Barack Obama and the Jeremiah Wright "issue"... Truth is duller than fiction...

People are complicated. Some people are smart. That second category probably includes both McCain and Obama. Neither are likely to be blindly accepting the words of clergymen, trading the insights of Wright or Parsley for their own thinking. They're smart enough to know better.

Are we?

Jeremiah Wright, the now infamous pastor at Trinity United Church, seems a little stuck in the past to me. I'm also convinced that all of this attention on Wright and his Church is probably misplaced.

I've heard and seen the various clips that are getting so many people worked up over Barack Obama's pastor. As far as I can tell, he's not doing anything new or shocking. When he goes on what some people would call an "anti-American tirade" he sounds like an old recording from 30-40 years ago. He's a pulpit firebrand preaching a radicalized afrocentric message. He's not breaking new ground, he's comfortably echoing the sentiments of "angry blacks", hanging on to a perspective that was already losing favor when I was a kid in the 70s.

I'm not going to provide a long history of predominantly black churches and civil rights issues. I'm not going to take you on a trip that involves the precursors to MLK, King himself, more radicalized clergymen who competed with King's perspective, Malcom X, black power movements, and what's happened since. I won't bore you with an explanation of the intersection of church and politics within the black community.

Do you know why I'm not going to go through all of that? Honestly, part of it is a matter of my personal laziness. Mainly, though, it's because I don't think most people give a shit. They don't want context and they don't want understanding. I'm guessing that if you entered the magic phrases into Google to land here that you want "red meat"--something to piss you off or to make you feel better about Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright and race in general.

If someone actually tries to make real sense out of this stuff, it just isn't simple, fast and interesting enough to give us the political hard-ons we crave.

Besides, if we did this from the ground up... Well, we'd be looking at a book instead of a blog post and this one is gonna be long as it is.

I'm not completely abandoning hope that someone out there would like to hear something a little more meaningful than "Jeremiah Wright is the devil and his hatred will kill the Obama campaign" crap. I'm skipping some history for the sake of expediency, but I'm not selling out completely.

Here's my take. Understanding why this Jeremiah Wright thing is a bullshit dust-up is easy.

OBAMA

Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright have a relationship. Obama has high regard for much of what Wright has done and the candidate found a home in Wright's church. Wright performed the Obama wedding and one of his sermons became the title for Obama's Audacity of Hope.

The simple-minded will argue that this relationship creates a reason for concern. Wright says stuff we don't like. Obama likes Wright. Thus, by the transitive process of shallow political thinking, Obama is somehow on board with Wright when the pastor says "God damn America". That is bullshit.

Obama himself tried to explain this in a sort of folksy way, describing Wright as a family member who he loves, but with whom he doesn't universally agree. "An old Uncle", Obama called him.

That's a quick takeout of the Obama/Wright link, but the real reason why you don't need to be afraid of Barack Obama based on Jeremiah Wright is a little more complicated. It's something Barack Obama has explained before and it's something that one might not recognize without first having their attention drawn to it.

Obama once gave a speech in which he discussed his religious awakening at Trinity United and his current position on faith. Read this:

And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering his truth and carrying out his works.

Obama is not a religious zealot. He's not pretending he has all of the answers and he's not willing to claim that his church has all of them either. He remains skeptical and continues looking for truth.

When you actually think about Obama's stance on religion, it mitigates a lot of concerns, doesn't it? He isn't part of Jeremiah Wright's army. He's not taking orders from a pulpit. He understands his faith as an important part of his life and one that has a great deal of power, but he hasn't traded in his critical thinking for zealotry.

I think this is hard for many religious people to understand, because many of us don't approach our faith in this way. Many of us are soldiers for our churches. Many of us take our church leaders' word that "things are the way they say they are". For many people, church membership and the very idea of belonging to a church involves accepting that church's interpretation of the bible and its stance on issues.

