Patterico, though, looks at the actual exchange and notes quite a discrepancy:
WICKSOL: When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?
MCCAIN: Oh, I don’t remember. Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly, I don’t see how it matters.
Later in the interview, McCain says:
I’ve been on the campaign trail for so long I don’t remember when I last filled up my own gas tank, but I certainly did for many, many, many years and I understand the difficulties and challenges that it poses for the people of California and my home state of Arizona.
Think Progess cites this as evidence of “McCain’s cluelessness about gas prices.”
But McCain isn’t saying he doesn’t know the price of gas. He is saying that he doesn’t remember the last time he pumped his own gas, and how much it cost then.
So, does John McCain know the cost of a gallon of gas in America? Yes, he does. Here’s a news story from June 18:
“The price of a gallon of gas in America stands at more than four dollars. Yesterday, a barrel of oil cost about 134 dollarsm” said McCain.
Again, that McCain quote is from June 18 — six days before the O.C. Register interview that Think Progress uses to claim McCain doesn’t know the price of gas.
This Think Progress post is a lie. At best, the story is that McCain doesn’t remember the last time he pumped his own gas. Even that is a non-story, since nobody pumps their own gas while on the campaign trail. Someone ask Obama when he last pumped his own gas.
Another liberal blog, Comments from Left Field, jumped on the lie and is still trying to smear McCain as “irritated,” even after Think Progress was exposed:
The high price of gas is extremely important to ordinary people who aren’t multimillionaires running for president with a Secret Service detail to take care of all the mundane details. Which means that McCain is being dismissive about an issue that affects the daily lives of millions of Americans. It should not be “irritating” to answer such a question.
And MyDD, usually a pretty good lefty blog, only altered the title of his post, but it’s still off target:
McCain Didn’t Know the Price of Gas, Doesn’t Think It Matters
Why can’t liberals just admit their mistake? Because liberals thrive on emotional reaction that is not based on facts. Liberals prefer to create a commotion hoping Americans won’t notice the truth. If they create enough of them, at a rapid pace, Americans can’t keep up and they’ll be suckered into believing nothing more than rhetoric. Efforts to slap labels of “Out of Touch” or “Elitist” on John McCain in this case is no exception. Even when the truth is is spelled out, liberals know they must keep their turmoil running. This one has simply run out of gas
Earlier this week, liberals went off their rocker defending Obama’s biblical worldview against Dr. James Dobson’s comments that he distorts the bible. Dobson was referring to an Obama speech two years ago, which had liberals scrambling to come up with a website defending Obama. The result was JamesDobsonDoesntSpeakForMe. Today, we learned that an Obama campaign worker was instrumental in the launch of that website.
Caldwell, who is affiliated with the website JamesDobsonDoesntSpeakForMe.com, initially told OneNewsNow that the website was operated by Matthew 25, a political action committee working with Obama supporters. However, upon investigation, it was found that the site was actually registered to Alyssa Martin, an intern in the Obama campaign’s “religious affairs” department. The domain registration has since been changed to Pastor Caldwell’s name.
In an earlier interview, Caldwell told OneNewsNow he did not know Alyssa Martin, but on Thursday afternoon admitted the intern had been helping him set up the website. He also reported that to his knowledge, she is no longer with the Obama campaign.
It is not surprising to learn that an Obama staffer was involved in the setup of this website. It pairs Dobson statements with Obama statements that do not correspond. It gives the appearance that Obama is responding to Dobson, when in fact, the reverse is the truth. Just as Obama plucks scriptures out of context, he has his staff painting an a false image of other Christians in an attempt to hide his wolf’s clothing from the sheep.
In addition, on Father’s Day, Barack Obama made a speech at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois, in which he said that “We need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn’t just end at conception.” I am thrilled that Sen. Obama believes in the responsibility of fathers, but his voting record contradicts his own statements. He consistently has voted to end life after conception.
Tony Perkins of Family Research Council recorded a video response to this message in which he asks Senator Obama: if my responsibility as a father began at conception, isn’t that when the lives of my children began?
Of course, Obama’s answer will be that he personally disagrees with child-killing, but the choice should remain legal for women. This may pass as a convincing argument to a liberal, who has no absolutes, and creates values to mold to any given issue. But to a Christian, you cannot twist a moral issue into a political one without distorting the bible. The bible is very clear that murder is a sin. And since most of our Constitution was based on biblical values, the taking of innocent life is illegal. There is a biblical mandate for Christians to defend the defenseless. Obama’s distorted interpretation of the bible results in a personal view and political action that contradict one another.
