Recently, TPM’s Josh Marshall went on and on and on and on and on about the Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement of John McCain, and the need for the latter to repudiate the former.
Today, Josh Marshall writes on Barack Obama’s spiritual advisor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who has been Obama’s pastor for two decades, married Barack and Michelle Obama, and who inspired the title of Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope:
This morning Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright is in the news again. They did a segment on him on Good Morning America. And the main attention is to a video that has surfaced of a sermon Wright gave in January. Fox News got it and here you can see it on Ben Smith’s blog at The Politico. It’s racially charged and will certainly get a lot of play, though I’m not sure there’s much in it that doesn’t come out of the sermon tradition of African-American Christianity with a 60s twist. Last week, Obama, who has denounced various of Wright’s statements, told a Jewish audience, Wright “is like an old uncle who says things I don’t always agree with.” Watch it yourself and make your own judgments. For myself, when watching something like this, it is often difficult to distinguish between what I actually find offensive myself and what it is ingrained in me to believe others will find offensive…
Marshall gives Obama a pass he refuses McCain — despite the fact that Obama is clearly more tied to Wright than McCain is to Hagee. Indeed, Marshall — having provided a list of the Hagee statements to repudiate — avoids any discussion at all of the specifics of Wright’s “sermon,” which includes not only the claim that the US brought 9/11 on itself, but also that the US gives blacks drugs (a claim he has made before). For that matter, I would imagine there are any number of mainstream black churches who would be offended by Marshall comparing them to Wright’s far-left moonbattery.
Comment by Karl on 3/13 @ 5:34 pm #
Prebuttal: I was on record as saying McCain should distance himself from Hagee’s anti-gay and anti-Catholic statements at the time of the endorsement. PW co-blogger Dan Collins referred to Hagee as a Not-So-Great Whore, which is a mocking reference to one of Hagee’s anti-Catholic comments. So you can skip the tu coque fallacy and the moral equivalency arguments.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 3/13 @ 5:52 pm #
Let’s do a recap of the story so far, shall we?
* Raised at the knee of a mother who detested America
* Career launched by a pair of unrepentant Pentagon-bombing Weathermen
* Wife who finds nothing redeeming about America until it discovers her ‘Bammy
* Two decades of spiritual instruction from an America-hating racist conspiracy-monger
Have I missed anything?
Comment by KJ on 3/13 @ 5:56 pm #
So, who got the judge to change the crack laws? It’s not like it’s alcohol. Obama weigh in there? What about Africom?
Comment by Rick Ballard on 3/13 @ 5:59 pm #
“Have I missed anything?”
Yup.
Will peddle influence for money - especially Syrian/Iraqi money given to “help” in the purchase of BHO Manse.
We don’t actually know the lower end of his rental range.
Yet.
My bet is that Kristen’s is much higher.
Pingback by Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Michelle vs. KP on whether Obama should cut ties to his pastor on 3/13 @ 6:05 pm #
[...] Another helpful reminder from Karl that Josh Marshall is an utter, abject hypocrite on this [...]
Comment by charles austin on 3/13 @ 6:07 pm #
“Fox News got it …”
I see Mr. Marshall is still fond of the guilt by association thing. Except for Obama, of course.
Comment by alppuccino on 3/13 @ 6:13 pm #
I’m not sure there’s much in it that doesn’t come out of the sermon tradition of African-American Christianity
This does not bode well for the first State of the Union Address.
Comment by Dan Collins on 3/13 @ 6:16 pm #
Don’t cross the streams!!!
Comment by Carin on 3/13 @ 6:27 pm #
sayeth Marshall:
Particulars aside, the political relevance is to show Wright as angry black man; and to tie him to Obama
Humn… well that is gonna be a tricky thing. How are we going to possibly portray Wright as an angry black man … and then (even more insurmountable) HOW to tie ‘em to Obama?
We’re gonna need Rove for this.
Comment by Salt Lick on 3/13 @ 6:28 pm #
…it is often difficult to distinguish between what I actually find offensive myself and what it is ingrained in me to believe others will find offensive…
Well, you have to admit there’s a lot of empathy there.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 3/13 @ 6:30 pm #
Yes, but this is an ancient African custom so it can be explained as returning to his father’s Kenyan roots.
Comment by Pablo on 3/13 @ 6:35 pm #
I’ve been training that the foot of the Master and I have the answer for this one: Roll the tape.
Comment by happyfeet on 3/13 @ 6:56 pm #
They gave Josh a Polk Award so probablies he feels sort of obligated to be really pretty hypocritical wherever possible. It’s like how when Halle got the Oscar she felt like she needed to devote the rest of her career to boring, stupid, inane roles, an all different combinations. There’s a certain nobility in this sort of thing, even if you have to sorta squint to see it.
Comment by happyfeet on 3/13 @ 7:05 pm #
Oh. That was *in* all different combinations. That looks like a nishi thing, but it’s not. Just a typo thinger is all.
