A group of national Religious Right leaders used a press conference held in Washington the day before The Call – a “non-political” youth prayer rally on the mall – to talk about the event and to denounce Sen. Barack Obama and criticize Christians who are considering voting for him. Lou Engle, the increasingly visible organizer of similar rallies around the country said the event was designed to mobilize young Christians around ending abortion. Immediately after saying the event was not political, and was not about endorsing a candidate, he launched into an attack on Sen. Obama’s pro-choice record and implicitly questioned the candidate’s faith, describing politicians “who say they’re Christian.” Engle, who is also actively backing anti-gay ballot initiatives on marriage, called pro-choice and pro-equality efforts “false justice movements.” Bishop Harry Jackson, the most visible African American Religious Right spokesman, wasn’t coy about his political message for the day: if Sen. McCain chooses a pro-abortion vice president he will give the election to Obama. Jackson called it “tantamount to political suicide.” Jackson also returned to his standard denunciation of abortion as “black genocide” and “pandemic extermination.” Jackson said that America needs God’s favor, and that this year’s election – an important “expression of desire” for the people of God – will basically let God know whether we deserve it. The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins said that it’s right for evangelicals to offer solutions on issues like AIDS, fiscal policy, and racial reconciliation, but that doesn’t mean all issues are equal. He said young evangelicals are more fervently anti-abortion than their parents, and that waning evangelical support for the Republican Party was a reflection of how poorly the party functioned in power, not a sign of reduced commitment. Asked about Sen. Obama’s outreach to evangelical voters, Jackson said he thought it was good to be considered a swing vote, and hoped that it could push both parties closer to evangelical concerns. Engle was less enthusiastic, denouncing Obama’s record on abortion issues in graphic terms and warning young evangelicals that if they compromised on abortion, history would stand in judgment of them the way it stands in judgment on churches’ silence on slavery. Former presidential candidate and long-shot VP possibility Mike Huckabee said the purpose of the event was “not political at all.” Huckabee, like Engle, cited Martin Luther King, Jr. as a role model, saying it took “not a politician but a preacher” to remind the country of the evils of racism. During Q&A, Huckabee said he’d support McCain no matter who he chose as VP, but he thought a pro-choice running mate would hurt McCain by draining enthusiasm and intensity from his evangelical supporters.

As we noted earlier this week, Focus on the Family yanked its video featuring Stuart Shepard asking supporters to beseech God with prayers so that Barack Obama’s Democratic Convention speech at Mile High Stadium in Denver would be washed out with “rains of biblical proportion.”

The video and attempt to hide it generated so much attention that Shepard was forced to apologize, kind of, in his latest video:

Despite their efforts to remove the video, someone else uploaded a copy of it to YouTube which quickly generated more than 100,000 views.  But now, Focus has gone after that version as well and gotten YouTube to remove it.

But try as they might, there are still several versions of the clip available on YouTube and now, News Blab 2008, which first posted the copy of the FOF video to YouTube, has gone ahead and posted it again on their own website, saying Focus “obviously [does] not understand Copyright ‘Fair Use’ when reporting a news story.”

On top of that, Good As You also has a copy of it posted on their website.

And now, so do we:

Get the Flash Player to see this video clip.

The AP's Nedra Pickler caught the right-wing website WorldNetDaily in particularly fine form yesterday while researching a story about Jerome Corsi, a serial liar and 9/11 conspiracy theorist who writes for the site:

"Corsi writes for World Net Daily, a conservative Web site whose lead headline Thursday was "Astonishing photo claims: Dead Bigfoot stored on ice."

[Right Wing Watch was first to report the Corsi/Bigfoot nexus yesterday] Pickler also quoted an Obama spokesman, whose review of Corsi’s new book – if it even counts as a book – was less than positive:

"Jerome Corsi is a discredited liar who is peddling another piece of garbage to continue the Bush-Cheney politics he helped perpetuate four years ago," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "His is just one of what will likely be many more lie-filled books rushed to print this election cycle, which are cobbled together from debunked Internet sources to make money and advance a partisan agenda. We will respond to these smears forcefully with all means at our disposal."

If WorldNetDaily is any indication, there is apparently money to be made in running a debunked Internet source, especially when you run fabulous ads like these:

As Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, and Lou Engle prepare for their press conference today to call on Barack Obama and John McCain to “spend more time talking about issues that matter to evangelical voters”  before this weekend’s “The Call,” Perkins is insisting that the weekend prayer and fasting event should not be seen as political:    

Perkins says "The Call" is not about political candidates or public policy issues. "Although we've got to be engaged, we have to realize that ultimately we need God's direction and hand upon this country; that changing a political party or changing a candidate is not going to make the ultimate difference," he argues. "The ultimate difference is going to come when this nation puts in proper place its allegiance to God Almighty and to Jesus Christ. So this is a focused call upon Christians to pray, to fast, to seek God on behalf of the nation this weekend."

