The Wright/Hagee false equivalence

BIG PROBLEM ON THE REPUBLICAN SIDE vs. NEW PROBLEM ON THE DEMOCRATIC SIDE

Republicans have long courted folks like Hagee, Falwell and Robertson (both of whom said we brought 911 on ourselves shortly after the horrific event), Reed (whose campaign for AG in Georgia was so mired in scandal because of ties to Abramoff, it couldn't even get out of the starting gates), Bob Jones University (where interracial dating was grounds for expulsion), etc.
I grew up Evangelical Christian and believe that anti-Christ is rising right out of the whore the movement has become. Just look at the polls of Evangelicals who voted for Bush after it was crystal clear that the Iraqi war was based on lies.
Evangelicals have become pimps for the GOP. Why else would James Dobson actively support Romney (95% of Christian denominations believe that LDS doctrines are polytheistic; not monotheistic). For Dobson it's all about the $$$.

I'm concerned about Democrats courting religious moral absolutists. I'll be honest though, when folks like Dick Cheney could live with apartheid in South Africa in the 80s, it's not hard to think we've got some soft-core KKK leadership running the country.

Agreed. Nothing equivalent. Granted, McCain made a dumb mistake getting within 100 miles of Hagee. I can't imagine it will happen again (Besides, McCain doesn't need these types to win the election -- they need McCain far more to legitimize themselves).

As for Obama/Wright, this is a 20-or-so year personal and spiritual relationship. Barack joined Wright's church several years AFTER Wright traveled with Farrakhan to visit the Libyan dictator, so Wrights's "bonafides" were well established by the time Barack first walked into TUCC. And despite a long history of incendiary and hateful sermons by Wright during the past several years, Barack STILL gave nearly $28,000 to Wright and his church as recent as 2005-2006.

This issue is going to get worse for Barack. I just see a steady "drip-drip-drip" as this story gains traction. OK, so tonight, Barack claims he didn't attend the post 9/11 sermon Wright gave. Fine. That will just trigger more questions about other sermons he may have attended. And heaven forbid if some other person claims he/she DID see Barack at one of these problematic sermons which Barack claims to have skipped.

With so many other churches in Chicago where Barack Obama might have chosen to worship, why pick this one? Are all the black churches in Barack's home area like the TUCC? Do they all reflect the mindset -- and the acidic rhetorical tone -- of TUCC's pastor? I've attended many services at black churches here in NYC and if the ones in Chicago are like the ones here in NYC, then the Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. is the exception and not the rule. He's WAY OUT of the mainstream. If that is the case, then what does Barack's orginal choice -- and continued embrace -- of this "spiritual mentor" say about Barack?

Look, if Barack had been around a long time, all this stuff would matter less. But he is a "new face" and a relatively untested candidate for Pres. Thus is it matters more than normal.

McCain accepted Hagee's endorsement for POLITICAL reasons. Obama endorsed Wright for SPIRITUAL reasons. Anyone know of a good blog where people have an understanding of both political AND spiritual issues and can tell the difference? Wouldnt expect Podhoretz to know the difference but hoped that Rod might.

Steve

It's become clear that Obama has not been honest. There's no way you sit in a pew most Sundays for 20 years and give serious tithe and not know this guy is spewing this hate week after week. This idea that he was never there when such things were said and had no idea they were ever said is preposterous. After 9/11 he had to know.For him to claim otherwise make him a liar,and his suppsoed judgment utterly sucks.

And his honesty problem comes from the fact that Obama, with his above politics routine, has spent his whole life being a sponge, trying to absorb what those around him wanted him to be in turns-radical, serious, estudious, courtly. This is a very smart man. He managed to throw people off the ballot left and right in his rise, and you don't get to be editor of Harvard Law Review otherwise. But he just assumed this was one more tick mark to advance-radical black church attendee, check.

What wasn't clear to many of us until now is how these wrongheaded loopy ideas have currency among black Americans. It seems that many blacks really believe there's a great CIA conspiracy against blacks on AIDS, 9/11,drugs. Which if you've followed the CIA for the better part of a half century is beyond laughable. I'd readily concede-CIA ops occasionally helped drug traffickers in several places, but to call anything the CIA has doen a "conspiracy" requires a level of cental intelligence that has been lacking.

As Simon has noted elsewhere, Obama is no longer a viable candidate because the whites the Dems need as part of a winning coalition(blue collar, Jewish) are not voting for Obama. Pennsylvania is in freefall, and if Floride revotes, Obama is done.

