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Above Obama’s ‘pay grade’

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When I watched the presidential candidate forum at Saddleback Church the other night, I took notes with a certain perspective in mind: which of Obama’s responses were going to be used against him by the right? Maybe I haven’t been reading enough conservative blogs lately, because I didn’t see the angry response to this remark coming:

“Now

, let’s deal with abortion,” the Rev. Rick Warren said. “Forty million abortions since Roe v. Wade. You know, as a pastor, I have to deal with this all of the time. All of the pain and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. Forty million abortions. At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?”

Obama responded , “Well, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade. But let me just speak more generally about the issue of abortion because this is something obviously the country wrestles with. One thing that I’m absolutely convinced of is there is a moral and ethical content to this issue….” Obama went on to explain how (and why) we can reduce the number of abortions in this country, and why he’s pro-choice.

And yet, it was that “above my pay grade” line that seems to be getting all the attention. To hear Obama’s conservative detractors tell it, there’s no one above a president’s pay grade, so the answer didn’t make any sense.

Maybe the right is being deliberately coy here, and looking to manufacture another controversy, but I thought it was pretty obvious Obama was referring to God

Over at BeliefNet, Steve Waldman understood the message, but seemed to think Obama’s response was confusing.

[Gary Bauer] hated Obama’s line that determining when life begins is “above my pay grade.” I agree that this was a poorly framed answer. If he was going to make this argument, he should have been more direct and say, “Only God really knows that. But since we have to pick someone to make this choice, I believe the choice should rest not with the legislature or the courts but with the women in consultation with her pastor.” He was too clipped and cryptic.

Maybe. Obama has a bad habit of treating voters like adults, and not talking down to them. He assumes, perhaps incorrectly, that Americans want to be spoken to as if we’re grown-ups. He doesn’t spell things out for us, because he believes his audience is fully capable of understanding what he’s saying.

But given the response, that’s apparently not the case. When dealing with weighty philosophical, scientific, and moral questions such as when an embryo or fetus is a “person,” with “human rights,” Obama suggested God knows more than a policy maker, but went on to talk about abortion policy in a more practical way.

Ann Althouse criticized Obama’s response on Sunday, but took a more measured line today. (emphasis in the original)

[T]hinking about it this morning

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, I’m pretty sure he meant to refer to God.

“Above my pay grade” is an expression of humility and submission to God: I don’t purport to answer the question that belongs to God. He’s trying to be folksy

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, coining a phrase akin to “the man upstairs.” When someone says “the man upstairs,” you don’t start railing about how we’re on the top floor, but that’s because we know we’re dealing with a folksy expression. People are too touchy on the subject of abortion to process the less common “above my pay grade” as an expression.

Obama may have thought that, in a church, talking to a pastor, with religion hovering around every question, listeners would understand that he was putting himself beneath God. But I didn’t pick that up last night….

How did all of you perceive this when you heard the line?

Comments

  • OkieFromMuskogee

    says:

    I thought Obama meant that it is a question for God.

    Humility is a virtue noticeably absent in many “Christian” conservatives. No wonder they can’t recognize it when they see it.

  • JRD

    says:

    Interestingly, I don’t read it as a reference to God at all, particularly since he demurs on both the scientific and theological questions. It seems to me that he’s saying that these questions are better for experts in those respective fields, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It is, as Althouse says, a sign of humility and submission to the authority of those with greater expertise in these areas, and the phrase is used pretty commonly in that sense. I don’t see any reason to infer that it has anything to do specifically with God.

  • james k. sayre

    says:

    Men who concern themselves with women’s abortions are just stupid little busybodies. The so-called “right to life” movement is merely anti-sex and anti-woman. Obama’s response on when human rights are accorded to a human being was gutless… He should of just said when babies are born they are considered alive with human rights. All this BS about the rights of a fetus is just BS…

  • MsMuddled

    says:

    He was trying to be humorous. It flopped. O hell. The rest went fairly well.

    Obama was entirely candid. McCain, theatrics.

  • joey

    says:

    I hate people who keep framing this issue and “abortion” issue when it is a “choice” issue. Obama should have said 1) ask the 40 million women who chose this outcome because it was their right to choose. 2) there were 40million abortions before Roe V Wade. This is not an anti abortion issue it is a choice issue and that choice can be offered other alternatives which republicans refuse to offer.

    Before a woman had the right to choose a wealthy lady could get on a plane and go get an abortion but her maid couldn’t. You don’t deal with the issue of unwanted pergnancies by denying a woman’s right to choose but by offering alternatives. What alternatives have republicans ever offered. They vote against increased funding to planned parenthood for sex ed, job training ed., health care, increased adoption alternatives etc and access to birth control. They bitch about Roe V Wade but its repeal will not stop women from choosing an abortion, it will just make it illegal and unsafe.

    Warren tries to frame the question as abortion promoting rather than just making it a woman’s right to choose alternatives. It’s not “abortion rights’ its the right to “CHOOSE” and keeping that right legal safe and rare. You had 40million abortions before Roe V Wade also Warren.

  • joey

    says:

    The right is getting ready to swift boat Obama for Infanticide for voting against a bill whose language was so twisted as to make all abortions illegal but running under the guise of preventing infanticide. Watch for it and know the legislation’s wording was why he voted against the Illinois bill…not because it deceitfully tried to appear as against infanticide.

