Talk:Religion and politics in the United States presidential campaign, 2008

If the article is not deleted, then...

Although this article is fundamentally flawed, at a conceptual level, and deserves deletion, if by chance it avoids deletion, it needs to contain a section on Senator Obama, with Wright, James Meeks, and Michael Pfleger. Trilemma (talk) 12:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

looks like a "controversy section"

This text began in the Jeremiah Wright controversy article and is still clearly written from that perspective. While it is possible that a general review of religious controversies in the 2008 race would be a good article, I'm not sure this is the right title and it isn't a very thorough overview (since each situation was originally cited using at least some references that linked it to the Wright controversy in particular, and some that were not directly comparable were probably left out). At this point it could go either way, but retention of the article requires that someone be interested in expanding and revising it, not just in getting the text cut out of the parent article.

If this article is deleted it should be merged back into the parent article, being sure not to lose any improvements in style or content that may have been added to the overview there in the meanwhile. Wnt (talk) 19:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-sedaei/deafening-silence-on-mcca_b_100832.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.233.86.199 (talk) 04:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Religion and politics in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign

This rename seems the superior scope for the article and would be the main one on the topic, covering all the candidates in this regard. The Wright controversy would be a link off of this one. I can't do WP full time, obviously, so will have to add my inputs on my schedule. I suggest that Immediatism should give way to fair Eventualism. Ewenss (talk) 04:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Revamping

I'll take a stab at revising the text to be more suitable to the topic, though I fear the article will simply be deleted based on the previous comments at the AfD anyway. To start with I changed Obama to a bullet point, and deleted the following Obama-specific text as being of insufficient relevance here:

Some critics argued that the Wright case is more significant than McCain's associations with Hagee, as Obama noted that Wright guided him to Christianity, baptized his children and performed his marriage ceremony, and Obama attended Wright's church for twenty years, whereas McCain first met Hagee while campaigning for president. Eugene Rivers has countered these criticisms by first explaining that Obama was not always in church, and that the several minutes of soundbites continually played by the media obviously do not equate to twenty years, noting that Wright's 30-year body of sermons had been gone through by the media and that they had been unable to find any other controversial statements in them. Rivers also explained the motivation of Obama in attending the church and relating with Wright, noting such things as that Obama was only twenty-four when he met Wright; that Obama at the time was struggling with his personal identity as a bi-racial person, half-black yet never having opportunity to understand black culture; that Obama's father had abandoned him at age two and that he never had a father-figure in his life and that he may have seen this some in Wright; and, that Obama felt a loyalty to Wright because of the early positive influence Wright had in his life in helping Obama work through these issues, which Rivers described as "deeply personal and complex" for Obama.

Now to work on generalizing the last part of the commentary... Wnt (talk) 15:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Michael Pfleger allegations

I'm glad to see someone else interested in this article, but under the BLP policy we can't leave in a serious allegation about Michael Pfleger that is sourced to a blogger. The blog referenced was http://armedandsafe.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-knew-father-michael-pfleger-was-crazy.html ; I personally doubt the blogger is correct in ascribing serious criminal intent to Pfleger's comments and is at least exaggerating any potential intimidation as a political point. If there were anything to this we'd have a real media source to cite.

The other reference I deleted was that Pfleger hosted Louis Farrakhan.[1] - I don't doubt that that's true, but it's technically a blog reference, and most importantly, I just don't understand why it would make any difference. There must be thousands of people who hosted Farrakhan, and Pfleger isn't regarded as a radical black preacher, so ...? I guess the point is, that's "original synthesis"; the blog reference doesn't even mention Obama. Wnt (talk) 17:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I also toned down the Meeks section a bit, because there really is very little criticism of this relationship; there's one single story saying that Obama took guidance from Meeks, and the tone of that article is such that it talks about the "Christianity" of Obama in quotation marks, and one other that cites that source as a story that "old media has ignored". Yahoo News lists seven stories with both names but a few I checked didn't make any connection between the two. I think perhaps I was still too indulgent on this point but I don't like deleting stuff. Wnt (talk) 17:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the link in question, from a blog reference to a magazine reference. I don't think it would be appropriate for the article to ascribe criminal intent to what Plfleger said, but neither is its purpose to refute the possibility of criminal intent. That's why it's best to just leave the quote in, and allow other people to reach whatever conclusion they are. Contextualizing it by either noting that 'snuff' is a common term for 'kill', or a different way, would be editorializing.

In regards to the other two issues, very few Catholic priests have or would host Farrakhan; those who would or have are far outside the mainstream. That's why I feel that it's notable and worthy of inclusion. Finally, in regards to Meeks, I think it is again very useful to include direct quotations. After all, there are direct quotations of Haggee. Trilemma (talk) 13:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I restored a few of my major changes, including the addition of better sourced information on the Obama/Pfleger relationship. Your magazine source at least provides some slender straw to clutch at for this allegation, but there's still trouble here. How credible is a plainly biased source for which I am reluctant to quote the original text they printed, “We’re gonna find you and snuff youth out.” - because it has an obvious misprint in it? I mean, you're coming very close to echoing biased sources in accusing a Catholic priest of inciting murder in public despite his not being charged with any crime. That's not by the book. Wnt (talk) 02:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, your newer edit is an improvement, though I made one alteration--saying that Obama is a "leader" on ethics reform is an opinion. So I removed that and changed it to a regular quote. Trilemma (talk) 02:51, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Good source

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%7BADEAB950%2DB32F%2D48BD%2DA34E%2D796AE86F8F47%7D&siteid=rss - The worst campaign press corps ever? -

Daimerej (talk) 22:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

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