Newsweek’s Cover Story on Obama: “What He Believes”
The cover photo shows a prayerful Barack Obama. “A conversation with the candidate about his faith” is the subtitle. There is very little remarkable in the story, except that it is an absolute valentine to Senator Obama. Nothing in it would be offensive to any sizeable voter group that Obama is trying to reach. In fact, the authors seem to make a special effort to show how mainstream Obama’s religious views are:
Should Obama beat John McCain, he has history on his side. Presidents such as Lincoln and Jefferson were unorthodox Christians; and, according to a Pew Forum survey, 70 percent of Americans agree with the statement that “many religions can lead to eternal life.”
Does the article mention Jeremiah Wright? Yes, but only in a manner that seems to emphasize Obama’s growing distance from Wright:
Since severing ties with Wright and Trinity, Obama is a little spiritually rootless again. He lost a friend in Wright—and he lost a home, however tenuous those ties may have been toward the end, in Trinity.
(Emphasis added.) Obama’s campaign could have written the story and not got the talking points better.
I have no desire to dredge up the Wright controversy again; I’ll simply note that Newsweek’s coverage of Obama’s religion in this story is strikingly, jarringly different than its coverage of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism or Mike Huckabee’s Southern Baptist faith. If you don’t believe me, just go to the Newsweek site and search for “Mormon” and “Baptist.”
As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints myself, I do not mean to whine or complain about imbalanced coverage; nevertheless, the contrast is remarkable.
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One Response to “Newsweek’s Cover Story on Obama: “What He Believes””
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TVHall on 14 Jul 2008 at 5:27 pm #
Although I understand the need to chronicle the continuing efforts of this country’s leftist propaganda machine, at some point it becomes little different from proclaiming that the sky is blue.
Nevertheless, proceed.