(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
(h/t commentors Siubhanduinne and SIA, who emailed me separately demanding I use it)
__
Via TPMLivewire, totally non-partisan megachurch Prosperity-Gospel-humper Rick “Saddleback” Warren has cancelled his “presidential forum“:
Citing the negative climate of the current presidential race, Pastor Rick Warren on Wednesday canceled the Civil Forum with President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney originally scheduled to be held this week at his Southern California megachurch, the Orange County Register reports.
Warren’s forum four years ago at Saddle Back Church in Lake Forest, Calif., with Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was widely praised, but the pastor and best-selling author said the tenor of this year’s campaign runs counter to the spirit of the event.
“We created the Civil Forums to promote civility and personal respect between people with major differences,” Warren said in an announcement Wednesday. “The forums are meant to be a place where people of good-will can seriously disagree on significant issues without being disagreeable or resorting to personal attack and name-calling. But that is not the climate of today’s campaign. I’ve never seen more irresponsible personal attacks, mean-spirited slander, and flat-out dishonest attack ads, and I don’t expect that tone to change before the election.”
H/t commentor Lamnh. Some people say that Warren was worried about the risk of identifying Romney as a Mormon in front of God and his nominally-evangelical congregation, but I go with Occam’s Razor: Since the treasure-where-his-heart-is prosperity of Pastor Warren’s gospel lies in the gated community of Republican-friendly stalwarts like Erick Erickson, why risk so public a media airing of Romney’s charisma deficit compared to President Obama? Better to pass on this year’s debacle, and hope that Pastor Huckabee or another of the rising Talibangelical hopefuls doesn’t have too firm a spiritual-publicity grip on Jeb! or Rubio or whoever gets the ( R ) ticket in 2016…
How many cowardly apostates will desert the sinking ship? Charlie Pierce notes “Call Me Cynical“:
I couldn’t help but notice that Ann Romney told Brian Williams that she had experienced a flare-up of her multiple sclerosis last spring and that it had given her “a real scare,” of which, for reasons I decline to go into here, I have absolutely no doubt. (In fact, I’ve wondered from the start if the stress of a presidential campaign really was the best thing for her, but that’s her call and none of my damn business.) However, I am just cynical enough about her husband’s campaign to wonder quite seriously why we’re hearing about it, of all months, this month…
In a month in which the Republican party seems bound and determined never to get a vote from anyone with ovaries ever again, from the one person the campaign has going for it with any women at all, we get this little tidbit over which to empathize for a couple of days. I honestly wish the raw and open dishonesty of her husband’s campaign hadn’t made me so jaded. But then again, the Akin thing happened afterward.
SIA
SiubhanDuinne! Our hometown cartoonist gets front paged by AL! (didn’t you just have a b’day?)
I love the donkey’s expression. Heh.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Ah yes – the oh-so-civil Rick Warren who explicitly equated same-sex marriage with a brother marrying a sister, or an adult marrying a child.
WereBear
The stench of FAIL is like skunk; easy to pick up, very hard to get rid of.
arguingwithsignposts
I’m guessing someone decided they didn’t want to participate in Warren’s little shit show, or put too many demands on the event, and this is Warren’s way of bowing out with a double-barreled both-sides-do-it blast.
NotMax
So he’s admitting to being unwilling or incapable (or both) of exercising guidance and control of programming and running an event he created, held at his own church, and of which he is in charge?
There’s a word for that.
It rhymes with Howard.
Todd
@efgoldman:
She reminds me of the depiction of Gus Grissom’s wife in “The Right Stuff”.
Mike E
Yep, these douchehammers are proof that evolution is at work creating better Republicants, every damn day.
geg6
Fuck Rick Warren and, especially, fuck Ann Romney who thinks “those people” like you and me don’t deserve to know who and what she and her piece of shit husband are all about. I don’t usually wish bad things on others, but having a friend who died from MS without the gold-posed medical help that Ann Rmoney has makes me hope she suffers mightily from her disease and that her suffering equals that of my friend, Jill.
The Other Chuck
@NotMax: Scoured? Broward? Deflowered? I’m drawing a blank here :)
Mr Stagger Lee
Raw Story is coming out with a election model that says Romney wins. However before you grab the smelling salts or betting the house and laying the points, the guys running the election model say there are caveats. And also this only goes back to 1980.
SiubhanDuinne
@SIA:
I know! Proud to be f-p’d with you!
Yeah, turned 70 a couple of weeks ago. Yours was in July IIRC but I don’t recall the date. Hope you’re well.
jl
Pastor Warren couldn’t be guilty of the sin of bearing false witness, could he? Say it ain’t so.