A team of patriotic leaders are working together in a historic undertaking with the goal of sending the largest single shipment of care packages to U.S. troops in American history. The care package drive will result in the shipment of not just 1,000 care packages—a feat accomplished by the Grand Ole Opry in October 2007 (Source Link). Organizers similarly won’t settle for just the 10,000 packages shipped as part of an impressive effort undertaken by the Nevada Girl Scouts (Source Link). And they plan to surpass the efforts of the terrific organization, Operation Gratitude, which undertook a multi-day effort to pack and ship 50,000 care packages last year (Source Link).
Liberals still have their undies in a wad since yesterday…they couldn’t have slept well like that. Yesterday, Dr. James Dobson accurately noted on his radio broadcast that Barack Obama has been distorting the bible in an effort to steal a few evangelical votes away from John McCain. Obama’s response? A dagger:
“I think you’ll see that he was just making stuff up, maybe for his own purposes.”
Wow, Barack, don’t overwhelm us with any biblical justification as to why you claim to be a Christian while voting for child-killing. Oh wait, there isn’t any. It’s called political expediency. You say you are a Christian in an effort to bring more evangelicals to your side. But you don’t vote like one, otherwise you’d lose the support of your party. But really, don’t hold back, just a one-liner, that’s great.
Obama supporters also responded to Dobson.
The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Methodist pastor from Texas and longtime supporter of President Bush who has endorsed Obama, said Tuesday he belongs to a group of religious leaders who, working independently of Obama’s campaign, launched a Web site to counter Dobson at JamesDobsonDoesntSpeakForMe. The site highlights statements from Obama and Dobson and asks visitors to compare them.
Caldwell said he has great respect for Dobson’s advocacy for families, but said the criticism of Obama was “a bit over the top” and “crossed the line.”
What Caldwell means is that Dobson’s remarks did not fall in line with his humanist-diluted worldview. Obama’s belief is that Leviticus cannot be used to call homosexuality a sin because the same book includes a passage calling the consumption of shellfish a sin. With the exception of a new, baby Christian, any believer of just one year of faith understands that the ceremonial dietary laws were clearly and emphatically overturned under the New Covenant, whereas the commands against homosexual behavior (and other sexual sins) were not.
Now, if James Dobson used his radio broadcast to call Obama’s salvation into question, that would have been over the top and out of line. But he did not. And neither do I. But what I do dispute is Obama’s claim that his worldview is biblical. If it was, he would not allow himself to support liberal social policies. In the mind of a Christian, social issues take priority over economic and defense. Obama may be a born-again Christian (that is between him and God), but his support for liberal social policies disqualifies him from receiving the vote of any Christian. Any Christian who can justify the vote for someone as socially liberal as Obama has either been deceived into believing the remaining issues are more important than life, or worse and far more likely, they believe Obama’s lie that his interpretation of the bible is godly.
Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination…”
“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said. “… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”
He said Obama, who supports abortion rights, is trying to govern by the “lowest common denominator of morality,” labeling it “a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution.”
“Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies?” Dobson said. “What he’s trying to say here is unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.”
The, uh, “Reverend” Barry Lynn of Americans United moans:
“Dobson is an extremist who wants the government to impose his fundamentalist viewpoint. He simply cannot accept the fact that America is a diverse nation that welcomes people of all faiths and none. His tirade today is deplorable and probably the most insensitive of his career.
“Our Constitution mandates the separation of religion and government,” Lynn concluded. “That means each of us is free to follow our own consciences. Dobson has no right to set himself up as some sort of spiritual dictator who gets to make personal decisions for the rest of us.”
Lynn first statement is mostly true. But if Lynn thinks Dobson is an extremist, then that label would extend to nearly every Founder as well. In truth, it is Lynn who is the extremist. He quotes only a handful of Founders, usually out of context, to suit his agenda. His second sentence is completely inaccurate. Dobson most certainly understands the same thing the Founders understood about the diversity of religions in America. This country is made up predominately of Christians and has always been that way. Other religions are welcome to freely worship here, but Christianity is to be encouraged by the government, according to quotes and speeches during the Constitutional convention. And the third claim is a baseless opinion. Any Christian who understands the Bible should consider it more deplorable to be a hypocrite than a citizen merely criticizing the social stances of a presidential candidate.
His second paragraph is demonstrably wrong and couldn’t be further from the truth.
Here is another extremist liberal who wrote a response letter to Dr. Dobson. How do they come up with this stuff?
