by 
Ron Gold
01
Aug
James Dobson To Target Obama
Barack Obama is attempting to increase his appeal to evangelicals, but Family Research Council founder James Dobson is trying to put a stop to it:
As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement’s biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Constitution.
The criticism, to be aired Tuesday on Dobson’s Focus on the Family radio program, comes shortly after an Obama aide suggested a meeting at the organization’s headquarters here, said Tom Minnery, senior vice president for government and public policy at Focus on the Family.
The conservative Christian group provided The Associated Press with an advance copy of the pre-taped radio segment, which runs 18 minutes and highlights excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal. Obama mentions Dobson in the speech.
Some of the controversial comments made by Obama that Dobson will highlight include Obama saying Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is “a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application,” and “Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?” Ouch, I guess it’s already personal.
Dobson will have some extremely harsh words for Obama on his Tuesday radio show, and will accuse the Senator of “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.” Additionally, he will take a swipe at Obama’s support for abortion rights by stating he takes “a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution.”
To me, it seems pretty juvenile that a presidential candidate has to take part in debate with a kook like Dobson. But it’s American politics, where the wacky religious right still have way too much sway.
