On June 28, 2006, Barack Obama said some things that are harmful to Democrats and liberals and quite frankly, were contradictory and make little sense. It was an exercise intriangulation and predictably, the only thing reported about it was Obama's criticism of Democrats. Let's review part of the speech that day:

. . . Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, his arguments not worth entertaining. What they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take him seriously. For he claimed to speak for my religion - he claimed knowledge of certain truths.

Perhaps so, but does Obama deny that Keyes is an extremist? If so, why so? Keyes is undoubtedly an extremist and Keyes was his political opponent. Did Obama fear telling voters the truth about Keyes? Did he fear damaging his image?

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, he would say, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.

What would my supporters have me say? That a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? That Mr. Keyes, a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?

Personally, I would have Obama say what was in his heart. That he disagrees with Keyes' extremist views whether the are in accord with the Pope or not. But Obama did not:

Unwilling to go there, I answered with the typically liberal response in some debates - namely, that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.

Is there something wrong with the "typically liberal response? Does Obama NOT believe that?

But Mr. Keyes implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer didn't adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and beliefs.

My dilemma was by no means unique. In a way, it reflected the broader debate we've been having in this country for the last thirty years over the role of religion in politics.

For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest "gap" in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.

This of course is a red herring and Obama well knows it - the biggest political divide is between black and white voters. Why no discussion of that?

Conservative leaders, from Falwell and Robertson to Karl Rove and Ralph Reed, have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

I assume this was an unfortunate turn of phrase by Obama as it is false that Democrats disrespect the values of evangelical Christians.

Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, some liberals dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith.

These are utterly false Roght Wing strawmen as described by Chris Bowers. It was very wrong of Obama to embrace these falsehoods.

We first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people believe in angels than do those who believe in evolution. This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.

Who does not understand this? What is Obama doing here? Is he spreading more falsehoods about Democrats?

This is why, if we truly hope to speak to people where they're at - to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to their own - we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

Obama is more than welcome to fully embrace whatever he likes but he needs to stop accepting falsehoods about Democrats in the process.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

Of whom does Obama speak here? What Democratic politician is Obama referring to? This is yet another false strawman.

In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, Jerry Falwell's and Pat Robertson's will continue to hold sway.

Well, whether this is an effective strategy or not is a matter of opinion. But I wish Obama well in his attempt. But just one thing, do not spread falsehoods about your fellow Democrats when doing so thank you very much.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord," or King's I Have a Dream speech without reference to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.

Ah the famous Fox "some." I like Bowers' response:

Are there people on the left who take these extreme positions? Yes. However, they have no national presence, and no national microphone. It is virtually impossible to find any prominent Democrats, liberals or progressives who states that any mention of God was a theocracy, that the war in Iraq was just about oil, that American soldiers are baby killers, that the free market should be abolished, that America is itself an evil empire, and so on. The reason it is impossible to find any Democrats, progressives and liberals with a prominent role in Democratic, liberal or progressive politics who make any of these statements is because virtually none of them hold any of these positions. Further, these stereotypes are almost more effective because they are hurled at a general population, but referring to a specific and very small population that has no means of talking back. Right-wing news sources will of course find a couple willing stooges to speak on behalf of these positions (same random professor, blogger or person who brings a lawsuit against saying the pledge), and hold them up as someone the entire left must defend. This is because, for some reason, the left is responsible for the statements and beliefs of every single person who has ever shown up to one of our events, while the right-wing is not even responsible for the outrageous statements of officials who have been elected to federal office statewide. The lack of equivalence is astounding.

Shame on Obama for doing that.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical. Our fear of getting "preachy" may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.

What a crock. Obama assumes moral underpinnings are all faith vased. This is simply offensive and I strongly condemn Obama for saying so. It is an outrageous thing to have said.

After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man.

Indeed, and it is progressives who have had the moral underpinnings to realize this Senator Obama, not the evangelical right. It is outrageous of you to have implied otherwise.

After insulting us all then Obama utterly contradicts himself:

I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith - the politician who shows up at a black church around election time and claps - off rhythm - to the gospel choir. But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

This is simply outrageous. First, who in the heck is blocking religion from the public square? What some of us say is what you Obama are about to say in your speech:

While I've already laid out some of the work that progressives need to do on this, I that the conservative leaders of the Religious Right will need to acknowledge a few things as well.

