McCain, Obama To Appear At Megachurch

First Joint Forum Will Be Moderated By Prominent Preacher Rick Warren

(AP)  Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama will participate next month in a question-and-answer forum at Saddleback Church, Pastor Rick Warren said Monday.

Warren, who oversees the 22,000-member congregation, will question the presidential candidates on Aug. 16 during the church's Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion.

Joshua DuBois, Obama's director of religious affairs, said the senator was “looking forward to going back to Saddleback with his good friend Pastor Rick Warren.” Obama spoke at Saddleback in 2006.

Warren said the candidates didn't want a debate format but rather the two-hour forum. The candidates are expected to appear together briefly before each takes questions from Warren for about an hour. A coin toss determined that Obama will go first.

Warren is the author of “The Purpose Driven Life.”

[six-six-seis]

Jesus has called this meeting into order,
he is not happy with the blodshed in his name and he wants to make sure its put to an end...

[ariel133]

After receiving a hailstorm of criticism for considering Brandenburg Gate for a public speech, as well as official German dissuasion, Barack Obama moved the venue to the Siegessdule monument. Obama will speak about %u201Chistoric%u201D US-German relations, but once again, Obama%u2019s own grasp of history has been proven deficient. Not only does the site contain a monument to Prussian victories over other American allies in Europe, its placement was decided by Adolf Hitler %u2014 in order to impress crowds in his idealized version of Berlin called Germania.Obama could be excused for his gaffe, except for two reasons. His team certainly understood the historical weight that the Brandenburg Gate would have lent his event, so why didn%u2019t they bother to ask the Germans about the Siegessdule? Quite obviously, the Germans understand the meaning and subtext of the monument, and most of them wonder why Obama does not. Maybe this is a better example of clueless Americans traveling abroad than those who can only say Merci, beaucoup.

[armydog2]

The two should be together on the stage to answer questions. Obama would have mccain sounding and looking like a complete fool.

[briannorwood]

Ariel133:

And your point is?

[paris1969]

Obama calls Rick Warren his good friend ... another potential pastor disaster ... Warren didn''t know about AIDS, he says, until his wife told him about it 2-3 years ago ... and then he found he could enrich his church with government faith-based-grants and urged other evangelicals to do the same!

[ariel133]

Obama campaign hires Muslim liaison

Obama''s campaign has hired Hiam Nawas as its Muslim liaison, according to two sources familiar with the move.

Nawas, a Jordanian-American who filled a similar role for the campaign of General Wesley Clark in 2004, has a role complicated by the fact that Obama has been forced repeatedly to deny that he is Muslim, a situation which grates on some Muslim-Americans.

Nawas wrote in 2005 that the Bush Administration should take a more nuanced approach to public diplomacy directed at Muslim women.

"We need to recognise that the social structure in the Muslim world is very different from America''s," she wrote. "American women need to understand that what is best for them is not necessarily what is best for Muslim women. Advocacy of women%u2019s rights in the Muslim world must show sensitivity to local political realities."

She''s also described joint business ventures as an important tool of diplomacy.

Her hiring comes as Obama builds out a more traditional, constituency-based campaign structure than he had in the primary.

Neither Nawas or the campaign immediately responded to questions about the hire.