Okay, So I Take Back What I Said about Rick Warren's Participation at the Inauguration...

As I'm reading Barack Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father, and really enjoying it, I'm coming to a renewed appreciation of Obama's potential to build bridges between alienated groups of people...

As I wrote last week, when I first heard about Obama's decision to have Pastor Rick Warren offer the invocation at the inauguration, it made me admire his ability to be inclusive and accepting of people of different viewpoints. I felt that a lot of bloggers comparing Warren to being anti-semitic or racist was overblown and exaggerated.

Okay. So I should have done my research.

The amazing Rachel Maddow (she and Jon Stewart are, hands-down, the two best political commentators around) just did a story highlighting Warren's defensive posturing given the recent publicity, calling those who are calling him homophobic "Christophobes." Oh please.

He also vehemently denies comparing gay marriage to incest or pedophilia, even though Maddow shows an interview where he did just that.

I have not withdrawn my admiration of Obama for the bridge-building thing, and in fact, his decision has only served to shine a negative light on Warren in the end. My guess is that this might have been a very rare case of the Obama team not thoroughly "vetting" all of the skeletons in Warren's closet.

Here's the clip:


The blogosphere is steaming with angry discussions back and forth on this topic. Warren is not helping his case by coining the term "Christophobe" when people express disagreement with him.

Comments