pandering to pastor rick

Let the pandering begin. Last night the official pandering for votes began in earnest at Pastor Rick's Megachurch just down the road in the one of the wealthiest sections of American - a suburban enclave just outside of Mission Viejo known as Lake Forrest. They wanted to have a minority in the audience, but then Obama was there, so they figured they'd met the racial diversity of their congregation.

You probably weren't there, being one of the heathens who watched the Michael Phelps Olympics® on NBC. I'm sure this church does good work. With 20,000 members, they are a force, but do we really need our Presidential candidates trying to convince the world why Jesus will be in the White House? Aren't these the same folks who decry the religious clerics who rule other nations?

Audubon Society has a membership in the millions. As does the Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club. Can we expect the candidates to sit down with the leader of one of these environmental groups and be interviewed for 45 minutes about how they stand on global climate disruption? Not going to happen.

The candidates went to California and bowed down in deference to a tv preacher because California is the electoral college prize and because, as John McCain, said, the failure of his first marriage, was his greatest moral failure. His second greatest failure apparently being a puppet to the war-mongering, religious fanatics who are currently in charge of the nation. Obama went because he's afraid to continue to be portrayed as not-Christian-enough. And I thought he was a Muslim.

Photo: Monica Almeida, The NY Times