What did the Savior have to say during the Prayer Breakfast? S.E. Cupp has summed it up:
Christ is nowhere to be found: The president is supposedly a Christian, yet there wasn’t a single mention of Christ or Jesus in today’s speech.
God and war: Obama said that God’s grace is expressed through the efforts of our armed forces. Really? Sarah Palin was publicly flayed for suggesting just this when she asked her congregation to pray for the military.
Americans are terrible: The president devoted a considerable portion of his speech to condemning Americans for becoming “absorbed with our abstract arguments, our ideological disputes, our contests for power.” It might have been nice to mention that we are also the most philanthropic country in the world, especially considering that even in our own time of economic struggle, we have generously opened our wallets to help rebuild another devastated nation.
Dissing evangelicals: In throwing a bone to the religious right, Obama doesn’t miss a chance to also insult them. “We see that in many conservative pastors who are helping lead the way to fix our broken immigration system. It’s not what would be expected from them, and yet they recognize, in those immigrant families, the face of God.” He may as well have just called them xenophobic nativists.
And no Obama speech would be complete without a shout-out to the other big guy upstairs – himself. So he closed his Prayer Breakfast speech by congratulating himself for doing such a great job with his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, just in case you momentarily forgot that 2012 is right around the corner.
All in all, it was actually fairly predictable – if you’ve ever heard this president discuss faith you know that he is incredibly uneasy with the themes and constructs of American belief, and often manages to slight the faithful just as he’s awkwardly trying to address them.
What more could we expect from the man that stood in front of the world and said America is no longer a Christian nation. I say this to Obama: quit trying to hide who you really are. Let the world know you prefer the preaching of the racist Reverend Wright. Say your real opinion at the Prayer Breakfast that this country is not a Christian country. Come on out of the ol’ closet and let everyone know you have no ambition to attend a church in the D.C. area and exactly why.
Personally, I don’t care what other people’s religious beliefs are. But if you are going to portray the image of a holy man, like Obama is doing now, you better be ready to back it up.