That's not Obama's faith. Now, you can argue that he isn't "your" kind of Christian because he's still skeptical and he's still looking to develop a real understanding of truth. You can argue that he's not "Christian enough" for you because he's not a member of your brand of Jesus worship or because he's willing to submit to God's will but not to the will of any individual, absolutist doctrine.

Personally, I think those arguments are meaningless, but you're welcome to make them.

However, when you understand how Obama describes his faith and his understanding of religion, it's very hard to believe that he's taking marching orders from Jeremiah Wright. It's also hard to argue that you can impugn Obama with Wright's zaniness.

WRIGHT

Based on everything I've seen of Jeremiah Wright, he's sort of the black ministerial version on Geraldine Ferraro. I don't know his theology, but I know his politics. He's pitching a rather outdated version of angry black politics. It's conspiratorial, it's inflammatory, and it has a big chip on its shoulder about the white man.

As a white man, I should probably feel threatened or should take offense. I don't some of that is because I've studied the history this post skipped. Some of that is because I see it in a larger social context. Most of it is because I recognize that Jeremiah Wright's voice on these political matters is one of the last of its kind.

Olympic athletes no longer give the black power salute and the Black Panthers are probably playing shuffleboard at the senior center right now. The Wright perspective and the Wright language are old and dying. It still has an audience, but it's shrinking and its relevance is in decline.

Jeremiah Wright shares a little bit in common with Geraldine Ferraro. Ferraro seems unable to shake her old-school feminism, clinging to it ferociously even though most "radicalized" younger women have long ago recognized the intersections of race and gender and what they mean. Meanwhile, Wright rants about the White Man and rails against the system in an antique voice. He's not up to speed.

Have a little sympathy and empathy for both of them. They came across their views honestly, even if those perspectives aren't right. They hold to them because they've worked on things very meaningful to them for a very long time. They can't change their stripes and spots that easily. Truth be known, we owe Ferraro and Wright debts of gratitude. What seems stupid, shallow and old today was groundbreaking in different times and under different circumstances.

I don't know about Wright's preaching. I know about his politics, but I haven't heard him preaching in a more traditionally religious sense. Maybe it was in those quieter moments that he touched Barack Obama?

I haven't really heard all that much from Wright, either. I've seen a highlight reel of the moments when he says things that frustrate and upset people. The government made AIDS, the chickens coming home to roost (nod to Malcom X), God damn America, etc.

If you line up all of those "here's crazy Jeremiah" Youtube clips, they comprise a ridiculously small percentage of all the talking, preaching and teaching he's done. We're seeing the Worst of Jeremiah Wright. I don't think it's completely fair to pass judgment based on that.

With respect to Barack Obama, it doesn't really matter, though. I don't think there's any evidence that Obama subscribes to the more incendiary thoughts of Mr. Wright, do you? Nah. But pretending that's the case is a lot more exciting than using your noodle, isn't it?

FOLLOW THE POLITICS

Ask yourself who benefits from making the transitive argument with respect to Wright and Obama. Have you answer? Good. Remember it.

Now, contrast Wright's lunacy with that of John McCain's spiritual adviser and campaign buddy in Ohio, Rod Parsley.

Rod Parsley sells magical healing prayer cloths. He argues that America was founded to crush Islam. He thinks its worth revisiting adultery laws and potentially punishing cheaters with the machinery of the criminal justice system. He's a dominionist who thinks we might benefit from trashing the Constitution in favor of a Christian version of Sharia.

Contrast Wright's bombast with that of McCain supporter John Hagee. You know, the guy who calls Catholicism "the Great Whore" and who wants to nuke Iran in order to pave the way for Jesus' return on a white horse. He's said plenty of amazingly offensive things, too.

For some reason, people are willing to paint Obama with Wright's comments while recognizing that John McCain isn't quite as crazy as Hagee and Parsley. Why is that?

What is it about far-right Christian politics that differs from far-left black Christian politics in these matters?

Here's a clue. The words "far-left" and "black".

I'm not trying to play "that religious guy is crazier than the other religious guy". Personally, I think Wright is silly and Parsley/Hagee are goofy, too.

