We know that political leaders have to deal with all kinds of people, but it is important to know who you are talking to, when you do. That said, I agree that allowing Warren to serve as a broker and question the candidates is an exceptionally bad idea.

Senator Obama isn’t a religious pilgrim off on a quest to find his guru.

Senator Obama isn’t an itinerant reverend seeking the next congregation to preach to.

Senator Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, and de facto leader of the Democratic Party.

Senator Obama aspires to be Most Powerful Man In The World.

Senator Obama has Secret Service protection: no one makes him show up anywhere he doesn’t want to be.

Progressives reviled Reagan’s choice to make his first campaign stop after the 1980 Convention in the Mississippi town where three Freedom Riders were brutally murdered in 1964.

Reagan’s mere presence sent a dog-whistle message: hate crimes are OK with Ronnie.

Obama’s choice of eliminationist homophobic anti-choice hate preacher Rick Warren to host his first campaign appearance with McSame

– and Obama’s choice to submit to forty-five minutes of public questions from a right-wing hate preacher –

Obama’s choices implicitly confer approval on Rick Warren.

Obama’s dog-whistle message: Rick Warren’s OK.

Obama’s dog-whistle message and his choices aboout Warren defile the Senator, the Democratic Party, and — should Obama become President — the Republic.

Rick Warren’s public fawning over the murderous Akinola, together with Warren’s eliminationist hate speech, mark him out as being every bit as evil as a Neo-Nazi leader or a KKK Grand Dragon.

Obama’s choice to appear before Warren and to publicly submit to the hate preacher’s questions for forty-five minutes confers implicit legitimacy upon a despicable man and a violent, deeply anti-democratic ideology.

Will Obama break off his date with Rick Warren and the depraved hate preaching Warren pushes?

Will Obama wake up and ask himself: “hey — I was a community organizer in Chicago — what am I doing with a right-wing hate preacher?”

Or will he show up in a couple a weeks to bend his knee before America’s most prominent eliminationist preacher?

And if he does show up with Warren — will there ever be anyone too odious for even Obama to show up….if it could mean a few more votes?

In May, The Atlantic magazine raised new and more troubling concerns about Akinola. In “God’s Country,” the writer Eliza Griswold, daughter of the Rt. Rev. Frank Griswold, former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, describes a retributive massacre in the Nigerian town of Yelwa carried out in 2004 by a well-organized band of men, wearing clothing and tags that identified them as members of the Christian Association of Nigeria. Akinola was president of CAN during the massacre, which Human Rights Watch reports claimed the lives of approximately 700 Muslims. Dozens of others were kidnapped, raped or maimed…

When asked if those wearing name tags that read “Christian Association of Nigeria” had been sent to the Muslim part of Yelwa, the archbishop grinned. “No comment,” he said. “No Christian would pray for violence, but it would be utterly naive to sweep this issue of Islam under the carpet.” He went on, “I’m not out to combat anybody. I’m only doing what the Holy Spirit tells me to do. I’m living my faith, practicing and preaching that Jesus Christ is the one and only way to God, and they respect me for it. They know where we stand. I’ve said before: let no Muslim think they have the monopoly on violence.

Hey — Archbishop Akiniola: whatta guy, huh? Just the sort of the man of the cloth you can sit down and down a cup of beer blood with.

Just the guy Rev Warren — the man Obama chooses to appear and take questions from — chose to give a big sloppy fulsome PR blow job. Cause the murderous virulent homophobe Akinola is the guy Rick Warren chose to fluff for Time:

leaders like Akinola, 61, are bright, biblical, courageous and willing to point out the inconsistencies, weaknesses and theological drift in Western churches….Akinola has the strength of a lion, useful in confronting Third World fundamentalism and First World relativism.

Sure.

Cause for Rick Warren – the right-wing eliminationist hate preacher Sen Obama freely chooses to appear before and answer questions from – nothing spells biblical and courageous like the leader of the militia that hacked off arms and legs, raped women, and massacred children.

(yep, I’m a nerd)

Mark Carver, a top aide to mega-church pastor and best selling author Rick Warren, has resigned as a business advisor to Left Behind Games, the developers of a video game in which Christian militias wage physical and spiritual warfare….

