McCain Straight Talk Express Loses Wheel Over Pastor Hagee

Straight Talking McCain on Hagee (and Jews and gays)

TPMtv: McCain Can't Quit John Hagee

Endorsements from the Reverends: Denounce, Reject, Embrace--What to do, what to do?

Ever since last Sunday's interview of McCain I've been mulling over the way the candidates have handled the Reverend/Pastor/Minister Endorsement. I'm posting some of the videos about the McCain debacle, including the excerpt from the Stephanopolus interview on Rev. Hagee's McCain endorsement. The interview should give anyone thinking about voting for McCain serious pause and some of us may be once again considering a permanent move to Canada.

The interview is scary not only for McCain's "wouldn't heart a flea" sugary little voice and supplicant demeanor but he ties in himself in so many verbal knots trying to slide around the question, that even I felt sorry for him. This is the man after all who once called the Revs Falwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance" and I had admired him for that. But this is now a man who is defining flip flop--he has made up to Falwell, speaking at his university and saying mildly, "I will continue to have disagreements with Rev. Falwell, and I hope that there will be areas where we can agree."

This week talking with the press, when he was not trying to be TV sweet with them and could have made up for his Sunday embarrassment, all he could do is repeat the same thing five times “When someone endorses me, that does not mean that I embrace their views,” ... the idea that Hurricane Katrina was punishment for the sins of New Orleans. “It’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense.” Just compare that with Obama's masterful speech on race.

Now recall the point in the Cleveland Democratic debate when Clinton looks for some action with Obama on his Farrakhan endorsement by insisting that he "reject the endorsement." the subtle way Obama answers allows us to consider what Clinton is saying.

OBAMA: to (Tim Russert), "I have to say I don't see a difference between denouncing and rejecting. There's no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it. But if the word "reject" Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word "denounce," then I'm happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce."

How does Clinton believe that reject is stronger than denounce? The way we all understand those terms, to reject is to send it back, refuse it; it is what we would do when presented with something objectionable or defective; that certainly is what one might do with an endorsement but how is that stronger than a denouncement? Denounce means to condemn or censure openly or publicly, which one assumes is what Obama as doing in regards to Farrakhan's ideas and utterances, but how is rejection stronger? Angels are dancing on the head of the pin here but I think McCain should be denouncing Hagee, not continuing to accept his endorsement.

Right now I can't say that Clinton has any reverend or pastor endorsement problems but she may have her own reject/denounce problems if she is the nominee. Her opponent in the primary refuses to go there, the media given her a free pass on it, and the Republicans aren't focused on her yet.

Lucky her, she has the endorsement of someone that I admire, The Rev. Calvin O. Butts III of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, a major liberal voice. But pastors are supposed to afflict the comfortable and speak truth to power, and Rev. Butts has said some things the fundamentalist right would love to exploit. I think this one is especially good.  

The Rev. Butts:
"Right in New York City, outside the Museum of National History, there is a statue of Teddy Roosevelt riding a horse with a Native American clinging to his boot on one side and an African-American on the other, "What we should do is rent two tow trucks, loop a steel cable over the statue and pull it down." Next thing we know McCain is going to complain that Clinton advocates tearing Teddy Roosevelt down.

Doin' the math and it doesn't add up

Woke up this morning to the news that Clinton won PA by 10 percentage points--no big surprise there--so she met the double digit threshold--wasn't that the test I heard everyone repeating pre-primary? Turns out the actual vote count difference was a bit over 9%. http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/

I guess the press thinks we wouldn't notice. Texas results anyone?

Bill's "race card" claim

I've been around long enough to have seen the race card played--most famously by Clarence Thomas of "high-tech lynching" fame. Can Bill Clinton (sorry buddy, you are every bit as white as I am) say Obama has done the following?

"play the race card, v • political tactic to appeal to racist motives in the electorate. Alternatively; political tactic to appeal to non-racist motives in the electorate by accusing an opponent of appealing to racist motives." (from e-encyclopedia/BBC News 2001).

Furthermore, can Bill make the claim that he is a victim of racism? Maybe so if you have enjoyed being called "the first Black president" for years and never bothered to remind folks you are white.

McCain serves up some post "bitter/cling" pandering

McCain's remarks at the Annual Associated Press Luncheon on 4/14/08, included an extended riff on the awesome wonderfulness of ordinary Americans and the following quote, "As Tocqueville discovered when he traveled America two hundred years ago, they (referring to Americans who presumably were insulted by Obama's "bitter/cling" comments) are the heart and soul of this country, the foundation of our strength and the primary authors of its essential goodness."

When I heard that excerpt from the speech on NPR the next morning I was immediately struck by "the primary authors of our essential goodness" part and thought, this speech writer is trying to insert a subliminal Christian trope and getting it wrong, wrong, wrong. For anyone conversant with the Bible, the word "author" immediately brings to mind Hebrews 12:1, "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith."

Now maybe Tocqueville did use this exact expression but I doubt it and of course the speech does not put any quotes around the words that follow so I could not tell what was name dropping and what was taken directly from Tocqueville. But that is not the point. If this was an intentional attempt to insert a Christian trope, it surely would have Gospels-oriented Christians, especially evangelicals of all stripes, scratching their heads at the (secular humanist) claim that goodness comes from people, and the undifferentiated mass of heartland, sacrificing, "heart and soul" of the country Americans at that.

Obama seems comfortable in his skin about his faith and religious experience and I'm sure it has not escaped the other candidates' attention that this may to his great advantage with voters for whom their faith is a central part of who they are. I don't want to give advice to McCain's speech writers but trying to insert a word here and there from scripture is a risky business. So now I'm on a Christian trope watch because I know they won't be able to resist.

Much of McCain's remarks were flattery--really, really big time kissing up to--the folks out there who might have taken offense at Obama's off-the-cuff speculation about the hot button issues choices made by people suffering hard times but McCain's over-the-top praise seemed more condescending to me. I started this blog because I heard the excerpt and thought, boy this is some serious pandering. When I read the transcript of McCain's prepared remarks all the way through I found this quote in the last paragraph,"The time for pandering and false promises is over." Maybe I could take that to mean, "I've pandered here and now I'm done." Don't we wish!

I also advise the McCain's speech writers to forget Tocqueville. Like scripture, his actual writings could come back to haunt.

Did Obama get it wrong?

In today's NYTs Paul Krugman says Obama got it wrong in his "bitter... cling" remarks and goes on to say that that the "crucial word here isn't 'bitter,' it's 'cling'." Aside from the fact that Obama's remarks were speculative and off the cuff and the addition of a "may be" (bitter) and "may" cling would have made it clear that he was not positing known facts, Krugman attempts to disprove the thesis (even though the remarks did not constitute a theses). He uses state-level statistics on income and poverty levels as one correlate and state level statistics on churchgoing as the other (BTW using self reports of church attendance is a notoriously useless way to operationalize religiousity). So much for trying to prove Obama wrong. I propose a way of seeing why Krugman fails to make his case. What if we were to posit a hypothesis, say, "personal financial distress combined with an accompanying high level (to be defined) of emotional stress increases susceptability to and acceptance of political arguments supporting the right to bear and own arms (including AK-47s), prohibitions against gay marriage, and criminalizing abortions and susceptability to and involvement (preferably operationalized as % of income tithed) in fundamentalist sects and "prosperity" preachers. Or if you prefer, the latter variable could be indifference to economic policy issues. A study like this would not prove or disprove Obama's comments because he was not promulgating some "truth." He was likely pondering--as many of us do--why so many people in this country are willing to vote for presidents who refuse to act on their behalf to relieve and prevent financial distress and restore communities.