Hagee Vs. Wright?
Which of these guys should I find more offensive? I’ve had people ask me that.
To a certain extent it’s not a fair comparison, since the relationships are not equal. And I think Roman Catholics are just plain used to them and their Church being talked about this way. The Bible tells us that even the gates of Hell won’t stand against our Church, but that doesn’t mean asshats like this won’t try.
All politicians have to cozy up to less-than-savory characters when they’re in national races like this. That used to make me feel cynical but now I just realize it’s only partially, not wholly, reflective of the reality we all live in, and it’s not just politics.
*Update*: I think the fact that it’s highly unlikely that the Democratic candidates will forcefully condemn the anti-Catholic left may also be why I have a hard time being deeply upset at an anti-Catholic f*cktard endorsing McCain and McCain quietly accepting it. It’s just part for the course.
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33 comments
Again, McCain disavowed the preacher once he knew what he was about; it took less than a month. Obama went to the man’s church for over 20 years, was married by the man, and had his kids batized by him.
I don’t get why you don’t get this, Dean. What McCain did was an act of Political clumsiness, what Obama did was an act of pure and simple racism
Dean (and those like Dean) won’t get it because they don’t WANT to get it Scott.
Hey Dean, let me ask you this. Is there such a thing as a black racist?
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Bumped off my flight?
By the way, the very act of posting this with these two religious figures juxtaposed is an act of moral equivalence.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Bumped off my flight?
Yes, there’s such a thing as a black racist. In fact I’d say racism is these days more common in the black community.
Well, you asked.
Oh, by the way, I hadn’t heard about McCain’s disavowal. Got a link?
So: John McCain was endorsed by John Hagee, because Hagee believes that McCain’s forign policy is most conducive to bringing about the end of the world.
Whether McCain wants that endorsement or not, it sure seems like food for thought…
Punning Pundit’s last blog post..We promise we’re not wasting trees
Punning,
That is an interesting take on McCain’s foreign policy.
On a tangentially related note, I figure a lot of the people here would be interested in these two posts by a friend of mine on LiveJournal:
Why Barack Obama is a demon.
Why John McCain is a vampire.
By the way, the very act of posting this with these two religious figures juxtaposed is an act of moral equivalence.
come ON. should there be two separate posts? god forbid an hr tag between them?
For once, I agree with zach here. You can also place two things next to each other for the purpose of showing how profoundly different they are, and Dean immediately suggested that one was, in fact, much worse then the other.
I disagree completely. This is guilt by association, pure and simple. The degree of commitment and involvement McCain had with Hagel is infinitesimal compared to the degree of commitment and involvement Obama had (and has) with Wright. Placing these in a “which one is worse” context implies strongly that McCain’s association with Hagel is morally equivalent to Obama’s association with Wright.
There is no “news” or “value” in comparing Wright to Hagel. They are just two kooks. But both are in the news because of their connection to a Presidential candidate, and this sort of comparison provides a strong presumption that the two candidates are equally culpable in their association.
And that is misleading at best, and flatly disingenuous at worst.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Bumped off my flight?
Sorry, “Hagee” instead of “Hagel” oops.
Dean, when are you going to allow edits of comments? Or are you specifically disallowing them to avoid the possibility of revisionism of history?
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Bumped off my flight?
I believe McCain distanced himself from Hagee’s more inflammatory statements but I don’t believe he disavowed him. According to Hagee, McCain sought him out for an endorsement. If this is true, that was foolish on McCain’s part. He willfully, recently and stupidly stepped into a completely avoidable pile of shit.
Obama, on the other hand, would need a time machine to solve his problem. However, if he actually can produce a time machine, he’s got my vote.
I don’t know how to allow people to edit their own comments. I’d like to give them that ability. How do I do it?
That doesn’t make any sense, Cosmic. One can’t ever compare two things for the purpose of showing that one is different then the other?
