Rachel Maddow Weighs in, Calls Rick Warren Obama's 'First Big Mistake'
Yesterday, President-elect Obama's press conference on his new economic team quickly digressed into a discussion on Obama giving Pastor Rick Warren - who has a long record of anti-gay views -- the privilege of delivering the inaugural invocation. Obama said he was reaching out to religious conservatives, showing that he could "disagree without being disagreeable."
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who is openly gay, devoted an entire segment last night to the topic. Maddow noted that Obama has now sparked the ire of the LGBT community as well as the religious right, some of whom are even attacking Warren for accepting Obama's invitation. She called it Obama's "first big mistake":
MADDOW: What are we left with here? We are left with the cold, hard political fact that this is a lose-lose proposition for Barack Obama, the first big mistake of his post-election politicking. The Christian Broadcasting Network folks are proverbially loaded for bear against him anyway. ... And Obama's supporters among centrists and progressives? Well, they just dumped a big bucket of tarnish all over Obama's star power.
