Gov. Rod Blagojevich says he is not guilty, that he is not stepping down as governor and that he will "fight until I take my last breath."
Gov. Blagojevich says he will not step down or resign from office and intends to address the allegations against him in court.
He said he expects to be vindicated. For Illinois and Democrats as a whole, the beat goes on.
He cast himself as a victim in the case, and said he will not let a "political lynch mob" force him from office.
http://cbs2chicago.com/governor/blagojevich.media.address.2.891120.html
Al-Qaida's once-robust online propaganda network takes a hit.
The release of a 9/11 anniversary video was delayed by nearly a week. And one of the most popular video-distribution sites is offline.
For years, the al-Ekhlaas network of sites has been a primary distributor of videos from al-Sahab, Qaida's propaganda arm. Then, on September 11, al-Ekhlaas.net was suddenly re-registered. Its domain name now belongs to the joker.com hosting service. All of its content vanished. Related and mirrored pages also went down. Even al-Ekhlaas' YouTube account was suspended.
The breadth of this effort points to a coordinated attack on a major nerve center of al-Qaida's information warfare effort. "Al Ekhlaas fans are beginning to lose hope of being able to log onto what was once the number one militant Islamist forum on the web," reports CBS' online Internet Terror Monitor.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/09/al-qaedas-once.html
Bill Clinton has collected tens of millions of dollars for his foundation over the last 10 years from governments in the Middle East and other international figures with interests in American foreign policy.
The donor list offers a glimpse into the high-powered, big-dollar world in which Mr. Clinton has traveled since leaving the White House as he jetted around the globe.
With his wife now poised to take over as America’s top diplomat, Mr. Clinton’s fund-raising is coming under new scrutiny for relationships that could pose potential conflict-of-interest issues for Mrs. Clinton in her job.
Some of her husband’s biggest backers have much at stake in the policies that President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming administration adopts toward their regions or business ventures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/us/politics/w19clinton.html?_r=2
Opinion:
Republicans hold their breath as the RNC picks a new
chairman
In the wake of two disastrous campaign defeats, the loss of the White House and facing a dominating Democrat majority on Capitol Hill, Republicans are wondering who and what a new chairman of the Republican National Committee might mean for the party’s future.
Certainly the challenges are many. As always, fund raising is a top priority. This past campaign gave strong indications the GOP is trailing significantly in the use and political adaptations for what the Internet can offer, and the party will need to develop a message and a plan for its communication that can help recruit top candidates at all levels.
By the way, the party must also find a leader around whom Republicans and normal Americans of all stripes can rally.
None is in sight at the present time – but there is always hope that another leader will emerge. In 1976 Ronald Reagan was a former governor and actor thought by many to be too old, and who presented an easy target for Democrats. Fortunately, with a huge assist from sitting Democrat president Jimmy Carter – they were proven wrong.
Politico's guide to the RNC chair race
ALEXANDER BURNS
The six contenders for Republican National Committee chair are rolling out every gimmick, plan and endorsement in the hopes of gaining an edge—any edge—in the tight contest for the GOP’s top job.
Just Tuesday, Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state, announced that he was forming a ticket with Texas Republican Party Chair Tina Benkiser, who is running for national co-chair of the party. Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele unveiled a set of ethics regulations designed to polish the GOP’s tarnished public image.
Earlier this week, Michigan Republican Party Saul Anuzis contacted RNC members to advertise his “Blueprint for a GOP Comeback.”
Earlier this week, Michigan Republican Party Saul Anuzis contacted RNC members to advertise his “Blueprint for a GOP Comeback.”
Not to be outdone, incumbent chair Mike Duncan, who confirmed his intention to seek a second term last week, is making plans for the formation of a new conservative think-tank, the Center for Republican Renewal.
The attention-grabbing stunts are a necessity in a race where the candidates don’t have many chances to confront each other directly. Two of the few opportunities will take place during the first week of January, when candidates will face each other at a debate hosted by the fiscal conservative group Americans for Tax Reform and then later that week when they compete for support from the RNC’s Conservative Steering Committee, which will hold a straw poll and release a list of approved candidates.