Dean says immediately “To a certain extent it’s not a fair comparison, since the relationships are not equal.” Maybe if somebody watched the two videos without reading any of the text placed next to them, they could jump to this conclusion, but the text makes Dean’s point so clear that I don’t know how you could claim he’s saying they’re the same thing.
There are plugins for it, but I’m not familiar enough with new versions of WP to tell you if they natively will let you do that.
Elisha Feger’s last blog post..Update on the Met Opera Illnesses
No, I kinda see Dean’s point here. He’s said, basically, that Hagee is more typical in some ways - and he’s right in that. The whole Protestant project is a finger in the Catholic eye, after all.
And they’re not equivalent in that they come from different, obnoxious traditions.
Heru:
You and I will simply have to disagree. I think I understand marketing and public relations enough to know that people react viscerally and emotionally long before and long after they react intellectually. This sort of post simply reinforces the notion the Left is pushing forth that Obama’s association with Wright is the same thing as McCain’s association with Hagee. The whole “who is worse?” meme reinforces that strongly. Dean may not have intended this to be a moral equivalency between McCain and Obama, but that is exactly what the end result is of such things.
If this technique of guilt by association didn’t work, it wouldn’t be so common.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Is it news when a Clinton lies?
Cosmic,
I repeat, what should Dean have done? Made two separate posts, one for each preacher?
Heru,
doesn’t it feel good to agree??
Yea, I’ve found little enough of that here.
I’ve been having political debates with Maniakes on LJ for years, and most of his LJ friends have political leanings similar to mine. I came here because he linked to it when he started posting articles. When I mentioned how I feel like the lone liberal here, constantly on the defensive, his response was simply “Welcome to my world.”
maybe you have me confused with someone else, then. supposedly i’m a liberal too ;p
well, eventually my comment may come out of moderation…
I don’t remember which threads it was (and I’m too lazy to go looking), but you were disagreeing with me pretty strongly on a few things. I remember noting that.
However, liberal is a very slippery term. It can mean a lot of different things. I’m using it, in this context, to say that I generally align with the Democratic party.
Heru:
My issue is with the title and first sentence. The vast majority of internet readers are not going to read beyond that, and that gives the impression of moral equivalence between McCain and Obama.
If Dean wanted to compare and contrast his title and first sentence should have said “McCain - Hagee NOT THE SAME as Obama-Wright” or words to that effect.
As it is the impression is that they are the same. Or so close that it requires a long and probably boring post to explain why they are different.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Caught!!!
As a front-page contributor, I have the power to search comments. The only other discussions I can find with both of you are these:
http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/03/18/mccains-economic-agenda/
http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/03/21/americans-cannot-be-trusted-with-free-speech-because-congressmen-are-too-corrupt/
You don’t seem to be disagreeing much in either.
Cosmic,
Why should Dean be held responsible for the misconceptions his readers may or may not labor under? I would argue that most visitors to Dean’s World are at least aware enough to know the distinctions between the two situations, and probably already have their own opinions on the matter which may or may not align with Dean’s. Why would you think that the average Dean’s World reader so much different than you?
Heru,
I don’t remember which threads it was (and I’m too lazy to go looking), but you were disagreeing with me pretty strongly on a few things.
very possible! hopefully i wasn’t too big of a douche.
It seems to me that maybe a better comparison for Wright would be David Duke… or maybe Robert Byrd. I don’t think it would be fair to compare him to Goebbels.
Then again, I can’t listen to Hagee any more than I can Wright. They both approach language in the way I consider to be markers of “evil bastards”.
I do think that CosmicConservative is overreacting. It’s not that the comparisons between Hagee and Wright aren’t fair, they are. The difference is that McCain hasn’t charged Hagee with providing moral guidance to his children.
zach,
Is he responsible for them specifically? I’d have to say no. Should he be mindful of them? I’d have to say yes. I agree with Cosmic, most people read an article, any article, in it’s entirety. That’s just plain fact. So, a responsible writer, being, again, mindful of this fact, should craft their words in such a way as to not create a false impression early on.