SiubhanDuinne
@SIA:
I love his feet :-) and the fact that he is unscathed while the heffalump is battered, bruised and bloody. And missing a great chunk out of his ear à la Tyson-Holyfield.
lamh35
Photo of the day! Alright comic book fans, Superman has a new leading lady (in the comics that is..lol). Sound off: What do you think of Superman & Wonder Woman? and where does that leave Lois Lane???
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/238435847538618369/photo/1/large
NonyNony
@lamh35:
My initial reaction is “Why is DC comics publishing stories based on second-rate fan fiction ideas?”
My second reaction was “Oh yeah, their entire business model has been ‘publish second-rate fan fiction’ since the 70s”.
My third reaction was “Oh hell – if you’re going to publish second-rate fan fiction, why not just have Wonder Woman kissing Lois Lane instead and get it over with. Throw Superman kissing Batman in there and call it a night.”
Mnemosyne
Wanted to make my famous chicken chili for dinner tonight, but I only had one can of tomatoes. So instead I put in the can of tomatoes, a can of chicken broth, and a can of hominy and called it posole.
It’s still simmering, but the tastes I’ve taken of it so far have been pretty darn good.
Calouste
@Mr Stagger Lee:
That model doesn’t have a 100% success rate, because it has never been used before to predict an election. It is a model that has been developed recently and that when applied to the past results, matches them. I can give you a model that also matches the results since 1980 and that shows Obama will win. It’s called retrofitting. Whatever journal this is published in should be ashamed of itself.
SIA
@SiubhanDuinne: Happy belated birthday! Yes mine was July 12. I’m well, hope you are too!
Calouste
If you or your family are in bad health, don’t run for President, it’s a tough job. If they are and you do, don’t whine about it. And what happens if their situation gets worse during the Presidency? It’s not a job that comes with extended sick leave.
I thought Edwards should never have run for President in 2008, because his wife had a serious chance of dying of cancer while he would be President. Of course we now know that he didn’t give a shit about her, so it wouldn’t have made much difference.
burnspbesq
It is truly amazing, the shit that suddenly turns up when a soon-to-be college freshman decides to clean up his room.
I had completely forgetten that I own a FC Basel baseball cap, a souvenir of the month in 2005 when I flew 25,000 miles in 17 days (LA to Basel and Barcelona and back, home long enough to do laundry, and then off to Bangalore).
T-minus seven days and counting.
Bobby Thomson
Warren is totally ducking the Mormon thing.
In the Open Thread spirit, I recently discovered my estranged wife’s online dating profiles and it has had a . . . focusing effect on me. Ironically, I’ve sensed recently that she wants to improve our friendship. We had a “moment” a couple of weeks ago. I know that happens every now and then and doesn’t really mean anything.
And I have a feeling I’ll be up late again tonight.
MTiffany
Just came across this Greenwald piece in the Guardian.
“The bizarre, unhealthy, blinding media contempt for Julian Assange”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/22/julian-assange-media-contempt
Am I late to the prom again?
Narcissus
Didn’t Superman and Wonder Woman already do this once?
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
What do tomatoes have to do with chili? Chili is supposed to be made with chilies, not tomatoes. If that’s too spicy, use a milder kind of chili, but don’t dilute the flavor with tomatoes.
burnspbesq
@MTiffany:
I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s unhealthy about contempt for a megalomaniac who thinks he should be above the law.
AxelFoley
@lamh35:
Being a huge Superman fan, this has piqued my interest.
burnspbesq
@MTiffany:
Yeah, Greenwald is cashing in, just like he has so often accused those with whom he disagrees of doing. Imagine that.
Gretchen
@Calouste:
Exactly. I’m sorry she has ms, although I wish it gave her empathy for other sick people. But don’t bring it up every time you want a distraction like it’s our fault we’re making you do this. I read that her health was better in Utah than Boston, but he thought he’d have a better shot at being president after being governor of Massachusetts than Utah, so Mass. it was. He cares about her well-being about as much as Edwards cared about his wife’s well-being.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
I like tomatoes in my chili. So sue me.
burnspbesq
I loves me some Barry Riholtz. This legend appears at the top of the comments on his blog, The Big Picture.
Sly
Both 2008 campaigns were initially interested in a candidates forum conducted by American scientists on science-related issues (Lawrence Krauss was one of the organizers), but backed out at the last minute in order to attend Rick Warren’s “An Evening With Jesus” from which we as a nation learned absolutely nothing, mostly because the majority of the voting public is in the grip of fantastical illusions that are differentiated only by the degree to which they are morally and epistemologically repugnant.
