Parham, Sarah Palin, and Sam Harris; Alaska Cousins

I hope my cousins in Alaska are still on speakin terms as this Palin stuff gets curiouser and curiouser.
Like George W. Bush, if it weren't for the politics I think I could be friends with Sarah and First Dude Todd and Willow and Piper et. al;
On a good day I can be friends all the way from Michelle Cottle, the Baptist from Hixson, Tn who took Palin to task recently at tnr.com(google Reverse Snobbery); from Cottle to Palin to John Killian and John Screws.
Like Frank Johnson, it is hard to forgive Richard Land and Jerry Vines, but for the folks, with the exception of South Carolina Primary in W's instance, and Palin and INternational Relations; Where am I going here, somewhere between feel like I almost know W. since I talked to his friend Jim Lacey on the phone, and knew the Baptist preacher down the road during W.'s Rehab Dan Vestal in Midland, and have spoken to the Quarterback in the movie version of Friday Night Lights and met his neighbor in Speake.

Point bein Robert Parham and Michelle Cottle and Melissa Rogers and Randall Balmer and Kimball ought to get together even if it has to be after the election, and talk this thing through as soul's are at stake; and I hope to keep good relations with Cousins Neil and Deb in Wasilla/Palmer.

Praying for the Diplomatic Relations here:

Quoting Parham:

Instead, centrist faith leaders should begin engaging the new atheists by first taking back the microphone from the fundamentalists who define faith. Real faith gets fouled by those who distort it and the distorters of faith become easy foils for the new atheists.

The best recent example of this is Sam Harris' three-page attack on Sarah Palin in Newsweek. Her lack of gravitas, minimal educational credentials and unusual faith practices became a useful brush with which to belittle Christianity, as if she was the best representative of Christian faith.

Second, centrist faith leaders should insist on a fair debate in the public square without playing the victim card. When Newsweek pitted last year the intellectual Harris against the non-intellectual Rick Warren, authentic faith was poorly represented. It sounded defensive and indefensibly tired. Newsweek should be criticized for its matchup without arguing that it was a veiled conspiracy against Christians.

From:

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=11119

Momma, Barbara B Taylor and my sister

I was proud of my sister for having her heart in the right place and every desire to worship at FBC Greenville South Carolina www.nexusconnect.org featuring Babs Taylor Sunday.
But she didn't make it. Her church women were gonna drive over for the 9 oclock but her boy was singing.
Momma woulda been proud of her on both points, but like Sarah Palin, workin church women have to make choices.
Ridin Saturday I had more hopes for this blog as I was makin sense; goin from the New York Knicks to Kareem Abdul Jabbar, whose friend I talked to Friday night, to Blood Done Sign my Name; but as you see it ain't all coming together now.
But I did want to say a good word about these Godly Women.
Oh, I almost started cryin with all this on my mind when I saw Brownie Akins at Bill Glenn's Homemade Potato Soup place Sat Night. She met my sister once and knew my Dad; Brownie, one of Bishop Willimon's finest in Northeast Alabama, where my Dad near the end of the road, before Lyerly.
Lyerly, I almost forgot about Lyerly.

Sweet Jesus, the Truth about Palin from a Baptist

Look out Jesus, it's Paris Trout

Or Ain't nothing gonna help a Hick but a Hick hisself.

One Line from Paris Trout and the second from Willie Stark, from Mason City, Yonder.

I've been reading Michelle Cottle for sometime now. And I'm proud and to have broached her name to a woman from Jackson, Mississippi, whose Momma mighta been her guidance counselor in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where I thougt she was from, but turns out she is also from Hixson Tennessee.

She is telling the God's truth here, this woman raised Southern Baptist and went to Vandy and like Jedediah Tewksbury in a Place to Come To, Got all She could and got out; but still knows good people.
That is where Annie Lucas Brown could teach the folks at the Collinsville Baptist Church and the Public Library a thing or two, and I believe she will eventually cause God is Good and Mart Gray knows the truth but I digressed.

This ain't about me. This is about Sarah Palin and the wedge card and my letter in the Bham News Letters Hopper and the God's Truth, as strong as the one by Otis in Frailty.

http://www.jeanniebabbtaylor.com/ ; Something is telling me you are out there on this one. Pick it up and do something for Johnny Pierce and Robert Parham.

