One is unforgivable, the other barely news

[Texifornia]

From all of the hundreds of sermons given and videotaped by Pastor Wright, ABC news and others have found two with objectionable content. I find factual and stylistic problems with the sermon from five years ago and the recent one is problematic because of where it was made (i.e. pulpit).

However, it is ridiculous to tar Obama with a guilt by association to the extent that his campaign is now somehow doomed or that he is somehow unelectable in the G.E.

McCain has activly sought the endorsements of two pastors. One of which refers to the Catholic Church as "The Whore of Babylon" and Catholics as satanic. The other wants the U.S. to perpetrate genocide against 1.2 billion Muslims in the worls. For a sense of scale, Hitler's Holocaust would be less than 1% of what McCain's preacher is advocating.

Clinton supporters find no problem with the McCain preachers that he activly sought out. However, they consider two sermons by Obama's minister are lethal to his campaign.

[jgraz]

1. Once again, the Clinton campaign gives McCain a pass while attacking Obama.

See the pattern?

[Birthmark]

2. Clinton is running against Obama right now.

One thing at a time.

[movonne]

4. I will tell you right now if this crap keeps up we will lose the election..

I am an Obama supporter and think he will be a better president...but the crap going on here will lose us the election..I have seen an excitement in this election and especially with the youth and the blacks...without them we will lose...It makes me sick to see what is going on here and I do think that a lot of newbies are part of this crap...I don't know where they are coming from but I have never is the years I have been on DU heard talk like what is going on here..I also have joined in on this crap and decided to stop as of today..I will post what I have to say but never mean spirited again..

[Birthmark]

6. I agree.

It works the other way as well, though. The Clinton side has received as well as given. I haven't kept track, so I don't know who's ahead in the game of "Who Started It?" or "Who is Worse?" But I do think that the way things are going, if Obama is the nominee then a some percentage of Clinton supporters will be lost. That's likely to lead to a President McCain, as well.

I applaud your decision to regulate your behavior. That can be tough in the heat of battle.

[gaspee]

3. I call bullshit

"Clinton supporters find no problem with the McCain preachers that he activly sought out. However, they consider two sermons by Obama's minister are lethal to his campaign."

Wrong, wrong wrong. Goodness gracious, you're logically impaired.

We *know* republicans have a history of association with vile religious charlatans. It's not our job to call them out on it during their primary. That's their job. They *like* that kind of preacher. Dobson, Falwell and so on.

Stop blaming Clinton supporters for Obama's bad judgment. It doesn't wash and it's not true.

[Texifornia]

5. Not my point

The claim that this is somehow fatal in the G.E. for Obama but no problem at all for McCain. That is my problem.

[okasha]

13. McCain doesn't have a 20-year relationship with Hagee.

Hagee didn't marry him and his wife, baptize his kids, give him a book title or serve as his mentor. McCain has not sat complacently for twenty years in Hagee's church while Hagee preached "God damn America."

Hagee's going to cost McCain with moderates, liberals and indies in the general. Wright is costing Obama right now, and will be fatal to him in the general unless he disavows the guy a lot more convincingly than he's already done.

[DemBones DemBones]

21. BINGO! And the

manure is just beginning to hit the oscillating device.

Today is the Ides of March and the would-be Caesar has stabbed himself in the back, or perhaps we should say
Wright is his Brutus.

If Wright really cared about Obama, he should have said at least four years ago, "Son, you're going into national
politics now and you need to disassociate yourself from me, join a different church."


Wright was quoted as saying something to the effect that Obama should realize he (Wright) would get him in
trouble. I read this months ago and IIRC he was telling this to Obama. It was mentioned in stories about Wright
going to Libya with Farrakhan to meet with Qadafi.


If Hillary Clinton's pastor had gone to Libya with Farrakhan to meet with Qadafi, it would have been nonstop news
for weeks. I don't think the story got much attention at all, being about the Great Obama's pastor. If it had, the
damage would have been done before the party was deeply divided. Obama might have been able to do damage
control then.

