Source Why not indeed? McCain sought out this guys endorsement (among all the other previously mentioned right-wing nutjobs) even AFTER he knew what crap he spews. Obama, OTOH, found Christianity because of Wright and developed a spiritual relationship with him over 2 decades, for better or worse. Yet McCain gets a pass by barely repudiating any of their sayings, while Obama vehemently repudiates his. Is it just that right-wing nuttery has such a vast sway on the American public and therefore can be embraced? If so, then...
I agree, but this is a situation where it isn't the size of the object, but the size of the resulting impact crater. Equivalence in nature doesn't always translate to equivalence in effect, for better or worse.
Well, we have a public that, while no longer nearly as racist as it once was, still as a whole gets a vastly more advanced case of the heebie-jeebies from an angry black minister than from an angry white minister, and we also have a press corps full of people tripping over each other for the honor of getting McCain's jism on their face and who will therefore always downplay his faults if they even bother admitting them at all. Between racists and people who take the press at face value, Obama loses in the war of double standards. I'm just surprised that so many people who so routinely decry the mainstream media so eagerly lap it up in cases like this one.
Wow, incredibly lame. When McCain has Hagee over to his house, calls him a member of his family, is married by him, has his children baptized by him, picks the title of one of his novels from his sermons, gives Hagee's church thousands of dollars, and attends his church for 20 years, then you can talk about the double standard. Until then, as the children's rhyme goes 'one of these things is not like the other...' I've seen washing machines that don't have as good a spin cycle as democrats do on this issue.
Obama gets more positive press than Hillary and McCain combined. You must be blind to not see this. Oh, and since Xerafin decided to start a whole new thread on this moments after posting much the same crap in an already existing thread, I'll just move my posts over here.
Interestingly, both arguments come down to the sentence "John McCain, unlike Barack Obama, did it for nothing more than pure political gain. The difference is that one side sees that as the sin, and the other side sees that as the defense. I'm a little closer to the former view, but I can see both sides.
No, the difference is one guy accepted the other person into an extremely important position in his life for decades, and the other guy didn't. There's all sorts of evidence that Jeremiah Wright had influence over Obama's personal development and his though process. There's absolutely no evidence that Hagee had any influence over McCain.
Hagee's endorsement has a sought effect over those whom he holds influence. An endorsement is of little use if it doesn't carry influence with it.
If you don't think McCain will have to pay the piper if he were to become President, you're extremely naive...
Why would he have to any more than Obama? Even if I agreed with you and said 'Obama is just another politician like McCain', it still hurts Obama more, because he's running as the exact opposite of that. How can you fight for peace is one of Wright's sayings - he equates it with raping for virginity. How can embracing a racist help fight racism?
Gee, which party is held hostage by it's religious whackaloons? If you said the Repubs, you're a winner! Correction, that's the platform they're both running on. Yes, Obama was elevated to this perceived Messianic figure by the media, but that doesn't mean he's not a politician. In order to get anywhere in politics, you have to play the game, no matter who you are. Even Ron Paul realized that long ago. If you toss everyone aside who holds any racist views, then you're likely to throw A LOT of people out of the discussion and you're not going to make any progress in fighting racism. What do you think racism is born out of? Fear and ignorance. You have to educate people, not just condemn them. It's a complex problem, but throwing people out of the dialog is not the answer to solving the problem.
Uh...yeah By seeking the endorsement of someone who has influence with that desired demographic. That's what endorsements are about :flow2:
Exactly. Vote pandering, what any politician will do. Obama did the same thing in Ohio by talking about unilaterally withdrawing from NAFTA because he knew people in Ohio aren't in favor of it. Doesn't mean that the voters will actually hold any influence over McCain....or Obama for that matter, that he will actually withdraw from NAFTA.
It's not politically incorrect to be McCain's brand of prejudiced, that's all. The right doesn't mind for obvious reasons, the left doesn't mind because Catholics are an tempting target. All that's left are the Catholics and people of good taste, and they were probably all Ron Paul supporters or Democrats to begin with, so who cares.
I don't see a double standard at this point at all. There is a significant difference between someone actively holding membership at a church and attending it regularly and someone seeking some type of an endorsement at least in my opinion.
Evidently having religious whackaloons involved in the party is an equal opportunity issue. But sure, the guys like Wright are just misunderstood.... The clergy in black politics is very powerful, and we are seeing just how important they are now that the 'party of change' has an african-american as a front runner. Oh, come now, it isn't just the 'media' that has been saying there is finally a figure above all of the political tripe. Hope and change comes from Obama's lips in every speech. So if the primary reason to vote for Obama is that he is different from everyone else and can bring real hope, change, and healing to America, then he sets himself up to be lambasted if that isn't true. You are being disingenuous. Obama's greatest success to date is that his camp got the MSM to buy into his messiah status. But the responsibility for that is on Obama as much as anyone. Saying that we are holding him up to an unfair standard now is ridiculous - his camp set that standard as trying to put him above the other candidates. Oh dear fucking lord. Yes, obviously it was most important that Don Imus be 'educated' - the calls for his being fired, FROM OBAMA HIMSELF, aren't really what should have been done. There's one standard here. Obama is getting judged by the same standard that every other politician and public figure who fucked up on the race issue is. Obama himself helped enforce that standard. Saying that he should be above it because 'we need to heal' is ridiculous - he's traded on the same sense of racial righteousness that he now is being asked to embody. And he has clearly failed.