Ladies and Gentlemen, a smart woman raised Baptist who writes for the New Republic. Marshall Frady and David Halberstam got to be proud.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/09/22/spare-me-your-reverse-snobbery.aspx

An excerpt:
(and first two comments aren't bad either, a bonus)

Now I appreciate the effectiveness of insulting stereotyping as much as the next pundit, but I'm getting exceedingly tired of hearing about how much I scorn Sarah Palin because she is a hick chick from a hick state who didn't go to Harvard. Please. I grew up in freaking Southeast Tennessee, in a smallish suburb of Chattanooga known as Hixson. (That's right, pronounced hick-son.) I have spent more time at mudbogs, tractor pulls, county fairs, pig-roasts, dirt-bike races, and Wal-Marts than most of the anti-elite conservative whiners flapping their gums and wringing their hands over poor disrespected Sarah. I attended public high school, and the bulk of my classmates had Appalachian accents so thick they make Palin sound like a network anchor. The boys were hunters. The girls--myself included--had absolutely enormous hair. If any of my friends wasn't a Christian, she had the good sense not to mention it to the rest of us, lest we try to save her soul at the countless revivals, church camps, and youth retreats we all attended. I was always smart but have never been an in-tel-lec-tu-al. (Shhhhh. Don't tell my bosses.) And despite graduating second in my class, it never even occurred to me to apply to an Ivy League university. I went to college at Vanderbilt in Nashville--on scholarship, lest anyone assume that my family was upper-crusty.
Just like Ralph Peters, I KNOW Sarah Palin. Hell, in my younger days, I WAS Sarah Palin. (Well, minus being a crack shot.) The difference is I don't fetishize my regular-gal roots and assume they make me special--much less qualified to run the country. And while I have indeed witnessed my fair share of cultural snobbery from some of my better-credentialed, coastal colleagues over the years, I'm not so defensive about where I come from that I feel the need to champion a wildly unqualified fellow hick whose politics I disagree with as a way to get back at everyone I know who has ever made a sniffy comment about big hair or small towns.
Memo to Ralph & Co.: Get over yourselves and stop lumping everyone who grew up in non-elite circles into some persecuted ball of burning, self-righteous resentment. And now and again try to stop patting yourselves on the back for personally knowing someone who once went to Alaska (Did I mention that I've also been?) long enough to acknowledge that not everyone--not even everyone in the media--objects to Palin because she is an un-ivied "rube." Some of us, in fact, don't give a rat's ass where she comes from. We're too busy worrying about where she and McCain want to take us all next.
--Michelle Cottle

Posted: Monday, September 22, 2008 5:49 PM with 42 comment(s)
Comments
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adaglas said:
Brava, Michelle. That kicked ass.
September 22, 2008 6:36 PM
colablease said:
This ex-Carolina mill kid [who may have been one of your ex-profs at Vandy] says thanks as well. I do think a lot of lefties set themselves up for this stuff, and I've complained about it. But coming from a Peters, this rhetoric is nothing more than "let's change the subject!" The country's going down the tubes, and they want to dredge up these increasingly tiresome culture-wars arguments. But what can you say when you have nothing worthwhile to say about the actual issues facing the country?
September 22, 2008 6:58 PM

Nick Foster on his Momma and George Wallace

This is pretty strong stuff.

It reminds me a good deal of the tone of Robert Penn Warren's a Place to Come To.

My Momma, born in Alabama July 6, 1923 woulda liked this, liked she liked the columns of Celestine Sibley; even got mentioned in one of them once. At the time like Nick was recently, Momma was in the "throes of packing" as Sibley said.

I know Nick Foster. His Great friend Jim Evans was in the audience when David Currie and Mark Baggett came to Collinsville for the presentation on True Vine Baptists Feb 24, 2002.

One fellow asked: "Why Bring it Here?"

Nick wrestles with some of the same things I do, but he is better at it, more eloquent, and even tempered. I have to believe this blog will come to his attention soon so this is what I have to say to him.
Be sure soon as you can up there in Indiana to google up James Wood on the Prodigal Son. It will be strong medicine, but a blessing as well.

Nick Foster; I don't know if he plays cards with JD Shellnutt, but I do know he runs in the same circles as Annie Lucas and Mart Gray, and the Montevallo Crowd for better Libraries in the State of Alabama. And I take some consolation in that cause some folks know where the Justice of it is.

Here is what Nick Foster had to say on leaving Alabama for the Second Time.

I hope all of you read it.

