Opinion
Not that there’s anything wrong with that
By Mark Silk — July 16, 2008
In responding to the viral charges that he’s some kind of Muslim, Barack Obama has caught some flak for, in his insistence that he is not and never has been, seeming to acknowledge that there might be something wrong with that. On Larry King last night, he took the occasion of commenting on the notorious […]
What Divide, NYT?
By Mark Silk — July 16, 2008
“Poll Finds Obama Candidacy Isn’t Closing Divide on Race” goes today’s NYT headline, but looking at the actual poll, I’d say Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee have missed the story. Sure, black Americans are big supporters of the first major party black candidate in history. And sure, his candidacy has not altered the way they, […]
COMMENTARY: A conversation that’s long overdue
By Tom Ehrich — July 16, 2008
As the housing market implodes and financial institutions struggle, a difficult but necessary societal conversation lies ahead. The pain is real, of course. But from an ethical standpoint, is the sudden turn of home ownership from dream to nightmare such a bad thing? This is the conversation we need to have. Many egos are tied […]
Gaps
By Mark Silk — July 15, 2008
Over at MyDD, Todd Beeton surmises that the way to understand the Obama campaign is not in terms of lining up supporters ideologically (i.e. capturing the middle) but demographically (i.e. the young, the black, and the female). This makes sense to me. But what of the religious divide? As this blog has repeatedly emphasized, the […]
Jesse No-Run
By Mark Silk — July 15, 2008
Former independent Minn. governor Jesse Ventura told Larry King last night that he wasn’t about to joint the Franken-Coleman senatorial smackdown–though he left open the possibility that he might vault into the ring at the last minute if “God comes and speaks.” Since Ventura holds himself out as an atheist, however, you figure he rates […]
Rel by Quin
By Mark Silk — July 15, 2008
A new Quinnipiac national poll, showing Obama up over McCain 50-41, has McCain leading 61-29 among evangelicals and 54-39 among Catholics. As with the recent Newsweek poll, this says that Obama is weaker among Catholics than his immediate Democratic predecessors. It also suggests that it may not matter.
Campaign Coverage
By Mark Silk — July 15, 2008
Pew is out with a content analysis of news (and opinion) coverage of religion in the primary portion of the presidential campaign. It’s worth a perusal, even though most of the findings will surprise no one who has been paying even a modest amount of attention to, well, the campaign. For example, big chunks of […]
COMMENTARY: Compulsory prayer is never fair
By Tracy Gordon — July 15, 2008
The U.S. Naval Academy requires every student to attend prayers before lunch. No one is excused. Everyone must listen to the prayer. There is no choice in the matter. Some midshipmen came to the ACLU to seek help, after raising their concerns through the chain of command. The ACLU-apparently unlike those who think it is […]
Satirical Imagery
By Mark Silk — July 14, 2008
As an editor who enjoys perpetrating satirical imagery, I can’t work up any outrage at the cover of the current New Yorker showing Barack and Michelle fistbumping. Nor can I understand Howie Kurtz’s judgment of it as “incendiary.” Provocative, of course, but so obviously over the top–especially considering the source–that it’s hard to imagine anyone […]
May not share which views?
By Mark Silk — July 14, 2008
In his interview with NYT’s Adam Nagourney and Michael Cooper last week, John McCain almost revealed a religious belief. Here’s the relevant exchange. Q: Do you consider yourself an evangelical Christian? Mr. McCain: I consider myself a Christian. I attend church, my faith has sustained me in very difficult times. But I think it depends […]
Obama’s Faith, Newsweek version
By Mark Silk — July 13, 2008
Lisa Miller and Richard Wollfe’s cover story on Barack Obama’s religion in this week’s Newsweek is a pretty disappointing performance. There’s little more than what you can find, better written, in Obama’s memoir, Dreams From My Father. The closest the authors got to the candidate seems to have been a brief interview last week on […]
McCain’s evangelical problem, Obama’s Catholic one
By Mark Silk — July 12, 2008
A new Newsweek poll, which has Obama leading McCain overall by 44 percent to 41 percent, has McCain leading Obama among white evangelicals 60 percent to 23 percent, and among white Catholics 49 percent to 33 percent. That’s pretty good news for Obama on the evangelical front, and for McCain on the Catholic one, comparatively […]
Really Faith Based
By Mark Silk — July 12, 2008
There’s the faith-based initiative issue. There’s the immigration issue. And then there’s Sam Freedman’s religion piece in today’s NYT, about what a little Catholic Church in Postville, Iowa is doing to help the families of illegal Hispanic immigrants arrested in the INS’ massive raid on the Agriprocessors kosher-meat plant. Iowa’s kind of an important swing […]
I love you guys
By Mark Silk — July 11, 2008
Message: Unlike Tom Tancredo, who believes they are Children of the Devil, John McCain believes Hispanics are Children of God.
Contextualizing Obama v. Dobson
By Mark Silk — July 11, 2008
John Schmalzbauer’s essay on today’s Social Science Research Council blog The Immanent Frame provides useful context for the Dobson-Obama kerfuffle. I do think it’s possible to get carried away by all the talk of diversity within the evangelical world. All such groupings–mainline Protestants and Jews, for example–embrace lots of differences. But often these appear a […]
