Hagee, Wright and double standards

Frank Rich says the fact that nobody's saying much about John McCain's having been endorsed by the influential fundamentalist pastor John Hagee shows that there's a double standard being applied to Obama and his (former) pastor Jeremiah Wright. To which Daniel Larison says:

Of course, one of the reasons why the Wright business provokes many conservatives is the resentment of a double standard when it comes to racial attitudes, whether perceived or real, that is deployed against whites and conservatives in particular. If Joe Biden so much as makes a bad joke, it’s treated as if it were a three-alarm fire, Geraldine Ferraro’s basically innocent remark “has no place in our politics” (as Obama likes to put it) and we heard a cacophony about what Obama called the “quiet violence” of Don Imus (and those are just some of the most prominent episodes in the last year or so), but all Obama needs to do to satisfy most journalists is to disavow his pastor. Heaven help an actual conservative who utters some poorly chosen words, because no one else will save him. So if there is a double standard on racial matters, it is one that is indisputably working to Obama’s advantage, at least as far as the media are concerned, while the white Democratic voters who are moving away from him are probably doing so at least in part because they know full well that they would be ostracised or fired if they were to utter anything even 1/100th as incendiary or provocative as the things that Wright says on a daily basis. I suspect that this grates on some people. As I have been trying to say before, what we should want to see is an end to this mindless policing of thought, speech and association, but as long as we do have it let’s be clear about who usually benefits from the double standard.

That's true -- in the ordinary lives many people lead, the speech code double standard affects whites and conservatives far more than it does racial and sexual minorities. I've blogged on this before, and I think Larison is correct to say that resentment at this double standard probably drives a good portion of white working class resentment over Wright.

But Larison goes on to say that Hagee is getting a pass on his endorsement of McCain, or vice versa, because Hagee is pro-Zionist. I think this is way off. McCain isn't being held responsible for Hagee because McCain didn't spend 20 years sitting in the pews at Hagee's church, and didn't claim Hagee as his spiritual mentor. Everybody knows that McCain is not a particularly religious man, and doesn't care for the religious right. Fault McCain for cynicism or weakness by making nice with them, and you're on solid ground. But most people perfectly well understand that John Hagee's theology has had little or no influence on John McCain's thinking.

That's a far more difficult claim to make with regard to Wright's influence on Obama. If Barack Obama were from Seattle, not Chicago, and Jeremiah Wright endorsed him, it would be a one-day story on Newsmax or World Net Daily, if that. If Al Sharpton endorsed Obama, as he will, it would be analogous to the Hagee-McCain situation: the kind of thing that may make your stomach roll over a couple of times, but within the normal habits of our politics. It may set your teeth on edge that the Democrats have to pay their respects to Sharpton, and the Republicans have to do the same to Hagee (or Bob Jones U.), but most people understand that on both sides these are pro forma gestures. Again and again, the reason Wright's connection to Obama matters to people is because Obama is a largely undefined figure nationally, and Wright has been one of the most important figures in his life for the last two decades.

Beyond that, for better or for worse -- I think for better, Bro. Larison thinks for worse -- most Americans favor Israel. Whatever excitable theological opinions Hagee has about the State of Israel, the fact that he advocates supporting the Jewish state simply doesn't offend most Americans. What Jeremiah Wright is best known for advocating is rejected by most Americans, to put it mildly.

Besides, while I think it's fair to say that most Americans reject the crazypants Catholic hatred espoused by Hagee, it's also completely clear that John McCain, whatever else his faults (and they are many), does not share Hagee's views on Catholics. The picture is far murkier on Obama and Wright's views. If McCain had spent 20 years in the pews at Hagee's church, listening to him spout off about Roman Catholicism as the Whore of Babylon, and was claiming that he didn't share those views, he'd deserve the same level of scrutiny and skepticism Obama's getting over Wright.

I think Krauthammer has Obama pegged:

Obama's newest attempt to save himself after Wright's latest poisonous performance is now declared the new final word on the subject. Therefore, any future ads linking Obama and Wright are preemptively declared out of bounds, illegitimate, indeed "race-baiting" (a New York Times editorial, April 30).

On what grounds? This 20-year association with Wright calls into question everything about Obama: his truthfulness in his serially adjusted stories of what he knew and when he knew it; his judgment in choosing as his mentor, pastor and great friend a man he just now realizes is a purveyor of racial hatred; and the central premise of his campaign, that he is the bringer of a "new politics," rising above the old Washington ways of expediency. It's hard to think of an act more blatantly expedient than renouncing Wright when his show, once done from the press club instead of the pulpit, could no longer be "contextualized" as something whites could not understand and only Obama could explain in all its complexity.

P.S. I'm thrilled to see Frank Rich concerning himself so intensely now with anti-Catholic bigotry. I'm sure he's phoned Bill Donohue at the Catholic League to offer his services.