John McCain

It was just five months ago that James Dobson declared unequivocally that he would not, under any circumstances, ever support John McCain for president, saying “I cannot, and I will not, vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.”   In fact, so opposed to McCain was Dobson that he went so far as to organize an effort to secure one million signatures in opposition to McCain’s nomination and then publicly reiterated his vehement opposition to his nomination just a few months later.  

But wouldn’t you know it, like every other craven political calculation and empty threat he has ever made, Dobson has changed his mind and concluded that Barack Obama is such a monumental threat to this nation that he almost has no other choice but to blatantly violate his own conscience for the greater good of the Republican Party:

Conservative Christian leader James Dobson has softened his stance against Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, saying he could reverse his position and endorse the Arizona senator despite serious misgivings.

"I never thought I would hear myself saying this," Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. "... While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might."

So why is Dobson suddenly changing his tune?  In short, he is absolutely terrified of Obama:

He is also supportive of the entire gay activist agenda.  We're not just talking about showing respect for people and equal rights for all citizens of the United States.  It’s not referring to it in those terms. He’s talking about homosexual marriage. I mean, he makes no bones about that. He's talking about hate crimes legislation which would limit religious liberty, I have no doubt about that, that ministers and others - people like us - are going to very quickly be prohibited from expressing your faith and your theology on certain views.  … Just so many aspects of his views on that issue that keep me awake at night frankly … that he is so extreme, that he does threaten traditional family life and pro-moral values … This has been the most difficult moral dilemma for me.  It’s why you haven’t heard me say much about it because I have struggled on this issue.  And there are some concerns here that matter to me more than my own life and neither of the candidates is consistent with my views in that regard. But Senator McCain is certainly closer to them then Senator Obama, by a wide margin. And there's no doubt, at least no doubt in my mind, about whose policies will result in more babies being killed. Or who will do the greatest damage to the institution of marriage and the family. I'm convinced that Senator McCain comes closer to what I believe. So I am not endorsing Senator McCain today … But as of this moment, I have to take into account the fact that Senator John McCain has voted pro-life consistently and that's a fact. He says he favors marriage between a man and a woman, I believe that. He opposes homosexual adoption. He favors smaller government and lower taxes and he seems to understand the Muslim threat, which matters a lot to me – I am very concerned about that.

Below is the full transcript of today’s program in which Dobson and the Southern Baptist Convention's Al Mohler explain just how “alarming” Barack Obama’s political and theological views are and the dire threat he poses to “traditional family life and pro-moral values":

When Randall Terry, founder of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, recently sued Troy Newman over the use of the name, he certainly opened up a can of worms.

A number of former OR activists issued a statement on Newman’s behalf, calling for Terry’s repentance for “unbiblical lifestyle decisions”; “[W]e can no longer remain silent while Mr. Terry continues to fleece unsuspecting pro-life people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for his personal and selfish gain,” they added. Terry responded with his own list of supporters vouching for his character.

And Flip Benham, who runs Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, put aside his distaste for Terry (“Giving more money to Randall Terry is like giving booze to an alcoholic,” he has said) to attack both Newman and the former OR activists who criticized Terry. “These are the same ones who would not stand with Operation Rescue leadership in the fall of 1993 and call the premeditated shooting (murder) of abortionists, sin,’” wrote Benham, recalling the darkest period of the militant anti-abortion movement.

But while Flip Benham’s Operation Rescue and Troy Newman’s Operation Rescue remain locked in their bitter name dispute, there is at least one thing they can agree on: Barack Obama.

Newman’s OR called for anti-abortion activists to descend upon an Obama appearance at the National Council of La Raza convention in San Diego this past weekend:

“Abortionists are famous for targeting minority communities and those who are most vulnerable. When Obama throws his support behind the abortion industry, he is also tacitly supporting the exploitation of Latinos and African Americans,” said Operation Rescue spokesperson Cheryl Sullenger. “Operation Rescue urges all pro-life supporters in the San Diego area to let their voices be heard in protest of Obama’s extremist abortion policies, and his tacit approval of the abortion industry’s despicable pattern of racial exploitation.”

Meanwhile, Benham’s group is conducting an anti-abortion campaign in Atlanta, which doesn’t seem to have much to do with Obama. But in announcing a church OR plans to picket, the group adds:

According to their bulletin, this is a UCC church which will host the Human Rights Campaign Gospel Concert. The HRC is the largest group advocating gay & lesbian rights and the UCC is the denomination of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barak Obama. For the first time in the history of our nation, we have a man running for president who is neither a Christian nor a patriot.