The more important question, with respect to what's going on in the media and around water coolers today, is how much it really matters in terms of the candidates.

(Remember: The Vatican didn't manage to take over the White House when Kennedy was in office)

I don't think John Mccain wants to throw himself in prison for adultery and I don't believe he's plotting a Constitutional crisis in order to replace the governing principles of the USA with some kind of conservative Christian theocracy.

I don't think Barack Obama believes the government has intentionally spread AIDS or that he plans on singing "God Damn America" instead of "God Bless America". I don't think Barack Obama hates whitey, which would create some problems when it came to his very own mommy.

People are complicated. Some people are smart. That second category probably includes both McCain and Obama. Neither are likely to be blindly accepting the words of clergymen, trading the insights of Wright or Parsley for their own thinking. They're smart enough to know better. Are we?






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John McCain + John Hagee = Bullshit... Why John McCain made me sick...

Just when I start to feel a little hopeful about the future, jackasses screw the whole thing up.

Witness John Hagee's endorsement of John McCain. Look, I was giving McCain a lot of slack. I even had moments of Obama-doubting in which I toyed with the idea of voting for Mr. Straight Talk on the basis of some pretty significant foreign policy considerations. Not anymore.

He's a piece of shit, straight up.

I'm not going to play compare and contrast with Hagee/McCain and Farrakhan/Obama. Anyone smart enough to read this post is smart enough to figure out why the two episodes are different and how each candidate responded in different ways. Besides, this post isn't a defense of Obama's approach to the Farrakhan issue. It's a direct response to John McCain's behavior.

Here are a few indisputable truths...

ONE: John Hagee is a complete asshole and a walking Evangelical freakshow that should creep out everyone with 1/4 of a functioning brain.

Yeah, I guess the anti-Catholic thing bugged me a little bit. I'd hate to think that my wonderful late great-aunt was servicing the Whore of Babylon during all her years as a nun. I'm not quite willing to believe that my grandparents and their parents were doing Hitler's bidding, either.

Honestly, though, that kind of Pope-hating is the LEAST of my problems with Hagee. It's weird. It's over the top. It's undoubtedly unnecessarily offensive to millions of decent folk (whose theology, by the way, I don't adhere to), but my position on Hagee goes past the Bill Donahue argument. Which reminds me... This is the first time I've ever agreed with Bill Donahue that I can remember. Sign of the pending apocolypse?

Speaking of the apocolypse, Pastor Hagee's unwavering support of Israel--which appears to be one of the primary reasons so many politicos love his fat ass--isn't like some sort of pro-Jew thing. Oh no. To the contrary. Hagee is in that Coulter camp that believes Jews fall a little short of heaven's standards, if you know what I mean. Hagee is pro-Israel because a unified Israel is a precondition to the rapture.

The rapture? You know, that notion that God is gonna swoop up all the good people and leave the rest of us behind to fend for ourselves through some predetermined period of shittiness. That rapture. It's all part of the apocolypse that features Russians backing Islamic states in a war against a unified Israel after someone nukes Iran.

By the way, I am SERIOUS. Hagee preaches this crap. He wants to nuke Israel to usher in the apocolypse and the ensuing rapture, which apparently features Jesus Christ showing up on a white horse somewhere. No, really. I am SERIOUS. He's not pro-Israel, he just wants the unified Israel ingredient in his end times recipe ready.

Hagee also thinks that God gave us Hurricane Katrina as a punishment. A punishment for what? Depends on when you ask him. He's said that it had something to do with our policy in the middle east (if you aren't going all-out pro-Israel, the big guy will hand down an ass-kicking). He's also said that it was sent to beat the shit out of New Orleans because of all the sin there.

I've been to New Orleans. On my last trip, there was sin a-plenty. I had an awesome stripper volunteer to whip me in a VIP room with a piece of rawhide that would've done Rowdy Yates proud. I saw underaged drinking teen girls flashing boobs for beads, which gave me an understanding of how the Europeans were able to let go of morality to buy Manhattan for a few trinkets.