There’s still a ways to go in the race, and experienced Republicans point to the 1997 contest for RNC chair – when Jim Nicholson upset a crowded field in the party’s last competitive leadership election – as evidence that anything can happen.
Here’s a look at each candidate’s prospects six weeks out from the start of the RNC’s winter meeting on January 28.
Mike Duncan– As the current committee chair, Duncan knows the party’s insiders better than anyone else in the running. And while his present term in office has left Republicans with mixed feelings – his prolific fundraising doesn’t quite make up, in some leaders’ minds, for the GOP’s devastating November losses – he’s ended on a strong note thanks to Saxby Chambliss’s victory in the Georgia Senate runoff and the GOP’s two House wins in Louisiana.
Most of all, Duncan is benefiting from a divided field of opponents who haven’t developed a consistent critique of his leadership and against whom he could quickly become an unobjectionable consensus candidate.
“If there was a movement that could push Duncan out, I think it would be identifiable at this point,” said one Republican strategist who expects Duncan to be reelected. “I just do not get the feeling that there is going to be some great change.”
Saul Anuzis— Among the field of candidates seeking to become the anti-Duncan, Anuzis stands out for his energetic campaigning and his emphasis on technology. The Michigan GOP chair announced his bid on Twitter and has been hammering away at the theme of tactical innovation. Multiple Republicans noted Anuzis’s big, colorful personality – he rides a Harley-Davidson and sports a goatee as an asset in a race where candidates are struggling to distinguish themselves from an ideologically homogenous field.
Anuzis has also rolled out more public endorsements than any other candidate, drawing heavily on support from blue states like New Jersey and Connecticut and shaping a perception that his candidacy is picking up steam.
“If I had to assign momentum in what has been a very, very sleepy race, I’d assign it to Anuzis,” said another Republican strategist.
Anuzis’s weakness? Michigan has been very tough ground for the GOP in recent cycles, and the support he’s receiving from Republicans back home may not be quite enough to kick voters’ suspicion that he just hasn’t delivered the wins an RNC chair needs.
Michael Steele — Steele, a former state party chair who served as Maryland’s lieutenant governor before losing a Senate race in 2006 to then-Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), is essentially tied in second place with Anuzis. Steele announced his candidacy on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity and Colmes” to great fanfare, touting his skills as a political communicator at a time when Republicans lack a high-profile leaders on the national stage.
Steele’s campaign hasn’t gone quite the way he expected it to, according to some Republicans, who believe Steele expected his star power to carry him farther than it has in a race in which many RNC members would prefer to elect one of their colleagues on the committee.
And though he’s consistently reaffirmed his commitment to conservative social positions, his association with the moderate Republican Leadership Council has some RNC members uneasy.
“I don’t think there’s any question that he is personally pro-life. I think the only question is how he views the role of social conservatives within the party,” said James Bopp Jr., the influential social conservative who serves as national committeeman for Indiana.
But despite these hiccups, Steele seems destined to make it to the finish line with the clout to make it through multiple ballots. And if he can edge out Anuzis on the first vote he could give Duncan a run for his money.
Katon Dawson — Running a little behind his fellow challengers, but still mounting an energetic and serious campaign, is South Carolina Republican Party Chair Katon Dawson. With a better win-loss record than Anuzis and a closer rapport with RNC members than Steele or Blackwell, Dawson could ride a wave of conservative and Southern support into the late stages of balloting — particularly if the Blackwell-Benkiser gambit falls flat.
The Palmetto State Republican is billing his campaign as a vehicle for outside-the-Beltway competence and emphasizing the need to return control over the RNC to successful state-level leaders — a message that’s certainly in tune with the mood on the committee.
Dawson’s major obstacle is, in a word, Southernness. At a moment when some are labeling the GOP a regional party, Dawson may not look (and sound) like the change the GOP needs. And his critics are only too eager to hype up a damaging story that Dawson belonged to an all-white country club as recently as last summer.
Ken Blackwell — The former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state entered the RNC campaign late — on Dec. 5 — and has lagged behind the other contenders. While his candidacy hasn’t exactly caught fire, it got a potentially significant boost this week in the shape of his partnership with Benkiser, who could help Blackwell appeal to the significant social conservative bloc on the committee.