[Swamp Rat]

9. The GOP will not 'call out' McCain on his association with Hagee.

WE have to do that too.... over and over and over. Remember, they have no conscience; they only know shame.

[DemBones DemBones]

24. They don't have to. McCain already denounced Hagee's anti-Catholicism.

He, or his aides, are better at damage control than Obama is.

As a Catholic, I think it's outrageous how the GOP panders to anti-Catholic evangelicals but I know they do it to
win. They may be anti-Catholic themselves but I am not voting for them anyway so it's not a big deal to me.

It's more outrageous that Democrats keep kicking us Catholics in the teeth, allowing the GOP to win over a lot of
Catholic voters. Why alienate a large voting bloc? "Oh, Catholics don't vote as a bloc now." No, not after the Dems
abandoning our concerns and the GOP reaching out to us; now we vote as two blocs. Brilliant Dem strategy.

I remember when Catholics almost always voted Democratic, and Democrats won elections. There is a
correlation there and Democrats have chosen to treat Catholics as undesirables. I guess seizing defeat from the
jaws of victory allows Dems to be victims and complain about how unfair things are, instead of getting smart and
starting to change things.

I wonder when tapes of Wright ranting against Catholics will surface?

[boston bean]

10. don't hang your hat on "just two", I am sure there are many more. nt

[Texifornia]

14. Perhaps a couple

here and there might be found, but who cares?

ABC scoured them.

You want to paint guilt by association, fine. You want to use this to paint Obama as the uppity negro, no logic will stop you.

The Clinton race-baiting train left the station long before this flap.

[DemBones DemBones]

23. Ah, yes, the Clintons made Obama go to Trinity Church for TWENTY YEARS

and choose the pastor, a man who went to Libya with Farrakhan to meet Qadafi, as his mentor.

The Clintons also made Wright give Farrakhan an award last fall, forcing Obama to say he disagreed with his
mentor on some things.

Get a clue, Obama did this to himself, with Wright's help.

A good mentor, who knew he was controversial -- he said so in the early stories about his friendship with
Farrakhan -- would have told BO four years ago that he couldn't have a future in national politics unless he
joined a more moderate church and disassociated himself from his old mentor.

Why aren't you asking why Obama didn't see this coming? Or why Wright didn't caution him and tell him to
end their friendship for a few years?

With a mentor like that, who needs enemies?

[Texas Hill Country]

7. I am sure that there will be more as they buy more of the sermons.

[msongs]

8. obamanistas seem to have no problem with "guilt by association" in connection to clinton

few candidates are ALWAYS in support of views like those spouted by ministers and priests and other campaign underlings. at least, not in public.

Msongs

[Texas Hill Country]

19. Amen

the double standard is amazing.

[Lucinda]

11. The snips are from more than two different sermons..

You can tell by what Rev Wright is wearing.

[DemBones DemBones]

12. McCain has condemned Hagee's anti-Catholicism.

McCain has not ever been a member of Hagee's church, much less a member for TWENTY YEARS.

Try to keep up.

Obama has mismanaged the Wright issue from the get-go.

If you were thinking you might run for president in the not-too-distant future,
the first thing you ought to do is ask yourself if you belonged to any group that had ever espoused racist, sexist, or homophobic policies since you'd been a member. If so, that would be the time to quit the group and publicly state that you opposed the bigotry of that group. You don't wait until the middle of
your campaign, and hire the Grand Wizard, metaphorically speaking, to be an
advisor to your campaign.

Obama has shown very poor judgement. He's not fit to be president.

[Texifornia]

15. Clinton's great judgement on the IWR

and Kyl-Lieberman.

But then, only thousands of lives were at stake there. What Obama's preacher said might make white people might feel uncomfortable!

Judgement and values

[DemBones DemBones]

18. Ninety-nine out of 100 Senators voted for the IWR, as you should know.

Obama would have voted for it if he had been in the Senate. Only a few in the House had the courage to vote against it.