I took a piss next to a dude who was wearing a skirt and heels while I sucked nitrous oxide out of a balloon I purchased from a one-armed street urchin wearing a tattered old NWA t-shirt. New Orleans had some sin. Agreed.

But I don't think God got so pissed off at the eaters of king cake that he decided to obliterate them with a hurricane. I know this sounds crazy, but I think it might have had something to do with weather patterns and meteorological stuff. You know, science. Hey, it's not en vogue with Hagee's crowd, but science sometimes does explain stuff. Like hurricanes. Or, I suppose Jesus got really upset about an upcoming gay pride parade and decided to wallop the gulf coast. You tell me which sounds more reasonable? Hagee votes gay pride = hurricane. You?

Hagee also thinks that every Muslim (yes EVERY Muslim) is under order from the Koran to kill infidels like me. Every last one. Intense.

There's this Roger Waters solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitchiking. The narrator has this horrible dream in which he awakes to find "Arabs with knives at the foot of the bed". This is Hagee's world. Those Islamic dudes are hellbent on killing everyone else.

I know what you're thinking... "Well, that seems silly. History and even every day life teaches me that not all Muslims are committed to killing everyone who doesn't buy into the Allah thing." Well, buddy, your logic and ability to draw inferences from empirical evidence has no place here. The guy who's all simpatico with Jesus says it's true. Hey, you might want to get busy nuking Iran and getting the Good Lord back here pronto.

Otherwise, Cat Stevens is gonna pop out of your bedroom closet at 3:00 a.m. and behead you with a Tea for the Tillerman LP. You won't have time to call Hillary or anyone else before your whole family is jihad-ded. Decapitation by sensitive 70s pop is part of Mohammed's evil plan. Just ask John Hagee. Even if he won't confirm the scriptural accuracy of that scenario, he won't deny its possibility.

There are many other reasons to put the Hagee file in the asshole cabinet, but I'm gonna stop here. I think that's enough for now. Anyone who wants to stick up for this bozo should be aware, however, that these observations are the tip of a very big iceberg. To repeat, John Hagee is a complete asshole.

TWO: John McCain sought out and then expressed his appreciation for the support of the giant dickwad known as John Hagee.

This was not one of those "accidental endorsement" things. McCain pursued the Hagee thumbs-up. John McCain apparently felt as though he needed to shore up support among those right-wing evangelical types and figured a vote of confidence from Pastor Hagee was just what the doctor ordered. After all, Hagee is a big hit on TV (well, at least in the realm of tele-preachers, although I think re-runs of Flo's Yellow Rose still pull in better Nielsen numbers) and he heads a big ol' church that has damn near 20,000 members.

With everyone on the right pissed off at the McCain asendency, he needed to secure a little street cred with the so-called base. He got it from Hagee. And he took it. In person. Smiling. Thankful.

Oh, yes. He actually took the endorsement while staring a stage with the goon. McCain stood by the preacher man, nodding along with his jibber-jabber and then expressing his appreciation for the endorsement. He was honored. He was proud. He was downright fucking giddy that this giant supreme asshole endorsed him. And don't even think he didn't know what kind of asswipe Hagee was. All it takes is Google and about 20 seconds to figure that out.

THREE: It's hard to resist another Straight Talk Express joke when you consider this thing carefully...

The Straight Talk Express ran into a ditch, lost its wheels, had a faulty GPS system, was recalled by the manufacturer, was a lemon, was part of a DUI incident, wrecked, derailed, etc., etc. etc. Take your pick.

No matter how you slice it, McCain sold out like a cheap fucking whore in order to get some creepy evangelical mojo from Pastor John Hagee.

McCain used to have the guts to look at these religious freakshows and call bullshit. He called out GW Bush for going to Bob Jones University because the school was anti-Catholic and racist. Now, he's buddy-buddy with the dipstick who thinks the Catholic church is a tool of the anti-Christ and who makes slavery into a joke at church-sponsored events.

