Saddleback: Pandering Disguised as a Political Forum

There was a political event tonight that had both candidates take questions for one hour from Rick Warren, dubbed "America's Pastor." It was held at Pastor Warren's Saddleback Church. John McCain desperately needed to energize the evangelical base tonight and this forum seemed to present that opportunity to him on a silver platter. As an evangelical, it remains my hope that Christians remember the lessons of the last seven years when they walk into the voting booth in November and not find themselves manipulated again by the far right. Tonight did not help that hope.Even as CNN is gushing over their product this evening, it is important to note that this was a staged event. It is also a microcosm of what is wrong with modern politics. Rick Warren had his questions and asked them evenly but what was missing is what has been missing for some time now, follow up. There simply was none. Thus the event turned into a stump speech for the candidates without questioning of the logic or even truth. Thus when McCain berated Congress for "going on vacation" instead of voting on off shore drilling, I was left screaming at the television for a follow up about how every expert has agreed that off shore drilling will have ZERO effect on gas prices. Instead of that follow up, McCain was allowed to continue to rant about Congress and then lambasted them as never missing an opportunity to "get a pay raise or take a vacation." Great sound bite but where was Warren on following up on the obvious, which is that McCain has been in Congress for 26 years!
So what we had was John McCain having the opportunity to restate his tired campaign lines. He said he would follow Osama bin Laden to the "gates of hell." He said that the war against Islamic Extremism was the transcendent struggle of the 21st century. He used the "I want to inspire people to a cause greater than themselves" a few times as well. Most of these were generally non-responsive but allowed by Pastor Warren because the format seemed to be set up to simply ask the questions and accept whatever the candidates said in response without critique. Additionally, some of the questions were beyond softballs designed to prop up McCain to the evangelical community and to make Obama look bad to them. The one that stood out to me was:Does evil exist and if so, should we ignore it, negotiate with it, contain it, or defeat it?Both obviously had to answer that evil certainly exists, but the choices provided were to set up Obama because he has consistently said that we need to back off of the cowboy diplomacy of George W. Bush. The question was also designed to allow McCain pound the tough-guy image he needs to run on. Obama tried to answer thoughtfully and intellectually and McCain relied upon stories from his life.
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