THE LONG THEOCRATIC NIGHT DESCENDS ON AMERICA....:

A New Tradition for Obama's Presidential Events: Opening With a Prayer (Dan Gilgoff, 2/24/09, US News)

A once-in-a-lifetime experience for [Ryan] Culp has become routine for President Obama: In a departure from previous presidents, his public rallies are opening with invocations that have been commissioned and vetted by the White House.

During Obama's recent visit to Fort Myers, Fla., to promote his economic stimulus plan, a black Baptist preacher delivered a prayer that carefully avoided mentioning Jesus, lest he offend anyone in the audience. And at Obama's appearance last week near Phoenix to unveil his mortgage bailout plan, an administrator for the Tohono O'odham Nation delivered the prayer, taking the unusual step of writing it down so he could E-mail it to the White House for vetting. American Indian prayers are typically improvised.

Though invocations have long been commonplace at presidential inaugurations and certain events like graduations or religious services at which presidents are guests, the practice of commissioning and vetting prayers for presidential rallies is unprecedented in modern history, according to religion and politics experts.

Interviews with former White House aides and official presidential archivists going back to the Carter administration turn up no evidence of similar programs, though some of Ronald Reagan's events featured invocations from clergy from a variety of religious traditions. The Reagan White House appears to have received copies of the invocations after they were delivered, as opposed to before, according to Ronald Reagan Presidential Library archivist Lisa Jones.

"If a similar thing had been done by President Bush's White House, I guarantee you there would have been a lot of people crying foul," says Bill Wichterman, deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison under President George W. Bush. "Democrats can do this with immunity, but when Republicans do it, it becomes controversial."

Of course, it ought not be controversial, so there are benefits to reducing Liberal Derangement Syndrome.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 26, 2009 9:28 AM