{"id":15800,"date":"2008-06-07T16:00:35","date_gmt":"2008-06-07T20:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15800.html"},"modified":"2008-06-07T16:00:35","modified_gmt":"2008-06-07T20:00:35","slug":"obamas-former-church-gasp-helps-its-parishioners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/obamas-former-church-gasp-helps-its-parishioners\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s former church (gasp!) helps its parishioners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Sullivan recently unveiled “The Hewitt Award<\/a>,” named after “the absurd partisan fanatic, Hugh Hewitt,” which Sullivan extends to “the most egregious attempts to label Barack Obama as un-American, alien, treasonous, and far out of the mainstream of American life and politics.”<\/p>\n

And Hewitt is definitely living up to his reputation.<\/p>\n

Last night, Hewitt posted a couple of .jpg images under this text<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This is from the “Pastor’s Page” from the April 9, 2006, Trinity United Church of Christ bulletin. Barack Obama was a member of the church at the time. It is unknown if he attended services that day. Click on the image to enlarge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Curious what he’d dug up, I clicked on the images, wondering how controversial it might be. The first page from the church bulletin was a message from Jeremiah Wright to the congregation, talking about a woman in the church who needs a kidney transplant. The next page was tax advice from the church on parishioners who might qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, along with a message about helping victims of Hurricane Katrina.<\/p>\n

There was nothing even remotely controversial about any of this. Literally, not a word. Similar bulletins appear in houses of worship across the country, every weekend. Who on earth cares whether Obama “attended services that day” that day or not?<\/p>\n

Or as Sullivan put it<\/a>, “…Hewitt keeps posting images from TUCC’s church bulletin as if they contained something scary or shocking or revelatory. I can’t find anything in them even faintly remarkable. Donating a kidney to another member of the congregation? Instructions on how to get an EITC tax credit? Help for Katrina victims? Is Hewitt now muttering aimlessly in a dark room somewhere?”
\n
\nMatt Yglesias added<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Yes, that’s right, Pastor Wright tried to help one of his congregants get a kidney transplant<\/i> and if you put his former parishioner Barack Obama in office, next thing you know churches all around the country will be, um, trying to help people. […]<\/p>\n

Mostly these circular letters seem me to be a reminder of why one might have long been a member of Trinity — most of the church’s activities seem to be basically unremarkable, socially conscious engagement with the community, precisely the sort of institution a rising local politician would want to associate himself with.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What Matt and Andrew don’t realize, though, is that the bulletin is proof of Wright’s nefarious kidney-stealing agenda. Oliver Willis has the scoop<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[T}his bulletin proves what we’ve believed all along: black people are harvesting our livers. Suddenly, the reasoning behind Obama’s run become clear: He’s not here for hope, he’s here for your liver.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I knew<\/i> it….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Sullivan recently unveiled “The Hewitt Award,” named after “the absurd partisan fanatic, Hugh Hewitt,” which Sullivan extends to “the most egregious attempts to label Barack Obama as un-American, alien, treasonous, and far out of the mainstream of American life and politics.” And Hewitt is definitely living up to his reputation. Last night, Hewitt posted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}