Lest John McCain get too excited about this new source of support, they don’t have a whole lot of nice things to say about him, either. Benham wrote back in October, “[T]here is no way we true evangelical Christians will support Giuliani, McCain, Thompson, or Romney.”

And Randall Terry, who led a small band of protesters against GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani over the winter, recycled the same language (“an enemy inside your camp”) for McCain in an interview with Playboy:

Q: What impact would a John McCain presidency have on the pro-life agenda?

A: If McCain would appoint judges who would overturn Roe, it could be a huge boon. I don’t think we have any assurance that would happen. Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and Sandra Day O’Connor were all appointed by Republican presidents who did not do their homework. If presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. had done what they said they would do, we would already have overturned Roe because we wouldn’t have had Kennedy, Souter and O’Connor. There’s a very strong movement afoot in the conservative wing of the Republican Party to deny McCain the White House. Their attitude is, an enemy outside your camp makes you vigilant and unites you, but an enemy inside your camp makes you dead because he can cut your neck in the night or poison your food by day.

With the GOP’s Congressional electoral prospects looking increasingly dim and John McCain trailing by double-digits in current polls, it looks like right-wing activists see the writing on the wall and have started to deemphasize the importance of having ideological allies control the levers of political power: 

Jim Daly, Focus on the Family's president and chief executive officer, downplays the Bush administration's significance to the Christian right.

"Our advocacy for pro-family policies, at the federal and state level, has never been dependent upon who holds what office," Daly said. "We advocated for the sanctity of human life, the value of traditional marriage and other issues that affect the family before President Bush was in the White House, and we'll continue to do so after he leaves it."

Of course, this line of argument might be more convincing if Focus on the Family and its head, James Dobson, hadn’t played a key role in getting President Bush elected in 2000 and 2004 and gone all out to help the GOP retain control of Congress in 2006.  It would be even more convincing if Daly had not said this just days after Dobson and FOF spent an entire week attacking Barack Obama and John McCain was not currently clamoring for a chance to meet with Dobson and try to win his support.

McCain told the activists Thursday that he also hoped to meet with James C. Dobson, founder of the influential group Focus on the Family, who has said he would not vote for McCain. "The senator spoke fondly of him, but believes there's probably room for some bridge-building," said Mike Gonidakis, head of Ohio Right to Life. Participants said McCain took detailed notes and listened intently. McCain's aides said they were satisfied with the meeting, and one called it "successful."

In its most recent “Washington Update,” the Family Research Council appears to be trying to call out John McCain on the fact that his website just isn’t religious enough:

A quick tour through the candidates' official websites may do more to predict who our next president will be than months of polling data. On one nominee's site, visitors can select from featured articles called, "When Faith Is Front and Center," "Reconciling Faith and Politics," and "Strengthening Families." In another section, they can scroll through the priority issues of "ethics," "faith," and "family" and read excerpts from speeches, watch video clips, and peruse editorials devoted entirely to this senator's religious conviction. If you attributed that content to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), guess again. The site belongs to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), whose party is vying for the "values void" created by the GOP's near-silence on its core issues. Unlike Obama's site, McCain's homepage is dedicated to "energy security," "global competitiveness," and "Iraq." Nowhere is faith or family referenced. With the exception of a blurb on human dignity, found on the bottom half of his issues menu, McCain's commitment to and record on social values are glaringly absent … Is it any wonder then that the gap of support between McCain and Obama is shrinking in the religious community? As of Friday, McCain was leading by only five percent among those who said that religion is an important aspect of their everyday life. The GOP's silence on marriage, particularly at this critical juncture in California, is deafening.

Oddly, if you actually bother to compare the two candidate’s websites, they don’t seem nearly as different as FRC makes them out to be.

Obama does have a “Faith” page consisting mostly of a link to a speech he delivered to Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America Conference in 2006 and a link to a document entitled “Barack's Faith Principles. Other articles FRC cites look to be run-of-the-mill campaign issues - concerns about the issues such as “Ethics” and “Family” certainly are not unique to the so-called “Values Voters” FRC claims to represent and the "When Faith Is Front and Center” article they cite is basically a link to an op-ed by Obama supporter Douglas Kmiec.  