I know one fellow in Collinsville knew Wallace well, is good friend of Randy Owen; and uncle of one of my sister's best friends now in South Dakota. I hope someone prints out Nick's lament for him, so he can pass it on to Cecil; and he gets it to Owen to share with Lowell Barron and Bobby Lowder so they can think about it too.

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=11061

Bama 3rd Segall Politikin in NE Bama

Had an interesting morning politikin in NE Bama this morning.
Within thirty minutes had substantive conversations with Neil Thrash and Barry Bailey, both former staff members of Collinsville High School.
My Mother was not baptized there, but she was a 1939 grad.
Thrash took Solomon Stanton and that bunch to the Birmingham State Basketball Finals in 95 but the 93 bunch of Mark Morgan never left the county, best I remember.
Bailey as a Young man was an intern for Bama US Congressman Tom Bevill in Washington DC. I introduced Bailey to Josh Segall at the Leesburg Festival in the Bama 3rd, about 8 miles east of Collinsville toward Georgia.
Segall is a promising candidate, easily the best for the Bama 3rd. We are all looking for Brandt Ayers, legendary editor of the Anniston Star to Counter incumbent Mike Rogers latest round of attack ads.
Little after that I had lunch with the Mayor of Sand Rock Alabama; left him a Segall Pamphlet. He said Rogers about a year ago held forth for about two hours at Sand Rock High School.
Many are looking for former Cherokee County School Superintendent Sammy Clanton, in Segall's corner though he votes outside the District, to work with current staff of Sand Rock HS and CCounty Probate Judge Melvin Salter to have Segall at Sand Rock for educational and town hall meeting, as well as other schools in the area.
I am hoping he brings Lilly Ledbetter of nearby Gadsden with him, a star from this year's National Dem Convention in Denver with him; though Lilly is needed in the Southern Crescent of Ohio to counter the Palin effect.
After she appears with Segall to drive home the point what is really in the best interest of working people in East Central Alabama, somebody ought to rent her a home in the Ohio Southern Crescent for the next 60 days so she and Hillary Clinton can make the case concrete what is in their best interest in distinction from the Sand Palin is blowing in their faces.
Mock On Mock On, Fox News, Limbaugh
Mock On, Mock On, tis all in Vain.
You blow your Sand into the Palin Wind
And the righteous Wind blows it back again.

Palin's Hypocritical Working Woman Appeal

From www.tnr.com:


The one legitimate criticism that hasn't really been out there yet--but that should be--is that, in turning herself into Everywoman, Palin is significantly misrepresenting most every woman. The underlying point of the Biden story is that he made sacrifices--bowing out of the public ceremony for his oath of office when his kids were in the hospital, forgoing evening events in Washington--to be a parent first. In contrast, Palin's parenting story is not about sacrifice or even the struggle for balance but about blithely doing it all. This vision of parenting is not only unrealistic--it devalues the job. Whether you work or stay at home, parenting is an exhausting around-the-clock juggling act; the list of people I have to thank for giving me the emotional energy and time just to write this article reads like an Oscar acceptance speech. Once the difficulty and sacrifice of the job have been elided, the basis for policy solutions is seriously undermined.
And these solutions are sorely needed. Over 70 percent of mothers with children under the age of 18 work. Yet women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men (on average, the families of working women lose nearly $10, 000 a year because of the earnings gap). Affordable child care is largely unavailable: In 2004, a single parent with average earnings spent about 37 percent of the family's after-tax income on center-based child care. This is an incredible financial burden, particularly for the 30 percent of working families headed by single mothers. And, with rising gas and food prices, the strain has only gotten worse.
Palin, by contrast, has a six-figure salary and an incredible support system--a husband with flexible jobs rather than a competing career, a close-knit community, and a host of nearby grandparents, aunts, and uncles to lend a hand on the domestic front. Palin freely admits to these advantages but offers no solutions for the majority of women who don't have them.
Palin is staunchly pro-life, but, beyond this very public position, she has a slender record on issues that affect working moms. She is a member of Feminists for Life, an anti-abortion group that also advocates for equal pay for women, for part-time and telecommuting situations for working moms, and against domestic violence. (The group supported Biden's Violence Against Women Act.) Presumably Palin shares these views. But, despite all her emphasis on being a working mom and breaking the glass ceiling, in her debut and acceptance speeches Palin never once mentioned her support for any of these issues or the legislation designed to address them. And she said nary a word about affordable child care. Her record on this issue is even more discouraging: Though it's true she did declare May 9 Child-Care Provider Appreciation Day, she also line-item vetoed the funding for a vocational residential facility that included a child care center for students, as well as the funds for breast-feeding pumps, among other supplies, for a Women, Infants, and Children program for poor women.
This is, of course, precisely the Republican Party line. The 2008 Republican Party platform advocates more part-time and flexible jobs for working parents but contains not a single mention of affordable child care or equal pay. And McCain's record on issues that affect working moms is on the same sorry page as his party's--he skipped a vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (which helps ensure women get equal pay); he opposed expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which covers uninsured children, to include their parents; and he has consistently opposed not only abortion rights but family-planning legislation, even for low-income women.