Dear Mr. Dobson,
I heard that you believe that Obama is distorting the Bible, and I must say that is a pretty devastating attack coming from a person like you who would obviously never distort the Bible. I mean everybody knows that the Bible is a book that is entirely focused on stem cell research, gay sex, and Sponge Bob cartoons. Look at Jesus, he was clearly a Republican. Never mind all that crap he said about peace and helping the poor and stuff, that is all outdated crap now. If he were still alive today he would clearly be calling to go blow some Iranian ass to kingdom come, and instead of giving aid to the poor there is no doubt he would be pushing to stop a minimum wage increase and working to ensure that our CEOs take home even more money. There is absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that if Jesus were alive today he would be waterboarding people for America, and he would be singing along to a Lee Greenwood song while he did it.
We all know that all that liberal crap that Jesus spewed in the Bible is distorting what Jesus’ position would be today so we ignore those parts people and focus on the parts that are important. Like the parts about Jesus hanging out with prostitutes, a tradition that many Republicans have followed him on.
You sure do have an interesting interpretation of the Bible, but I am sure that people will take you seriously when you criticize Obama for distorting the Bible. But that is not all you criticize Obama for Mr. Dobson, you also tell us he has a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Constitution.
You are completely opposed to those fruitcake interpretations though, you demand a barley cake interpretation. As Ezekiel 4:12-15 tells us “thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man.” The dung that cometh of man Mr. Dobson, that is certainly a verse of the Bible that you have lived up to very well, and that is no distortion.
Sincerely,
A Citizen
I’ll admit that Jesus is not a Republican nor a Democrat. But He is far more conservative-minded than liberal. For example, all that stuff in the bible about helping the poor are commandments to individual believers, not governments. When Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” he laid the basic foundation for conservative government. I realize that reading the bible in context is difficult for liberals, but it is necessary. Side note: one wonders since liberals are unable to grasp biblical concepts in their correct context, how much worse is their interpretation of the Constitution?
I also wonder if the letter writer is aware of the number of times in biblical history God led His people into war and wiped out entire nations. Didn’t think so.
So I’d probably be correct in assuming the writer has no clue what the bible says about making a profit for one’s work. Look at Matthew 25:15-29, a parable Jesus told about risk, entrepreneurs, and profit. Verse 28 is the key verse:
28″ ‘Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.
Jesus could have done the liberal thing and had the servant divide the talent (worth more than $1,000) evenly between the other two, after a 40% tax of course. Or he could have had the servant distribute the money to the poor. But Jesus is not a liberal. He believes His followers should receive a reward for their work.
Oh, and for the record, Jesus IS alive today. He’s just doesn’t have an earthly address. If you’re going to criticize someone, at least get their corporeal status correct.
Last week, I wrote about several formerly conservative black leaders that were considering voting for Obama simply because his skin color presented a historic moment. Those “Obamacans,” Republican fans of Obama, were blasted by at least two other black, conservative leaders, whom I applaud for being able to see past their race and understand that voting in America is about the character and values of a candidate, not skin color.
Two black conservatives — one a pastor, the other a leader of an urban ministry — say they can’t understand why a number of black Republicans have publicly said they are considering voting for Barack Obama this election.
Ken Hutcherson, an African-American pastor in suburban Seattle, says black conservatives who are supporting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama must remember what they have been saying about race for decades. Hutcherson says he understands being proud of a black man, but he notes that for years black conservative leaders have screamed that it is not about color — it is about the content and character of one’s heart. “… And some of these same guys seem to be forgetting that that’s what we’re supposed to be doing now,” says Hutcherson.
Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny in Los Angeles, concurs. He says he doesn’t care about being part of an historic moment. “There’s no way that I can vote for Barack Obama simply because of a historic moment and he is a black man. That doesn’t make sense to me,” he says. “We should judge people based on character and not color or historic moment.”
Both Hutcherson and Peterson echo my notion that these black “Republicans” are not true conservatives, nor are they defenders of any Republican value. They are RINO’s. And unfortunately, RINO’s act more like liberals in the Republican party than conservative Democrats act like conservatives in the Democrat party. For example, pro-lifer, Bob Casey, who defeated Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania’s hotly contested Senate seat in 2006, ran on a pro-life platform jerking the rug out from underneath Santorum’s entire campaign strategy. He then, no doubt with Nancy Pelosi’s gun in his back, endorsed Barack Obama during Pennsylvania’s Democrat primary. Now, why else would a pro-life senator endorse the most liberal presidential nominee in American history?
Conservatism takes effort. Liberalism is the default thought pattern we’ll assume if we don’t stop and actually think about what is occurring. Humanism (of which liberalism is a pillar), teaches that man is inherently good. It says that evil is not natural to man, but that evil exists in the world as a result of “cultural influences.” No liberal can explain then, how evil infiltrates a culture, since cultures are made up of people and people are all good.