Once upon a time, John McCain said:


"I recognize and celebrate that our country is founded upon Judeo-Christian values. And I have pledged my life to defend America and all her values, the values that have made us the noblest experiment in history. But political intolerance by any political party is neither a Judeo-Christian nor an American value.

The political tactics of division and slander are not our values. They are corrupting influences on religion and politics and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country.

Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."

Now he's pandering to a guy who makes Pat Robertson look sane. I don't know if you've ever listened to or watched Pat Robertson. It's hard to make him look sane. John Hagee, however, makes Robertson look like a fucking well-adjusted Rhodes scholar of some sort. McCain used to have the guts to call these guys out for what they are--assholes--now he's crawling around with his mouth open like Jessica Hahn during a late night work session with Jim Bakker.

John McCain once argued:

"We are the party of Ronald Reagan not Pat Robertson. We are the party of Theodore Roosevelt not the party of special interests. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln not Bob Jones. Join us. Join us."

Straight talk, my ass.

Let's call this whole thing with Hagee exactly what it is: it's pandering to get votes. It's about putting an opportunity for victory above and beyond principle. It's about making deals with the devil (couldn't resist) in order to get a shot at the top job. It's about whoring yourself, tarnishing your reputation, skull-fucking the severed head of your personal credibility and turning yourself into a weak liar who smells worse than the standard-issue diseased sycophantic politician.

When you stake your popularity and your believability in your penchant for honesty and straight talk, it's a wee bit disturbing to sell out to a guy who stands in direct contrast to your expressed beliefs.

It's sad, John McCain. Really sad. You went out there and worked to get this douchebag's support so you could shore up your support among (what I hope to be) fringe republicans. I wasn't even rooting for you and I'm depressed.

FOUR: Half-assed retreats don't play well...

After people started noticing and commenting on the fact that John Hagee is a freak that would make Barnum's mouth water, McCain shuffled a little bit.

He didn't repudiate, reject, denounce, renounce or otherwise wave off the Hagee endorsement. Nah, he just said that he didn't necessarily agree with everything Hagee preached and that he couldn't be expected to line up with every supporter from top to bottom on every issue.

That's true, in a way. Hey, I'm supporting Obama and I doubt that means he wants to support some of my more controversial beliefs (Although my Mexican stripper plan would kick ass. Barack, call me.) I get that.

However, there are limits to that argument. You cannot buy a bag of shit with the stink removed, people. It comes with the deal.

After that Bill Cunningham goofus went all Barack HUSSEIN Obama on a McCain rally crowd, McCain huddled the press and distanced himself from the prick. Good move. The guy is a complete ass-hat, after all. At the time, I was really cool with McCain. I was excited to have a stand-up and decent guy running for President, even if he wasn't MY guy. I respected him and his willingness to do that.

There were people who claimed it was bullshit. They said McCain put Cinci Willy out there on purpose to get folks rallied and to give a wink of recognition to the far-right crowd, planting some anti-Obama seed in the process. He only backed away, they argued, after the damage was done. It was intentional and calculated dirty pool, they said. I gave McCain the benefit of the doubt. I believed in his decency.

A few days later, though, and he's french-kissing John Hagee in front of the world. Then, he's called on it and all he can do is say that he doesn't agree with "everything" Hagee says.

Not good enough.

John McCain, I expect more from you.

This is not some minor thing to me. Seriously. No matter what happens from here on out, I will think of John McCain as the guy who teamed up with John Hagee in hopes of scoring a couple of percentage points in the polls. That's bad no matter who you are, but it's even worse when you've been an outspoken critic of his ilk up until the point when you felt you needed them to get you over the hump in November.

You see, like a lot of other people (I suspect), part of what I'm looking for in a President is some honor, integrity, honesty and open-mindedness. Putting your lips on the ass of John Hagee as part of some Faustian political bargain communicates none of these traits. It sucks and it's depressing.






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