Obama fields Questions; Jeremiah Wright’s background.
Election Stuff
Obama fields questions: contrasts himself with Hillary Clinton:
Talks about gas prices: tells people what they need to hear.
Samantha Power: stands by her Iraq Statement; thinks about a cabinet position.
Former Obama aide Samantha Power may be repentant for calling Sen. Hillary Clinton a political monster, but on the other issue that marked her resignation, she is not conceding an inch.
Speaking at the Columbia University School of Law on Tuesday night, Power labeled herself “amazed” that Clinton had tried to get so much “political mileage” from comments Power made, in which she suggested that the next commander-in-chief would consider conditions on the ground when implementing his or her Iraq withdrawal plan.
“What I was saying is that you have to take into account what the generals on the ground are telling you,” Power told the room of several hundred undergraduate and graduate students. “Take for example that 3 am phone call [from Clinton's campaign commercial]… She is not going to answer the phone and play a voicemail she recorded in 2007. That is crazy. She is going to judge the situation in 2009. Of course she is going to take into account what the generals have to say about the Iraq situation and what they are saying on the ground.” [...]
Power called Obama’s willingness to meet, without preconditions, world leaders with whom America did not always see eye-to-eye, one of the turning points of the Democratic primary: “I can tell you about the conference call the day [after Obama made the proclamation],” she recalled. “People were like, ‘Did you need to say that?’ And he was like ‘yeah, definitely.’”
She emphasized that, unlike President Bush, Obama would put greater focus on the general welfare of the Iraqi people (looking at population displacements, health conditions, economic insecurities), when considering U.S. policy in that country. She also drew a picture of an Obama administration that was filled with different viewpoints and congenial debate.
And, to the delight of many in the crowd, she even hinted that she could be part of that hypothetical cabinet. “Because of the kind of campaign that Senator Obama has run,” Power said, “it seemed appropriate for someone of my Irish temper to step aside, at least for a while. We will see what happens there.”
Hillary Clinton: this article pretty much sums up my grievances. Still, I would vote for her over McCain, provided she wins the nomination within the rules.
Jeremiah Wright: what you probably don’t know about him.
There are very, very few people in American religious life as respected as Martin Marty, few scholars as learned, few Christians as sincere. He has been a professor of religious history at the University of Chicago for 35 years, one of the greatest universities in the world…..
…I have never met the man but I have read a fraction of his over 5,000 articles, was deeply informed by his masterful Fundamentalism Project (co-edited with Scott Appleby) for The Conservative Soul, and know of few more distinguished, principled or decent public figures. Along with Barack Obama, he will not disown Jeremiah Wright, or Trinity United Church of Christ, where he attended services and listened to many Wright sermons.Read his full defense of Wright in the Chronicle of Higher Education. You will learn this:
In the early 1960s, at a time when many young people were being radicalized by the Vietnam War, Wright left college and volunteered to join the United States Marine Corps. After three years as a marine, he chose to serve three more as a naval medical technician, during which time he received several White House commendations. He came to Chicago to study not long after Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder in 1968, the U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodia in 1969, and the shooting of students at Kent State University in 1970.
This is a man the Fox News right calls an anti-American, a former marine who volunteered to serve his country in a war he opposed.
This is not to say that Wright doesn’t have faults; of course he does. But he isn’t the monster people are trying to make him out to be either.
John McCain: the infamous Boeing vs. AirBus deal.
Yes, this is from the Cato institute, but I feel that it is informative.
Press reports on the tanker saga have left two points unappreciated. The first is the hidden cost of creating a new aircraft assembly facility in Alabama. The second is how John McCain’s demands for competition in this deal helped Airbus and Northrop – not because McCain is crooked but because competition in defense contracting is phony.
To review: The Air Force needs refueling tankers because we fight far-off wars and don’t want to ask permission for overseas basing rights. B-52 bombers couldn’t fly from Missouri to Afghanistan to bomb the Taliban without tankers. Fighters and cargo aircraft need them too. The Air Force’s tanker fleet of 520 KC-135s and 59 larger KC-10s is old. In 2004, the Air Force tried to begin replacing them by leasing tankers from Boeing, as private airlines do. The deal unraveled when it emerged that leasing the tankers would add $6 billion to the taxpayers’ bill, that the deal was partially intended to prop up Boeing, and that Boeing had bought influence with Pentagon officials. McCain led the opposition. Two Boeing executives and one Air Force official went to prison. The Secretary of the Air Force and the head of Boeing lost their jobs.
Still looking for new tankers, the Air Force solicited another set of proposals for the new tanker, now dubbed the KC-45A. A few weeks ago, Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, won, along with its partner, American defense contractor Northrop-Grumman. The deal would eliminate jobs in Kansas and Washington where Boeing has production facilities. Congressmen and Senators from those states erupted into patriotic indignation and vowed hearings. Politicians from Alabama, where Airbus will place a new production facility, vowed to fight for the deal. Boeing protested, which forces a GAO review – delaying the start of production by at least 100 days. Now allegations have emerged that McCain aided the victors while taking their money and their lobbyists for his Presidential campaign. Got it?
