Update #2 -- 8/17/08 - For an example of MSNBC's biased print coverage, click here.
Update 8/17/08 - My reservations and concerns about the dialog at Saddleback Church proved unwarranted. The contrast between Obama and McCain in both demeanor, verbal acuity, and philosophical substance on major issues could not have been more dramatic. The transcripts of the interviews can be accessed here. Byron York of National Review has provided an excellent summary of the evening's answers and significance. I think Rick Warren did a truly estimable job, evidenced, to cite but one example, by his probing question, “At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?”
What I am waiting for is an enterprising person to splice together each person's answer to the same question and put it on YouTube for the world to see and hear. Maybe it's already been done.
What many viewers don't realize is the troubling slipperiness demonstrated by Obama. See Hugh Hewitt's post here.
- A friend has sent me a link to a Christian Science Monitor article on this weekend's event.
"This is absolutely a changing of the guard, and
it suggests that the new guard of the evangelical movement is able to
generate the attention and focus of both parties," says D. Michael
Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University and author of "Faith in the
Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite." [more . . .]
I am not enthusiastic about this excursion by Warren into American politics. I hope it will prove better than I anticipate. Hard questions need to be asked, and it remains to be seen whether Rick Warren will ask them. I fear he won't. Without the hard questions, the evening could turn out to be an opportunity for candidates to mislead the American people.