End Tnr.com

Two notes; Lilly Ledbetter is from Gadsden, Alabama and should campaign with Josh Segall to recapture the US Bama Congressional Third With Josh Segall.
Palin differs with Cindy MCcain on abortion who believes in exceptions for rape and incest and life of the Mother, which begs the questions if it is murder how do you play god and make exceptions.
It also makes a hypocrite of McCain whose first choice was Prochoice Lieberman.
The Abortion plank for the GOP is only a political tool to fool the dimwitted, just as George Wallace used to play the race card.
You can't say the N Word anymore now that in the SEC every Fall Saturday 17 of every 22 (do the Math) players on the field are of color, so you hold up a picture of a 7 month fetus in the womb in distress to keep the money flowing to the rich all the time squeezin the workin poor of every color.
Same result, different poster.
It is sinister, there is no political will or conviction to it.
Palin was pimped onto the ticket by the same rightist Exxon Oil Council for National Policy(Latter day John Birch Society and Texas Regulars that yelled Commie every time their tax breaks were up for grabs) forces that defeated Cindy McCain's pastor, the man who baptized her, Richard Jackson, in his lost cause to stop the fundamentalist forces that took over the Southern Baptist Convention, and neutron bombed the Baptist World Alliance, and mocked Judge Frank Johnson, Hugo Black, Abraham Lincoln and Stewart Newman; not to mention Atticus Finch.

Palin and Doug Carver; Kyle's Letter

Palin was on ABC tonight with Charlie Gibson; said God called her to serve through his agent John McCain, whose wife Cindy got baptized by Richard Jackson who mighta questioned Palin's call since the forces that helped show Palin the VP slot showed Jackson the door in 88 in San Antonio.
My Grandfather WD Fox was a prayer warrior for the Salvation of Doug Carver chief US Army Chaplain which got featured tonight on PBS Newshour; Army chaplaincy that is.
I got an email not long ago from a person who has opportunity to see Palin regularly and the letter read like something from the Apostle Paul to the Church at Thessalonica or one of them churches.
Thing that bothers me is why some in the family keep pissin on Obama, callin him lipstick dipstick and much worse while teaching a Sunday School class in a church that the likes of Richard Jackson who baptized Cindy McCain helped pave the way for, even though the Palin forces showed Richard the door.
I was there in 88, I saw it; made my Daddy cry.

So I'm trying to figure it all out and why the Sunday School teacher would lie about things my sister said just wasn't so.

James Wood had some things to say about David in How Fiction Works. I don't think David was fiction; but it is interesting to consider the questions Wood raises.
Bible says in regard David, He that ruleth over Men must be just, ruling in the Fear of God.

Some members of my family will probably make it impossible for me to sit down with Palin and Doug Carver and talk about these matters, though Carver in 06 was about 17 miles down the Road at Wes Hamiter's Church for a Patriotic ralley.
Family will work to get the Warriors the honor.

But I do hope maybe Cousin Gordon Wood will have a chance to talk to Palin and Carver; whether Palin wins or loses. On his Mother's side Gordon is great nephew of former Treasurer of the State of South Carolina, a Democrat best i understand it.
Gordon is with the CBF which Richard Jackson loosely is affiliated with as opposed to the Fundamentalist branch of Baptists that placed Palin on the ticket through the latter day Texas Regulars, the Council for National Policy.
Would love for Gordon to represent the Baptist branch of the family my Daddy fell on cause he understood George W. Truett and could have an audience with my friends and acquaintances Randall Balmer and Charles Kimball.
I think Gordon is worthy; and as unblinking as she may be; I think it safe to say me and Chet Edwards think Palin and Doug Carver could learn a little from Kimball and Balmer.
I have to believe Marc Olson joins me in that sentiment.
So God Bless Gordon Wood and all the other 2nd and 3rd generation of Willie Dan Fox who led Doug Carver to Jesus, one branch of which now worships with Sarah Palin.

