April 14, 2008

Blasting Barack

The website of the Tennessee Republican Party appears to have suffered some kind of attack which has rendered much of it inoperable. While the IT folks work on it, I thought I'd post here the text of the press release we issued today, and also as a PDF file. The text is in the extended portion of this post. And, yeah, I've blogged a press release in which I am quoted, which is, admittedly, a tad bizarre.

UpdateThe TRP site appears to be functioning again.

WE'RE NOT BITTER
Obama's bigoted statement puts down people of faith

NASHVILLE, TN - When Barack Obama looks at small-town America, he sees a land of angry, racist, gun-totin' Bible-thumpers who, in his words, "cling to guns and religion" only because the economy isn't booming.

We the people of the Tennessee Republican Party beg to differ. We know different.

"The people of small-town Pennsylvania whom Obama directly insulted in his now-infamous remarks to a group of wealthy latte liberals in San Francisco are just like the people of small-town Tennessee - good, salt-of-the-earth folks who don't 'cling to religion' because the government has failed them, but rather worship God out of a deep, real and abiding faith in both good times and bad," said Robin Smith, chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party.

Sen. Obama's comments indicate an elitist's condescension toward some of the most basic and fundamental freedoms guaranteed to all Americans by the Bill of Rights - a document authored, ironically, by Thomas Jefferson, considered a patron political saint of Obama's Democrat political party. Jefferson's 256th birthday is today.

The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights guarantees people of faith the right to their religious views and practices unmolested by government, and the Declaration of Independence declares that our rights come from God, not from government - yet Sen. Obama seems to view religion the way Karl Marx did, as the opiate of the masses, something people cling to only because the secular state has let them down.

"Sen. Obama's assertion that people turn to God only after government has failed them is an insult to people of faith everywhere," said Smith.

Perhaps Sen. Obama's bitter view of religion flows from the 20 years he spent soaking up the racist, hateful bigotry of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a narrow religious experience which blinded him to the grace and love that is the more common faith experience in churches across small-town America.

As for guns, the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights guarantees to all Americans to the right to keep and bear firearms, yet Sen. Obama has expressed that he believes Americans only turn to guns because the economy is bad and government hasn't fixed it. The truth is that millions of Americans own guns for hunting and millions own them for self-defense – the latter necessary because the government in which Obama places his faith has failed its basic duty to keep the people safe.

In his remarks, Sen. Obama also portrayed people who object to illegal immigration as racist, blaming the people when it is the state which has failed to secure the borders and stanch the flow of illegals, who put downward pressure on wages and cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars for added healthcare, education, law enforcement and other services.

"The Tennessee Republican Party rejects Sen. Obama's bitter bigotry toward people of faith, toward Americans who still believe in the Constitution's Second Amendment, and toward people who believe we ought to secure our borders - and we urge voters to take a deeper look at the 'change' that Sen. Obama is offering," said Bill Hobbs, communications director for the Tennessee Republican party. "Obama's idea of change is for you not to rest your faith in God and your rights on the Constitution, but to put your faith in secular government run by elitists like Obama who look down on you."

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Media Contact Info:
Bill Hobbs
Communications Director
Tennessee Republican Party
2424 21st Avenue, Suite 200
Nashville, Tennessee 37212
Phone: (615) 269-4260
Email: billhobbs@tngop.org