Gus
My wife has MS. You wanna talk a real scare, think about losing insurance and paying $35k a year for meds that are now costing $200 a month. That’s pocket change for Mitt, but that’s real money for us. Fortunately for us the insurance provided by my job is good and relatively inexpensive, thanks to a management team that wants to take care of its people.
dance around in your bones
This strikes me as over-the-top hilarious.
Also, I had a friend with MS (shit, my SISTER has MS) and neither one could even begin to afford a horse of any kind for ‘therapy’
Plus, they never bitch and moan about it….I guess because no one in their family (the friend is dead by now, sister is not) is running for Prez.
Certainly not ME.
TheMightyTrowel
@NonyNony:
Throw Superman kissing Batman in there and call it a night.
You mean Apollo and Midnighter?
Ash Can
That has to be one of the lamest fucking excuses I’ve ever heard. I’d say the charisma-deficit concern is the least of it. Warren has already had this forum discussion with Obama — as noted in the excerpt above it went fine, and Warren knows what to expect from him. So what has changed is obviously Romney, and this weak-ass excuse says loud and clear that Warren thinks Romney will absolutely shit himself in this kind of forum environment.
As for Ann, I find it ironic that Charles Pierce calls her “the one person the campaign has going for it with any women at all” in light of the fact that I read somewhere today that her speech at the RNC is not going to be televised. D’oh!
Bruce S
Apparently the campaigns had declined to participate – this is Rick Warren saving face.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/6319/warren_cancels_forum_obama_romney_declined_to_attend/
Wag
@Bobby Thomson:
Don’t do it.
Ash Can
@Bruce S: If this is the case, it’s still a lame statement, but I certainly stand corrected on the reasoning behind it.
Platonicspoof
Hi Anne Laurie
The Charlie Pierce link has an extra h t t p : / /
Rick Massimo
So Rick Warren wants to gold a forum to improve the discourse, but now he refuses because he doesn’t like the state of the discourse.
Hell of a missionary this guy would make: “You want to send me WHERE?!? It’s all HEATHENS there!”
Bobby Thomson
@Wag: Some its already have been done and some others doubtless shouldn’t be.
Yutsano
@Gretchen: Neurological conditions do better in drier warmer climates. No one is certain of the exact why.
The Other Chuck
@AxelFoley: Larry Niven’s take on Superman’s … “romantic problems” is a must-read.
Pen
My mother has MS, is on disability retirement, and her insurance refuses to cover her MS meds. Ironically enough that should mean my first-hand experience should make me sympathetic to Romney’s condition. But I’m not a good person and it doesn’t, just reminds me that the rich bitch gets better healthcare than my mother every could and her husband is running on a platform to ensure that fact never changes.
bob h
I’m certain Brian didn’t ask her how she felt about her husband killing healthcare for tens of millions while she enjoys the best care money can buy. But someone should.
satby
@Pen: Substitute “my sister” instead of mother and everything you just said x10.
WereBear
@Yutsano: One theory is more Vitamin D. Aren’t you in Seattle? You should probably supplement.
I do (living in the Frozen North) and it’s made a world of difference!
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/
It is a complete disgrace that even those with “medical” care don’t have prescription or dental coverage except in the rarest of instances. Just try to be healthy without them sometimes!
Shawn in ShowMe
@lamh35:
John Byrne did this 25 years ago.
http://comicsworthreading.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/actioncomics600.jpeg
Kane
An argument could easily be made that the climate of the current presidential race is rather tame in comparison to the campaign of 2008.
flukebucket
Have any of you guys received the right wing forward about Obama keeping power “By Any Means Necessary”?
Man, talk about projection.
One part says, “Obama was strangely disengaged from the actual tasks of governing.”
I laughed out loud. Speaking of disengaged, isn’t it Mitt who is sole owner and share holder and pulling down 6 figures from companies without knowing about anything what is happening at those companies?
I can well remember when Bill Clinton was going to declare marshall law and keep the Presidency no matter what.
These fuckers are crazy!
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
I just remember McCain leaning forward, stammering ‘when… when… when do you ask about the Supreme Court Justices!’ Right, no radio in the limo.
Oh, and that’s also the moment I realized that offshore oil drilling (‘drill baby drill’) had somehow become an Evangelical concern. Standing Ovation for that one.
Must been out sick from school when they taught that part of the Bible.
Lojasmo
@WereBear:
Unlikely to be vitamin D. Adults stop synthesizing it from sun exposure at a pretty young age. Also, it takes significant skin exposure (daily full body exposure to the point of faint pinkness) to make enough.