Too bad to be true
Did you hear the one about the “Religious Left praying to Obama”? I hope not. Here’s the embarrassing story: a video clip of a pro-universal-health-care prayer service, originally posted on the Gamaliel Foundation web site but appropriated, “captioned,” and distributed by the obviously trustworthy Naked Emperor News and on Breitbart.tv, caused a stir on right-wing blogs yesterday because it reportedly showed liberals chanting the petition, “Hear our cry, Obama.”
With apologies for insulting your intelligence, let me clarify: it wasn’t true. You can see the original video on the homepage of the Gamaliel Foundation. The people gathered (nine months ago, Media Matters notes) are responding to petitions by saying, “Hear our cry, O God” — which was obvious to many who viewed the video on other sites, despite the fact that it had been captioned to suggest otherwise.
This “Lefties think Obama is the messiah!” meme is really getting old. The only people fooled by it are the ones spouting it — just as the only people who call Obama “The One” are people who think they’re being satirical. This was a desperately crude smear that shouldn’t have fooled anyone — certainly not anyone familiar with what prayer sounds like. And yet, Mark Shea posted it on his blog, commenting (irony alert!) that it “must be seen to be believed.” Rod Dreher picked it up and did some concern-trolling over at Beliefnet (e.g., the Left have only themselves to blame!). And, when their error was pointed out, they both fell back on “I’m pretty sure at least some of those people are saying ‘Obama.’” Come on, really? Todd at Catholic Sensibility called it “an Emily Litella moment” for both, but in fact a sheepish “…Never mind” would be an improvement over their response so far. Seems like they’re taking their cues from Breitbart.tv, which posted this hilarious “editor’s note” upon being called out:
Editor’s note: We’ve updated this post with the longer version of the original event. As you’ll see in the comments and related links there is a debate over what is actually being said. Does the crowd say, “Hear our cry, Obama” and “Deliver us Obama?” Or are they saying “Oh God?” In the longer version the first two repetitions seem to have a distinct “uh” sound at the end that resonates as “Obama.” The later repetitions are a little fuzzier. Did some of the religious leaders present become uneasy? Or was there a mix of what was being said? [They forgot option 3: "Or is the entire thing a shameless, trumped-up smear?"] Read some of the blogger analysis below. What do you think?
Yes, perhaps thinking is a good tool to bring to this matter… Ah well, better late than never! The whole thing reminds me of the false story about the Council of Macon — meant to discredit the Church, it ends up reflecting poorly on the person who uncritically repeats it. Doesn’t a tale this outrageous deserve just a little skepticism? The obvious moral here is don’t be so quick to assume the worst about your opponents that you abandon all your critical-thinking skills. But I would also like to see “people of faith” be a little bit more careful about using religion and prayer to score such cheap political points. Christians shouldn’t be so cavalier with the “messiah” jokes, and we surely ought to be hesitant to mock an interfaith prayer service. Deliver us, O God, indeed.
Update: More here.
If the great contest, politically, is to win back the hearts and minds of independents whose support tipped the last election to Obama and the Democrats, I’d think this isn’t the right way to go about it.
The obvious moral here is don’t be so quick to assume the worst about your opponents that you abandon all your critical-thinking skills.
Agreed.
On Mark Shea’s behalf, I must point out that his blog post outines a quite different progression of events.
Upon first receiving notice of the video from a reader, he presumed it was an hoax: “I assumed it was standard boilerplate hyperbole that she was accusing the pray-ers of worshipping Obama.”
His reader wrote back to complain so Mark went over to listen to the video and felt that he had misjudged the situation. So he apologized and posted the video.
He later updated his entry to the following:
Listening to this video with my eyes shut, I’m hearing some in the crowd saying “Hear us, Obama”, but I’m also thinkin’ the helpful interpretive text guides inserted by the videomakers are supplying verbiage that ain’t there on the soundtrack. So I chalk this one up to a slight advantage for the organizers of the rally in the video who are, thank God, not such fools as to actually bid their followers to pray to Obama (though some of the followers sound to me like they are doing so).
*The makers of the video are, I think, letting their hostility to Obama tell them what their itching ears want to hear.*
MORAL: I shouldn’t post stuff like this when I don’t have time to vet it carefully. Gimme another Brick Award nomination!”
The entire scenario was on his blog yesterday afternoon when I got home from Atlanta and first read it there. So it is not accurate to portray Mark’s response (I have not read Rod Dreher) as in the post above.
Certainly it is not accurate to do so today.
Sherry, I’m afraid I don’t see the inaccuracy. That walk-back is pretty weak stuff. And I think it’s highly ironic that Shea initially posted the video while castigating himself for not taking his reader’s email seriously enough! Calling that a mistake was his first mistake.
No, Stuart, you must have misread the post. It’s the Council of Macon, not ACORN.
Crunchy Con has made the same, let’s not investigate mistake. Here is an alternate take: http://www.alternet.org/images/home/splash/hate-talk-splash.php
These types of Rove like tactics are getting tiresome – it is familiar to the Vatican UN spokesman who responded to the UN report on sexual abuse: http://www.watoday.com.au/world/vatican-responds-to-sex-abuse-accusations-20090930-gciy.html
As John Stoessel would say: “Gimme a Break!”
The original mistake by both Mark Shea and Rod Dreher is to give a tinker’s damn about *other people’s* worship services.
There’s this thingy called the First Amendment.
