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Hagee And Wright (II)

Rod dubs the comparison between Wright and Hagee a “false equivalence,” which is true.  The two cases aren’t equivalent.  Hagee’s connection to McCain and McCain’s embrace of Hagee are much worse and shouldn’t be equated directly to Obama’s relationship with Wright.  Wright is a pastor at the end of his career, whereas Hagee is a major political […]

Rod dubs the comparison between Wright and Hagee a “false equivalence,” which is true.  The two cases aren’t equivalent.  Hagee’s connection to McCain and McCain’s embrace of Hagee are much worse and shouldn’t be equated directly to Obama’s relationship with Wright.  Wright is a pastor at the end of his career, whereas Hagee is a major political operator in his own right with many friends on the Hill.  He is therefore someone deserving of much more scrutiny for the appalling views he holds, and the same goes for politicians who ally themselves with him.  Hagee runs a significant lobbying organisation dedicated to hard-line military and foreign policy in the Near East and his positions are premised at least partly on apocalypticism.  These are matters that have a great deal more relevance to the election of the next President than whether Jeremiah Wright has bizarre ideas with which Obama claims to disagree.  Yet, of course, it is because of his foreign policy views that Hagee is not subjected to the same kind of scrutiny, just as his political allies are let off the hook.  The unstated attitude seems to be, “Sure, he hates Catholics, but he likes Israel in his own way, doesn’t want to withdraw from Iraq and does want to bomb Iran, and that’s what matters.”  Militarism apparently covers a multitude of sins.

Where Obama’s religion should really concern voters is in his embrace of the Social Gospel and the implications this has for his understanding of the role of government.  It is legitimate if voters want to question his church’s theology or not vote for him because of his membership in this particular church (or in the UCC generally), but it seems rather strange to hold Obama accountable for a pastor when he explicitly disavows the pastor’s outrageous views while allowing McCain to accept Hagee’s endorsement without much fuss, despite the fact that Hagee has endorsed McCain because they share the same dangerous views about policy.  People worry that Obama holds the extreme views of his pastor, when there is ample evidence in his own record that he already holds views of the far left, but most seem unmoved at the prospect that McCain agrees on policy with an avowedly fanatical man despite his obvious disbelief in the religious ideas that motivate Hagee to take the policy positions that he does.   

P.S.  Obviously, I am going easy on McCain and letting him off the hook!

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