Presidential Candidates and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea

I snapped awake sometime before four o’clock this morning, and my first thought was that I was going to have to vote for a write-in candidate come November.

Sen. Barack Obama has said that he wants to expand federal funding for faith-based social initiatives. Under Obama’s plan, which was announced this summer, funding for such projects would be increased to over $500 million per year, delivered in the form of grants to churches, and on-the-ground religious institutions. The money (and accompanying training) is meant to expand the neighborhood organizations’ ability to provide social services to their communities. Groups receiving grants would be precluded from proselytizing in any program funded with federal money, and from hiring with discrimination in regards to religious affiliation.

Putting aside the question of where the funding will come from (his position paper offers ideas but no hard numbers on the subject), from a Christian perspective, this is a horrible idea. Too many churches and para-church community ministries already run impersonal “outreach programs” rather than sincerely and humbly serving their neighbors.

During the 2006 primaries, I was working for a gubernatorial candidate and often campaigned for him at various central-Brooklyn events. One Saturday, I was visiting a series of block parties to make announcements, distribute literature, and talk with local residents. Several of the block parties I visited that day were sponsored by churches, and at one of them the church was giving away bags of staple foods to people in the neighborhood who couldn’t afford it for themselves.

I was sitting at the food distribution table and speaking with the pastor of the church when an anxious-looking man walked up and muttered something inaudible over the music and the shouts of the children.

“What?” the pastor asked. Again, the man muttered. “Do you want the food?” He nodded. “Have a seat, show me your ID.”

While the pastor took the man’s ID, recorded some information, and picked out a bag for him, I watched the man quietly. Looking at his face, his feelings were painfully plain: shame, guilt, failure, and helplessness. I’m tempted to say “emasculation.” This man was broken, and utterly ashamed to be himself.

Not once did the pastor look him in the eyes.

I’m very young, but I really can’t imagine that I will be forgetting the look on that man’s face or the bizarre mix of disgust and indignation and pity and love that swelled up in me when I saw the way the pastor dismissed him. Just feeding people or giving them job training or giving kids classwork over the summer isn’t enough. That man didn’t just need food, he needed to know that he was worth that food. He needed to know that he was loved. He needed to be told that he had inherent dignity as one made in God’s image.

Too few of our churches are active in showing real mercy to the downtrodden around them. Out of those that do, too many do it out of duty rather than love. Churches accepting money and a muzzle not only tells the church community that the government is going to relieve them of the biblical injunction to pour out their blessings for the sake of others, it prevents them from serving living water and the bread of life to those who need it most, those for whom it was given in the first place.

John McCain offers a similar plan, but without preventing the recipient organizations from hiring with discrimination toward religious affiliation, but that still doesn’t address the most flawed part of this proposal: churches that become dependent on the government cease to be a prophetic counter-culture. They stop being churches, and start becoming institutions of the civic religion.

I make no secret of my distaste for the pandering, Darwinian policies and deceptive general election campaign that Sen. John McCain, who throughout my teens and twenties has been an intelligent and usually-principled political figure, is now advocating and running. It’s a betrayal of everything I expected from him: honest, independent thought.

That said, if Sen. Obama is going to move forward with the plan he has said would be the “moral center of his administration,” I can not support his vision of government.

Cressbeckler it is, then:


Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

From The Desk Of Gotham City Mayor Anthony Garcia...

Hey folks!

Don't ask me how, but I recently got my hands on a staff-only memo from the mayor of Gotham City to his senior staff. Given how much national attention Gotham has been garnering this summer, I figured it would provide some interesting insight into the political life of one of our country's most dire cities.

###

FROM THE DESK OF GOTHAM CITY MAYOR ANTHONY GARCIA

Memorandum: For Senior Staff Only

It has been two months since the murder of District Attorney Harvey Dent.

We’ll excuse for a moment the fact that this is the second District Attorney to have been murdered in a year (though, believe me, we’ll be taking that up with Commissioner Gordon in short order) and instead focus on simple steps that must be taken to refocus our priorities and political strategy in light of what the departed has left undone.

As I’m sure you’ve read in the papers, philanthropist Bruce Wayne was recently called into city hall for questioning. Wayne threw a “fundraiser” for District Attorney Dent on the evening of Commissioner Loeb and Judge Surrillo’s murder, and the questioning was regarding any correlation said political event, which was reportedly interrupted by the Joker and accompanied by the death of a police officer, may have had with the deaths of District Attorney Dent and Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes.

According to Mr. Wayne’s own testimony, and the testimony of a Russian ballet dancer whose passport is being frozen until all suspicion is cleared, Wayned persuaded Dent to accept the fundraiser even three years out from re-election by telling him, “One fundraiser with my friends, and you’ll never need another cent.”

This exposes a massive liability in Gotham City’s electoral process: namely, the complete lack of oversight of campaign finance laws and donation limits. The late Mr. Dent managed to give us an 18-month window of reduced crime in which we can pursue other policy initiatives. I am calling a three-day strategy session for this weekend in order to discuss how to best push forth an aggressive campaign oversight package.

I know that this has been a stressful few months, and I know that introducing the concept of campaign oversight to Gotham’s political life may be unpopular with our colleagues, but I feel that if we start flirting with the idea of not allowing Sal Maroni and Carmine Falcone to funnel unlimited amounts of cash into the pockets of any campaign they please, maybe there would be fewer public officials in this state (which, to be honest—this is embarrassing—I still haven’t been able to identify) who seem to legislate with the mob’s best interest at heart.

However, one of the primary difficulties we will face in terms of public opinion is how to keep the importance of a campaign oversight package in the forefront of people’s minds in the wake of the significant across-the-board increase in corporate and personal tax liability necessary to cover incidental budget expenses that have arisen since the emergence of the Bat-man:

- $79 billion in public property damage
- $100 billion in partial public compensation for landmark private property damage
- 100% increase in SWAT team salaries
- 50% increase in MCU officer salaries
- 30% increase in all other law enforcement salaries
- 25% increase in across-the-board hiring for all police precincts
- 30% increase in hiring for precincts 7, 35, 61, 77, and 78 in the Narrows
- 135% increase in expenses related to clearing of traffic accidents
- The still-delayed estimate on the repair of monorail and utility centers

Please start brainstorming ideas for communication strategy and come prepared with a short list of key members of the city council we can safely approach to be political cover. I think Councilmember Cobblepot may be willing.