  • Grumpy

    says:

    I assumed Obama was extorting more money from the taxpayers: on top of his regular salary for presidenting, he wants a bonus for deciding at what stage of development humans are imbued with rights. How much would that be worth??

  • hark

    says:

    He made the mistake of allowing Warren to frame the issue as a tragic loss of forty million human babies, and he accepted the loaded question without rephrasing it – “At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?” He let that go, which implies that a fetus is a human baby. So I don’t think it matters whether he meant God, or as JRD #3 suggests, wiser men than he. He made the same mistake all Democrats make – playing the game in the Republican ballpark under their rules.

  • toowearyforoutrage

    says:

    I took it as a cop out.
    The God angle makes more sense because dodging questions is the OTHER guy’s specialty.

    It was completely out of character, the God angle is in line with it.
    Occam’s razor applies.

  • MW

    says:

    I took Obama’s response to be a reference to God.

    McCain’s was the usual knee-jerk religious-right response. Among other things, it is also an attempt to confuse the issue. When anit-abortion people say “life begins at conception” they are usually referring to fertlization rather than conception. As my medical professional wife frequently reminds people, they are not the same things at all.

  • joey

    says:

    Obama’s dream answer: “There were 40 million abortions before Roe V Wade also. The process continues even if it is made illegal. What I stand for and what the dem party has written into it’s platform is to make sure that a woman right to choose is legal, the procedure safe but rare. And how do we make it rare… by promoting sex education and access to to birth control to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies, by offering job training and the ability to care for a child as an alternative, by increasing funding to planned parenthood groups to provide counseling alternatives and medical care and help to pregnant women and by promoting adoption alternatives.
    Whether legal or not you will not stop women from choosing abortions but we can decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies and thereby decrease the number of abortions performed.” My two cents

  • Memekiller

    says:

    Of course it was referring to God. I don’t see how there’s any confusion. He’s saying, as a mere mortal, he is not qualified to make these judgments.

  • Grumpy

    says:

    joey #8: It’s not “abortion rights’ its the right to “CHOOSE”

    Yeah! And the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, it was about state’s rights. Specifically, the right to own slaves.

    Don’t be afraid to say “abortion” when that’s what’s being discussed.

  • MLE

    says:

    perceive this when you heard the line?

    I apparently perceived the same things as CB, the not-so-subtly biased phrasing of the question: using “baby” in the abortion context implicitly concedes the right-to-life crowd’s point. I wished Obama had shot back “don’t you mean fetus?” Then again, this is probably why I am not a campaign consultant. As to the actual response, it seems the clearest interpretation was a reference to theologians and scientists, respectively. This seems to me an intelligent and appropriate response. That in the church setting it could also be read as a reference to god was smart rhetoric.

  • sarinda

    says:

    Please. Blatantly dodging a question that some people consider important with a stupid joke is NOT 1) treating people like adults nor is it 2) intelligently tackling philosophical and moral issues. It certainly isn’t a profile in courage. Its a weasle-like evasion and the attempt to turn into into a pander about god is after the fact desperation. Are you really saying that Obama believes that God has the last word on scientific principles? Sounds like the creationist science you abhor.

    Just get over being shameless fanboys for Obama and admit it was a bad answer. But more importantly address the point that the reason it has legs is because it demonstrates the main problem about Obama. The problem that he won’t stand for anything unequivocally. Every speech is full of trite meaningless phrases. Abortion has ‘moral implications’! – Is that supposed to be some great insight or some clue as to where he stands? No it is pointless filler meant to try to pander to everyone by saying nothing.
    Unfortunately it only works on you guys.
    But hey attack me and try to rewrite his answers – you will only be giving the GOP more ammunition and ensuring that Obama continues to make the same mistakes by taking his base for granted.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    i took it to be a reference to God, but I also thought the first time i heard it that it was poorly constructed – like he got nervous on the question and choked a bit. i’m not surprised it is being used against him. I much prefer Waldman’s proposed response. One can argue that it is easy to craft such a response in hindsight knowing the question, but Obama’s team if they are on their game at all right now had to have known that question was likely and should have been very prepared for it.

    i was supportive of the idea of doing the Saddleback forum (and still think it likely did Obama good – he is never going to win a majority of Saddlebackers, but he can both take away their enmity and therefore their energy and pull a few percentage points as compared to Kerry – he is already up 11% on that score with Evangelicals); I was, however, assuming Obama would outshine McCain much more than he did. That was disappointing, but makes this a good trial run for debates that will be more watched. Hopefully Team Obama can look at this and see what needs to be fixed and how McCain should not be underestimated.

    (Indeed, as debates approach they should set Obama’s bar lower and McCain’s higher by noting that McCain was widely considered to have ‘won’ Saddleback, and so Obama is really the underdog in the debates.)

  • Racer X

    says:

    He should have reminded everyone that if they believe life begins at conception, then there’s several million (?) babies being slowly murdered inside frozen chambers, in fertility clinics. How many of these “babies” are dumped down the drain every day?

    And should we punish those 40 million moms, and their doctors? If not, why not?

    I hope McCain goes fully fundie on this one, it’s not going to work this time.

