen Mansfield, who wrote “The Faith of George W. Bush” and has a forthcoming book about Obama.

“To be running against a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, and to be reaching into the Christian community as wisely and knowledgeably as (Obama) is — understanding their terms and their values — is just remarkable.”

Sounds like he’s really impressed by Obama, doesn’t it? But why shouldn’t Obama reach “knowledgeably and wisely” into the “Christian community,” it is his own; surely the whisper smear campaign of Obama as a “secret Muslim” isn’t responsible for Mansfield’s surprise?

Is this anything but a paid political hypocrite suggesting Obama is a liar?

Why shouldn’t Obama understand “their terms and their values”? They are his terms, and his values. It’s this sort of subtly hypocritical, back-handed “support” we’ve come to expect at every turn of the screw these days. The inference of being a secret Muslim assumes that all Muslims are secret terrorists, and, given the opportunity, they will destroy America from the inside. Do you feel better about yourself when you blame the “other” for your own short-comings as a “Christian Nation”? John McCain not only believes America is a Christian nation, but that his Christian faith makes him better qualified than any other candidate, who may or may not be a Muslim. Watch:

But anyone who has read Obama’s “Call to Renewal” address, delivered two years ago this week, should begin to understand that Barack Obama’s grasp of how religion and religious values must be integrated into American politics is nothing short of genius.

Barack Obama:

If we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at— to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own— then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome— others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

There is no shortage of those sorts of people, James Dobson being the most recent example.

Barack Obama:

Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King— indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history— were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of “thou” and not just “I,” resonates in religious congregations all across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal.

Contemporary progressive religious Americans are among the most fortunate people to live on the planet since the times of the apostles as they walked the earth with the Son of God in the flesh. For today the planet has begun to awaken from the deep slumber of materialism, stirred by an epochal religious awakening in the form of the Urantia Papers. And now, a genuine political genius has appeared to lead our nation into the twenty-first century, with an inspiring appeal to genuine hope and authentic personal empowerment. The only real question is, how many of us will awaken in time to avail ourselves of it.