People in this country can pray to who and what they want: Gaia, Obama, Mo hammed, Mary, statues and cut up chickens. Mockery of other people’s prayers while simultaneously taking offense when other people mock your prayers is hypocrisy of the first order.
Great write-up, Mollie. I’d just seen this on Rod’s blog before coming here, and was just shaking my head.
It’s akin to seeing the Virgin Mary in a slice of French toast–we hear what we want to hear, or see.
This is also another example of the desperation to find an equivalency between right-wing crazie and left-wing crazies. Only you need leftwing crazies or an attendant amount and degree of hate speech. That doesn’t exist, which makes the equivalency arguments tough. I wonder if the Right continues to “go rogue” the fantasies will get more elaborate.
Hmmm. Mollie, he castigated himself for both mistakes. (He nominated himself for two brick awards.) The fact that you don’t think his “walkback” was strong enough does not mean that the way you characterized his post in the first place was accurate.
A long list of Mark’s readers in the comment boxes are clearly getting and agreeing with his obvious take that the message was a scam.
And most of them are very conservative. And really, really dislike the President. and some are very prone to loony conspiracy theories. But they got it all the same. And agreed.
The response here seems to be Just another demonstration that the desire to “interpret” and use stuff like this as another blow for our side in the culture wars rather than actually read and accept in good faith what someone has *actually said* does occur across the entire ecclesial and political spectrum.
Sherry, you’re still not telling me what about my “characterization” you find inaccurate. Here’s what I said about Shea and Dreher: “When their error was pointed out, they both fell back on “I’m pretty sure at least some of those people are saying ‘Obama.’” Look at what you quoted above from Shea. That’s what he said.
As I thought I made clear, I don’t think this is a victory for anybody’s side. The point is, nobody should have fallen for this. I think the fact that people like Shea and Dreher took it seriously enough to post it in the first place is a very bad thing, and the fact that they both only half-apologized makes it worse.
David
You are kidding right?
Only you need leftwing crazies or an attendant amount and degree of hate speech. That doesn’t exist?
You attend any anti-war rallies the last few years?
Go to a screening of “Assasination of the President” or “W” or “Farenheit 9/11″ According to Michael Moore George Bush and Dick Cheny allowed people to be killed to support their political agenda. You don’t think the NYT columnists and former president’s chalking up any opposition to racism isn’t hateful?
Yeah right, that’s not propaganda, it’s fact – no left wing crazies out there at all.
I don’t remember seeing school children chant the praises of George Bush or Ronald Reagan. That’s the kind of thing that makes this believable – not just the delusions of the right. I am not saying that there aren’t people engaging in outrageous hyperbole, but you have to be blind not to see that much of the president’s base of support is built on personality worship.
I don’t remember seeing school children chant the praises of George Bush or Ronald Reagan.
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.
I am not saying that there aren’t people engaging in outrageous hyperbole, but you have to be blind not to see that much of the president’s base of support is built on personality worship.
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?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/rnc-raising-money-off-of-schoolchildren-singing-about-obama-comparing-it-to-stalin-and-kim-jong-il.php?ref=fpblg
Grant — it just amuses me to see so many posts decrying right-wingers for being dishonest partisan hacks, but in the process citing a website (Media Matters) known for at least occasional dishonest partisan hackery.
Stuart, I knew I would get a few “but what about if I change the subject to this other example of hypocrisy” comments, but… if that thing you linked to really strikes you as an example of sharp media criticism, or as somehow embarrassing to Media Matters, I think you should probably just hold your fire.
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.)
So you don’t think lying about what someone says, yes, even Glenn Beck, is wrong? It’s not as if Glenn Beck doesn’t provide enough material to criticize without lying about him.
Oh for God’s sake, Stuart and Sean. It’s the tactic of a six-year-old to deflect guilt by pointing to another kid’s transgressions. Can’t you just condemn Breitbart’s post as incredibly mean and incendiary and leave it at that? Maybe then the whole thing will just die out.
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.
Mark — I’ll happily say that whatever Breitbart’s post said (and I don’t remotely have the time to look at all of the many links above) was probably mean, and was certainly misinformed, and that bloggers who relied on the captions should have listened a bit more carefully. I dislike the right-wing smear machine. At the same time, I dislike the left-wing smear machine too.
In that case, I’m sorry we’ve all forced you to work so hard to try to change the subject here, Stuart. Your time is obviously more valuable than we realize.
Stuart, you’re too busy to read the link Mollie posted above, but you’re not too busy to season so many dotCommonweal threads with your tired “liberals are crazy too!” mantra? I don’t want to cross into Media Matters territory here, but color me unconvinced.
Mollie didn’t post a link to Breitbart, Grant. She posted three links to Media Matters, which talks about Breitbart without, so far as I can tell, linking to Breitbart either. I went to “Breitbart.tv,” but didn’t see the actual story that folks are talking about. So I’m afraid that yes, I don’t have the time to verify that whatever you guys are saying is accurate; I’ll just take your word for it right now, and agree that Breitbart is a meanie.
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.
Aloha,
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!
“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.”
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.
Mark
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.
Stuart, Sean, here’s the thing. The predictable diversionary tactics of “your side does it too!” are particularly out of step here. And Stuart, I find myself noting once again that you can’t play the “consider the source” card when the source is calling out the lies and distortions of someone else — and happens to be absolutely right. Got a problem with Media Matters regarding matters unrelated to this post? Send them a letter. Surely that’s a better way to spend your very valuable time than leaving 5 or 6 comments on a post that you’re not even sure you can trust.
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.