  • Dale

    says:

    And what percentage of those 40 million would have ended up abused, abandoned or worse, especially under the Republican approach to public programs?.

    Obama should have tossed a coat-hanger to Warren and said, “Abolish that.”

  • Michael W

    says:

    My own $.02 is that he could have been referring either to deity or to those who have already come up with a workable definition, i.e. the Supreme Court, which reasoned that if life ends at “brain death”, then logically life begins at “brain life”.

    Simplistic, I know, but we are dealing with simple people.

  • BigOlBadAssBillyBob

    says:

    Wait!!! You mean that the President of the United States is supposed to show HUMILITY and defer to EXPERTS?!?!?!?!?!?!? Now, hold on a minute there, bucco! This tain’t never happened in my lifetime!!! And I definitely don’t expect it to start now! I want a president who knows EVERYTHING bout EVERYTHING, and who talks about EVERY issue as if it was black and white newsprint! We don’t need no negotiations bout nuthin!!! Only debate we should be havin is which missles we need to be using for the next invasion!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA (especially Kentucky!!) and GOD BLESS ME AND MY FAMILY!!!! AND GOD BLESS FORD TRUCKS!!!! By the way, have y’all been prayin fur gas prices to go down?!? I have, and it just dropped 10 cents right next to the farm I work on. The lord is workin his hardest to get that petrol to a descent price again!

  • Michigoose

    says:

    Of course he meant God; what I found even more interesting than the contortionist hoops that the Right is trying to jump through is that he used a military phrasing. “Above my pay grade” was a very common explanation for why we junior folks couldn’t give a yes or no answer to a question (when you’re a Army captain getting chewed out by a general for making a decision that was “above your pay grade” you tend to remember it–trust me! 🙂 ) The Right’s going to twist whatever they can; I thought it was a good answer to a question that everybody has an opinion on and nobody is going to agree.

  • r_m

    says:

    “Obama has a bad habit of treating voters like adults, and not talking down to them.”

    This is exactly right, tell the religious sheeple the same crap fed to them in church and make them happy.

  • JC

    says:

    JRD said: “since he demurs on both the scientific and theological questions. It seems to me that he’s saying that these questions are better for experts in those respective fields

    That was my take, too.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    sarinda,

    all i will “attack” you for is conflating “simplistic” and “unequivocal.”

    McCain continues to be praised for his “concise, direct” answers. I find this sad – like Dubya, McCain sees a very complex world in cartoonish, child-like simplicity.

    Back in the 1700s, the Framers and those debating the founding issues published and often sold multi-page tracts on each discrete issue in the proposed constitution. People actually argued at that length and in that detail, and the public was willing to pay money to read the latest argument. Now, in a world a million times more complex – much more multi-lateral, diverse, nuclear armed, with interlaced economies that have almost uncountable numbers of variables – all people want is the 30-second soundbite or bumber sticker answer.

    Obama doesn’t talk in bumper stickers. Why? Because (a) he actually understands that the issues we face are more complicated than that – while the modern Republican party seems to hate nuance, the entire world nuanced, like it or not and (b) because Obama (unlike McCain, near as I can tell) actually has the intellectual firepower to discuss the subtleties of an issue over an extended answer.

    It isn’t that Obama refuses to take an unequivocal position, it is that no one should want, expect, or reward a simple one-word position. Answers and positions should include weighing of pros and cons, honest admissions of uncertainties and uncontrollables, and acknowledge the likely changes and adjustments that will be needed to accomodate changing facts and information. It isn’t a simple, one-word answer world. Any President who thinks it is will be an abject failure. (See, e.g., Bush, G.W.)

  • Memekiller

    says:

    I thought it was a fantastic answer, and am a bit boggled that anyone has any trouble with this. I thought it was really funny, and hope he continues to use it.

  • Chris

    says:

    Goddard’s Political Wire: “Just Asking…During his weekend interview with Rev. Rick Warren, Sen. John McCain said that if he were president he would have never nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter or John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court. McCain wasn’t a senator when Stevens was nominated, but why did he nevertheless vote to confirm Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter? It seems he was for them before he was against them.”

    Is this eligible for The Official John McCain Flip-Flop List?

  • msmolly

    says:

    I assumed until I read the post and the comments that Obama was saying he is less well qualified scientifically or theologically to make a judgment. I didn’t think of god in that context.

  • ml johnston

    says:

    Obama answered well “Above my pay grade” The right wing and evangelists didn’t wantt him to answer well so it’s picky picky picky.Anything to denigrate a good candidate with excellent and patriotic credentials.

  • Roddy McCorley

    says:

    I thought it was pretty obvious Obama was referring to God

    Ah, but you’re forgetting one key thing: Obama is secretly a Muslim, cleverly planted here by — well, I’m not clear on that part, but someone nefarious — to turn us into an Islamic theocracy. So he could only be referring to Allah! Oooooh — he’s so sneaky, it makes me want to stamp my widdle feet!

    By the way, my wife tells me that in the Jewish religion, life begins when the baby is welcomed into the Jewish religion. (A reminder, it would seem, of a time when infant mortality was something like an even bet.) Viewed in this light, any attempt for a legislature to define a moment of conception would be an attempt to use law to establish religion.

