Monday, April 28, 2008

A Compliment To Jeremiah Wright: Reverend, You're No John Hagee

In perusing YouTube, I found contrasting videos that vividly illustrate something: Barack Obama shouldn't have to be ducking any association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Agree with him or not, Wright is a gifted preacher and a genuine intellectual. "Pastor" John Hagee, who has endorsed John McCain for president, is at best a demented, foolish zealot, and at worst an opportunistic bigot.

McCain has been largely given a news media pass on his association with Hagee, a man who actually said that Hurricane Katrina was God's judgment on that modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, New Orleans. (It's on one of the videos to follow.)

Well, enough from this Jeremiah. Let's go on to the one called Wright. And then, to John the Rubber-Room Baptist. -- MJ



Intermission. Have a barf bag ready.



Any questions, class?

4 comments:

Marc McDonald said...

Hagee's hate speech against gays is really pretty much telling small-minded people to go out and beat up gay people.
Hagee blames gays for the Hurricane Katrina devastation.
No doubt, there are followers of Hagee in New Orleans who hear stuff like this---and then go out and angrily beat up the "faggots" for bringing God's wrath down on New Orleans.
What's interesting in cases like this is that the likes of Hagee then invariably tip-toe away from this violence and claim with a straight face that they "never encouraged anyone to go beat up gays."
Meanwhile, the MSM pretty much gives McCain a free pass for praising Hagee and saying he's honored to have his endorsement. (The same MSM that has absolutely crucified Obama over Wright---even though Obama has repeatedly distanced himself from Wright's remarks).

Unknown said...

Joe--
I put up a post at And, yes, I DO take it personally today that may be of interest to you. It adds meaning to the latest Wright debacle.

Manifesto Joe said...

Hi, Tim:

I've read the post twice now, with time to ponder it. It raises interesting points. But what still strikes me is this double standard: Expediency forces Obama to run from Wright, while McCain can openly court Hagee's putrid endorsement with, for the most part, media impunity.

Wright had his press conference after, or around the same time, as my post went up, so I had only seen his speech of the previous night. I understand that he became pompous and defensive at the press confab, not doing justice to the rather remarkable speech he had just given the night before to the NAACP. True, he doesn't seem to be worrying about damage to Obama.

However -- call me naive, but I'm still trying to figure out why Obama is having to run from him. Apparently this is a way that somebody, I'm not sure who, can "swift boat" Obama. I suppose the question may be whether Wright is just a dupe or actually complicit in something.

Wright's views are controversial, but very little more than the Rev. Martin Luther King's, or Noam Chomsky's, regarding America's violent foreign policy and history of genocide. His words are more angry, but then, he is a preacher. The worst thing I've heard about him is that crap about him saying something like the U.S. government supposedly invented HIV. That's kooky, no question. But I wouldn't say that about any other views I've heard from him or read about him. I may not agree with all of them, as Obama apparently does not. But they are not unheard of in our national discourse.

Ultimately, I think it shows America's naivete, about past and present, that Obama is even having to do this distancing. And, he's the one who's running, not Wright. He shouldn't be held up to any template originating from his former preacher. It seemed to me that he said enough on the subject in March.

Oh, well, we'll see how this plays out ...

Marc McDonald said...

I agree that the Wright AIDS comment seems far-fetched. But if you look at Wright's background, there may be a reason why he is more open to accepting such a conspiracy.

The fact is, the U.S. government WAS complicit in the infamous, horrific Tuskegee Study, starting in 1932 (which involved hundreds of syphilis-infected African American sharecroppers).

To quote the blog, Think On These Things:

"(The Tuskegee Study) was exposed in the 1970s probably during Wright's most intellectually formative years. It sent shockwaves of distrust throughout the African American community about the relationship between their government and their health. As an African American male who served in the military, I'm sure this hit close to home for Wright. In fact, if he had simply been born a few states farther south a couple years earlier, it could have been him."