Originally Posted by Bigfella

Sorry folks, but the relationships between Reagan & Falwell in particular go well beyond mere 'endorsements'. For me the tactical nature of the relationships I described actually makes them even more appalling.

Originally Posted by Bigfella

There is also another way to view the Obama issue. By my reckoning he came to the church in question in his mid-20s. It has formed an important part of his life. Not a convenient political relationship, but a longstanding personal & spiritual one. We all have friends with views we don't like. Sometimes views that offend. I don't know about the rest of you, but my friendships have a broader basis that just a person's political views.

Originally Posted by Bigfella

Obama has, however, made clear that he disagrees with a lot of things that pastor Wright says. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Obama to simply dump Wright & end the relationship. I hope he doesn't. Someone who would drop a longtime friend simply because some of his views are politically inconvenient strikes me as pretty pathetic.

Originally Posted by Bigfella

What is worse, someone who has a friend with offensive views but disagrees with them, or someone who actively courts those with offensive views for political gain?

Originally Posted by Bigfella

Don't bother replying, we've already established that Republicans are incapable of error. I don't think Obama is, I'm just sick of the hysterical manner in which he is being judged.

Originally Posted by Bigfella

Gunnut,

I have neither the time nor inclination to play with you. You want to play what we Australians call 'bush lawyer':

Dissect every statement forensically; deny anything where proof is not in the room (you could get it as easily as me, you just can't be bothered); deliberately misinterpret statements and then hack away at the straw man as hard as you can.

It is a game for half-smart adolescent minds who think it shows how clever they are. It does precisely the opposite.

Originally Posted by Ironduke

Bigfella, you just try to keep changing the subject to something else.

So far an entire news cycle has been dedicated to this. Highly unusually, Obama appeared on all the major news channels LIVE to explain what the hell was going on, after he mostly closed himself off to the media. So it IS a worthy topic of debate. If you want to sidetrack or have another discussion, start it somewhere else.

He's even taken the opportunity to admit that Rezko played a much larger role in his earlier campaigns than previously thought, probably to hope that he could bury that bad news under this bad news.

The question here isn't if Obama believes the same things his pastor does (guilt by association), but rather what did he know and when did he know it, as well as his judgment.

Originally Posted by Bigfella

Sorry folks, but the relationships between Reagan & Falwell in particular go well beyond mere 'endorsements'. For me the tactical nature of the relationships I described actually makes them even more appalling.

There is also another way to view the Obama issue. By my reckoning he came to the church in question in his mid-20s. It has formed an important part of his life. Not a convenient political relationship, but a longstanding personal & spiritual one. We all have friends with views we don't like. Sometimes views that offend. I don't know about the rest of you, but my friendships have a broader basis that just a person's political views.

Obama has, however, made clear that he disagrees with a lot of things that pastor Wright says. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Obama to simply dump Wright & end the relationship. I hope he doesn't. Someone who would drop a longtime friend simply because some of his views are politically inconvenient strikes me as pretty pathetic.

What is worse, someone who has a friend with offensive views but disagrees with them, or someone who actively courts those with offensive views for political gain?

Don't bother replying, we've already established that Republicans are incapable of error. I don't think Obama is, I'm just sick of the hysterical manner in which he is being judged.

"We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he began. "Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body." Mr. Wright thundered on: "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God." His voice rising, Mr. Wright said, "We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ." Concluding, Mr. Wright said: "We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . ."

I see that some are already attempting to trot out a comparative argument, that Wright's offensive, bigoted, and paranoid rants are somehow lessened by invoking John McCain's support from John Hagee and Rod Parsley, two prominent evangelists who have also made provocative statements. But here is the huge gaping difference between these attempts: Barack Obama has spent the better part of the past 20 years of his life listening to, absorbing, and yes, agreeing with Wright's sermons. If he did not agree with the bulk of those sermons, he would have of course left Trinity for another church--finding a church in Chicago that closely fits your own personal beliefs is not at all difficult, and Obama obviously agrees with Wright far more than he disagrees. That Obama has spent 20 years listening to Wright, thought enough of him to use one of those sermons as the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope," that he was married by Wright, had both of his children baptized by Wright and brought up in this church, listening to these paranoid and racist rants that differ little in substance from the words of a much more famous racist, Louis Farakkan, means that Obama AGREES with Wright far more often than he disagrees with him. From that, what are we to make of Obama? Actions, indeed, do speak louder than flaccid conciliatory words that have only just now been uttered. I say again the obvious: no American would spend 20 years listening to a minister with which he vehemently disagreed. McCain, by comparison, is guilty of pandering to Haggee and Parsley because of the (unfortunate) influence they have over a powerful voting demographic. I can find scant evidence that McCain has sat though one sermon from Hagee or Parsley, much less 20 years of them. Which is worse? The politician that panders for votes, or the man who has listened to and internalized anti-American, anti-Jewish, and anti-white messages for 20 years before ever once publicly disagreeing with them, and who is raising his children in this same toxic environment? Not only am I certain Barack Obama is unfit to run this nation, I now question his ability to raise his own children, for the hatred he has willingly exposed them to since their births.

I’m not a believer in guilt by association, or the campaign vaudeville of rival politicians insisting this or that candidate disassociate himself from remarks by some fellow he had a 30-second grip’n’greet with a decade ago. But Jeremiah Wright is not exactly peripheral to Barack Obama’s life. He married the Obamas and baptized their children. Those of us who made the mistake of buying the senator’s last book, The Audacity of Hope, and assumed the title was an ingeniously parodic distillation of the great sonorous banality of an entire genre of blandly uplifting political writing discovered circa page 127 that in fact the phrase comes from one of the Reverend Wright’s sermons. Jeremiah Wright has been Barack Obama’s pastor for 20 years — in other words, pretty much the senator’s entire adult life. Did Obama consider God Damn America as a title for his book but it didn’t focus-group so well? Ah, well, no, the senator told ABC News. The Reverend Wright is like “an old uncle who says things I don’t always agree with.” So did he agree with goofy old Uncle Jeremiah on September 16th 2001? That Sunday morning, Uncle told his congregation that the United States brought the death and destruction of 9/11 on itself. “We nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” said the Reverend Wright. “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards.” Is that one of those “things I don’t always agree with”? Well, Senator Obama isn’t saying, responding merely that he wasn’t in church that morning. ... There are many preachers who would be happy to tell their congregations “God damn America.” But Barack Obama is not supposed to be the candidate of the America-damners: He’s not the Reverend Al Sharpton or the Reverend Jesse Jackson or the rest of the racial-grievance mongers. Obama is meant to be the man who transcends the divisions of race, the candidate who doesn’t damn America but “heals” it — if you believe, as many Democrats do, that America needs healing.

Originally Posted by Bigfella

Gunnut,

I have neither the time nor inclination to play with you. You want to play what we Australians call 'bush lawyer':

Dissect every statement forensically; deny anything where proof is not in the room (you could get it as easily as me, you just can't be bothered); deliberately misinterpret statements and then hack away at the straw man as hard as you can.

It is a game for half-smart adolescent minds who think it shows how clever they are. It does precisely the opposite.

Originally Posted by Ironduke

It's ironic that he's now putting up banners on his podium that say "Judgment to Lead", yet displays a complete lack of it.

Originally Posted by dalem

Kinda like what I tried to point out back in the "Obama won't wear a flag pin" thread a while ago: it's not so much what Obama does or doesn't do, it's his reaction to criticism that is telling.

-dale