    Or maybe not. Jews are heathens, after all…

  • coral

    says:

    The problem is that no one really “gets” what pay grade means. I vaguely recall it as language used in the military. It was a bad response. He could have come up with something better.

  • Brooks

    says:

    I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade

    How is this not clear? I mean, it’s a very straightforward sentence. It’s hard to even clarify without being redundant, but here goes. He’s saying that he is not qualified to make assertions about either the theological (religious) or scientific issues relating to abortion. He’s not a pastor, and he’s not a scientist, and he wants to qualify his answer by acknowledging that.

    The President leads the country. The President is not, and should not be, the ultimate religious or scientific authority. It’s a perfectly humble and reasonable qualifier. How is it possible that even those on the left are having a hard time with this?

  • Mediahack

    says:

    Obama answered the abortion question as best he could. Period. Let’s moveon.org from that one.
    The interesting answers were ” who are the wisest people you’ll seek advice from?” and “what’s the most difficult decision you have ever made”?

  • Curtis E. Mayle

    says:

    In the venue’s context, I assumed he meant God.

    He could have spelled it out v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, or just given a McCain quip and it would have more clearly met the fundamentalist audience’s emotional needs. However, I do believe he is attempting to raise the citizenry’s intellectual standards and leave the kneejerks to the panderers.

  • libra

    says:

    How did all of you perceive this when you heard the line? — CB

    I had absolutely *no clue* what he was talking about. Could be, because I’m “just another soulless atheist, searching for world peace and harmony” (as per my bumper sticker). Could be, that for all my striving to keep up with the vernacular, that particular phrase had never before crossed my linguistic horizon…

  • Stephen

    says:

    “Maybe the right is being deliberately coy here, and looking to manufacture another controversy”

    That’s all they’ve got at this point …

  • doubtful

    says:

    I thought he failed horribly to explain his position on this issues, which I believe is the correct position (safe, legal, and rare). He had to know this question was coming, so there really is no excuse for the meandering, obfuscated answer. I wish he was as eloquent on this topic as he was on the rest.

  • Surly Duff

    says:

    Well, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade

    Above his pay grade? I thought he was referring to Bill Gates or one of the many Wal-Mart trust fund babies.

  • Always hopeful

    says:

    The RR and Sarinda will say that Obama doesn’t stand for anything. What they really mean is that he isn’t rigid in his judgment like they are. Sarinda, do you really know for certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God thinks that a fertilized egg is a BABY? No, of course you don’t. No one can know for CERTAIN. In the mean time, no one gives a damn about the woman who is the MOTHER. If there is a baby, there is a MOTHER, not just some depraved woman who wants to end a life for convenience. There are real stories behind the very real women who choose to have abortions, but the RR doesn’t want to hear about the economic burdens, the psychological problems, the abusive men in their lives, the rapists, etc. because then they might have to do something other than pull a lever for a Republican.

  • cws

    says:

    “I thought he failed horribly to explain his position on this issues, which I believe is the correct position (safe, legal, and rare).”

    i am curious… why just rare???

    also it is a black and white answer. i know in this post modernism world that we are constantly being pushed into tells us that everything is grey but either you are for abortion or against it. you can’t be half pregnant.

    just think you were once in your mothers womb..good thing she didnt abort you eh? at about 3 or 4 weeks your brain, spinal cord and nerves started to form and at about week 5 your heart started to beat. i dont see how anyone can sit there and be honest with themselves and say that thats not a human life.

  • Repugnants

    says:

    These people only “care” about life when it’s in the womb. Then they have no problem killing innocent children in war and making orphans or watching children die from extreme poverty.

  • SteveT

    says:

    How did all of you perceive this when you heard the line?

    I thought Obama was trying to use humor to lighten his answer to a question that causes a lot anger and sometimes even violence. Of course he was referring to god.

    But the Right only seems to understand humor when people they don’t like are being harmed:

    Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.

    … a new way to kill Iranians.

    Maybe if (Elizabeth Edwards) used her mouth for something other than talking ….

  • Surly Duff

    says:

    @ CWS –
    It is not “for abortion or against it”, the argument is whether there exists a legal choice be available to women to terminate a pregnancy. There are people who are against abortions, but feel that the right to terminate the pregnancy should be given to the woman conceiving the child, not be limited by the decisions of Bush, McCain or you. The argument is pro-choice/anti-abortion.

  • MsMuddled

    says:

    i dont see how anyone can sit there and be honest with themselves and say that thats not a human life.

    Whether I think of it as human life or human tissue is none of your business.

  • Surly Duff

    says:

    @ CWS –
    It is not “for abortion or against it”, the argument is whether there exists a legal choice be available to women to terminate a pregnancy. There are people who are against abortions, but feel that the right to terminate the pregnancy should be given to the woman conceiving the child, not be limited by the decisions of Bush, McCain or you.

  • SteveT

    says:

    cws said:
    just think you were once in your mothers womb..good thing she didnt abort you eh?

    Just think, Adolf Hitler was once in his mother’s womb. Too bad his mother didn’t abort him.

    Or Jeffry Dahmer.

    Or Charles Manson.

    Or Joseph Stalin.

    Or . . . .