This explains how RINO’s effect conservatism in a negative way and conservative Democrats are ineffective influencing liberals. If more Americans don’t come out of the trance that Obama, The Pied Piper, has them under, he will play his flute all the way to the White House. By then, it will be too late and the “Change We Can Believe In” will not the be change we all had in mind. And an “I told you so,” won’t pacify the conservatives who were trying to sound the alarm.
This is perfect, although, it’s thin ice for another politician to be giving the lecture. It illustrates the point that liberalism is all about emotion (watch the “Democrat” words) and NO facts (watch translation words).
Americans United for Elimination of Church and Religion Separation of Church and State has done it again. The state of South Carolina unanimously passed legislation to produce a license plate with the words, “I Believe,” featured with a large cross and a stained glass window. Note this minor detail: the plate is optional; no one is forced to purchase it. Of course, AU omits this in its news release and the entire argument. A voluntary, optional license plate in a convoluted way, violates the First Amendment.
The Summers v. Adams lawsuit charges that the Christian plate gives preferential government treatment to one faith.
“The state has clearly given preferential treatment to Christianity with this license plate,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “I can’t think of a more flagrant violation of the First Amendment’s promise of equal treatment for all faiths. I believe these plates will not see the light of day.”
The Americans United lawsuit says the Christian license plate violates the separation of church and state as well as freedom of speech. It notes that other religions will not be able to get similar license plates expressing differing viewpoints, nor can a comparable “I Don’t Believe” license plate be issued.
Not be able to get a similar plate? A contrasting, “I Don’t Believe,” can’t be issued? Where exactly does the Constitution indicate lawmakers must satisfy everyone, and simultaneously not offend anyone?
Clearly, Christianity was the preferred religion of the Founders. The Constitution they established did not need to mention Christianity or God. Their high esteem of Him is easily discovered by reading records of the Constitutional Convention. They founded a country that would welcome all religions to practice freely. But government was to encourage Christianity above all others.
If AU wants to get technical, the First Amendment was only intended to limit the scope to the Federal government. State governments were free to establish any religion they saw fit. Judicial precedent demonstrates this for over 150 years since the country’s beginning. It wasn’t until Chief Justice Hugo Black’s blunder in the 1947 Everson case, in which he systematically linked the Fourteenth Amendment (via a ruling from 1868 ) to the First Amendment (with a ruling from 1791). Funny thing is, that connection had always existed for 79 years prior with many, earlier courts and many Founders included, oblivious to such a connection.
There are reasons why the Founders instituted the balance of powers. Ever since 1947’s Everson we have seen plenty of them as a result of activist judges.
California’s Supreme Court is the most recent case in point. Yesterday at 5:01 pm, the state of California began legally marrying gays. But what most people don’t realize is that by having a handful of liberal, agenda-driven judges create new law, thus doing the job of the legislators, you don’t actually have a law. You have an opinion. The proper order of events after a decision, is the legislature then creates the law based on the opinion and the governor then has the option to sign or veto the new law.
This is like common sense for those working in the legal field. As such, Liberty Counsel filed a petition last week with the appeals court on behalf of the Campaign for California Families, asking the court to delay issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
“The California Supreme Court only addressed two of the many statutes regarding marriage. You can’t simply address two statutes when there’s literally hundreds of others, all of which reference ‘men’ and ‘women,’ ‘male’ and ‘female,’ ‘husband’ and ‘wife,’ all of which have to be addressed,” Mat Staver explains. (emphasis added)
The Liberty Counsel chairman says failure to take matters such as that under consideration is one of the primary reasons the U.S. and state constitutions do not let judges write laws. “All of the confusion illustrates one point: judges should not be in the business of being politically active lawmakers,” Staver points out.
The appeals court, according to the attorney, should stay the decision to give the legislature time to examine the hundreds of other state statutes that could come into conflict with the Supreme Court’s ruling. “It’s that court which is tasked with implementing the particular ruling. It’s at that level we’re asking, now, this court to do its job, to follow the rule of law and to stay this decision,” Staver says.
Chances of success for Liberty Counsel are slim – the appeals court has a little brother complex in regards to the Supreme Court. Lil bro probably won’t overrule Big bro.
We’ll have to wait until November when the marriage amendment will hopefully be passed. All indications and polls signify it will be. This critical amendment will then nullify every marriage certificate handed out to same-sex couples between today and November 4th.
Recent Comments