Of course, that might be plausible if this event wasn’t taking place in Washington, DC only a few months before the election - just like it did back in 2000.It would be even more plausible if Engle, founder of The Call, wasn’t making statements like this every chance he got:

Hours before Obama and McCain take the stage at Saddleback, however, a very different evangelical gathering will be taking place at the National Mall. There, according to Lou Engle, founder of TheCall, thousands of evangelicals will gather for "cross-denominational solemn assembly" to pray and push evangelicals to keep marriage and abortion front and center in their minds.

...

Engle said he is concerned about the future of the evangelical movement, since "there aren't clear voices delineating truth." He insisted that marriage and abortion have to remain at the center of the movement, or "we are in danger of losing this whole country to the secularism of Europe."

Marriage and abortion may be moral issues, but they are also political issues and considering that Engle’s own mission is to ensure that “the issue of abortion will not be a secondary issue in these elections and that God will drive it like a wedge [into the campaign],” its absurd to claim that this event is not designed to try and impact the upcoming election.  

In fact, if Engle and his event were not designed to be political, he probably wouldn’t be voicing these sorts of complaints:   

"People see Warren holding hands with Obama at Warren's church and they think he is a Christian man, but when a candidate votes 100 percent for abortion, according to Planned Parenthood and NARAL, then that man's Christianity does not line up with the Christian truth upheld by the masses of true believers in America," said Lou Engle, founder of the Call, a group that holds cross-denominational events to promote spiritual awakening.

Mr. Engle, who is leading a gathering of people of all faiths on the Mall in Washington on Saturday, and high-profile evangelicals such as author Tim LaHaye say Mr. Warren is leading his followers astray and giving Mr. Obama equal footing with Mr. McCain, whose voting record is praised by pro-life groups.

As John McCain and Barack Obama prepare for their joint appearance at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, the current narrative is that it’s Obama who will be more at ease in the venue -- he has been very comfortable talking about his faith and the role that it plays in public life whereas McCain has been notoriously reluctant to do so:

The event will play to one of Obama's strengths, talking about his Christian faith, but it will also underscore the gulf between his views and those of the most conservative Christian voters.

Many of McCain's positions are more in line with the evangelical worldview, but he is uncomfortable - and some critics say unconvincing - while talking about his personal beliefs.

Given the importance of this issue to the Religious Right, McCain has been working hard to appease them, so it is not surprising that he agreed to attend the forum despite his discomfort with the format. As so, perhaps in preparation, McCain sat down with The Chicago Tribune for an “extended interview [in which he] talked about how his faith was tested during his years as a prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973, said God must have had a plan for him to have kept him alive, and reminisced about his appointment as informal chaplain to his cellmates”

"There were many times I didn't pray for another day and I didn't pray for another hour — I prayed for another minute to keep going," said McCain, who was brought up Episcopalian but now worships at North Phoenix Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church. "There's no doubt that my faith was strengthened and reinforced and tested, because sometimes you have a tendency to say, 'Why am I here?' "

McCain said his faith in God informs his decisions on issues of public policy. Christian conservatives are skeptical of McCain's commitment to many of the issues they care about, such as abortion and marriage. They have also been disappointed in his embrace of embryonic stem cell research. But McCain said he wrestled with that decision and hopes technology soon renders it obsolete.

Although polling suggests voters view faith as an essential ingredient in a president, McCain has never been a candidate to invoke God or dwell on religion. "In our case, faith is private," said his wife, Cindy, adding that once voters get to know him, "they will know he is a man of faith."

…

McCain's friends say they believe God had a plan for him, allowing him to survive to put him on the cusp of the presidency. He, too, acknowledges that idea, though cautiously.

"I can't help but feel like that to some extent, and I'm not a fatalist," said McCain. "I think it's remarkable that I've been able to survive so much and to have the opportunity to do the right thing. I do think we make our own choices, but certainly I think I was meant to serve a cause greater than my self-interest."

Mike Huckabee may not have had the most supporters during the Republican primaries, but he certainly had the most vocal supporters.  From the get-go, Huckabee secured the support of the Religious Right’s most fringe activists and even though he didn’t win the nomination, that hasn’t stopped his supporters from continuing to push his candidacy.  

Even before John McCain freaked out the right-wing base with talk of choosing a pro-choice running mate, we noted that Huckabee supporters were pressing him hard to pick their man for his number two slot.    And now it looks like they are threatening to abandon McCain altogether if they don’t get their way:

A group of Michigan social conservatives who support former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee threatened Thursday to abandon Republican nominee John McCain, upset that McCain's vice presidential choice may not reflect their anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage positions.