  • Michael W

    says:

    cws (#46)

    My sister made a stupid mistake and got knocked up while she was in high school. I was a good Mormon boy at the time, but I thought the best thing she could have done was to have an abortion. Now, I’m glad she didn’t, because I love my nephew very much, and he’s showing some promise, even though he’s getting a late start thanks to being raised by a single mother who would rather party than be a parent.

    If the situation happened again today, I would have the same reaction I had then. She’s been a mother over 20 years now, and she’s still not ready for the challenge. It’s only the fact that her family was there for her, and basically raised the kid, that he turned out as well as he did.

    Get off your high horse and join the real world. Sh!t happens, and some people just don’t deal with it well.

  • TheMightyBoosh

    says:

    Obama performed terribly. Not because of this specific comment(which was perfectly rational, and not referring to ‘God’), but because of his reliance on catch phrases and cliche’s when he became rattled(again). He really needs to get over this habit. Get a tough question; go into dumb-dumb sound byte mode. Obama is no Kennedy. Hell, he isn’t even an Edwards. But he is the best of what’s left. Without constructive criticism from liberals, he will lose this election. The posturing and catch phrases were cute and endearing a few months ago. They’re annoying and condescending now. Stop it. Seriously. Lift your game and this election will be a no contest. McCain only really has the support of liberal Republicans/free marketers. It is effing ridiculous that it should be anywhere near 50/50 at the moment. You can’t seriously tell me that John Edwards wouldn’t be wiping the floor with McCain if he were the nominee. It would be at least 60/40.

  • Hannah

    says:

    I immediately thought he meant God, but also ethicists, scientists, philosophers. I love how Obama talks to us as grownups, and makes us think. It’s unfortunate some don’t know how to process that.

    BTW, pay grade refers not only to military, but also civil servants (GS: General Schedule Pay Grade).

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    cws, being “for or against abortion” has nothing in common with the idea ;f being “half pregnant.” as usual for rightwingnuts, you force everything into false binaries. one can be against abortion in certain circumstances and for it in others; one can be against abortion personally but believe it is a private issue, not one for public policy; one can believe that abortion will never be eliminated and believe it better in a doctor’s office than a back alley; one can be for abortion at certain stages of development and not others, or for women of a certain age and not others, or women provided certain information and not others; one can believe in abortion if the impregnator was engaged in rape or insest but not in other circumstances; one can even belive that the zygote is a “child” and yet favor the life or health of the mother if pregnancy threatens that life or health — a bird in the hand versus a bird in utero, if you will.

    oversimplification contributes to the mass dumbing down of America which threatens our economy and our security for generations to come. arguing from over simplication doesn’t show strength of values – it shows you to be an unthinking dogmatist.

  • Lance

    says:

    When I heard about the answer (I paid no attention to this fake debate/debacle) I thought Obama meant God.

    Reading it here now, I’m with JC, JRD and Amy.

    JRD said: “since he demurs on both the scientific and theological questions. It seems to me that he’s saying that these questions are better for experts in those respective fields.

    Scientists, Theologians and Medical Ethicists can argue out about life, humanity, souls and so on and maybe generate a compelling description that convinces people that and ensouled human life begins three weeks or three months before a normal birth. Or they could agree with the Buddhists who think a baby is ensouled 24 days after birth.

    But two thoughts to keep in mind:

    1) Abortion is not in the Constitution because common law of the time did not regard a fetus to be a living being until it was felt to move or a heartbeat was heard. This happens usually right at 4.5 months. Before that, no one (certainly no Founding Father) would have been stupid enough to claim a state’s right to interfere in a woman’s choice about a pregnancy. The first anti-abortion laws were pushed in this country in the 1840s by the American Medical Association after they took over the practice of providing surgical abortions from midwives who provided pharmaceutical abortions. And of course surgical abortions can be (safely my ass) practiced much later in term than a pharmaceutical one.

    2) 50 percent of all conceptions fail naturally and are miscarried. If God is ensouling conceptus (sp) at the moment of conception and the Christian belief in Original Sin and the need for a Baptism to begin the possibility of salvation, then God is condemning 50% of all the souls he creates/downloads straight to Hell. Rather more old testament than new testament if you ask me.

  • danimal

    says:

    I guess this means last week’s meme about Obama being arrogant is no longer operative. I can’t keep up…is he a secret Muslim terrorist or a black nationalist congregant this week? Is he an indecisive humble man or an arrogant celebrity? It’s so confusing!

    John McCain, a lonely nation looks to you to define this week’s smear.

  • James

    says:

    No doubt about it, it’s a tough question to answer. But I think it can be done, and I think the “above my pay grade” makes Obama look like a bit of a weenie. Even if he had answered somewhere along the lines of “Well, it’s a question we’ve all been grappling with for many years now, and I grapple with it myself…..does it begin at point A, point B yadda yadda yadda….” it at least looks like he’s thoughtful about it, and that he’s not afraid to tackle a tough, polarizing issue. Surely all the folks lauding Obama for treating them like adults could appreciate that sort of answer, no?

    “Above my pay grade” may be a way of Obama trying to inject some humility into his image, but it’s really just taking a pass on a tough question. You’d think that, as a Senator, tough questions wouldn’t be anything new or unconfronted. Well, things will tick up a notch as President…so he might as well get his feet wet.