That is kinda how it is cuttin in my family; how about yours?

Pew sitters and Preachers; Challenge the Palin/McCain ticket

Especially if you are a Baptist and have a cat's rear end idea what It means.
Johnny Pierce who just a few months ago preached to John and Susan Weaver Morgan at FBC Americus Georgia has a good blog.
But it is my comment that brings together the water and the wheel, where the wheel hits the road that brings us to the "urgency of the NOW."

http://bteditor.blogspot.com/2008/09/are-pew-sitters-responsible-for-what.html

1988 SBC, Sarah Palin and the Council for National Policy

As I said in the previous blog, Richard Jackson, former pastor of North Phoenix Baptist Church, baptized Cindy McCain.
In 1988 in San Antonio, Texas he was the Mainstream Baptist Candidate for Presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention.
There was a press conference that year in San Antonio where Neal Rodgers and James Dunn addressed among other things Pressler and Patterson of the SBC's connection to the right wing Council for National Policy.
Through James Dobson and Richard Land the CNP has effectively placed Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, as culture warrior on the GOP ticket for Presidency.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/352178/secretive_right_wing_group_vetted_palin

Also see links in blog below to Christianity Today article on Richard Land of the SBC, and Pierard's take.

The man who baptized Cindy McCain was the political victim in the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention by the forces her husband has now embraced to make him the next President; the same forces George W. Bush embraced in SC primary 2000 to tar McCain.

In January 1989 in Nashville meeting of the SBC ExCom, in an intense near hysterical exchange, Richard Jackson confronted the CNP and SBC's Pressler. There is an audiotape of the confrontation.
Pressler made the career of soon to become Presidential Kingmaker and Karl Rove associate Richard Land possible as a result of the SBC takeover.
Jerry Vines defeated Cindy McCain's baptizer Jackson that year in Texas. Vines became longtime pastor of FBC Jacksonville, Florida, an epicenter of the debate over teaching Science in High School classrooms as profiled on front page of NY Times two weeks ago.
Sarah Palin is a charm and as a panelist on ABC This Week this morning said, has "gut" appeal
and awakened the dormant right wing of the GOP (CNP, SBC of Land, and Dobson folks) for McCain.
But Cindy McCain and millions of others have to ask if CNP that defeated the man who baptized her; if that is what she really wants for this country.
Bill Moyers had a national PBS documentary Dec 1987 on CNP and Judge Pressler and the SBC. Dan Vestal, who at the time was the pastor of FBC, Midland Texas where down the street at the Methodist church, George W. Bush was in alcohol Rehab.
Midland's US Congressman Chet Edwards understands the true Baptist concept of separation of church and State.
Edwards and Richard Jackson and Jackson's son and their network of true vine George Truett Baptists should be able to explain to the rest of the world what Sarah Palin represents.
They know; they saw it first hand in 1988, twenty years ago in San Antonio, Texas.

I was there, in the room that day.

God Bless You, and God Bless the United States of America; One Nation Not Under Father Coughlin, Not Under WA Criswell, Richard Land, James Dobson, Paul Pressler and the Council for national Policy'
But One Nation Under God.

PS:
Read Martha Nussbaum on Roger Williams
Also Contact Aaron Weaver in the Baptist Doctoral Program of Truett Seminary at Baylor in Waco Texas who may be able to help place you in contact with Richard Jackson and his son.

SBC and Richard Land's ERLC a 527 Front for Birch Society??

