The AP reports:
Barack Obama said Tuesday evangelical leader James Dobson was “making stuff up” when he accused the presumed Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible. Dobson used his Focus on the Family radio program to highlight excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal.
Speaking to reporters on his campaign plane before landing in Los Angeles, Obama said the speech made the argument that people of faith, like himself, “try to translate some of our concerns in a universal language so that we can have an open and vigorous debate rather than having religion divide us.”
Obama added, “I think you’ll see that he was just making stuff up, maybe for his own purposes.”
I guess Obama’s idea of “open and vigorous debate” doesn’t allow for any actual criticism. (And what a strange ad hominem it is to accuse Dobson of acting “for his own purposes”! Of course he’s acting for his own purposes, as is Obama and everyone else.)
Anyway, the AP article doesn’t give any of the substance of the debate. It just presents it as a he-said, she-said sort of disagreement. (I suppose from the AP’s perspective, how could anyone be right? It’s just the Bible, after all.) But, since it’s already established that Obama doesn’t understand the Bible (or doesn’t believe it, at least), I suspect that Dobson has the right of it.
Since Dobson criticized Obama using only Obama’s own words from his speech, how would he be making stuff up? Way to use substance when defending yourself, Obama. He’s unhappy because he knows that millions of people listen to Dobson and pay attention to his thoughts and opinions. He wants everyone in his happy camp and doesn’t like to have this criticism from a leader of the Christian camp that he’s pretending to be a part of.