  • Goldilocks

    says:

    I hate it when I can’t get in on this on time (maybe others don’t!), but some of us have to work.

    Here’s what niggles me, not so much about Mr Obama’s response, but about the topic generally. When people talk about ‘life’ I have the impression they really haven’t thought through what they mean. We all know when something is living in contrast to when something is dead, but in relation to the issue in question it has to be more precise than that.

    What people mean by ‘life’ in this context is more accurately described as incarnation — that is, a mind (which is unlimited) manifesting in a physical form (which is limited). Birth is most accurately describe as ‘becoming accessible to ordinary vision’. Conception, however, is when the mind unites with the parents during sex and dissolves into the fertilized ovum. This is the best way to understand and describe the enigmas of death, conception, birth and life. I imagine everyone grapples with these core issues of our existence.

    Okay, I’ve said my little piece. You may take it or leave it. Sorry if it doesn’t help; glad if it does.

  • Megalomania

    says:

    The Paradox of being a sinner

    People have an interesting dilemma, here, in the most serious of sex issues when two adults with acceptable agreement, or are consensual, willing freely and behind closed doors in private, seemingly with all the personal liberty values built in the protection of the Constitution, basics in privacy laws kick in motion. Have sex.

    There in know, that nothing is wrong to have sex, here the separation of church and state is glaring revealing and horribly misrepresented by out side groups that feel empowered to reach out to project their believes. As Evangelist do or basic Christianity, or Islam does in belting out strict hard lines in moral views at anytime in any ones life.

    It is a hard statement to make but each person is given two gifts. One is to share the moment in pleasure and two, have the ability to open the gate to life. Here, having the capability to discern ones own personal believes in religion in that moment without interference is, or seems to be the new basic core of the Constitution. This is the challenge. One should find it interesting how repentance is built in the bible, and the ability change ones mind is built in the Constitution.

    This all challenges the bible as a way to govern, here, the Constitution is trumping long standing biblical believes. And, sex by law is not a guilty act between two consenting adults. Perhaps that person in a minority of the time does fail to regulate conception and opens the gate to life. Then chooses to take it away after reflection likely for another personal individual reason not realized or considered before in the wave of passion.

    So, whats my point

    All this is very personal and perhaps the argument can be made, these decisions are within ones own pay grade. God gave man a free will…

    and dominium over the beasts of the earth, today not so say some. Here, reflection tells us we are part of that set, man in a member of that set of beasts, that are part of life. Or no? That is core to part of the argument.

    Very personal decisions are made in this window of passion that is never addressed especially by religion, or secular social experts, the rich, within that particular limit.

    That is it seems to be unfair and ungodly to have an “At Will” society and not be able to participate in it, and it only happens most often at election time.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    actually, Goldilocks, one can argue it is even more complicated than that. when does that fertilized ovum become sentient? once sentient, it is necessarily “human”? (at various tages of developments, the embryo has heart and lung features that are more like a fish or amphibian).

    presumably the right would argue that because it has human potentiality, it is actually human all along – but that may be a hard argument to make convincingly at 4 cells, or 8 cells or 16 cells so it really does become a line drawing problem.

    in my mind, the easiest way around this is to simply ignore the pitched battle over “when life begins.” assume that the Right is right, and argue that even so it doesn’t matter: there are many circumstances where two sets of rights will collide in a way where someone must have priority. because we know with absolute certainty that the mother is a “life,” and as such she is entitled to autonomous control over her body, the embryo within and dependent on her only had such rights as are derivative of and dependent on her. That is, a “child” does not have independent rights until that child is an independent physical entity — physically existing and surviving on its own or with medical assistance other than that of another human’s body. that is the cleanest way to draw the line, avoids many of the fights, and also allows for punishment of things like fetacide where the mother wanted to have the child without the left having to worry whether such crimes puts legal abortion at risk.

  • David

    says:

    WOW!!!!

    And I too thought that was humility. For anyone to get up infront of God and the claiming to respect and value even the life of the unborn, yet do nothing but talk about WAR and KILLING can’t be all together be right, but I too will let God be the judge. (It’s beneath my pay grade.)

  • Edo

    says:

    cws,

    i know in this post modernism world that we are constantly being pushed into tells us that everything is grey but either you are for abortion or against it.

    My sister-in-law had a to have a 2nd term abortion to prevent permanent damage to her reproductive system. Her fetus had a congential defect that meant if she had attempted to carry it to term it would have likely rendered her sterile. Because she had an abortion, she was able to have another child.

    I love that 2nd child. So, if we’re stuck with your black and white view, then I’m for abortion. and if you’re not given that anecdote you are a monster. I, however, do tend to think of things as being shades of grey, especially in the context of the morality of abortion. Is abortion moral 1 day before full-term? i think not. Is abortion moral 1 day after fertilization? I think it is. Where we draw the line is where it gets interesting. And that’s just from the perspective of morality. As for the legal aspects…i’ll defer to the lawyers for insights there.

  • 1st Paradox

    says:

    I took it as a welcome declaration that Obama would neither be our theologian-in-chief, dictating what sort of “faith” Americans would be permitted to have; nor our scientist-in-chief, commissioning and repressing research results to suit his socio-political agenda. That’s all.

