[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Best thing I’ve read on the subject:
"Obama really shouldn�??t have to answer for what Wright says, but I also think that his loyalty to Wright should not be an occasion for bashing the man. There are plenty of things in his record, or the lack thereof, that provide reasons to find fault with Obama. Despite the manifest unfairness about the way that the Paul campaign was treated over statements in decades-old newsletters that were objectively far less offensive than things Wright has said in very recent memory, especially when compared to the pass Obama has received and continues to receive from the media, and despite the profoundly dishonest double standard applied to Paul and Obama, I am not interested in criticising Obama along these lines. Obviously, I don�??t share Wright�??s views, and Obama claims not to share all of them, but I have to ask seriously what kind of man Obama would be if he disowned his spiritual father for the sake of the approval of others (who may not give their approval even if he did what is being demanded). No one that I would want to entrust with any office of importance, that�??s for sure.
That is the real difference between Obama�??s modest distancing of himself from Wright and McCain�??s embarrassing embrace of Hagee. McCain does not belong to Hagee�??s congregation, he has no duties or obligations to him, and yet he welcomes Hagee�??s support in the most cynical fashion. We take McCain�??s claim that he disagrees with Hagee�??s dreadful views at face value, while he receives credit from Hagee�??s endorsement as evidence that social conservatives and pro-Israel evangelicals have given him their seal of approval. Hagee is absurdly accepted as a mainstream figure because he strikes the �??right�?? pose on Israel policy, whatever his own reasons for doing so, while Wright receives opprobrium at least in part because he does not. At the same time, Obama rejects Wright�??s ludicrous and objectionable views, but for some reason he must go beyond that and publicly turn against the man who brought him into the church. That strikes me as a deeply disturbing demand. If Obama is to be judged by the far-left company he keeps, one need only peruse his voting record.
No doubt Obama would be better off politicaly, and it would help his career, if he dropped Wright like a stone, but he would be a far more respectable and decent man if he refused to throw his mentor under the bus to appease the media, his critics and even his admirers. I still wouldn�??t vote for him, but I could have some respect for him as someone with a degree of integrity."
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/03/13/hagee-and-wright/[/quote]
I think he looked at the right facts and came to a wrong conclusion. How can it be that political pandering for votes - typical politician behavior of trying to appeal to some of the more extreme elements of the base during an election cycle - is better than buying in to someone, for the better part of two decades - as a “spiritual leader” who spews this kind of stuff?