Barack Obama had a billy goat in his closet in the form of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but it hardly compares to the jackal in John McCain's home, the Reverend John Hagee.
Those who watch Fox News, Glenn Beck, Hannity, or listen to right wing Milwaukee talk radio with Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling, may not know of Hagee. Hagee is the man who said that Adolph Hitler and the Holocaust had been part of God's plan to drive the Jews to Palestine to form the state of Israel.
How is God going to bring them back to the land? The answer is fishers and hunters. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and forces you. Hitler was a hunter. That will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended: I didn’t write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, ‘My top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.’
For the past two months right wing ranters, lead by Fox, the network that claims to be 'fair and balanced,' devoted thousands of hours to repeat broadcasts of the Reverend Wright and links to Barack Obama.
The explanation for focusing so much time on Obama and Wright and not on McCain and Hagee is right wing bias, not racial bias.
Now just convince Rev. Wright and those who suspect white racism that is the case.
When this analogy was first being made, I found that McCain never attended Hagees church. An endorsment from someone that you don't know or know very little of is much different then attending a church for 20 years as Obama had.
Do people really fall for these little tricks you try to play on them?
Posted by: Anon | May 23, 2008 at 03:42 PM
McCain has had over a decade to repudiate Hagee. What is different this week as opposed to last week, last month or last year? Not much.
Posted by: Paul | May 23, 2008 at 05:23 PM
I'm sure that as soon as Joe Lieberman figures out what John McCain meant by accepting the Reverend's endorsement we will have an answer for the Alzheimer's candidate.
Posted by: antpoppa | May 23, 2008 at 05:25 PM
What happened 10 years ago, he just got the endorsment from Hagee. Are you saying that he attended Hagee's Church back then?
antpoppa - Liebermans is a good guy and knows what he's doing. As for McCains age, I think we can look to history and find many examples of older people doing important things at older ages. I think B. Franklin was 81 when he signed the Constitution and I'm sure those days of revolution, turmoil and uncertainity where no picnic. Look at Paul for another example, he'll probably be trying to stir things up for a long time. :)
Posted by: Anon | May 23, 2008 at 06:36 PM
"An endorsment from someone that you don't know or know very little of is much different then attending a church for 20 years as Obama had."
It's different, sure. But it's still a foible in McCain's character, one he has illustrated more and more in the recent campaign season. The problem is that the McCain campaign went seeking the Hagee endorsement. McCain probably had no idea what Hagee is about (not that I do, or care). Therein lies the problem; he's willing to pander and adopt political tactics with little thought.
His political advisers and tactics look eerily similar to the campaign that beat him in 2000. Someone at his campaign rally smears Obama, then McCain takes the high road denouncing such views. Orchestrated or not? With McCain it appears to be the familiar political machine.
One month it is Nine In Nails, Hagee, and 100 years; the next month it is something completely different.
Posted by: Dan Sebald | May 23, 2008 at 09:08 PM
Wright was right about just about everything---except the AIDs thing. he basically just had that one stupid comment; but on the whole, particularly his attack on U.S. policies, was dead on balls accurate. So just one major error. But how many other national figures can you say that about? Most of them say alot of nutty things, particularly Obama. For example, Obama's line, at Selma, that blacks had achieved 90% equality to whites---and therefore you don't have to worry, if you're white, about BO pushing for racial justice, was just downright stupid. On no metric under the sun are blacks even close to whites. Then there was Obama's comment that the marchers at Selma made it possible for folks of different races, like his parents, to then get together and have little Obamas. Only problem with that is that little Obama joined the planet in 1961; the Selma march was in 63. None of the Hillary bashers jumped on that one, now did they? I'm not saying Hillary's all that great. She is Obama's political twin, with both adhering to neoliberal, corporate Democrat, imperialistic policies.
It was despicable of Obama to disown this influential and deeply spiritual, motivational man, Rev. Wright. It showed Barockstar to be the very kind of politician (who says whatever is needed to get elected) that he says he is not. Apparently he has got a good portion of the country---who do not actually read what he says or look at his votes (routinely pro-corporate)---fooled.
Posted by: Brian | May 23, 2008 at 11:17 PM
An endorsment from someone that you don't know or know very little of is much different then attending a church for 20 years as Obama had.
What an incredibly ignorant thing to say. John McCain knows a lot about Rev. Hagee; that's why he chased him around the country for more than a year begging for the endorsement.
Hagee has a powerful broadcasting and publishing empire. He has a powerful political action committee that lobbies for killing brown people in the name of Jesus Christ (it's no coincidence that Hagee and Condi Rice both use the term "birth pangs" for wars in the Levant). President Bush sends video taped greetings to his two-minute hate fests. Senators and Israeli ministers scramble to kiss his enormous ass; Hagee recently handed Netanyahu an $8.5 million check in Jerusalem.
If John McCain knows very little of this evil Jabba the Hutt, his dementia must be further progressed than we had assumed.
Posted by: Sven | May 24, 2008 at 03:26 AM
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/08/EDG777163F1.DTL
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/may97/tuskegee_5-16.html
Brian
I enjoyed your post. I am from an age that remembers the Tuskegee and the Aids shame. Personaly, I do blame the government for thousands of AIDS deaths, and for the four hundred killed in Tuskegee.
Perhaps our minds are on different tracks, but running parallel, yes?
Posted by: antpoppa | May 24, 2008 at 03:37 PM
Anon
Ben Franklin 1706--1790 (84)
Constitution 1787--2001 (214)
John Sydney McCain /3 1936--present (72)
Patriot Act 2001-- present (7)
Joe Lieberman: Hale fellow, well met.
(Holy Joe)
Rasputin: Hale fellow, well met.
(Holy Gri)
Posted by: antpoppa | May 24, 2008 at 04:38 PM
If Wright were McCain's albatross and Hagee were Obama's (strange, I know but imagine) then the spin would be that McCain has been a solid church-goer for the past twenty years and Obama's but a godless hack in search of a preacher for hire to polish his image.
But that's not the narrative, is it?
Posted by: Jess Wundrun | May 24, 2008 at 05:18 PM