NationRight

A Conservative look at today’s top political news…

Most of the political news and discussion today seems to center around Rick Warren’s “Saddleback Civil Forum” in California over the weekend, so I guess I will give my take.

As a matter of fulle disclosure, I am a Christian, but I am not a big Rick Warren fan.  I have read some of his first book, “The Purpose-Driven Life,” and found it to be more self-help than theology.  I think that, while it is wonderful that some have truly come to Christ because of Warren’s writing, speaking, and church-founding, I believe that his brand of theology is a bit dangerous.  By just touching the surface (We are saved by grace through faith and God loves us) of the Christian walk, there is a big opportunity to produce very shallow Christians who flee to the “Next Big Thing” religion when it comes along.  Anyway, enough about that, on to the “debate”…

Sen. McCain has taken some heat for not giving long-enough answers, but, honestly, I think that is good.  Sen. Obama’s long and drawn-out answers to questions on abortion and gay marriage seemed to provide him a great deal of “wiggle-room” with his supporters and potential supporters.  For instance, when asked at what point a baby gets human-rights, Obama responded with 226 words, talking about how difficult a decision it is, the moral and ethical questions it poses, the profundity of the question, and so on.  McCain simply used 48 words to say that he is pro-life, period.  When asked about defining marriage, both said that they personally thought it should be between one man and one woman, but Obama used 196 words and McCain 32.  One of my major problems with liberals is the lack of acceptance of absolutes, and Obama may be the best I’ve ever seen.  “I believe this, but we have to consider this, and this situation might be different, and who am I to say anyway.”  Certain things in this world are right and wrong, and it does not make you ignorant or closed-minded or stupid or racist or sexist or whatever to believe that way.  McCain clearly, on these two issues at least, has a right/wrong view.

That being said, I think Obama did a better job describing his faith.  I don’t know if either man is a Christian, that is between them and God, but Obama made a more convincing case.

I found another thing (there’s not many) that I agree ith McCain on; he said he was a federalist and individual states should make their own decision regarding issues such as gay marriage.  I agree.  I also liked his answer about evil in the world.  Again, he was pretty straightforward, “No one should be allowed to take innocent American lives,” where Obama was all over the map about evil is here and evil is there and things done in the name of good can be evil, but we can’t really do anything about it.

I thought McCain really screwed up the question about how much money makes someone rich.  By saying “$5 million,” however jokingly he meant it, he opened himself up for a slew of attack ads in the closing days of this campaign.

All in all, I don’t think this “forum” will be significant in the long haul, but it was very interesting to watch.