Sean, I’m not sure any of your arguments are worth making, but you ought to pick one.

Drew – thanks for the info. “The idea is silly at best” — yes, and precisely the point of my post. No one should have fallen for this, especially not those who are inclined to take religion seriously. And anyone who feels the need to qualify that is digging the hole deeper. I’m going to close this thread now before anyone else gets out their shovel.

First, I was responding to David’s fatuous assertion that there were “no left wing crazies,” not the veracity or lack thereof of the Brietbart post. Second, I think it is worth pointing out that the problem Mollie is complaining about, it seems to me, is not purely ideological but is part and parcel of the kind of media involved. As bad as Brietbart can be, sites like the Huffington Post, the Daily Kos etc. are at least as bad or worse. These sites take what fits their narative and run with it – right or left

On the “personality worship” comment – no, not hyperbole. It is more than just “liking” the guy. People “liked” George Bush and Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan when they were elected. This is different, at least for a significant portion of the population If those videos of children singing his praises to the tune of Jesus Loves the Little Children” didn’t creep you out then I guess we will not agree on that.

I had something of a revelation yesterday when reading about the issue of Obama’s Safe School Czar. I was reading stories on both sides of the issue. The guy has admitted that when told by a 15 year old boy that he was having sex with an older man who had picked him up at a bus station he not only didn’t report it as required by law, he gave him advice on how to manage the relationship and avoid disease. His defenders in print basically ignored this and attacked his attackers. At first I thought – well, it’s a tactic. Then it occurred to me that they didn’t try and defend what he did because they didn’t think it was wrong. I read the man’s own words and I thought if he were my kid’s teacher I would have wanted him strung up – apparently an irrational response according to his defenders.

The point of this is simply, we are looking at the same things and seeing something completely different. I see school children chanting, and Che-like posters of the president plasterd all over my hometown, you-tube music videos portraying his as a Messiah-like character, and I see “personality worship.” To you – they just like the guy.

That doesn’t sound correct to me. The Ruling Party says things like that all the time where “He” is defined as President G.W. Bush with respect to levels of federal outlays, the amount of the public debt, the continued killings of the civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, the level of domestic unemployment, etc. So I would think that “tactic” is honorable and noble by definition based upon that.

I was the organizer for Gamaliel for this action – we were trying to get the attention of a large insurance comapny (UHC). I voted for Obama, and most us in Hawaii like him – but praying to him would be crazy, not to mention sacrilegious. We never did it, and never would – the idea of it is silly at best.

Here’s the liturgy we used for the record:

With the prophet Jeremiah, we cry out, Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?
Hear our cry, oh God!

With the prophet Martin Luther King Jr., we cry out, Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
Hear our cry, oh God!

From health care systems and industries that place profit over people,
Deliver us, oh God!

But I still don’t like the left-wing smear machine (Media Matters, etc.) either. Lying isn’t cool, even if they’re on your team.

The more you try to defend this stuff by saying things like “He started it,” the less seriously people will take your other, more thoughtful posts.

Meanwhile, everybody, if you’re wondering who else was fooled and unable to admit it, check out, yes, Media Matters’s roundup of screenshots and transcripts from the various right-wingers who ran with this video yesterday. (Not that you should expect better from these folks.)

Sean,

Isn’t “personality worship” outrageous hyperbole? Obama does have an appealing personality. We keep hearing from the pundits (interpreting polls) that Obama is more popular than his policies. That indicates to me that many people who disagree with his policies nevertheless like him. So why should it be wrong for people who do agree with his policies like him, too?

Perhaps that’s because their opposition wasn’t filming patriotic shows in elementary schools and then sending the tape to Fox News — or easily impressionable bloggers. (P.S. I first heard about this on The Daily Show — this week.) “The kind of thing that makes this believable” is the desire to believe it.