Sojourners' and the Presidential Forum

Greetings everyone,

I have just returned from the Sojourners' Pentecost 2007 conference on poverty in Washington, DC. Part of the event was a forum with the top three Democratic party contenders on faith and poverty. Here's a few shots, and a few thoughts, from the event:



The stage at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium



John Edwards and Soledad O'Brien



Barack Obama answers Jim Wallis



Hillary Clinton answers a panelist



Getting ready for the Poverty March

My initial thoughts were that Edwards and Clinton came off better in person at this forum than I've experienced them previously. Clinton especially seemed less scripted and more human. I'm not sure that I bought her argument that she won't apologize for voting for the war, because she can't go back and change it and now has to look forward to getting us out of the war, but otherwise she did well. Obama was a terrible disappointment to me on the question of Israel and Palestine. He put so much emphasis on justifying the actions of the Israeli military and government, and seemed not to even acknowledge the human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians. I don't know why he felt the need to do this. He did answer very well, however, on Iraq and Katrina and poverty issues in general.