Hitch savages Obama
Tuesday March 25, 2008
Categories: Democrats
Oh my, this is choice Hitchens: It's been more than a month since I began warning Sen. Barack Obama that he would become answerable for his revolting choice of a family priest. But never mind that; the astonishing thing is...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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1) Hitchen believes that Huckabee is a gibbering moron, that Bush's Christianity is a result of his barely contained alcoholism, that the Pope is misogynistic killer of women and the poor, that...need I go on? I respect the man as a writer and a provocateur, but no one who doesn't already think that all religions are madness and that all religious people are fools ought to see him as a remotely serious commentator on political affairs.
2) Yes Rod, you ought to go listen to Reverend Wright. Maybe he will have cleaned up his act some because of all the negative attention; then again, maybe not. Either way, if my experiences with TUCC's message are any indication, you're going to hear a sermon about sin and salvation...perhaps with enough quasi-Marxist black liberation theology thrown in to distract you, but if so, then you probably went in listening for those things, and not for the deeper message which, so far as I've been able to tell anyway, has always invariably been there.
Obama has not gotten off light. If he is nominated, the Wright Sunday Freak Show will be 527 fodder through the election.
Boy, this has to leave some people torn. Which side to take? The fire breathing British atheist conservative (regardless of what else Hitch might be, he's definitely politically conservative).. or the US theist Liberal Democratic presidential candidate?
This should be fun.
Karen, who says we have to take sides? I find Hitch and Obama equally repellent, and feel rather the same about Hillary and McCain.
Oh, to have a "None of the above" box on the ballot.
There's always the write in option. And there's also more than two (or even three) candidates on every presidential ballot.
Obama makes the insufferably snide, cynical, arrogant Chris Hitchens apoplectic.
Gee one more reason, I like him!
Obama blasphemes the Humanist Manifesto and its doctrine of racial homogenization, and they send out thier atheist-apologist hitman to do him in. I love this. May God forgive me, I love this. The anti-Christ taken off task for a moment. What irony.
The "granny under the bus" motherlode, what everyone understands-
You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)
Hitchens hates all people of religion, so the fact that he's right on Wright is a bit like a stopped clock being right twice a day. But, like that clock, he's right this time. Wright's statements were wicked, not controversial. And Obama still is getting away with everything, at least as far as the press is concerned. (With the voters, we don't know yet.) They let him off the hook on Wright with a speech where he took no questions; and they haven't touched his shady Chicago dealings with gangsters like Rezko yet, even though there's some juicy stuff there.
"regardless of what else Hitch might be, he's definitely politically conservative"
Supporting the war in Iraq and being willing to speak out against some aspects of PC Liberalism do not make one a conservative. It's too bad that kind of simplistic, two-options-only thinking is what passes for political identification these days: either you're welcome at Streisand parties, or you're a conservative. Hitchens is a big fan of the Enlightment who calls himself a secularist and a Marxist and thinks all religions are scams. He's about as un-conservative as you can get.
His critique of Wright is nothing compared to what he's said about Mother Theresa. He'd have a field day at an Orthodox service.
Obama's defenders do have one fair point: why is Rev. Wright getting so much more attention than Rev. Hagee?
So the Democrats have a choice of nominees: A liar, or a racist (or ABM - Angry Black Man). Some choice.
Obama's defenders do have one fair point: why is Rev. Wright getting so much more attention than Rev. Hagee? - Posted by: Joel | March 26, 2008 9:21 AM
That's an apples-and-oranges comparison. Hagee is not, was not, and will not be McCain's pastor. McCain didn't spend the last 20 years listening each week to Hagee's sermons. McCain didn't spend the last 20 years attending Hagee's church. In fact, the churches that McCain has attended or been members of are theologically at variance with Hagee's theology. Hagee represents Evangelical/Pro-Israel supporters. THAT is what McCain is aligning with, not with Hagee's soteriology or eschatology.
Alan Colmes tried to pull the same switcheroo on TV the other night when he tried to equate Falwell's and Robertson's remarks about 9/11 with Wright's. The problem is, none of the people that Colmes was trying to smear by association were pastored by Jerry and/or Pat, nor do they or did they attend the kinds of churches that Jerry and Pat represent. None of the persons/politicos Colmes tried to equate with Obama sent money to Jerry or Pat, nor did they park their butts in the pews of Jerry's or Pat's churches every Sunday, let alone for 20 years. Alan tried to pull a fast one, and he just showed his idiocy and desperation.
I'm surprised Hitchens took Hagee to task for calling the Pope "anti-Christ" - I would have thought Hitchens largely shared this view; though, I suppose that one must believe in a Christ to use the term anti-Christ?
With respect to your question, Joel, "why is Rev. Wright getting so much more attention than Rev. Hagee" It's becasue Obama went to Wright's church for over 20 years and gave tens of thousands of dollars to it. No presidential candidate attends Hagee's church nor, to my knowledge, has any candidate given any money to his ministry. Further, no candidate has ever said that Hagee was a large infuence in their life, unlike Obama's statements about Wright.
Three cheers for Hitchens - a curmudgeon and "effete snob" if ever there was one - and a very, very smart fellow.