…Mr. Carver, Executive Director of Purpose Driven Church, served on the Advisory Board of Left Behind Games, a corporation formed in October 2001 (weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center) to develop the violent video game and distribute 1 million sample discs through pastoral networks and mega-churches. And until June 6, the Left Behind Games web site featured Mr. Carver’s name and detailed his prominent role in Purpose Driven Church.

Thanks also to Talk4Action for describing how Warren’s attempt to pretend he’s not associated with this hateful eliminationist game is a transparent lie:

Do we think that Mr. Warren would allow his name brand and reputation to be casually invoked in a major business venture that involves one of the largest publishers in the Christian marketplace, who published the Left Behind novels, one of the best selling fiction series of all time? Does anyone think that Left Behind Games invoked the name brand of Mr. Warren’s Purpose Driven Church without his permission? Since this possibility is farfetched, what we are looking at here is a business/marketing alliance between several evangelical business and ministerial entrepreneurs for whom the Great Commission also means great profits.

;-)

Congrats on your new role as Chief Communications Officer at Physicians For Human Rights. Their work is awesome. This afternoon I’ve had the opportunity to review your strong work at Daily Kos: it’s easy to see why tireless human rights defenders like the folks at PHR would want you on their team.

In looking over your work, I belatedly came upon another reason for joy: Congrats on Chris 2.0!

Proud Parents: Chris 2.0 Debuts in Boston

Boston, Mass., January 8, 2008 – The hotly-anticipated Christopher Curtiss Hutson, released on schedule at 2:57 p.m. today at Brigham And Women’s Hospital in Boston, offers an impressive update to the lovable Christopher Hutson line of American boys.

“Sweetie, you’re finally here!” exclaimed Betsy Bury, a New Mama for Obama. “And you’re so big and sturdy!”

[snip]

Features of Chris 2.0 include:
* Birth weight: 9 pounds
* Length: 20 inches
* Birthday: Same as Uncle Christopher and Elvis Presley
* Birthright: Rootin’ for World Champion Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots

About the Company: Proud Parents Betsy Bury and Jonathan Hutson, a marital partnership founded in Rockingham, Vt., on June 4, 2005, and headquartered in Weston, Mass., are pleased to be under new management.

Though just about any reasons for congratulations are trifling compared to the birth of a child, congratulations also on the very strong work you did at Talk2Action (shared on your Kos diary).

Left Behind: Eternal Forces: Installments of Jonathan Hutson’s Talk To Action expose series on the “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” video game have been viewed by over a quarter of a million people and the controversy over the game the series provoked has lately erupted into mass consumer protest. Talk To Action features a dedicated site section featuring our more than 35 original articles covering the controversial “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” video game that has provoked a boycott by a coalition of religious groups and a letter writing campaign urging Walmart to stop selling the game.

Congrats also on having the courage and integrity required to make public Rick Warren’s links to the eliminationist video game that – until you exposed the murderous intolerance – prominently featured Warren’s mega-church.

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission – both a religious mission and a military mission — to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state – especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is “to conduct physical and spiritual warfare”; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.

“That’s how eliminationist hate works, regardless of its target: Its aim is to threaten and intimidate not merely the immediate target, but anyone who might think of speaking out on their behalf. This cuts the target off from the community support it might normally enjoy and leaves them feeling even more isolated.

“What, really, is eliminationism?

“It’s a fairly self-explanatory term: it describes a kind of politics and culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas for the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through complete suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination.”

That’s how eliminationist hate works, regardless of its target: Its aim is to threaten and intimidate not merely the immediate target, but anyone who might think of speaking out on their behalf. This cuts the target off from the community support it might normally enjoy and leaves them feeling even more isolated.

What, really, is eliminationism?

It’s a fairly self-explanatory term: it describes a kind of politics and culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas for the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through complete suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination.

Dr. Murphy points to several examples of Rev. Rick Warren’s advancement of eliminationist rhetoric. For example, there’s this quote:

Dr [Rick] Warren said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. “We shall not tolerate this aspect at all,” Dr Warren said.

When Rev. Warren suggests that gay rights are other than human rights, he is advancing eliminationist rhetoric. When he states that homosexuality is not natural and not to be tolerated, he is advancing the position that homosexuality is unnatural and to be — what’s the opposite of tolerated? — oh yeah: eliminated.