More On Barack Obama

Here are two more articles on Barack.

The first is from Newsweek's OnFaith. It concerns Barack's religious rhetoric in a recent speech:

And during the course of that sermon, I was introduced to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed and that if I placed my trust in Christ, He could set me on the path to eternal life.

And:

And whenever I hear stories about Americans who feel like no one’s looking out for them, like they’ve been left behind, I’m reminded that God has a plan for his people. . . . But it’s a plan He’s left to us to fulfill.

And:

I’d like to begin with a prayer. It comes to us from Jeremiah 29, when the prophet sent out a letter to those exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon. It was a time of uncertainty, and a time of despair. But the prophet Jeremiah told them to banish their fear – that though they were scattered, and though they felt lost, God had not left them. “For I know the plans I have for you,” the Lord revealed to Jeremiah, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” God had a plan for His people. That was the truth that Jeremiah grasped – the creed that brought comfort to the exiles – that faith is not just a pathway to personal redemption, but a force that can bind us together and lift us up as a community.

Yuck.

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The second is actually about a (recently former) adviser to Barack: Samantha Power. I have never been too thrilled with her, but I can not actually remember why! Well, this article did not help my opinion of her:

They [comparing Barack Obama & Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN special envoy to Iraq] both have these gargantuan intellects that enabled them to hold very complex thoughts, but also this amazing charisma that let them market whatever they ended up with in terms of policy judgements.

More fawning. Gag.

"Obama has talked a lot about the importance of moving away from electocracy," she says, trying to move on to more comfortable territory, and suggesting that the way people actually live is more important than the "reification of elections".

It is always easy to slap on a -ocracy to make it scary.

"There will be situations where the priority is self-defence," she says, indicating that a preference for multilateralism only goes so far. "President Obama, like every other leader on earth, is still going to be looking out for national and economic interests.

Obama voters better not forget it when we bomb the next country.

She opens her hands wide at the UN secretary general's name. "Is that all there is?" she asks. "Can we afford to do without a global figure, a global leader?" Sergio Vieira de Mello is sadly no longer available to fill such a role. But Samantha Power knows a man who is.

Right, the messiah cometh.