Comment by lee on 3/13 @ 7:05 pm #
OK, I admit it.
It scares the crap out of me that an un-vetted man can come this close to the presidency. I can’t even imagine the damage B.H. Obama could do leading the nation.
Not supposed to talk about it either I guess….
VOTE FOR CHANGE!!…and hope for the best.
Comment by happyfeet on 3/13 @ 7:09 pm #
Oh. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about being lead by Baracky. It sounds kind of like just a silly idea, but I imagine if he got elected he’d pretty much have to give it a go. It’s like Terry Semel at Yahoo.
Comment by steve on 3/13 @ 7:20 pm #
Just wanted to remind everyone that PW isn’t so much some Republican advocacy website hellbent on assasinating the character of the presumptive dem nominee. No, it’s a little bit more intellectually above the fray then that, espousing a classical liberal POV - not just a bunch of vapid attack pieces against the presumptive dem nominee.
Just thought since most of the content has turned into smeering the presumptive dem nominee, that a reminder was needed.
Comment by happyfeet on 3/13 @ 7:23 pm #
Obama is a socialist and also he’s extremely ethnocentric and phony, steve. I don’t want my country to have to go through something like that. I don’t think you’d want that either.
Comment by McGehee on 3/13 @ 7:25 pm #
I guess it must really suck to be steve these days. Just thought since all of his comments say pretty much the same thing, that a reminder was needed.
Comment by steve on 3/13 @ 7:31 pm #
“I don’t want my country to have to go through something like that. ”
Oh, the humanity!
Comment by steve on 3/13 @ 7:35 pm #
Look - I just wanted to remind everyone that PW isn’t just another advocacy site, as has been pointed out to me many times here. So when the content says precisely the opposite of that, I think I’m doing the PW community a service by reminding everyone of what PW is really about.
Why would anyone find that objectionable?
Comment by Log Cabin on 3/13 @ 7:36 pm #
Let’s see:
Spitzer being politically targeted by Bush DOJ. Check.
Quoting the statements of close Obama associates = “smeering” him. Check.
Any other spin moves you leftards want to throw out there to change the subject?
Comment by happyfeet on 3/13 @ 7:37 pm #
You don’t have to mock me. Jeez. It’s just I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem is all. I read some stuff about how bad socialism can be, and also I read Baracky’s economic agenda on his site, and I’ve got to tell you steve, I’m really concerned.
Comment by lee on 3/13 @ 7:42 pm #
Wow! Thanks steve!!
Without you, I would have had no clue what Protein Wisdom was about!!!
You’re swell!!!!
Comment by Good Lt. on 3/13 @ 7:50 pm #
For the first time in my adult life, I’m proud of protein wisdom.
Comment by Nietzschean on 3/13 @ 7:51 pm #
Lefties like Josh Marshall are deluded. I say don’t make a big deal out of these tapes until AFTER Obama wins the nominaition, and AFTER he has moved, even more falsely, closer to the middle. Hold back on this and spring it about two weeks before the election.
Comment by lee on 3/13 @ 8:05 pm #
I think Obama may be a Clinton gambit.
Everyone will be so glad Obama isn’t nominated, that Hillary won’t seem so bad.
I still think he will be the VP candidate though.
Comment by Education Guy on 3/13 @ 8:10 pm #
You know what I find objectionable. People who whine that there are other people who think the Spitzer story is something worth talking about and that the fact that Obama has a very close personal relationships with America hating crazy bigots and terrorists. I think the truth is that those people are afraid that the majority of the American people are going to agree with me that those stories are both factually true and interesting enough to talk about, a lot.
I think that those who are upset with that are just going to have to learn to live with it.
Comment by Education Guy on 3/13 @ 8:13 pm #
And by vapid you mean factually accurate and compelling, right steve? I admit at times it’s hard to get my head around the translations to desperation speak.
Comment by Ric Locke on 3/13 @ 8:14 pm #
Bullshit, steve.
Cast your mind back to the laying of the Cambrian shales, two or three days ago. A man called John Hagee endorsed McCain, remember? And it eventuated that Hagee had some fairly nasty views, and there rose a cry: MCCAIN MUST REPUDIATE THIS ASSHOLE! Prominent among the howlers were Josh Marshall and a cast of thousands, including a certain commenter here who goes by “steve”. They were anxious and insistent to establish the principle that a politician endorsed by a religious leader with hateful views must repudiate not just the views but the endorsement. Remember that? I know it’s hard. So many geological ages since then. Nevertheless, as a prominent advocate of that view as well as remarkably insistent that anyone who disagreed with it was fully and unconditionally endorsing the vile beliefs in question, I would think you might have a few dim memories.
Clearly you don’t recall, though. Convenient for you, ain’t it?
Regards,
Ric
Comment by N. O'Brain on 3/13 @ 8:14 pm #
“Just wanted to remind everyone that PW isn’t so much some Republican advocacy website hellbent on assasinating the character of the presumptive dem nominee. No, it’s a little bit more intellectually above the fray then that, espousing a classical liberal POV …”
Which is why we can “smeer” your, well, I guess I can’t say “boy”, your guy, then, to our hearts content.