Blackwell has also moved forward with a series of moves that appear designed to capture the RNC’s fiscal conservative vote, receiving the endorsements of publisher Steve Forbes and Club for Growth head Pat Toomey. Endorsements don’t necessarily pack much of a punch in an internal election like this one, but every little bit helps.
Like Steele, however, Blackwell’s not a member of the RNC and he still faces skepticism about both his qualifications and his viability. The Ohioan still has some catching up to do in this race and a running mate alone won’t do the trick.
“He’s a very plausible candidate,” said one member of the RNC, who cautioned: “He’s neither fish nor fowl. He’s not a figure with national prominence and he’s not a figure with experience keeping the trains running on time.”
Chip Saltsman — A former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party and campaign manager to Mike Huckabee, Saltsman has more to gain than any other candidate from a protracted, multi-ballot knife fight for the chairmanship. The 40-year-old has been running a vigorous race against more established candidates, though he’s had to distance himself from the Huckabee campaign in a race where no one wants to support a stalking horse for 2012.
Saltsman knows he’s an underdog, but as a student of GOP politics he also knows that once an RNC race gets past the first or second ballot, all bets are off. If Saltsman can become a second- or third-choice candidate for a significant number of RNC members, and survive the first ballot, he could try and follow the Jim Nicholson path to victory. Yet even if he is unsuccessful, he’s established himself as a name to be taken very seriously in years to come.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16695.html
1.
Culture of Corruption: The Clintons Make Blagojevich Look Like a Piker (Rush Limbaugh)
Schumer's Pornography: The Clintons Make Blagojevich Look Like a Piker (Rush Limbaugh): "This Rod Blagojevich in Illinois, the governor, this guy is a piker... while he's looking for payoffs, the Clintons got them. The Clinton team has finally released some of the donors and the amounts for the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor, and there are 205,000 donors on this website. The Clintons have ended ten years of resistance to identifying the sources of its money. Saudi Arabia is among the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation. It turns out that Blago is a piker. If you're out there selling influence, don't look for a couple low-paying jobs for you and your wife and some low six-figure donations. If you're out there looking to peddle influence, you gotta go get tens of millions of dollars from international players, and then after you do that, you get yourself named
Listen To It! WMP | RealPlayer
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This Rod Blagojevich in Illinois, the governor, this guy is a piker. I mean, he was looking for payoffs, pay for play, he called it, he was looking for big bucks. And while he's looking for payoffs, the Clintons got them. The Clinton team has finally released some of the donors and the amounts for the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor, and there are 205,000 donors on this website. The Clintons have ended ten years of resistance to identifying the sources of its money. Saudi Arabia is among the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation. It turns out that Blago is a piker. If you're out there selling influence, don't look for a couple low-paying jobs for you and your wife and some low six-figure donations. If you're out there looking to peddle influence, you gotta go get tens of millions of dollars from international players, and then after you do that, you get yourself named secretary of state so that the back scratching can continue. You're even willing to take a pay cut from Senator to secretary of state, cause there's a law out there -- the Founding Fathers, ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who voted for Obama, Founding Fathers are the people that wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and built the United States of America.
You may not have been taught about the Founding Fathers in school, but that's what they did and who they are. They had a profound belief that government could be too intrusive and get too big very easily, and so they wrote the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the US Constitution, which specifically spelled out limits against the government. The Bill of Rights tells government what it cannot do to us. And, of course, Obama looks at the Bill of Rights as negative rights, and he doesn't like them. There's this new movement among the left to look at the Bill of Rights and say it limits government too much and we gotta do something about this. These are negative rights, and it's not good because, while it says what government can't do to people, it doesn't say what government must do for people. Well, that was the idea of the founding. The government wasn't supposed to do for anybody other than provide for the national defense and a couple other, you know, big-ticket items like that. But now that's been swept under the rug, and the whole notion here is, you know, ask not what your country can do for you, demand it. Demand what your country can do for you.