It’s not clear why FRC is so high on Obama’s website relative to McCain’s. FRC praises Obama for having a “Family” page even though it contains proposals for a bunch of things FRC loathes, such as providing a living wage and universal healthcare. On McCain’s site, what FRC dismisses as a “blurb” is actually a long “values” page dedicated to Human Dignity and the Sanctity of Life which is chalk full of the issues FRC and its ilk care about and even starts off by pledging to overturn Roe v. Wade which, for groups like FRC, has long been its top political priority:

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

The page goes on to set out McCain’s views on the importance of protecting marriage, protecting children from internet pornography, and restricting stem-cell research. It concludes with a declaration that “decency, human compassion, self-sacrifice and the defense of innocent life are at the core of John McCain's value system and will be the guiding principles of a McCain Presidency."

McCain’s website also contains articles such as “John McCain: Keeping Faith, On His Own Terms” as well as others about his efforts to reach out to the GOP’s conservative Christian base and even the text of his remarks to FRC’s own Values Voter Summit.

FRC’s one-sided review of the websites seems to be an exercise in pressuring McCain into publicly discussing his faith more openly. As FRC’s Tony Perkins explained back in February:

“[McCain] must make social conservatives feel that he, No. 1, understands their issues; No. 2, believes in their issues; and No. 3, will advance them as president.”

Apparently, the only way McCain can do that, despite all the pandering he has already done, is to spend a lot more time talking about religion in a manner that FRC deems acceptable.

Over the last several months, one of the ways John McCain has been working to sell himself to the GOP’s skeptical right-wing base has to repeatedly promise them that, if elected, he will appoint justices like John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court – an effort that has recently been paying dividends.  

But over the weekend, McCain sought to woo supporters of Hillary Clinton and, according to press reports, seemed to be trying to downplay that promise.  As Politico reported:

Bower said he'd liked McCain's answer on judges, in which he "pointed out that he supported Bill Clinton with both Ginsberg and Breyer."

For its part, the New York Times reported something similar:

Mr. McCain, who opposes abortion rights, also promised he would not perform a litmus test on potential judges.

Not surprisingly, the Barack Obama campaign responded to McCain’s apparent back-tracking by highlighting this 2005 statement from long-time McCain supporter Gary Bauer claiming that the reason he supported McCain over George Bush in 2000 was McCain’s explicit promise that he would indeed have a pro-life litmus test for his nominees:

Somewhat surprisingly, McCain had the support of Gary Bauer, the social conservative, who had dropped out of the race by that time. “I wanted a commitment from either George Bush or John McCain that if elected he would appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court,” Bauer told me. “Bush said he had no litmus test, and his judges would be strict constructionists. But McCain, in private, assured me he would appoint pro-life judges.”

In an attempt to clear up the matter, CBN’s David Brody contacted Bauer, who is now trying to spin the discrepancy in a way that suggests that Obama is “the one with a credibility problem”:  

"When I met privately with Senator McCain in 2000 he did not tell me that he would have a pro-life "litmus test" for judges. Instead he described the type of judicial philosophy he would require in his judicial appointments. I interpreted that judicial philosophy to be one that would reject judicial activism.

"Senator Obama is the one with a credibility problem, not Senator McCain. Senator Obama says he wants a compassionate American where the 'little guy' is protected. Instead he proudly supports partial birth abortion, and abortions in the last months of pregnancy. He abandons the littlest guy of all - our unborn children."

So Bauer would have us believe that the reason he didn’t support Bush in 2000 was that Bush wouldn’t promise a litmus test while McCain would, but that, now that he thinks about it, said litmus test really wasn’t a litmus test at all, it was really just a vague statement about judicial philosophy - a statement about philosophy that Bush was apparently unwilling to make to Bauer despite the fact he was regularly making exactly that sort of statement in public settings, such as the first debate with Al Gore when he said “I don't believe in liberal activist judges. I believe in strict constructionists. Those are the kind of judges I will appoint."

If anybody had a “credibility problem” here, it’s Bauer.

Deal Hudson reports that John McCain “met privately” with Rev. Frank Pavone, the Priests for Life head most famous for calling Michael Schiavo a murderer, before a Catholic-outreach meeting in Philadelphia. McCain has been holding events with supporter Sen. Sam Brownback, whose brief presidential run attracted a lot of attention from social conservatives, and who promised to court the Religious Right activists such as Pavone on McCain’s behalf.

Pavone has come a long way since 2005, when he denounced McCain for joining the so-called “Gang of 14” compromise over extreme judicial nominees. “It is unfortunate that Senator McCain has joined those senators who are trying to prevent godly men and women nominated by their president and supported by a majority of senators from serving on our nation's courts,” Pavone said. “There is not going to be a church in America that is not going to know exactly who those senators are.”

Indeed, Pavone was a typical advocate of the notion that opponents of extreme nominees were somehow anti-Christian bigots. When John Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court, Pavone warned Democrats that “If they again attempt to attack a nominee's faith or pro-life convictions,” they would be “held accountable.”