I'm a white OBAMA supporter who wants to know what the community thinks about Dick Cheney's support of apartheid South Africa in the 80s and the lovely response to Katrina (anybody watch CNN,FOX,NBC, etc. during Katrina)?

I don't think Mr. Wright is to far off the mark on a lot of things - especially white suburban blood-lust (how else do you account for a president who waged a war in Iraq based on lies being re-elected?).

Find me a comment by Mr. Wright where he says he hates white people.

Brian, I'm a white Obama dissenter ( I don't like kool-aid ot bobblehead dolls) and Cheney wasn't taught religion and social justice for twenty years by racist South Africans. Obama was taught for 20-years by a racist. Katrina was the fault of Democrat politicians in the state where that hurricane devatsed a population ignored by their Democrat elected politicians. If you can't hear the hatred of white people in Wright's sermons that were consistent year after year, nothing in a blog is going to open your ears. And the marxist-style twisting of history by Wright, is even more shocking than a man using his influence as a religious role model to dupe his unwitting congregants. No wonder Michelle Obama is only proud "now." "White suburban blood lust?" The black inner-cities, where violence and rape are moment by moment occurences make a mockery of your twisted logic there. Why can't Black "Christians" take the immense logs out of their own eyes? No one is to blame for the conditions of their communities but them, ANYWHERE on earth.

Brian, I never knew that Nebraska had a School of Business, let alone a state University! Congratulations for graduating!
(Is that where they taught you about "corporate fascism"? What exactly is that? And did you get an "A" in that class?)

treebeard,
I did get an A. Thanks for asking.

Still waiting for an explicitly racial remark from Mr. Wright.

All I'm gettin' is vague generalizations, just like FOX news.

So to be clear, the fact that John McCain actively sought out and enthusiastically accepted the support of John Haggee is therefore acceptable and in no way objectionable?

To be clear, I am not defending Jeremiah Wright nor Obama's association with him. Wright's views are appalling (which Obama has said ), and his association is questionable.

But by any standard you care to apply, if you condemn Jeremiah Wright and Obama's association with him then consistency requires you to also condemn John Hagee and demand that McCain repudiate Hagee's support.

No one has explain to me, why they think John Hagee's extremism and hatred is in any way acceptable, nor why it is permissible that McCain actively seek out and accept Hagee's endorsement.

Do you think Hagee's views are in anyway defensible or less awful then Jeremiah Wright's? Do you think John McCain should repudiate John Hagee?

Wright has some pretty silly theories. Many people who look around and see poverty and whatnot do. They're wrong, but they are not, as far as anyone can tell, harmful. They aren't prejudiced, they don't encourage violence, they're just incorrect. Plenty of people believe incorrect things.

And it's worth noting that while those theories appear specifically wrong, in general they are not unbelievable. The US government didn't give black people AIDS, but it did give them other diseases in a few notable instances. It doesn't sell black people drugs now, but please google 'Kerry Committee report'.

And people who think the drug war and drugs are a deliberate racist attack on minorities are not lunatics. They're wrong, it's not deliberate, but there is a hell of a lot of racism from top to bottom, and it has destroyed a huge amount of inner cities and black communities, so if someone thinks it's a conspiracy, I'll cut them a little slack. I won't vote for them, but we're not talking about Obama here.

As long as Obama doesn't believe these 'facts', I'm failing to see how they can possibly affect anything. Someone can be a useful spiritual mentor while believe a few incorrect historical facts, just like a Hindu or atheist, who I think most of us here think are incorrect about a few things, can be a useful electrical engineering mentor.

Whereas McCain, while not believing Hagee's nonsense, is a member of a party that has already shown they can't stop putting Israel's 'interests' ahead of us. (Although in actuality it is not in Israel's best interested to be involved in a Middle-East-spanning apocalyptic war, which Israel has started to realize as they continue to deal with these loonytoons.)

I don't think it means anything, McCain will ditch Hagee right after the election (Either way it goes.), but it does serve to remind people just how the neocons are using the apocalyptic evangelicals in their little game of Risk.

Back to Wright: Additionally, he's not that happy with the US. Which, and I seem to have to remind Republicans of this, is not a bad thing: Being unhappy with the US simply results in trying to change it. Being unhappy with the existing system has produced all political change that has ever happened.

I think the thing we need to consider in this comparison between these two is their sphere of influence where it counts the most, Washington DC.

Let's say Obama is elected. He attempts to make Wright's wrongness a force to be reckoned with in DC. Do you think for a minute his position will carry the water Hagee's does today? Do you think for a minute that Wright would be given the red carpet treatment Hagee enjoys in the halls of Congress?

I think Rod is trying to compare butts without lifting skirts.