So here we have Blagojevich running around looking for all of these small fry donations from punks, like Jesse Jackson Jr., instead the Clintons are showing everybody how this is done, get tens of millions of dollars from international players and then become secretary of state. You might say, "How can she become secretary of state because she was in the Senate?" Well, no, you might not say this, some of you in the audience, because some of you may not know that this law existed, but the framers way back in the early days said that if, for example, you're in the Senate, you could not take a job somewhere else in public service, you couldn't go to secretary of state. If, while you're serving in the Senate the salary for secretary of state had been raised, because you in the Senate vote -- so you couldn't vote yourself a pay raise. Imagine that. You could not vote yourself a pay raise. So Mrs. Clinton was in violation of that law because she authorized -- many other senators did -- a pay raise for the secretary of state while she was in the Senate. And so Mrs. Clinton, "I'll fix that, I'll fix that, I'll take a pay cut. I will not take the raise. I will not accept what the secretary of state is at present making." And why should she? Two-hundred-and-five thousand donors to the President Clinton foundation, number one, Saudi Arabia.
She's going to go over to sec state, and she's going to be able to continue to scratch the backs of people who have donated to the Clinton Foundation. Ladies and gentlemen, the news is filled with corruption that is now being institutionalized. When many of these donations came into the Clinton Foundation the donors were investing in the Clintons. That's how in part it was sold. (paraphrasing) "We're the ex-president and first lady, we have contacts. We can get done anything you need to do. Invest in us." And remember, now, at the time they're out there soliciting donations for the Clinton Library, Massage Parlor, and Foundation, at that time Hillary was supposed to be the next president, so when you donated to the Clinton Foundation, you were buying favor with who everybody thought was going to be the next president of the United States. The Clinton quid pro quo market fell apart when Obama won. But by putting Hillary back in as secretary of state the Clintons are once again a good investment. And here's poor old Blagojevich in Illinois scratching his head saying, "How the hell did this happen to me? I'm a piker compared to these guys. These guys are heralded, the Clintons are loved and celebrated and everybody thinks they're the greatest politicians come down the pike, everybody thinks I'm a thief."
When it's all said and done, ladies and gentlemen, the Clintons will make tens of millions of dollars in the foundation and personally during Hillary's tenure as secretary of state. The money machine just got ginned up again. Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg will shore up the financial picture of her family. You know, there's a lot of Kennedys dipping into the Kennedy fortune these days, a lot of Kennedys that don't work. So you need to do something here to make the Kennedys again something to invest in. Blago, if he would just get out of the way in Illinois, the crooks can get back to doing business the way they're used to doing it, and Biden will get his son in as his replacement as a Senator in Delaware, and the beat goes on. So it's politics as usual, it's members of the political class, the Washingtonians getting rich trading on their public service. Most of the people doing this are big-time liberal Democrats. Nobody smells anything odd about it, nobody says a peep about it except when Blagojevich comes along and clumsily exposes how the whole thing operates.
We now know, and we've known for a long time, why they want to get rid of Blago. Blago is an embarrassment. Democrats don't turn on Democrats unless they threaten to expose the whole game, and Blago, in his ineptitude here, you know, $600 grand, $500 grand, sell a Senate seat, working with Jesse Jackson, this is embarrassing, this is chump change to what the Clintons and the Kennedys have going on, and Blago has to go. So as soon as he gets out of the way, as soon as they figure out a way, whatever his price is, they're going to have to meet it 'cause he's in it for that, and then we can get back to the normal culture of corruption that goes on beneath the surface that nobody sees and everybody apparently seems to love because it's Democrats who care about people, who are engaging in it. One thing, this isn't hope and change. What this is is bolstering a culture of corruption and an insiders game that has nothing to do with putting taxpayers in the country first.
RUSH: Now, I was talking with Snerdley mere moments ago, ladies and gentlemen, because we saw a story about the Clinton Foundation. This is such a scam. That's why I said earlier, Blagojevich is such a piker. He is working with people like Jesse Jackson Jr. and whoever else, you know, wanting half million dollars or a million dollars' maybe a couple of little think tank jobs or corporate jobs for him and his wife. He didn't get the money! The little small-timer blew it, the piker. The Clinton Foundation: $500 million! The largest contributor: Saudi Arabia. We were discussing this with Snerdley earlier. "How many of the donors have been scrubbed on this list?" How many people did they scrub and allow to be scrubbed? And so we're all thinking, "Well, why would Hillary take this Secretary of State gig?" Because remember when the Clintons were raising all this money for the foundation, everybody in the world thought she was going to be the next president. So they were buying whatever they wanted from the next Clinton administration early.
