Dobson Wrong About Obama
Cats: Politics, Religion, Current Events|Regardless of what one thinks of Obama, I think he was purposely mischaracterized by Dr. James Dobson the other day. I listened to Obama’s 6/28/2006 speech on religion & morality in politics, and I thought he was fair and accurate in his assessment of the relationship between the three subjects. I don’t know why Dobson would have found fault with what Obama said, but I don’t think he was listening.
You know what, I’m a bit tired right now, seeing as it’s 2am. Here is a great opinion piece on this issue, which I agree with at least 90% (further links from there to Dobson’s & Obama’s recordings.
Dr. Dobson is a man I have great respect for, but I think he was listening to his co-host’s take on this, not to Obama’s speech. He jumped to conclusions which were wrong, he used inflammatory language like ‘fruitcake’ and ‘distorted’ when describing the presidential candidate, and he chose not to be charitable enough to give Obama the benefit of the doubt.
Obama said, “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. What do I mean by this? It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
Dobson decides to completely twist this and (I believe) purposely misinterpret these statements and others to further his own ends. In doing so, he clearly misses Obama’s point. Again, Peter Wehner from the Washington Post assesses this correctly, I think.
Mainly I wanted to bring this to my readers’ attention, and hope to stir a bit of discussion. What do you think? Am I too hard on Dr. Dobson? Am I giving Obama a pass on this one, when he deserves to be criticized? Let me know.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
I was raised on Dobson and Focus on the Family and sort of accepted his input as part of my religious tradition. He’s gotten very political, however, and is part of the movement which limits their political influence to discussions of homosexuality and abortion. I think his sensitivity to these issues colors his views of politics. In attacking Obama with, I agree with you Dones, inflammatory language, I think he undermines the integrity of his message. He’s going after Obama because he thinks he’ll support Roe vs. Wade and that he’ll support gay marriage. He’s right. Obama will. Dobson should concentrate his critic of Obama on those topics without attacking Obama’s exegesis.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:56 am
Agreed. Plus I think we’re to the point in American conservative politics where the focus needs to be on fiscal conservatism, not social conservatism. Between the two candidates, I think Obama is more trustworthy to balance the budget than McCain, and that’s too bad for Republicans. While I like Obama, I’d much rather have had a good fiscal conservative to vote for in the election. I don’t think I’m alone in that, but then it begs the question why McCain is the presumptive nominee. My guess is that it goes back to the full selection of candidates we had in the Republican primary: Huckabee was good, but probably too famously focused on his faith. Romney just didn’t seem honest; Ron Paul made a lot of sense but was kooky enough that it scared many folks away. So as has been the case many times in other Republican primaries (like for Kansas governor, for instance), it seems that the moderate won because more people could agree on him or at least agree that he was more harmless than the other guys…I dunno. But I look forward to seeing what Obama can do for this country.