Brutally Honest

Is the Pope Catholic?

According to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in Newsweek, the answer is not enough... and the reasoning is solidly Obasmic:

Politics requires the ability to listen to different points of view, to step into others' shoes. Obama might call it empathy. While the pope preaches love, listening to the other has been a particular stumbling block for the Catholic hierarchy (as it is for many in power). The hierarchy ignores women's equality and gays' cry for justice because to heed them would require that it admit error and acknowledge that the self-satisfied edifice constructed around sex and gender has been grievously wrong.

...

For Obama, respectful disagreement and a willingness to recognize differences was the animating spirit of the presidential campaign, and it was central to his Notre Dame speech. That is the kind of politics many Catholics practice. They're tired of watching the church grasp frantically for control at the expense of truth and love. In America last November, it showed: 54 percent of Catholics voted for Obama.

Notre Dame awarded the president an honorary degree because it saw the need to highlight the best of Catholic teaching as applied to politics: the ability to open the eyes of those who would prefer to keep them closed, and to open the hearts of those who would prefer not to know the pain that their actions cause. The pope has a lot to learn about Catholic politics in America. Barack Obama can teach him.

There you have it. 

Catholicism's problem today is that it does not bend its will enough to the will of The One. 

With props for the find to Matteo. 

Colin Powell: Obama not being the right kind of Republican

Via The Washington Times:

Colin Powell, one of President Obama's most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president's ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.

"I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them," Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN's John King, released by the network Friday morning.

Mr. Powell, a retired U.S. army general who rose to political prominence after a long and accomplished military career, said that health care reform and many of Mr. Obama's other initiatives are "important" to Americans.

But, he said, "one of the cautions that has to be given to the president -- and I've talked to some of his people about this -- is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all."

"And we can't pay for it all," said Mr. Powell, who was the first African-American to serve as secretary of state, under former President George W. Bush.

...

Mr. Powell expressed alarm at "budgets that are running into the multi-trillions of dollars" and "a huge, huge national debt that, if we don't pay for in our lifetime, our kids and grandkids and great-grandchildren will have to pay for it."

"So, I think the president, as he moves forward with his initiatives, has to start really taking a very, very hard look at what the cost of all this is. And, how much additional bureaucracy [will] be needed to make all of this happen?" Mr. Powell said.

Mr. Powell said he has been in touch with Mr. Obama regularly, including recently.

"I don't insert myself. But, we stay in touch," he said.

I have a question.

Can we continue to listen to Colin Powell?

Isn't he really the kind of spokesperson that seems to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?

I'm just sayin'.

It's official

Peggy Noonan is in love, or to quote an e-mailer: "Noonan gushes Obamajuice":

America so often gets Iran wrong. We didn't know when the shah was going to fall, didn't foresee the massive wave that would topple him, didn't know the 1979 revolution would move violently against American citizens, didn't know how to handle the hostage-taking. Last week we didn't know a mass rebellion was coming, and this week we don't know who will emerge the full or partial victor. So modesty and humility seem appropriate stances from which to observe and comment.

...

To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous. The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as mindless lackeys of the Great Satan Cowboy Uncle Sam, or whatever they call us this week. John McCain and others went quite crazy insisting President Obama declare whose side America was on, as if the world doesn't know whose side America is on. "In the cause of freedom, America cannot be neutral," said Rep. Mike Pence. Who says it's neutral?

This was Aggressive Political Solipsism at work: Always exploit events to show you love freedom more than the other guy, always make someone else's delicate drama your excuse for a thumping curtain speech.

Mr. Obama was restrained, balanced and helpful in the crucial first days, keeping the government out of it but having his State Department ask a primary conduit of information, Twitter, to delay planned maintenance and keep reports from the streets coming.

How's that cigarette Peggy?  And the assumption is that Michelle was busy looking for another Inspector General to fire during your copulation.

Newsweek's Evan Thomas: Obama is "sort of God"

Sort of God?  I thought he was the Obamessiah:

H/T to Bob Owens who opines:

It is no secret that Newsweek long ago forfeited any claim to being an objective source of news, but this latest fanboy worship by Evan Thomas is simply shameful. It shatters any illusion that the magazine is capable of being anything other than an Obama propaganda device, and that Thomas is dangerously too biased to serve as a a competent and objective editor.