The uproar came after a pair of meetings Wednesday -- while McCain was campaigning here -- in which his campaign hoped to strengthen its support with religious conservatives. Huckabee supporters said they were especially upset at word that, at a meeting in Birmingham between McCain and a small group of conservative activists, a top McCain ally had floated the possibility he'd pick a running mate who is for abortion rights.

"We are totally done with McCain at this point," said Debra Mantey, one of the organizers of the other meeting, in Saginaw. She said she and many others in the group will refuse to help McCain's campaign unless Huckabee is on the ballot, or given the keynote address at the GOP convention.

Even the on-line activists who make up Huck’s Army are livid and threatening to mutiny against the GOP unless their demands are met:

WE WILL NOT VOTE FOR A MCCAIN TICKET UNLESS:

1)    Mike Huckabee is the VP; or

2)    Mike Huckabee is the KEY NOTE SPEAKER at the National GOP Convention

Know that our meetings here in Michigan with McCain prompted this urgent action--

Romney is being shoved down our throats here, and misinformation about us is rampant.

In addition, you may know that this also happened at one of the meetings:

"Several in attendance reported to me that Sen. Lindsey Graham seriously asked if social conservatives would support a vice president who favors abortion on demand.  They were shocked the question even had to be asked, and alienated that the McCain campaign appears to be even considering it." --Gary Glenn, Mich. American Family Assn. President

So now, we know what McCain thinks of us and our issues.  He is only concerned with catering to the independent voters.  We, who supported Mike Huckabee, the millions of voters who earned him a 2nd place in delegate count--are being ignored by McCain.  McCain must know that he will LOSE not only Michigan without us, but the election.  At this point, he does not HAVE US.   We've tried repeatedly to reach out to him, and he has ignored us. 

It is hard to overstate the shockwave that John McCain sent through the GOP’s right-wing base with his comments earlier this week that he would not rule out the possibility of naming a pro-choice running mate (though not a pro-gay one, of course).

Right-wing leaders were quick to denounce the statement, with Tony Perkins telling the Washington Times yesterday that “if he picks a pro-choice running mate, I don't see how he can win this race."  And today, Phyllis Schlafly weighed in, calling it a “mistake,” and others obviously share that assessment:

"If Tom Ridge is on the ticket, I will not be voting Republican," Home School Legal Defense Association President Mike Farris said told The Washington Times. He thought for a moment, then added: "I won't be voting Democratic either."

The widely influential founder and chairman of the American Family Association Chairman, Donald P. Wildmon, said a Ridge pick would be a "disaster for Republicans."

Concerned Women for America Chairman Beverly LaHaye said "many will walk" away from the Republican ticket if it includes a pro-choice vice president.

Elsewhere, state-based right-wing leaders, many of whom have had personal meetings with McCain, are likewise making their displeasure known: 

“It absolutely floored me,” said Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values. “It would doom him in Ohio.”

Burress emailed about a dozen “pro-family leaders” he knows outside Ohio and forwarded it to three McCain aides tasked with Christian conservative outreach.

“That choice will end his bid for the presidency and spell defeat for other Republican candidates,” Burress wrote in the message.

He and other Ohio conservatives met privately with McCain in June, and while the nominee didn’t promise them an anti-abortion rights running mate, his staff said they could “almost guarantee” that would be the case, Burress recalled.

Now, Burress said, “he’s not even sure [Christian conservatives] would vote for him let alone work for him if he picked a pro-abortion running mate.”

James Muffett, head of Michigan’s Citizens for Traditional Values, met with McCain along with a handful of other Michigan-based social conservatives Wednesday night.

…

To select a running mate who supports abortion rights would be “wrong-headed, short-sighted, fracture the Republican Party and not allow us to capitalize on the Democratic Party’s fracture right now,” Muffett argued.

“If he does that, it makes our job 100 times harder. It would dampen enthusiasm at a time when evangelicals are looking for ways to gin up enthusiasm.”

McCain, Muffett said, got that message in their meeting.

“Some people in the movement say it would be the kiss of death. He heard that in the room last night.”

Predictably, Gary Bauer - one of McCain’s earliest right-wing supporters who seems to only show up when the candidate does something to anger Bauer’s right-wing allies - appeared on the scene to assure them that there was nothing to worry about:

Gary Bauer, founder of the Campaign for Working Families, said he isn't worried.

"I’m confident that at the end of the day, the running mate will be pro-life," he told Family News in Focus.

McCain has a solid pro-life voting record on abortion issues and has promised to appoint "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court.

