{"id":384,"date":"2008-02-25T21:29:14","date_gmt":"2008-02-25T21:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html"},"modified":"2008-02-25T21:29:14","modified_gmt":"2008-02-25T21:29:14","slug":"mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html","title":{"rendered":"Mrs. Obama: Holes in Our Souls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"obama9.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/211\/import\/obama9.jpg\" width=\"150\" \/>Forgive God-o-Meter if it&#8217;s the only one not to pick up on this earlier. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/02\/25\/opinion\/25kristol.html?hp\"><em>New York Times <\/em>columnist Bill Kristol<\/a> (that still sounds weird, doesn&#8217;t it?) Michelle Obama has been saying publicly that Americans suffer from hole-in-the-soul disease:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[A]s she had argued in the Wisconsin speech, America\u2019s illness goes far beyond a flawed political process: \u201cBarack knows that at some level there\u2019s a hole in our souls.\u201d This was a variation of language she had used earlier on the campaign trail: \u201cBarack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that, that before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Does this remind anyone besides God-o-Meter of George W. Bush&#8217;s rationale for supporting faith-based initiatives, that people require internal spiritual transformation if they hope to overcome seemingly external challenges like beating drug addiction or readjusting to civilian life after prison? But here&#8217;s where GOM gets confused. In the case of Bush&#8217;s support for federally funded faith-based initiatives, hole-in-the-soul disease is cured by the miraculous healing power of faith in the Almighty. What&#8217;s the cure for the much more widespread disease that Mrs. Obama identifies? Ist it simply the election of her husband? Or is God-o-Meter missing something?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forgive God-o-Meter if it&#8217;s the only one not to pick up on this earlier. According to New York Times columnist Bill Kristol (that still sounds weird, doesn&#8217;t it?) Michelle Obama has been saying publicly that Americans suffer from hole-in-the-soul disease: [A]s she had argued in the Wisconsin speech, America\u2019s illness goes far beyond a flawed&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mrs. Obama: Holes in Our Souls - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mrs. Obama: Holes in Our Souls - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Forgive God-o-Meter if it&#8217;s the only one not to pick up on this earlier. According to New York Times columnist Bill Kristol (that still sounds weird, doesn&#8217;t it?) Michelle Obama has been saying publicly that Americans suffer from hole-in-the-soul disease: [A]s she had argued in the Wisconsin speech, America\u2019s illness goes far beyond a flawed&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-25T21:29:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/obama9.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mrs. Obama: Holes in Our Souls - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mrs. Obama: Holes in Our Souls - God-O-Meter","og_description":"Forgive God-o-Meter if it&#8217;s the only one not to pick up on this earlier. According to New York Times columnist Bill Kristol (that still sounds weird, doesn&#8217;t it?) Michelle Obama has been saying publicly that Americans suffer from hole-in-the-soul disease: [A]s she had argued in the Wisconsin speech, America\u2019s illness goes far beyond a flawed&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html","og_site_name":"God-O-Meter","article_published_time":"2008-02-25T21:29:14+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/obama9.jpg"}],"author":"dgilgoff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html","name":"Mrs. Obama: Holes in Our Souls - God-O-Meter","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/obama9.jpg","datePublished":"2008-02-25T21:29:14+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-25T21:29:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/obama9.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/obama9.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/mrs-obama-holes-in-our-souls.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mrs. Obama: Holes in Our Souls"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/","name":"God-O-Meter","description":"A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4","name":"dgilgoff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","caption":"dgilgoff"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/author\/dgilgoff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}