For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. That during our founding, it was not the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of this separation; it was the persecuted religious minorities, Baptists like John Leland, who were most concerned that any state-sponsored religion might hinder their ability to practice their faith.

Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians within our borders, who's Christianity would we teach in the schools? James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Levitacus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage so radical that it's doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application?

This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Someone explain to me how that is not the progressive position on these issues? Someone explain to me why Obama decided to adopt false strawmen to attack Democrats and progressives? Someone explain to me how this is not one of the most outrageous speeches of the year?

Why do I wrte so much about this? Because Democrats have been in the nasty habit of adopting false premises to gain media approval. Barack Obama has been a prime offender. The speech I just discussed is one example, here is another:

Sen. Barack Obama, the freshman Democrat from Illinois who is one of his party's brightest stars, chided his party yesterday for its "over-reliance" on "procedural maneuvers" such as the fruitless filibuster threats against the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.

"We need to recognize -- because Judge Alito will be confirmed -- that if we're going to oppose a nominee, that we've got to persuade the American people that, in fact, their values are at stake," he said yesterday on ABC's "This Week."

"I think that the Democrats have to do a much better job in making their case on these issues," he said. "These last-minute efforts, using procedural maneuvers inside the Beltway, I think, has been the wrong way of going about it."

Hmm, last time I looked Senator Obama was a Democrat. What did HE do to persuade the American People. I can tell you what he did -- nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Here was Obama in February 2006:

Democrats said they had not yet figured out how to counter the White House's long assault on their national security credentials. And they said their opportunities to break through to voters with a coherent message on domestic and foreign policy -- should they settle on one -- were restricted by the lack of an established, nationally known leader to carry their message this fall.

As a result, some Democrats said, their party could lose its chance to do to Republicans this year what the Republicans did to them in 1994: make the midterm election, normally dominated by regional and local concerns, a national referendum on the party in power.

''I think that two-thirds of the American people think the country is going in the wrong direction,'' '' said Senator Barack Obama, the first-term Illinois Democrat who is widely viewed as one of the party's promising stars. ''They're not sure yet whether Democrats can move it in the right direction.''

Mr. Obama said the Democratic Party had not seized the moment, adding: ''We have been in a reactive posture for too long. I think we have been very good at saying no, but not good enough at saying yes.''

Obama is political pundit instead of Democratic leader. David Broder and Joe Klein love him.

Chris Bowers has some ideas on how to treat these episodes:

* Even if the use of stereotypes and strawmen of this nature is not a large or frequent part of a prominent Democrat, liberal, or progressive's public speech, we all have to realize that the media is desperate to pounce on any use of these strawmen from Democrats, liberals and progressives. The frequency with which the media misquotes Democrats in this regard is proof positive of this. They want to see these statements, even when they are not there. It will be worked into the overall media narrative about you, even if it is not at all prominent.

• We have to change the incentive system on the use of this language. The established media, certain centrist Democratic groups, and the right-wing are extremely eager to reward Democrats for making public and serious use of these stereotypes and strawmen. Democrats who make these statements will be granted a meager form of power, typically on Sunday morning talk shows or on cable news nets, in return for making these statements. A series of leaders on the Democratic side, both among party leaders and among presidential candidates, need to make a series of public statements indicating that this sort of behavior is unacceptable and that we can't run against our own party and still hope to lead it. If the netroots and party leaders both make it clear that the use of these stereotypes and strawmen will result in a loss of power within the party, then we can de-incentivize the use of these strawmen and stereotypes. And that will be good for all Democrats, liberals and progressives.

• Expect me, and many other activists like me, to continue to be offended when Democrats wield these stereotypes against themselves. I will not chill out, and it will affect my behavior in intra-party matters.

• Expect the right and the media to continue to salivate over the possibility of Democrats using these stereotypes and strawmen against other Democrats. For example, Instapundit immediately jumped on the Obama bandwagon for one of his comments the other day:

"One good test as to whether folks are doing interesting work is, Can they surprise me?" he tells me. "And increasingly, when I read Daily Kos, it doesn't surprise me. It's all just exactly what I would expect." Unlike Clinton, who had to show his independence from the urban black base of his party, Obama will have to show his independence from the urban white base of his party. . . .

The right desperately wants a Democratic hero to Sistah Souljah the netroots. They will pounce on any opportunity to make it happen.

I for one will be shoulder to shoulder with Chris on this.