We reported earlier that the FBI believes that suspected Anthrax sender Bruce Ivins was motivated partly by his “right-to-life fervor.” Regardless of whether anti-abortion sentiment played a role in those attacks, there was never any doubt about the motivation behind the now forgotten anthrax scare that swept women’s health clinics the following month. Here’s an excerpt from an 11/29/01 FBI press release announcing new information about the then-fugitive suspect Clayton Lee Waagner:

During Labor Day weekend, 2001, Waagner abandoned a vehicle in Memphis, Tennessee, following a hit and run accident. Authorities recovered various items from the vehicle including a rifle, a shotgun, a pipe bomb, and anti-abortion literature. That same weekend, Waagner fled the area after committing a carjacking in nearby Tunica, Mississippi. Waagner had previously testified that he is an "anti-abortion warrior" and admitted to stalking abortion clinics around the country. During the second week of October 2001, more than 280 letters that threatened to contain anthrax were mailed to women's reproductive health clinics on the east coast. The envelopes were marked "Time Sensitive" and "Urgent Security Notice Enclosed." The envelopes also bore return addresses of the U.S. Marshals Service or the U.S. Secret Service. During the first week of November 2001 a second series of more than 270 anthrax threat letters were sent to women's reproductive health clinics via Federal Express.

It now appears quite possible that one deranged “pro-life” terrorist was inspired to action by another deranged “pro-life” terrorist. How tragic, and telling, that would be.

The FBI believes that Bruce Ivins – the FBI’s sole suspect in the 2001 anthrax terror attacks – was motivated in part by his fervent “pro-life” views to send anthrax-laden letters to two Democratic Senators and multiple media outlets, which killed five people and severely sickened others. We reported last week that Ivins, whose wife was the president of an anti-abortion group, was himself a longtime supporter of an anti-gay group that bashes Democratic senators and mainstream media outlets. But an affidavit released by the FBI and recent comments by investigators provide far more information about Ivins’ potential motivation. In a section of the affidavit titled “Frustrations with Members of the United States Senate,” investigators recount email messages written by Ivins concerning his “pro-life” views and frustration with civil libertarians in Congress over their opposition to Bush administration policies. They also describe an article found in his house from an anti-abortion newsletter which argued that Catholic senators like Leahy and Daschle “should be excommunicated for aiding and abetting abortion.” Additionally, NPR has reported that Ivins was connected to numerous anti-abortion groups and “did a great deal of mailing under pseudonyms and from various cities,” much of which “involved anti-abortion or Right to Life activities.” All of this has led officials to conclude that “Ivins’ right-to-life fervor was at least part of the reason he would target Daschle and Leahy.” If Ivins was in fact the anthrax sender, he would be far from the first “pro-life” advocate to resort to murder and terrorism. A perusal of the list of items confiscated by the FBI from Ivins’ home reveals these noteworthy items:
* Five (5) cards from Respect Life Committee * Black briefcase containing Glock 34 S/N KKP854; Beretta pistol s/n DAA274445; Glock 27 s/n ERP247 * Beige lockbox containing stunmaster 300s, airtaser, Stunmaster 100s, 2 peppersprays, batteries

As we’ve noted several times in the past, the National Black Republican Association is a fringe right-wing group that seems to have little in the way of staff or money, yet still manages to generate attention for itself every election cycle by running ridiculous ads and then waiting for the media to report on them:

[NBRA Chair Frances] Rice managed to put up a "Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican" billboard in South Carolina this year, and, leading up to the elections, ran a radio ad in swing states. In the ad a black woman says, "Dr. King was a real man," and another responds, "You know he was a Republican."

Rice said she wanted to start a conversation about the history of the Republican Party. The tactic proved its worth in media coverage. She ticks off the news outlets that covered the campaign.

"I spent a few thousand and garnered half a million in free coverage by my estimate," Rice said.

Given the success the NBRA has had with this tactic, they apparently have bigger plans in mind:  

A Sarasota-based group that grabbed national headlines when it put up several billboards in Florida proclaiming "Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican" says it will be doing it again.

This time the National Black Republican Association says it would like to put up 50 of the controversial billboards in Denver. The group wants the billboard to be up in time for the Democratic National Convention which is scheduled for August 25th - 28th.

Hmm … considering that the convention is now less than two weeks away, that seems like an expensive and almost impossible task.  But just to make sure, I called the advertising specialists at The Media Team in Denver to inquire about the cost and possibility of actually doing so.  

When I told them that I was interested in finding out the cost and availability of 50 billboards in Denver for the week of the convention, they literally laughed at me.  They then explained that the only things available at this late date would be Spanish language and low traffic billboards and, when I asked how much it would cost, hypothetically, to rent just one prime location billboard for the week of the convention, the estimate was $25,000, with the rates for other billboards ranging from $5,000 to $18,000 depending on location.  

So unless the NBRA has several hundred thousand dollars on hand – and a time machine that allows them to go back and make reservations for the billboards before they were all booked – it looks like this is just another self-aggrandizing boast designed to make it seem as if the NBRA has any influence at all.