August 17, 2008

A Civil Forum (amazingly enough)

I missed it!

I was meaning to find it on television last night but got distracted and forgot to. (I do have the links to the youtube.com videos at the end of this post.)

Last night Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in California, interviewed both Presidential candidates in his church for an hour each. It wasn't a debate, it wasn't done in a partial way. Both candidates were interviewed in an honest, honoring way and allowed to give their answers without the talking heads butting in and interrupting. Amazing how this never happens. People ask the candidates all sorts of questions, but rarely let them just say things without interruption of their own twist on the ideas. Today I found some links to reports on what happened and how each man answered serious, thoughtful questions. I appreciate Rick Warren so much. He is true to his faith and speaks with respect and honor to people. I really, really appreciate that!

Here is a quote from Warren about the interviews:

"We believe in the separation of church and state, but we do not believe in the separation of faith and politics," Warren said. "I don't happen to agree with everything either of the candidates teach or believe, but they both care deeply about America. They're both patriots and they have very different views on how our nation can be strengthened. We've got to learn to disagree without demonizing each other and we need to restore civility in our civil discourse and that's the goal of the Saddleback Civil Forum."


Read the questions and answers here.

You can watch the interviews on youtube.com. Here is the Obama interview part 1 and there are video clips up to part 5 in the sidebar of that page.

And here is McCain's interview part 1.

I would never suggest who you should vote for, but this interview really helped me to understand more about each man.

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