Like hf said, the thought of a reactionary like Obama with his hands on the levers of power scares the crap out of me.
Comment by Karl on 3/13 @ 9:06 pm #
steve,
Apparently you are just too stone dumb to read the prebuttal I made comment #1, but let me further note that I recently commented on Dan’s post linked above on the cynicism of McCain’s “repudiation.”
As to your general complaint: (1) This post really isn’t about Obama — it’s about Marshall; (2) Having just reviewed the last week’s worth of posts your claim that “most of the content has turned into smeering the presumptive dem nominee” is as inaccurate as it was misspelt. Most of the content hasn’t even been about Obama.
Comment by Karl on 3/13 @ 9:13 pm #
PS: Criticizing Obama does not equal Republican advocacy either. Most high-schoolers can figure that one out, but figured I should mention it to steve.
Comment by Sean Hackbarth on 3/14 @ 12:01 am #
As happyfeet points out Marshall got a journalism award. Therefore he needs to be “respected” no matter how inconsistent he is. Oh and he figured out a way to turn his weblog into a business His fellow liberals in the MSM feel better that online media has a solid beach head to perpetuate their ideology.
Comment by Mark V. on 3/14 @ 2:42 am #
“though I’m not sure there’s much in it that doesn’t come out of the sermon tradition of African-American Christianity with a 60s twist.”
Wright said our “chickens are coming home to roost. African-American Christianity? Sounds more like Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, rather than the SCLC.
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 3/14 @ 7:28 am #
pfft.
separation of church and state my droogies.
presumeably we are protected from the whacktheories of O’s baptist pastor, just as we would be protected from the whacktheories of Mitt’s mormon pastor.
isnt that wat u argued, pro-Mitt?
Hagee is much more worrisome, since we remain unprotected from his whacktheories…..Hagee is not Mccains pastor…..but his lobbyist.
Comment by Karl on 3/14 @ 8:00 am #
nishi,
A lobbyist is an agent. Hagee is not an agent of McCain. Nice to see the Obama love has made you into a complete hypocrite. Perhaps I will have to resume pointing out — every time you show up — your lack of concern with Obama’s terrorist pals and how the first thing you think of when you see McCain is his whiteness.
Comment by Cowboy on 3/14 @ 8:30 am #
presumeably we are protected from the whacktheories of O’s baptist pastor
nishi:
You have railed against Christianity and its effects on the Republican party in almost every post. What is it about Wright that you find more appealing and less dangerous?
Comment by JD on 3/14 @ 8:34 am #
Karl - She cannot get that elephant sized brain around the differences between a candidate’s lifelong spiritual adviser, and someone who endorse that candidate. I think it is intentional. But I may be giving her too much credit.
Comment by Techie on 3/14 @ 9:18 am #
My vote is for too much credit.
Comment by daleyrocks on 3/14 @ 9:33 am #
I think nishi is stunned to find real life is different from life in the classroom. There is no moderator or professor to praise her or give gold stars for her self-claimed intelligence. Anti-social arrogance and argument by bigoted assertion in the real world are not reward very long.
Comment by McGehee on 3/14 @ 10:16 am #
Classroom? They play online D&D-type games in class these days?
Comment by daleyrocks on 3/14 @ 10:50 am #
McGhee - With a laptop, how does the prof. know what you are doing?
nishi - I drink your milkshake!!!!!
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 3/14 @ 12:23 pm #
Classroom? They play online D&D-type games in class these days?
dude it is generational, i swear.
we are TAUGHT to play mmorpgs at work.
we datamine OSINT [opensource intell] from social networks in games.
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 3/14 @ 12:26 pm #
social networks and the NSA
u know….social network theory? Petraeus and Kilcullen?
that stuff that is ……like WORKING for us in Iraq?
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 3/14 @ 12:27 pm #
linkage
Comment by happyfeet on 3/14 @ 12:32 pm #
Hi nishi. It’s Friday so I have to go get sushi now cause that’s what NG eats on Fridays, cause outta respect for Jesus and all, but I wanted to say hi.
Comment by B Moe on 3/14 @ 12:49 pm #
Hagee is much more worrisome, since we remain unprotected from his whacktheories…..Hagee is not Mccains pastor…..but his lobbyist.
Wright is on Obama’s campaign staff. Officially. I put a link in a later post.
Pingback by Modern journalism perpetuates a lie [Karl] on 3/14 @ 1:25 pm #
[...] to argue that the media should be more transparent about its politics.  That Rosen holds up the hypocritical Josh Marshall as a model of integrity, or holds up Keith Olbermann as “another” example [...]
Comment by McGehee on 3/14 @ 2:41 pm #
Wow — an actual Nishtoon comment with no misspellings, and nothing but complete sentences.
Wha’happen, Nish? Was yesterday your 12th birthday?
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