Arizona White Women Go Black to Obama

God is Love

It's January. Normally we like to come up with some predictions about the year, but we are not going to bother this time around, other than to say that President Obama will win in November.

It's a political year, and the Republicans are busy fighting it out over irrelevancies. Newt Gingrich, the come from behind triple divorce threat (and time will get him to that third one), has proposed rebuilding the moon in our own image, without exactly saying how he would finance such hubris.

The establishment leader, Mitt Romney, is between a rock (Mormonism) and a hard place (massive amounts of wealth) that make it rather difficult for him to know which way to pivot each day in order to get the support of the massively poorer Christian conservatives he so needs during the primary season.

Meanwhile President Obama continues on, proposing ideas that will go nowhere. He knows that they will be shot down, but puts up the good frontal effort. In his mind he has probably written off getting anything done this year that involves congressional support. He will legislate from the White House, and largely focus on political issues.

God is Love

Nevertheless, he can never escape the pointed fingers of his enemies, who like to use every instance to frame him in a way that defies reality. In this case it's Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona (our beloved Gov) doing the framing. She confronted him over something, handed him an envelope, and pointed a lot, and otherwise used the President's visit as an opportunity to inflame her supporters and pump up meager book sales. She went on to tell people that she felt threatened by the President.

We contrast that close face to face with another face to face moment during the President's State of the Union address the night before. Gabby Giffords was on hand to spend her last moment in Congress before a hopefully temporary retirement, where she will work on recovering from the wounds she received at the hands of a gunman. She embraced the President warmly.

Which leaves us all confused. Two Arizona women. Both politicians. One black man. President. Two completely different encounters.  One encounter will be used to spread the lie, to slander, to bear false witness. And some conservative Christians will join in this, or let it stand, or make room for the lie. The other encounter shouts back at the lie, speaking truth.