Inaugural Presence of Mind

As Inaugural ceremonies go, I have only seen parts of a few. I was too young and too interested in playing and having fun to remember much about Richard Nixon's, and I remember Gerald Ford's being quite somber, due to the Watergate aftermath. He had been chosen to replace a vice-president who'd left under less than ideal circumstances and he then replaced a president who left office in disgrace. Again, not the ideal circumstance, but President Ford made it known that having not been elected by the people and he asked Americans to confirm his presidency with their prayers, and hoped for many more prayers of support to come. I admired that.

The election in 1976 was the first one I was able to vote in. I was not surprised with the outcome. I didn't think at the time that a republican president would be elected after Watergate, and I seemed to become aware at that time in a shift in the way the media reported the news. The ugly presence of bias was noticeable. For a while I thought it was just me, but it became clear that reporters were shading their reports with their own opinions. Granted, reporters have brains and they are individuals with their own opinions, but outside of labeled commentaries, they are not supposed to editorialize the news. They are supposed to report it accurately. Who says so? Anyone who wants to make an informed opinion or decision of their own, and who does not wish to have to wade through inaccuracies.

For many years, people outside of the news industry had no idea how conservative or liberal the reporters they watched were, because their personalities were not the issue. The news was the issue. Look at Walter Cronkite. He was the anchor man for CBS news for many years and was called "The most trusted man in America", yet he was and is extremely liberal and the general public pretty much had no clue which way he leaned politically until after he retired. That's the way it should be. Same deal if he had been extremely conservative.

Things are much different now. ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC are all liberal leaning networks. Oh sure, they have conservatives working there, but they definitely lean to the left, and they don't really try to hide that fact. They just tend to act as if no one can do anything about it. MSNBC is so liberal that they have been criticized by other liberals just this year over their shamefully biased reporting during the McCain-Obama campaigns. MSNBC even demoted Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann for their continuous ranting and railing against Republicans and other conservatives. Liberal critics said that their sort of bias actually hurts the cause of liberalism.

At this juncture, I cannot see how that concern was well-founded. The people who have conservative views are not going to watch a show like Matthews' or Olbermann's unless they want a quick headache. The FOX news network is another story altogether. I know that most liberals probably don't turn to it for the first report. I have watched it though, and time and again a reporter will be criticized for work on the same story by both conservatives and liberals. That says to me that a lot of the time, the facts are being reported as best they possibly can be. Certainly there is a lot of conservative commentary there, but I am talking about straight reporting. Most of the time it is hard to see a bias.

This last year I paid pretty close attention to the campaign for the presidency. Body language can be very telling. I watched reporters interview John McCain. I watched them interview Barack Obama. For the most part, one would have to be blind physically or by self-imposed ignorance not to see the difference in the way those candidates were greeted and spoken to in the conduction of those interviews.

This election was not a landslide victory for Barack Obama. He won with a margin, but as margins go it was not an immense one. The picture that one is gathering from most of the media right now however as they progress down the inaugural road is one of well---gushing. It is as if he won by a total landslide victory. Do I want the country divided by this man? No. I simply can't remember this kind of attitude represented by the press after any previous election.

People may say what they want, but Barack Obama has been nearly worshiped in this country by many. I have seen people demonstrate a hope in him that ought not to be placed in any human being. I voted against Barack Obama and I disagree with several of his positions on a number of issues. I believe whole-heartedly that he will take this country in some very wrong directions. He seems to be a very unprincipled man, as he tends to swing back and forth on things, guided by which way the political winds are blowing. One could say that about most politicians, but he is quite a master of double-speak.

Different sources claim that evangelical Christians by numbers of 38% voted for Barack Obama. Certainly younger evangelicals were taken with Obama's persona. Young people often respond that way. A close look at his stances on abortion, same sex marriage, homosexuals in the military, the military itself, taxes and any number of other issues ought to have clued them in about how they ought to vote due to where he stands on moral and practical things. In part, the reason that they did not discern these things is the high-profile nature of the evangelical leadership that led the way for them.

Red Letter Christian Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, the Reverend Jim Wallis, Donald (Blue Like Jazz) Miller and even recently resigned N.A.E. vice-president Richard Cizik did not surprise me with their choice to vote for Barack Obama and seek for an "abortion reduction agenda", even though he said he intends to sign the "Freedom Of Choice Act" which will only serve to increase their number by many thousands per year. I must admit, I was very surprised to find out that Darrell Bock, a professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary voted for President-elect Obama.

I look back on the election with a bit of wonder. I know that there must be a sort of "fatigue" factor involved there or something because of the way that conservatives have dropped the ball in leadership, but I believe that the media played a huge role by the sheer magnitude of their sphere of influence. I have for some time seen change coming in the ranks of evangelical Christianity where politics is concerned and frankly again, I think that many Christians have just thrown in the towel on taking a moral stance against heinous political positions that carry deeply affecting consequences for the nation at large.

It seems as though a heavy percentage have just decided to draw upon an "ecumenical" sensibility and try to work within the ranks of liberal politics to reduce sin and travesties of justice on different levels. I hate to say it, but I also see a universalistic influence here. Barack Obama embraces universalism, and is quite open about that. Young people who find the exclusivity of Jesus Christ to be to divisive probably flock to that easier way and so I think that appeals to many of those who voted for him that label themselves evangelical Christians. We shall see how it all works out.

I have the day off Tuesday, and my wife and I will likely spend it taking in a lot of the ceremony coverage and listening to the speeches. I find it all very fascinating. It is after all, history in the making.