Click on the links below for the background reading on this assertion.
With gifts to the Southern Baptist Convention's Cooperative Program, Baptists of any stripe and political sophistication--FBC Ft. Payne, Alabama, Dawson Memorial, Snyder Memorial, FBC Montgomery--all manner of like congregations across the South are bankrolling latter day politics of a John Birch Society sort.
Matthew Morgan of Collinsville, Alabama and Yale Div school understand this as do countless others raised in the tradition but have seen the light about what Jesus was trying to say in the Gospels about the Public Square and Justice.
You simply cannot hide behind the fetus while the rich shake down the poor and working poor.
John McCain's first choice was Joe Lieberman, a pro choice politician.
The biggest right wingers in the country, the Council for National Policy through James Dobson and SBC's Richard land placed Sarah Palin on the ticket.
See the Palin effect at Huffingtonpost and other links embedded in the discussion below.
The man who baptized Cindy McCain, Richard jackson, was victim of similar kind of politics McCain has now embraced in his choice of Palin at the coercion of James Dobson and Council for National Policy and Richard Land.
Baptists may find virtuous and honest reasons to vote for John McCain. Obama is not Jesus Christ, though Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a Governor.
Like they did and are now shamed by their silence on Martin King, Southern Baptists with Richard land are again going the way of Pontius Pilate.
This, however is not about Race, as Corey Booker so eloquently explained in his interview with Qwen Ifill ten days ago on PBS.
This is however about justice and the overriding themes of the Gospel.
Will Rick Lance and Bob Terry and their ilk come clean on this matter; or like Pontius Pilate will they wash their hands and have nothing to do with this while Richard Land gets fatter.
Also check Johnny Pierce of Ringgold Georgia and Berry College and his blog of Sept 3 at http://www.bteditor.blogspot.com/
Richard Lands Prayer for Spiritual Revival and National Renewal is an ungodly maneuver, a swiftboating of the worst and venal kind.
Jesus through the money changers out of the Temple.
What will you do with your Cooperative Program Dollars and the Council for National Policy???????

Click on the Land Campaigns link to go to bl.com to click on the other links:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-stein/the-palin-effect_b_124315.html

Land campaigns in concert with Palin effect
by Stephen Fox on Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:40 pm
And the Council for National Policy.It is my understanding Palin/McCain ticket will go to Colorado Springs to get Dobson's anointing next week.http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=10968

And this confirmation from Dobson's boy In the Room as it were:http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2008/0%20...%20ted-palin/


"I'm the only sane {person} in here." Doyle Hargraves, Slingblade"Midget, Broom; Helluva campaign". Political consultant, "Oh, Brother..."

Sarah Palin and Libraries

Maybe it would be better to let well enough alone but this is intriguing and cuts several ways.
I have some cousins who are great folks who attend church with VP Candidate Palin in Wasilla, Alaska and they are of the highest order.
Well traveled, sharp folks of considerable virtue.
Even so this is out there.
I hope Ringgold Ga blogger http://www.jeanniebabbtaylor.com/ picks it up as this seems to be right down her alley, good Baptist that she is and small town political candidate herself; not to mention good friend of Baptists Today editor John Pierce, Berry Grad.
Here's saying Oprah's one time book of the Month selection, Sheri Reynolds The Rapture of Caanan is up for discussion soon. It mighta made a difference; then again on The View this morning the women consensussed Kids make choices and there is not much parents can do about some of them.
The Bible says as much, and Baptists believe the age of accountability sets in about age six, some even say as early as Four.
I don't know, love to see what Babb Taylor makes of it.
For the Record, I shook hands with Joe Lieberman in South Carolina in Feb 2006. He said: "I never met a bad Baptist".

Here's the link:

http://www.librarian.net/stax/2366/sarah-palin-vp-nominee/

Even more chilling is this, maybe bringing us back to the days of Father Coughlin through the back door.
It is time for Revival in the Land with Randall Balmer and Garry Wills as the Evangelists. I think Barbara Brown Taylor and Fleming Rutledge could shed some light as well.
I have to believe Marney in Heaven is looking down and saying here we Go Again.

Russ Douthat on the Grand NEW Party.

http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/

Ike's GDaughter's Obama endorsement speech

Here is an excerpt:

Overseas, our credibility is at an all-time low. We urgently need torestore our international leadership position and the leverage that goes withit to address urgent problems before they become crises.We must advance a new and compelling vision for the 21st century.

Butrather than focus on these critical strategic issues, our national discoursehas turned into a petty squabble.Too many people in power have failed us. Belligerence has been asubstitute for strength; stubbornness for leadership; and impulsive action hasreplaced measured and thoughtful response.

Once during the Eisenhower administration, Ike was under fire from hiscritics for moving too slowly in responding to political pressure. After avisit to the oval office by Robert Frost, the famous American poet sent thepresident a note: "the strong," he wrote, "are saying nothing until they see."

I believe that Barack Obama has the energy and the temperament to leadthis country. He knows that we can either advance on the distant hills of hopeor retreat to the garrisons of fear. As our standard bearer, he can mobilize ademoralized America and inspire all of us to show up for duty. Discipline willbe required, as will compromise, flexibility and quiet strength.

And link to entire speech:

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/2008-democratic-national-convention-remarks,521260.shtml