Across the blogoshpere this AM there has been a general gnashing of teeth, wringing of hands and liberal moral outrage over Obama's supposed pandering to the religious right. His supposed ignoring of the separation of church and state. His supposed turning a blind eye to discriminatory hiring practices. Well maybe we should all just try to avoid knee jerk reactions to the phrase "Faith Based" and look a bit deeper.
First this is not a new position that just came to him. If you thought this you were not paying attention. This from an interview with Beliefnet in January '08 -

You wrote in “The Audacity of Hope” about the role that faith and faith-based programs could play in confronting social ills. Isn’t your view on that similar to George W. Bush’s?

No, I don’t think so, because I am much more concerned with maintaining the line between church and state. And I believe that, for the most part, we can facilitate the excellent work that’s done by faith-based institutions when it comes to substance abuse treatment or prison ministries…. I think much of this work can be done in a way that doesn’t conflict with church and state. I think George Bush is less concerned about that.

My general criteria is that if a congregation or a church or synagogue or a mosque or a temple wants to provide social services and use government funds, then they should be able to structure it in a way that all people are able to access those services and that we’re not seeing government dollars used to proselytize.

That, by the way, is a view based not just on my concern about the state or the apparatus of the state being captured by a particular religious faith, but it’s also because I want the church protected from the state. And I don’t think that we promote the incredible richness of our religious life and our religious institutions when the government starts getting too deeply entangled in their business. That’s part of the reason why you don’t have as rich a set of religious institutions and faith life in Europe. Part of that has to do with the fact that, traditionally, it was an extension of the state. And so there is less experimentation, less vitality, less responsiveness to the yearnings of people. It became a rigid institution that no longer served people’s needs. Religious freedom in this country, I think, is precisely what makes religion so vital.

Next the issue of discrimination in hiring practices. This from Politco.

The new partnership will not endanger the separation of church and state, so long as a few basic principles are followed. First, if an organization gets a federal grant, it will not be permitted to use that grant money to proselytize to the people it serves, and the group will forbidden to discriminate against them on the basis of their religion. And groups will be required to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws in their hiring practices—including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

So all in all I think we need to get a grip.  It is never wise to act like the rabid right who jump on words or phrases rather than whole thoughts.
Links to entire quoted articlesBeliefnet quote: http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=2758Politico quote: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0708/Speaking_of_faith.html#comments

We all know Poblano over at fivethirtyeight.com is on a predictive roll lately. So how is is he/she calling WV?
He's giving WV to Hillary with 105,000 popular votes and 12 delegates. Obama, he predicts will get 6 delegates.
Now if these numbers hold up with Obama's 4 Supers, so far, today and one pledged delegate switch from Hillary to Obama her delegate gain on Obama from WV will be zero.
The popular vote gain will be more than negated by the OR primary. 

Listen, I think we all need to quiet down a bit. We all know there are a lot of Clinton supporters saying - if Hillary doesn't get it, I'm taking my ball and going to play with McCain or go home and not play at all.

There are some very deep wounds right now and some of these will heal with time, but some may not. Especially if we keep picking at the scab.

If you spend any time over on MyDD.com, a strong Hillary support site, you can read for yourself how deep the divide has become. As a Obama supporter it's hard to read some of the thinking over there, but I grit my teeth and do it. The reason for the Obama dislike are numerous, from he played the race card first, trashing the Clinton legacy, too inexperienced, wasn't his turn, not vetted, can't win the GE and the list goes on.

I absolutely disagree with all of them, but I'm an Obama supporter, so duh. However, this is their reality and they either have to get to know Obama and decide they can live with him or not. They will never ever come over as rabid supporters. Just as I never would be a whole hearted Hillary supporter. However I know in the end I would vote for her come November. Doing anything else would have been cutting my nose of to spite my face.

Also Obama supporters holding out our hands in friendship right now isn't the answer. Time is needed and they need to make the walk across the bridge themselves. They won't be pulled over.

Finally the trash talking of Hillary or her supporters is just counter productive. If I take emotion out of it, I do not think Hillary is racist or any of the other stuff she has gotten called. In the heat of a campaign when you are trying to win, some pretty stupid stuff gets said and gets blown up way beyond it's meaning. Face it, how would you feel if by every known metric a year ago you were supposed to be the nominee? And because of bad advice, some poor choices, stupid and some remarks you found yourself on the verge of your dream slipping away. So the faster we stop trashing her and her supporters the better.

As trite as it may sound, we are at that point where - If you don't have anything nice or reasoned to say, don't say anything at all.

On that note I can hear a few of you saying well if I do that what am I going to write about ;) It's time to tap those creative brains my friends.

And so ends the reading for today.

McClatchy has an interesting story about how Hillary, while following ethics rules fails to report $24 million of Bill's income. Here's where  some of the income came from.

2004: .... $4 million from the offshore partnership with Burkle, the billionaire founder of the Los Angeles-based Yucaipa Companies LLC.

2005: .... $5 million from the Yucaipa partnership.

2006: .... He also received $2.6 million, some of it in ``guaranteed payments,'' from the Cayman Islands-based Yucaipa partnership, which invested in Xinhua Finance Media Ltd., China's leading, government-controlled financial and entertainment media company.

For complete article please go here 
Probably a little late to have much effect on tomorrow, butonce again she shows she's just one of us.

And the good news keeps on coming. Todays Super tally is 4 to 1 Obama.Mayor Daley -- Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago),  Cook County Board President Todd Stroger amd former DNC chair Joe Andrew 

My brother is 70 years old and has been a Republican all his life and has never voted anything, but Republican. However, he is quite politically engaged and stays informed. I now, if he is so informed how could he have voted for Bush twice? Well muscle memory is a hard thing to over come sometimes. Anyway to my point. After listening to the flap over Wright and listening to Obama speak a number of times he just committed to vote for Obama and made his first donation to the campaign.

With all BS around Obama lately, I thought a little reminder of why we need this guy was in order.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeBpPjIlaEw