Son of an architect of the Christian Right pleads with Obama to stop being bipartisan

[ck4829]

Frank Schaeffer, whose father Francis was influential in the rise of the Religious Right, has penned an open letter to Barack Obama to tell him that they cannot be worked with:

"As someone who appeared numerous times on the 700 Club with Pat Robertson, as someone for whom Jerry Falwell used to send his private jet to bring me to speak at his college, as an author who had James Dobson giveaway 150,000 copies of my one of my fundamentalist "books" allow me to explain something: the Republican Party is controlled by two ideological groups. First, is the Religious Right. Second, are the neoconservatives. Both groups share one thing in common: they are driven by fear and paranoia. Between them there is no Republican "center" for you to appeal to, just two versions of hate-filled extremes.

The Religious Right supply the kind of people who at McCain and Palin rallies were yelling things such as "kill him" about you. That's the constituency to which your hand was extended when looking for compromise on your financial bailout bill.

There's only one thing that makes sense for you now. Mr. President, you need to forget a bipartisan approach and get on with the business of governing by winning each battle. You will never be able to work with the Republicans because they hate you. Believe me, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the norm not the exception. James Dobson and the rest are praying for you to fail."

http://rightwingwatch.org/content/right-wing-leftovers-15

[murielm99]

1. Wow.

Just wow.

[glinda]

10. That was my reaction. Wow.

[roguevalley]

23. I heard about him. He calls his father the most evil and vile man in

the universe, a murderer with blood on his hands. And he uses those words. I salute this guy. I feel for him and I support his point. It must be awful to hate a parent. Mine are, were and ever will be my heroes.

[pilsner]

64. That is not true....

....I've heard Schaeffer interviewed and have read some of his work. I think he feels like his father didn't realize what the religious right would morph into. I think he believes his father would be horrified at Dobson, Robertson, etc too if he were alive.

[murielm99]

2. And people are making donations to Planned Parenthood

in Sarah Palin's name? :rofl:

I wish I had known that. I just sent in my annual donation.

[democracy1st]

3. great piece K & R

[barbtries]

4. i hope president obama listens

because i am sure every word is true. they've been demonstrating the same all along. believe it. you can't reason with crazy.

[liberal N proud]

5. I don't think being hateful is something Jesus would approve

Mr Dobson can't practice what he is supposed to preach.

[librechik]

14. They aren't worshipping Jesus. they're worshipping Dobson

completely UN CHRISTIAN and UN AMERICAN!

[TWiley]

16. Most Christians are actually Paulists ....

They follow the teachings of the apostle Paul more than they do the teachings of Jesus.

[liberal N proud]

21. All in the name of Jesus

[Joey Liberal]

28. Amen nt

[JDPriestly]

49. Good point. You are so right.

[Patchuli]

70. A lot of Christian women

abhor Paul for the misogynist he was...

[ProfessorGAC]

73. You Mean The Paul Who Heard Voices. . . .

. . .after landing on his head when he fell off a horse?

Seems like they're following the rantings of a crazy person.
GAC

[ooglymoogly]

22. Beware false prophets bearing false witness and sermonizing

hate.

[AlbertCat]

36. Beware prophets, period. They are all false.

You cannot predict the outcome of complicated events.

[TWiley]

72. Science and Mathmatics successfully predicts the outcome

Science and Mathmatics successfully predicts the outcome of many complicatd events. Putting a man on the moon is very compicated, but not much of a chore for science anymore.

Unfortunately for them, the predictive models generated by religion are not very successful. In fact, their results closely resemble those of luck. The prediction of the return of Jesus has gone horribly wrong, and nobody has seen him for over two thousand years. oops

[ooglymoogly]

74. Edgar Cayce was a proven prophet and never asked for a dime....but generally I agree with

you...those claiming that god is speaking to them in order to bend minds are lunatics, or worse; Most likely far worse.

[MadMaddie]

51. Worshiping false idols...

but we know how they pick and choose what they want to believe from the bible.

[provis99]

66. why not? Jesus said to hate your family

Christianity is founded on hatred; fundamentalists are at least honest about that.

[Bette Noir]

67. I'm sorry about whatever happened to make you so bitter,

but you shouldn't take it out on innocent bystanders.

Some very good people are Christians, people like Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, and about a third of my personal friends. They don't deserve to be punished for the bad apples (cough*sarahpalin*cough) who preach hatred in the name of Jesus.

[psychmommy]

6. i think the pres realizes this.

they look like such assholes as he extends his hand and they smack it down. it makes their inherent evil undisguisable and their fake love of God and working in his name blatantly false. he has a 75% approval rating. during the campaign when mccain and palin were having hate rally's normal repubs were appalled. only the lunatic fringe is hanging in there. i enjoy watching them marginalize themselves. the convo in this nation is slowly changing. the repubs sound like they don't care about the people with their tax cuts and no support for the unemployed. you can get away with that crap when most people have job security but that is not the case right now. i am enjoying the theater.

[UpInArms]

7. I'm okay with Obama continuing to show the clinched fist of the

closed minded bigoted Rs.

He continues to be who he is regardless of their anti-American selfishness that demands that the only cure for the economy is one of the root causes of its collapse - the greed at the top that they feed with more tax cuts for the already well healed

[JDPriestly]

50. Obama takes the heat so well. He is about the only person

who could keep his hand stretched out this long without erupting in anger.

That's great, but he caved in to the Republicans without sufficient gain for his side. That's bad. In all fairness to him, a lot of the caving went on in Congress.

[gratuitous]

8. Franky Schaeffer wrote THAT?

Yikes! I wonder what happened to him? Schaeffer's not kidding when he runs down the list of his right-wing credentials. My best friend and I used to describe him as a scary moon monster, he was that far out there. I wonder if he's had a "come to Jesus" moment where he saw the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of the circles he was raised in?

Incredibly odd to see those sentiments attributed to Franky Schaeffer. And before breakfast!

[Critters2]

43. Happened long ago. He left the Evangelical movement and became

Eastern Orthodox in the mid-90's, maybe earlier. I heard him give a speech about that no later than 1998, when I was living in Champaign. Not long after that, he started talking about politics as well, consistently moving leftward.

[glitch]

9. I cannot recommend this enough. Some crazy you can't fix.

It's possible Obama is only appearing to work with them while he siphons off their hostages (the ones who are brainwashed but can be saved). I hope that's what he's doing. Thanks for posting K & R

[AlbertCat]

38. I hope that's what he's doing

Indeed.

He MUST appear more fair than a Boehner or Delay or Cheney. That's not hard. And even though the "Stimulus" has been watered down, most of the stuff in it can be fixed later in other ways (and we'll see if it is.)

But part of "changing the tone in Washington" is not acting like the GOP and not letting the minority party not get a conference room or leaving them out of the process like in the Bush years. We Dems don't WANT to be Repugs, and though it's not the easy way, we must listen to them..... before laughing at them and ignoring what they say.

Let them show how out of touch they are. Obstructionists! They can hang themselves with all the rope we give them.

Now if we can just get the MSM to ignore the GOP instead of STILL putting them on 3 time more than Dems. But that will also happen in time, I think.

[glitch]

52. I don't know, I almost want them to be constantly on, because. a) they can't hide crazy

not for long anyway (Boehner, Delay and Cheney are enormously helpful in this regard) and b) they make the case that the corporate media is blatantly biased for us, if the media became more subtle (because you know the pro-corporate bias won't go away, not so long as they are owned by not just corporations but very pro-corporate-government corporations) which would make our case slightly more cumbersome.

I think the corporate media are making themselves irrelevant, to the extent that they are a subset of the great Republican mass suicide. Already we see the flowering of what comes after them, on the net but also on tv; especially linktv and fstv. More healthy any, de-centralized is better than centralized IMO.

[tblue37]

59. BTW, what ever happened to Al Gore's "Current TV" baby?

I never hear anything about it any more.

[glitch]

60. Dish carries it. I don't watch it much because it's not my style (I am bit old-fashioned)

but I can see where young people would like it and get involved.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. Go Frank!

And I will second his words. Frank used to be one thing, now he's another. Redemption.

[rvablue]

12. Advice straight from the horse's mouth. IMO, therefore it should be heeded. Anyone know

what turned this guy sane??? I would love to know.

[ms liberty]

13. K&R, and marking for later perusal...n/t

[ceile]

15. I heard an interview on Fresh Air w/ him.

It was great. The man sees things for what they are- we cannot work with the extreme right. It's just not possible.

[EraOfResponsibility]

17. kick and rec'd

[alfredo]

18. KeeK

[mmonk]

19. "don't cast your pearls before swine"

"Your Republican opponents are not decent people but ideologues bent on destroying you."

There you have it Mr. President, not from us, but from someone who's been on the inside of the madness.

[foxfeet]

20. K&R

:kick:

[crazylikafox]

24. k&r

[D23MIURG23]

25. This should have been self-evident.

But I'm glad its being put to Obama given that it obviously wasn't.

[thereismore]

26. Read the whole thing here: It is brilliant!!!1!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/an-open-letter-to-preside_b_165359.html

[Joey Liberal]

27. The republicans are more dangerous than Al Qaeda nt

[rufus dog]

29. Looks like someone is reading his bible

And has the brain to comprehend what is written.