So claims were made that the Airbus product was “better”. But Boeing claims that the standards were changed….
And it looks as if taxpayers won’t be saving money after all, as this deal requires that a new production facility in Alabama be opened (to convert conventional aircraft into tankers) while keeping a similar Boeing plant open (in Kansas). The article points out that a defense contract plant, once opened, is very difficult to close, since these usually get support from their local Congressmen.
Now here is the contentious part:
Senator McCain has mud on his face because after he blocked the Boeing lease deal and pushed to reopen the bidding, he got around $14,000 in contributions from EADS employees, more than any other politician. Then he hired some of their lobbyists for his presidential campaign. Did that affect his behavior on the current round of proposals? McCain says no. “All I asked for in this situation was a fair competition,” he says.
But keep in mind what fair competition here means. As my friend Owen Cote, a researcher at MIT, points out, with only two viable competitors, this is a not a real market. Ensuring competition among two sellers means giving both leverage over the buyer, because if one exits the process, competition is lost. What the press has not pointed out is that McCain’s insistence on competition gave Airbus the power to force changes in the Air Force’s criteria.
There were two disputes about the Pentagon’s request for proposals that McCain got involved in to the benefit of Northrop-Airbus. First, in September and December 2006, just before the Pentagon was to release its RFP, McCain wrote to top Pentagon officials, asking them to eliminate language in the RFP forcing consideration of how penalties due to a WTO dispute over subsidies might affect the tanker’s production cost. That provision, championed by Boeing booster Norman Dicks (D-WA), would have hurt Northrop-Airbus more than Boeing. McCain got his wish.
Second, in the December letter, McCain asked the Pentagon to give the proposals credit for having more cargo space, instead of equal points for having in excess of a certain amount of space. Meanwhile, the Northrop-Airbus team, which was proposing a bigger aircraft, threatened to withdraw their bid if the Air Force did not change its criteria on this issue. This double whammy put the Air Force up a creek. If Northrop and Airbus weren’t bluffing, leaving the criteria be would hand the deal to Boeing, and enrage McCain, who could then accuse the Air Force in public hearings of giving Boeing another sweetheart deal. The Air Force complied, giving another advantage to Northrop-Airbus. [...]
The article concludes that McCain did nothing illegal or crooked, but that it still doesn’t look good for him.
Humor
Move over Obama Girl…get ready to rain McCain!
(I think this is supposed to be pro-McCain, but I am not sure)
March 29, 2008 at 4:49 am
Campbell professor speaks on real meaning of Christian unity
BUIES CREEK - When Barack Obama refused to denounce controversial pastor and mentor Jeremiah Wright recently, he was doing something that reflected the Bible’s teachings about the nature of Christian unity, according to Steven Harmon, associate professor of Christian theology at Campbell University.
As Campbell’s Staley lecturer for 2008, Harmon used the analogy in the third lecture in the series, “One Life With Each Other: The Theology of Ecumenism,” to illustrate the spiritual meaning of Christian unity as explained by scripture.
A specialist in patristics, or the study of church fathers, and ecumenical theology, Harmon is the author of several books, “Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision,” and “Every Knee Should Bow: Biblical Rationales for Universal Salvation in Early Christian Thought.” His research interests focus on ways in which Baptists and other evangelical Christians may find resources in post-biblical early Christian tradition for contemporary faith and practice.
“Christian unity is no easy unity,” Harmon said. “We are members of one another, but we can be angry and disagree with each other without turning it into a sin.”
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians illustrates the theology involved in ecumenism, which is the quest for greater visible unity among the currently divided Christian denominations. Though drawn from different backgrounds and nationalities, the members of the “body of Christ” have been called by God, redeemed and forgiven through his spirit. They are not just members of a church or a denomination, but of a “fellowship” that is directed by God.
Harmon added that the cross of Christ unifies all believers into one body. Baptists and Catholics may differ in their worship practices, but they should tolerate each other in “love” or they will forge divisiveness.
“When Senator Obama said Wright was like family to him, that he couldn’t disown Wright because he was a part of him, he was precisely right. Baptism creates a new family that takes precedence over the relationships we have with the families that include parents, siblings, spouses and children,” Harmon said.
A graduate of Howard Payne University, Harmon received both master of divinity and doctor of philosophy degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Harmon has pursued additional graduate studies at The Catholic University of America, the University of Dallas and Westfˆilischen-Wilhelms UniversitŠt in Munster, Germany, as well as sabbatical study at Duke Divinity School. He is vice chair of the Doctrine and Interchurch Cooperation Commission of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), a member of the BWA delegation to conversations with the Roman Catholic church, a member of the Order Commission of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and a book review editor for the journal, “Perspectives in Religious Studies.”
Harmon has served as an adjunct professor at Southwestern and Howard Payne and as a visiting professor at Duke. He has also served as pastor and interim pastor of Baptist congregations in Texas and North Carolina. In the fall, Harmon will join the faculty of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala.