Time magazine’s August 18 cover story on Rick Warren was good. However, some headline-writing editor definitely had a one-track mind, wanting to portray Warren as power-hungry.

• The cover described Warren as “America’s most powerful religious leader.”
• The article was actually titled “The Global Ambition of Rick Warren.”
• A sidebar about three Warren ministries was labeled “How to Build an Empire.”

Contrast those depictions with what I read recently from a couple bloggers who attended a church planting conference. Warren attended; he spoke once, but then, rather than fly away in a jet, he stuck around for the rest of the conference–just attending and learning, like everyone else.

The bloggers were amazed watching Warren. Here’s this guy who planted what is now a 23,000 member church, and he’s sitting in seminars scribbling notes like crazy, soaking up what he’s hearing. He hung around with the other attendees, and then cancelled and rescheduled a flight home so he could spend more time with some church planters who wanted to talk to him.

There’s no power trip in Warren. But Time evidently wants him to be Falwell or Dobson.

I had thought John McCain had the potential to be the kind of transforming figure in politics that I’ve yearned for. I was a huge fan. But I’m an objective person, too. And McCain’s continual petty and usually baseless attacks on Obama (amplified joyfully by Rush and FoxNews) convince me that he’s just more of the same. Deeply disappointing.

I believe Obama, too, has the potential to be a transforming political figure, despite his youth and inexperience, and he has done nothing to turn me away. I desperately long for someone who can, as much as possible, transcend normal politics. It may be decades before another such person comes along.

The Washington Post ran a thorough article about the flap over visiting the troops in Germany, debunking the (disappointing) lies and innuendoes thrown around by McCain & Co.

George Bush inherited a $128 billion surplus. The White House now projects a record $490 billion deficit for 2009. The Bush Administration has posted a budget deficit every year since taking office. This will be his gift to Obama or McCain, both of whom, I’m sure, will be thrilled to not have the opportunities that Bush had with abundance (and squandered).

• I enjoyed the tributes to Tim Russert. And yet…it was a bit much. A case of press self-indulgence. The networks, particularly MSNBC, went overboard in paying tribute to Russert. I think the world of Russert; he’s irreplaceable. But in the grand scheme of things…. Will Tom Brokaw get that treatment? Why didn’t Jim McKay?
• I guess the push is on to get Bin Laden before Bush leaves office. Imagine what a coup it would be if Obama’s administration nailed him?