If you make an apple pie and set it on the window ledge to cool, and it keeps getting stolen, you’d be justified in complaining about that fact. But, don’t be surprised if someone mentions to you, “Maybe you should stop setting it out there?” The bottom line is this: Would you rather be morally right and pie-less, or do something you shouldn’t have to do and keep your pie?
The entire idea of personal security is built around this principle - doing something you shouldn’t have to do in a lawful society to ensure no harm comes to you. The same principle can and should be applied by ourselves to others. To take care when talking or writing to not create a false impression or idea in another early on because we might very well have to suffer concequences for their mistake.
Is it fair? Nope. Is it common sense anyway? Yep.
Kevin,
even on those grounds, the entire argument is specious. First of all, as Dishman pointed out above, Wright and Hagee ARE roughly morally equivalent. Placing them side-by-side is still appropriate. Its their relationships with their respective politicians-of-choice that aren’t equivalent. Secondly, listen to what you’re positing. Someone is going to read the title of the article, the first sentence, THEN watch two entire youtube clips, and then skip the one paragraph of text below? How likely is that? Thirdly, no ones pie is getting stolen. There’s no evidence that there’s a rash of people running around with wild misconceptions of Dean’s position on the matter. And even if there was, who gives a shit? People believe lots of stupid shit. The price to Dean, or any one else, of such a misunderstanding is usually pretty near zero.
I’m not sure why this has turned into a discussion of me. However, please let me point out the obvious: I’m not the one who created the above videos. Nor am I the only one who’s discussing the supposed similarities between these two men and their views. I added my voice to a dialogue that’s already going on.
I made it clear that I don’t think the two situations are equivalent, but quite frankly, I think McCain SHOULD more forcefully divorce himself from the vile anti-Catholic garbage mongers. But I’m just philosophical about it: ignorant, stupid, ill-informed Catholic Church Bashing is so common, on the right and the left, that most Catholics have learned to simply shrug and ignore it.
To be blunt, I’m actually more offended by Hagee, and since I voted for McCain, I’m actually more upset with McCain, and Republicans in general, than I am with Obama. Why? This is more personal. And I felt this way even before I joined the Church. Because it’s a much more common and generally accepted type of ignorant, hateful bigotry. On both the right and the left.
But listen here: I didn’t start the comparison. I merely noted the comparison that’s there, and noted that I don’t think they’re the same. So get off my back, eh?
Oh and by the way, for anybody who cares: the Roman Catholic Church and most mainline Protestants (Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc.) these days have fairly cordial and friendly relations. It’s not “protestants” who are the problem these days, it’s just a certain strain of post-Reformation Protestants that I like to think of as the “Bible-Only” crowd. Hagee’s part of it.
But this has always been a predominantly Protestant country, and still is, so a lot of anti-Catholic crap just sort of seeped into the culture over the last 200 or so years. Look at all the people who think the Inquisitions and torture and murder were things you can only lay at the feet of the Catholic Church, for example, and who are blissfully unaware of all the Catholics maimed and brutally murdered by Protestants of all stripes. There was a time in this country where just being a “papist” (i.e. a Catholic) could get you lynched by the Klan. (What, the KKK is anti-Catholic? Of course it is. It was founded explicitly and fiercely as a Protestant Christian organization. You didn’t know that? Gee, I wonder why…)
Okay, does it make me evil that the Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog song made me lawl? Especially the “I never heard a single word he said” part? I would have never made that connection on my own.
Phelps’s last blog post..Rules of Engagement
Yeah, OK, maybe I am overreacting, but I’m overreacting to a flood of media talking heads immediately pulling out the Hagee card every time someone brings up Wright. So seeing the comparison here just rubbed that wound a bit more raw. It’s an obvious attempt by the press to play damage control on their favorite candidate. McCain’s relationship with Hagee is infinitesimal compared to Obama’s with Wright. To even bring it up in the discussion of Wright’s comments is a clear attempt at moral equivalence between the candidates. I guess it’s fair to say that Dean wasn’t doing that here, but I had a pavlovian reaction to seeing it.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama’s negatives take huge jump
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