Barack Obama's made a couple of serious plays for evangelical/culturally conservative support in the last week--unveiling his plans to expand George W. Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initatiatves and asserting that mental distress should not be legal grounds for women to skirt abortion restrictions--but they've wound up drawing lots of criticism from the Religious Right and surprisingly few attacks from the left. But liberal New York Times columnist Bob Herbert says the same left flank that catapulted Obama into the general election is growing disillusioned:
So there he was in Zanesville, Ohio, pandering to evangelicals by promising not just to maintain the Bush program of investing taxpayer dollars in religious-based initiatives, but to expand it. Separation of church and state? Forget about it...."What's he doing?" is the most common question heard recently from Obama supporters.
For one thing, he's taking his base for granted, apparently believing that such stalwart supporters as blacks, progressives and pumped-up younger voters will be with him no matter what. A taste of the backlash this can produce erupted on the candidate's own Web site.
So far, Herbert is more a voice in the liberal wilderness than a spokesman for millions of disgruntled lefties. Let's see if is column prompts other jilted liberals to raise their voices.
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I am an Obama supporter, and I am not disillusioned. The man has always been very pragmatic, and very much a centrist. He does not automatically dislike an idea just because the right wingers like it, and he does not hate George Bush, or anybody that I can see. More people should read his books; he's not hiding his beliefs, but they are nuanced, and take a little getting used to. The left will not like a lot of what he does; he's far from a radical leftist.
Read his books, and his website, and you will be under less of an illusion as to where Obama's beliefs lie.
I agree with RH. He's the type of leader we need. Someone who who is able to break the lines of liberal and conservative and work together with both parties like he's done already in Congress to reach the goals needed to make this country headed in the right direction where quality of life is more important than whether or not gays are allowed to marry and unborn babies are being killed. Bush didn't stop abortion and yet he's responsible for many needless deaths over in Iraq. Why do so many conservatives fail to see this? As christians is not more of a sin to kill someone who's going to hell than an innocent baby who is going to heaven?
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