We can do better than Hillary Clinton.

[MADem]

258. Third Way is NOT the same outfit, and it's not "re-branded."

Ask Al Franken if you don't believe me.

Did you know that Hillary is "associated" with John Ashcroft?

He used to be a cabinet member....and so was she!!!!

He used to be a senator...and so was she!!!!

Strom THURMOND....what a fucking stretch! You're too clever by half. Apparently you are unaware of the fact that for the last many years of Thurmond's life, he was LIVING at Walter Reed. Not an in-patient; LIVING. His aides would throw him in the wheelchair and haul him to the Senate chamber for votes, and then haul him home.

He wasn't doing any "praying" with Hillary Clinton or anyone else. But that IS what you are trying to suggest with that little uncited list of yours.

You do know this is the crew that puts on that National Prayer Breakfast every year? Apparently, you don't. EVERYONE shows up at that thing--might as well list the entire Congress on your dire little list.

Every year, they choose a REPUBLICAN and a DEMOCRATIC chairperson to oversee that behemoth of a thing. And every President since Eisenhower has showed up for it. So let's throw JFK and Jimmy Carter into the mix, too! Yeah, that's the ticket!!!

Who else, then, is "associated" with "The Family?" (Their formal name is The Fellowship...but doesn't "The Family" sound more dire to an amateur conspiracy theorist?)

Let's throw some brickbats at (oooooooooh....!!!!)

...BONO--he spoke at one of those prayer breakfasts.
...Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project, who did likewise.
...Jimmy Carter--he's had dealings with them BEYOND attending the breakfast....let's put him in the pile, too!!!
...Don't forget Menachim Begin and Nelson Mandela!!! Put them on your EEEEVIL list, too!!!

Hillary Clinton has, as SECSTATE, spoken at a National Prayer Breakfast--just like Bono did. AND when she was a Senator, she committed this CRIME on rare occasion....

Wednesday prayer breakfasts for United States Senators, which have been attended by Senators Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn, James Inhofe, John Ensign, Susan Collins and Hillary Clinton.

How dare she go to a Wednesday Prayer Breakfast! The NERVE of her!!!!!!

Now, we know where you got your little uncited list (not cool to post uncited material here, and we know you didn't have that lot memorized)--so let's just put it all out there. Here's the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_(Christian_organization)

You really should be ashamed of yourself--but that takes a reservoir of awareness and a grounded core that I don't believe you possess. You've got the Rovian "J'Accuse!" down pat--unfortunately, you don't do your homework very well, and it's just way too easy to just blow your bullshit out of the water.

Bottom line--LOTS of people do business with "The Fellowship." They're like a lobbying organization with a religious patina; they have connections and they make connections. They can be relied upon to keep their mouths shut--that is their strength. You don't have to be in love with them to understand that.

Apparently, you have a Pollyanna-ish view of American politics, where people of opposing views never sit down with people who don't share their POVs and "network." Or even speak to one another of personal matters. That's not reality. This organization provides a venue for conversations across the aisle. Are they the most savory in DC? Hell no, they are secretive, they value the privacy of their members, and of course, they are RELIGIOUS, which is a hanging offense according to some--but they're not the worst kids on the block, either.

For anyone reading along who wants a full picture of what "The Fellowship" (which counts a quarter of Congress as "members&quot entails, I recommend this article:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/13/100913fa_fact_boyer

It's a far more balanced account than the bullshit conspiracy theories being shopped in this thread.

Excerpt:

Under Coe, the Fellowship’s work became more focussed on an intensely personal, “relational” ministry to leaders, many of them public leaders, which made absolute trust paramount. What some saw as obsessive secrecy, Coe says, was a necessary privacy. “We’re not being secretive, it’s just that no one advertises that we’ve got a guy here who’s an atheist and is having a problem with his life, or maybe stole money from his country’s treasury,” he said.

The other change under Coe was a refining of the brand of faith that animated the Fellowship. Coe distilled that faith down to the raw teaching of Jesus, as presented in the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and in the first few chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. This approach conformed with Coe’s youthful rebellion against the idea of a God who would condemn all but a particular brand of believer. “They tell Jewish friends, You can’t go to Heaven unless you’re a Christian,” Coe says. “Well, the facts are, if that is true, Isaiah could never go to Heaven, Mary could never go to Heaven, Jesus could never go to Heaven. It’s crazy.”

But there is also a strategic value to this insistently nondoctrinal approach: anybody, of any faith, can admire Coe’s Jesus. Rabbi Jack Bemporad, who works in the field of interreligious relations, met Coe on a trip to Iran several years ago. “He wants to have a way of presenting Jesus so that whoever he’s talking to will find a way of accepting it,” Bemporad says. “He’s not dogmatic and saying, ‘You’ve got to believe in the Trinity,’ or ‘He’s the son of God.’ ” ... Coe also finds spiritual communion with the Dalai Lama (“the Dalai Lama loves Jesus”), and recently sent me a book of the Dalai Lama’s meditations on the Gospels. Along with a note, Coe slipped in a small tract titled “A Follower of Jesus,” which amounted to a summation of the Fellowship’s creed. The Followers of Jesus, it said, seek “a ‘revolution of love’ so powerful that the division and animosity separating people and nations will be greatly eliminated or replaced by the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation as modeled by Jesus of Nazareth.”

“I can tell you that critics to his right think that Doug is just doctrinally soft and confused,” Michael Cromartie, the vice-president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, and a friend of Coe’s, says. “It’s one thing to be an admirer of Jesus the man, but there are people in the more orthodox world who want to say that Jesus did more than just walk around and teach; he actually did something in history, on the Cross, that is crucial to everything.”

Coe shrinks at the thought of trying to convert anyone. His gift, those close to him say, is for acting as a sort of spiritual adviser. ....