That's what this was all about, then all of a sudden things blow up and Barry wins. Barry could have frozen them out. Barry coulda ended 'em; Barry coulda buried 'em, but instead Barry puts her at SecState, where all these people who donated to Slick Willie's foundation will now be working with her. Blagojevich has gotta be sitting there looking at this and saying, "They're coming after me? I haven't even sold anything yet, and look what's happened here with the Clintons and Barry," and then this. Folks, this is just classic. This is from AP-Obama. No byline, by the way, because they're on a byline strike there at AP. "The future of security contractor Blackwater Worldwide just got a little more politically sensitive. Newly released records show the largest security contractor in Iraq donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to former President Bill Clinton's foundation. Assuming Hillary Rodham Clinton is confirmed as Secretary of State, she will have final say on whether Blackwater will keep its contract despite a deadly shooting last year." As Secretary of State, she determines whether Blackwater keeps their Fed security contract. And they've given 15 to 25 grand to the Clinton Foundation, the Library and Massage Parlor. Fascinating stuff, is it not, ladies and gentlemen?
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
• New York Times: Vigorous Blagojevich Defense by Noted Lawyer
• LAT: Obama Promises Details of Aides' Contacts with Blagojevich Next Week
• Washington Post: Saudis, Indians Among Clinton Foundation Donors
2.
Abortion Advocates Ask Obama to Increase Reproductive Health Funding by More than a Billion Dollars
By Samantha Singson
In a memo that was never meant for public viewing, a coalition of abortion advocacy groups have submitted a 55-page memo to President-elect Barack Obama outlining policy recommendations to advance "reproductive rights" in the first 100 days of the new administration. Recommendations include major funding increases, repealing policies that have any limiting effect on organizations from being able to engage in abortion advocacy abroad and enshrining “reproductive health rights” in the legal system.
The coalition laments the “ideologically-driven government restrictions” that, according to abortion advocates, have put reproductive health services out of reach for millions of women over the last eight years and urges president-elect Obama to “articulate and implement a vision for a new, commonsense
approach to the nation’s and the world’s pressing reproductive health needs.”
The coalition is asking President-elect Obama to “signal to the world that the United States is prepared to reclaim its historic leadership” on reproductive health matters by increasing foreign assistance while at the same time removing restrictions.
Among the immediate policy recommendations, the abortion coalition wants taxpayer funding restored to groups that promote or perform abortions overseas. Reinstated in 2000 by President George W. Bush, the Mexico City Policy bars organizations that receive federal funds from performing or actively promoting abortion in other nations. The coalition charges that this “global gag rule,” “has stifled the public debate in developing countries” that have strict laws on abortion.
In other funding matters, the coalition is asking for the new administration to increase funding for international family planning programs to $1 billion, arguing that “more than 200 million women in the developing world wish to delay, space or complete childbearing, but do not have access to modern contraceptives.” According to Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser these fiscal demands would increase federal spending for reproductive health and abortion by $1.5 billion. She calls
it “the big abortion bail-out.”
The abortion coalition is demanding that the new president immediately restore funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). President Bush has withheld the US’ contribution to UNFPA for the last seven years because of evidence that the organization is involved in and supportive of the Chinese one-child policy that includes forced abortions and sterilizations. The coalition not only demands that
UNFPA fun ds be restored, but that Obama also include $ 65 million for UNFPA in his first budget to be submitted to congress.
The abortion coalition also wants the new president to enshrine reproductive health rights in the US legal system, calling on Obama to ratify the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and to select judicial nominees who demonstrate a commitment to “individual liberties, and the fundamental constitutional right to privacy, including the right to have an abortion.”