The Anchoress also weighs in:

Evan Thomas, that bellweather of media obsequiousness, who once (accurately) predicted that the Democrat-loving press would give John Kerry “10 to 15% points” in his race fo the White House, has declared that President Obama is “sort of god”. Chris Matthews, who would suckle Obama’s manboobs, if only Obama would lactate for him, can be heard saying “yeah,” in the background.

I’ve always told you they thought Obama a godling. Now, they’ve admitted it.

Our press is not only not free, it is completely nuts; mad in its teen-fan lust, lost in the misty aphrodisiac of Obama’s power.

Jim Wallis has sex with President Obama

A verbal consummation if I've ever seen one:

In the first 100 days, President Obama has made unprecedented strides and set promising priorities in two key areas — expanding economic opportunity at home and forging a new role for the U.S. in the world.

In regard to poverty, the president and his administration have shown a clear commitment to ensure that poor and low-income people are not left out of the economic recovery plan and the budget. There has not been a president or a budget I have seen in my lifetime that has so carefully considered the people Jesus called “the least of these.” These early steps show that poverty reduction will be a commitment of the Obama administration, both in word and deed. This can be accomplished through commitments in his budget and stimulus plan to repair a neglected safety net for those who find themselves without jobs, key investments in infrastructure that will create new jobs and opportunities, especially green jobs, finally achieving health care reform, and a long-term plan for ensuring that our schools and institutions of higher education are the best in the world. His budget’s commitment to foreign aid will make sure that the progress we have seen on reducing extreme poverty across the world will continue in a time when we could easily backslide.

Regarding our role in the global community, from the moment he was inaugurated President Obama changed the image of the U.S. in the eyes of the world. He has made substantive policy changes and set priorities that are forging a new global role for our country. First, he has reached out to the Muslim world and begun to build the bridges and understanding that will be necessary for peace, security, and prosperity in our world. Second, he has clearly and unequivocally stated his commitment to ensuring that torture is not acceptable and will no longer be a tool of U.S. foreign policy. Third, his global commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons is a compelling vision for which we have already waited too long, and an early commitment to that goal offers the opportunity for serious progress over the course of his administration. Fourth, early steps in foreign policy have shown a preference for development and diplomacy over mere military action, and we urge that emphasis to continue in Afghanistan rather than increasing combat troops. By dropping the deceptive and misleading “War on Terror,” we have new opportunities for progress and peace.

On values, vision, principles, and direction, President Obama’s first 100 days have offered some real encouragement to many of us in the faith community. But the most important results are yet to come. For that, it will take a vital, new partnership that includes both the support of the faith community when the Obama agenda is consistent with our own, and challenge when our prophetic integrity requires it — a role that this new president has already affirmed.

I can see Wallis smoking that cigarette now... you? 

It looks as if the guy who's famous for saying that God is neither a Republican or a Democrat is now ready to say that God is actually Obama. 

They can't handle the truth (UPDATED)

So instead, they manufacture it:

On his 100th day in office, President Obama will be "crowned" in messianic imagery at New York City's Union Square.

Artist Michael D'Antuono's painting "The Truth" – featuring Obama with his arms outstretched and wearing a crown of thorns upon his head – will be unveiled on April 29 at the Square's South Plaza.

According to a statement released about the portrait, "The 30" x 54" acrylic painting on canvas depicts President Obama appearing much like Jesus Christ on the Cross: atop his head, a crown of thorns; behind him, the dark veil being lifted (or lowered) on the Presidential Seal. But is he revealing or concealing, and is he being crucified or glorified?"

Even the title of the piece, "The Truth," suggests a play on biblical themes, as Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

"More than a presidential portrait," writes D'Antuono on a website touting the painting, "'The Truth' is a politically, religiously and socially-charged statement on our nation's current political climate and deep partisan divide that is sure to create a dialogue."

Like others in the news who have depicted Obama in Christ-like imagery, D'Antuono insists he isn't claiming the man is Messiah, but only inviting "individual interpretations."

"'The Truth,' like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder," claims the exhibit's press release.

Actually, it isn't and no one can set the record straighter than The Anchoress on this:

Obama is a guy who goes to Georgetown and has them cover the name of Jesus before he speaks. He tries to sell his economic plans on Jesus’ parable of the building on sand or rock, but can’t be bothered to utter Jesus’ name. But he has never, not once, told these people to stop with the messianic stuff. He’s a Christian, right? He sat in Jeremiah Wright’s (for better or worse) Christ-professing pews for 20 years. He allowed George Stephanopolous to correct him when he said “my Muslim faith” in order to clarify his Christianity.

