No apologies necessary! I left a pretty broad first comment that could have been interpreted in any number of ways. I thank you for making sure I clarified it.

Ironically this topic popped up in our local paper comments and one of the readers pointed out some pretty valid points :

The White House notes that presidents previous to Bush, including Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, were not in the habit of holding White House events for the National Day of Prayer. National Day of Prayer Task Force Vice Chairman Brian Toon recently acknowledged that there weren't regular White House events to mark the day until the Bush years, telling the Religion News Service: 'There was no East Ro...

No apologies necessary! I left a pretty broad first comment that could have been interpreted in any number of ways. I thank you for making sure I clarified it.

Ironically this topic popped up in our local paper comments and one of the readers pointed out some pretty valid points :

The White House notes that presidents previous to Bush, including Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, were not in the habit of holding White House events for the National Day of Prayer. National Day of Prayer Task Force Vice Chairman Brian Toon recently acknowledged that there weren't regular White House events to mark the day until the Bush years, telling the Religion News Service: 'There was no East Room event until George W.'

Today, however, the task force E-mailed me to say it had uncovered evidence for two White House events in pre-Bush administrations: a 1989 breakfast event in the State Dining Room hosted by George H. W. Bush and a 1982 Rose Garden event with Reagan. Not exactly evidence that annual National Day of Prayer events were a well-established tradition in the pre-Bush years.

www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/05/04/national-day-of-prayer-task-force-knocks-obama-white-house.html

What does Obama have against prayer? Nothing, it turns out. He's doing exactly what George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and every other president did to recognize the day until George W. Bush came along.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/05/07/happy-national-day-of-prayer/

So Obama isn't doing anything out of the ordinary. The odd egg was Bush, as usual.

Exactly. The comments you passed along show just how short the public's memory is. The entire implosion of the "loyal opposition" has had its amusing moments but now they appear so disjointed and contrarian that it goes beyond mere cussedness to absurdity.

At least they do have a certain internal consistency. It seems that their blatant disregard for facts in favor of fiction and the repetition of this fiction has been the mainstay of the republicans for years now. The sad part is that in the past it seemed to work. Hopefully we're at the cusp of a change.

From one of your links:

Shirley Dobson said today, "We are disappointed in the lack of
participation by the Obama Administratio...

Exactly. The comments you passed along show just how short the public's memory is. The entire implosion of the "loyal opposition" has had its amusing moments but now they appear so disjointed and contrarian that it goes beyond mere cussedness to absurdity.

At least they do have a certain internal consistency. It seems that their blatant disregard for facts in favor of fiction and the repetition of this fiction has been the mainstay of the republicans for years now. The sad part is that in the past it seemed to work. Hopefully we're at the cusp of a change.

From one of your links:

Shirley Dobson said today, "We are disappointed in the lack of
participation by the Obama Administration. At this time in our
country's history, we would hope our President would recognize more
fully the importance of prayer."

I'd love it when we reach a point where someone stands up and asks the simple question: "How, in fact, is prayer beneficial to solve any of today's problems? Would it not be more useful to concentrate on actually doing something concrete to bring about change?"

I think we're still a long way from this happening. Except by us "uppity atheists".