The memo was submitted by 50 well-known abortion rights advocacy organizations, including: Catholics for Choice, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Guttmacher Institute, International Planned Parenthood Federation, International Women's Health Coalition, Ipas, National Organization for Women and Population Action International.
This article reprinted with permission from http://www.c-fam.org
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08121502.html
3.
The High Cost of Being (and Staying) Cool -- Rick Warren in a Whirlwind
Pastor Rick Warren now stands at ground zero of a whirlwind, and he is likely to be there for some time. The announcement that President-elect Obama had chosen him to deliver the invocation at the inaugural ceremonies on January 20 came with formality but no fanfare. The first headlines speculated that Warren had become "the next Billy Graham" -- for Billy Graham has missed praying at few inaugurations in recent decades.
Within hours, however, the story had quickly changed. Rick Warren had gone from being the next Billy Graham to being the next Fred Phelps -- and in a media instant.
Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign, a group that promotes homosexual rights, sent a letter to the President-elect protesting the choice of Warren.
The letter began:
Let me get right to the point. Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans. Our loss in California over the passage of Proposition 8 which stripped loving, committed same-sex couples of their given legal right to marry is the greatest loss our community has faced in 40 years. And by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table.
The outrage from gay activist groups and other liberal allies reached a fever pitch within hours. Blogs and news releases referred to Rick Warren as a "homophobe" and to his choice to deliver the invocation as a "hammer blow" and assault upon the homosexual community -- a group that had enthusiastically supported the Obama candidacy.
The idea that Rick Warren would deliver the invocation at the inauguration after Obama had courted and received such support from the homosexual community was termed "abominable" and "despicable." As The Advocate reported, "Even ardent Obama supporters seem to be up in arms. Progressive radio talk-show host Stephanie Miller -- an Obama supporter from day one -- took issue with the decision, saying he could have made a better choice. She told callers this morning that in light of eight years of a Bush administration and the passing of Prop. 8, having Warren deliver the invocation felt like a big slap in the face."
Apparently stung by the criticism, the President-elect released a statement defending his choice of Warren:
"I think that it is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans. It is something that I have been consistent on and something that I intend to be consistent on during my presidency. What I have also said is that it is a time for America to come together, even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues. I would note that a couple of years ago I was invited to Rick Warren's church to speak despite his awareness though he was aware that I held views that were entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights when it came to issues like abortion. Nevertheless I had an opportunity to speak. And that dialogue, I think, is what my campaign has been all about.
"We're not going to agree on every single issue. But what we have to do is create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things we hold in common as Americans."
Now here is an interesting point. The protest against Rick Warren is that he is an opponent of same-sex marriage. But when Candidate Obama was asked to define marriage during the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency, he appeared to leave no room for same-sex marriage: "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian -- for me -- for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union." When asked follow-up questions by Warren, Obama endorsed civil unions and opposed a constitutional amendment protecting marriage as a heterosexual institution.
So, what's the difference? Well, as Obama indicated, he is "a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans." Even as he defined marriage in a way that apparently excluded same-sex marriage, he steadfastly refused to do anything to prevent same-sex marriage. Most pointedly, he opposed California's Proposition 8 whereas Warren publicly endorsed it. Before the election, the Obama campaign also provided a message from Michelle Obama expressing hope for the eventual acceptance of same-sex marriage.
In other words, the gay rights community knows that the President-elect will be a reliable friend when it comes to policy. The President-elect virtually promised to do nothing to prevent or slow down the legalization of same-sex marriage.
The outrage directed at Rick Warren must be seen in this context. It is a genuine outrage expressed by gay activists and their liberal allies. To these Obama supporters, it is unthinkable that the President-elect could have chosen Warren for such a prominent role. As one letter to the editor in Friday's edition of The New York Times expressed the sentiment, "Barack Obama’s choice of the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration is as if Lyndon B. Johnson had selected a pastoral proponent of racial segregation to deliver the invocation in 1965."
Here is the deep irony -- Rick Warren has devoted enormous energy toward the goal of defusing the culture war and creating common ground. He has attracted the criticism of many conservative evangelicals who have been concerned about how these efforts have been positioned and for what often appears as comments at their expense. At times, Warren has even had to issue clarifications in order to make his generalized statements more specific. If the President-elect wanted to choose a figure recognized as an evangelical in the public eye, but sympathetic to much of his stated agenda to unite, he could scarcely have chosen a more recognizable figure than Rick Warren.