Obama made one (1) speech at an anti-war rally in 2002.

In 2004, running for the Senate, Obama told the Chicago Tribune that his position on the war was basically the same as George Bush's position.



Obama wanted the pro-war people of Illinois to vote for him, thinking there were not enough anti-war voters then to send him to the Senate, even though he was running against Alan Keyes, who is from MD and was brought in by the
GOP as a token opponent to Obama.

But now he lies and says he was against the war. It's bullshit. He's phrased it so that people are believing he voted against the IWR. Not just uninformed unintelligent people, either. I've been amazed at how many think he voted against IWR, don't
know he was not a Senator to vote for or against it.


Own Obama's words and the reality of his slick-talking chameleon behavior. He may be no worse than the average pol, but St. Obama he is most assuredly not.

His lies will be uncovered. The shit has just started hitting the fan.

[DemBones DemBones]

16. Considering all the anti-Catholic garbage posted at DU,

which I and my fellow Catholics have endured for seven years, it is ridiculous for any DUer to criticize McCain, a Republican, for seeking the endorsement of a very powerful anti-Catholic bigot with many evangelical followers.

We expect the GOP to exploit bigots and McCain has already condemned Hagee's bigotry. Yes, he probably
knew all about it before he spoke at his church, but he didn't sit in that church listening to it for TWENTY YEARS,
and he made his mea culpa quickly. He has better political instincts and/or advisors than Obama does.

A lot of Catholics and other Christians have left DU because of the anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, and anti-theist
attitudes so often expressed here. Some may have left the party, too. I certainly don't volunteer to work on campaigns
or have any real enthusiasm for the Democratic Party as a force for change now that I know what "liberals" say about religious people behind their backs. Yes, DU is a microcosm, but if there are Catholic haters here, there are Catholic haters throughout the party, and I don't want to be with them. I've stayed at DU this long trying to reach people about this and other issues that are important to me. I think it's been a waste of my time and effort and expect this post to be ignored or ridiculed, too, but I'll finish it despite that.

You should all be aware that many Catholics who stopped attending Mass years ago and are highly critical of the Church are still offended by anti-Catholicism, just as secular Jews who aren't Zionists are offended by anti-Semitism. It's like family. You can gripe about your family but outsiders who start saying "Yeah, your dad's an asshole" are likely to lose your friendship.

Democrats who don't get that and control their own desire to attack Catholics are ignoring the huge number of
Catholic voters in the US. Catholics used to vote Democratic, and Democrats won in those days, but Democrats quit caring about the Catholic vote and the GOP has been working hard to gain it, with a good bit of success. Hispanics, who are mostly Catholics, will be the majority in the US in a few decades because they have more children than whites, who have always been the majority. The GOP long ago captured most of the Cuban vote and they're working on more recent Latino immigrants, too.

The GOP embraces Christians as members. The Dems need to embrace Christians or they will die. Being oh-so-tolerant of Muslims and Jews isn't enough. Dems have to embrace everybody, theist, atheist or agnostic.

[IndianaGreen]

25. LMAO

As one that has done more than my fair share of criticisms of the Vatican, and particularly the current Pope, there is quite a bit of difference between attacking the Church's position on LGBTs and accusing all Catholics of being children of Satan.

Having said that, I will agree with you that Catholic DUers have been unfairly targeted at times, and that we often overlook the great contributions made by Catholics to make this world of ours a better place to be. I particularly want to commend Pax Christi, a group about which I have posted often as an example of what a true and pure pro-life position is.

[bhikkhu]

17. More false flags

Who said Clinton "tarred Obama", and who said that her supporters have no problem with McCain's nutjob pastors?

Is there a point to this post? How about a link, or some backing for the he-said-she-said.

[GoldieAZ49]

20. Did McCain sit and listen to them preach or join their church?

you are comparing apples to oranges

one is politics the other is personal choice

Obama courted endorsements from different religions as well, they have to

[Laelth]

22. k&r for exposing hypocrisy.

-Laelth