    Unfortunately, those limitations on the head of civil government in a democracy seem to be too sophisticated for lots of voters to understand these days.

  • Crissa

    says:

    Well, first off, there haven’t been 40 million surgical procedures to induce abortion. So it’s a really disingenuous question from the beginning to the end.

  • catclub

    says:

    Even if the presidency IS at a
    pay grade high enough to resolve this issue. Obama is NOT at that pay grade. He is a senator.

    His anti-presumptuousness is
    even MORE presumptuous!

  • Janet Knaus

    says:

    I thought it was a bad answer. By now Obama should have a better response. You cannot be pro-choice and believe that a 2-celled gamete is equal to a living, breathing person with a past and a future. He needs to know that his truthful answer will not please the rabid right. I was surprised at his answer, especially since it was such a predictable question, and I assume he did some practicing before the “event.”

    Of course, he didn’t have the advantage of practicing with the actual questions like McCheat did. When Warren asked McCain about being in the cone of silence and McCain responded that he was trying to hear through the walls, was that not a bald-faced lie?

  • John Hoffman

    says:

    Kid: you’ve got to remember that these people are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.

  • Goldilocks

    says:

    I’m entirely with 1st Paradox #66. That’s exactly how it struck me too, and I was perfectly satisfied.

    To stretch it out a little: what he seemed to be saying, very succinctly and accurately, in answer to the question “At what point does a baby get human rights.. ?” is that it is entirely dependent on an individual’s belief system, and that it is not (or will not be) his job to pontificate to others on the matter. Personally I consider that absolutely correct and highly laudable.

  • Goldilocks

    says:

    Oh, and, zeitgeist (#63), that sentence “Conception, however, is when the mind unites with the parents during sex and dissolves into the fertilized ovum.” should have been better expressed: “Conception, however, is when the mind unites with the parents during sex and dissolves into the ovum at fertilization.” (My editor wasn’t paying attention!)

    And yes, it is more complicate than that. As I understand it, and this is taken from the Buddhist teachings on the subject, the mind in its disincarnate state (in the bardo of becoming), seeking the security of rebirth, merges with the ovum at its moment of fertilization and falls unconscious, in which condition it remains till about the sixth or seventh month. The maturation of the fetus, of course, is continuing apace — ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, as you say. The being, from fertilization onwards, in this view, would be regarded as sentient though not conscious. We have this experience every night when we sleep.

    You say:

    presumably the right would argue that because it has human potentiality, it is actually human all along – but that may be a hard argument to make convincingly at 4 cells, or 8 cells or 16 cells so it really does become a line drawing problem.

    And I would say that without the 4 cells, or 8 cells or 16 cells how do you get to the 1000 cells or million cells or a full human being? I don’t think you can jump past any of the preceding stages and still get to the end result.

    However, please don’t read this as capitulation to the right. Although I believe what I’ve said, I absolutely part company with those wish to impose their views on others by denying them a safe, legal option of terminating that being’s life if they so choose. The point I share with you here is that, though I hold it to be a sentient being, it is not a being that is capable of continuing its life without the totality of the support system of the mother who is carrying it.

    I, therefore, completely accord with your conclusion and would not presume to improve on it.. other than to say that even as adults we are still to some extent dependent on others for our survival.

  • jhm

    says:

    From The Selfish Gene. p.10:

    …A human foetus, with no more human feeling than an amoeba, enjoys a reverence and legal protection far in excess of those granted to an adult Chimpanzee. Yet the Chimp feel and thinks and—according to recent experimental evidence—may even be capable of learning a form of human language.

  • Will Hunting

    says:

    I think that it was not a good answer, and here is my (worthless) two cents: I have a feeling that, as a Christian who believes in scripture, Obama is personally against abortion but also does not think the government should ban it. In other words, he would counsel anyone in his personal life against it, but believes, like many Christain people, that you change these things on an individual level, not with legislation. The people who stand around holding posters are too scared/lazy/ignorant to go out and actually build relationships with people who are different than themselves.

  • libra

    says:

    In US, live in a very small town; we have no public transportation. So, I don’t know what your buses, trams, etc have and don’t have. In Warsaw, they have a seat reserved for the elderly and infirm and also one for women who are pregnant or have “an infant in arms”. Other people are allowed to sit in those seats, but have to give them up when a “designated” occupant shows up.

    So. A young lady — maybe 16 or 17 — boards a bus, heads straight for the “gravid” seat and says to the guy who’s sitting there: “Excuse me, but would you mind vacating the seat? I’m pregnant”. The guy looks her up and down, sees no bulge and asks: “How long?” The girl gives him a beatific smile and says: “Oh, about half an hour.”

    The above, BTW, is in response to cws, @46 and his/her: “at about 3 or 4 weeks your brain, spinal cord and nerves started to form and at about week 5 your heart started to beat.”

    What about “at about half an hour”?

  • Chris O.

    says:

    I’m not religious at all and it was really freakin’ obvious to me he was referring to God. He was in a church, after all. Come on people.

  • Barbara J. Hatcher

    says:

    Amen. We all know he meant God. These Republicans try to have it both ways! Please do not tell me that a conservative, reportedly christian person did not understand that. At least Oba,a’s worldview is not that of “get the evil without without dealing with the evil within.” I prefer Obama’s worldview.