One would think that as a Christian, Barack Obama would have long-ago asked his supporters to stop the messianic stuff. He is a politician; he could diplomatically have said, “you know, guys, I’m not the messiah, let’s tone it down, can we? The comparisons to JFK, FDR and Abraham Lincoln really are enough…” That would have been charming and it would have stopped this nausea-inducing messianism in its tracks.

But Obama did not do that. He’s never said a word against the images which create a sub-conscious narrative, and so his silence implies a troubling consent. It will be interesting if, when he makes his controversial trip to Notre Dame for its Commencment, he wears the traditional ND robe, threaded with the name of Jesus Christ.

The “Truth”? In its press release, we read: D’Antuono even invites the public to email him with reactions to the piece, answering his posed question, “What’s your truth?”

More and more, as I talk to college students and as I encounter people who are committed to the notion of relativism and individual “truths” I am moved by the prophetic nature of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s last warning to us before he became Pope Benedict XVI, against “building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”

And all of this reminds me of a story recounted by Daniel Johnson in the New York Sun:

Günter Grass, in his memoirs, recalls an encounter with the young Joseph Ratzinger while both were held in an American prisoner-of-war camp in 1945. The young Grass, a Nazi who had been proud to serve in the Waffen-SS, was taken aback by this soft-spoken, gentle young Catholic. Unlike God, the future pope played dice, quoting St. Augustine in the original while he did so; he even dreamt in Latin. His only desire was to return to the seminary from which he had been drafted. “I said, there are many truths,” wrote Grass. “He said, there is only one.”

The truth; there is only one.

 Indeed.  And Obama ain't it.

UPDATED: W&W has late breaking news:

The artist is withdrawing it from display. Here's why.

I just thought that through that painting people would see different things. The right and the left would have different interpretations of it based on their political lens. But I have to admit I was very surprised that instead of that I got thousands of email complaining on the religious front. And that was not my intent at all. I wanted to create a dialog politically but not religiously. I didn't mean to make fun of anybody's religion; maybe I did so naively but I didn't mean it that way. In the bible Jesus is The Truth and comparing Obama that way isn't something I meant to do at all.

Apparently, I've upset a lot of people. And I've decided that's not what I wanted to do and I'm not going to display it in the park on Wednesday ... art is meant to be somewhat provocative but the religious element went way farther than I had anticipated

It's astonishing anyone could be that naive or that ignorant; but it's refreshing to find an artist for whom provocation is not the highest value.

It's also astonishing to find a work withdrawn due to rethinking of its purpose rather than because of potential beheading.

I wonder if he'll be blacklisted by the "artistic community"?

Idolatry

 

By way of House of Eratosthenes.

I dream of Obama

Well, I don't.  I might have nightmares at some point with Obama being the biggest reason but I'm not dreaming of the man.

Many glassy-eyed liberals are though.  Just read Judith Warner:

As we all know, in journalism, two anecdotes are just one short of a national trend. I figured that my friend and I couldn’t possibly be the only ones dreaming, brooding or otherwise obsessing about the Obamas. Were other people, I wondered, being possessed by our new first family?

I launched an e-mail inquiry. And learned that they were. Often, in strikingly similar ways.

Many women — not too surprisingly — were dreaming about sex with the president. In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: “Michelle had divorced Barack because he had become ‘too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me.

There was some daydreaming too, much of it a collective fantasy about the still-hot Obama marriage. “Barack and Michelle Obama look like they have sex. They look like they like having sex,” a Los Angeles woman wrote to me, summing up the comments of many. “Often. With each other. These days when the sexless marriage is such a big celebrity in America (and when first couples are icons of rigid propriety), that’s one interesting mental drama.”
...

Another Washington woman, a global health care consultant, expressed her sense of Obama-inadequacy in a dream: “I dreamed I was an Obama girl. I had a chance to be in the same room with him for the first time. There were dark velvet chairs and he was standing there with all this dark and mist around him. His lips so purple and sensuous as if to be otherworldly,” she wrote to me. “I moved gently toward him and then I said the wrong thing. Obama tamped it down like some vapor that didn’t register. He wasn’t even flattered.”

