UCCtruths

UPDATE: UCC Web team: software caused web streaming problems

I don't believe in conspiracies but I also don't believe in coincidences... which is why I'm having difficulty believing that the shutdown of the web cast for Obama's campaign speech was due to a "technical difficulty of unknown origin". I can believe the system was overwhelmed due to interest in the speech - but that would have been an easily identified origin. I suspect the shutdown was intentional. For the last week, scrutiny over Obama's speech was picking up steam culminating with an article in the American Spectator by Jeffrey Lord. While the video of the speech appeared on the UCC web site later in the day, I do wonder if the American Spectator article and scrutiny of Obama's speech factored into the broadcast blackout.

As I posted yesterday, I also believe that the UCC knowingly violated IRS regulations by the manner in which it handled Obama's address. Jeffrey Lord took notice as well. From the American Spectator today:

SO A WEBCAST SYSTEM THAT had no problems relaying liberal commentator Bill Moyer's address to the General Synod earlier in the day mysteriously went dark when the time arrived for Obama, easily the most advertised speaker on the program, to speak. Yet speak he did anyway, pitching for his candidacy in bold defiance of Lynn's -- and more importantly the IRS's -- views on the subject. Obama made no attempt to hide his presence at a UCC-sponsored event as anything less than a bid for votes.

The speech was salted with repeated references to Obama's candidacy, such as his discoveries "since I announced I was running for president." He used the UCC-provided podium to electioneer for his personal liberal favorites such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the minimum wage. He specifically promised, "I have made a solemn pledge that I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president...." His opportunity to say every last word of this, of course, an opportunity denied not only his competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination but, under the law, the Republicans as well, was sponsored directly and quite unrepentantly by the United Church of Christ.

"I think the shutdown [of the webcast] was intentional, " said James Hutchins, a UCC dissenter who runs the UCC Truths website, adding that he thought the Spectator article "may have played a significant part in this." Hutchins added that "the UCC crossed the church/state line by a long shot," specifically pointing to photographs on his own website of an Obama-for-president campaign table set up at the entrance to the Civic Center. Forgive me for voicing a personal but definitely unproved suspicion that there was also concern that a video version of this story would also instantly show up on QubeTV -- a fledgling conservative site for which I am responsible and that has been billed in much national media coverage as a "conservative alternative to You Tube." Hutchins also pointed to the fact that the UCC has now announced that it will "archive" the Obama video made in-house. The effect of this would be to bypass instant and always wandering press attention while making the Obama video available to the general public at the tap of a keyboard. Thus effectively making yet one last contribution to the Obama campaign.

Hutchins was not the only observer to realize the significance of what was happening between Obama and the UCC. Covering the event for the ABC New Haven affiliate WTNH television, reporter Mark Davis said, "[T]he General Synod is not just a religious gathering, and the address Saturday afternoon by Obama, a 22-year member of the UCC, certainly proved that....At times it certainly had the feel of a political convention." Davis also made the remarkable observation that "the thousands of people in attendance appear to be true believers in Jesus and Barack Obama."

We'll be discussing this and all the General Synod festivities in the UCCtruths.com message board.