[AlbertCat]

45. Looks like someone is reading his bible

And has the brain to comprehend what is written.

********************

and that it's malarkey. The Iliad has more and better ideas than the friggin' Bible. The Vedas are more interesting and relevant.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

56. I'm with you on this! The Babble...

There are some passages that seem insightful or compassionate, but other than that, it's always seemed full of hate, violence, ridiculous commands, authoritarian fear mongering, rampant sexism, and indecipherable metaphors (and I wouldn't consider myself a slouch in the abstract thinking department...)

I'll take the Lotus Sutra, for sure.
and certain New Age stuff...much more inclusive and compassionate.

bible, feh x(

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

30. I'm in total agreement

[wizstars]

31. I was given one of his father's books as a gift years ago....

...IT WAS SCARY!!! beyond words--I could not believe the tripe he put out. I knew then that what we now call the Religious Right would be a scourge upon America and the world.

[trekbiker]

32. "the embittered lunatic fringe of our country"

every country has a lunatic fringe. Unfortunately for us the lunatic fringe is about 25-30% of the population. I imagine things are better in most western countries where the lunatic fringe is probably 10% or less of the population. There is no reasoning with these people.. Ever. Better to isolate them. Put them in a box. Hard to do while they control so much of the corporate media and practically all of AM talk radio. but not impossible.

[FrenchieCat]

33. The only reason this letter was written is precisely because of what President

Obama is doing.

That means the President's approach is working. Hel-Looo. :rofl:

[Riverman]

34. Thank you! Darwin Loves You!

[Kajsa]

35. Mr. Shaeffer is an intelligent man.

I hope President Obama listens to him.

[Cha]

37. Oh wow..I read that wrong at first..

I thought it was another disingenous mccain like whine. "To be more bi-partisian."

Double WOWWOW..coming from an insider! Those faux religious batshit crazies may being "praying" for Obama to fail but it's devil's work they want.

[Beartracks]

40. Kick. Nice... n/t

[Critters2]

39. I love Frank Schaeffer! nt

[SpiralHawk]

41. Republicons really do HATE America

Chickenhawk Republicons are unpatriotic, and want America to fail so they can have their ugly Homeland

[Maineman]

47. According to my brother-in-law, they have a different

idea of how the world should be. You can say that again.

I was thinking that Republicans work for the wealthiest among us. Whoever they work for, they (their behavior) is/are ugly as hell.

[and-justice-for-all]

42. "stop being bipartisan" I'll second that...nt

[Occam Bandage]

44. It seems he has the same mindset of his father,

only with different policy particulars. They enemy is evil, there can be no compromise, we must fight, fight, fight them, all without realizing that there's a great gulf of people who are neither on your team nor on the enemy's.

[DinahMoeHum]

46. Frank Schaeffer called John McCain a cad back in June 2008.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/mccain-the-cad-a-study-in_b_106286.html

[wroberts189]

48. Amen !!!! KNR

[LovableScamp]

53. A smile

just crept on my lips watching Kieth O tonight with President Carter when Carter said republicans are like robots and vote the way they are told to vote... LOL priceless!

[Lorien]

54. Proud to add rec #90. nt

[TK421]

55. He's actually a thinking person? WTF?

[bonito]

57. Normally I wouldn't agree

But Obama is up against a media that can make him or break him, OK the fairness doctrine again, that alone is a big hurtle to be reckoned with.

[Bryn]

58. Hugs Hugs Hugs for Frank Schaeffer

Obama, he is giving you an excellent advise.

[peacetalksforall]

61. You know what? President Obama should announce that he will continue to reach out

to the 15 or 16% who voted for George Bush in 2000 and 2004.

He should tell the 27-29% hardcore followers that when he asks for bi-partisanship consideration of certain subjects, he doesn't want to put them in an uncomforatable position so they shouldn't worry that they have to react to each of his calls for bi-partisanship.

[Fearless]

62. Absolutely! Let's forget everything that got us here!

Idiot.

[lumberjack_jeff]

63. Yes. Dance with the one that brung ya'. n/t

[PatSeg]

65. I'm stunned

Plain and simple truths from a very unlikely source. The world is really shifting.

[BrklynLiberal]

68. and any form of compromise on the part of the Dems is seen as weakness by the repukes.

They laugh and claim victory.

[orleans]

69. k&r n/t

[Piewhacket]

71. Holy S*. If this guy who he says he is? Is this on the level?

Damn! Its what we all had figured out, but yikes
this is a statement of war, with no quarter.

I knew they were fucked up. I knew they were vicious scum.
But this is what 15 years of media hate speech has bought us.
Obviously we need to protect ourselves from these animals.