(“Like a lot of folks, I have anxiety about being outside of the Obama administration universe right now,” she then explained to me. “Even though I was at the ‘it’ ball of inauguration balls, I still felt like other balls were greener, or more purple, or with credentials completely out of my control — more young. I really feel like I’m scrambling internally … to deserve Obama cred and all I’ve got is this over-my-head wonder for the man that amounts to being an Obama girl.”)

There's more of this retch-producing bilge at the link. 

Just as a thermometer measures temperature, this article is measuring the idiocy running rampant in this country and the measurement is plain. It's clearly idiotic out there.

Never mind the incompetence we've seen in less than a month in picking cabinet members.  Never mind the actions being taken that are emboldening terrorists across the globe.  Never mind that the man is pushing an economic stifle-us bill that even the Democratically controlled Congressional Budget Office is panning.  Never mind that the new era of responsibility has proven to be a farce.  Never mind that more of the world's babies will be killed in their mother's wombs by a stroke of this man's pen.

Instead, dream of Obama in your shower, in your bed or in your loins.  Or hell, hit the Obama-fecta and dream of all three.

Truly incredible.

Obama approval ratings soar amongst the Taliban

Honest:

The Taliban told U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday that his plan to close Guantanamo Bay prison camp was a "positive step" but peace was only possible if he withdraws U.S. forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.

...

A day after being sworn in last week, Obama ordered the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where prisoners have been detained for years without charge, some subjected to interrogation that human rights groups say amounted to torture.

Obama has ordered a full review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, where he has pledged to boost troop levels and take the initiative against the growing Taliban insurgency.

Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the remote, mountainous border region of Pakistan near Afghanistan.

"Obama's move to close Guantanamo detention center is a positive step for peace and stability in the region and the world...," the Taliban said in a message posted on Islamist websites, monitored by the U.S.-based terrorism monitor, the SITE Intelligence Group.

The message said Obama had to reverse the policies of former President George W. Bush in Afghanistan and the Islamic world.

"If Obama is right and, according to his words, wants to open a new page based on peaceful interaction built on mutual respect with the Islamic world, the first thing he has to do is to stop and annul all these procedures, which were created according to Bush's criminal policy," it said.

"He must completely withdraw all his forces from the two occupied Islamic countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), and to stop defending Israel against Islamic interests in the Middle East and the entire world," the Taliban message said.

Offering hope and change to the farthest corners of the world.

Your elected President.

H/T WizBang.

What kind of cannabis are they smokin'?

I'm talking about The Religious Left:

I think many if not most of us felt it yesterday - that we are entering not just a new administration, but a new generation of leadership.

People are talking about "boomer" and "post-boomer" perspectives, and perhaps some will use the language of "modern" and "postmodern" too. A friend of mine in Europe said we should consider ourselves having moved from the 9/11 era to the 01/20 era. However we define the shift, President Obama embodies it, and today I'm thinking about a parallel shift that is taking place in many of our Christian communities. I'd like to explore the theological shift by making 8 connections with the President's Inaugural Address.

1. Connections to the past ... without being tied up in the past, or, continuity without conformity.

...

2. The realities of crisis ... Pres. Obama summarized the crises of our nation

 ...

3. Call to unity and collaboration rather than polarization and petty squabbles:

...

4. Call to honest repentance, bold risks, and big dreams

...

5. Proclamation of a new era ... launched by new questions and new answers

...

6. A new attitude toward "the other"

...

7. Three top priorities: Poverty, peace, planet

...

8. Responsibility - not blame

Ya gotta read the whole thing... coming our way from apparently another wacky tobacky user...

The man (Obama) has just begun his tenure, sounds more like Bush than the dishonest on the left are willing to admit, bashes Bush as the man's on his way out, and yet out of all that's happened in... what... 2.8 days, they come up with these summarized 8 points and all the fluff in between?  And I do mean fluff.

Holy. Crap.  No, really.

Holy. Crap.

Our Religious Leftist friends have no integrity on this.  They are making sh*t up ex nihilo.

And using flowery words empty of meaning to do so.

What a colossal load of absolute horse sh*t.

No. Integrity.

None.

This friends... is simply, stupid, it's simply Obasmic, It's simply wicked.

Plainly.