This is childish name calling. Dr. Paul is a pacifist. Now maybe you believe all pacifists are kooks but at least then perhaps you could just say that he is a pacifist. When you say he is a kook, then you imply that all of his fantastically urivaled and principled stands on social and fiscal issues are also kooky. If you really think he is a kook all around, then conservativism is just a style to you and not an ideology.
Unfortunately, Dr. James Dobson and a few evangelical leaders decided to cut off their nose to spite their face (Mistake #35). You see, Fred's not a Bible thumper. Neither was Ronald Reagan. And like Reagan, Fred is a bona fide, all-around, federalist conservative. That wasn’t good enough for Dobson. And when Fred refused to kiss Dobson's ring of evangelical purity, Dobson went shopping for a candidate he thought he could control.
You can bag on Dr. Dobson all you like, but you are just insulting me and other Evangelical Conservatives who greatly respect but have never followed him. BTW we were listening to Dobson on the radio 20 years before we could even start listening to Limbaugh. Dobson never asked Thompson to "kiss his ring". All Dobson did was to offer political analysis that was very reflective and not determinative of reality. The race was Thompson's to win, but his tardy, anemic, non-engaging and uninspired bid is squarely to blame for his failure. Dobson didn't owe him an endorsement anymore than Limbaugh does.
I've got news for you, we Evangelicals don't need a Messiah in the Presidency, we already have one. We will love the Lord our God and our neighbors as ourselves whether we are slaves or freemen, in war or peace, in prosperity or resession, under conservatives or liberals. We will do what is right regardless of what it costs us. Which means that saving unborn babies comes before:
We think that any President or Presidential candidate that is not right with God has much much bigger problems than being right with evangelicals, conservatives or any other part of the electorate!
Psalm 2
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson appeared to throw cold water on a possible presidential bid by former Sen. Fred Thompson while praising former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also weighing a presidential run, in a phone interview Tuesday.
"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression," Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party's conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson, took issue with Dobson's characterization of the former Tennessee senator. "Thompson is indeed a Christian," he said. "He was baptized into the Church of Christ."
In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson's claim. He said that, while Dobson didn't believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian someone who talks openly about his faith."
"We use that word Christian to refer to people who are evangelical Christians," Schneeberger added. "Dr. Dobson wasn't expressing a personal opinion about his reaction to a Thompson candidacy; he was trying to 'read the tea leaves' about such a possibility."
Thompson has said he is leaving the door open for a presidential run and has won plaudits from conservatives who are unenthusiastic about the Republican front-runners. A Gallup-USA Today poll, released Tuesday, showed Thompson in third place among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, behind former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain.
While making it clear he was not endorsing any Republican presidential candidate, Dobson, who is considered the most politically powerful evangelical figure in the country, also said that Gingrich was the "brightest guy out there" and "the most articulate politician on the scene today."
Gingrich recently appeared on Dobson's daily Focus on the Family radio program, carried by upward of 2,000 American radio stations, where he made headlines by discussing an extramarital affair he was having even as he pursued impeachment against President Bill Clinton for his handling of the investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Dobson's phone call to U.S. News senior editor Dan Gilgoff Tuesday was unsolicited. It marked Gilgoff's first discussion with Dobson in over two years, since the magazine's political writer began work on The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, published this month by St. Martin's Press. Dobson had agreed to answer only written questions for the book.
Dobson's comments yesterday about the 2008 presidential race appear to be his first to a secular news organization in months.
Dobson recently sat down with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at Focus on the Family's Colorado Springs headquarters, marking his only meeting to date with a top-tier Republican presidential candidate. While Dobson would not comment directly on the Romney meeting, he stood by comments he made late last year that many evangelicals would find it difficult to support Romney because of his Mormonism.
"I still think that might be an impediment for him," Dobson said. "There are conservative Christians who will not vote for him because of his Mormon faith. I'm not saying that's the correct view or my view. But [presidential nominees] lose elections by 5 or 6 percent of the vote, so you don't have to lose much of the conservative Christian vote" to make a difference in the election.
Dobson said that neither of the two other Republican presidential front-runners Giuliani or McCain has attempted to contact him. "I do not believe that the current excitement over Giuliani will continue," Dobson said.
Dobson was a major force in the 2004 election, giving the first public presidential endorsement of his career to George W. Bush. Bush got nearly 6 million new white evangelical votes in 2004 that he didn't get in 2000, accounting for about twice his margin of victory. Dobson's national activist network led an unprecedented effort to get conservative evangelicals to the polls. Its greatest impact was likely in Ohio, the lynchpin to Bush's re-election, where Bush won by fewer than 120,000 votes.
Dobson, who turns 71 years old next month, has been the subject of recent rumors that he would retire from his position of Focus on the Family chairman and possibly step out of the political spotlight in the next couple of years. In the interview, however, Dobson said that he no intention of doing either.
"I have 10-to-12-hour-a-day energy," Dobson said. "I feel that God has asked me to do what I'm doing. I have no intention to stay away."
"Family founder James Dobson appeared to throw cold water on a possible presidential bid by former Sen. Fred Thompson while praising former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also weighing a presidential run, in a phone interview Tuesday."
So, it's okay for Dobson to praise a serial adulterer like Gingrich (his huuuge character flaw) while accusing Fred of not being a Christian.
Good job, Dr. Dobson. Your flawed evangelical purity test will have helped to elect a closeted lesbian (not that there's anything wrong with that), a Mormon (not that there's anything worng with that), a "converted" Muslim (not that there's anything worng with that) or an areligious, angry, deranged and egomaniacal Vietnam vet (not that there's anything worng with that).
Way to shepherd your evangelical flock!
lol