Obama On Rick Warren: 'Uhh... Hope?'
Hey gays, here's your least favorite person in the world, Noobama, who had been introducing some new economic slobs at a presser until the Q&A, when everyone asks him why he picked Chunksy McLardtits to deliver the Christian speech at his inauguration. Obama responds, "UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" and then offers a series of actual words that basically carry the same weight as "UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."
What this discussion really doesn't need from America's many political experts is, say, this sort of thing from Marc Ambinder:
From experience, one can presume that the decision to invite Rick Warren was made because (a) Obama likes the guy, and (b) he knows it would send a message to groups like the HRC, and to conservative Christians who might be wary of the new president. Not so much pandering as it is Obama's deft manipulation of the politics of symbolism. Obviously, Obama disagrees with Rick Warren on important issues. He has said so, many times, and publicly. And he agrees with him on other important issues. And ignoring something like Warren, a mainstream figure who commands the respect of million of Americans, would be foolish. Obama's message is: Rick Warren is a part of Obama's America, too.
Not to pick on Marc Ambinder too specifically, but... how fundamentally can we say this? A major problem with current "political analysis" is that there's no need to analyze something that's obvious to everyone. American national politics is a vulgar, transparent, and stupid drama. You can read a few news wires regularly and understand every major politician's short- and long-term intentions. This is why most of our Wonkette posts are composed of bad/filthy jokes, because it's the only way to write about this shit secondhand without coming off as utterly patronizing to you, the reader. It would be insulting toyoufor us to legitimize the horror that is American politics under the guise of "expert analysis" with such backwash as, "From experience, we can deduce that Obama picked someone with popular evangelical views so as to appeal to evangelicals, which would be symbolic of unity."
You really don't have to be smart, at all, to understand this within five seconds of hearing the original news. It is obvious. Most of this day-to-day maneuvering is obvious. Sometimes you can even write the "analysis" before hearing the political news, because the political news will be primitive, because national politicians assume you are extremely fucking stupid. Calling the selection of Rick Warren an example of "Obama's deft manipulation of the politics of symbolism" is a catastrophe of American journalism.
ANYWAY. W/r/t Warren, many progressives and gays are denouncing Obama for "crossing the line" by picking this fat nut; they have all promised to vote for Nader in 2012. This furious resistance will last, at most, four days, when new shirtless pixxx of Obama in Hawaii will leak to the Huffington Post and everyone will forget about gay invocations or whatever.
But it was a dick move by Obama, mostly because of all the very recent publicity Warren has received for helping out-of-state Mormons amend the California state constitution to dissolve civil marriages between consenting same-sex adults who live together in private. This was an evil thing, Prop 8, evil and immoral and incredibly hurtful to a lot of people. And when Obama brings in someone so attached to this current ugliness as Warren to give a speech at his Presidential Ceremony, that's an unusually cruel and timely reminder to the gay community that the Democratic Party will not push for their "equal rights;" for Obama to claim otherwise at this press conference is a lie.
But it's just a dumb speech and gay people are weird.
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