The Democrats will, no doubt, respond in kind by talking more about what Jesus would want us to do about health care. Personally, I think Jesus would want everyone to have health insurance, since he doesn't seem to be in the business of reducing health care costs by performing large-scale miracles.

I would like to see the Democrats make an explicit issue out of George W. Bush's appointments of right-wing religious extremists to the federal courts, but I'll bet we'll hear that when pigs fly. (Oh wait. Of course pigs can fly, if God wants them to.)

Apropos of Obama's values, one of the quirkier and smarmier accusations leveled at him by the Clintons is that his ability to deliver an inspirational speech is somehow at odds with the ability to offer specific solutions to problems. It seems that it's all right to talk about faith in political campaigns if you're talking about faith in some supreme being (who is not running for the presidency) but it's not all right to talk about faith in ourselves and in the future of our country, as Obama often does. The idea that there is some sort of natural antipathy between thought and action is a powerful one in the history of American anti-intellectualism, and Bill and Hillary have, with their characteristic instinct for the jugular, repackaged it in new form. Obama, it seems, is unsuitable for the presidency because he "talks too good." He might even be--horrors!--an "elitist."

Although being an inspirational orator does not guarantee greatness in a president, it is impossible to sell specific solutions to voters if you cannot first sell them hope. Franklin D. Roosevelt offered very few specific solutions for the Depression during the 1932 presidential campaign, but what he did offer was hope. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" is the classic example of a non-specific statement of hope that made specific solutions possible.

There is yet another accusation leveled only at Obama--that his followers have an almost mystical, quasi-religious response to him. This is pure bunk. and I say this not because I voted for Obama in the New York primary. John Edwards was my first choice, and he had dropped out by the time of the primary. Coming from a candidate, what the accusation of cultishness really means is, "I'm losing and you're winning, and that must mean you're casting some sort of a spell over the voters. They couldn't possibly prefer you to me for rational reasons." Coming from the punditocracy, the accusation means, "You're defying the predictions I've made in the past, so there must be some voodoo going on." The New York Times has been the worst offender by repeatedly applying the loaded phrase "cult of personality" to the Obama campaign. Any columnist or editorial writer who uses that phrase, strongly associated in the 20th century with Nikita Khruschev's condemnation of Stalin and Stalinism, is either a careless hack or a deliberate slanderer.

I suppose it's possible that some pundits are so stupid that they actually don't know that "cult of personality" was a pejorative euphemism for one of the most brutal dictatorships in history, but somehow I doubt this. "Cult of personality" is nor a harmless synonym for "charisma." It is a not-so-subtle attempt to imply that Obama enthusiasts are somehow taken in by a mindless worship of their candidate. I think it is true that many young people have a visceral emotional response to the promise of hope and change that Obama seems to embody, but that is a far cry from religious worship. Political columnists who apply this phrase to Obama ought to have their computers washed out with soap.

I'd like to hear a lot more about hope and justice, and a lot less about faith, from all of the presidential candidates. Let us hope (that word again) that we will not have to wait until pigs fly for a serious discussion of the difference between realistic hopes based on evidence and human possibilities and unrealistic faith based on nothing more than the arrogant belief that God has specifically blessed America.