1) Obama has always worked with Muslim, Jewish and Christian charitable groups as an organizer in Chicago. A big reason for that is this:

2) With Federal, state and local governments suffering for decades of GOP-inflicted and Grover-Norquist-prescribed cuts in social spending (usually accomplished by racking up huge deficits due to tax cuts that mostly benefit the very rich), Obama doesn't exactly have a choice here. He can't roll taxes back to Eisenhower-era levels (where the rich were taxed heavily and the rest of us weren't) because the press and their GOP/Blue Dog buddies (which are of course part of the ruling wealthy class) won't stand for it. So how does he set about repairing the gaping holes in the Federal safety net? By enlisting the aid of legitimate religious charities. Got a better way for him to do this?

But the anti-Obama feeding frenzy here at Salon long ago hit self-reinforcing Lord of the Flies territory (see Joan Walsh's tarring Obama with some supporters she cherry-picked for their allegedly intemperate comments in support of Wesley Clark), so of course this won't matter.

I guess you got your answers. lol

Electing Barack Obama is a very important political priority but it isn't the only one there is, and his election is less likely, not more likely, the more homage he pays to these these tired, status-quo-perpetuating Beltway pieties. -- GG

What exactly would it take? Just what would he have to do before electing him was no longer a "very important priority?"

I'm fairly amazed, however, that we appear to need a progressive candidate to defend the Constitution.

It really is amazing, isn't it? I have said all along that Obama is a vexing candidate (so was Sen. Clinton in many ways). I didn't vote for Obama in my primary and he did not win my golden state. Still, I figured, and still do, that he would be better than any Republican. And that is precisely why the past two weeks have been so troubling.

I have been heartsick at Obama's apparent support for Scalia and tribe. I am angry over FISA. And now, the religion move--what could he be thinking? (I have my ideas, but I'll save that one for later.)

Setting aside my major crush on Sen. Feingold, it seems like he and the very few like him are the only ones willing to stand on (constitutional) principles. I respect their tenacity. I admire their spirit. I wish I could say the same for Obama.

"Obama doesn't exactly have a choice here"

Swell. That makes me feel that much better about seeing the Christian nationalist agenda come to fruition.

It could be the case that Obama doesn't have a choice because Democrats believe they don't have a choice and thus keep offering tepid opposition to right-wing governance which gives us the end result of a slow, steady right-wing trajectory of our government which leaves behind the We the People aspect of democracy.

What exactly would it take? Just what would he have to do before electing him was no longer a "very important priority?"

-- adnoto

I keep trying to get people to answer that question with no luck. Perhaps when he comes out as anti-choice? and maybe not even then. He's on board with eviscerating the 4th amendment and people seem to be ok with that. (And don't say you are not ok with that if you are still voting for him. If you vote for him you are endorsing his positions.)

I'm sorry but it simply not true not that the blogs have represented a credible alternative to the Dem vs. Repug 'fight' that characterizes american politics.

ALL of the important blogs, this one included, have spent the last 2 years (really going back well before the 2006 election) obsessed (OBSESSED!) with the false idol of the Democratic Party as Savior.

To this observer it has become an absolute bore listening to the so-called left blogosphere trying to build up support for the Democratic Party.

How many people in the blogoshpere have said the following: Barack Obama is so obviously a bought and paid for shill for the powerful interests in this country as to make him, quite obviously, precisely the kind of 'stealth candidate' that Geee org-y W. Bushy was in his time.

The fact that you are all just waking up to this would be hilarious, if it weren't so sad. NONE of the positions typically advocated on blogs, or on TV, or in print, actually will do a damn thing to change the problems facing this country.

If America was serious about dealing with Terrorism, it wouldn't waste it's time attacking other countries, or being surprised that didn't work out, then endlessly agitating for 'game over dude'. It would instead, consider carefully and deeply what the real problems are (endless support for military dictators the world over, AND, dependence on Arab/Russian Oil) and do the obvious thing: Implement a massive federal program (with money and bureacracy repurposed from the Military Industrial complex) to find a REAL alternative energy source, one that can actually sustain the energy requirements of this county. When was the last time you heard the blogs talking about that? Instead, like the media they so love to hate, they waste their time obsessing about 'he said/she said', and pumping up blatantly fraudelent candidates whose truth is written in every word they utter: Do Not Listen to the Man behind the Curtain -- I am the Great and Powerful OZ!

Here's the Truth kids: Barack Obama has been chosen by the monied powers as the guy most likely to win, the price for being supported by them, funded by them, endorsed by them is (and always has been) his willingness to go along with their desires. FISA, and 'bi-partisanship', and his economic policies, all clearly indicate this. He is a classic 'centrist Democrat' calling for hope and change in his rhetoric, then working actively for the interests of the status quo.

Here's the 2nd Truth: the US is in big big doo doo. This war is bankrupting this economy, and most americans, including most bloggers, are so infected with delusions about the economy, politics, and the causes of the current problem as to not even have the slightest hope of even knowing what to do, much less being able to rally enough support to do it.

The complacency endemic in our society is astonishing. 'What complacency we are all real hyped about big man Obama who is going to save us all' you say? um yeah. The fact that people are so obsessed with the complete lie of the election horse race, obsessed with the meaningless question (rooted in a deeply naive understanding of american politics) of 'whose gonna win the election', has meant that the real problems have proceeded in an accelerating fashion all around us, while the blogs turn themselves into an extension of the media noise machine endlessly obsessed with rantings of buffoons like Bill O'Reilly.

To give credit where credit is due: This blog, Glenn Greenwald, has been close to unique in his focus on issues that matter in real time as they are being decided, instead of this fantasy land that somehow if we just wait until after the great and mythical return of the democratic party all things will be wholesome and good again.

American politics for more than 50 years has been dominated by two pillars: Democrats playing me too to the Republicans voter baiting with (quite frankly) evil manipulative lies, and an incredible (and historically rare) NEED to lash out at and inflict warfare on the rest of the world. Oh, and the NEED to insulate *ourselves* from the cold hard facts.

The endless urge to find someone to blame, long after the horses have left the barn, the endless 'surprises' at the outcomes of policies, and institutions activities, actively and vociferously supported when it matters -- at decision time -- while the truth right there all along -- being suppressed, not by evil media empires, but by willful ignorance on the part of citizens, is not something that is going to disappear when the new man from hope comes waltzing into the white house.

It's going to get worse. That the Democratic Pary even wants to inherit the White House in what is going to be the worst economy in 80 years, is a testament to their lust for power. Whether they will manage to hold on to the horse of the body politic as it discovers that it has been well and thoroughly screwed primarily by it's willingness to believe a deeply inebriating cocktail of lies, promulgated by any and all actors at all levels of society, promulgated in fact by themselves, is an entirely different question.

Here's the reality: Americans are about to find out that they have dug themselves a deep deep hole, and once again they will be looking for someone to blame. That they will start with however is holding the White House is obvious, the big question is how much blame will they need, and just how far will they go in order to obfuscate the truth of their own guilt. It is the $64,000 question.

How many blogs do you hear talking about that?