  • Adam

    says:

    Well, if the measuring stick is viability of the fetus, the I will need to take issue with poster number #35….according to Jewish beliefs, the fetus is only viable (ergo, a human being) after it has graduated from medical school

  • Slim Smith

    says:

    Am I the only Christian who reads this site? The real issue among Christians is not “above my pay grade” comment; Christians generally get the reference, I suspect.
    Rather, it is his contention that the question does not have a specific theological answer. Mainstream Christians have no qualms about the theological argument against abortion. It makes me wonder, indeed, what buffet-style Christianity Mr. Obama ascribes to.
    To suggest that there is any ambiguity on the subject in the Christian faith is what evangelics find most objectionable.

  • Blaidd Drwg

    says:

    The thing that infuriates the ‘religious right’ is that Obama was actually THINKING about his answers to the questions put to him, while McPuppet was primed, and was speaking in campaign-ese.

  • Geoerge Will

    says:

    What else is “above his paygrade?” Pro-choice women answer this question without hesitation. Obama can’t give an answer because he doesn’t know his position. Simply amazing.

  • Andrew Mitchell

    says:

    Obama calls himself a Christian. Citing Matthew, he acknowledges that God commands us that what we do to the least of our brothers, we do to him. How about reading Jeremiah – God knits us together in the womb. Obama can call himself a Christian but that doesn’t make him one anymore than going to McDonalds makes him a hamburger.

  • awad

    says:

    I think national security issues, health concerns, the environment, taxes etc, would also be above his pay grade. What a joke. Obama himself doesn’t think he is qualified to be President. Go back to the Illinois legislature where you can support the right to kill children born from botched abortions. Hopefully the media created candidate will start to lose his luster with so many gullible Americans. Hillary must be pulling her hair out having lost to this empty suit.

  • Grumpy

    says:

    #82: “Pro-choice women answer this question without hesitation.”

    Really? What’s the answer? Human rights begin with the first breath? A few weeks before? When, exactly?

    I don’t know, and neither does Obama.

  • Chainsaw

    says:

    I thought it was an excellent answer to a difficult question – which was, I think, precisely the reason the haters latched on to it.

    It appears clear to me – especially given Obama’s historic way of working – that he was simultaneously referring to religious experts, scientific experts, and God. He really DOES defer to experts. He really DOES work as an organizer and manager.

    His answer indicated to the sane fundamentalists that he was deferring to God, the organized religious that he was deferring to theology, the agnostics that he was acknowledging the complexity and conflicts involved, the rationalists that he was deferring to science, and the general public that he was doing all this with a sense of humor and humility.

    He is mainstream enough to acknowledge that Christianity is both divided and open to debate on the issues, fundies aside.

    He is sharp enough to know that saying anything actually contradicting science on the details of their definition of life is a losing proposition, even if by accident.

    Likewise he allows all the different versions of scientism to think their version of the beginnings of life are shared, or at least deferred to, by him. He knows there’s fundamentalists there too, and they anger much like any other fundamentalist.

    And he’s right about the pay grade thing – like GWB says, he’s the decider. He’s not supposed to be the expert on every subject. That’s what advisers are for. If he knew enough science to say anything coherent about their definition of life, he’d have to have been a biology geek much of his life, with no time to be a politician and organizer.

    But regarding abortion itself, it puzzles me how neither side typically acknowledges how many other times and ways we decide that people will die for trivial things, and find it completely acceptable, as though abortion is the only time someone has to die for someone else’s convenience.

    And just in case you wondered, I am the abortion fanatic the right wing is afraid of. I’m for abortion. Radically. In general. I just LIKE them. I think EVERYONE should have at least three or four of them, especially gay men. And we should start early – get them out of the way before we’re old enough to get serious about relationships or caretaking. I think most women should have random sex with unattractive strangers while in dire circumstances, just so they can have more abortions. I think we should give our pets abortions, and our appliances, and our automobiles, and our newly remodeled houses. I think we should watch abortions on TV, sing about them in pop songs, read trashy grocery-store abortion romances, work in abortion mills, celebrate abortion holidays…

    I mean, we LOVE violence. Look at the war. Look at our prisons. Look at our growing nutcase-with-rifle collection. Look at our locked-down borders. Look at our entertainment – our movies, our games, our books, our sports. Look at our increasingly gray police state. Look at our domestic meat supply. What’s NOT to love about abortion?

  • Bob M

    says:

    Above his pay grade??? We’re not talking about pay; we’re talking about the WISDOM to lead the free world!

    WISDOM = KNOWLEDGE + EXPERIENCE

    Barry does NOT have experience. There’s no time for rookie on-the-job training. His knowledge is also very questionable.

    “Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.” —Source Unknown

  • Malie

    says:

    When a woman and a man having coitus in the heat of passion, the result will be —–a fetus—– don’t YOU IDIOTS consider a fetus –A BEGINNING OF A NEW LIFE— we don’t have to involve God or scientific research or going around the bush or forest to define FETUS AS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW LIFE. If a fetus is aborted , a new life ends, to avoid this wear condom or use contraceptive, or just plain abstinence, and think before you leap, the whole argument of abortion will cease . I rest my case.