But now many of Obama's own supporters attack Rick Warren as if he is a hate-driven homophobe, which he clearly is not. All that was necessary to bring on this opposition is Warren's opposition to same-sex marriage and his support for Proposition 8. Now, he is grouped along with the most strident and careless as an apostle of hatred.
It doesn't take much. We would all like to be considered cool. Cultural opposition is a tough challenge and bearing public hatred is a hard burden. Being cool means being considered mainstream, acceptable, and admirable. Believing that same-sex marriage is wrong is enough to turn "uncool" in an instant, at least in many circles.
I am not throwing Rick Warren to the wolves over this. He now finds himself in a whirlwind, and he will not be the last. Pastor after pastor and church after church will face a similar challenge in short order. No matter how cool you think you are or think that others think you are, the hour is coming when the issue of homosexuality -- taken alone -- will be the defining issue in coolness. If you accept the full normalization of homosexuality, you will be cool. If you do not, you are profoundly uncool, no matter how much good work you do nor how much love and compassion you seek to express.
Liberal Protestantism came to this conclusion long ago, and those churches desperately want to be considered cool by the elites. Having abandoned biblical authority, there is nothing to prevent them moving fast into coolness. The only barriers are outposts of conservative opposition, but they will not last long.
Many in the "emerging" and "Emergent church movements also state their intention to transcend the divisive issues like abortion and homosexuality. Some of these represent the quintessence of cool in cultural identification. But for how long? Eventually, the issue of homosexuality will require a decision. At that point, those churches will find themselves facing a forced decision. Choose ye this day: Will it be the Bible or coolness?
Rick Warren has just found himself in the midst of a whirlwind. We must pray that God will give him wisdom as he decides what to do -- and what to say -- as he stands in this whirlwind. But every evangelical Christian should watch this carefully, for the controversy over Rick Warren will not stop with the pastor from Saddleback. This whirlwind is coming for you and for your church. At some point, the cost of being "cool" will be the abandonment of biblical Christianity. We had better decide well in advance that this is a cost far too high to pay.
_______________________________
Would I deliver the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States? Well, I have not been asked, but I can imagine that it would be difficult to turn down this invitation. After all, the inaugural ceremony is a national event, not a personal ceremony. Yet, in the end, the context of this inaugural ceremony would not allow me to accept. President-elect Obama has pledged to sign legislation including the Freedom of Choice Act, which would effect a pro-abortion revolution in this nation. He has also pledged to sign executive orders within hours of taking office that will lead directly to a vast increase in the destruction of human life. In particular, he has promised to reverse the Bush administration's policy limiting federal funding of human embryonic stem-cell research. Sources inside the transition office have advised activists to expect a flurry of executive orders in the new administration's first hours and days.
Knowing the intentions of this President-elect, I could not in conscience offer a formal prayer at his inauguration. Even in the short term, I could not live in good conscience with what will come within hours. I could not accept a public role in the event of his inauguration nor offer there a public prayer, but I will certainly be praying for this new President and for the nation under his leadership.
I was interviewed about this question by The Wall Street Journal, and the article appears in today's edition of the paper [see here]. From the article:
Some on the right were unhappy as well. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he wouldn't deliver the invocation for a president who supports abortion rights.
"It certainly doesn't help the pro-life movement to...participate in this kind of public way in the inauguration for one who holds to a very radical pro-abortion position," he said.
Late on Thursday, Rick Warren released this statement:
"I commend President-elect Obama for his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn’t agree on every issue, to offer the Invocation at his historic Inaugural ceremony.
Hopefully individuals passionately expressing opinions from the left and the right will recognize that both of us have shown a commitment to model civility in America.
The Bible admonishes us to pray for our leaders. I am honored by this opportunity to pray God’s blessing on the office of the President and its current and future inhabitant, asking the Lord to provide wisdom to America’s leaders during this critical time in our nation’s history."
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php
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