I was thinking this morning more about Obama's explanation that his church was both "good and bad" or one might say, 50% wholesome and 50% toxic. Would you eat food that was 50% poisoned, that might not kill you but might permanently damage your health, and would you expose your children to such food?
(Yeah, I know, we do that every day in this country.) But, still, the argument that the church was partly wholesome and partly toxic and yet Obama has exposed his children to that environment for all of their young lives just doesn't make sense.
50% wholesome and 50% toxic.
Of course, it was 99.8% wholesome and .2% toxic, using your example. That would describe pretty much every food bought in America.
Sauron turns his all-seeing eye on Hillary:
mirror.co.uk/hitchens/news/2008/03/26/christopher-hitchens-on-hillary-clinton-s-trip-to-bosnia-89520-20363506/
Daniel, I think propagating the idea that the U.S. government created the AIDS virus and distributes drugs in order to commit genocide against African-Americans is one hell of a lot more than .2% toxic. That's arsenic as far as I'm concerned, which I'm sure is deadly in very small quantities.
Rod: "Crazypants Jerry Wright is speaking in Dallas this week. I ought to try to go see what he says."
Yes, you should. It would be downright journalistic of you.
Bless,
Doug
Of course, it was 99.8% wholesome and .2% toxic, using your example. That would describe pretty much every food bought in America.
The toxic ".2%" of Wright's message is known to the whole world. Labelling the unknown 99.8% "wholesome" is an unsubstantiated assertion.
"Of course, it was 99.8% wholesome and .2% toxic, using your example." -- Daniel
Okay, if we're abandoning the zero tolerance for overt racism in our politicians that we've held against men like Trent Lott, just how much is okay? If .2% is ok, how about double that much, .4%? One percent is surely too much, isn't it? What if I give the same "wholesome" speech ten times; does it count against my racist rants every time, or just once?
I think we need to get these details worked out, so we all know how often we (and our politicians and their mentors) can say hateful things about others and still be respected and elected. I feel so empowered.
Obamanation = Abomination.
Mhoram, everything you mentioned that supposedly made Hitchins NOT conservative was specifically religious. Except for being a 'Marxist'. Which, last I heard, he isn't. (The supposed 'Humanist' and the 'Marxist' manifestos, which I'm not even sure Hitchins supports the Humanist one anyway, it isn't necessary for being an atheist, are not the same thing..)
He is, and is self described, as a 'FORMER' Trostkyite, who supports most of the Neo-Conservative agenda.
He likes the Enlightenment (what is conservative OR liberal about that stance?), and the rest is about his position on religions.
So, the rest of your description was mostly religious in nature. Are you saying that it is impossible, by definition, therefore, to be an atheist and a conservative?
The most recent issue of the New Yorker has an article about Obama's Reverend Wright problem. The author concludes that Obama is either uniquely positioned to move our country beyond divisive racial and identity politics or he is going to be the latest victim of those politics.
Thinking about the homeschooling thread above, I feel that both racial and identity politics and homeschooling have the potential to be quite divisive forces that are destructive of the social fabric. Don't all these things represent a retreat from "E Pluribus Unum"?
"But is it "inflammatory" to say that AIDS and drugs are wrecking the black community because the white power structure wishes it?"
Wishes it? No. Enables and promotes the phenomenon? Yes.
No one attacks conservative politicians for aligning themselves with likes of Jerry Falwell and his anti-gay rages in the way Obama has been attacked for association with Wright.
Odd, that.
"No one attacks conservative politicians for aligning themselves with likes of Jerry Falwell and his anti-gay rages in the way Obama has been attacked for association with Wright.
Odd, that."
The comments on this thread just Jumped the Shark.
Jerry Falwell has been dead for almost a year, hasn't he? This parallel that keeps getting trotted out would make sense if say, McCain, had been a member of a Christian identity movement church for the past 20 years, and if he had a spiritual mentor like Fred Phelps.
Having an ultra-conservative or even crackpot pastor endorse is not the same as the endorsement implied by being a member of a church that promotes crackpot (and worse than crackpot) ideas for 17 years.
Hitch throws verbal fire-bombs for a living. His televised comments upon the death of Falwell were appalling, no matter how poorly one regarded Falwell.
The Sauron comparison would be apt if Hitchens had any power. Fortunately, he is too much the court jester to hold real influence. He is an atheist version of Ann Coulter. Very little that he says can be trusted. If Wright walked on water and healed the sick, Hitchens would diss him.
(Karen - you open up the question of whether the Neo-Con agenda is actually conservative. There are plenty of opinions about that here.)
Well, if we're going there, the entire current administration (whose policies the current Republican candidate appears to endorse) isn't 'really conservative'.
"[Hitchens] is an atheist version of Ann Coulter.'
Wow, speaking of inapt comparisons! Don't let your religion cloud your judgement of Hitchens. He's a very well-regarded journalist, literary critic and political thinker. He's a man of letters. Coulter is a nothing but a media-savvy shrew.
Hey, speaking of athiests, when will the retraction appear for the "Gorbachev: Christian" post?
Turns out he's an atheist after all:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-out_there_gorbachev_rodriguez_23mar24,1,4698255.story
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