Comments on: Culture Clash

By: Eunomia » Culture Wars Continuing (Continued)

Eunomia » Culture Wars Continuing (Continued) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:25:16 +0000

[...] This is one thing, and probably the only thing, that Kurtz and I can agree on.Â The campaign seems primed to be more divisive and contentious than usual because the two campaigns are so heavily dependent on the symbolism of each candidate’s biographies, and so they are bound up with all of the cultural arguments that each candidate’s personal associations bring to mind.Â Â The culture clash will be intense (to some extent, it already is), and its expressions will be particularly harsh because they will be targeting the candidates personally.Â As I said last month: The problem with candidacies defined so completelyÂ by biography, as Obama and McCainâ€™s candidacies clearly are, is that everything inÂ a candidateâ€™sÂ biography then becomes more or less fair game, and the political incentives for usingÂ the candidateâ€™sÂ family and friends to attackÂ him become very great.Â Far from having the most high-minded and respectful campaign in memory between two media darlings, we areÂ probably about to embark on one that will be remembered for its bitterness and the sheer volume of third-party personal attacks made, because it is precisely in the candidatesâ€™ integrity and biography that their electoral strength resides. [...]

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:17:35 +0000

Absolutely. This was what I was trying to get across in my earlier Hagee posts, but I'm not sure that I made the point as clearly as it needed to be made. In fact, it would be to his credit if Obama were interested in trying to rectify some of those high imprisonment numbers by challenging the useless, unconstitutional drug war. Of course, under the bizarre rules of the game, *that* would be more damaging to him than a dozen Wright controversies.

By: Elvis Elvisberg

Elvis Elvisberg — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:03:50 +0000

Remember, the reason that we care about the government is because it implements policies.

Lost in the “Oh, yeah, what about Opus Dei, Mr. Liberalpants!” back and forth is that there is nothing that Obama has ever said, voted for, or done that indicates that he wants to be president to help God in his damning of America.

John McCain sought and received the endorsement of John Hagee because their preferred policies on how to treat gay people and whether or not the Middle East should be a battlefield are similar.

Voting for president is not about casting judgment on men’s souls by voting for or against them.

This controversy, has nothing to do with anything that Obama would actually do as president. “It raises questions” is as deep as Dreher or Douthat have ever gotten as to why it should matter. It is 100 % about casting him as too scarily black to be president.

Your comparison of this brouhaha to the controversy over a Mel Gibson movie is very much on point. It’s substanceless celebrification of politics stuff.

By: kevinjjones

kevinjjones — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:04:38 +0000

“Sam Brownback was and is a member of Opus Dei, and as far as I know few raised this as a problem or controversy that he needed to address.”

The source you linked only named Brownback as a “possible” member. Though he’s likely quite sympathetic to the organization, to my knowledge he is not a member.

The priest who received Brownback into the Catholic Church, if he is still an influence in Brownback’s life, would have received some attention if the senator were more successful. Father C. John McCloskey has a large “internet footprint” which could create all sorts of mini-controversies.

The priest was involved with pressing bowdlerized versions of Marx and other atheist thinkers upon Catholic students at Princeton University, so the college set would have found plenty to complain about.

By: lcm

lcm — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:05:29 +0000

There is a reason secular progressives view this as manufactured. I refer you to Frank Schaeffer’s recent articles in which he points out that when his father, religious right leader, Francis Schaeffer, compared the US to Hitler, he was not only embraced by the Republican Party–he was extolled. Mr. Schaeffer and his father helped to found the Religious Right. He explains in detail how that they denounced the “nation’s sins”, they were embraced by Jack Kemp, the Reagan and Bush families. He also details the statements they made that were far more inflammatory than Obama’s Pastor Wright, yet they were considered heroes by the Republican Party. What I detect in this campaign is a racism that is far deeper than one could have ever imagined. I believe the issue is not religion–it is race. (I’m a white, 60-yr. old female.) I believe that the Clinton campaign has revealed the true side of their own racism.
Another point I wish to make is this: If indeed, this issue was about the “guilt by association” of Obama with Rev. Wright, (who served honorably in the Marines), then one must by the same logic, assign to John McCain the guilt by association of living with a self-admitted (1999) former drug addict who stole drugs from the very relief agency she helped to fund. Does this make Senator McCain guilty of endorsing drug use? Does this sound ludicrous? Of course it does–and so do the claims that Obama is somehow responsible for his pastor’s remarks.