At the same time, Pavone is a vocal advocate of involving the church in politics, whether urging priests to tell their congregations to vote based only on abortion or supporting bishops who make pro-choice politicians’ communion into a political football.

Pavone is planning a conference call on June 25th to “inspire and equip pro-life citizens to make a difference in this year’s national elections, and to awaken the conscience of Americans about abortion.”

Shortly after Sen. John McCain publicly rejected the endorsements of John Hagee and Rod Parsley, Parsley released his own statement rescinding his endorsement and then sort of disappeared from sight.  Sometime since then, Parsley apparently decided that he had a bit more to get off his chest and so he released a video on his Center for Moral Clarity website in which he reiterated many of the points he made in his initial statement but added some attacks on what he claimed were the "politically vicious and misguided" hit-squads who exposed his radical views, claiming that his views on Islam are “very much in the mainstream” and insisting that he made a “clear distinction between Muslim terrorists and the vast majority of peaceful Muslims.” 

Of course, Parsley is on record having told his congregation and massive TV audience that "America was founded in part with the intention of seeing this false religion [Islam] destroyed" and "Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world," as well as writing that so-called "Muslim extremists" are really "mainstream believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam."

Video and transcript:

I’d like to take a few moments and respond to the recent media reports regarding my statements in the book “Silent No More” about Islam.  It doesn’t surprise me that, as I continue to engage the culture with a thoroughly Biblical worldview that political hit-squads have begun to describe some of my views in the most ominous and extreme terms. I expected that opponents of that worldview would try to make a connection between myself and the extreme views of other ministers such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This is what we’ve seen play out over the past few days. Certainly, I’m disappointed with those in the media who have misrepresented my views for political gain and who have lied in pursuit of political power.  It’s a sad moment in American politics; one of the many in the recent election cycle.   

My views on Islam, which have come under such scrutiny and misrepresentation, are very much in the mainstream.  Anyone who has read the entire chapter on Islam in my book “Silent No More” understands that what I have said is echoed from the White House to the State Department, from leading universities to the pulpits of our nation. I believe that radical Islam is one of the greatest threats to Western civilization and that conflict has roots in our American history.  I have always, and I will continue, to make a clear distinction between Muslim terrorists and the vast majority of peaceful Muslims who are appalled at the bloody results of suicide bombers and mass murders. Once again, I unapologetically denounce those who spread death in the name of Allah while I continue to believe peace-loving Muslims need the full of all Christians, and Christians must provide understanding, cooperation, and friendship to peace-loving Muslims throughout the world who share our desire for democracy and peace.

I understand that the raw truth of the pulpit cannot survive untempered in the political sphere. Still, I believe that clergy of all faiths should be able to speak into the lives of our political leaders without every doctrine and statement of those religious leaders being transformed into political weapons by the politically vicious and misguided.

You know that something odd is happening within the Republican Party when a high-profile Religious Right leader is publicly advising John McCain NOT to seek the endorsement of other high-profile Religious Right leaders.  

And you know that something really odd is happening when that figure is Ralph Reed, whose own political career tanked thanks to McCain’s own investigation into the corrupt world of Jack Abramoff.   Yet here Reed is, nearly two years later, doling out campaign advice to McCain as the candidate struggles to overcome the controversy generated by the endorsements of John Hagee and Rod Parsley:

John McCain should stop seeking endorsements from evangelical pastors and instead appeal directly to their church members, said Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition executive director.

“John McCain doesn't need to be standing at a bank of microphones next to a particular leader,'' Reed said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's “Political Capital With Al Hunt,'' to be broadcast today. “My advice would be stay away from endorsements and stick to the issues.''

…

Reed, 46, said McCain's strategy of wooing evangelicals shouldn't be “top down,'' and his meetings with leaders and activists should be held in private.

“He needs to connect with them'' by touting his opposition to same-sex marriage and his anti-abortion record, said Reed, a regional director of President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.

…

McCain has made “some real progress'' in repairing his relationship with evangelicals, Reed said. He cited a May 6 speech at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in which McCain promised to choose judges in the mold of U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Both were among the five justices who voted in June 2007 to weaken the senator's landmark campaign-finance law.

“It was one of the best speeches on judicial conservative philosophy from a Republican nominee in my career,'' Reed said.

McCain clearly needs some help on figuring out how best to woo the right-wing base he needs in November, but it’s not clear that he should be taking advice from a guy who lost his own Republican primary race because of his history of exploiting that base for professional gain.